Zombos' Closet of Horror

Movie Review: Son of Frankenstein (1939)Ghost In the House of Frankenstein Part 3 of 4

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In late summer 1938, Los Angeles' Regina Theater was as close to shutting its doors forever as it had ever been when its manager, desperate for bottoms in his seats, leased inexpensive prints of Frankenstein, Dracula, and Son of Kong. Hoping to entice monster movie fans, bargain hunters, and anyone looking to get out of the rain, that nameless entrepreneur almost single-handedly jump-started the "Silver Age" of horror films. The triple-feature revival broke all house records and sent Universal a wake-up call it wouldn't forget (John T. Soister in Of Gods and Monsters: A Critical Guide to Universal Studios' Science Fiction, Horror and Mystery Films, 1929-1939).

ZC Rating 6 of 7: Classic

“Your pants are talking,” said Wally the Bat.

“What...oh.” I reached into my pocket for the two-way radio.

“Zoc? Zoc? Where are you?” It was Zombos’ voice. He sounded frantic.

“Yes, what is it? I'm still--“ I looked at Wally. “I’m still in the attic.”

“It is your--” 

A bolt of lightning flashed close to the mansion. quickly followed by a thunderous boom. It shook the dormer window open again.

“What’s that? I didn’t hear you,” I said through the static.

The door to the attic flew open. A tall, slim silhouette glided ominously through the door frame and headed toward me.

“It is your sister!" said Zombos. "I tried to warn you. She is--”

“Iloz! Where the hell are you?” she loudly asked. "This place is a mess. What the hell is taking you so long. Ouch!" She tripped in the gloom. "Where the hell are the lights? I can't see a thing."

Wally the Bat, startled, squeaked as he rapidly unfurled his wings. “Time to go! It's been a real pleasure.” He flew out the dormer window.

I closed it behind him, wishing I could do the same thing. My sister Trixie was coming closer.

"You're all wet! Well, don't stand there like a cow," said Trixie. "Everybody's waiting for the birthday boy." She took me by the arm and alternately pushed and pulled me downstairs.

"Here he is!" announced Trixie as she pushed me into the drawing room. Everyone was gathered around Chef Machiavelli and his serving cart. He held a large cake knife poised at the ready. My birthday cake shimmered beneath the flames of numerous red candles. Ace of Cakes would have been jealous; 1313 Mockingbird Lane was represented right down to the crooked bat weather vane.

"I don't recall the Grim Reaper appearing in any episode," I said, noticing the hooded scion of death standing, scythe poised at the ready, on the porch. 

"The Grim Reaper is my idea," said Trixie. "I thought you would adore it. Well go on. Hurry up and blow out the candles."

"Marilyn Munster I adore. Don't rush me. I'm savoring the moment. You don't turn fifty-two more than once, you know." I sucked in a long breadth, took aim at the little plastic Grim Reaper, and blew out the candles. He held fast.

"How does it feel being fifty-two?" asked Zimba, pulling a candle out to lick the icing.

"A lot like fifty-one, only older," I replied.

The number fifty-two: it's the atomic number of tellurium. It's one of the tombstones in Goth: The Game of Horror Trivia. The Mayan Calendar moves through a complete cycle every fifty-two years. At age fifty-two, Alfred Hitchcock directed Strangers on a Train. At  fifty-two, Boris Karloff played the Frankenstein monster, in earnest, for the third and last time in Son of Frankenstein.

"What were you doing stumbling around up there?" asked Trixie as she helped remove the candles.

"Zombos thought he left his--"

"Oh, let us not start this again," said Zombos. "I clearly remember I did put it--"

"Hush," said Zimba. "You'd forget where your own head was if it wasn't bolted on." She pulled out the last candle. "Let's cut the cake!"

"I can help with that," volunteered Trixie. Before I could stop her she snapped her fingers. Instinct took over and I ducked just in time. The cake split open down the middle, sending the Grim Reaper high into the air along with most of the cake's hazelnut icing. Zombos was standing closest to the calamity. Zimba handed him a napkin to wipe the icing off his glasses as he removed the Grim Reaper now stuck in his hair.

