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

WAXWORKS-1924 (Flicker Alley Blu Ray)

WAXWORKS (Flicker Alley Blu Ray/DVD combo) Das Wachsfigurenkabinett, original release U.F.A. 1924 b&w /tinted. 81. Silent with original musical scores. Region Free                     $39.95 https://www.flickeralley.com/classic-movies-2/#!/Waxworks-Das-Wachsfigurenkabinett/p/226878548/category=20414531

Omnibus horror films are very tricky. The film is made up of several short stories and oft times the tales can feel truncated or a bad tale in the bunch can affect the overall effect. 

When they work, they are cinema classics (DEAD OF NIGHT, Eagle Lion, 1945/Universal 1946). When they do not, you end up with DR TERROR’S GALLERY OF HORRORS (American General Pictures ,1967).  

In the classic category is WAXWORKS /   Das Wachsfigurenkabinett. The last German film directed by Paul Leni (co-directed with Leo Birinski) before he went to America to create such works as THE CAT & THE CANARY (Universal, 1927), it continues the Germanic fantasy horror films begun with films like THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE (Deutsche Bioscop ,1913) and is a superb example of the German Expressionism movement.

German expressionism had its start in Munich with avant-garde artists using bold exaggerated shapes and colors. It soon spread to both theatres, and even architecture.  In theatre, it was a rejection of realism to use it archetypes as well as strong use of lines and exaggerated shadows to emphasize the mood of the scenes and characters.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Potsdamer Platz, 1914

In 1920 (101 years ago as I type this), Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (Decla-Bioscop) introduced cinema audiences to German Cinema expressionism. With the end of WW1, German films were once again being shown around the world.

The German cinema of the 1920s was some of the most creative at that time, with films like THE LAST LAUGH (UFA,1924) enthralling world wide audiences . WAXWORKS was another masterwork from the time.

The original screenplay by Henrik Galeen who wrote, directed and acted in THE GOLEM (Deutsche Bioscop, 1915) and the screenplay for NOSFERATU (Prana,1922) was reworked by director Leni, dropping a planned fourth story. The wax figure for the dropped tale still can be seen in the film, the character of Rinaldo Rinaldini from the Penny Dreadful story   Rinaldo Rinaldini, the Robber Captain (1797) by Christian August Vulpius. Director Leni also designed the look of the film.

Cinematographer Helmar Lerski was quite busy in the teens and twenties, working upon Leni Riefensthal ‘s THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (Der heilige Berg, UFA, 1926), but in the 1930s became a documentary filmmaker covering the Zionist movement, leading up to the formation of Israel in 1948.        

A young man (played by Wilhelm Dieterle, later famous as director WILLIAM Dieterle of such magnificent works as PORTRAIT OF JENNIE, Selznick, 1948) is hired by the owner of the Panoptikums (played by John Gottowt, who had played Professor Bulwer in NOSFERATU) to write background stories about his exhibits. Meeting the daughter of the exhibit’s owner (Olga Belajeff ) the author decides he will stay and write about the various wax pieces.  However, as he writes, he and the young woman become characters in each tale.

The first tale is about Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid (Emil Jannings, a star of the Max Reinhardt Theatre Company, star of THE LAST LAUGH and later THE BLUE ANGEL(UFA,1930) a sound film shot in both English and German that introduced Marlene Dietrich to the cinema. Jannings sadly later worked on several pro-Nazi productions.). The author notices the statue is missing an arm, and his tale involves how the character lost his appendage.

This segment is the longest of the three (about 40 minutes) and is more a fantasy tale than horror story. It perhaps was inspired by the Douglas Fairbanks THIEF OF BAGHDAD (U.A.,1924) that opened in the U.S. in March, with WAXWORKS opening in Germany in November. Oddly, Conrad Veidt who appears in this film’s second tale, appeared in the 1940 remake of THIEF OF BAGHDAD (Korda/London Films/UA).

The second tale about Ivan The Terrible (Conrad Veidt) is a story of madness, cruelty, torture, and poisoning. Veidt is quite terrifying in the role, having made a name in film history as the somnambulist Cesare in THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI and later in such roles as Major Heinrich Strasser in CASABLANCA (WB,1942). This story is about 37 minutes.

After writing the two-prior tales, the poet and Eva find themselves stalked by Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss, Dr Caligari himself from that film) who chases them through the museum, ending with the writer waking up and realizing that it was all a dream, certainly one of the earliest uses of that device. This is not really a fully fleshed out segment but merely a good scary tag to the film.

The original German cut of the film, supposedly about 25 minutes longer sadly, does not survive. The version that is used here is an incredible collection of various prints (English, French, Czech) based upon a safety print in the B.F.I., that give us the best and most complete version currently available, running 81 minutes.  The restoration was a joint effort by the Deutsche Kinemathek and Cineteca di Bologna, L’Immagine Ritrovata (with funding from the German Commission for Culture and the Media). The nearly 100-year-old film looks amazing, considering all this. The occasional scratch does not detract from the often remarkably sharp images throughout the film.  The film elements were scanned in 4K resolution and restored in 2K. This Blu-Ray /DVD release is presented Flicker Alley and Eureka Entertainment.

