40S UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: A CRITICAL COMMENTARY

Universal ’40s Monsters: A Critical Commentary

by John Soister , Harry H. Long, Henry Nicolella , and Dario Lavia . BearManorMedia 798 pages. Hardcover : $52 https://tinyurl.com/3x3jc35e Paperback $42 https://tinyurl.com/39tm7ey3

We are pleased to present another chapter from the now just released new book covering the classic Universal monster films, going from THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS ,1940 ( see our preview : https://tinyurl.com/udjxvcw )to 1948’s ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEETS FRANKENSTEIN.

One point that I would like to make. There are certain toxic members of fandom who feel that they PERSONALLY own the classic films and make snarky comments about others who dare to cover the genre . These people need to realize that others love these films and have the right to write about the movies . The “toxics” can of course voice an opinion , but they need to review the work itself and not make lame childish swipes to make themselves feel superior . Fan was derived from “fanatic” , and the toxics bring negativity to what is supposed to be an enjoyable exchange of ideas on a subject that we all enjoy .

Now , with that out of the way , SCARLET is glad to share another chapter of this new book . This chapter : THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN:

The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

Synopsis: We open in the village of Frankenstein, as the villagers receive the mayor’s permission to blow up the remains of Castle Frankenstein, which they see as the cause of all the misfortune that has befallen them. This proves to be harder than anticipated, for Ygor – the broken-necked, vengeful blacksmith from Son of Frankenstein – is not above tossing a few rocks at them from a parapet. Fleeing to the castle’s nether-regions for safety, Ygor espies a hand sticking out of the now-hardened sulfur pit. Digging in, he is astonished to see that the hand belongs to the arm of the Frankenstein Monster who – albeit somewhat the worse for wear – is still alive. Freeing his “friend,” Ygor leads the Monster off into the nearby woods.

A thunderstorm rises suddenly, and the Monster is struck by lightning; remarkably, rather than destroying him, the lightning restores his strength. Putting two and two together, Ygor leads his friend off to Vasaria, wherein dwells Dr. Ludwig Frankenstein, younger son of the mad scientist who first cried out, “It’s alive!” Somehow, despite his bearing one of the most unique and infamous surnames in all of Germania, Ludwig has avoided being associated with his father’s woeful experiments by everyone in the vicinity – and that includes his daughter, Elsa. While Ygor is putting the arm on Ludwig, the Monster has killed one of the locals and is now in police custody. Only after Ygor threatens to spill the beans about Ludwig’s patronymic does the good doctor head down to the courthouse to see about the Monster. The Monster, possibly seeing a family resemblance and sensing an ally, is nonetheless enraged when Ludwig denies knowing anything about him, and bursting his chains, runs off to the hills again, accompanied by Ygor.

Come nightfall, the pair make for the castle Frankenstein, where the Monster tears through the doctor’s laboratory in an effort to carry off Elsa, killing assistant Dr. Kettering in the process. Both Monster and Ygor are overcome by gas pumped in through the air ducts, and Ludwig – determined to disassemble the Monster piece by piece – asks Dr. Bohmer for advice and assistance. Bohmer talks Ludwig out of the dissection and suggests that the placement of a normal brain inside the Monster’s body might result in a creature who is an actual boon to mankind. Seeing as he has Kettering’s brain on hand, Ludwig agrees and prepares for the operation. Bohmer, looking to regain his professional reputation (tarnished by past experiments-gone-wrong), conspires with Ygor to place the blacksmith’s brain in the Monster’s skull instead of Kettering’s. In the meanwhile, the Monster has kidnapped young Cloestine – a child who has acted in a friendly fashion toward him – and brings her to the laboratory, insisting that her brain go into his head. Ludwig straightens things out (in the course of which Ygor is crushed behind a sturdy door by his erstwhile “friend”), preps the Monster for the transplant, and then – unbeknownst to him – connects Ygor’s brain to the Monster’s circuitry, thanks to Bohmer.

Back at the village, everyone is frantic about the Monster having vanished and the sudden disappearance of Cloestine. As they prepare to storm the castle, Elsa’s boyfriend, Erik Ernst, confers with Ludwig, who informs him that – the operation having been quite successful – the Monster’s personality is now that of the gentle Dr. Kettering. All – except for Dr. Bohmer – are shocked when the Monster, now speaking with Ygor’s voice, boasts that with his newly recovered strength he will rule the world! Moments later, though, the Monster is apparently going blind, due to incompatibility of blood types. While the angry mob breaks into the castle, the Monster, raging about the laboratory sends Bohmer crashing to his death into an electric panel. Thrashing about wildly, he knocks chemicals onto the floor, where they combine to set the place afire. Erik and Elsa escape with their lives, but Ludwig and the Monster perish in the flames .

Much of the fun one has with Universal’s Frankenstein series, of course, is to be found in marveling over nomenclature and inconsistencies. The 1931 Frankenstein originally keyed in on the epic missteps taken by Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein in an abandoned watchtower high in the hills above the village of Goldstadt. “Missteps” is a moral evaluation of Henry’s purposeful experiments, which suffered also from muck-ups, like the breaking of the neck of the cadaver cut down from the gibbet, and the deceitful substitution by Fritz of an abnormal brain for the good one he dropped, having been startled by the dramatically inexplicable sounding of a gong at Goldstadt Medical College. (Said college is doubtless part of the larger Goldstadt University from which Dr. Pretorius will admit to having been “booted” in Bride.) Lying somewhere between missteps and muck-ups are also mysteries, such as why Henry is disturbed when Dr. Waldman informs him that the brain Fritz – Dwight Frye, enacting his second straight tormented sidekick for Universal – had filched had belonged to a criminal, when the first place Frankenstein had ventured in search of a brain was the body of someone publicly hanged by the neck (and presumably not for acts of charity). Or what was the logic behind issuing the new creation a pair of black platform shoes? Were these – like what would become the Monster’s trademark black suit – found in a cupboard someplace? Despite all this, we had our iconic “Frankenstein Monster.”

With Frankenstein a hit, Junior Laemmle’s production team had begun readying the world for The Return of Frankenstein – the sequel to the earlier sensation and the film that marked the reunion of James Whale and Mary Shelley’s legacy – in 1933. Soon enough, the project was retitled Bride of Frankenstein, and it was bandied about by the publicity department that a “search” was underway for just the right actress to portray the titular bride. Although Colin Clive had reportedly been disappointed that his much-anticipated death scene at the end of the 1931 classic had been supplanted by Frederick Kerr’s toast to an heir for the “House of Frankenstein” and the need for his character to survive to experiment another day, he was happy to be involved in the sequel, which would open with his Henry and the Elizabeth of

… ummm… Mae Clarke? making good on the old baron’s toast. Okay. While Clarke would soon appear again at Universal with the increasingly popular Boris Karloff (Night World, 1932), she was either unavailable, unwilling, or unasked to come to the signing of contracts a couple of years later. For all the good-natured folderol of the supposed search for one bride or the other, there was little mystery as to with whom said “bride” would be paired. Only had Elizabeth’s heart been used to power up the female creature the Monster would briefly woo – as plotted in the original script – would anyone have paid a brass farthing to witness the goings-on of Valerie Hobson.

Although little flower-tossing Maria had ended up in the drink as she was bonding with the Monster in the 1931 original, the next time the Monster was a total emotional mess had to be when O.P. Heggie’s blind hermit sawed away at the “Ave Maria” in his cottage (a musical hommage to the Monster’s first, inadvertent victim?). In fact, following the clever opening badinage between Byron and the Shelleys, Bride gets underway as Maria’s dad, Hans (Reginald Barlow), spews righteous anger over his daughter’s death, a moment that allows the audience to recall the scene in which Maria’s dad, Ludwig (Michael Mark), had carried her lifeless body through the streets of Goldstadt in the earlier film. Hey, if Elizabeth can undergo such an amazing transformation (for the better, many argue), why not old Hans… errr… Ludwig?

And why can’t the torch- and whip-wielding Fritz metamorphose into the near-imbecilic Karl, in what would be Dwight Frye’s third straight take on a half-wit at Universal? (Please recall that Frye’s appearance as a cogent, articulate reporter in Whale’s The Invisible Man [1933] was uncredited.) In his seminal It’s Alive: The Classic Cinema Saga of Frankenstein, film historian Gregory William Mank explains the hemi-demi-semi-nature of Frankenstein’s latest assistant:

To showcase Frye’s talents at lunacy and comedy, Whale combined two separate roles of the original script: Karl, ‘a bit of a village idiot,’ quoth the script, and Fritz, the ‘first ghoul’ who assists Pretorius, into simply Karl, who became both a village idiot and a ghoul and one of Frye’s most memorable performances .