"Oops. Sorry. I thought I had that spell down pat." My sister's witchery skills always did leave much to be desired.

"So. How are those lessons coming along at the Witch Finders School of Cauldronic Arts? asked Zombos.

"Never mind, dear," said Zimba. "No harm done." She gave Zombos her always persuasive stare-of-Medusa and he kept quiet. "Let's get comfortable by the fire while Rudolpho puts more frosting on the cake."

Only Zimba called Chef Machiavelli by his first name. Mostly because only she could keep a straight face while doing so. Rudolpho wheeled the cake back to the kitchen as we made ourselves comfortable by the fire. Lightning still flashed now and then across the large windowpanes, and streams of water ran pell-mell across the glass. The roaring flame on the grate lulled me with thoughts of torches held high by beleaguered villagers chasing down the Frankenstein Monster, again and again...

...Lightning, dreary near endless drizzle, and beleaguered people play their important parts in all the Frankenstein films. It took four years after Frankenstein to make the lonely monster a reluctant mate in Bride of Frankenstein, and another four years for Wolf Von Frankenstein to take on his father's less than stellar work habits in Son of Frankenstein, to restore the Monster's health.

Boris Karloff returns as the Monster, but he is a ghost of his former self, playing a lesser role as foil to Bela Lugosi's virtuoso performance as another equally undying monster, Ygor. Finally, the Monster has found a friend, although a homicidal miscreant one with a penchant for black humor. With Basil Rathbone as the effusive Wolf Von Frankenstein and Lionel Atwill as the studious Inspector Krogh playing to the rafters, Lugosi's Ygor takes center stage this time around. Karloff realized his beloved creation had become just another fixture in the mad scientist's lab, like the glassware and electrical apparatus, providing the method but no longer the means to an end; Frankenstein's Monster, truly given life by Karloff the Uncanny's emotive portrayal, had been reduced to mere appliances and neck bolts anyone willing to undergo the grueling makeup process could wear.

The humanity and soul-stirrings of Frankenstein's creation were not the only things left out in subsequent movies. Any dichotomy of nature versus nurture, dialectic regarding the balance between responsibility and determinism, and all displays of sympathy gave way to a plot gimmick that begins in Son of Frankenstein and continues through Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein: since the monster's brain is bad, he is bad; replace his brain with a good one and he becomes good. But first, like a drained rechargeable battery, he must be powered up to full strength through his bolt-like electrodes before the operation can take place.

The role of the Monster was not the only thing that changed. Son of Frankenstein stands as the bridge spanning the ambivalent melancholia and mania of James Whale's and Todd Browning's Gothic night sweats to the slick-slacks, cleaned-and-pressed, B-budget features of Universal's front-office controlled monster package, designed for a new decade of movie-goers versed in the realities and hardships of World War II. But it is an impressive bridge, nonetheless, thanks in large part to four consummate actors playing horror for all it was worth and then some.

Movie Review: Bride of Frankenstein (1935)Ghost In the House of Frankenstein Part 2 of 4

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Early in production, Whale decided that the same actress cast to play the Bride should also play Mary Shelley in the film's prologue, to represent how the story – and horror in general – springs from the dark side of the imagination (Wikipedia).

ZC Rating 7 of 7: Sublime

It took four years, rewritten scripts, and lots of coaxing to get the reluctant James Whale to direct Frankenstein's sequel, Bride of Frankenstein. Karloff, who acted in over eighty films before finally hitting stardom in Frankenstein, in spite of sustaining severe back injuries manhandling Henry in the first film, was eager to reprise his star role. Dwight Frye, whom Whale liked very much, definitely dead after the first film, was given a new role--sort of. He plays Karl, the murderous, club-footed assistant to Dr. Pretorius. Once again, Frye takes a meager role and embellishes it to perfection. Colin Clive is back as Henry Frankenstein, more morose and unbalanced than in Frankenstein, and still looking for peace of mind after his near fatal fall from the windmill. Clive broke his leg just before filming began, forcing him to be mostly seated in his scenes.

