Boris Karloff – Cinefantastique

Supernal Dreams: Boris Karloff on THRILLER

Posted on September 23, 2010 by Lawrence French

Image Entertainment’s new 14-DVD set of 67 episodes of THRILLER is quite a marvelous treat, and it fits in perfectly with Cinefantastique’s celebration of movies released in that seminal year for terror, 1960.
Among the impressive authors who wrote episodes for THRILLER were Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, Donald S. Sandford and Barre Lyndon. The directors included such experienced hands as John Brahm, Laszlo Benedek, Ted Post, Douglas Heyes, Ray Milland, Herschel Daugherty and Ida Lupino.
Yet, what I find truly amazing about the series is the cornucopia of great Hollywood character actors who were featured on the show. Actors who were never “stars.” As Boris Karloff notes, “Isn’t it quite wonderful to use actors instead of ‘stars’ ” Indeed, it is and Thriller featured among many others, these fine actors, nearly all of whom had important roles in at least one classic horror movie:

John Carradine, Torin Thatcher, Beverly Garland, Vladimir Sokoloff and Martita Hunt
Jack Carson, Estelle Winwood, Everett Sloane, Edward Andrews and Mary Astor
Jeanette Nolan, Guy Rolfe, Judith Evelyn, John Williams and Hazel Court
Jane Greer, Henry Jones, Oscar Homolka, Warren Oates and Patrica Medina
Otto Kruger, Nancy Kelly, Eduardo Cianelli, Richard Carlson and Jo Van Fleet
Sidney Blackmer, William Windom, George Kennedy, Ann Todd and Henry Daniell

All of these people were truly wonderful character actors, but none of them were ever really “stars” so it was no surprise to find not one of them listed among the 20 actors featured on the back of the THRILLER box set. I guess the PR “experts” think Donna Douglas, Tom Poston and Natalie Schafer are more exciting to genre fans, than John Carradine, Mary Astor and Henry Daniell!
Of course, since Henry Daniell nearly stole the show from Boris Karloff when the two actors appeared together in Val Lewton’s THE BODY SNATCHER, I’d like to make a special note of Daniell’s work on THRILLER here.
Mr. Daniell made five memorable appearances on Thriller, playing among others, Count Cagliostro, Vicar Weatherford and Squire Moloch. Sadly, Daniell and Karloff were not reunited in any episode of THRILLER, but since both Karloff and Daniell appeared in five episodes, it’s interesting to note that Daniell’s episodes are of better quality than Karloff’s! That certainly doesn’t mean the five episodes Karloff appeared in were bad, simply that most of them were less exciting than such classics at The Cheaters and The Well of Doom.

Boris Karloff in "The Incredible Dr. Markesan"

