Bad Influence, which is an early movie of mine that I'm very fond of. It was an unhappy experience when that picture got released, because it coincided with that ridiculous Rob Lowe videotape scandal.
Curtis HansonConsequently, it's so gratifying to then make a picture that's successful and gives you leverage to have better circumstances than you've ever had, before the next time out.
Curtis HansonIt was just a wonderful experience, one for the memory book for sure. The sad thing about it was that the picture came under this absurd cloud of controversy. Here was a movie based on the central theme that racism is something that is taught, and it's illustrated by this story of a dog and the efforts of humans to re-train it after it had been trained to go after black people. And it created this ridiculous controversy and wound up being the last Hollywood movie that Sam [Fuller] made.
Curtis HansonRoger [Corman] didn't actually hire me, though. I was hired by AIP [American International Pictures], the studio that made the picture, which was Sam Arkoff and Jim Nicholson. It was a great learning experience for me, because not only did I work on the script, but they hired me back to go on location when they were making the movie, to write new scenes and so forth.
Curtis Hanson