It is Ernest Thesiger, however, as the effete, nefarious Dr. Pretorius who does most of the instigation, and a good share of scene stealing, this time around. While Claude Rains and Bela Lugosi may have been considered for the role, Whale preferred Thesiger as the pompous, perverse mentor. Thesiger’s Pretorius is morally superficial, whimsically condescending, and deeply sinister; a gentleman dabbling in dark alchemical arts. He knows he is naughty and he revels in it. He is a hedonistic Baroque patriarch to his own dark morality and desires, reflecting Whale's own drive toward self-expression, self-destruction, and discomfort from his commercial directorial success.

To entice Whale back to the laboratory he was practically given carte blanche to direct his way, which he did, by greatly loosening conventionality with his caustic wit tempered by derision for having to succumb to commercial necessity, and by an unbridled flair for pushing boundaries; all of which combine to produce a less serious and less sedate film than Frankenstein, but far grander. Bride of Frankenstein borders on the outrageous; part parody, part satire, it is a reluctant parable touched with fantasy that periodically explodes into quintessential horror theatrics, providing Whale with a lucrative vehicle to poke fun at domestic relationships, the budding horror genre he helped foster, and allow him to lay bare his inner struggle between his homosexuality and society's ambivalence toward it. Henry, the Monster, Elizabeth, Pretorius, the townspeople, all represent parts of Whale's tag team match with his inner demons, yearning for, while disgusted with, a social conventionality he can never attain, but still desires deeply.

Bride of Frankenstein celebrates the maverick, the rebel, the outsider, the creative being who dares to counter the mainstream culture and its confining morality, no matter what the personal cost (Garey J. Svehla in Midnight Marquee Actors Series, Boris Karloff).

Movie Review: Frankenstein (1931) Ghost In the House of Frankenstein Part 1 of 4

The following cheeky blend of story and review was originally written for Cryptopedia, a magazine that, sadly, failed to achieve publication. While Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and Son of Frankenstein were reviewed early on, I held off on adding Ghost of Frankenstein and House of Frankenstein.

Until now.

Here, finally, is my completed review--and Halloweenesque story--for Universal's, and Dr. Frankenstein's, legacy of horror. I hope you find it more of a treat than a trick. Oh, and by the way, it's a long read. Better fire up the kettle for green tea and settle in with that nice big trick or treat bag full of candy.

ZC Rating 6 of 7: Classic

Shadows were everywhere. Ominously large shadows mingled with mysteriously short ones. As I tripped and groped my way through them, the dank, dust-laden air irritated my nose and throat. Lightning flickered occasionally, revealing the shadows for what they were--only briefly, gone in an instant--leaving a faint mental snapshot behind, confusing me even more.

“Did you find it yet?” squawked a petulant voice in the darkness.

Startled, I dropped the two-way radio, then banged my head on the sloping attic roof as I stooped to pick it up. Rubbing my head, I tapped my foot along the floor, hoping to find Zombos’ blasted new toy. I found it. I pressed the talk button.

“No, I’m still looking,” I whispered.

“What? Why are you whispering?” he asked.

Good question. I cleared my throat. “The dust...I’m still looking. The lights are out and I can’t see a damn thing. Are you sure you left it up here?”

“Yes. Of course I am sure. I definitely remember I put it--what? Oh? But I thought--oh. Never mind then, Zimba found it. You can stop looking.” He clicked off his radio.

Lightning flashed through the dormer window as I stood in the darkness, desperately searching for reasons why I should remain valet to the once renowned B-movie horror actor, now  known only by a few remaining--and just as decaying--fans. Thunder rumbled in the distance. I sighed and began the arduous journey back through the clutter of shadows towering and tilting across the west attic's floor.

Suddenly there came a tapping, then a frantic rapping on the dormer window behind me. At first I thought it was a tree branch blowing in the wind but realized no trees were high enough to reach the mansion’s attic. I went to the window. A lightning sprite lit up a large flittering shape outside. Thunder rumbled, shaking the window's broken latch open. A spray of water blew into my face as a flopping ball of wetness and blackness rolled onto the floor. Startled, I tripped over something in my surprise and fell backwards. The ball unfurled into wings. It was the largest bat I had ever seen.

“Damn, it’s a night only Frankenstein could love,” said the bat, shaking his wet wings. “Hello, might you hand me that please?”