Actually, all of the five episodes Karloff appeared in were quite good. They included, The Prediction, The Premature Burial, The Last of the Sommervilles, Dialogues with Death and The Incredible Doktor Markesan. Dr. Markesan was beautifully directed by Robert Florey, who ironically, had been scheduled to direct Frankenstein before he was replaced by James Whale. If Florey had directed Frankenstein, it’s quite possible he might easily have cast an actor other than Karloff as the monster!
To introduce Boris Karloff’s comments on THRILLER, here are some of Stephen King’s remarks from his book Danse Macabre. King calls Thriller the best horror series ever made for TV, but in reading his comments, anyone with knowledge of the genre may notice the staggering number of factual mistakes he makes, which tend to mar his otherwise intriguing observations:
STEPHEN KING on THRILLER:
Probably the best horror series ever put on TV was Thriller. It ran on NBC from September of 1960 until the summer of 1962—really only two seasons plus reruns. It was a period before television began to face up to an increasing barrage of criticism about its depiction of violence, a barrage that really began with the JFK assassination, grew heavier following the assassinations of RFK and Martin Luther King and finally caused the medium to dissolve into a sticky syrup of situation comedies—history may record that dramatic television finally gave up the ghost and slid down the tubes with a hearty cry of “Na-noo, na-noo!”
The contemporaries of Thriller were also weekly bloodbaths; the time of The Untouchables, starring Robert Stack as the unflappable Eliot Ness and featuring the gruesome deaths of hoodlums without number (1959-1963); Peter Gunn (1958-1961); and Cain’s Hundred (1961-1962), to name just a few. It was TV’s violent era. As a result, after a slow first thirteen weeks, Thriller was able to become something other than the stock imitation of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that it was apparently meant to be (early episodes dealt with cheating husbands trying to hypnotize their wives into walking over high cliffs, poisoning Aunt Martha to inherit her fortune so that the gambling debts could be paid off, and all that tiresome sort of thing) and took on a tenebrous life of its own. For the brief period of its run between January of 1961 and April of 1962—perhaps fifty-six of its seventy-eight total episodes—it really was one of a kind, and its like was never seen on TV again.
Thriller was an anthology-format show (as all of the supernatural-terror TV programs which have enjoyed even a modicum of success have been) hosted by Boris Karloff. Karloff had appeared on TV before, after the Universal horror wave of the early to mid-thirties finally ran weakly out in that series of comedies in the late forties. This program, telecast on the fledgling ABC-TV network, had a brief run in the autumn of 1949. It was originally titled Starring Boris Karloff, fared no better following a title change to Mystery Playhouse Starring Boris Karloff, and was canceled. In feeling and tone, however, it was startlingly similar to Thriller, which came along eleven years later.
…Karloff was sixty-four at the beginning of Thriller’s two-year run, and not in the best of health; he suffered from a chronically bad back and had to wear weights to stand upright. Some of these infirmities dated back to his original film appearance as Frankenstein’s monster in 1932. He no longer starred in all the programs—many of the guest stars on the Thriller program were nonentities who went on to become full-fledged nobodies (one of those guest stars, Reggie Nalder, went on to play the vampire Barlow in the CBS-TV film version of ‘Salem’s Lot)—but fans will remember a few memorable occasions when he did (“The Strange Door,” for instance). The old magic was still there, still intact. Lugosi might have finished his career in misery and poverty but Karloff, despite a few embarrassments like Frankenstein 1970, went out as he came in: as a gentleman.
Produced by William Frye, Thriller was the first television program to discover the goldmine in those back issues of Weird Tales, the memory of which had been kept alive up until then mostly in the hearts of fans, a few quickie paperback anthologies, and, of course, in those limited-edition Arkham House anthologies. One of the most significant things about the Thriller series from the standpoint of the horror fan was that it began to depend more and more upon the work of writers who had published in those “shudder pulps” …the writers who, in the period of the twenties, thirties, and forties, had begun to guide horror out of the Victorian-Edwardian ghost-story channel it had been in for so long, and toward our modern perception of what the horror story is and what it should do. Robert Bloch was represented by “The Hungry Glass,” a story in which the mirrors of an old house harbor a grisly secret; Robert E. Howard’s “Pigeons from Hell,” one of the finest horror stories of our century, was adapted, and remains the favorite of many who remember Thriller with fondness. Other episodes include “A Wig for Miss DeVore,” in which a red wig keeps an actress eternally young …until the final five minutes of the program, when she loses it—and everything else.
Miss DeVore’s lined, sunken face; the young man staggering blindly down the stairs of the decaying bayou mansion with a hatchet buried in his head (“Pigeons from Hell”); the fellow who sees the faces of his fellow men and women turned into hideous monstrosities when he puts on a special pair of glasses (“The Cheaters,” from another Bloch story)—these may not have constituted fine art, but in Thriller’s run, we find those qualities coveted above all others by fans of the genre: a literate story coupled with the genuine desire to frighten viewers into spasms.
____________________________
BORIS KARLOFF on THRILLER:
These comments were compiled from various interviews Boris Karloff has given over the years for a special tribute program I put together in 2006 for a retrospective program of Karloff films, for which Sara Karloff was the guest of honor. The Karloff retrospective was organized in San Francisco by Gary Meyer, currently the director of the Telluride Film Festival.

How do you determine what parts you’ll accept?
BORIS KARLOFF: I am quite shameless. If I am offered a part, I’ll have a go at it. I do not go seriously around trying to pick my own parts. That is dangerous. I could fancy myself playing all sorts of things. I could read a book and think, “I would be great in that,” but I don’t think you know what is best. I think it’s much better for somebody outside of yourself to choose the part. You can always say no, if it’s a bad part.
You did a TV series in which you played quite another type or role, didn’t you?
BORIS KARLOFF: Oh, yes, that was Colonel March of Scotland Yard. It was made in England during the winter of 1953 and ‘54.
Were they made for American audiences?
BORIS KARLOFF: Yes, they were made for the American market.

Did you enjoying making the TV series Thriller?
BORIS KARLOFF: Very much, indeed. The man who produced it, Bill Frye, is a very good friend of my wife and I. I have great respect for him. I think he’s a wonderful producer and it’s a great loss to television, because he’s gone to Columbia to make films.
How did you initially get involved in doing Thriller?

BORIS KARLOFF: I just happened along, and they made this test film, which was called The Twisted Image. I do hope you won’t confuse me with the title. I wasn’t in it, I just did the emceeing. I appear as myself, which is a frightful thing to do to an audience. They do it quite simply. I sort of intrude into the first scene and explain for example, that this nice looking couple is really in for quite a terrifying day, as you shall soon see and then I quietly slip out again. The producers then suggested that I might like to appear in some of the episodes, to which I was most agreeable, because it has been set up quite sensibly I think, as there is no set number of shows which I must do, you see. And it is quite wonderful to use actors instead of “stars”—that abused word that has ceased to have any meaning. It is a sad thing—the awful waste of potential talent you find today.

