Doomed!: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four (2015)

Director: Marty Langford

Cast: Oley Sassone, Alex Hyde-White, Michael Bailey Smith, Roger Corman

Have I Seen it Before: No. I’ve been on a documentary jag as of late, ad this story always fascinated me, but it felt like I should probably go ahead and actually watch the fabled The Fantastic Four (1994) before I did so.

I’m not entirely sure why. Not a lot of people have seen it, especially as the bootleg video market has gone online, then again I can’t imagine people would want to see this without having seen the subject.

Did I Like It: Ultimately, the film covers what it needs to, even without the cooperation of several of the people—some of them, like produce Bernd Eichenger were no longer living at the time of production—responsible for the burying of the first Fantastic Four film. We are ultimately left with speculation more than conclusions as to whether or not the film was ever intended to be released. That’s not a fatal flaw. A documentary can work with that kind of ambiguity.

The problem is two-fold. First, we never really get a sense of the story of the people behind the film. We see how Oley Sassone—the director of the ill-fated film—fared after the film imploded, but only a small picture of it. We get no sense of how the cast soldiered on, other than a vague sense that they weren’t cashiered out of Hollywood, nor did they see much of a career bump from their efforts. None of them became famous or infamous, and they have to take a strange level of comfort from the fact that their film got more attention for its unfortunate fate. Had Corman and company released the film as was, it would have been rather comprehensively forgotten by the time 1995 rolled around.

Second, the entire film plays out with the production value and editing of a middling DVD special feature. A documentary can be more than what we’re given here. That becomes all the more frustrating when it is very clear that there was more story there to tell.

The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Director: Roger Corman

Cast: Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles, Dick Miller, Jack Nicholson*

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I mean, obviously I’ve seen the eventual musical remake, but never the original. Oddly enough, the version currently available on Amazon Prime is a colorized version of the film. My immediate instinct was to run in the other direction, as colorization of black and white films always strikes me as a bit overtly odious. Then again, I can’t honestly say I’ve ever actually sat down and watched a colorized version of a black and white film, so why not? Could it really be that bad?

Did I Like It: Yep. Colorization is very, very bad. Maybe other endeavors have been even marginally less distracting, but this job done on a film now in the public domain was not doing anyone any favors. Those colors injected into the proceedings were too muted to add anything to what Corman and company had already created, and if that weren’t enough those long-since-abandoned attempts at colorization really didn’t have the whole thing figured out. Occasional frames would occasionally revert back to the black and white original, perpetually giving this viewer a disoriented feeling which in no sense was designed by the filmmakers.

Aside from presentation problems, any sort of B-movie has to be approached less as something more than the sum of its parts, and more a search for those parts which might transcend the limitations. The whole package may not be completely satisfying, but there are moments of fun. Some of the dialogue is deeply deranged in a way that makes one a little uncertain they heard what they actually heard. As mentioned in that footnote, any time spent with Dick Miller (and Jackie Jospeh, no less!) or Jack Nicholson** js always a good time.

But still, if you’re ever stumped for trying to find an example of a remake that is better than the original from which it sprang, I think I may have cracked the case for you.

*Genuinely, desperately torn about who should get the fourth billing in this review between Miller and Nicholson. I have a tremendous affection for both. Eventually opted for both. I can make those kind of in-house style changes on the fly: I’m good with the owner.

**Playing delightfully against type, probably because