BitTorrent was fortunate enough to have a nice chat with the great Jack Hill, a filmmaker who began his career by putting his imprint on early Corman classics The Wasp Woman and The Terror. Mr. Hill has directed such legendary talents as Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Pam Grier. His awesome filmography includes kickass titles like The Swinging Cheerleaders, Spider Baby, Switchblade Sisters, Pit Stop, The Fear Chamber, and the seminal blaxploitation movies Coffy and Foxy Brown.

We had such a lovely talk that we’ve split the interview into two parts. (Part Two will be coming soon.) Just like what his number one fan Quentin Tarantino did with Kill Bill, this conversation is just too epic for one read, but too damn good to trim. So here’s the stuff:

BT: We’re huge fans of your work, and have a lot of your films available here at BitTorrent. Was curious to know what your thoughts were regarding this latest form of online distribution?

JH: I think it’s a great technological advance, making films available to people that otherwise maybe wouldn’t hear about it. Mostly I think it gives a chance for a lot of word of mouth films that otherwise wouldn’t get around that much.

BT: Sure. How did you first get involved with making movies?

JH: I was a musician. I was a concert and recording artist and arranger and I went back to get my degree in music at UCLA with the object of learning to score films. And in fact I did actually write the music score to a thirty-minute student film while I was there, but once getting into the cinema department I took a writing course and they encouraged me to do more and I ended up writing and directing some student films. And then I started working in films. I worked as a cameraman, as an editor, and a sound recordist and did some writing and eventually got a job working with Roger Corman shooting pickups and inserts for films and eventually got into doing whole films.

BT: What aspect of the filmmaking process do you enjoy the most?

JH: (Laughs.)

BT: If any.

JH: Sitting in the theater, the first time with an audience enjoying the movie. Laughing at the jokes. Talking back to the film sometimes. That’s the aspect I enjoy the most. (Laughs.) Everything else is just suffering! Well… I enjoy it very much when I know I’ve got a good scene on the set.

BT: Right. What were some of your influences? Early influences. Or even throughout your career? Some of the other filmmakers whose work you enjoyed seeing? Were these similar to the types of genres you were working in?

JH: When I was a teenager, my friends and I were particularly fond of the Warner Bros. films of the Forties. Kind of that genre, Thirties and Forties. Because they had a… I don’t know, insolence to them if you will, that other studios didn’t have. And they had actors like Bogart and Cagney and Virginia Mayo and people like that. And MGM had Robert Taylor, Mickey Rooney. (Laughs.) You see the difference. Warner Bros. films were made on pretty low budgets and they had to emphasize ideas more. Their films were always fun because they had really clever ideas in them as opposed to just putting a lot of money on the screen. And my father worked at Warners. He was a set designer since 1924, before it was even Warners. So I don’t know how much that had to do with it. So that was kind of my influence, if any. My idea of a great American movie was White Heat. In those days we didn’t really think about “filmmakers” and “film.” It was just movies, and we didn’t even know the names of the directors most of the time. In later years, when I checked to see who were the directors of really some of my most favorite films, it turned out to be people like Raoul Walsh. These kinds of guys.

BT: Would you talk a little about working with Roger Corman on such projects as The Wasp Woman and The Terror. How would you describe his process of making movies?

JH: The best advice I ever got from Roger is, when you make a film, something has to happen in every reel. That was his philosophy and it’s always served me well. Otherwise, his method of making movies was to do everything just as cheaply as possible and in his own case quite often at the sacrifice of what otherwise, what for just a few more nickels might have made a much better movie. That part of his filmmaking I didn’t agree with. (Laughs.) But I learned from him how you could get a maximum of effect with a minimum of means. Certainly, making really the most of the little bit you have to work with. And he was another idea man, too. He liked to have strong ideas in films because he didn’t spend a lot of money. I don’t know if that answers your question.

BT: Yeah, definitely. Like yourself, a lot of other filmmakers ended up having success in their own careers after working with Roger Corman. Cameron, Scorsese, Coppola, Demme… do you think it’s an accident that all these important filmmakers started with him?