This version has TWO new musical scores to choose from, both recorded in DTS-HD in either 2.0 Stereo or 5.1 surround. The first is a piano score while the second a fuller orchestral score.  While both are quite good, I rather leaned into the second more (personal choice). There is also an informative audio commentary by Australian Art and Film Critic Adrian Martin (THE MAD MAX MOVIES, Currency Press Pty Ltd ,2003).  Not bad for a “silent” film.

As for subtitles, you get a choice of German, French Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic and Chinese subtitles for this Region Free release.

Other extras include.

Paul Leni’s Rebus-Films Nr. 1 (1925) – these were crossword puzzles that were shown before and after main features, representing a clue and then the answer. (This featurette was provided courtesy of Kino Lorber).

 In search of the original version of Paul Leni’s Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (2020)– An interview Julia Wallmüller from Deutsche Kinemathek about the Homeric efforts to restore this film.

A Conversation with Kim Newman (2020) – the film historian puts the film ‘s importance into perspective and discusses other wax museum horror movies.

A DVD copy of the film.

Collector’s Edition Souvenir Booklet – A photo illustrated booklet with new essays by Phillip Kemp and Richard Combs on the film’s history and significance; notes on the restoration process by Julia Wallmüller.

Silent films are sometimes hard for today’s ADHD audiences. They demand your complete attention without distractions. That said, if you make this slight effort, the rewards are well worth it.

Kudos to FLICKER ALLEY for their preservation and presentation of these rare important films. They also offer such rarities as DER HUND VON BASKERVILLE (1929) https://www.flickeralley.com/classic-movies-2/#!/Der-Hund-von-Baskerville/p/125716170/category=20414531 and Leni‘s last film , THE LAST WARNING https://www.flickeralley.com/classic-movies-2/#!/The-Last-Warning/p/130760328/category=20414531 .

Highly Recommended.

Kevin G Shinnick

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LAUREL AND HARDY: THE DEFINITIVE RESTORATIONS

LAUREL & HARDY: THE DEFINITIVE RESTORATIONS (Blu-Ray) (MVD /Kit Parker Films/Sprocket Films) B&W, Color .4 Discs. 511 Minutes. Not Rated. Release date June 30,2020. $79.95 srp. (also available on DVD). REGION FREE.
https://www.amazon.com/Laurel-Hardy-Definitive-Restorations-Blu-ray/dp/B084P3S7NJ

         BUY IT. A MUST HAVE COMEDY COLLECTION.

       What? Oh, you need more in a review. Oh, very well.

Laurel & Hardy remain iconic touchstones of cinematic comedy. As recently as January 2020, Stan Laurel (and Charlie Chaplin ) were the subjects of a London stage show (https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/the-strange-tale-of-charlie-chaplin-and-stan-laurel-review-at-wiltons-music-hall-london–expressive-physical-comedy ) as well as magnificent tribute film in 2018 (STAN & OLLIE ,BBC FILMS). Their body of work inspires and continues to influence comedians and comediennes.

recent London Mime Show

A comedy duo (officially since DUCK SOUP, Roach,1926, even though they had appeared together in THE LUCKY DOG, 1921,Sun-Lite) who remained friends until Oliver Hardy’s passing in 1957,and who will forever be linked in the minds of film fans as a tandem force.

Their films can be watched and enjoyed by all ages, due to their child like innocence as well as their constant battles with everyday events. 

Now, a collection of their works has been restored and presented to both new and old fans alike in a release that should please all. The shorts are well represented, with some odd omissions. For example, they do a magnificent job on the one silent presented, THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY (Roach/MGM,1927),but skip their first talkie (UNACUSTOMED AS WE ARE, Roach/MGM ,1929),as well as many other classics . Were there legal issues or lack of acceptable elements, or just the ones that UCLA has restored so far? Perhaps if this set sells well, we might expect a second edition, or even a third that would include their silent (yes please).

The restorations of these films are nothing short of miraculous. New 2K/4K masters have been made from the best elements available, and while they still have a few specks here and there, plus the sound is variable due to the technology of the time , one is doubtful one will ever see these classics in any better presentation.

THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY (Roach /MGM ,1927), on Disc One, to me, made the disc a special delight. Robert Youngson used the remaining footage available in his 1965 compilation LAUREL & HARDY’s LAUGHING 20s (MGM,1965). For years, that tantalizing footage had fans wishing to see the entire short.