Frankenstein’s Monster also became simply “Frankenstein” a lot sooner than it took the studio to acknowledge the maneuver via Basil Rathbone at the town railway station (please note: town also now apparently yclept “Frankenstein”) four years later. No one (that I’ve ever met, at any rate) ever raised an eyebrow over Henry Frankenstein’s having miraculously survived the climactic laboratory detonation that was set off by the jilted Monster (please ignore the long-shot to the contrary that somehow survived the final edit), or his subsequently making an honest woman of Elizabeth, or her bearing him a couple of sons, or his ending up a baron (the original script for the 1931 film had called for Frederick Kerr’s character to die of shock, thus passing the title down to Henry), or even that the “Henry” of the first two features turned out to be the “Heinrich” of the third .

Come that third – the Whale-less Son of Frankenstein of 1939 – and we learn that Heinrich und Elizabeth had a son, Wolf, who at some point married a redhead named Elsa, moved to the USA to teach at an American college, and had his own son, Peter. (The order in which these events occurred is of no importance.) Unlike his dad and grandfather (called plain old “Baron Frankenstein” in the 1931 film), Wolf goes by von Frankenstein, which can be translated of or from Frankenstein. Per our colleague, AllMovies.com reviewer Hans Wollstein, there’s a method to this morass:

If dear old Frederick Kerr’s character was a baron, then his son’s name should have been Heinrich, Baron von Frankenstein all along. Heinrich/Henry would have had his father’s family surname – which might well have been Müller or Schmidt – when he was CREATED Baron Frankenstein, at which point the “von” would then have been applied when spelled out. The title would have been awarded by the emperor, Wilhelm I, or his chancellor, Prince von Bismarck, and it would be in evidence from the costumes and setting.

Thus, God only knows what the family name of the baron and his progeny and their issue was “in reality.” If the men insisted on bearing the title that was evidently handed down from one generation to the next, they could wander about known only by it and their Christian name (Guten Tag!Ich bin Heinrich, Baron von Frankenstein!) Wolf either took a pass on the title (his brother, Ludwig – who gets embroiled in this mess in Ghost – didn’t toss his being a baron in anyone’s face, either) or adopted this short-cut en route to assimilating into the USA. A tempest in a teapot? Yessiree!, but we learn from that conductor’s timely interruption of Wolf’s diatribe that the eponymous terrain on which stand the family castle and old watch tower is a village large enough to be worthy of its own train station, grumbling populace, and hair-splitting Burgomeister: “We come to meet you, not to greet you!”

Again, there’s that bit of nonsense about just who is being touted in the picture’s title. Wolf is, of course, the son of Heinrich, “Maker of Monsters” (per the torch-inscribed snarl that someone managed to sneak in and scrawl onto his tomb); little Peter is the son of Wolf, and it is Peter’s precarious position (under the platform-shoe’d foot of the Monster) that leads his father to finally do something more action-oriented than playing darts. As for the Monster… well, Ygor’s intriguing insistence to Wolf that “Your father made him, and Heinrich Frankenstein was your father, too!” does little more than once again poke those viewers who had chuckled their way through the “Bride” kerfuffle some years earlier. (One of the kids with whom I formed a monster club a lifetime ago argued at the time – seriously, and not a little persuasively – that Karloff’s Monster in Son was the offspring of Karloff’s Monster from Bride, as the 1939 iteration was “not dressed” up in his trademark black suit, but instead “wore a sweatshirt.” So how, my old friend continued, could that Monster – the one kicked into the sulfur pit whilst accoutered in something akin to what we would now call a “fleece”-be the same Monster who was resurrected from the pit in The Ghost of Frankenstein ? We weren’t familiar with technical terms like “continuity in those days …)

Anyhow, with The Ghost of Frankenstein (why the “The” and why now?), we’re back at it; the
ambiguity has returned with this, the first ‘40s execution of a radically ‘30s concept. Ghost-wise, one
might opt for the ethereal Sir Cedric Hardwicke (transparent of figure and naked of scalp as
Henry/Heinrich) as he lays a guilt trip on the corporeal Sir Cedric Hardwicke (who is weighted down
with hair appliances) as Ludwig (no “von”) Frankenstein. Or one might take the low road and claim
that Chaney’s initial appearance onscreen as the Monster – covered with “dried sulfur” and as white as
any flour-dredged apparition in a Mantan Moreland comedy – gave him dibs on the meaning behind
the title. Discussions like this one are always fun, even if they seldom matter; as neat a shot as the
erstwhile House That Carl Built took in 1942, it was the very “Frankenstein” franchise that was but a
shade of its former self .

James Whale had bailed after the first sequel – and he hadn’t much wanted to do that one until
he was given assurance that his stylistic approach to the rest of Mary Shelley’s screed would be
welcomed – and fama erat it was he who had contrived to have the Monster blown to atoms to save
himself (and others) the trouble of yet another follow-up. Karloff had jumped ship after the second
sequel; in his opinion, his beloved Monster was rapidly becoming a stooge, a henchman. Although
only three films – quality outings, all – had been made, Boris felt that the integrity of the original
concept was being sacrificed to Mammon. The gentle Briton was enough of a realist to understand that
the undying Monster’s immortality was due to profitability, rather than to electricity or lightning, but
enough of an idealist to quit while he – and his immortal alter-ego – was ahead of the game.

For a while, the actor had gone AWOL from the industry itself. While the boys at Universal’s
publicity department were stirring up enough pap on the impending production to keep the trades and
the dailies happy, the Great White Way had taken Boris Karloff and all his boogeyman baggage to its
heart. Arsenic and Old Lace proved to be everything for the ‘40s-vintage actor that Frankenstein had
been for his younger self. Boris found that his reputation had preceded him, and that he could bring
down the house night after night by chalking up his latest murder to the victim’s unfortunate choice of
words: “He said that I looked like Boris Karloff!” The word was out that the actor did not mind
guying himself and was not at all upset about publicity pieces highlighting Jack Pierce’s famed makeup, those asphalt-spreaders boots, and/or even the unseen five-pound steel “spine” that the first film’s
publicity campaign claimed was “the rod which conveys the current up to the Monster’s brain.”

Back at the studio, of course, the bullshit was flying fast and furious. A glance at the stuff that Universal’s PR staff cranked out for The Ghost of Frankenstein makes one doubt – if not outright
disbelieve – anything he/she has ever heard about any of these films. The baloney stretched from the
news of the “search” (Zounds! Déjà vu, all over again!) for a successor to Karloff to Greg Mank’s
revelation of a “studio policy” that dictated which actors would always be seen in Frankenstein
movies: uncredited, perhaps, but still Lawrence Grant’s Burgomeister was back, as were Michael Mark
and Lionel Belmore as town councillors [sic] (despite their having been killed by the Monster in Son),
Dwight Frye as a villager, and even Colin Clive, via stock footage – he had died of a combination of
tuberculosis and alcoholism some five years earlier – as Henry/Heinrich Frankenstein’s
younger/handsomer self. In on the never-ending stream of absurdity came prefab and ludicrously
headlined pressbook articles like “Lon Chaney Appears as Monster in Horror Film” (as opposed to his
appearing as a monster in a comedy of manners or a Civil War drama). With the nonstop peddling of
blarney such as this, one might readily have come to the conclusion that Universal not only thought ten
or so to be the age of the average horror moviegoer, but also that ten might be on the high side of that
movie fan’s I.Q.

There’s probably more truth to that than any of us would care to admit. How old were my
colleagues and I – and I’d venture to ask the same of many of the readership – when we first fell under
the spell cast by Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, or any of the old horror movies we still embrace
so passionately? The TV fodder introduced by “Shock Theater” or “Son of Shock” at the end of the
‘50s had, in the ‘30s, been pitched to grownups; they offered offbeat takes on adult themes – life after
death, medical ethics, forbidden love, etc., etc., – and served them up in the company of grotesques
perfectly capable of scaring the drawers off the patrons. Come the ‘40s, and half the population was
either overseas fighting the war, or involved in the home front outfitting the war. No one needed
“adult” themes shoved down his or her throat, even if they were couched in greasepaint and putty;
wartime anxiety, death, and deprivation provided enough unwelcome fodder without any help from
Hollywood. Moviegoers were looking for escapism, and the grownups and the kids sought a breather
from Hitler and Hirohito in the company of Kharis and Frankenstein.

