Excerpt. Scorsese onCorman. HowImadeAHundredMoviesInHollywoodAndNeverLostADime byJimJerome.

  I was twentyeight then, and I had just doneWho'sThatKnockingAtMyDoor, which was neither massmarket nor underground. It was done out ofNYU. There's no such thing as studyingFilm atNYU. AtNYU, they made you studyWildStrawberries. I studiedWildAnglesThe in movietheaters. Everymorning atNYU, you had to light a candle toIngmarBergman. They had little shrines toBergman all over the place. I loveBergmanpictures, but it was Corman'smovies we studied in those strange dives all overNYC. Knocking came out asJR. I was inLosAngeles as a supervisingeditor and associateproducer on a movie calledMedicineBallCaravan atWarners. I metRoger through my agent, and he said he had seen my movie and enjoyed it. He said he wanted me to do the sequl toBloodyMama. I said, Sure, I was saying yes to all these guys out there. Anything they wanted me to do, I did, trying to get that firstcommercialone going. I didn't hear fromRoger for sixmonths. The old story. What happened was Roger got married, went away, and came back. By then, I was helpingJohnCassavetes with soundeffects onMinnieAndMoskowitz atUniversal. My agent called me atJohn'soffice, saying Roger was hiring me to do myfirstfeature. John'speople, who were all my friends, thought someone was playing a joke on me and hung up on him. The message finally got through. Roger sent me the script he had promised me. The credit went to-JoyceH and -JohnWilliamCorrington, but I rewrote it myself. I This was the end of1971, and I shot the picture inAR. I had to join theDGA to make the movie. The budget was under onemillionUSD, and I got the scale to direct it. I don't think I was paid for the rewriting I did, but I would have paidRoger to do myfirstfeature. Roger came out and stayed a week inAR during locationscouting, preproduction ,and the firstdays of shooting. This was not a plush or luxurious location, either. Julie[Corman] came down as associateproducer. I had expected inRoger a HarryCohntype, a rough, verycrude person, who was a genius at knowing what people wanted and how to market it. Instead, I found him a verycourteous and gentlemanly guy, but a verystern and tough customer, who was quitepolite as he explained these outrageous tactics of exploitation[films] in cold, calm terms. It was veryfunny. Roger is, despite himself, themostremarkable type of artist, because, while not taking himself tooseriously, he was able to inspire and nurture our talent in a way that was never-envious or -difficult, but alwaysgenerous. He once said, Martin, what you have got to do is a verygood firstreel, because people want to know what's going on. Then, you need a verygood lastreel, because people want to hear how it all turn out [ends]. Everything else doesn't really matter. Probably thebestsense I have everheard in the movies. I made sure I was completelyprepared. I went toAR with about fivehundredsdrawing after twoweeks of preproduction. Roger looked at them and said he didn't need to see the rest. He knew I was prepared. I also got a lot of organisational and technical help fromPaulRapp, the keyman down there, who knewRoger'sway of working quitewell. I then used him onMeanStreets. AfterMeanStreets, NewYorkNewYork toRagingBull and throughKingOfComedyThe, I got up to onehundreddayshoots. To force myself back into theCormanmode, I fell into a lowbudgetpicture calledAfterHours. All that toughening up seemed to pay off. When I didLastTemptationOfChristThe, I shot a biblicalepic in sixtydays, cutting alldayandnight, and utilising time the way I learned fromRoger.