You have actually done quite a range of things outside of the horror category, haven’t you?
BORIS KARLOFF: That’s a dreadful word… it’s the wrong word…
What term besides “horror” would you like to be applied to the films you work in?
BORIS KARLOFF: Well, I think the trapping was, in the early days when they first made these films, they were trying to get one word to express it, and they chose the word “horror.” But the word “horror” has a connotation of revulsion. That’s what the word really means. Well the aim certainly is not to repel you, or to revolt you. It is to attract you. It’s to excite you. It’s to alarm you, perhaps. It’s excitement. I think the word should be thriller, really, or shock, but certainly not horror. So I think “Thriller” is quite the best word for this sort of thing, as the word “horror” has come to mean something else altogether. I mean, if it’s to be a horror show, they put some guts in a bucket and show it to you. That sort of thing, but a thriller, you see, can go anywhere. It’s not tied down to pure mystery, or violence, or murder. That’s one thing you won’t find on Thriller—violence for the sake of violence, shock for the sake of shock. The two skillful men who are in charge of this operation are going to prove that you can have all the suspense, mystery, adventure and excitement you could want, without resorting to violence. I’m quite delighted with the whole thing.
You don’t live in Hollywood now, do you?
BORIS KARLOFF: No, I live in London.

In London, that’s right.
BORIS KARLOFF: And in airplanes! (Laughs).

Oh yes, commuting across the Atlantic.
BORIS KARLOFF: I flew a total of 12,000 miles (on a round-trip from London to Hollywood) to do one day’s work filming six of the lead-in’s to Thriller. I thought it would take at least three days, and I must say I was flabbergasted that it only took one. It was filmed at Universal, on the same lot where 30 years earlier I played Frankenstein’s monster. In a way, it was like coming home again. The first season I only appeared in one episode, but it was a little tiresome to fly 12,000 miles just to read the teleprompter, so during the second season I appeared in four shows.

In 1953 you made an Italian film on the island of Ischia, called The Island Monster.
BORIS KARLOFF: Oh God, yes.

Do you remember much about it?
BORIS KARLOFF: No, I haven’t the least idea what it was like. Incredible! Dreadful! No one in the outfit spoke English, and I don’t speak Italian. Just hopeless. I had a very good time, but that’s beside the point.
Most of your recent films have been done for American International Pictures. How do you like working for them?

Boris Karloff with Peter Lorre and Vincent Price in AIP's THE RAVEN

BORIS KARLOFF: Oh, they (James Nicholson and Samuel Arkoff, the heads of AIP) have been extremely considerate to me. They are very successful and intelligent men. They know their market and they know their field very well. I’m most grateful to them. Their films are beautifully mounted and photographed. They shoot them in about three weeks. How can they do them in that short amount of time? The answer is in the immense amount of preparation, the homework that is done before you ever get on the set and start shooting. That’s when all the money starts to roll out, the moment you assemble the whole thing on the set. Then, if you’re not ready, you’re throwing money out the window. They rent space at a studio, they have assembled one of the finest crews that I’ve ever known, and the crews in the studios out there are really marvelous. They anticipate everything, they are ahead of you, they take a pride in what they are doing, and believe me it makes a difference. Everything is there and ready right down to the last button so that there is no pressure on me as an actor. If I’ve played a scene badly and want to do it again, they say, “sure,” not, “oh, Christ we haven’t got the time.”
______
Obviously, Stephen King is a masterful writer of horror fiction, but one wishes he had done a little more fact checking for his book, Danse Macabre, since it is filled with an incredible number of factual errors. Here are just a few from the short text I’ve quoted from, above:

KING: …fifty-six of its seventy-eight total episodes…

Mr. King obviously got the total number of Thriller episodes wrong, since it was 67 episodes, not 78.

KING: Karloff was sixty-four at the beginning of Thriller’s two-year run

When Karloff began Thriller, he was 71 and in fairly good health. His major health problems came in 1963 after Thriller was off the air.

KING: Karloff had to wear weights to stand upright. Some of these infirmities dated back to his original film appearance as Frankenstein’s monster in 1932.

Frankenstein, as most everyone knows appeared in 1931. Karloff did not have to wear weights to stand upright, but needed leg braces to walk in his final years.

KING: Fans will remember a few memorable occasions when he did (appear on the show) “The Strange Door,” for instance.

Fans will remember The Strange Door, but not because it was an episode of Thriller. It was a Universal feature film starring Karloff and Charles Laughton.

KING: The young man staggering blindly down the stairs of the decaying bayou mansion with a hatchet buried in his head (“Pigeons from Hell”).

Mr. King’s memory is faulty, as the scene he describes does not appear in “Pigeons from Hell.” The young man is carrying a hatchet with which he attempts to kill his brother, it is not buried in his head.

