Book review – “Mind Warp: The Fantastic True Story of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures” by Chris Koetting

An overdue account of one of the most famous indie film studios of them all; I’m surprised no one’s done a book on New World before now when there’s been a few on AIP. Maybe people figured it had been covered enough with all the various books on Corman.
This work doesn’t have an index (very frustrating) and also seems to be based almost entirely on secondary sources (the exception is the writer seems to have read some original scripts with a view to disputing some urban legends about Corman’s contribution to them eg Death Race 2000). But at least some of those sources are contemporary trade papers and news papers.
It also benefits from not being a Corman vanity project – in amidst the much deserved praise of Corman (his eye for new talent, the way he found and promoted foreign films, his tenacity when other companies went to the wall), there is criticism. Of course he’s famous for low budgets (even cutting them during filming) but there’s less pleasant stuff too like inserting a lot of rapes into Humanoids of the Deep. And all the New World films are covered, even the pick ups - there are making of stories and production details, so it really is an invaluable book for Corman/New World fans (such a good reference book that the lack of an index really is annoying!)
Lots of stuff I didn’t know – among New World’s biggest ever successes were two Tim Conway-Don Knotts vehicles (why didn’t they keep making these?); they also tried making TV movies and romances (Julie Corman’s influence); Fighting Mad was made by Corman and Jonathan Demme for Fox and was constructed specifically to be a hit – and flopped. I was also surprised that New World enjoyed a fair amount of success post-Corman – Robert Rehme ran it, and he was very skilled in the exploitation field (he worked at New World, and ran Avco Embassy for a while): their hits included Children of the Corn, Flowers in the Attic and Angel. (Girls Just Wanna Have Fun isn’t mentioned.) Eventually the tide ran out of course – as it seems to do for everyone in indie land except Roger Corman.
Corman’s post-New World output has little renown – few film buffs know the films, there haven’t been too many graduates from the Roger Corman school. The main reason seems to be the fact he makes films for video now, not the big screen; also budding filmmakers have the indie self-funded film festival route to go now. So when people talk about Roger Corman, this book does cover the last chapter of Corman as a major player in Hollywood.