 

In the 1980s, most of the first reel was discovered. Missing still is a sequence wherein Eugene Pallette (best known as Friar Tuck in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, WB,1938) is an insurance agent who sells Ollie a policy ,wherein if Stanley sustains injury, there will be a nice payout. This footage is set up nicely with a few remaining stills and a title card explaining the set up. It then jumps to Ollie dropping banana peels to make Stan fall, only to have it backfire and make long suffering foe Charlie Hall as a pie man topple, leading up to the huge street filling pie fight. In the extras, Anita Garvin identifies herself as the woman who falls and sits upon a pie, stands, and tries to regain her dignity. She did this brilliant comic gem of a moment in an unpaid appearance during her lunch break as a favor to Stan!

 

Also, on Disc one, there is BERTH MARKS (Roach/MGM,1929) their SECOND talking picture. Even though sound had just become popular and wider used just two years earlier, the team was already using it and drawing attention to its humorous potential. Notice how they use the stationmaster (Pat Harmon, a familiar face in films ,often in unbilled roles) who yells out the train destinations in an incoherent though loud way, then asked if Pottsville is one of the stops, he yells louder and even less coherently!

BERTH MARKS is available in two versions on this disc ; the 1929 release version with original sound, as well as the 1936 re issue with added music and different sound effects. The 1929 version has not been seen for 84 years so it is a real significant find.

The brilliant fourth L&H feature, SONS OF THE DESERT (Roach,MGM ,1933) was called “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the U.S. Library of Congress in 2012 and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Once you watch this pre-code comedy, you will see why. The print is so much sharper than previous releases, with nice shades of gray and good sound.

There are extras galore on this and the other discs .

There are fact filled running commentaries by either Randy Skretvedt or Richard W. Bann on the various shorts and films. Seriously, you will learn about where certain sequences were shot, actors who appear, often as uncredited extras, just a wealth of information.

Also included are video interview from the 1980s.

Actress Anita Gavin (1906- 1994) gushes with real affection for her time at Roach, and of her working with Stan.

Producer/actor/director Joe Rock (aka Joseph Simberg,1893-1984). Rock basically saved Stan from an unhappy marriage that was ruining his career. Freed of her, Stan starring silent vehicles included the wonderful spoof DR PYCKLE AND MR PRIDE (Selznick,1925). It is too bad that the sound is so terrible in this interview, with a buzz so loud that words are often drowned out.

Roy Seawright (1905-1991) was Hal Roach Studios Head of Animation , the man responsible for all of those animated effects in the films, as well as the stop motion in BABES IN TOYLAND /MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS (Roach /MGM ,1934) .

(not from the blu ray, but an interesting bit of film history below )

https://www.pbs.org/video/appraisal-1934-babes-toyland-stop-motion-soldiers-xfnzcd/

A shipboard interview with Oliver Hardy (1950). This was when the boys were going with such high hopes to film ATOLL K/UTOPIA (1951), a disastrous final film for the comedy team.

The only known existing  original trailer from SONS OF THE DESERT (Spanish).

A plug for Skretvedt’s book (which appears on several of the discs.)?

That is just the first disc!

Extras on Disc 2 include audio interviews with many associated with the comedy team, while disc 4 has several of the comic duos’ feature trailers, as well as music tracks from Marvin Hatley (1905-1986), best known for his work for the team.

There are also thousands of rare photos posters, scripts, and production notes from their many shorts and features.

  (TWICE TWO ,1933 )

Disc 2 also has BRATS (1930, available in two versions) ,HOG WILD (1930) ,COME CLEAN (1931), ONE GOOD TURN(1931),and ME & MY PAL (1933)  ,all Roach/MGM releases , all looking vastly sharper than they have in other releases.

 

Disc 3 has 8 shorts, including THE MUSIC BOX (Roach/MGM,1932), winner of the FIRST Academy Award for Best Short Live Action (Comedy) and was preserved in 1997 in National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

The other shorts on Disc 3 are HELPMATES(1932) , THE CHIMP (1932) ,COUNTY HOSPITAL (1932) ,SCRAM! (1932), THEIR FIRST MISTAKE(1932) ,THE MIDNIGHT PATROL(1933) ,and BUSY BODIES (1933) (all Roach /MGM ).

Disc 4 has the feature WAY OUT WEST (Roach/MGM,1937). This is the comedy which will have your sides ache in the sequence where they chase each other around the room with a purloined deed. This is the film that is referenced so perfectly in the beginning of STAN & OLLIE, with an exact copy of their dance.

It also has three other Hal Roach produced shorts(TOWED IN A HOLE(Roach/MGM 1932) ,TWICE TWO(Roach /MGM 1933),THAT’S THAT(1937 , a private reel of out-takes compiled for Stan’s birthday and was not publicly distributed), as well as their only existing professionally shot color footage in TREE IN A TEST TUBE, a 1942 short made for the U.S. Dept of Agriculture!

The  packing really beings up my one tiny nitpick – the case has a flip book to hold the various discs, which often shift making the box  hard to close. Be careful so as not to scratch or damage the discs.