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Thriller: DVD Box Set Preview

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Steve Biodrowski

Classic television show, hosted by Boris Karloff, finally comes to DVD

For fans of classic horror on television, this is big news: THRILLER, the spooky anthology series hosted by Boris Karloff (FRANKENSTEIN), finally arrives on home video, in a lovely DVD box set, this Tuesday, August 27 – almost exactly 50 years after its premier on NBC way back in September of 1960.
THRILLER ran for two seasons, offering up 67 hour-long episodes of macabre entertainment. (If that sounds like a lot of episodes for two seasons, this was back when television shows typically ran for nine months, taking only the summer off.) Although less well known than THE TWILIGHT ZONE or THE OUTER LIMITS, THRILLER offered similar high-quality episodes, with wonderfully atmospheric black-and-white photography; some great scripts based on classic horror literature, including episodes scripted by or based on Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, and others; a menagerie of familiar faces and guest stars, including William Shatner, Leslie Nielsen, Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Montgomery, Rip Torn, Richard Chamberlain, Cloris Leachman, Robert Vaughn, Marlo Thomas, Ursula Andress, and more.
Like Rod Serling with THE TWILIGHT ZONE, Boris Karloff introduced each episode, but unlike Serling, he offered no wrap-up at the end. The intros are nicely done, often tongue in cheek (“Don’t be alarmed – the woman who screamed is perfectly quiet now,” he intones playfully in the familiar lisp. “After all, she’s been dead over 100 years.”) On top of his duties as host, Karloff himself starred in more than one episode, putting his familiar sinister-gentleman persona to good use.

Wearing the "Cheaters," a man has the misfortune to see the ugly truth about himself. — Wearing the "Cheaters," a man sees the ugly truth about himself.

As the title suggests, THRILLER began more in a mystery-thriller vein, a la ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, with lots of creepy skulduggery going on in old dark houses and the like; however, it soon morphed into more of a Gothic horror show, with ghosts and other supernatural beings making frequent appearances. The crime stories are nicely done, but the horror episodes stand out in memory, such as “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” (in which the infamous serial killer is revealed to be an immortal, still at work in the 20th Century) and “The Cheaters” (in which a mysterious pair of spectacles reveal the often ugly truth lurking behind every day reality).
The conflict between the two approaches left the show feeling a bit schizophrenic: if you wanted a monster of the week, you were not going to get it, and the main theme (heard prominently on the DVD’s menu) has a jazzy feel more appropriate to film noir than Gothic horror. However, the nice thing about the format was that, because THRILLER was not dedicated to supernatural explanations, the scripts could play with audience expectations (e.g., was the painting in “The Grim Reaper” episode really cursed, or was that a ruse used by a murder to conceal his crimes – or was it both?).

Image Entertainment’s box set collects all 67 episodes onto 14 discs , remastered and uncut. Bonus features include extensive galleries or production and promotion stills, promotional clips, isolated music and effects tracks for select episodes, and 27 new audio commentaries. (Since many of the people associated with the series are long gone, most of the commentaries are provided by fans, scholars, and filmmakers: Ernest Dickerson, David Schow, Tim Lucas, Gary Gerani, Marc Scott Zicree, etc.)
If the single screener disc we received is any indication of the overall quality, then the THRILLER box set is a must-have. The full-screen transfers are clear and sharp, perfectly capturing the low-key photography (which is even more impressive when you recall that these episodes were filmed at a time when most shows avoided high-contrast lighting because of the limitations of then-current television monitors, which might render dark areas of the screen as completely black).

The familiar graphic design of criss-crossed lines

The two episodes on the provided disc, “The Grim Reaper” and “Pigeons from Hell” (Episodes 36 and 37, the last of Season 1) offer mystery and suspense, bordering on horror, keeping the audience guess as to what is really happening. “Pigeons from Hell,” scripted by John Kneubuhl from the story by Robert E. Howard, and directed by John Newland (ONE STEP BEYOND) plays things a bit too close to the vest: although intriguing and eerie, with hints of voodoo, it comes to a conclusion that leaves one wondering exactly what was going on and just why were the pigeons from Hell?
“The Grim Reaper” is equally spooky but with a more satisfying twist ending, thanks to a script by Robert Bloch (PSYCHO) from a story by Harold Lawlor.William Shatner stars as a newphew who shows up at his aunt’s mansion to warn her about the eponymous painting she recently purchased, which has a reputation for bringing death to its owners. However, Aunt Beatric (Natalie Schafer, Mrs. Howell on GILLIGAN’S ISLAND) is a best-selling mystery author who believes the “curse” is good publicity – until she ends up dead.

Thriller: William Shatner in The Grim Reaper — William Shatner stands before the titular painting of The Grim Reaper

Under Herschel Daugherty’s direction, the performances are so broadly melodramatic that “The Grim Reaper” borders on camp: watch Shatner as he extends his hand, after touching the painting, to reveal his blood-stained fingers, and then watch the equally overdone reactions of those watching him. (Shafer in particular matches Shatner note for note in the histrionics department.) Fortunately, the performances are thoroughly enjoyable, helping to set up the correct playful tone that justifies the blackly comic finale, in which villain finds himself hoist on his own petard. Also of note: genre faves Robert Cornthwaite (THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD) and Henry Daniel (THE BODY SNATCHER) show up in cameos.
The audio commentaries by Gary Gerani and/or Ernest Dickerson are informative and interesting. The photos galleries truly deserve the adjective “extensive,” stretching throughout the show’s run (not just the two episodes included on this disc). And the promotional clip is a truly novel bonus item: clearly designed not for audiences but for television station owners, the lengthy montage of scenes features Karloff both on-screen and narrating, extolling the virtues of the series that are guaranteed to attract audiences and guaranteeing thrills “natural, unnatural, and supernatural.”
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Warner Brothers to release Karloff & Lugosi Horror Classics DVD Box Set

Posted on June 15, 2009 by Steve Biodrowski

You'll Find Out (1940) — YOU'LL FIND OUT stars Kay Kaiser (right) with horror icons Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Peter Lorre.

