Halloween’s coming to an end. Actually, here in America, it’s come to an end everywhere except on the west coast. What better way to bring our annual Horrorthon to a close than spending a few minutes with Vincent Price and the Raven?
Unfortunately, I don’t know exactly when this was filmed. But no matter! It’s Vincent Price reading Edgar Allen Poe!
Enjoy!
On October 30th, 1938, Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater On The Air broadcast an adaptation of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds and, legend has it, they scared the ever-loving heck out of America.
Actually, there’s some debate as to just how panicked America got when they heard the Mercury Theater On The Air’s adaptation of War of the Worlds. There was definitely some panic but there are differing reports on just how wide spread it was. For our purposes, let’s assume that the entire country was terrified at the same time and that everyone was loading up a shotgun and planning to go out and look for aliens. With his adaptation of War of the Worlds, Orson Welles managed to invent the whole found footage genre that would later come to dominate horror cinema in the late 90s and the aughts. Every found footage horror film owes a debt to what Orson Welles accomplished with War of the Worlds. Ultimately, it’s just another example of how far ahead of his time Orson Welles was.
H.G. Wells, the original author of War of the Worlds, and Orson Welles only met once, while they were both in San Antonio, Texas in 1940. (Orson Welles and H.G. Wells hanging out in San Antonio? To be honest, that sounds like it would make a good movie.) They were interviewed for a local radio station. H.G. Wells expressed some skepticism about the reports of Americans panicking while Welles compared the radio broadcast to someone dressing up like a ghost and shouting “Boo!” during Halloween. Both Wells and Welles then encouraged Americans to worry less about Martians and more about the growing threat of Hitler and the war in Europe.
I’ve shared this before but this just seems like the time to share it again. Here, for Halloween Eve, is the 1938 Mercury Theater On The Air production of The War of the Worlds!
For today’s horrific blast from the past, we have a French horror film called The Man With Wax Faces. Filmed in 1914 by Maurice Tourneur, this 11-minute film was the first horror movie to be set in a wax museum. Based on a play that had earlier been performed at the infamous Grand Guignol, The Man With Wax Faces was technically very advanced for 1914. This film is not just a horror story. It was also a chance for Tourneur to experiment with and explore what could be done on film.
The story is a simple one and one that viewers should be able to follow, even if they can’t read the French title cards. An arrogant man who claims that nothing has ever frightened him accepts a bet to spend the night in a wax museum. Secretly, his friend also stays in the museum to make sure that all of the conditions of the bet are honored. Madness and tragedy follow.
Director Maurice Tourneur also made some films in Hollywood during the silent era, before eventually returning to France. His son, Jacques Tourneur, follows in his footsteps and directed several memorable horror films, including Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie. and Night of the Demon.
Suspense is a ten-minute blast from the past that comes to us all the way from 1913.
In this film, the Woman (played by Lois Weber) and her baby are menaced by the Tramp (Sam Kaufman), a sinister figure who cuts her phone lines and breaks into her home. While the Woman tries to protect herself, the Husband (Val Paul) rushes home to save his wife.
Suspense was one of the first thrillers and it introduced many elements that are still used to today, including the cut phone lines and the isolated location. This was also one of the first films to use the split screen as a narrative technique. There are many modern horror films that owe a debt to Suspense, whether the filmmakers realize it or not.
Suspense was written and directed by Lois Weber, who is widely acknowledged as being America’s first female filmmaker.
Let’s celebrate October by taking a trip to the moon with classic film that came out 123 years ago?
Directed and written by Georges Melies, A Trip to The Moon is often cited as the first sci-fi film and the image of the capsule crashing into the eye of the man in the moon is one of the most iconic in film history. Seen today, the film seems both charmingly innocent and remarkably ahead of its time.
For me, it always takes a minute or two to adjust to the aesthetic of early films. We’ve grown so used to all the editing tricks that modern filmmakers use to tell their stories that these old silent films, with their lack of dramatic camera movement and obvious theatrical origins, often take some effort to get used to. Still, the effort is often worth it.
