{"id":1618,"date":"2012-02-26T09:29:47","date_gmt":"2012-02-26T15:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=1618"},"modified":"2012-02-26T09:29:47","modified_gmt":"2012-02-26T15:29:47","slug":"roger-corman-hearts-and-flowers-on-st-valentine%e2%80%99s-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=1618","title":{"rendered":"Roger Corman: Hearts and Flowers on St. Valentine\u2019s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s February 14, so of course I\u2019m thinking of Roger Corman\u2019s St. Valentine\u2019s Day Massacre. It details what led up to the famous mob-land killing in which Al Capone\u2019s boys wiped out a rival Chicago gang. The film was released in 1967, amid worries by Warner Bros. studio honchos that Corman\u2019s true-crime flick would upstage their own Bonnie and Clyde. They needn\u2019t have worried: after a slow start Bonnie and Clyde became an enormous hit, and is regarded today as a classic. St. Valentine\u2019s Day has its fans, but I\u2019m not really among them. I firmly believe Roger\u2019s best work as a director lay elsewhere. But there\u2019s a nice story behind the making of The St. Valentine\u2019s Day Massacre, and it\u2019s particularly fitting for a day dedicated to hearts and flowers.<\/p>\n

Roger Corman has never been known as a warm-and-fuzzy guy. But actor Bruce Dern told me about a kindly Corman act that benefitted both him and a young Jack Nicholson. Because St. Valentine\u2019s Day was a co-production with Twentieth Century-Fox, all the really good roles went to Fox contract players, like Jason Robards (who played Al Capone) and rising star George Segal. As Bruce put it to me, only \u201clittle shitbag roles\u201d were available to himself and Jack, both of them members in good standing of the informal Corman stock company of actors. Roger told them, by way of apology, \u201cI\u2019m gonna make sure you each work the first week of the film and the last week of the film, so that even though you only have two days, you\u2019ll be carried full five weeks.\u201d In other words, Roger was cagily using SAG regulations to reward his favorites with paychecks far more ample than their small roles warranted. Bruce and I agreed that this gesture was pure Corman: he was great at being generous with other people\u2019s money. Still, said Bruce, \u201cIt was so sweet that he did that for us, and I really liked him for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Roger Corman\u2019s cheapskate reputation is fully justified, in the course of his long career he\u2019s also quietly dipped into his own pockets to help veteran employees. For instance, a fellow named Larry Cruikshank had known Roger since the old days, when he was (depending on whom you ask) either Roger\u2019s first agent or the man who rented him his first office space. In the early 1970s, when Larry needed a job, Roger found a place for him on the New World staff. In the mornings he negotiated contracts and performed other business functions; in the afternoons he was a permanent fixture at a Sunset Strip watering hole. Nonetheless, his salary continued unabated. After Larry developed cancer, Roger instructed his staff to keep paying his health insurance premiums. Following Larry\u2019s death in the mid-1980s, Roger made sure that the attendant who had nursed him through his final illness had been adequately compensated for his labors.<\/p>\n

There\u2019ve been other down-at-the-heels Hollywood functionaries, too, whom Roger quietly supported in one way or another, because their association dated back to the early years. Such kindly acts were not for show. A longtime employee, who remembers the entire Cruikshank episode, insists that Roger \u201cnever expected credit, or necessarily wanted anybody to know about it.\u201d That was the generous side of Roger Corman. Stories about the other side will have to wait for another day. Perhaps Halloween.<\/p>\n

This post is dedicated to loyal reader Craig Edwards, who remembered something about the Bruce Dern story but didn\u2019t get the details quite right. Thanks, Craig, for giving me this opportunity to set the record straight!<\/p>\n

By Beverly Gray