KING COHEN: YOU KNEW BUT NEVER KNEW

 

When it comes to famous directors there are names that are so well remembered that when you hear that director has a new movie coming out that’s enough to get you ready to buy a ticket. Alfred Hitchcock was a director like that. Martin Scorsese is one like that. And for some Larry Cohen is that type of name as well. If the name doesn’t sound familiar to you, you might be surprised to learn that you’ve seen one of his movie. Or a movie he scripted. Or a TV show he scripted or created.

If you don’t believe me consider these items on his resume. He created the Chuck Connors series BRANDED and the sci fi series THE INVADERS. He wrote episodes of SURFSIDE 6, THE DEFENDERS, CHECKMATE, THE FUGITIVE and THE RAT PATROL. As a director he made movies like BLACK CAESAR, HELL UP IN HARLEM, IT’S ALIVE and its two sequels, GOD TOLD ME TO, FULL MOON HIGH, Q, THE STUFF, SPECIAL EFFECTS, A RETURN TO SALEM’S LOT and THE AMBULANCE. I’m guessing at least one of those items is something you’ve watched.

But Cohen was never what you would call a mainstream Hollywood director. Instead he was part of the independent scene where creativity was more important that kowtowing to studio bigwigs who more often than not didn’t have a clue as to what people really enjoyed seeing. With his New York City background Cohen was more inclined to do things his way and like most auteurs he was able to do this with style and panache, shooting without permits, filming off the cuff and changing things up on the fly to make the best movie he possibly could. The films credited to his name prove he was more than capable of doing so.

KING COHEN: THE WILD WORLD OF FILMMAKER LARRY COHEN is a loving tribute to Cohen, a documentary about his life and his films. Director Steve Mitchell combines an array of interviews with Cohen himself, his wives, his crew members and his contemporaries in the film business. Here again are names you will know like John Landis, Martin Scorsese and Joe Dante and names you will not recall like Paul Glickman, Daniel Pearl and David Schow. Each one contributes their own bits and pieces of the life and films of Cohen.

Cohen himself is as interesting and inventive in his moments on screen as his films make him out to be. He jokes while walking down a hallway at a film convention that no one recognizes him in spite of the films he’s done. He reflects on his films like they were his children which they are in a way. He talks about the obstacle put in his way by producers and how he made his way around those to create some great movies.

The structure of the film is easy to follow beginning with an introduction to Cohen and overview moving on to the story of his early life and going into television. From there he moves into films and his beginnings in low budget filmmaking set the stage for what was to come later. Each film he made is discussed with clips from each alongside interviews with cast and crew from those films. If you can find a director with people willing to speak kindly about him after all these years that in itself is a compliment.

While watching and listening to each of these films and the stories of what went on behind the camera it makes you want to search you shelves for any films of his that you have on hand, to go back and watch them with a different perspective. But it also reminds you of how much fun you had watching the film the first time you saw it and to have that desire to sit back and watch it through those eyes as well.

My first exposure to Larry Cohen that I can honestly recall was his film IT’S ALIVE. I’d booked it on campus at Ball State. I’d heard of it but it never played anywhere I had a chance to see it. The look of the film was a bit fuzzy (it was a well-used 16mm print after all), it didn’t have the high tech camera wizardry that many Hollywood films had but at the same time I thought this is incredible. This movie has more going for it than so many that came out at the same time. It gave us not just a solid story but a new monster to add to the list of so many that had come over the years without being just another retread of the same ones we’d seen before. After that I knew when a Cohen movie came out and I had access to it I wanted to see it.

Watching this film and learning move about Cohen makes you want to get to know him too. He seems like such a nice guy, friendly and jovial. He seems like someone who would be fun to sit with and talk about his career and what he thinks about movies. I don’t know that I could say that about a lot of directors. I think some would be too caught up in themselves or discuss film using technical terms and fifty cent words where a simple word would be enough. Cohen seems like a regular guy who just loves making movies.

One can only hope that he continues making films. The movie ends showing him at home working on new scripts, post it notes covering a wall with ideas. That’s how creative minds work. He doesn’t seem at all to be 77 years old but he is. He jokes in the final moments of the film that you can’t tell his story in one film. I just hope he’s right and that many more Cohen films are made while I look forward to PART TWO. I can’t recommend this movie enough for both movie fans and those who just like watching movies. Then go find a copy of IT’S ALIVE.

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