Now Playing in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room: Francis Ford Coppola's DEMENTIA 13

LUANA ANDERS IN FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA’S DEBUT FEATURE FILM, DEMENTIA 13 (1963). SOURCE: LETTERBOXD.

OFFICIAL THEATRICAL RELEASE POSTER FOR FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA’s DEMENTIA 13 (1963). SOURCE: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS.

In 1963, while working as an assistant for producer Roger Corman, Francis Ford Coppola made his directorial debut with the mystery horror film DEMENTIA 13, starring William Campbell, Luana Anders, Bart Patton, Mary Mitchell, and Patrick Magee. While Coppola would go on to direct better-known films financed by major studios (such as THE GODFATHER and APOCALYPSE NOW), he first earned his stripes as a young filmmaker with this macabre thriller.

As a programmer at The Museum of Modern Art, Adrienne Mancia was an advocate of progressive “New Hollywood” filmmakers such as Coppola who, in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, subverted the moral and aesthetic traditions (and limitations) of the studio system by producing thematically and stylistically challenging work influenced by European cinema, the American avant-garde, and the countercultural ethos of the era at large. Part of Mancia’s advocacy of these filmmakers was seeking out their first works (often made for low-budget producers like Corman and production companies like American International Pictures) in order to chart the trajectory of their careers and connect their early output to the later works that brought them mainstream fame. Mancia noted in her program notes for a 1979 AIP retrospective at MoMA:

It’s extraordinary to see how many filmmakers, writers, and actors — now often referred to as ‘the New Hollywood’ — took their first creative steps at American International…. AIP was a good training ground; you had to work quickly and economically. Low budgets can force you to find fresh resources.

GME President Jon Gartenberg introduced the 2017 Director’s Cut of Coppola’s DEMENTIA 13 when it screened at MoMA as part of their November—December 2023 tribute to Mancia. Gartenberg writes of Coppola’s film:

Francis Ford Coppola was one of the most promising and prominent directors to emerge from the studio [American International Pictures] under the tutelage of Roger Corman. Coppola worked as a sound technician on Corman’s THE YOUNG RACERS (1963). With money left over from the budget for that film, Corman gave Coppola the opportunity to remain in Ireland to write and direct a low-budget feature, which became DEMENTIA 13. Influenced by Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO, the film centers around siblings vying for their mother’s estate. Filmed in black-and-white, it combines family drama, murder mystery, and gothic horror, replete with drownings in a lake, an ax murderer, and a corpse in a meat locker — all more akin to the shock value of drive-in movies of the era. DEMENTIA 13 opened on the bottom of a double bill with X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES (produced and directed by Corman). Despite mixed reviews, DEMENTIA 13 opened up a path for Coppola’s future as a pre-eminent American filmmaker.

DEMENTIA 13, and Gartenberg’s introduction to the film at MoMA, can be viewed in the Adrienne Mancia Streaming Room now.