And The Ghost of Frankenstein didn’t just fill the bill back in April of ’42, it was – critics be damned – a hit. Wartime ticket-buyers were a different breed than the seat-warming populace looking
for a bit of relief from the Great Depression. The formula for most “B”-movies (please, let’s not get
unrealistic about Ghost) seemed to be that mood was fine and the plot important, but pacing was
everything. Especially in cases like this one – where most regular moviegoers knew the ongoing
details of the story backwards, forwards, and inside out – the picture could forego footage usually
devoted to exposition and cut right to the chase. (Would that the Son of Dracula crew had shared a
beer with Ghost of Frankenstein’s.)

Many fans regard this picture as being the last “solo” appearance of the Monster. Heck, I
maintain that that pitiable giant figure was never able to get by without his support system of mad
scientists, deformed/demented assistants, and the like – all of whom would be in on the official count
of monsters come the publicity campaigns for the House(s) of Frankenstein and Dracula a couple of
years down the road. The box office receipts in 1931 had assured that Henry Frankenstein’s problem
child would become far too profitable for him to handle only once and far too risky for him to handle
alone. Still, as the Monster returned for each successive misadventure, he became encumbered with
extra weight that may have added dimension to the ongoing saga, but also robbed it of its innocence
and purity.

Ghost was hardly a solo venture. Beginning with Son of Frankenstein, the Monster had been
terrorizing the countryside, so to speak, under the influence of an evil genius – Ygor. In the first two
films, Whale and Karloff crafted a Monster who was adept enough to tell right from wrong, to rescue
an innocent from drowning after having inadvertently drowned another, to relish the moments of
friendship and camaraderie with a person unable to judge a book by its cover, and so on and so forth.
In Son, the Monster came to rely, almost blindly, on his broken-necked friend and to lash out at the
most innocent of the assemblage (Peter) following Ygor’s death. Here, Chaney’s Monster – whose
capacity for recognition (Ludwig at first, Cloestine later) is the most human of his virtues and for
whom loyalty and friendship ultimately play no part – ignores, betrays, and finally kills his broken-necked comrade. With Lon under the makeup, no spark that might temper the supercharged Monster
can be seen; none of the sensitivity of his predecessor – the originator of the role – survived the
transition. While Ghost’s Monster latched onto a child, there was none of the childlike spark that
permeated his predecessor’s take on the role. Karloff, by far the more cerebral of the two actors, gave
us presence; Chaney, by far the more physical of the two, gave us volume.

Universal Horrors does a grand job of summing up the early aberrations of the script which
the eponymous MagicImage Film Book volume includes in toto, so there’s little point into going into
that here. Yet for all the effort at innovation – its new Monster, the new Frankensteins, and (save for the Messrs. Grant,Mark,Belmore,et al) the new villagers- Ghost is mired in a lot of same old same old.

Take the “fly in the ointment” wrinkle: from its inception, the cinematic Frankenstein success
story included an element of surprise, both logical and unpredictable, which had led to a cocking up of
the initial game plan. In 1931, the fly had been Fritz’s sneaky-ass substitution of the abnormal brain
for the good one; this, (we were told) led to the Monster’s propensity to lash out violently whenever he
was being whipped or seared with a torch. Bride’s fly was the woman; if the rallying cry of most men
is “You can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them,” just who did the Monster think he was?
More importantly, why would Henry Frankenstein imagine even for a moment that an old queen like
Pretorius could concoct a female who would soothe the Monster’s troubled breast? In Son, Wolf (like
the Monster) falls victim to Ygor’s mind-games and the loopy grandeur of the family residence; the
resultant misguided drive to restore his father’s good name leads to his firing up the furnaces once
again. (By comparison, the incredible 180 Frank Mannering pulls in 1943’s Frankenstein Meets the
Wolf Man is a total misfire. Even though his veins are completely free of Frankenstein blood, and he’s
strengthened by the resolve of yet another [and curvier] Elsa [who’s standing close by his side],
Mannering opts for the dark side only because, if someone doesn’t do something fast, the bell will ring
and the audience will have to go home.)

Here, we have more wrinkles than Ayesha after that second fire. The Monster’s all for the
transplant, but wants the brain of Cloestine (where do they get these names?) to sleep over forever.
Ygor, the sly devil, plots to have his own noodle plopped into that square skull, as he can see where
this would ease his way into prestige, power, and some real money. Dr. Bohmer, who at first doesn’t
seem to do much other than hang around in his smock and suffer Ludwig Frankenstein’s thoughtless
and insensitive comments, is lulled as much by a desire to marry his fist to Ludwig’s stiff upper lip as
he is by Ygor’s silver tongue. Even with all this slumgullion boiling on the fire, one knows that the
chances of Dr. Kettering’s brain making it into the Monster’s rigging start at zero and go down from
there.

<The Monster wonders how someone else got Wolf Frankenstein’s jacket >

Another leftover from earlier installments has already been brought up for consideration: the
Monster’s best suit. This – the absence of which in Son had sent Boris Karloff into rounds of
kvetching (about “furs and muck”) that were not at all like him – was accepted with not so much as the
blink of an eye upon its reappearance. Karloff had been right; the Monster’s Sunday best was part of
the larger picture, as closely interwoven in the Frankenstein mythos as the Wolf Man’s work clothes
and Dracula’s ever-crisp soup and fish were essential to their respective personas. The restoration of
the basic black ensemble and its presence throughout the rest of the Universal canon only made the furry miscalculation in Son seem more of a head-scratcher than it had been originally.

Bela’s Ygor is a sight for sore eyes. Happily as resistant to small-arms fire as had been George
Zucco’s Andoheb, the remarkably resilient high priest in the Kharis series, Ygor is hale, hearty, and –
if an apparent good scrubbing and the periodontal work is any indication – in better shape than he was
in the earlier feature. Along with his appearance, Ygor’s goals have been ratcheted up; ridding the
village of old nuisances is no longer a pastime worthy of his attention. The crafty old blacksmith’s
master plan now encompasses taking over the entire country! While this might be biting off more than
any one man (or Monster) can chew, Ygor’s yodeling away that he now possesses “the strength of a
hundred men” is a picture of megalomania unrivaled since Boris Karloff’s less exuberant but equally
daft claims in Mask of Fu Manchu.

(And yet you have to wonder if, indeed, the Monster did grow stronger with each successive
picture. In the first, Heinrich and the elderly Dr. Waldman [along with a hypodermic needle and a
bludgeon] managed to wrestle him to the floor. Bride witnessed him being tied down and carried off –
semi-crucified – by a mere dozen or so yokels, while in Son, a bit of momentum behind a well-placed
kick was all it took to topple the Monster from his pins. Still, this sudden blossoming of superhuman
power in the Monster’s mighty arms may exist only in Ygor’s feverish [and transplanted] mind; the
only other times we hear of such outlandish claims are in the excised scenes between a gabby Ygor-cum-Monster and Larry Talbot in Ghost’s own son, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.)

Ghost marks the first time since Frankenstein that brains are bandied about like wholesale
commodities, but the idea here seems particularly apt. You could watch any of Karloff’s three
performances and see his Monster turning over thoughts and ideas in his mind. Even in Son (wherein
Ygor does most of the mental heavy-lifting for the pair), his acceding to his partner’s decisions is
visible. With the vintage-1942 Monster bearing inscrutable and near-frozen features, there is very little
indication as to whether the lights are on upstairs and if, indeed, anyone is home. A new brain is
clearly called for, but the plethora of available raw materials not only skirts the edge of risibility, but
also foreshadows the “monster rally” sequels wherein frenetic brain-swapping would prove a plague
on both houses.

So long as you don’t require much humanity amid the horrors and can get past his perpetual
squint and scowl, Lon Chaney is not too bad as the Monster. His attachment to Cloestine is obviously
meant to reflect the Karloffian viewpoint where children were concerned, but no more perfect image of
the depths to which this concept had sunk can be had than the still whereon a stiff-limbed Eddie Parker
(doubling for Chaney), clutching a wooden stand-in for Janet Ann Gallow, has just sent a buttocks-grabbing stuntman plunging to his out-of-frame mats. The childlike confusion on the Monster’s part
that resulted in little Maria’s being tossed into the river had given way to slick contrivance. And again,
as Chaney’s Monster offers no other sign of fidelity and is evidently capable of turning his rage toward
anyone who stands in his way (including his old goombah, Ygor), no assurance is had that the brute
might not dropkick the little girl 100 yards or so down the road if someone else were to become the
apple of his eye. After all, Dr. Kettering is killed without so much as a second – or any – thought
(although the impulsive action does free up a brain for future use); killing is what monsters do best,
and Chaney’s giant is – first, last, and always – a monster.