I stood there. My lower lip hung an inch lower than my upper one. I reached into my pocket to see if I had left the two-way radio on. Nope. I then felt my head to see if I was bleeding or had a bump suitable for hallucination. Nope. I still stood there.

“I say, if you would, I’d appreciate it greatly.” The bat pointed the tip of his right wing at my left foot. I looked down and saw a small Al Capone slim cigar sticking out from under it. I lifted my foot and used the tip of my shoe to roll it to him.

“Ah, many thanks,” he said. He folded his wings together and used their tips to pick up the cigar. “You don’t happen to have a light?”

I checked the two-way radio and felt my head again. Still nope.

“I’m Wally,” he said.

“Wally...the bat,” I mouthed the words without a sound. I stood there looking at him. He looked up at me. We looked at each other for about a half-minute. “We don’t allow smoking in the mansion,” I finally said.

“Yes, well, it’s soggy and flat anyway.” He dropped the cigar and flicked his wings, sending droplets of water across my patent leathers. “Sorry about that. I must say, this is the most cluttered attic I’ve ever been in.”

We looked at each other for another half-minute or so.

“Is that an English accent?” I asked. Bat hallucinations speaking with English accents always fascinate me.

“I hadn't noticed myself. Must have come from my hanging out at Oxford.” He flicked his wings again. "Sorry. Force of habit." He puckered his lips as if he were whistling. We continued to look at each other in silence.

My mind began to wander. I, understandably, at a loss for words, and Wally the bat looking, forlornly it seemed, at his wet flat cigar. An odd night indeed and one more suited to mad scientists. My thoughts meandered around English accents, lightning storms, undead monsters, their reluctant brides, and other times...

Movie Review: The Cat and the Canary (1927)

This review originally appeared in And Now the Screaming Starts House of Silent Scream series of silent film reviews.

Rating 6 of 7: Classic

"No, that's not it," said Sosumi Jimmy Jango, Zombos' lawyer. He continued to search his memory while pulling yet another paper from his briefcase.

We were sitting in Zombos' library, waiting for Jimmy to shuffle through a few more papers before he read Uncle Hiram's will. After twenty years gathering dust in Zombos' Irish tin box, it was time to finally reveal old Hiram's wishes. He passed away while moose hunting. The annoyed moose helped him on his journey. Seated around the table were Zombos, myself, and Zombos' furthest relative from Nova Scotia, Clorinda. Billy Bounce Boukowski and Jeremy Singleton, distant relatives on Zombos' side of the pond, were also in attendance. Glenor Glenda, our housekeeper, served drinks all around.

"Glad to see everyone could make it," said Jimmy, reaching deeper into his briefcase. "I got it!"

"The will?" asked Zombos with much hope in his voice. He was getting tired of sitting so close to his distant relatives. I never could get him to explain their names or lineage.

"No, the movie this all reminds me off," said Jimmy. "The Cat and the Canary, the 1927 version. It starts off with an old geezer's will being read after twenty years, too."

"I know that one," I said. "The geezer was Cyrus West, and his relatives are summoned to his old dark mansion, overlooking the Hudson River, by the family lawyer Roger Crosby. Twenty years after his death for the reading of his will. He and Uncle Hiram must have been twins."

A Universal Fall of Fear On DVD

Here's something to growl about. This news just flew in...

"Universal Studios Home Entertainment unleashes bone-chilling horror this Halloween when vampires, werewolves, ghosts and zombies escape from their cinematic crypt. Experience some of film’s most thrilling array of chills, thrills and kills during the Fall Of Fear.

"This terrifying collection of hair-raising films feature the talent of contemporary masters like John Carpenter, Wes Craven, and Sam Raimi, as well as classic horror legends Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Boris Karloff, and Claude Rains.

"The Fall of Fear, Universal’s largest and most frightening Halloween DVD promotion in years, features nine new titles and 31 re-promoted titles with Halloween-themed wrap. Every spine-tingling catalog title within the “Fall of Fear” promotion will include a consumer offer to receive $5.00 in Candy Cash – perfect to satisfy even the most ravenous sweet tooth for horror."