Warner Brothers has announced that it will release a DVD box set containing four films featuring Boris Karloff (FRANKENSTEIN) and/or Bela Lugosi (DRACULA), the two greatest stars of classic horror films from the early sound era: THE WALKING DEAD, FRANKENSTEIN 1970, YOU’LL FIND OUT, and ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY. It may be a bit generous to term any of the included titles “classics,” but they are fondly remembered by fans who saw them as children on “Monster Chiller Horror Theatre” or whatever the local TV equivalent was.
I have a particular fondness for YOU’LL FIND OUT, a haunted house spoof in which Karloff, Lugosi, and Peter Lorre co-star with band leader Kay Kaiser. The musical sequences do go on a bit, but the film gives the three horror stars ample opportunity to spoof their bogeyman image; in fact, more than the later Universal Studios “Monster Rallies” (HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, HOUSE OF DRACULA), YOU’LL FIND OUT is a good showcase for audiences to see an ensemble of their favorite horror icons.
The set is scheduled for an October 6 release, with a suggested price of $26.98.
Here is the press release:

KARLOFF & LUGOSI HORROR CLASSICS
The Walking Dead! Frankenstein-1970!
You’ll Find Out! Zombies on Broadway!
OCTOBER 6 FROM WARNER HOME VIDEO
Burbank, Calif., June 15, 2009 – Horror fans will again be screaming this Halloween when Warner Home Video debuts the Karloff & Lugosi Horror Classics October 6 — four frightfully fun horror classics all in one collection and on DVD for the first time. Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, iconic horror actors best known for creating the screen’s original Frankenstein and Dracula characters, star here in other roles in The Walking Dead, Frankenstein-1970, You’ll Find Out and Zombies on Broadway. The 2-disc set will be available for $26.98 SRP.
The Walking Dead (1936)
The Walking Dead is a unique blend of cinematic horror and the classic Warner Bros. gangster stylings. This long-admired cult favorite stars Boris Karloff, who gives an outstanding performance as John Ellman, an ex-con framed for murder who’s sentenced to the electric chair. When Ellman is brought back to life through the miracles of science, his only task is to seek revenge against those responsible for his death. Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) directs this eerie tale.
Special Feature:
–Commentary by historian Greg Mank
Frankenstein-1970 (1958)
Nearly twenty years after his final appearance as the Frankenstein monster in Son of Frankenstein, Boris Karloff returned to the screen in a new film derived from the Mary Shelley story that first catapulted him to stardom. In this 1958 horror classic, Karloff appears in the role of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a descendent of the original doctor, whose depleted fortune forces him to grant a film crew access to the family castle to shoot a horror flick. It’s not all bad, though, since he now has a supply of fresh body parts ready for harvesting.
Special Feature:
–Commentary by historians Charlotte Austin and Tom Weaver
You’ll Find Out (1940)
Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre poke fun at their horror-genre personas in this wacky 1940 RKO mix of music, murder and mirth. The plot finds the trio of horror legends leaving a trail of terror and laughs along the way, as they plan a murder in order to nab a young heiress’ inheritance in a spooky, spoofy haunted house tale. The film was one of several hits of the era featuring the music and merriment of the then popular Kay Kyser and his band. The film’s original song, “I’d Know You Anywhere” was Oscar® nominated.
Zombies on Broadway (1945)
The emphasis is equally spread between horror and hi-jinx in this wacky RKO production that has endeared itself to generations of die-hard Lugosi fans. Here, Bela Lugosi stars as mad scientist Dr. Paul Renault who ends up with more than he bargained for when he encounters
two inept Broadway press agents (Alan Carney and Wally Brown) looking for a real-life zombie to use for a publicity stunt in promoting a new nightclub.

Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) – Retrospective Film Review

Posted on May 12, 2009 by Steve Biodrowski

This is a creaky but entertaining relic from the early sound era. Basically an adventure story focusing on a race to prevent Fu Manchu from obtaining some lost relics, the movie feels like a proto-type for RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, with some science-fiction overtones; it edges into the horror category thanks to the fiendish torture devices used by the Oriental criminal mastermind – and his sadistic daughter. The pacing is frequently slack, especially in the early scenes, but the film has a genuinely, sometimes kinky (if admittedly offensive) kick, thanks to the unabashed racism of its plot. Boris Karloff gives a delicious performance in the title role, one of his relatively few portraits of outright evil. Although a horror star thanks to his performance as the monster in FRANKENSTEIN, Karloff tend to imbue most of his monsters with sympathy. Not so here – this is about as close as the actor ever came to camp, and it works, in an unbelievable, movie-movie sort of way.

