Monte Hellman is an American film director, producer, writer, and editor. Hellman began his career as an editor's apprentice at ABC TV, and made his directorial debut with the horror filmBeast from Haunted Cave, produced by Roger Corman. He would later gain critical recognition for the Westerns The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind starring Jack Nicholson, and the independent road movieTwo-Lane Blacktop starring James Taylor and Dennis Wilson. His later directorial work has included the 1989 slasher film and the independent thriller Road to Nowhere.
Hellman is among a group of directing talent mentored by Roger Corman, who produced several of the director's early films. Hellman began by working on "low budget exploitation films with a personal slant," yet learned from Corman the art of producing commercially viable films on a tight budget while staying true to a personal vision. Hellman's most critically acclaimed film to date has been Two-Lane Blacktop, a road movie that was a box office failure at the time of its initial release but has subsequently turned into a perennial cult favorite. Hellman's two acid westerns starring Jack Nicholson, Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting, both shot in 1965 and premiered at festivals in 1966 before being widely released directly to television in 1968, have also developed cult followings, particularly the latter. Hellman and his stuntman Gary Kent talk about the making of the westerns in the 2018 documentary Danger God aka Love and Other Stunts. A third western, China 9, Liberty 37, was far less successful critically, although it too has its admirers, as do Cockfighter and Iguana. In 1989, he directed the straight-to-video slasher film In addition to his directorial career, Hellman worked on several films in different capacities. He was the dialogue director for Corman's The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and second-unit director on Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop. Hellman finished two pictures in post-production that were started by other directors who died after the movies were shot, the Muhammad Ali bio The Greatest and Avalanche Express . He shot extra footage for the television versions of Ski Troop Attack, Last Woman on Earth, Creature from the Haunted Sea, and Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars. Among the movies on which Hellman served as editor are Corman's The Wild Angels, Bob Rafelson's Head, Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite and Jonathan Demme's Fighting Mad. He also was an executive producer on Quentin Tarantino's debut feature Reservoir Dogs. In 2006, he directed "Stanley's Girlfriend," a section of the omnibus horror film Trapped Ashes. Hellman's section of the film was presented by the Cannes Film Festival that year as an "Official Selection," and Hellman was named president of the festival's Un Certain Regard jury. In 2010, he completed a new feature film, the romantic noir thriller Road to Nowhere, which competed for the Golden Lion at the 67th Venice International Film Festival. At the 2010 Venice Film Festival, he was awarded with a special career prize. As of 2011, he still teaches in the Film Directing Program at the California Institute of the Arts.
