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Charles Byron Griffith (September 23, 1930 – September 28, 2007) was an American screenwriter, actor, and film director. He was the son of Donna Dameral, radio star of Myrt and Marge , along with Charles' grandmother, Myrtle Vail , and was best known for writing Roger Corman productions such as A Bucket of Blood (1959), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), and Death Race 2000 (1975).
Oct 9, 2015 · The 1960 original, written by Charles B. Griffith (with uncredited help from Corman), was one part horror, one part comedy, and one part crime drama: it begins with a voice-over narrative, accompanying a very nice mural of the Skid Row neighborhood, from a Joe Friday-like detective who tells the story of the flower shop, the schlemiel protagonist, and the very unusual plant.
- Beginnings
- It Conquered The World
- Gunslinger
- Naked Paradise
- Rock All Night
- Teenage Doll
- The Undead
- Columbia Pictures: Ghost of The China Sea
- Beast from Haunted Cave
- Creature from The Haunted Sea
Aaron Graham: You began your screenwriting career in the early 1950s. Charles B. Griffith: That’s right. I originally wanted to write song lyrics when I came out here to Hollywood, but my grandmother, Myrtle Vail, had invented the soap opera, Myrt and Marge. When she wanted to get into television, I helped her write the scripts. That got me into sc...
CG: That was my first script to get made. The original writer, Lou Rusoff, was a cousin or brother-in-law – I forget which – of [American International Pictures co-founder and producer] Sam Arkoff. He had written an incoherent script and left for Canada because his brother had died. I was brought in to fix it up in a couple of days. I got into the ...
AG: Was the idea to have a female sheriff yours or Roger’s? CG: Initially it was Roger’s idea. He took me out to see Three Hours to Kill[Alfred L. Werker, 1954] with Dana Andrews and said to me, “I want you to do the same picture but with a woman as the sheriff.” AG: Would you come to him with storylines or would he originate them? CG: It would hap...
CG: Naked Paradise was made at the same time I was working at Columbia, which would have been 1957-58. That was a Bobby Campbell story that I re-wrote. It became a structure for a few films afterwards including Atlas [Corman, 1961], Beast from Haunted Cave [Monte Hellman, 1960] and Creature from the Haunted Sea [Corman, 1961]. They were all basical...
CG: That was the second rock musical that Corman did. I wrote it in one day. What happened was that there was this 30-minute teleplay entitled The Little Guyand it had won an Emmy, so Roger threw me that and said, “We’re shooting Monday.” This was a Friday, you know! So I had to stretch this out to feature length. I cut it up with a pair of scissor...
CG: The Woolner brothers came to the Garden of Allah and we had a meeting in the Garden, where all the stars used to sneak away to make out. They wanted a gang picture, as it was the time of the street gangs and juvenile delinquents. I told them I had one called “The Rat Pack” and they said they wanted a girl gang. So I got to work on Teenage Doll,...
CG: It was originally called “The Trance of Diana Love”. Roger said to me, “Do me a Bridey Murphy picture.” And I told him that by the time Paramount finishes theirs, ours will fail. At the time, everybody was saying that they were making a bad picture. He just said that we’d get ours ahead of theirs and clean up. So I did “Trance of Diana Love” an...
CG: Well, they told me to make a list of 100 titles to see if I could do it. Once I did that, they picked out two that would send me on a distant location in Hawaii because they knew I couldn’t make a picture out of the promised budgets: $85,000/black and white and $90,000/color. I really don’t want to get into the Columbia pictures because they th...
CG: Both filmed in North Dakota. AG: Did you research such scripts? Ski Troop Attackwas a World War II picture. CG: Well, I knew something about the Battle of the Herken Forest, so I used that. Roger wanted the train thing. I forget which picture it was copying, but it was done in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms[Charles Vidor, 1957]. They blew up a ...
CG: I was asleep one night in Hollywood and woke up one morning with my notepad full of scribble and I read it. It was a call from Roger in Puerto Rico where he was shooting Last Woman on Earth [1960], written by Bob Towne, who was there with him. Roger said who was there – Beach Dickerson, and so on – and told me to do another Naked Paradise, but ...
Oct 11, 2007 · Charles B. Griffith was born on Sept. 23, 1930, in Chicago. Mr. Griffith first teamed up with Mr. Corman in 1954 when the actor Jonathan Haze, who later starred in the original “Little Shop of ...
Sep 23, 2013 · Griffith played several roles in the original “Little Shop” Charles B. Griffith (1930-2007) is one of my favorite screenwriters. Almost the entirety of Griffith’s career was spent working for Roger Corman from the mid 1950s through the late 1980s as a screenwriter, 2nd unit director (occasionally as full director), and on a handful of occasions, as an actor.
Aug 2, 2012 · All are Roger Corman movies, all written by Charles B. Griffith (1930–2007), among many more. These interview excerpts are taken from the excellent “Backstory 3: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1960s”, one of a 4-part series edited by Patrick McGilligan.
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Oct 3, 2007 · Charles B. Griffith, a screenwriter and director best known for writing low-budget Roger Corman movies, including “The Little Shop of Horrors” and “The Wild Angels,” has died. He was 77.
