Coleman Francis

“	"Director Coleman Francis uses edits like blunt instruments. He uses blunt instruments like blunt instruments. His major themes are death, hatefulness, death, pain, and death...He hurts us and I want him to know it, except if he's still alive, because there's the small chance that he's still strong enough to crush my windpipe with his bare hands."	”
	- Kevin Murphy, The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide'

Coleman C. Francis (1919-1973) was an American film director who has become known for his three self-produced 1960s films. His trademark style included a preoccupation with light aircraft and parachuting. Some critics have suggested that his meandering, disjointed plots represented an intentional artistic style.

Biography

Francis was born in Oklahoma in 1919. Sometime around the Great Depression, he moved to Texas. In the 1940s he moved to Los Angeles. He worked on several films during the late 1940s and 1950s without credit: Blondie's Reward, Scarlet Angel, The Girl in White, This Island Earth, She Couldn't Say No, Twilight for the Gods, and P.J.. In 1958 he appeared in Stakeout on Dope Street, where he played a detective. This was the first role for which he received credit. He went on to play minor parts in dozens of other films.

In 1961 he began writing, producing, and directing films with the help of his friend Tony Cardoza, who was a welder by trade. Francis started with The Beast of Yucca Flats. He went on to direct, write, and produce two other movies: The Skydivers and Red Zone Cuba (also known as Night Train to Mundo Fine). He appeared in Russ Meyer's 1965 film Motor Psycho, and his last work in the film industry was in 1970, when he played a drunk in Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Francis was overweight (around 350lbs) and developed health problems. He died in California in 1973. Though arteriosclerosis is listed as the cause, Cardoza says his body was found in the back of a station wagon at the Vine Street Ranch Market with "a plastic bag over his head and a tube going into his mouth or around his throat." He is interred at the Columbarium of Remembrance in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

His films gained cult status in 1994 after being featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Francis is father of actors Alan Francis and Ronald Francis.

Riffed Movies

• The Skydivers (Episode #609) - as Man in Plane with Gun, director, writer
• Red Zone Cuba (Episode #619) - as Griffin, director, writer, narrator
• The Beast of Yucca Flats (Episode #621) - as Narrator / Gas Station Attendant / Man Buying Newspaper, director, writer
• This Island Earth (MST3K: The Movie) - as Express Deliveryman
• Killers From Space (The Film Crew, Attack of the Killer B Movies, and RiffTrax) - as Power Plant Phone Operator
• T-Bird Gang (The Mads Are Back) - as Captain Prell

Gallery

Appearing in The Skydivers

Appearing in Red Zone Cuba

Appearing in The Beast of Yucca Flats

Appearing in This Island Earth

Appearing in T-Bird Gang

Filmography

• Beyond the Valley of the Dolls 1970 (Actor: Rotund Drunk)
• Night Train to Mundo Fine (aka Red Zone Cuba) 1969 (Actor: Griffin/Director/Producer/Screenwriter)
• Motor Psycho 1965 (Actor: Harry Bonner)
• The Skydivers 1963 (Director/Screenwriter)
• The Beast of Yucca Flats 1961 (Director/Credited Editor/Screenwriter/Uncredited Actor)
• Spring Affair 1960 (Actor: Smith)
• Stakeout on Dope Street 1958 (Actor: 2nd Detective)
• This Island Earth 1955 (Actor: Expressman)
• Scarlet Angel 1952 (Actor: Deckhand)
• She Couldn't Say No 1952 (Actor)
• The Girl in White 1952 (Actor: Orderly)