HISTORY

MASK OF FU MANCHU was made at MGM before the Hayes Commission began cracking down on Hollywood. Previous movies based on the Sax Rohmer character had starred Warner Oland; with Karloff (a major horror star after FRANKENSTEIN and THE OLD DARK HOUSE) in the role, the emphasis was placed on torture and sadism, pushing the limits of what was acceptable in a Hollywood movie of the era. For example, Fu Manchu’s daughter has the young leading man stripped to the waist and whipped repeatedly while she watches with what can only be described as orgasmic joy.
Later, when the film was re-released, the offending material was cut out, creating numerous visible jump-cuts. Because the film is so old, unaware viewers might think these jumps represented a worn-out print missing a few frames. Actually, these jumps represented several extensive sequences, mostly involving dialogue of an outrageous racist nature that borders on camp.
With Karloff (an Englishman) as Fu Manchu and with Hollywood starlet Myrna Loy as his daughter, it’s no secret that MASK OF FU MANCHU is a racist portrait of the so-called “Yellow Peril” (the same sort of stereotyping that later gave us “Ming the Merciless” in the FLASH GORDON serials). There are a handful of authentically Asian actors in bit parts, but in general this is one of those movies wherein Occidental actors are made up to look Oriental.
As if that were not bad enough, the plot centers quest to beat Fu Manchu to the discovery of the golden sword and golden mask of Genghis Kahn. If Fu Manchu obtains them, the entire Eastern world will accept him as Kahn reborn and follow him as he leads an Oriental uprising to overthrow the Western (i.e., White) world.
Much of the missing dialogue involves Fu Manchu’s racist exhortations to his follows, including this hysterical battle cry to the Eastern warlords: “Conquer and breed! Kill the White Man and steal his women!”
The racist tone could be considered offensive; fortunately, it’s far too far over-the-top to take seriously. And in any case, from a historical perspective, it’s essential to preserve films in their original form: good or bad, they are a document representing popular tastes and attitudes of their times. We shouldn’t let this stuff go down the memory hole.

LASERDISC/DVD DETAILS

But down the memory hole is exactly where the offending footage went for decades; even the videotape release was the censored version. Thankfully, the film was restored in the 1990s for “MGM Horror Classics.” This excellent laserdisc box set included three other ’30s horror films: MAD LOVE with Peter Lorre, MARK OF THE VAMPIRE with Bela Lugosi, THE DEVIL DOLL with Lionel Barrymore, along with a few trailers from the original theatrical release of the films. Sadly, although the print used for the laserdisc transfer was mostly in good shape, the missing footage had to be taken from inferior 16mm materials, so whenever one of the censored scenes appeared, the image turned grainy and scratchy, even a little faded. This created a weird effect, which might be called “Accidental Art.” The poor image quality inadvertently announced the more disreputable moments in the movie. After a while, viewer response became almost Pavlovian: you see the graininess, and you know you are about to see something that was deemed so offensive that for decades it was suppressed.
The MGM Horror Classics collection was too expensive to appeal to anyone but hard-core collectors, and it went quickly out of print, making it difficult if not impossible to find MASK OF FU MANCHU in its original, uncut form for another decade. Then in 2006 the old laserdisc box set was reborn in DVD form as “Hollywood Legends of Horror,” a new three-disc box set that added the titles DR. X. and THE RETURN OF DR. X. At a more affordable price, the DVD version made FU MANCHU available not only to collectors but also to the merely curious, who want to see what the censorship was all about.
One should not oversell the impact of the missing footage; even the whipping scene is not graphic by 21st century standards. But the restored footage is powerful, if for no other reason than that we know disturbed some people so deeply that it was censored. Seen decades later, THE MASK OF FU MANCHU is the kind of film that Quentin Tarantino might call a “breath of fresh air” because it is, without apology, completely politically incorrect. That might not be enough to make the film a masterpiece, but it is essential viewing in its uncut form.
THE MASK OF FU MANCHU(1932). Directed by Charles Brabin. Screenplay by Irene Kuhn, Edgar Allan Woolf, and John Willard, based on the character created by Sax Rohmer. Cast: Boris Karloff, Lewis Stone, Karen Morley, Charles Starrett, Myrna Loy, Jean Hersholt, Lawrence Grant.

The Raven (1935) – Retrospective Horror Film & DVD Review

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Steve Biodrowski

The 1935 pairing of horror stars Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff is still enjoyably over-the-top entertainment.