The rest of the dramatis personae are fine – they almost always are in the Frankenstein series.
Sir Cedric Hardwicke’s cool and imperturbable Ludwig is an interesting sibling to Basil Rathbone’s
near-frantic Wolf, albeit the latter’s fairly constant state of near-hysteria makes him much more a chip
off the old Heinrich than his younger brother. Ralph Bellamy does better by Erik Ernst than he did by
Captain Montford in The Wolf Man, but this may be due to W. Scott Darling and Eric Taylor’s
screenplay providing him with a more well-delineated part; said screenplay also gives the delectable
Evelyn Ankers to him this time ‘round. Miss Ankers, in a role that’s essentially interchangeable with
that of Gwen Conliffe in The Wolf Man, takes another step toward her accession of the title of ’40s
Scream Queen. And Lionel Atwill is as enjoyable in his quieter moments (as when he’s glaring
daggers while Ludwig runs off at the mouth at Bohmer’s expense) as he is in his premature snarl of
triumph in the last reel.

Having all but snatched Son of Frankenstein away from Boris and Basil a couple of years
earlier, Bela’s copping the honors in Ghost must have been a walk in the park for him. With Chaney
portraying an unpredictable automaton, Bela runs the show, not realizing – until it’s too late – that
although the Monster can recognize Ludwig Frankenstein (whom he has never met), he will fail to
consider Ygor’s place in his heart while crushing the old boy behind the laboratory door. More so here
than in Son, Lugosi’s blacksmith has to shift gears constantly; here, he goes from being the guy in the
driver’s seat to the victim of his erstwhile friend’s petulance before being back (albeit quite briefly) on
top of the world. Performance-wise, Bela is in command every step of the way, and had Chaney
happened to glance sideways even once through those slits he used for eyes, he’d have learned more in
a moment from Lugosi than he’d cadged from Erle C. Kenton during the entire 25-day shoot.

dir Earle C Kenton

Not up to the snuff introduced back in the ‘30s, The Ghost of Frankenstein was just fine, thank
you, for the tastes of the next decade. Hans J. Salter’s pulsating score keyed the film’s more ominous
moments, and both Woody Bredell and Milton Krasner performed the kind of visual magic in which
Universal’s cinematographers were known to excel. (If the puffs in their respective press-books were
meant to be taken – ahem! – at face value, the 1931 Monster stood seven feet tall, while Chaney’s
goblin was merely six foot, nine. Nonetheless, this very minor discrepancy might explain why James
Whale had Arthur Edeson’s camera capture the Monster head-on, while Erle C. Kenton had Krasner
and Bredell constantly aim the lens up at the shorter of the giants. The following year, George
Robinson – tasked with making Lugosi’s Monster as threatening as Eddie Parker’s [or even Gil
Perkins’] in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, had to contend with changes in perspective in almost
every scene.)

The New York Times’s Bosley Crowther – who never seemed to like much very much – ended
his rather tepid review with an act of prognostication that was hardly a foregone conclusion in 1942:
To be sure, the replenished monster is being consumed by fire when we see him last, but the
thought that he may yet return for further adventures with his body and Lugosi’s sconce fills us with
mortal terror. That is the most fearful prospect which the picture manages to convey.
-4 April, 1942

Richard L. Coe, assigned the picture as part of his responsibilities at The Washington Post, took
a somewhat unusual approach to informing his readership of the film’s story line:
This morning we will discuss the love life of your old friend ‘Frankenstein,’ the monster
who’s assumed, in the course of years, the name of his creator. This titivating subject has been raised
on the Pix screen of ‘The Ghost of Frankenstein,’ a yarn employing, uh, should we say, talents of Sir
Cedric Hardwicke, Lon Chaney, Jr., Lionel Atwill, and Bela Lugosi. But, of course, by now you’re
palpitating for further details of this beguiling passion – what’s she like, is she pretty, how big is she?

The “beguiling passion” mentioned in this 1 May 1942 appreciation of the picture turns out to
be Janet Ann Gallow’s Cloestine, and Coe – after averring that “Bela Lugosi becomes the town’s
philosopher, a sort of perverted Frank Craven” – concludes with “… there are other things you can read
in this morning’s paper, so we’ll let you go now.” Earlier that year, on the 25 March, the Los Angeles
Times’ Philip K. Scheuer tersely opined that “It’s a spooky movie, all right, in the best Universal
manner and fairly ingenious. At the close the monster goes down in flames again – but that doesn’t
fool us for a minute. He’ll be back, girls; he’ll be back. Grr.” Yet another prediction, but one that was
ultimately less impressive than Bosley Crowther’s.

A fast paced, atmospheric romp through familiar countryside, The Ghost of Frankenstein might
well be the next logical step to Boris Karloff’s well-stated fear: the Monster as henchman. Pretty much
a callow bully here, he had moved from a date that went tragically wrong to finding a homey with
whom to hang to palling around with little kids, all the while being manipulated by those who claimed
to act in his – and science’s – best interests. No offense is intended in calling the picture an excellent
journeyman effort, albeit the lack of a master’s touch is obvious and lamentable. The Monster and the
franchise could – and would – do worse.

The Ghost of Frankenstein – 13 March 1942 – 67 minutes (SoS)
CAST: Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Dr. Ludwig Frankenstein; Lon Chaney as The Monster; Ralph
Bellamy as Erik Ernst; Lionel Atwill as Dr. Theodor Bohmer; Bela Lugosi as Ygor; Evelyn Ankers as
Elsa Frankenstein; Janet Ann Gallow as Cloestine Hussman; Barton Yarborough as Dr. Kettering; Olaf
Hytten as Hussman; Doris Lloyd as Martha; Leyland Hodgson as Chief Constable; Holmes Herbert as
Magistrate; Lawrence Grant as Mayor; Brandon Hurst as Hans; Otto Hoffman & Dwight Frye as
Villagers; Julius Tannen as Sektal; Lionel Belmore & Michael Mark as Councillors; Harry Cording as
Frone; Dick Alexander as Vision; Ernie Stanton & George Eldredge as Constables; Jimmy Phillips as
Indian; Eddie Parker – stunts

CREDITS: Producer: George Waggner; Director: Erle C. Kenton; Screenplay: W. Scott Darling;
Original Story by Eric Taylor; Directors of Photography: Milton Krasner and Elwood Bredell; Art
Director: Jack Otterson; Associate Art Director: Harold H. MacArthur; Film Editor: Ted Kent; Musical
Director: Hans J. Salter; Set Decoration: Russell A. Gausman; Sound Director: Bernard B. Brown;
Technician: Charles Carroll; Assistant Director: Charles S. Gould; Makeup: Jack P. Pierce; Gowns:
Vera West

• JTS

Riccardo Freda: The Life and Works of a Born Filmmaker

Riccardo Freda: The Life and Works of a Born Filmmaker
Roberto Curti Price: $45.00 40 photos, notes, filmography, bibliography, index
376pp. softcover (7 x 10)McFarland  2017                                                http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/book-2.php?id=978-1-4766-6970-0

Like many American film fans, my knowledge of director Ricardo Freda was mostly limited to his
Horror films I Vampiri /THE DEVIL’S COMMANDMENT (Titanus,1957),Caltiki il mostro immortale /CALTIKI,THE IMMORTAL MONSTER(Lux,1959),L’orrible segreto del Dr. Hichcock /THE HORRIBLE DOCTOR HITCHCOCK(Panda,1962) and Lo specttro /THE GHOST (Panda,1963).

• However, Freda had a career in cinema that lasted from 1937 (Lasciate ogni speranza /LEAVE ALL HOPE ,Juventus Film) until 1994 (La fille de d’Artagnan /REVENGE OF THE MUSKETEERS ,Canal+ )starting and ending his career as a writer.
•

• Writer Roberto Curti of Cortona Italy has done a remarkable job tracking down an amazing amount of information on Freda’s life and career.His love for the subject comes though with his very detailed synopses of these rarely seen (outside of certain countries), providing the history behind many of them, production facts, and their success or failure in various territories as well as changes made to them .

• Curti uses Freda’s memoir Divoratori di celluloide (Emme Edizioni (1981),164 pages)as a starting point ,but also researching though film magazines and newspapers from several countries, as well as tracking down and watching the titles from the director’s long career. Curti points out that the director could often be petty and recall incidents that might not always match the facts.Curti’s interviews and research sometimes contradicts what Freda put into his book.

• Still ,the Egyptian born Italian director lived La Dolce Vita, being an extravagant personal spender and gambler as well as womanizer. It is ironic that he despised films like Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (Riama,1960) as well as the entire neo-realist movement of films like Ladri di biciclette/THE BICYCLE THIEF(Ente Nazionale,1948).

