Free Republic

Michael Forest, the strapping actor who starred in Beast From Haunted Cave and other B-pictures for Roger Corman and made memorable guest-star appearances on classic episodes of The Twilight Zone, The Dick Van Dyke Show and Star Trek, has died. He was 97. Forest was living in a facility for seniors in Sparks, Nevada, and died Wednesday, his friend James A. Brown announced. A native of North Dakota, Forest also made more than 20 movies in Spain, France and England — among them 100 Rifles (1969), starring Jim Brown and Raquel Welch — and was a very busy voice actor...

Roger William Corman was born April 5, 1926, in Detroit, Michigan. Initially following in his father's footsteps, Corman studied engineering at Stanford University but while in school, he began to lose interest in the profession and developed a growing passion for film. Upon graduation, he worked a total of three days as an engineer at US Electrical Motors, which cemented his growing realization that engineering wasn't for him. He quit and took a job as a messenger for 20th Century Fox, eventually rising to the position of story analyst. After a term spent studying modern English literature at England's Oxford...

The pioneering 'B' movie filmmaker started out in the '50s directing cheapo Horror and Science Fiction films and ended up in the ‘80s directing cheapo Horror and Science Fiction films. Along the way he discovered virtually the entire 'New Hollywood' school; Among the first to see talent in young unknowns like Jack Nicholson, Robert DeNiro, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese among many others. His Edgar Allan Poe adaptations of the early to mid 60s were ideological precursors of ‘Easy Rider’ and the late ‘60s counterculture films; often centering on an idealistic young man who confronts a decadent member of...

Many people suggested after the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate that she was comparable to Jimmy Stewart's character in the Frank Capra movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". The character in one of the other movies in the unofficial trilogy that included "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" is somewhat similar to the Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. "Meet John Doe" is about a man plucked from obscurity because of his inspiring speeches. In the movie set in the Depression, Barbara Stanwyck plays columnist Ann Sheridan who is one of many employees fired from "The...