The Raven (1935) With the advances in Video on Demand, including services like Amazon.com and Netflix that allow you to watch movies on your TV anytime you like without having to own them, my days of purchasing DVDs are rapidly dwindling. However, I still cannot resist a bargain, and I have a fondness for box sets that package together multiple titles for one low price. Purists complain that the bit-rate on these discs (which save money by squeezing in two films per side) results in reduced quality, but generally I have fond them to be worth the money. One of my favorites is “Bela Lugosi” DVD collection from 2005, which is a must-have for fans of classic horror. The package offers five films (each just a tad over 60 minutes) on two sides of a single disc, with some nice box cover art but almost no bonus features (just a trailer or two).
The highlight of the set is 1934’s THE BLACK CAT, but THE RAVEN (1935) remains a personal favorite, because it gives Lugosi an opportunity to outshine his co-star Boris Karloff (even though Karloff gets top billing). THE RAVEN is the second of three films that Universal Pictures made as a vehicle to co-star Karloff and Lugosi (the first was THE BLACK CAT; the third was THE INVISIBLE RAY). The two had more or less equal roles in BLACK CAT, but Lugosi is clearly the lead in THE RAVEN; Karloff’s character doesn’t even enter until fifteen minutes into the running time (approximately one-quarter of the short film).
THE RAVEN is not quite as good as I remembered, mostly because it is way, way over the top. Lugosi was a stage actor who never got out of the habit of projecting his performance as if he were trying to reach viewers in the back rows of the theatre; on screen, the result can seem quite hammy. Nevertheless, his out-of-control style ultimately works, especially in the latter scenes when the character is past all retrains and thoroughly enjoying the evil he is perpetrating.
The story is about a Dr. Richard Vollin, a great surgeon who has retired to do research and to work on his private obsession, which is collecting –and creating — Poe memorabilia. He brags to a museum representative early on that he has created many of the torture devices that Poe described in his stories (such as the knife-edged pendulum from “The Pit and the Pendulum”). Vollin is called out of retirement to save the life of a young woman, who has been in a car accident. He falls in love with his patient, and begins his descent into madness, calling himself “a god…with the taint of human emotion.”
As Vollin explains it, he renders a service to mankind, but in order to perform that service, his hand must be steady and his mind unclouded by emotions that torture him. When it becomes clear that his patient does not return his love, Vollin’s only solution is seek a truly bizarre form of catharsis: torturing everyone who stands in the way of his frustrated consummation.
He is abetted in this by Edward Bateman (Karloff), an escaped prisoner who once put a torch in the face of a guard during a bank heist. Bateman comes to Vollin looking for a new face so that he can hide from the police. Despite his criminal background, Bateman his a sympathetic figure. Unlike Vollin, who is upper-class, rich, and decadent, Bateman is a working class man obviously driven by circumstances, including not only his economic deprivation but his looks.
“May if a man looks ugly, he does ugly things,” he tells Vollin, who replies in rapt amazement, “You are saying something profound.”
Vollin performs surgery on Bateman, who wants to put his criminal past behind him, but only to make him even uglier (half his face is paralyzed, a blind eye staring at an awkward angle). “Your monstrous ugliness creates monstrous hate,” Vollin chuckles. “I can use your hate.”
The story comes to a climax when Vollin invites his unsuspecting guests to weekend party. After every one’s fallen asleep, he abducts his patient, her fiance, and her father and puts them into his various torture devices (which also include a room with walls that come together to crush those inside). Unfortunately for Vollin, the rebellious Bateman falls for the girl and rebels…
The film is a little bit of a B-movie, in the sense that the cast and settings are relatively small. A little bit of production value is added by reusing existing sets. (For example, Vollin’s patient is a dancer who performs a piece called “The Spirit of Poe,” which staged on the old opera set from Universal 1925 PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.) Although the setting is contemporary, Vollins’ mansion has a basement that looks like a medieval torture chamber, complete with secret passageways. The supporting cast at the party suffers a bit from comic relief, but the lead players all do a very good job.
Like THE BLACK CAT, THE RAVEN is scored with existing bits of classical music (Lugosi at one point serenades his intended love with an excerpt from Back’s Toccata in D Minor). Lew Landers’ direction is somewhat perfunctory, but the studio production values help overcome the deficiencies, and in any case the real reason to see the film is watch the stars, who are aided and abetted by a script that plays to their strengths. Even if the story is not entirely sophisticated, the screenplay is filled with many memorable lines, and the characterizations, although broad, are a perfect fit for the actors, who admirably fill out the roles, their established personas and acting styles making up for the lack of (unnecessary, in this context) subtle psychological depth.
Lugosi is in his element in this one, playing a larger-than-life embodiment of evil insanity. He is nicely balanced by Karloff, who gives a much more low-key performance as a more believable character. The sparks fly quite effectively in thier uneasy partnership (Vollin blackmails Bateman into helping him by promising to restore his distorted features). Although the film is dated by today’s standards, I suspect it played quite well to its intended audience in the 1930s, the time of the great depression. It must have been fun for struggling Americans to see the wealthy Dr. Vollin portrayed as a raging maniac, while poor Bateman is reluctantly enlisted into aiding his evil plans, and there certainly was a grim satisfaction in seeing Bateman turn the tables at the end.
THE RAVEN clearly is not a faithful adaptation of its source material. But it is clearly inspired by by ideas lifted from Poe, particularly the concept of genius and madness co-existing in the same person, who insists on his sanity even while his murderous actions prove him to by quite insane. There is also the concept of a sensitive intellect being tortured by the lass of a great love — although in Poe’s eponymous poem, “the lost Lenore” is dead, not engaged to someone else.
In the end, the film version of THE RAVEN is a Hollywood concoction, pieced together to provide a vehicle for Lugosi and Karloff to duel it out on screen (an element enhanced for modern viewers by our awareness, courtesy of the film ED WOOD, of the competition between the two actors). On this level it thorougly succeeds, earning a sort of “limited” classic status. It is no masterpiece (unlike THE BLACK CAT), but it is an enduring entertainment, especially for Lugosi fans. Other viewers may find the film over-the-top, almost to the point of camp, but this is not the sort of film you need to take seriously in order to enjoy it. Just sit back and go along for the ride.
I mean, you’ve got to love a film wherein the villain chortles, “I tear torture out of myself by torturing you!” Or triumphantly proclaims at the climax, “Poe, you are avenged!”
THE RAVEN(1935). Directed by Lew Landers. Screenplay by David Boehm, inspired by the poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Cast: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lester Matthews, Irene Ware, Samuel S. Hinds, Spencer Charters. Inez Courtney, Ian Wolfe, Maidel Turner.