This is hours and hours of entertainment and information in a well-made release. Hopefully, it will be a success so that we may see 4 K releases of their other Hal Roach films (including the silent era)  to Blu Ray.


Stan: What do you want?
Policeman: I don’t want you. I want that other monkey.
[Stan whistles to Ollie]
Ollie: What?
Stan: He doesn’t want me! He wants the other monkey!
[Ollie looks around]
Stan: You!
Ollie: Oh.
-from THE MUSIC BOX

You don’t want that other monkey. You want this collection!! Must own.

–Kevin G Shinnick

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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 ..."

The Jester’s Supper (DVD)

SCARLET THE FILM MAGAZINE DVD REVIEW
THE JESTER’S SUPPER (La Cena delle Beffe) 1942 Italy 82 minutes B&W –Historical Drama – $19.95 from CAV Distributing Corp / One 7 Movies. Region 0 DVD available through http://www.oldies.com/product-view/83234O.html as well as Amazon and others.

 

 
Thanks to Turner Classics, I have been on a foreign film binge of late so the arrival of this DVD could not have been better timed.

 

 

 
The film THE JESTER’S SUPPER (la Cena delle Beffe) was an extremely popular costume drama produced during WWII. For those who think Italian Cinema began with the neo- realists after the war, this film will come as something of a revelation. With the output from Hollywood cut off, the Italian populace truly embraced their home grown productions. The Fascist government, under son, Vittorio, realized the power of film, sponsor movies (even constructing Cinecittà studios) but their films were mostly of a propaganda nature. However, they also produced comedies and historical dramas that rivaled American productions with their artistry and skills.

 
THE JESTER’S SUPPER is based upon a popular play by the Italian writer Sem Benelli, which was first staged in Italy in 1909. In 1919 the play was put on in New York City . The play was the basis for an opera La cena delle beffe composed by Umberto Giordano with a libretto written by Benelli himself. It premiered at La Scala Opera House in 1924.

 

 

 

The film was shot at Cinecitta using leftover sets from a previous big budget epic from 1941 La corona di ferro (The Iron Crown). Set in Renaissance era, two aristocratic brothers, Neri (Amadeo Nazzari) & Gabriello (Alfredo Varelli ) Chiaramantesi, have been abusing the people of Florence with impunity due to their power and station. Things begin to change when Neri dares to ravage Ginevera (Clara Calamai) in front of her lover Giannetto Malespini (Giannetto Malespini) then toss him into the river. He survives, and what happens next is a tale of revenge best served Italian style.

 

 
Amadeo Nazzari, usually a hero, was cast against type and played the lecherous villain here. He usually sported a mustache and I could see why .Even clean shaven, here he resembles Errol Flynn. Amazingly, he turned down Mussolini’s request to join the Fascist Party and yet continued to have a successful career during the War years. He played a movie star (!) in Fellini’s classic Le notti di Cabiria/ NIGHTS OF CABRIA (1957).

 
Valentina Cortese, then 19, appearing as Lisabetta, is perhaps best remembered (she is still alive at this writing, age 94!) for her Oscar nominated turn in Truffaut’s La Nuit américaine /DAY FOR NIGHT (1973).

 

THE JESTER’s SUPPER boasts one of Italian Cinema’s first topless nudity scenes, when actress Clara Calamai has her top torn from her by the lustful Neri. In interviews, Calamai had not wanted to do the scene, but felt compelled to by the director. That quick flash of nudity is a reason that people went to see the film again and again. Though often cited as the first bit of nudity in an Italian sound film, Vittoria Carpi showed a bare breast for a moment in THE IRON CROWN/La corona di ferro  (1941)   which was also directed by Blasetti. Horror fans may recall Calamai from Dario Argento’s Profondo rosso /DEEP RED (1975) coming out of retirement to portray the eccentric matriarch, Marta.

A kissing scene and the topless scene both appear in the final montage of CINEMA PARADISO (1988).( http://www.filmsite.org/cinemaparadisokisses.html )
Some of the performers did not live long after WWII. Due to their Fascists leanings, both Osvaldo Valenti and his pregnant mistress Luisa Ferida, who appeared in several movies together, were executed without trail on the streets by partisans.

Director Alessandro Blasetti was called the father of Italian Cinema because he led to the revival of Italian Cinema in the 1930s and becoming one of the leading figures during the Fascist era. He is also known as one of the first directors of what became Italian neorealism with his 1942 film Quattro passi Fra le nuvole /FOUR STEPS IN THE CLOUDS. Amazingly, even though he seemed to have strong ties with the Fascists government, it does not seem to have affected his career, as he is listed as having made films after the War from 1946 to 1969.

 

 
The print used by ONE7 MOVIES is incredibly sharp, with just a little digital artifacting appearing on certain shots. The subtitles (which have an on/off option) are quite easy to read .The sound is clear and the score by Giuseppe Becce sounds rich even in its original mono sound. The only extra is a brief photo gallery that appears to be frame blow ups.

