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Some ultra low-budget filmmakers are just plain campy, like Ed Wood, Jr., some are just plain weird, like Andy Milligan, and some are just impossible to categorize...like Larry Buchanan. Maker of absolute rock-bottom TV-movie horror flicks like Creature Of Destruction and also maker of films that have roused whole communities like Free, White, and 21, Larry B. is a filmmaker like no other. And now, please pay attention as he speaks to us...
Interview By ROB CRAIG (Note: This interview, recently conducted by Rob Craig, is presented as a lead in to his amazing and astounding article on the films of Larry "Zontar" Buchanan. That article will be presented in next month’s issue.) We recently spoke with Larry Buchanan, the creator of the exciting group of made-for-TV movies collectively known as "the Azalea Pictures": The Eye Creatures, Mars Needs Women, Curse Of The Swamp Creature, Creature Of Destruction, Zontar, The Thing From Venus, In The Year 2889, It’s Alive. HORROR-WOOD: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us, Mr. Buchanan.
Larry Buchanan: Call me Larry B. HW: How did the "Azalea Pictures" project come about? LB: My partner, Harold Hoffman and I had just made a deal with American International Pictures on Free, White and 21 (1963). When Free, White and 21 made its money back in ten days at the Fox Theatre in Detroit, head honchos Sam Arkoff and James Nicholson called and invited me to come out to Hollywood and discuss a possible series of pictures. Free, White and 21 was in the top ten grossing pictures in the U.S. for the spring of 1963! Music to any filmmaker's ears, after scrounging for years on $8,000, no-budget flicks! Plus, they would pay all expenses at a four-star hotel! The "catch" was, AIP wanted the pictures cheap, fast, and in black and white! And they needed them now! Since this told me they were only interested in film fodder for television, I gambled. I said, "Alright, you take TV rights and I will take theatrical rights, and I will make up the difference in the color stock."
This appears to be one of the more sensible demands I have made in fifty years at the mast. Remember, this was before home video was even envisioned. No VHS, no DVD. Anyway, they really meant it when they said they wanted them now. I explained that even I could not write, direct, hire and edit that fast!
They were stumped. I mentioned that AIP had a wealth of cheapies made by their "hires", like my friend Roger Corman, Burt Topper, etc. (Day The World Ended, etc.) Since these films were long played out, and in black and white, I could give them new titles, change them a bit and, whammo, new pictures! And I thought to myself, "And in color, you silly bastards!" They went for it. We signed a deal memo, and I took the next flight back to Dallas, after picking up a script, which would become the first of the eight Azaleas, The Eye Creatures.
HW: You have stated in your exciting autobiography, It Came From Hunger: Confessions of a Cinema Schlockmeister (1996, McFarland Books), that the budget for The Eye Creatures was approximately $30,000, an almost impossible amount, even in 1965. Was this the budget for all of the Azaleas? LB: Yes! Impossible, yes! I called our operation "Impossible Pictures"! The temp secretary would answer the phone with, "This is Impossible"! True!
When I deducted $2,000 each for my leads, John Ashley and Cindy Hull, plus hotels, meals and air travel, it left a whopping $22,000 to make The Eye Creatures. And AIP never budged on that figure. When I got exhausted with the sh---y scripts they were sending me, I would do my own and add a couple of grand to sweeten the cut. (Mars Needs Women, etc.)
HW: Although some of the scripts for the Azalea Pictures, like Zontar, The Thing From Venus, were updates of older AIP projects, others like Mars Needs Women and It’s Alive! were original. Although another filmmaker might have considered these projects essentially throwaway films, you imbued your Azalea scripts with insightful dialogue and significant character development. Considering your budget and time constraints, what inspired you to make these scripts rise above the genre and market they were intended for? LB: "It Came From Hunger." Literally. The specter of the orphanage loomed high. By now, there were four wonderful kids and a mate who endured so much to get us there.
HW: Although most of the Azalea Pictures featured at least one "star" such as Tommy Kirk or John Agar, you had a marvelous troupe of stock players, whom you used over and over; folks like Anthony Houston, Bill Thurman, Pat Delaney, Neil Fletcher, Anne MacAdams. How did you gather this wonderful group of actors? LB: Ah, yes, they were called "Buchanan's Stock Company." Every little theatre in the Dallas/Fort Worth area sent me front row-center tickets to every play around. That's how I found the special people who took my advice and went on to Hollywood and great careers.