Black Cat, The (1934)

Posted on October 15, 2008 by Steve Biodrowski

No monsters but lots of atmosphere, this is a classic of the genre.

Eschewing many standard genre elements of its era, THE BLACK CAT is barely a horror film in the traditional sense, and it has even less to do with Poe than 1932’s MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (which had also starred Lugosi). Nevertheless, this original scenario concocted by director Ulmer and writer Ruric is more than strong enough to earn this film a berth among the 100 Best Horror Films Ever Made.
Set mostly in a “House of Doom,” (the film’s title in England), which was built by an architect on the ruins of the fortress he sold out to the enemy during the First World War, the film has a very contemporary air, thanks to its (for the time) futuristic set design. Although not much actually happens, a subtle aura of perversity imbues the abode with an intangible but palpable horror, much like Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” (The overseas title hints at this connection.)
Conceiving the picture in an effort to capitalize on the success of DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN (both 1931), Universal Pictures pitted their reigning Kings of Horror, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, against each other in a battle of the Terror Titans. The story is basically a revenge tale, with Lugosi as Vitus Verdegast, returning to avenge himself on the architect (Karloff) who betrayed him and countless others during the war, and then married Verdegast’s wife (and later his daughter, too!) while Verdegast was being tortured in a prisoner of war camp.
Karloff, whose most famous horror role (as Frankenstein’s monster) was laced with patho, is excellently sinister here as the unrepentant and totally evil Satanist (who keeps his dead wives on display in glass cases in his basement). David Manners (an old hand at this kind of thing, since appearing in DRACULA and THE MUMMY) and Jaqueline Wells provide solid support as the innocent, honeymooning couple caught up in the conflict.
But the real coup lies in casting Lugosi as the nominal hero, which yields wonderful results, because his character is as unhinged as the villain. Locked in mortal combat, the only thing that separates him from his adversary is that he still has some concern for the innocent victims caught in the crossfire. Other than that, we are asked to identify with him, even as he finally loses all restraint and flays his tormentor alive!
Some elements are thrown in more or less gratuitously. Poe`s feline shows up long enough to justify the film’s American title and to help explain Verdegast’s delayed vengeance (his phobic reaction prevents him from killing his enemy at a crucial point). Diabolism and mysticism are thrown in to secure the film’s place in the genre (Karloff’s character is also a practising Satanist.)
But mostly the film is about the mortal struggle of two characters past all normal human boundaries of pain and suffering. The real horror is that of souls gone dead because of real-life atrocities of World War One. (At one point, when the yound lead is unable to phone for help, Karloff cackles, “Did you hear that, Vitus? The phone is dead! Even the phone is dead!”) This is probably the first film to make a direct connection between the real horrors of that war and the imaginary horrors it inspired on the silver screen.
There are some flaws, many apparently due to post-production tinkering. In several cases, lines have obviously been dubbed to help the audience understand what’s happening. In some cases, long shots that were intended to play without dialogue have voices issuing from mouths that are not moving. In two brief cases, we hear different actors’ voices coming from Karloff or Lugosi.
Also, the film’s almost operatic approach sometimes seems a bit heavy-handed. The music score (patched together from classical pieces) underlines the action with no pretense of subtlety, blaring ominously whenever Karloff enters a scene. There’s even an amusing moment in the second half of the film when two officials show up to ask some questions: even before they open their mouths, the music lets us know they’re on hand to provide some comic relief (they get into a pointless argument about which of their hometowns the honeymooning couple should visit).
But these minor flaws are trivial compared to the overall effectiveness. With no monster and little conventional suspense, this is nevertheless an extremely unusual and effective horror film that seeks to disturb on a deeper level. The music score may be a bit overemphatic for today’s viewers; otherwise, director Edgar G. Ulmer`s film is a perverse classic, tinged with hints of taboo subjects (necrophilia, incest) that still evoke a chill.
THE BLACK CAT (a.k.a. HOUSE OF DOOM, 1934). Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Screenplay by Peter Ruric; screen story by Ruric & Ulmer, suggested by the Edgar Allan Poe tale. Cast: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Jacqueline Wells, Lucille Lund.