He was more a storyteller who felt that film should be escapist,and take us out of reality. Not only did he have those skills, he was also able to make limited budgets look richer than they were, due to his understanding of film editing and camera placement ,as well as working with innovators like the great Mario Bava. Indeed, the short tempered Freda walked off the set of a I Vampiri ,leavinng it to be  finished by Bava. We see throughout the book that Freda had a habit of walking off set, much to the detriment of his films and career.  I Vampiri has an important place in Italian horror films ,as it was the country’s first true sound horror film (the first Italian horror film may have been Il monstro di Frankenstein(1920) a now sadly lost silent picture).

Freda had prior to I Vampiri had done a lot of regional comedies ( he cared little for the comics in many of his films ,but put in many physical gags inspired by the likes of Buster Keaton ,historical dramas and swashbucklers . Indeed ,his love of classic novels and adventure tales seemed to have merged into Caccia all’umo /LES MISERABLES( Lux,1952) ,making it more of an action thriller!

His swashbucklers seemed to have broken new ground in storytelling in Italy, being more inspired by American filmmakers than the home grown artisans. His love of tracking shots to get a lot of detail within a long take was developed during this period .Having reviewed the Italian historical drama La cena delle beffe / THE JESTER’s SUPPER* (Società Italiana Cines,1942 ,not by Freda, but by a contemporary),I would love to see more these  rarely motion pictures                (see review at https://scarletthefilmmagazine.wordpress.com/2017/05/07/the-jesters-supper-dvd/ ) .

Freda also was one of the first to leap into the sword and sandal films ,even telling an earlier version of the tale of SPARTACUS(Spartaco(API,1953),released in the U.S. by RKO as SINS OF ROME ). He hopped from genre to genre with various budgets and varying success. Comedy (at which he seemed to have a lot of success),drama ,spy thrillers ,Krimi( he faced off and WON against the antagonistic Klaus Kinski) ,swashbucklers,historicals, and of course horror.

His indifference to some parts of the movies he made show with some sloppy work (in ROGER LA HONTE( Comptoir Francais du Film Production ,1966,one of his later films with a decent budget, he allows a major stunt to show clearly that a “woman” passenger is actually a stunt man since his trousers are clearly visible ),as well as his indifference to actors (he was notorious for using doubles when actors gave him any grief). Yet in staging ,he often surpassed the budget with strong imagery and tracking shots that convey a lot of information .Plus several actors who worked with him praised the director .

Curti’s book makes me want to revisit several of Freda’s films and seek out some of his rarities. Curti has done what any film researcher should do, and that is evaluate and place into historical context the work of the subject.

McFarland is to be commended once again for putting out such a detailed volume about a filmmaker not as well known as perhaps he should be. Each film has b&w illustrations of the film posters or on set photographs, The graphics are sharp and easy to see.

This is a MUST HAVE for lovers of film, especially for those who love Euro-Cinema.

Highly Recommended.

–Kevin G Shinnick

 

                  "Acquista il libro o ti farò del male ..."

ANY WAY I CAN: 50 YEARS IN SHOW BUSINESS by John Gay with Jennifer Gay Summers

SCARLET THE FILM MAGAZINE BOOK REVIEW

ANY WAY I CAN: 50 YEARS IN SHOW BUSINESS by John Gay with Jennifer Gay Summers

$19.95 BEAR MANOR MEDIA 240 pages

Available via

http://www.jennifergaysummers.com/book.php

or
Available at BEAR MANOR MEDIA

 http://www.bearmanormedia.com/any-way-i-can-50-years-in-show-business-by-john-gay-with-jennifer-gay-summers

Many people know the actors who star in their favorite shows and movies, and others know the directors. The person who is most forgotten is the writer, the person who basically creates the world in which the stories take place.

One of these artists is screen, teleplay, and stage play writer John Gay. Now Mr. Gay, with the assist of one of his children, daughter Jennifer Gay Summers, has put out his autobiography.

 

And what a fascinating life it is. The California born Mr. Gay talks about the lure of acting and how it drew him across country (after serving our country in WWII ) to become an actor. Working in summer stock, he soon gained a great deal of experience as well as meeting his partner and wife Barbara “Bobbie” Meyer.

Venturing to New York, their attempts at gaining acting work led them to entering the new media of television ,broadcasting live several nights a week from the top of the New Amsterdam Theatre (the former home of the Ziegfeld Follies and now the House of Mouse where the hit musical ALADDIN currently resides).

 

The show, APARTMENT 3C had only two actors (the husband and wife team) and due to the low budgets, Gay had to also write the shows himself! The program became the second show broadcast from fledgling station WOR in 1949. A modest hit, it gave John Gay not only an extra avenue for revenue but a career for which he would greatly excel.

Their second show ,MR & MRS MYSTERY had a larger budget (they were allowed to hire other actors ) and Mr. Gay was able to parlay those into other writing assignments for the Golden Age of Television (KRAFT TELEVISON THEATRE ,PLAYHOUSE 90 )and crossing paths with such greats as Rod Sterling and Sidney Lumet.

 

His first screenwriting assignment was for the Burt Lancaster /Clark Gable submarine drama RUN SILENT RUN DEEP (1958/UA). His second screenplay earned him an Oscar nomination (along with co-writer Terrence Rattigan) for SEPARATE TABLES (1958/UA).

 

From there he was now a full-fledged screenwriter, working with the likes of Vincente Minnelli (twice, neither of which were happy experiences) as well as actors like Rod Steiger (twice, in two gems well worth seeking out (NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY (1968 Paramount) and HENNESSY (AIP 1976)) and Paul Newman (SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION 1971/Universal).

 

He nearly worked with science fiction great Ray Bradbury on the troubled production of WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART, which remained unmade until Clint Eastwood and different writers turned it in a feature.

In the 1970s, when television really began turning out movies of the week and adaptations of classics, Mr. Gay seemed to have been involved with almost every great production. Many of my well-remembered favorites had a title mentioning John Gay as the Adaptor or Teleplay By credit. KILL ME IF YOU CAN (NBC,1977) had Alan Alda embody killer Caryl Chessman ; Anthony Hopkins as THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (CBS HALLMARK ,1982) ; LES MISERABLES (CBS HALLMARK 1978) and so many others. Plus he did superior TV remakes of mystery classics DIAL M FOR MURDER (ABC, 1981) WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (CBS HALLMARK 1982), and SHADOW OF A DOUBT (NBC HALLMARK 1991). The list goes on and on .

 

 

He took his skill as a story teller to the stage, having VINCENT PRICE remind people what a brilliant and versatile actor he truly was in DIVERSIONS & DELIGHTS, a play about Oscar Wilde. Price took the play all over the world, doing well everywhere but NYC (when the New York Times critics could still kill a show).

Mr. Gay is a wonderful writer, telling his life story with wit, good grace and honesty. Indeed, it is one of the few books that I have read lately that I wish had been longer (Mr. Gay dismisses his work on the troubled George Pal science fiction film THE POWER (MGM, 1968) with just a line or two).

Having turned 92 this past April,2016 , we are pleased that he and his daughter have shared his wonderful story with us. I have been careful not to give too much away so that you can discover the wonderful life of John Gay within the pages of ANY WAY I CAN.

 

RECOMMENDED.

–Kevin G Shinnick

Full Disclosure: I have been in contact with the author and his charming daughter for several years now as I attempted and finally successfully directed the first NYC Equity Production of DIVERSIONS & DELIGHTS in 35 years. The chapters 40 and 43 deal with this wonderful gem of a play.

originally published March 30,2015  SCARLET THE FILM MAGAZINE Facebook page

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SCIENCE FICTION MADE ME A LIBERAL

 SCIENCE FICTION MADE ME A LIBERAL

With the current election cycle finally winding down, I look forward to the end of all the toxic attitudes and comments from all sides of the political spectrum.

 
What has for me personally been a surprise has been the vitriol aimed at those of the Liberal attitude from many within the horror and science fiction community. I am not so foolish as to think everyone who shares a mutual interest in a subject to lock step politically, though it is interesting that while we share a mutual joy in these subjects, that we take away different conclusions from them.

 
Being a small kid in the Bronx with a stutter and a strong Bronx accent, I always felt like an “outsider”. Then when I was very young, visiting relatives in Ireland, my older brother took me to the movies. The first movies that I ever saw on the big screen were FRANKENSTEIN (1931, Universal) and CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (Hammer,1957).

Mind you, this was in the early 1960s, but cinemas  would sometimes pair older films and show them . Now I was terrified by both films (and indeed my brother & I were tossed out of the theatre because I was screaming so hard when Christopher Lee tore off his facial bandages), but I felt a certain sadness for the creatures too, and I was unknowingly hooked. Peter Cushing popped up in several other films and I was impressed by him as a performer and I began to get the idea that I would like to be an actor.