Take Billy Thurman. My friend Steve McQueen called after Billy did such a good job in High Yellow. It led to many pictures for Steve McQueen. And Peter Bogdonovich called when he saw A Bullet For Pretty Boy. He cast Billy as the coach in The Last Picture Show. That led to Tom Horn, and Steven Spielberg calling McQueen to inquire about "the great face", eventually casting Billy in the opening scene in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Pat Delaney so impressed someone at Disney , they called her for the lead in the series Swiss Family Robinson. A big film career after that, and married her co-star in Zontar, Anthony Houston (now an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles). Ann MacAdams (AKA Annabelle Weenick) was in a traveling musical when I saw her. She became a regular... a madam in Hell Raiders, a rich Hollywood matron in High Yellow, the schoolteacher in It’s Alive!, etc.
HW: As every good filmmaker knows, a good title is almost as important as a good cast, and several of the Azalea Pictures boast extremely evocative titles: (Mars Needs Women, Creature Of Destruction, Zontar, The Thing From Venus). In fact, the titles as well as the films have become legendary icons of pop culture. Were these your creations, or did Arkoff and Nicholson dictate them to you? LB: I take pride in saying each and every one of the titles is either mine, or that of my partner, Harold Hoffman. AIP took credit for the title Free, White, And 21. Wrong! It is true that we had a working title for the film, A Question Of Consent. It sounded too much like an art film. But it was to hide the exploitation subject. AIP then took credit.
HW: The Azalea Pictures were created for the TV market, but did any or all of them have anything like a world premiere, or did they just show up on television one day? LB: Alas, they just showed up on TV one day. HW: Seven of the Azalea Pictures are horror/science-fiction, but there is an 8th Azalea Picture, Hell Raiders, a war film starring John Agar, about which little is known. Do you have any information about the current status of this film? Is it likely to ever receive a long-awaited video release?
LB: Hell Raiders is a good little minimalist war film, and the film is lost only to me. The story is truly like one of those film noir scripts. Hell Raiders is being hidden from me and my little band of filmmakers, who worked so hard to make it. I will find it soon I am sure. DVD has opened a new market for it and the thieves, thinking I have joined the heavenly choir, will surface. John Wayne attended the "world premiere" of Hell Raiders. When John Wayne and Chill Wills came to Dallas for a promotion party on The Alamo, his PR man called to say that "Big John" wanted my wife and me to come down for a breakfast "do it again". I thought, "What does he mean?" Then I remembered: years before, and on the big day of the assault on the Alamo in Alamo Village near Bracketville, Texas, we were Wayne’s guests for "supper", along with others of course. (Wayne smiled when he heard "supper". John Ford had always called it that, he said.) Wayne’s production manager had asked me to bring along a 16mm print of The Naked Witch. We showed it late, and did not expect Wayne to show. Later, Wayne told me he had watched it from the rear of the dining room, our makeshift screening room. He was very sincere when he said, "it made him sleep better".
Now, the production manager had told Wayne that John Agar and I were fast friends, and that I had just completed a second film with Agar. Agar was, of course, a close friend of Wayne, and a fellow actor under John Ford in several westerns. Wayne inquired, "Could I see that film tonight?" So we screened Hell Raiders, still wet from Movielab in Hollywood, with fingers crossed. I sweated that one. Not a break or color shift! They loved it! HW: They say that hindsight is 20/20, but at the time of production, did you sense that the Azalea Pictures would become the beloved cult legends that they are today? When did you first get an inkling that these films were immensely popular, especially amongst the "Baby Boomers" for whom they were created?
LB: In a word, no. The Azalea Pictures were setting my table and putting braces on my children's teeth. But it was indeed a magic time in my life. We just barreled ahead as if we knew what we were doing! As to my discovery of their popularity, I was pleasantly surprised. HW: Do you have a personal favorite among the Azalea Pictures?
LB: Yes, Mars Needs Women, no contest! HW: This is more of a trivia question, but does the name "Azalea Pictures" have any particular significance? LB: One long working night, at a meeting, our long-time attorney Edwin Tobolowsky rose and said, "Well, it’s back to the land of azaleas for me…" It was a reference to the street on which he lived in North Dallas, "424 Azalea". I stood up. "That’s it! That's our company name!"
HW: You are working on a new project, a religious film called The Copper Scroll. Can you tell us anything about its scheduled release? LB: The Copper Scroll (AKA The Rebel Jesus), long a work in progress, is completed. My partner on this project is a perfectionist, and I abide by my promise made when he funded the picture that we will only release when he is satisfied with the look of the picture. It is one of two magnum opi. The last one is "hush hush" and will be shot in the spring of 2004. (Many thanks to Larry B. for sharing his memories on the making of this remarkable group of films.) Thanks, Rob, and a special thanks to Larry Buchanan. Considering the budgets he had to work with, Larry Buchanan's output is at least understandable. And, after years of toiling in the Grade Z film ghetto, he's finally getting a bit of recognition. Stay tuned for next month's issue, when Rob Craig will put Larry B.'s films under the critical microscope and see what crawls forth. Interview/article copyright © Rob Craig |