 

 

 
Raccomandato (recommended!).
-Kevin G Shinnick

(originally published on SCARLET THE FILM MAGAZINE REVIEWS FACEBOOK PAGE,May 18, 2015. Updated May 7,2017)

THE VAMPIRE BAT(Restored)

THE VAMPIRE BAT (1933) –FILM DETECTIVE (BLU RAY ) $19.99. Restored. Release date : April 25,2017 . 63 min. Region 1. B&W with tinted sequences. https://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Bat-Special-Detective-Restored/dp/B01LTIAUJ2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490377335&sr=8-1&keywords=vampire+bat+the+film+detective+restored+version

Also available on DVD for $14.99.
Throw out those other public domain videos and DVDs that you may have of this 1933 film. Film Detective has just released a magnificent UCLA Film and TV Archive restoration that reveals details often lost in murky and dark copies of this film. Not only that, there is an hereto unseen (at least by this writer) hand tinted sequence that alone makes this disc a must have.

Majestic Pictures began releasing films in 1925 under the state’s rights system of distribution. Unlike the major studios who had hubs throughout the country ,smaller independents would sell or lease their product on a local, territorial basis . The distributors would each handle a certain region (or sometimes just a certain state) and release the films in that territory.

In 1935, Herbert J Yates, who owned the Consolidated Film Industries film developing laboratories, decided that he wanted to get into direct film production .Six smaller independents were forced to merge under the new Republic banner or face foreclosure on outstanding lab bills. Among the studios that were folded under the new banner was Majestic. Until then, Majestic produced slicker fare than many of their other rivals, using bigger name stars and renting out space from larger motion picture companies.

Among Majestic’s releases were THE SINS OF NORA MORAN (1933) starring Zita Johann (best remembered for starring in Universal’s 1932 classic THE MUMMY), THE WORLD GONE MAD(also 1933, with Pat O’Brien,Evelyn Brent ,and Neil Hamilton (later tv’s Commissioner Gordon on BATMAN) and the first sound version of THE SCARLET LETTER(1934) starring Colleen Moore and Henry B Walthall (a D.W. Griffith stock company star,who had played the same role of Chillingworth in the 1926 silent version). Certain Majestic Pictures were produced by real estate developer Phil Goldstone . Goldstone was wealthy enough that he could invest in movies while the rest of the country was suffering through the effects of the Stock Market Crash and Depression.

That may be one of the ways that he was able to afford to rent the Universal European Street sets (destroyed in a fire in 1967) as well as many studio interior sets, giving their low budget THE VAMPIRE BAT such a polished look. Also helpful was their hiring of such well known stars as Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill (making this their third hiss and scream pairing, the previous being W.B.’s DOCTOR X (1932) and MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933),as well as Dwight Frye (Broadway star now doomed to forever play variations of twitchy half mad characters due to his outstanding performance in Universal’s DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN (both1931) )and Melvyn Douglas (fresh off of Universal’s THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932) and playing in a similar light disbelieving manner) .

Director Frank R Strayer had been directing films since the mid 1920s and had done the poverty row THE MONSTER WALKS (Ralph M Like Productions,1932) prior to getting this assignment. He directed in a fast ,no nonsense style, but also had some fairly elaborate camera set ups and moves in this picture that are quite effective .

Later, Strayer would direct CONDEMNED TO LIVE (Invincible ,1935 )another vampire film variant that like THE VAMPIRE BAT also at one point used Bronson Canyon.

 

Screenwriter Edward T Lowe,Jr had written the earlier mentioned WORLD GONE MAD and later moved up to bigger studio productions, writing several Charlie Chan and Bulldog Drummond films , before returning to vampires with his one two punch of HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (Universal,1944)and HOUSE OF DRACULA (Universal ,1945).

 

Cinematographer Ira H. Morgan had begun with Gaumont News before switching to lensing features . His sound era films seem all to be for smaller studios like PRC (FOG ISLAND,1945),his last work being for Bert I Gordon,THE CYCLOPS(Allied Artists,1957),filming once again around – Bronson Canyon!! His other work is always competent, but never as assured as it seems to be in THE VAMPIRE BAT.

 

Charles D Hall is credited with art direction, but his work on this project may have been minor, as again it mostly standing sets on the Universal backlot.

 

Set in a fairytale -like Teutonic Village of Kleinschloss (German for small castle,so even the budget affected the name ! ),the setting,like many Universal horror films of the 1930s, is a mix of modern day (the outfits and medical equipment )and unnamed past era (the village and villagers).

