4 sexy, violent movies made by overlooked director Stephanie Rothman

Warped & Faded: Weird Wednesday and the Birth of the American Genre Film Archive, the latest book from Mondo, is a exhaustive look at the exploitation scene through the lens of Alamo Drafthouse’s origin story, the theater chain’s weekly “Weird Wednesday” programming, and the establishment of the American Genre Film Archive. This exclusive extract of the Compendium is available. now available at Mondo’s online storeHeidi Honeycutt explores Stephanie Rothman’s exploitation contribution, while Lars Nilsen (Alamo Veteran) makes the case to view five of her films.

Writer/director/producer Stephanie Rothman met producer Roger Corman when she was a recent graduate of the University of Southern California’s master’s film program; she had responded to his advertising at USC for an assistant at his production company, The Filmgroup. Rothman had just won the Director’s Guild Award, the first woman ever to do so, and Corman was impressed with her skills as a filmmaker. “There was no way I could not hire Stephanie,” said Corman of Rothman in his 1990 book How I Made a Hundred Movies In Hollywood Without Losing a Dime. “Stephanie began a fine career that led to several directorial efforts for me.”

Corman quickly brought Rothman aboard for a third shoot and reedit of the Yugoslavian movie called Opericija Ticijan (Operation TitianThe 1963 version would be eventually published as Blood Bath The Track of the Vampire(The previous versions were edited by Jack Hill and Francis Ford Coppola). Because of her work as associate producer on Corman’s Voyage on the Prehistoric Planet(1965) Queen of Blood(1966), which both were recuts Soviet science fiction films with new footage, and re-dubbed into English by Stephanie Rothman. Rothman looked like a great candidate for salvaging the film. Rothman shot the two vampire-attack sequences outdoors in broad daylight. She then added them to the original cut. Rothman was pleased to work with Corman, even though she wasn’t happy with the end result. “Working for Roger was really wonderful,” she recalled in an interview with Ben Sher in 2008:

“He just threw me into the swimming pool and I had to swim. He was extremely encouraging. Although some may feel a bit bitter after their encounter with him, I found his encouragement to be very positive. He gave me self-confidence and the strength to accomplish what I wanted. I was completely supported by him. He was, as I’ve said before, the only mentor I ever had, and until my last breath I will be very grateful to him for that.”

Rothman directed the first Corman feature she made in 1970. It was a lighthearted, sexy comedy. It’s a Bikini World(1967), which she coauthored with Charles Swartz. Corman founded New World Pictures in the same year to produce and distribute his films. New World Pictures’ first film production was Rothman’s The student nurses (1970). Rothman, at the time still Roger Corman’s assistant, directed The student nursesWithin three weeks, with a budget $150,000 Nursing was recognized as a liberal and feminist film, with reviewer Linda Gross even referring to it as “the first exploitation picture about the Chicano revolution” in a 1978 Los Angeles Times article. Gross went on to point out how Corman gave Rothman the freedom to write and direct the films she wanted, “as long as they have a lot of sex, or violence and action with material that is sufficiently strong enough to receive an R rating.”

Graphic: Mondo

Rothman’s surreal vampire tale The Velvet VampireCeleste Yarnall starred in (1971). This was a story of a male vampire who lives in an idyllic desert house. When she invites an attractive young couple to stay with her for the weekend, they both enjoy sexual relationships with the mysterious woman (who also enjoys visiting desert cemeteries and doesn’t fear the sunlight). It wouldn’t be a horror film without a few dead bodies and some iconic coffin imagery, and sadly Yarnall’s Diana meets her brutal end facing direct sunlight and crosses. “I wanted to make a vampire film that dealt explicitly with the sexuality implicit in the vampire legend,” Rothman said in Dennis Peary’s 1977 essay “Stephanie Rothman: R-Rated Feminist.” The Velvet Vampire’s budget was $165,000, and it was shot in the desert in Joshua Tree, California.

Rothman and Charles Schwartz, Rothman’s husband, left New World Pictures in 1970 and joined Dimension Pictures. Rothman’s first feature as director/writer for Dimension was the dystopian Terminal Island(1973), with distinctly feminist undertones. Near-future prison film exploitation features scraggly dressed convicts struggling to survive on an island jail. Terminal IslandRothman made this the sixth exploitation movie she had ever worked on over eleven years. “These films deal heavily with controversial subjects that are not always considered socially respectable,” she said of her work. “Violence is controversial and so is sex. To attract audiences, exploitation movies have to be done more shockingly and with greater intensity.”

Rothman thinks that Rothman’s reputation as a director of exploitation has hurt her chances at directing mainstream movies, which was what she wanted to do. “Exploitation” was distasteful to Rothman; as she told scholar Alicia Kozma for her 2014 paper “Stephanie Rothman Does Not Exist,” it “underlined that I was making films of no status that would not get any kind of serious recognition from reviewers, certainly not in the papers or in magazines. And it certainly would not be taken seriously in Hollywood in any way and it would not open up great employment opportunities for me in terms of the tools I would have to work with as a filmmaker.”

