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In the latter part of the 1970s, the films of Larry Cohen caught the attention of the critic Robin Wood, the author of classic studies of Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock. Mr. Cohen’s low-budget genre films, running the gamut from killer-baby horror picture “It’s Alive” to tabloid-style political exposé “The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover,” had a “sketchiness and sense of haste,” Wood wrote in his 1984 book “Hollywood: From Vietnam to Reagan.” But, Wood averred, they also had a genuinely subversive conceptual audacity.
I’ve more than once seen Mr. Cohen shrug his shoulders in perhaps faux bemusement at praise from highbrows such as Wood (who died in 2009). But, let’s face it: A movie featuring an alien Christ figure outfitted with both male and female genitalia (that’s the quasi-antagonist of Mr. Cohen’s deathless 1976 “God Told Me To”) is bound to attract all manner of interpretation. I suspect Mr. Cohen isn’t sorry to have had Wood as one of his champions.
Many more of his champions, including Martin Scorsese, Michael Moriarty, Fred Williamson and Traci Lords, sing Mr. Cohen’s praises in “King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen.” Directed by Steve Mitchell, it’s as conventional as Mr. Cohen’s movies are not.
Which is O.K. While the filmmaker himself is more interested in telling colorful anecdotes than dredging up the portions of his psyche that inspire him, the anecdotes are colorful indeed. As when, for instance, he tells of how taking Broderick Crawford and Dan Dailey to a White House lunch with Betty Ford helped him obtain location permissions for his Hoover picture. Mr. Williamson is particularly fun, in part because he enjoys contradicting Mr. Cohen. If you don’t know the man, you should, and this is a lively, informative introduction.
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes.
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