 

 

 

I found myself drawn to works by horror,science fiction and fantasy writers. In the era before the internet or home computers, one had to go to the library and research when one didn’t understand certain things. Due to the references of certain eras ,countries, etc,I would go to the library and read books on history ,politics ,and various topics . Rather than being bored I found that it enriched my appreciation of the stories that I read, and the world in general. While others in school were struggling with THE CAT IN THE HAT, I was reading histories of the Middle Ages so I would have a better understanding of the world of “The Pit & The Pendulum” .

 

 

 

 

Now hooked to fantasy /horror films, I recall that on television they had an ad on the old WOR-TV (Channel 9) in NYC. “Ghosts, murder, Regicide” intoned the unseen announcer as black and white images flew by the screen. I didn’t know what regicide was, but ghosts and murder were what I wanted to see.

At the appointed hour, I tuned on the t.v., and turned the knob to the channel. The film was Laurence Olivier’s HAMLET (RANK,1948). It looked like a horror film with its fog and moody photography (and heck at the end there was Peter Cushing as  Osiric) but there was something more to the film. I didn’t understand all that was said, but I knew I wanted to speak like that. At the end, I was in tears, and knew that:
1-I wanted to be an actor
2-I wanted to speak like the people in the film and learn more about this “Shakespeare” guy who wrote it.

 

So, I would listen to recordings by Olivier, Gielgud, and others reading the works of the Bard (thank you Caedmon records) and it helped me develop my speaking voice and my confidence. It also got me beaten up a bit (no one likes a pseudo British accent, especially under ten-year-old bullies), but I found too the writings of this man from 350 years earlier spoke to me of the human condition. “Hath not a Jew Eyes? “A speech that showed that people may pray differently, but in essence we were all of humans.

 
An amazing speech too in that there were very few Jews in the country at the time, and in a play, that in the end, the Merchant is forced to renounce his faith, in effect destroying what defined him. A complex ending to be sure. That earlier speech lifted Shylock from being the Hebrew of anti-Semitic tracts into a human being with flaws. Othello was a great general, had even saved the city and yet suffered prejudice due to the color of his skin. Again, there were few blacks in England in Shakespeare’s time, and xenophobia was quite strong, so that Shakespeare created a rounded human being (who even had flaws, suffering from epileptic fits, etc) from someone who was different speaks volumes.

 
Plus, when women were little more than property, he wrote such wonderful parts about them and for them, though it was illegal for women to PLAY them. The first English woman to legally do so was Margaret Hughes, December 8,1660 as Desdemona, ironically in “The Moor of Venice” (a reworking of Othello).

 
Through Shakespeare I discovered the idea of trying to understand others. Shakespeare and horror films also developed my love of storytelling as well as the joy of reading and discovery of ideas.
Science fiction writers like George Orwell challenged acceptance of society without question, and that sometimes things were not always what they seemed. ‘1984” Orwellian double speak now lives on in Fox News as well as politicians who constantly deny facts if it stands in the way of their political agenda. Sadly, many seem ready to accept their outrageous claims as “double plus good”. Back in the 1960s, though, we were engrossed in a foreign war that was not what we told it was for, and indeed the ideals were dropped as the conflict continued. Plus, at the time, social injustices and women’s liberation were also issues that threatened the fabric of the country. Science fiction, for a young teenager was a way of trying to understand these complex issues.

The idea of controlling the media and what we can and cannot read was a reality in many dictatorships, but also within our own country narrow minded people wanted to ban the likes of ROMEO & JULIET, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, and many other works. Why? Because they made us question the status quo. Controlling thought in “1984” and Ray Bradbury’s ‘FAHRENHEIT 451 “reflected a society where that happens, and again Orwell predicted flooding the media with info that they wanted, and acting as if previous facts didn’t exist.

Television and movies also had a strong effect on shaping my opinions and beliefs.

 

The earliest influence that I can think of is Rod Serling’s TWILIGHT ZONE. Serling tried through his various brilliant television dramas to illuminate the human condition Unfortunately, he ran up against censorship from both the networks as well as the advertisers. In one of his political dramas he was forbidden to have his politicians comment on current events to avoid the appearance of siding with one side or the other.

Wanting to discuss social injustice, racism, and other injustices, he felt that only way to do that was to disguise his tales as fantasies, using the allegories to discuss otherwise taboo issues. Maintaining creative control, he was one of the first to explore the idea of people seeing only the superficial rather the person within (EYE OF THE BEHOLDER, NUMBER 7 LOOKS JUST LIKE YOU), bigotry and hate (I AM THE NIGHT-COLOR ME BLACK) and other social issues.

 

 

Probably the biggest influence on me was STAR TREK. The show showed a multinational multicultural crew working together to deal with new life forms and issues that reflected items within our own society. Yes, they had women in miniskirts, but that was more the demands of the era than the ideals of the series.

Looking back now 50 years on, it is easy to point out the flaws of the show, but one must remember that every step forward starts with a small victory, and that it doesn’t happen overnight.

 

The show also dealt with the issue of overpopulation (MARK OF GIDEON), racism (LET THIS BE YOUR LAST BATTLEFIELD), mutual assured destruction (A TASTE OF ARMAGEDDON) and many other issues of the time.

 

The thing that most appealed to me about STAR TREK is that it offered a possibility of a future for mankind. That somehow we would survive the constant threats that promised the destruction of our society and possibility the entire planet.

 

It reflected the possibilities offered by Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Both were murdered by narrow minds but they left with us the baton to fulfill the dream that they proposed as well as the ideals that Gene Roddenberry’s series gave us in his “Wagon Train to The Stars”.

 

Little did I know, but these shows and books influenced my world overview. I like to think of the possibility that we as a planet and humans can accomplish, to help other people and not be xenophobic, to respect difference and learn from them, to protect the planet over profit.

 

There are those who live in fear and they become more conservative as they do not understand change, while there are those who look in wonder of the possibilities of our future.

 

Yes, SCIENCE FICTION made me into a LIBERAL, and I am very grateful.

–Kevin G Shinnick

ROCK ‘N’ROLL MONSTERS: THE AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL STORY

ROCK ‘N’ROLL MONSTERS: THE AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL STORY by Bruce Hallenbeck (Hemlock Books) paperback pages 280 published August ,2016

U.K. £16.25 http://www.hemlockbooks.co.uk/Shop/category/7
U.S.: $47.85   https://www.amazon.com/Rock-Roll-Monsters-American-International/dp/0993398936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477073892&sr=8-1&keywords=rock+n+roll+monsters

Author /film historian Bruce Hallenbeck has published another must have book for lovers of movies. After giving us wonderful books on many of the British companies Amicus and Hammer, Bruce Hallenbeck turns his focus on the little upstart company that grew and challenged the majors in areas where they could not or did not compete. American International Pictures finally began to become a major, only to find that the other studios were now churning out higher end versions of the type of movies that AIP had done, and so the studio vanished into corporate buyouts after 26 years.

AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL PICTURES began when studios began to lose audiences to television. Small independent producers began to create their own films outside the studio system after the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 US 131 (1948) forced theatres to divest themselves from owning theatres and keeping out other producers.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Monsters: The American International Story is a 2016 book by Bruce G Hallenbeck (The Amicus Anthology; The Hammer Frankenstein; The Hammer Vampire), published by British-based Hemlock Books.
In the early 1950s, the traditional American film industry was facing a crisis due to one thing: television. Two men from totally different backgrounds pooled their talents and tapped into the burgeoning ‘teenage’ market, and American International Pictures was born.

Founded by James H. Nicholson, a fantasy /science fiction horror fan (he had known Forrest J Ackerman since High School and had even published an early fanzine together) who had worked his way through the industry up to writing campaigns for Realart’s re-releases of Universal horror classics.

When Realart distributed MAN MADE MONSTER (Universal,1941) under the title ATOMIC MONSTER*, producer Alex Gordon had a script with the same title, he sought a legal settlement. The lawyer he brought had been seeking an entrance into film production by the name of Samuel Z. Arkoff. Arkoff got Gordon a $500 settlement but more important the three men all hit it off with their similar love of making movies. In a strange way, Universal had created a monster that rose to challenge their status as a maker of creature features.
Nicholson and Arkoff sought completed product to start their new company. They had tested the waters with a small documentary in 1953 called OPERATION MALAYA released by their company AMERICAN RELEASING CORPORATION. **     The man credited as producer on that film also became an important component to the company’s development, Herman Cohen.