New Releases Include:

An American Werewolf In London Full Moon Edition Blu-ray Hi-Def & DVD
Army Of Darkness Screwhead Edition Blu-ray Hi-Def & DVD
Shaun Of The Dead Blu-ray Hi-Def
Van Helsing Blu-ray Hi-Def
John Carpenter: Master Of Fear Collection
The Wes Craven Horror Collection

The Mummy (1932) Special Edition DVD:It Comes to Life! Part Three

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Considering how early it came in the horror cycle, it is surprising how restrained and unsensational The Mummy is. On the other hand it is that very restraint that helps to make it a classic. If one accepts The Bride of Frankenstein for its theatre and The Body Snatcher for its literacy, then one must regard The Mummy as the closest that Hollywood ever came to creating a poem out of horror. -- William K. Everson, Classics of the Horror Film

When Helen arrives at the closed museum, both Frank and his father, Sir Joseph, are about to drive off.They watch her as she tries to open the front door, and Frank is soon within arm's reach when she swoons. He sweeps her up in his arms and they take her to their apartment, where Dr. Muller arrives moments later. As Sir Joseph and Dr. Muller discuss the matter, Ardath Bey, still at the museum intoning his spell, is interrupted by a guard and extinguishes the small oil lamp he used to read the scroll. A circle of light from the guard's flashlight searches the room and finds Bey crouching in a corner. The guard turns on the lights and starts yelling at Bey, who, with complete calm, walks away. Chasing after him, both the guard and Bey go off screen. The guard's voice drops to a stifled gurgle as he's murdered, although no sign of harm can be found on his body later. In the tussle, Bey drops the scroll. Leaving Helen and Frank at the apartment, Sir Joseph and Dr. Muller go to the museum after they receive a phone call alerting them to the murder, and discover that the scroll, lost then years ago, is now in their hands. They return to the apartment with it, and, along with Frank, retreat to Sir Joseph's study to discuss what it all means.

The Mummy (1932) Special Edition DVD:It Comes to Life! Part Two

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The Mummy was golden at the box office, attracting not only genre fans, spiritualists and believers in reincarnation, but any number of viewers who were drawn both by the grandeur of the love tale and by the novelty of a "horror picture" without explicit violence. -- John T. Soister, Of Gods and Monsters: A Critical Guide to Universal Studios' Science Fiction, Horror and Mystery Films, 1929-1939

With scenes of confrontation between good and evil similar to Dracula, and the romance of undying love and reincarnation gleaned from H. Rider Haggard's She, Balderston crystallized his story of The Mummy. The unsensational and restrained visual tone was added by director Karl Freund, who's moody cinematography captured the supernatural demeanor and timelessness of Bela Lugosi's centuries-old vampire count in Dracula. Although using more camera movement here than in Dracula, Freund deliberately lingers on somber scenes to evoke a mystical aura, tinted with sadness, over the proceedings and Egyptian antiquities. His use of stimmung--a mood-building pause seen in German Expressionist Cinema of the 1920s--especially during Im-ho-tep's resurrection, shows carefully measured glimpses of Jack Pierce's elaborate makeup, leaving us in horror for what is not shown.

The Mummy (1932) Special Edition DVD:It Comes to Life!

THE MUMMY was another awful make-up job. For the sequence where the dead mummy comes to life, it was between eight and nine hours to get ready for it. You really had to get to the studio the day before. Thank God that sequence only took about a week to shoot! -- Cinefantastique: quoting from a Canadian radio interview with Boris Karloff

Can you smell it? Fresh pumpkin innards, candy corn, Ben Cooper Mummy costume rustling as you free it from its cardboard box. October air gliding furtively above pavement and walkway, baring boughs, making wooden porch steps creak, kicking empty porch swings back and forth to rattle their chains, suddenly jumping deeply into russet leaves piled high, scattering them like sands swirling around the charnel tombs of Egypt. Its time has come.