 

Several of the local villagers have been found drained of blood with two puncture marks upon their throat. The Burgomeister (Lionel Belmore, the Burgomeister from FRANKENSTEIN, and a council member in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN(1939,Universal),talking of type casting!)and the village elders suspect it to be the work of a vampire. The Police Chief Karl (Melvyn Douglas) pooh poohs these notions . He turns to Dr Niemann (Lionel Atwill) . Niemann does not dismiss the villagers ideas out of hand ,much to Karl’s annoyance. Making it easier is Karl’s romance with the lovely Ruth (Fay Wray).

 

Suspicion falls on village simpleton Herman (Dwight Frye)who has the innocence of a child ,but has an odd habit of keeping bats as pets .

 

Padding the film out to a feature length is (not very) comic relief is Karl’s hypochondriac Aunt Gussie (Maude Eburne,theatre trained actress who often played humorous characters, and appeared in films like THE BAT WHISPERS (United Artists,1930)and the little seen Columbia thriller FOG (1933). Here, you really want the killer to get her,though it is more the writing than her performance.

THE VAMPIRE BAT title is a bit misleading, as the ending veers a bit into a science fiction explanation. Still, it remains a superb example of early Gothic horror,and at a crisp 63 minutes, does not overstay its welcome.

As stated earlier ,the FILM DETECTIVE print comes from a restored fine grain print and it is indeed a revelation.The image is incredibly sharp ,and details often lost in more murky prints now stand out. For example, early in the film, the town lamplighter Kringen (George E Stone) looks up at the rooftops late at night. In the past, we could never see what he was staring at, but now we see a shadowy leap from one roof to another ! Miss Wray is photographed beautifully,with her natural red hair rather than the blonde look so familiar to all from KING KONG (RKO,1933).

 

 

Most interesting is seeing a sequence with the villagers carrying torches ,the flames of which have been hand tinted red yellow and orange. It is quite eye catching and I was unaware that it had ever been done to this film. Hand tinting had been used in other films to give them a bit of punch . Bela Lugosi’s THE DEATH KISS (K.B.S.,1932)hand tinted a few frames of a gun firing for a shock effect . Other films were often tinted for effect, but not so easy was the hand tinting used in these films.

 

Besides the magnificent print, FILM DETECTIVE has also for the first time that I am aware of added a commentary track. They have chosen film historian (he had worked on the film magazine SCREEN THRILLS ILLUSTRATED) and film producer/director Samuel M Sherman (Independent International). Sam is a very nice and knowledgeable man, but he needed a co-commentator to keep him focused. His commentary track is quite monotonic and often sounds as if he is reading from notes ,and for lengths of time does not comment on the action on screen.

 

What he does do is provide incredible research on producer Phil Goldstone (how he generously allowed soldiers to stay gratis in his hotels rather than have them stay on the streets,as well as how he got into film production) as well as who did the actual hand tinting of the film (Gustav Brock).

The other extra is a newly shot featurette with the son of Melvyn Douglas, Gregory Hassleberg.
(Melvyn) Gregory Hesselberg was born in 1926 to Douglas and his first wife Rosalind Hightower .When they divorced, Gregory stayed with his mother and did not see his father for years. Douglas married actress Helen Gahagan (SHE ,RKO,1935)and later Douglas petitioned and won the right for Gregory to live with them . Gregory Hassleberg has fond memories of his father,coming to discover how truly talented he was by watching him perform. It is a nice little insight into the fine actor.

FILM DETECTIVE is to be highly commended for this release, and it deserves to be added to the collection of every classic horror film buff.

Recommended.

Kevin G Shinnick

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When Comedy Was King

WHEN COMEDY WAS KING (VCI) DVD $19.99 DVD | 1 DISC | 81 minutes | 1960 | B&W | NR | English language | 1.37:1 | Dolby Digital Mono | All REGION /

http://www.vcientertainment.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1096

Back before the easy availability of YouTube, Turner Classic Movies, and Home Video, it was not always easy to see classic films. You had to scour the television guides and hopefully a classic film would be airing on one of the smaller channels. If you lived in a larger city, you might have a revival movie house that would for one or two days show a film made long before you birth.

Robert Youngson was a documentary film producer who loved bringing the past to movie goers. From 1948 to 1956, he produced a series of nostalgia laden short subjects for Warner Brothers, most often using old silent movie clips. They were popular enough to win Youngson Six Academy Award Nominations for Best Live Action Short Films (One Reel), winning two in the process.

Youngson made a feature length historical documentary in 1950 for Warner Brothers called FIFTY YEARS BEFORE YOUR EYES. Rumored to have taken three years to make, the look back over the first half of the Twentieth Century was narrated by Arthur Godfrey and came and went with little fanfare.

When Warner Brothers and the other studios began shutting down their short subject departments, Youngson decided to chance another full-length feature. With his contract with Warner Brothers over, he at first contracted with a small distributor, Distributors Corporation of America (DCA). DCA existed from 1952-59, beginning as a releasing company for foreign films like ALRAUNE (1952) and ANIMAL FARM (1954). The company folded after it released PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE (1959). Before that happened, they released Robert Youngson’s  THE GOLDEN AGE OF COMEDY  (1957). The compilation was later picked up and got a wider distribution from Twentieth Century Fox.