However, the company had its first real success when they met the filmmaker who made them a viable entity, Roger Corman. The filmmaker had a film called THE FAST & THE FURIOUS (1954, released nationally in 1955). He had been thinking of having another studio distribute his film, but after being taken around by Nicholson to the various sub distributors, he was so impressed that he decided to take a chance with the new company.

With borrowed money to keep the doors open, the film became profitable enough that company was off and running. The studio was also smart enough to capitalize on a market that the major studios were neglecting, teenagers.

While many of their early films starred older performers, as the company developed, younger actors took the spotlight and became the heroes and heroines. Young audiences responded with their newly available dollars.
As the 1960s began, the studios moved into more expensive productions, and made Edgar Allan Poe a hot property.
Bruce Hallenbeck tells the story of the studio with clarity and affection, and has done a lot of research. His choice of mostly British lobby cards is most welcome to an American fan of the genre such as myself.

Towards the final portion of the book, there is a sense of rushing to the end. That may be because of editorial choices wishing to keep the book under the mass of a Stephen King novel. One wishes that the author had been allowed to expand his research into two books, as there is a very rich history. Also, except for a few brief references, Nicholson’s contribution to the success of the company is often overlooked and Arkoff’s a bit overblown. Several people felt that Nicholson was the creative force behind the studio, and several of the artists disliked dealing with the crude Arkoff.

That said, the book, like all of Hallenbeck’s studio studies as well as Hemlock Books, is definitely worth picking up.
Recommended.
-Kevin G Shinnick

 
*-This was a script that Alex Gordon had co-written with Ed Wood that was also known as ‘Bride of The Atom” before finally being titled BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1955, released through Banner Productions, oddly, not ARC / A.I.P.)

**-if you were not a major company, you had your film distributed by several small regional sub distributors.

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FASCINATION The Celluloid Dreams Of Jean Rollin

FASCINATION
The Celluloid Dreams Of Jean Rollin (paperback, HeadPress) 268 Pages.

http://www.headpress.com/ShowProduct.aspx?ID=143 £15.99
In the U.S.:
https://www.amazon.com/Fascination-Celluloid-Dreams-Jean-Rollin/dp/1909394238/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469925570&sr=1-4&keywords=fascination    $19.99

Jean Rollin was a surrealist filmmaker who became identified with the horror genre. While his films do indeed deal with vampires and the undead in various forms, they also have a lyrical dreamlike quality with imagery that would make Bunuel (with whom he once almost worked) proud. A vampire comes out of a grandfather clock forever frozen at midnight, a woman plays piano within a cemetery, recurring images of figures isolated on an empty beach, these are some of the haunting sights that are mixed in with a sense of loneliness for the preternatural figures within the films.

Before big budget films like INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE (WB,1994), Rollin was mixing poetry, beauty along with violence and the need to kill the one you love to survive. Sadly, due to the violent reaction to his first full length feature*, Le Viol du Vampire (RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE, Les Films/ABC,1967), his films were considered not worth proper study and failed as both art house films as well as horror. Considering that that first feature was actually two separate films put together, the duality of his films (both art and horror, the use of twins, lookalikes, and parallel storylines) seemed organic for most of the remainder of his career.

I first heard of Rollin when I saw a full color photo of his wild poster for his third film, Le Frisson des Vampires/THE SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES (Les Films/1970). It was a wild image, sexy, art deco-ish, and different from most of the film posters that I had ever seen before. I recall that at the time the book was dismissive of Rollin’s films, calling them dull.

The first of his films that I actually saw was in a cut and poorly dubbed VHS release bowdlerization of his Requiem pour un Vampire/REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE(Les Films,1971) called CAGED VIRGINS (Boxoffice International Pictures (1973) shorn from 95 minutes to 65) . The dubbing I recall seemed very sloppy and made the film feel very cheap. The choppy editing to get to the good stuff (i.e. sex) also made the film seem like a cheapo horror.

Due to his films suffering from poor distribution, Rollin was forced to go into making porno films. It must have been maddening to him that these cheaply made films were better distributed and more financially successful than his personal projects.

However, it did give him connections, among them finding the beautiful Brigitte Lahaie, an adult film actress with great screen presence who was featured in several of his later films, to the advantage of both. Due to her popularity, people sought out any film that she was in, including Rollin’s work. Their best collaboration was the film FASCINATION (Comex/Les Films ABC ,1979) which has the very striking image of a shroud clad Lahaie wielding a very deadly scythe. Death had never looked more beautiful nor deadly.

Finally, there arose in England a group of film buffs who began to champion Rollin as a filmmaker to be reckoned with. Redemption UK distributed many a fine print of his works to a growing appreciative audience.

After a couple of action films for hire, as well as shooting some films that Jess Franco dropped out of(!), Rollin made several more personal fantastique films that were among his finest, garnering good reviews and appreciative audiences. What was little known, however, was that the filmmaker had long been ill, and created his movies while racing back and forth from hospitals.

(from LIVING DEAD GIRL /La morte vivante,1982)

He completed his last film, Le Masque de la Meduse /THE MASK OF MEDUSA (Les Films,2010) just shortly before he passed away, and it was a perfect film to end his career, as much of it mirrored his first feature, and also referenced many of his other creations.

HEADPRESS is to be commended for giving us this wonderful tome, FASCINATION: THE CELLULOID DREAMS OF JEAN ROLLIN by David Hinds, as it is probably the most definitive work on the filmmaker that we are likely to see for some time. The author has a great passion and love for the oeuvre of Rollin, having discovered him among the many Euro Horror filmmakers that were coming to the early video store markets in the early 1980s.

Hinds has done remarkable research, finding and seeing what still exists of much of the director’s work (a few shorts have gone missing, as well as some of his adult films). His descriptions of the films and the behind the scenes stories on their creation and distribution does what any great film book should -it makes you want to go out and see the films for yourself.

(One of his work for hire productions ,aka ZOMBIE LAKE ,1981)

Hinds has gone the extra step and reviewed the various video, DVD, and even Blu ray releases of these films, so you will know which is the best one to purchase.

He also sought out and interviewed several of the people involved with the films, including the fullest interview with the late director that I have ever read( and perhaps the last that the filmmaker ever gave).

The only quibble that I have is that for such a beautiful done tribute to Rollin, the photo reproductions are often muddy and very hard to see, resembling a reproduction of a newspaper photo from microfilm.  One wishes that they had tried a bit harder to show the haunting imagery in quality representation, perhaps putting them all in the center of the book on better paper, mixed in perhaps with some color.

If you are open to seeing and experiencing something beyond the often paint by numbers films that are hailed by our genre fans. Then by all means seek out this book and then see the films!

–HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

–Kevin G Shinnick

*-In 1968, rioting, occupations, and strikes were the norm in Paris it seems to everything. It’s hard now to believe film fans expecting a Hammer type film would react so violently, but given the time it was not so unusual an occurrence.

(“It is forbidden to forbid” -saying during 1968 protests, and apropos of Rollin’s work )

A PRIEST IN 1835 by Jules verne

A Priest in 1835 by Jules Verne / Translated with an introductory essay and notes by Danièle Chatelain and George Slusser
Published by Bear Manor . 306 pages .

In both Limited Hardcover

http://www.bearmanormedia.com/a-priest-in-1835-hardcover-edition-by-jules-verne $34.95
and softcover
http://www.bearmanormedia.com/a-priest-in-1835-softcover-edition-by-jules-verne $24.95

One measure of greatness is just how good a person is at an early age.

 

The mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, as a child, (re)discovered a formula normally taught to undergraduate math students. Lebron James averaged 20 points per game as a pro right out of high school. Pablo Picasso outshined his art instructor and father in his early teens…and… caused his parent to swear off painting in amazed frustration.
With this first novel A Priest in 1835, the latest entry in the Palik Series of hitherto untranslated English editions, we learn just how talented Jules Verne was at the tender age of 19. It seems that in almost every review for the Palik Series, I find myself stressing Verne’s versatility as an author. But, the sheer boredom of repetition is once again outweighed by the increasing evidence of that fact.

As translators Danièle Chatelain and George Slusser point out in the introduction, A Priest in 1835 is written with Gothic trappings in which the young author nonetheless puts his own stamp on that literary mode. The mystery intricately unfolds and reaches a subtle conclusion. Readers are forewarned to pay careful attention of the events to reap the tale’s full rewards.
Verne also displays a maturity in handling human complexities as this quote demonstrates concerning the main character’s career choice:
Of course, the police commissioner and two gendarmes do not come and take the young man and force him to enter the seminary; no one puts a pistol to his head. He is completely free: “Do you want to go there?” one asks in a tone of voice that suggests that he would much offend you if you didn’t go there. “So decide.” The young peasant doesn’t hesitate for a moment; he follows his generous protector. All of this is done with the greatest freedom.

