KING COHEN (2018) ****

Larry Cohen is one of my favorite directors, mostly because he makes movies no other director can make besides Larry Cohen.  Most of the time, their reach exceeds their grasp, usually due to their low budgets.  When Larry is firing on all cylinders (such as the case in my favorite Cohen film, The Stuff), it’s truly a sight to behold.

This absorbing, informative, and just plain fun documentary by Steve Mitchell starts right at the beginning of Cohen’s trajectory.  We follow him through his early days writing scripts for television, and then features, before he becomes dissatisfied with the way Hollywood ruined his work.  He turns to directing as a way to protect his scripts and develops a unique style almost immediately.  Before long, he’s cranking out classic after classic.  From Blaxploitation to horror, it doesn’t matter what the genre is.  You’re always guaranteed to see something idiosyncratic in the work to let you know it’s a Larry Cohen movie. 

The most fun part is hearing about his guerilla filmmaking tactics.  He was a master of stealing shots in crowded New York streets with big stars, live special effects, and zero permits.  It’s kind of amazing that he was able to get away with some of the stuff he did, especially the Andy Kaufman scene in God Told Me To. 

Everyone that is interviewed seemed to genuinely enjoy working with Cohen.  I loved seeing his constant leading man Michael Moriarty gush over their work together.  Fred Williamson is also around to contradict some of the legends Cohen has made for himself.  

It was also nice to see the way Cohen championed the used of elderly Hollywood legends.  There’s a particularly touching moment involving the death of Bernard Herrmann, who scored It’s Alive.  Sometimes, that backfired on Cohen.  When he hired Bette Davis for Wicked Stepmother, she walked off the set and never came back.  Ever the soldier, Larry forged ahead and did his best with the footage he had.  

The film also goes into how Cohen was fired from I, the Jury, a movie he envisioned as a franchise.  Man, what could’ve been!  Eventually, he grows tired of the director’s chair and becomes content to write material for other filmmakers.

Cohen is engaging and colorful in his interviews.  You can tell just by the way he talks, he’s a natural born storyteller.  Sadly, we lost Larry earlier this year.  There will never be another one like him.

Long live the King.

AKA:  King Cohen:  The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen.