Celebrate Roger Corman's Honorary Oscar with the Crapocalypse Landmark Day the World Ended

The women, both blondes, are his daughter, Louise, who's in some sort of erotic-psychic communication with the mutant, and a stripper, Ruby, who gets around in evening wear, drinks a lot and hangs off her hoodlum boyfriend, Tony. But Tony (described by Jim as "spawned in bilge water") constantly abuses (and eventually kills) Ruby because he a) wants lovely Louise against her will and b) plans on murdering everyone else so the supplies will last longer. Meanwhile, radioactive Radek, who looks like Ray Romano on a bad T-D day, traipses out into the atomic mist to hunt raw rabbit, and crusty old drunk Pete is determined to take his donkey Diablo up into them thar fallout-mutant-infested hills and resume his gold prospecting.

So there's a lot going on: Power struggles and love triangles, musical interludes and burlesque dances, fist fights and gun standoffs, moonshine and gold dust -- all before we get to the mutant anti-climax.

Day The World Ended was only Corman's fourth film as a director, and it paved the way for his success thanks to it being released as a twofer with The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues. In his autobiography How I Made A Hundred Movies In Hollywood (And Never Lost A Dime), Corman recounts how his end-of-the-world movie helped change the movie world. "This pioneering strategy -- two low-budget films from the same genre on a double bill -- was designed in large part to lure teenagers and young adults to drive-ins. It became a standard AIP [American International Pictures, Corman's production company] approach once it proved to be commercially profitable."

Those hundred movies (and some 350 credits) followed, with Corman helping to rear a generation of extraordinary talent, from Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Ron Howard to Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and Robert De Niro. For the fun he's provided and the film careers he launched, his Oscar is richly deserved. And if Roland Emmerich ever wants to grace the podium, he ought to take a leaf out of Corman's book, starting with Day The World Ended-- a true Bad Movie We Love.

Michael Adams is the author of the upcoming book Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies: A Film Critic's Year-Long Quest to Find the Worst Movie Ever Made (It Books/HarperCollins)

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