The film was successful enough that it brought a renewed popularity for Laurel & Hardy who featured strongly in the documentary. Sadly, Oliver Hardy died in August of that year, and Stan Laurel retired, so they didn’t personally get to take advantage of this renewed interest, though their films were now being shown regularly on television.

Three years later, WHEN COMEDY WAS KING was released (by Twentieth Century Fox) and was again a popular success. Once again, the film opened with Chopin’s Etude Op. 10, No. 3 that was used under Youngson’s credit on his films from 1957. Many feel that this is the best of his compilation films , though I would say that this and DAYS OF THRILLS & LAUGHTER (Fox,1961,also available from VCI on DVD http://www.vcientertainment.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=507 ) which covers a wider range of films are tied for  his best , but it is nit picking on my part.

Once again, Youngson put together a wonderful collection of clips from the golden age of silent comedy. While there are clips of Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, the film also brought Ben Turpin, Harry Langdon, and Mabel Normand among others back into the public view. The movie was well reviewed (“Here’s a toast to this sort of comedy !”-Bosley Crowther, NY Times, March 30,1960) and financially successful.

Youngson made six more feature compilations before his untimely passing at age 54 in 1974. His wife Jeanne Keyes Youngson, by the way, has had an interesting career of her own. An animator and documentarian, she produced a short called “MY NAME IS DEBBIE” about a post-operative male to female as well as helping to found The Count Dracula Fan Club in 1965.In 2000 they changed their name to The Vampire Empire.

V.C.I. has done a marvelous job on this release. Sprocket Vault and Kit Parker Films went out and retimed and corrected footage from the original 35 mm negative (which had been in a series of mislabeled film cans. Having worked in a film storage house, I saw firsthand how common this problem was and how easy it was for films to get lost or dissolving Nitrate films).

I know that Kit has a lot more classic films coming down the pike, so I just want to make sure he gets the credit, where credit is due.

Best regards,

The picture quality of this DVD is as perfect as one could hope (some film deterioration had already started happening from the original silent elements that Youngson had used, and so this compilation is also important as film PRESERVATION as well).

A nice new addition is a very informative running commentary by Richard M Roberts, a collector and silent film historian who I first heard of as programmer for Slapsticon, where many a rare two reeler was unspooled. Not only does he speak about the films shown, but also about director Youngson. I kept smiling at our common reference points like Blackhawk Films, where many a collector could buy many a classic film on 8mm and 16mm. I also chuckled at how his detestation of collector Raymond Rohauer is palpable. Rohauer (or as my friends referred to him*** You Raymond Rohauer”) was falsely claiming to own rights to certain classics, which kept many like Universal’s THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932) out of the public eye, as well as nuisance lawsuits on films like BIRTH OF A NATION (D.W. Griffith/Epoch,1914).

 

If that was not enough, Richard M Roberts has added three rare bonus short silent, with a piano score by Donald Sosin, who has been providing music for silent films for 45 years! Roberts provides more informative commentary on these shorts.

AN ELEPHANT ON HIS HANDS (Security ,1920) Hughey Mack gets a letter that he is getting an inheritance which turns out to be TWO elephants. The title card is different from the rest of the titles, making me think that it was from a 16mm home collector release. His wife is not amused. This film is not restored, but is such a rarity I am grateful that it exists at all. Dot Farley plays a comic maid.

FAST & FURIOUS (Educational,1924) seems to be complete with original titles. Director Norman Taurog had a long film career, including directing several Elvis movies! Star Lige Conley somewhat resembles Chaplin when he was out of his Tramp makeup and does some amazing physical work, including a high fall from a ladder onto a countertop. . Nothing to do with later Vin Diesel films, Conley works in a store and his misadventures. There is a cute bit of stop motion in the short. The films second half earn the film its title with chase by motorbike, car and even atop a moving train (so maybe it did inspire Vin Diesel =)). It reminded me of the short PLAY SAFE (Pathe,1927) starring Monte Banks that appears in DAYS OF THRILLS & LAUGHTER.

Finally, A TON OF FUN in HEAVY LOVE (Standard,1926), a Joe Rock produced comedy. Joe Rock, a former stunt man/comedian, he had produced several of the early Stan Laurel solo comedies. The Three Fatties (as they were referred to) Frank Alexander, Hilliard Karr and Kewpie Ross are carpenters. The big men do some very physical comedy that belies their size, though their weight is often the catalyst for much of their comedy. This film seems to be in the best shape of the three (some frame jitter appears). It reminded me of the Buster Keaton comedy ONE WEEK(Metro,1920).

 

You must play the three shorts in order, without the option of picking and choosing. A minor problem, as you will want to see them all.

