Roger Corman

Mike Renaut speaks to filmmaker Roger Corman about the car movies he's made during a career that spans eight decades

- Mike Renaut

'I DID GRADUATE WORK at Oxford and bought a brand-new MG TD in England, which was really hip and my introduction to small sports cars. I drove it all over Europe. Totally dependable, one of the best cars I ever had. I finally sold it; the American cars were giants and I was a dwarf on the road. I thought, if anybody hits me, I'm going to get hurt. Yes, Roger Corman has long been a car enthusiast.

Active in the movie industry since 1954, Corman was born in Michigan, USA, in 1926. His box office hits include 1960's black comedy The Little Shop of Horrors, 1961's The Pit and the Pendulum one of several films based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and starring Vincent Price and The Trip, a psychedelic 1967 work with a script by Jack Nicholson that starred Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Bruce Dern.

Industry big-hitters from Francis Ford Coppola to Martin Scorcese abound in his repertoire and so do vehicles. 1966's The Wild Angels had a group of Hell's Angels paid to work as extras and crew, sparked a trend in biker movies that peaked with Easy Rider in 1969, and featured Peter Fonda's iconic 'We wanna be free' monologue that was recycled to popular effect in the 1990 Andrew Weatherall reworking of Primal Scream's shoegazing I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have.

Later in his career Corman would produce Death Race 2000, and he played a cameo role the following year in 1976's Cannonball!, yet one of his earliest films, released late in 1954, has become a cult classic among petrolheads the world over. And not only did it secure its producer Corman a three-movie deal, it was also reprised in 2001 by Universal Pictures, which licensed the title and created a franchise that is so far nine strong, with two more films in the pipeline.

So, Mr Corman, what inspired you to make The Fast and the Furious?