JH: The great thing about doing things for Roger is that being a director himself, when he gave an assignment to do something, to direct scenes or even a film, he knew the way to get the best results from you was to just leave you alone and just kind of check up on you and make sure you weren’t going totally bananas. So that was very rare, I guess. Mostly, working for companies in the beginning as a new director you would get a lot of interference that would tend to spoil your work. That was really the good thing about Roger. The bad thing about Roger was that he would sometimes just go wacko and — (Laughs.) But I won’t get into that. But the thing is, he would give people a chance, mostly because people were willing to work cheap. Especially women, he gave a lot of women their chances to do things, too… which was good. Not because he was a feminist, but because women would work cheaper. (Laughs.) Hey, you know, they got to do it and that’s the important thing.

BT: One of the actors you collaborated with was the legendary Boris Karloff. How was your experience working with him on Chamber Of Fear (AKA Fear Chamber) and House Of Evil?

JH: The titles you mentioned there were a couple of the so-called Mexican horror films I did with Boris in 1968, his last four films. I don’t think he did anything after that. He was a great man. He was a gentleman and he knew he was dying and wanted to work as much as he could. The way he put it to me was, “I want to go out in harness.” It was tough for him because obviously when someone is dying you can’t get insurance on him, you know? Most people producing movies want to get insurance on their star. So it was very hard for him to find employment and in this case the Mexican producer just took a chance. We did four films with him back to back. The idea was to write four scripts that could be constructed in such a way that all of Boris’ scenes could be done in Hollywood. And the rest of the four films finished in Mexico. Sounds like a totally insane idea and maybe it was, but I would suggest that experience working for Roger Corman is the probably lessons you need to be able to create scripts that can be shot that way. Roger always liked to do scripts in such a way that you hired the star for just a few days and the rest of the picture could be shot separately. I did that in fact with Pit Stop with Brian Donlevy, who only worked three days but you get the feeling he’s all through the whole movie. About working with Boris… he was just a really great man and a fine, fine actor and extremely patient under the most difficult of circumstances. By which I’m referring to is the fact that Mexican actors had to come up from Mexico and some of them didn’t show up when they were supposed to and some weren’t the people who I had cast and the whole thing was in some ways a catastrophe. Boris had emphysema, and we would have him in a wheelchair with his oxygen bottle and when it was time for his scene he would breathe oxygen, get up and do his scenes, and sometimes with action. And then he’d sit down and breathe oxygen again. So you see what that was like.

BT: Another horror icon you were able to work with was Lon Chaney, Jr., in Spider Baby. It’s definitely a favorite of ours here at BitTorrent. What do you think it is about this movie which still resonates so strongly with people?

JH: Yeah, that’s mysterious, isn’t it? A lot of people have been writing about that question. First of all, the casting was just good luck. Just got the right people for the right roles and they played off of each other so well. And a lot of it is, if you just have really interesting characters brought to life by really good actors you have a picture that can kind of transcend time and fashion. But I think more than that — and I have heard this from young teenage girls on occasion, that this is just their favorite movie and it means so much to them — and I think the appeal there is the idea of just unconditional love, that no matter how naughty you are, you’re forgiven, you’re loved — that kind of a family values aspects. (Laughs.) And of course another thing was Lon was just so good at doing comedy. It was just so unexpected from him and yet he was so good at it.

BT: Right.

JH: And something happens in every reel. (Laughs.)

BT: And Sid Haig is amazing in that.

JH: Yeah, he’s amazing in everything he does, if he has a chance. If they let him go! I always let him go. By letting him go, I mean letting him do it with his own instincts.

Hence, here ends the first installment of our interview with Jack Hill. As we depart, know this much: in Part Two, we’ll get into the foxy icon that is Pam Grier. Groovy stuff indeed!

For more info on Jack Hill, please visit www.jackhillpresents.com

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 10:16 am and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.