If you are a lover of classic silent comedies, or want to introduce someone to them, WHEN COMEDY WAS KING is the film you need.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

-Kevin G Shinnick

March 8,2017 UPDATE :  I gave VCI most of the credit for this new release. However, I was informed that most of the credit for this new DVD release should go to Kit Parker’s new DVD LABEL : THE SPROCKET VAULT . 

 VCI did work with Kit to digitally restore the new HD master and authored the DVD, but this is a Sprocket Vault release. Thank you to those involved for the correction .

VCI is the releasing company of DAYS OF THRILLS AND LAUGHTER though.

Kit Parker, I am also told,  has a lot more classic films coming ,and I look forward to seeing.

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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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LOST SOULS: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY’S ISLAND OF DR MOREAU

SCARLET THE FILM MAGAZINE REVIEWS BLU RAY

LOST SOULS: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY’S ISLAND OF DR MOREAU – Severin BLU RAY $20.00 -2014 – 100 Min.

Order direct at https://severin-films.com/product-category/blu-ray/

This documentary rates up there with LOST IN LA MANCHA (2003) on the horrors and misadventures of filmmaking and what might have been.

 

 
Director David Gregory (the underrated PLAGUE TOWN,Severin 2008) has tracked down many of the players in the production that became a John Frankenheimer (SECONDS, 1966) movie and in Rashomon fashion, we hear of the genesis of the project to what was finally released.

 

Gregory also explores the history of the 1896 H.G. Wells novel ‘Island Of Doctor Moreau “, which even in itself was surrounded by controversy and Wells’ accusing Joseph Conrad of plagiarism for his 1899 work “Hearts of Darkness”.

 

 

Coming off the relative success of HARDWARE (1990, available from DVD from Severin) and the studio interference on DUST DEVIL (1992, seek out Subversive Cinema Director’s cut which is the most extant version), Richard Stanley was a relatively hot property.

 
Stanley, then in his 30s, was excited when New Line Cinema greenlit Stanley’s proposed remake. The film that he had proposed from existing drawings would have been a hellish present day reflection on God and Religious ideals (one sketch has Moreau holding a new born creation with the operating light forming a halo around his head as in the background his creatures in surgical gear lick the blood off the instruments.).

(Doc says no to  AIP version-nom nom nom nom)

The director hated the 1977 version that AIP had released (no footage is used from this version) and his version seemed to want to create the entire world that the creatures lived in.

Problems began when the studio attached big name stars like Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, whose egos ballooned as fast as the budget for the film. Due to them, other actors left (James Wood, replaced by David Thewlis, and Rob Morrow, who saw the train wreck about to happen).

Nature seemed to conspire against them too, as the locale chosen and weather conditions threatened several times to shut the production down. Finally, the studio decided to remove Richard Stanley as director, and desperately sought out a replacement. With only a week prep, John Frankenheimer who had stayed away from the genre since the disastrous mutant bear horror PROPHECY (Paramount ,1979), took over with a new cinematographer and rewrites happening constantly during the course of the remaining filming.

(I’m sure John Frankenheimer wasn’t smiling often on this set)

This documentary is actually longer than the released ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU (New Line 1996) but has a much more involving story to tell.

(Director Richard Stanley before the purge)

Several of the participants had passed on before this documentary was shot (Brando ,Frankenheimer, the 2’4” Nelson de la Rosa(the inspiration for the later Mini Me in The Austin Powers films )) while Val Kilmer seemingly declined defending the myriad comments that showed him to be a “dick” .Also M.I.A.  is Mike Thewlis, but almost everyone else in front and before the camera still with us ,from background Aborigine performers, to the makeup team to the production office to stars ,the charming Marco Hofschneider (EUROPA EUROPA,Orion,U.S.release 1990) and Fairuza Balk, (RETURN TO OZ,Disney 1986) .

 

 
Also on this must have disc is  a lot of amazing behind the scenes video footage shot at the time during production captures the madness and creativity that went on for the six month gestation of the beast that was ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU.

 
Director Stanley seems to have gone into seclusion in France since the madness and frustrations of that film, working on some shorts and screenplays in the interim. Let us hope that he might be tempted back to make an independent production.
Extras on the blu ray include extended interviews , Graham Humphreys concept drawings, an archive John Frankenheimer interview, a Barbara Steele interview(yes at one time she was involved),and more.

 

 
This is a must have item for general film fans and horror collectors. I have been cautious not to give away many of the surprises in the production as you should discover them for yourselves and shake your head in disbelief that films get made at all!

Two hoofs turning into thumbs up!!HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.

-Kevin G Shinnick

Other versions of ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU:
ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932) CRITERION Blu ray and DVD .
TERROR IS A MAN (1959) Alpha dvd
TWILIGHT PEOPLE (1972) VCI DVD
ISLAND OF DR MOREAU (1977) MGM DVD
ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU (1996) New Line DVD

 

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