Rothman will go down in history as one of the few women to direct exploitation films in the 1960s and ‘70s (the others being Barbara Peeters, Beverly Sebastian, Doris Wishman, and Roberta Findlay). But Rothman’s films have a distinct social and political slant that most exploitation movies do not. “A Stephanie Rothman film deals with questions of self-determination,” says Rothman of her own work. “My characters try to forge a humane and rational way of coming to grips with the vicissitudes of life. My films are not always about succeeding, but they are always concerned with fighting the good fight.”

STUDENT NURSES

Stephanie Rothman, USA, 1970

Image: Shout! Factory

It is a remarkable social, cultural and political document that reveals the current attitudes to medical ethics. There are also sexy, naked nurses. Like many films produced by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, it’s kind of an ideological Trojan horse. The poster’s four young, doe-eyed nurses attracted men to the film. They were then given a huge boost of social awareness by Dr. Roger Corman and Julie Rothman, their producer, Julie, as well as director Stephanie Rothman.Terminal Island). This film has a similar structure to a soap opera. There are several characters arcs and we get to see the trials and tribulations of student nurses. Rothman and company touch on themes that are still controversial today — abortion, euthanasia, inequality of health care, and more. The radical left-wing stance might seem strident if the film weren’t so entertaining on its own terms. Barbara Leigh (half-Cherokee) is the star of this film. Also, there’s a very annoying and chronically ill gentleman in a wheelchair. —Lars Nilsen

The student nurses This stream is now available Tubi.

THE VELVET VAMPIRE

Stephanie Rothman, USA, 1971

Image: Shout! Factory

Stephanie Rothman is the creator of some memorable Weird Wednesday films: Student nurses Terminal Island, and this is possibly her weirdest — a one-of-a-kind Aquarian sex-vampire epic. Though made in America, the film incorporates a lot of the techniques we associate with artsy European horror movies — an emphasis on storytelling through color, slow psychedelic dissolves and that old standby: abundant nudity. There’s a school of thought that horror movies need a strong sexual component, whether explicit or sublimated, or they just don’t have the desired impact. Rothman clearly attended classes from that school, since this film is about vampirism and its sexual dynamics. And Celeste Yarnall as the bloodsucker of the title provides a clear sexual focus for this movie about a vapid bleached blonde California couple who find themselves ensnared in a vampire’s desert lair. Better than you’d expect and possibly the only vampire movie to successfully incorporate dune buggies. Featuring a completely unexpected cameo appearance by legendary Delta bluesman Johnny Shines, who performs “Evil Hearted Woman.” —LN

The Velvet VampireYou can stream it on You will be shaken, Tubi, AMC PlusTo buy, or to learn more DVD.

GROUP MARRIAGE

Stephanie Rothman, USA, 1973

Image: Code Red

Source: The Velvet Vampire Terminal IslandThis is the story of the liberated generation. It sounds familiar? Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, it is — but only just a little. There’s a more immediate street-level feel to the film. New World Pictures had a very brief time from idea to screen. The social commentary found in these films was hot at the time they reached the public. And Rothman was a magnificent message smuggler — it’s fascinating to see how feminine the viewpoint of the film is — and in what surprising ways this pleasing difference makes itself known. Rothman’s Terminal IslandIt was about the male/female relationship under stress from outside. In For groups of peopleConflict comes from within. It’s pretty amazing to look back at these movies with their anarchocommunal message and realize that they played for every Jim-Bob who went to the drive-in to see some skin. It’s a brilliant way to sugarcoat an agit-prop message that most viewers would never have swallowed otherwise. Isn’t it time to bring Stephanie Rothman back into films and make her a four-star general in the culture wars for the good guys (and gals)? Claudia Jennings, and the greatest bumper stickers in film history. —LN

For groups of peopleAvailable on Blu-ray and DVD.

TERMINAL ISLAND

Stephanie Rothman, USA, 1973

Image: Vinegar Syndrome

“Where society dumps its human garbage!” At some indistinct point in the very near future, which looks suspiciously like the early ‘70s, America has outlawed capital punishment. The murderers get sent to an island that is blocked to protect themselves. A new Darwinian social order asserts itself, and the few women on the island have a pretty rough go of it—until they decide to fight back. This is very likely the first women-in-prison movie directed by a woman, but it’s hardly a chick flick. As many others in the movie industry, Stephanie Rothman got her start as a director in movies by Roger Corman. Although he is not a well-known figure in Hollywood, it’s worth a statue. While her films may be as brutal and bloody as their male counterparts they still contain remarkable touches of feminine insight. Featuring the glistening naked torsos of Phyllis Davis, Barbara Leigh, and Marta “Lost in Space” Kristen. Look out for Tom Selleck, a coke-snorting physician. —LN

Terminal IslandYou can stream the video on MubiBuy, and to register Blu-ray.