Larry Buchanan  Larry Buchanan (January 31, 1923 − December 2, 2004), born Marcus Larry Seale Jr., was a film director, producer and writer, who proclaimed himself a "schlockmeister". Many of his titles have landed on "worst movie" lists or in the public domain, but all at least broke even and many made a profit. He is perhaps most famous for the films "In the Year 2889", "The Eye Creatures", "Zontar, the Thing from Venus", "Curse of the Swamp Creature", "It's Alive!", and "Mars Needs Women". Buchanan was born in Lost Prairie, Texas, on Jan. 31, 1923. He was orphaned as a baby and was raised in Dallas in an orphanage. It was while growing up there that he became fascinated with the movies which were shown in the orphanage's theater. He considered becoming a minister early in life, but got into the movie industry instead. Buchanan visited Hollywood and landed a job in the props department at 20th Century Fox. It was while working here where his film career got off the ground. He played some bit parts in movies around this time, and the studio gave him the stage name "Larry Buchanan", which he used for his entire career. He enlisted in the United States Army Signal Corps in order to learn how to direct. He was based in New York, which allowed him to act on stage in the evenings. In the early 1950s Buchanan began producing, writing, editing, and acting in his own movies. The first was a one-reeler, "The Cowboy" in 1949, shot back in Dallas for $900. His first feature was "Grubsteak" (1952); he knew Stanley Kubrick from working around New York at this time and Kubrick offered to be cinematographer but wanted more money than Buchanan was willing to pay. Buchanan worked as an assistant to director George Cukor on "The Marrying Kind" (1952). Buchanan is perhaps best known for exploitation, science fiction, and other genre films, including "Free, White and 21", "High Yellow", "The Naked Witch" (made for $8,000), "The Loch Ness Horror", and "Mistress of the Apes". Among Buchanan's work, eight direct-to-television films he wrote, produced, and directed under his own Azalea Films production entity in the mid- and late-1960s, for American International Pictures, still generate a good degree of fan adoration.