Directing
Larry Buchanan
Born 1921-01-31 · Lost Prairie, Texas, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Larry Buchanan (born Marcus Larry Seale Jr.) (January 31, 1923 – December 2, 2004) was a film director, producer and writer, who proclaimed himself a "schlockmeister". Many of his titles have landed on "worst movie" lists, but all at least broke even and many made a profit. Buchanan was born in Mexia, Texas. He was orphaned as a baby, and was raised in Dallas in an orphanage. It was while growing up there that he became fascinated with the movies which were shown in the orphanage's theater. He considered becoming a minister, but visited Hollywood and landed a job in the props department at 20th Century Fox. He made movies for the United States Army Signal Corps during World War II. In the early 1950s, Buchanan began producing, writing, editing and acting in his own movies. The first was The Cowboy in 1951. He is perhaps best known for exploitation, science fiction, and other genre films, including Free, White and 21, High Yellow, The Naked Witch, The Loch Ness Horror, and Mistress of the Apes. Among Buchanan's work, eight direct-to-television films he wrote, produced, and directed under his own Azalea Films production entity in the mid- and late-1960s, for American International Pictures, still generate a good degree of fan adoration. The titles — The Eye Creatures, Zontar, The Thing from Venus, Creature of Destruction, Mars Needs Women, In the Year 2889, Curse of the Swamp Creature, Hell Raiders, and It's Alive! — were largely remakes of AIP films from a decade earlier. Buchanan's instructions from AIP were We want cheap color pictures, we want half-assed names in them, we want them eighty minutes long and we want them now. In 1964, Buchanan created The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, which presented an alternate history in which John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald both survived Kennedy's assassination. In 1984 he produced Down on Us, which charged that the United States government was responsible for the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin. Buchanan's autobiography is entitled It Came from Hunger: Tales of a Cinema Schlockmeister. After he died in 2004 in Tucson, a long obituary in the New York Times summarized his work thus: "One quality united Mr. Buchanan's diverse output: It was not so much that his films were bad; they were deeply, dazzlingly, unrepentantly bad. His work called to mind a famous line from H. L. Mencken, who, describing President Warren G. Harding's prose, said, 'It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it.'" Description above from the Wikipedia article Larry Buchanan, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Acting credits
7.4The fastest gun in the West tries to escape his reputation.
The Gunfighter
1950
2.8A small-town girl comes to Dallas to make it as a stripper.
Naughty Dallas
1964
3.9Tommy Kirk leads his fellow Martians to Earth on an interplanetary quest for females. Kirk proves that Martians have impeccable taste when one of his first conquests turns out to be sexy scientist Yvonne Craig.
Mars Needs Women
1968
Short film by Larry Buchanan.
The Cowboy
1951
Behind the camera
2.8A small-town girl comes to Dallas to make it as a stripper.
Naughty Dallas
1964
2.8A small-town girl comes to Dallas to make it as a stripper.
Naughty Dallas
1964
2.8A small-town girl comes to Dallas to make it as a stripper.
Naughty Dallas
1964
3.4A student researching the German settlements of Central Texas unearths the grave of a reputed witch. The witch (who happens to be both beautiful and naked) rises from her grave and embarks on a campaign of seduction and murder against the descendants of her persecutors. It's up to the student to stop her bloody reign of terror-if he can resist the seductive powers of her evil beauty.
The Naked Witch
1960
3.4A student researching the German settlements of Central Texas unearths the grave of a reputed witch. The witch (who happens to be both beautiful and naked) rises from her grave and embarks on a campaign of seduction and murder against the descendants of her persecutors. It's up to the student to stop her bloody reign of terror-if he can resist the seductive powers of her evil beauty.
The Naked Witch
1960
5.5A trial melodrama about a mother who encourages her 14 year old daughter to have sex with a 16 year old Mexican boy.
Under Age
1964
5.5A trial melodrama about a mother who encourages her 14 year old daughter to have sex with a 16 year old Mexican boy.
Under Age
1964
4.1A biography of Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, a gangster who started his career at a young age after seeking revenge for his father's murder.
A Bullet for Pretty Boy
1970
4.1A biography of Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, a gangster who started his career at a young age after seeking revenge for his father's murder.
A Bullet for Pretty Boy
1970
Western set story of cowpoke Sam who spends the hottest Fourth of July in the history of Brewster County dealing with the problems and people of the area.
Sam
1967
Western set story of cowpoke Sam who spends the hottest Fourth of July in the history of Brewster County dealing with the problems and people of the area.
Sam
1967
Western set story of cowpoke Sam who spends the hottest Fourth of July in the history of Brewster County dealing with the problems and people of the area.
Sam
1967
Native american western by Larry Buchanan.
Comanche Crossing
1968
Native american western by Larry Buchanan.
Comanche Crossing
1968
Native american western by Larry Buchanan.
Comanche Crossing
1968
3.9Tommy Kirk leads his fellow Martians to Earth on an interplanetary quest for females. Kirk proves that Martians have impeccable taste when one of his first conquests turns out to be sexy scientist Yvonne Craig.
Mars Needs Women
1968
3.9Tommy Kirk leads his fellow Martians to Earth on an interplanetary quest for females. Kirk proves that Martians have impeccable taste when one of his first conquests turns out to be sexy scientist Yvonne Craig.
Mars Needs Women
1968
3.9Tommy Kirk leads his fellow Martians to Earth on an interplanetary quest for females. Kirk proves that Martians have impeccable taste when one of his first conquests turns out to be sexy scientist Yvonne Craig.
Mars Needs Women
1968
Grubstake, also known as Apache Gold, is a 1952 American Western film directed by Larry Buchanan.
Grubstake
1952
Grubstake, also known as Apache Gold, is a 1952 American Western film directed by Larry Buchanan.
Grubstake
1952
Short film by Larry Buchanan.
The Cowboy
1951
Short film by Larry Buchanan.
The Cowboy
1951
Short film by Larry Buchanan.
The Cowboy
1951
3.2The last seven survivors of a nuclear war barricade themselves against the outside world. Beyond a dense mist, other survivors, radiated and mutant, grow hungry.
In the Year 2889
1969