There’s little hint of Jules Verne, Father of Science fiction. Probably this passage comes closest:
Unfortunately, mankind cannot limit his contact to the things that immediately surround him. It is subjected to forces that it cannot master, to upheavals it cannot control, things that, if it is to overcome them, demand a degree of energy it cannot furnish. There are cataclysms that overthrow an entire world. Mankind is powerful when prosperous, when it wields those machines and inventions which it shapes in accordance with the forms of power it finds within himself. Then it is able to multiply this power a hundredfold.

Ultimately, the lack of Fantasy Elements matters little to me. I entered the world of Jules Verne because I’m a vintage Science Fiction buff. I stayed because I found he’s a talented writer.

–Steve Joyce

DOWN FROM THE ATTIC (book review)

                           

Down from the Attic: Rare Thrillers of the Silent Era through the 1950s
By John T. Soister and Henry Nicolella -(McFarland; June ,2016 )248 pages $39.95

 http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-9831-4

This wonderful follow up to UP FROM THE VAULT: RARE THRILLERS FROM THE 1920S AND 1930S (McFarland ,2010) has author John T Soister joined by Henry Nicolella to track down and view where possible twenty-four films that are ignored and unknown by the majority of genre fans.

Some are at present lost (i.e. deteriorated nitrate negatives and thus no longer in existence) and others available in truncated forms. Yet that we have still so many of these films for viewing is in itself miraculous, as according to Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation claims that “half of all American films made before 1950 and over 90% of films made before 1929 are lost forever.”

Beginning with the silent era and going up to 1951, the pair of author sleuths tracked down films and prints from around the world, viewing whatever prints are still extant, and delving deeply into research about productions and reviews buried long ago in musty volumes and microfilm. Their summaries and plot synopses of the films covered makes one seek to look for many of these films, and some make you wonder why a few of them are not better known. Hopefully, their research may bring a few of these films to being found and perhaps preserved.

What also makes this book invaluable is their willingness to seek out films that were made outside of the United States. Movies from The U.K. Germany, the Czech Republic, and South America are also explored, many perhaps for the first time in such detail outside of their borders.

Plus, they cover the odd career of filmmaker Bud Pollard, responsible for the elusive and obscure THE HORROR (Bud Pollard Productions ,1932) as well as the first sound version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O8kbTi4WNo .

Soister and Nicolella have done a wonderful job of finding these films and bringing them to the attention of genre fans. As they point out, not all of the films can be considered classics, but their importance cannot be denied.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

-Kevin G Shinnick

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Encyclopedia Of Weird Westerns -a SCARLET book review

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WEIRD WESTERNS by Paul Green (McFarland, publication February 2016) 320 pages-softcover $39.95 www.mcfarlandpub.com .

 

Ever since seeing PHANTOM EMPIRE (1935, Mascot) on television, I have enjoyed westerns that not your typical gunslinger tale. It seems that I am not alone in my enjoyment of these genre mash ups, as author /comic artist Paul Green has tracked down horror, fantasy, sci fi tales of the Old West (or western tinged tales).

Green casts a wide lasso to hog tie in film, stories, games, and comic books that touch on these hybrid tales.

Some of the titles may raise a few eyebrows for their inclusion (STAR WARS, Fox 1977) as Space Westerns, and a few for their omission (THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN, Principal 1938) though the author clarifies why he feels certain titles don’t fall under the definition “Weird Western”. However, where is GHOST TOWN (Empire,1988)? He lists several other Charles Band produced films so I am surprised he missed this one.

 

(GHOST TOWN disappeared from the book )

Most fascinating was how far back in literature these oddball oaters went. In 1868, “The Huge Hunter or The Steam Man of the Prairies “by Edward Sylvester Ellis was published, featuring a steam powered robot (true STEAM punk!) . Dime novels, pulps, and magazine serials all spun out tales of when the uncanny went West.

I do recall in the 1960s a lot of comic books have science fantasy and outright horror stories mixed in with the six gun slinging chronicles. Many of these inspired big (and not so big) budget films and tv series such as COWBOYS & ALIENS (Universal ,2011).

There are even several role playing games for those so inclined ,such as DEADLANDS (Pinnacle Entertainment Group,1996 )and it’s follow ups.

Author Green choses some pretty choice illustrations for the comic art, giving small bios on artists like John Severin who did a lot of work in the craft. Likewise, he provides some rare lobby cards and photos from the cinematic world.

All and all, a pretty good research book on this subgenre of sage brush strangeness.

–Kevin G Shinnick–

 

Fantastic Films of the Decades – Volume 2: The 30s

Fantastic Films of the Decades – Volume 2: The 30s by Wayne Kinsey .
256 pages. Limited run 500 copies . ORDER NOW Only £32 + p&p
http://peverilpublishing.co.uk/fantastic-films-of-the-decades-the-30s/

Following is one person’s take on The Good, The Bad and, uh, The Neutral of Fantastic Films of the Decades – Volume 2: The 30s by Wayne Kinsey.

First comes a mainly here-nor-there random observation. Readers of Volume I will feel comfortable with the first portion of Volume II. The early 30s are full of films that redid characters and themes from the silent era. To wit, right off the bat we have Alraune (1930), The Bat Whispers (1930), The Cat Creeps (1930) and The Gorilla (1930) not to mention a couple of Fu Manchu movies, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Dracula (US and Spanish versions from 1931 and both essentially Nosferatu redone) and, of course, Frankenstein (1931).

Actually, rather than log that item as a neutral, maybe it should be entered slightly to the Credit Side of the Ledger insofar as the reader can pick out trends like this; these volumes are well organized.

That leads us to the rest of the “Good” of Volume II. A genre fan can certainly learn a lot from it. For instance, I’m not sure I’ve ever even heard of the all-but-lost Gorilla film called Ingagi (1931 and one of the few early 30s pictures not redoing material) and read the full page write-up eagerly. A number of pages later is a fine ½ page bio of Gorilla impersonator extraordinaire Charles Gemora (yes, he played in Ingagi) which was equally illuminating. The author has definite a knack for giving appropriate coverage; the more key the topic or individual, the more words are spent. Boredom is minimized.

Some other items among many that rate as personal highlights: the coverage of production starts and stops of The Invisible Man (1933), The “Did you know?” tidbits of The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), the lowdown on changing censor ship guidelines in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 30s, the recycled props of the Flash Gordon serial and on and on.

Another aspect that I enjoyed is that if the film under discussion was an adaption of a book or play or was later done in film and other media, it’s noted.

Like the previous Volume, this one is generously illustrated with some fine color.

 

Now, on to the “not so good”. When I think of the term “fantastic” in regards to moving pictures, I think of three sub-genres: Horror, Sci Fi and Fantasy. Despite the fact that the 30s experienced a famed cycle of horror films, Volume II seems even more unbalanced in its coverage than Volume I when it comes to the non-horror entries.

As a glaring example, I – as a sci fi geek – was left wondering after reading Volume I whether the well-known futuristic 1929 film High Treason might be covered in Volume II (since it was both a sound and silent film). It was not and even director Maurice Elvey’s Volume II mini-biography compounded the oversight with “Despite his long CV, his genre films were few; The Lodger [1932] and The Clairvoyant (1934)”. It seems that if “Gold” is of the “Haunted” variety as in Haunted Gold (1932) coverage is warranted but the well-known dual-language science fiction based Gold (1934) with Genre Queen Brigitte Helm is neglected. A quick glance at a recent Sinister Cinema Catalog in the “Science Fiction and Fantasy” section indicates other obvious omissions: La Fin Du monde / The End of the World (1931), F.P. 1 Doesn’t Answer (1931 in French, German and English), Der Herr der Welt a.k.a. The Master of the World (1934) featuring an enormous electric robot, yet another Maurice Elvey (!) s.f. work called Transatlantic Tunnel (1935) and its earlier German parallel Der Tunnel (1933), Gibel Sensatsii a.k.a. The Robots of Ripley (1935) and Bílá nemoc a.k.a. The White Plague (1937 based on famed a work by S.F. author Karel Capek). That’s quite a lot of heavy hitters to be excluded. Perhaps if the basically superfluous 10 full pages devoted to News Headlines of the Year had been jettisoned, room for these items may have been available.

When someone has a passion and possesses an affinity for a topic, it’s always refreshing. It seems clear that the author possesses same toward the horror genre but it seems equally clear that his interest in the other genres is only in passing. Whether this book is right for you depends on where your interests lie as well.

Fantastic Films of the Decades – Volume 2 is limited to only 500 copies and only available direct from http://www.peverilpublishing.co.uk