GALLERY OF HORROR (1967)
director: David L. Hewitt .American General Pictures. color .widescreen. 83 min.
Alternative Titles
Dr. Terror’s Gallery of Horrors
Return from the Past
The Blood Suckers
Cast
Lon Chaney John Carradine Rochelle Hudson Roger Gentry Ron Doyle Karen Joy Vic McGee Ron Brogan Margaret Moore Gray Daniels Mitch Evans Joey Benson
PRESENTING
1 ‘The Witches Clock’
2 ‘King Vampire’
3 ‘Monster Raiders’
4 ‘Spark of Life’
5 ‘Count Alucard’
Here is horror anthology that you may have seen on late night television but thought that you had only imagined it .
Seriously, this film lifts clips from better Roger Corman films, then inserts them throughout this picture to add production value (think of that- Corman giving production value!!).
Stiff acting, staging, accents that make Dick Van Dyke in MARY POPPINS (Disney,1964) sound like Laurence Olivier ,the barest of sets ,often just a wall flat with windows ,or a darkened sound stage street with a lamp, helps give this film an impoverished look . Not to the level of an Ed Wood or Andy Milligan , but as off beat in its own peculiar way .
David L. Hewitt ,the auteur 0f all this, was the man behind THE WIZARD OF MARS (John Carradine again)MONSTERS CRASH THE PAJAMA PARTY(both 1965) JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME(1967 ),THE MIGHTY GORGA (1969 );all films with special (de)fects ,and the non fantasy The Girls from Thunder Strip in 1970.
He began as a stage magician ,until he met Forrest J Ackerman . He had an idea for a film script, and Ackerman put him in contact with science fiction writer and filmmaker Ib Melchior (AIP’s 1959 ANGRY RED PLANET ,and the screenplay for the Danish REPTILICUS ,AIP 1961). Melchior would later pen the short story “The Racer”which would be adapted to the screen as DEATH RACE 2000(New World,1975).
Melchior and Hewitt worked on reworking the ambitious story (originally known as “The Trap”) and shot some test footage to convince investors that they could make the film on a modest budget. Hewitt was able to create several effects that could be shot live on set, as they were variations of several magician’s tricks. Forrest J Ackerman even gets a nice cameo doing one of the tricks.
The film became THE TIME TRAVELLERS (AIP,1964),an ambitious tale of time paradoxes and the future,shot on a budget of $250,000.
Trying to go it alone, Hewitt created a film that ran only 33 minutes. Not wishing to lose his investment, he created a stage show involving magic tricks ,performers and people in costumes (probably some poorly underpaid usher) who would run through the theatre onto the stage. All this would then seque into the film . The result was MONSTERS CRASH THE PAJAMA PARTY (1965).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2crI6OdUOA0
Hewitt’s next picture was THE WIZARD OF MARS . Shot on a budget of $33,000 , the film was a science fiction retworking of Wizard Of Oz set upon the Red Planet. John Carradine worked for Hewitt for the first time, shot against a blue screen as a transparent figure appearing against a star field . The money was raised by a group of vending machine operators . Since it was a cash business, the operators looked for ways to invest ,and felt that Hewitt was worth the risk.
THE WIZARD OF MARS was edited by Tom Graeff . If the name is familiar to you, he was the mad “genius ” behind 1959’s TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE (W.B.). This was Graeff’s last known film work, with him committing suicide in 1970 .
T.W.O.M was an ambitious film filmed with effects, but it had no one willing to distribute it. The investors, having no experience in film at all, started their own distribution company ,American General Pictures.
Knowing they did not have the resources to keep producing films, they picked up other movies that had limited release or had been sitting upon the shelves. One of the films they picked up was SPIDER BABY . The bizarre but original Jack Hill film starring Lon Chaney Jr had been shot in 1964 , but not released until 1967 . Being in black and white made it a harder sell, even when changing the name often to The Liver Eaters, Attack of the Liver Eaters, Cannibal Orgy, and The Maddest Story Ever Told.
The same year Hewitt created GALLERY OF HORROR ,he also made JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME . Very talkative ,with some effects lifted from other films, Scott Brady took on the John Carradine type role in this (was Carradine busy filming HILLBILLIES IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE??) . Antony Eisley appears as the nominal hero.The film seems like a variation of the superior THE TIME TRAVELLERS.
As embarassing as some of these films were , none can reach the levels of ineptitude that is THE MIGHTY GORGA (1969).Poor Scott Brady and Anthony Eisley both appear in this jawdroppingly bad film. Long ago SNL did a sketch about dinosaurs, using purposely fake effects. It was hysterical.
Here, you feel that the team was serious about their use of force perspective toy dinosaurs and third rate gorilla costume work. How third rate?Hewitt, who constructed and wore the suit, never bothered creating the lower half .
American General folded after one of the partners disappeared and another partner died from a heart attack. The widow of the third partner felt it wasn’t worth the headache, and let the company fold in 1970. American General did not make a lot of prints of their films, at best 35 copies for the entire country ,and so they were often played until they were worn so badly that they were unscreenable.
Wizard Of Mars Model work
After this, Hewitt became an effects man for hire ,ironically with some of his own space ship footage from JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME ending up in the I.I. patchwork film HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS (1970).
The 79 year old Hewitt (born December ,1939) is still with us, having worked on effects as late as 2003 on INSPECTOR GADGET 2 for Disney.
However, back to the “gallery ” :
John Carradine, in tux, is the host for several tales ,bringing to mind Boris Karloff in the vastly superior BLACK SABBATH (AIP,1963). DR TERRORS HOUSE OF HORRORS (Amicus/Paramount,1965) was also big hit ,which is why one of the alternate titles for this film attached DR TERROR’s for one of its releases.
Lon Chaney appears in a tale wherein he references Dr Frankenstein . Chaney is a teaching professor who ,with the aid of two med students, revive a corpse. It must have been nice for him not to be the one on the slab for once. Oh, wait…
Though top billed, Chaney could have shot his whole part in a day .
Carradine probably shot his narrator role reading off of cue cards in front of a blue screen, with his part in the first story, THE WITCHES CLOCK, probably taking all of an afternoon.
Most of the rest of the cast seem to declaim their lines as if trying to reach the back of a theatre .
The sound at times is very echoey, meaning that sound proofing was not added to the studio wherein they filmed.
That it felt like inferior CREEPY comics stories may be because one of the screenwriters was Russ Jones,founder of that magazine. He had wanted to film to feel like a comic book, but the distributors and Hewitt vetoed that idea,except for the intentional splash wipes .Audiences would have to wait until CREEPSHOW (Laurel,1982).
The music and sound effects are stock ,coming from a company called COMMERCIAL SOUND RECORDERS ,which sound like a bunch of fans in a basement full of machines .
Wade Williams released a DVD of the film from a print that he owned . That the film looks as good as it does means it was not shown as often as many other copies of the title were .G.O.H. astonishly shot widescreen ( 2.35:1 )and in color ,which added to the budget perhaps but somehow makes the picture as a whole look a whole lot cheaper. http://www.wadewilliamscollection.com/ft-haunted.html 
I didn’t go into great detail about the film to allow you to “experience”it for yourself .
This film is Screaming out for a MST3K /Rifftrax treatment.
–Kevin G Shinnick
ps- some information on David Hewitt, American General, and their films was taken from Fred Olen Ray‘s wonderful 1991 book from MacFarland : THE NEW POVERTY ROW .https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-new-poverty-row/
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