Of all the classic Universal Monsters immortalized in Halloween's polyester and plastic, the least colorful one, the Mummy, remains a top favorite of fright. Perhaps it is the way he walks--certainly not how he talks--or perhaps it is the range, from easy to hard, through which you can become the Mummy, wrapping yourself in either toilet tissue or ACE bandages. Whichever it may be, it all started with Karl Freund's The Mummy, brought to vivid life by Boris Karloff, the only actor who could portray the buried-alive-for-love Im-ho-tep, painstakingly mummified by monster maker Jack Pierce in a long process few would care to endure.

Remembering the Beloved Gill Man

BIG BEN CHAPMAN
Remembering the Beloved Gill Man Actor
By Scott Essman
Undying Universal Monsters

Yes, there was Ricou Browning for the underwater scenes and suit performers on land who followed, notably Tom Hennesy and Don Magowan, but for millions of “creature feature” fans, Benjamin F. Chapman, Jr. was the “reel” Gill Man from the original 1954 classic, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON.  On February 21, he sadly passed away in Hawaii at the age of 79.

Certainly, the Bay Area native had the advantage of being a player on the Universal lot in the early 1950s and his 6’5” size and relative youth – in his late 20s – made him ideal for the part of the creature who stalks North American invaders of his native Amazonian lagoon in the beloved film, originally filmed in 3D.  But Chapman brought a grace and several nuances to the performance of the first Gill Man, which made him one of the great icons in the Universal Studios canon of classic monsters.

In preparations for the creation of the titular character, Universal’s makeup department, headed by Bud Westmore, cast Chapman’s and Browning’s various body parts to fabricate the Gill Man costume, which was realized in foam rubber. Different sections such as torso, arms and legs, were taken off of impressions of Chapman’s body, then the team, including stalwarts such as Tom Case and Jack Kevan, created individual sections. The memorable Gill Man face was designed by artist Milicent Patrick and sculpted by Chris Mueller. Chapman was suited up on a daily basis by Bob Dawn for his exterior scenes, filmed on Universal’s backlot. Footage of Browning in a duplicate suit was achieved on location in Florida.

Though Chapman never played the Gill Man in the sequels, he did reprise the creature for the Colgate Comedy Hour’s TV episode with Abbott and Costello, a program in which they comedy duo first encounters Glenn Strange as the Frankenstein Monster, then reveals the Gill Man to the public for the first time anywhere. Though only three films all in, the CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON series rates with any of Universal’s monsters from the 1930s and 1940s for sheer fan adulation.

Chapman had long been retired from acting but made regular personal appearances at conventions and autograph signings over the years. He maintained a website, The-Reelgillman.com, and was the focus of fans’ love since magazines such as Famous Monsters of Filmland made the character popular again for new generations of fans in the 1960s and 1970s.  Always good natured and happy to talk about his 1953-1954 Gill Man performances, Chapman will be fondly remembered by fans of the original film and all who had met him since.

Special thanks to Dan Roebuck plus Sam Borowski & Matthew Crick, creators of the documentary CREATURE FEATURE: 50 YEARS OF THE GILL MAN

The Wolf Man 1941

Of the three major Universal Studios monster movies, Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man, The Wolf Man did not spring from a notable novel. While many legends of werewolves abound in print, it took the skill of screenwriter Curt Siodmak, the talent of makeup artist Jack Pierce, and the acting of Lon Chaney Jr. to tell the story of a man doomed by an eternal curse to kill the ones he loves by the light of the full moon.

The Wolf Man was originally intended as a vehicle for Boris Karloff, but as often happens in Hollywood, intentions change, as well as script ideas. Only the title remained as the movie was eventually assigned to director George Waggner and scriptwriter Curt Siodmak. While Waggner's uninspired and straightforward direction is adequate, it is Siodmak, first drawing on European Folklore, then creating his own, who weaves a fairytale spun out of Greek tragedy, blooming wolfbane, moonlight, and a sympathetic, doomed hero.

Lon Chaney, Jr. has the distinction of being the only actor to portray the tragic Larry Talbot, cursed to change into the Wolf Man and kill against his will, in five of Universal's horror offerings, thus making the role uniquely his own. His sympathetic performance as Lennie in Of  Mice and Men typecast him as a hulking, sympathetic type, but that proved a perfect fit for his portrayal of the agonized, guilt-ridden Talbot and his demonic alter-ego.