D is for Jon Davison, Marketing Maven

Seems as though the initials JD have been auspicious for Roger Corman. I’m not only talking, of course, about the juvenile delinquent types who peopled some of his early works, like 1957’s Teenage Doll. During my New World Pictures years, I can count three JDs around the office, all of whom would go on to have an impact on the film industry. Jonathan Demme was not on staff, but he’d wander through our hallways in his trademark brown and white saddle shoes. He’d just directed his very first film, a women-in-prison flick called Caged Heat (1974), and big things were expected of him. Joe Dante, editor and trailer cutter, hung out in the editing room with his pal Allan Arkush. No one would have guessed that the quiet and unassuming Joe would one day be the director of big studio features like Gremlins and Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

Jon Davison (not to be confused with the wholesome, be-dimpled singer John Davidson) was never, as far as I know, an aspiring director. When I worked at New World, Jon was the head of marketing, responsible for dreaming up lurid pressbooks and outrageous publicity campaigns. A New Jersey boy and a former film student of Martin Scorsese at NYU, Jon had headed west for the simple reason that Roger Corman was his idol. As he put it to me years later, Roger “made better cheap movies than anybody else did.”

A pal of Allan Arkush and Joe Dante (whom he lured to join him at New World by putting Dante’s name in the credits of a movie he’d never worked on), Jon was instrumental in the project that helped get Allan and Joe their first directing credits. In 1976, the trio approached Corman with the idea of making their own first film, which they promised would be New World’s cheapest picture ever. The idea was to borrow footage from past New World releases, shoot some new material, and assemble it all into a wacky story about a bottom-of-the-barrel movie company named Miracle Pictures (“If it’s a good picture, it’s a Miracle!”). Jon produced, and Joe and Allan were allowed out of the editing room long enough to take turns directing the satiric feature, which was dubbed Hollywood Boulevard. When the $70,000 film debuted on the real Hollywood Boulevard, they took turns photographing one another beneath the marquee. At the time, this seemed all the reward they needed.

Two years later, Jon was the producer of Joe’s solo directing debut, Piranha. I’m sure it was he who came up with the official Piranha presskit, which solemnly advised exhibitors to create “exciting pre-publicity” by leaving dead piranhas on the banks of local lakes and streams: “Promote community interest and fear by organizing groups (Boy Scouts, citizen volunteers, etc.) to guard against the ‘coming onslaught.’ Give enterprising kids in your area a few bucks to make themselves scarce for a few days. Watch your grosses soar!!”

Inevitably, talented young people move beyond Roger Corman. For Jon, this has meant producing such mainstream hits as Airplane!, RoboCop, and Starship Troopers. And, of course, providing the tinny metallic voice of RoboCop’s murderous malfunctioning robot. Corman folks are always good at wearing more than one hat.