Here then is Georges Melies’s 1902 science fiction epic, A Trip To The Moon.
In 1910, Thomas Edison produced what is thought to be the first ever film version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein! Clocking in at 12 minutes and 41 seconds, this film was directed by J. Searle Dawley and stars Charles Ogle as the monster.
Admittedly, the surviving prints of this 107 year-old movie are not in the greatest condition. But I still think it’s effectively surreal and, in its way, quite creepy. While it always takes a while for modern audiences to get used to the more theatrical acting styles of the silent films, Charles Ogle still makes for a very memorable monster. I especially enjoy the tinted scenes where the monster comes to life. In the video below, it start around the 2:18 mark and it’s truly a scene that I love!
Enjoy this piece of film history!
Way back in 1984, the Coen Brothers were trying to raise the $75,000 that they would need to produce and direct their first film, Blood Simple. Sam Raimi, with whom the Coen Brothers had worked on Evil Dead, suggested that they put together a fake trailer to draw the interest of investors.
The Coens and their cinematographer, Barry Sonnenfeld (who would later go on to have his own directorial career), took Raimi’s advice and put together a trailer that, to be honest, has more in common with Evil Dead than with Blood Simple. Then again, that was a smart move on their part. Evil Dead made a lot of money.
Bruce Campbell appears in the trailer, playing the role that was later played by Dan Hedaya in the actual film. (It’s hard to imagine Campbell playing that role, just because Hedaya gave such a perfect performance as Julian Marty. That said, I could very well see Campbell in the role played by John Getz.)
Here is the fake Blood Simple Trailer, featuring Bruce Campbell! (Admittedly, because of the way the trailer is shot, you don’t actually see Bruce’s face. But you’ll recognize the hair immediately.)
And, for the sake of comparison, here’s the trailer for the actual film:
Everyone knows that Sean Connery made his debut of James Bond in 1962’s Dr. No but what they may not know is that Sean Connery was not the first actor to play James Bond. James Bond made his first appearance 8 years earlier when an American television show called Climax! presented a 48-minute adaptation of Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, Casino Royale.
In this version of Casino Royale, James Bond was known as Jimmy Bond and he was about as American as you can get. (Felix Leiter, meanwhile, was now English and named Clarence Leiter). Jimmy Bond was played by Barry Nelson, an actor who is probably best known for playing the blandly friendly hotel manager in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Casino Royale’s villain, Le Chiffre, was played by none other than Peter Lorre.
This version of Casino Royale was initially meant to serve as a pilot for a weekly television series but, perhaps fortunately, the Climax version of Casino Royale didn’t get much attention when it was originally aired. According to Sinclair McKay’s authoritative Bond book, The Man With The Golden Touch, this version of Casino Royale was forgotten about until a copy of it was discovered in the 1980s. By that time, of course, everyone knew that James Bond was English and that Felix Leiter was American.
Thanks to YouTube, I’ve seen the Climax! Casino Royale and it’s definitely a curiosity. If Dr. No hadn’t launched the James Bond film franchise, there would be little reason to watch this version of Casino Royale. It moves a bit slowly, is way too stagey, and it reveals that, contrary to what we’ve all heard, live television was not always the greatest thing on the planet. Not surprisingly, this adaptation contains none of the brutality or the moral ambiguity that makes Fleming’s novel such a fun read. American television audiences would not see Jimmy Bond strapped naked to a chair and an American television show would never end with the hero saying, “The bitch is dead.” The best you can say about this version of Casino Royale is that Peter Lorre makes for a good villain (in fact, of the three versions of Casino Royale, the television version is the only one to feature an effective Le Chiffre) and Barry Nelson would have made a good Felix Leiter.
That said, I still find the television version of Casino Royale to be fascinating from a historical point of view. This is the type of show that you watch for curiosity value. This is the type of show that you watch so that you can think about how different things could have been.
So, presented for your viewing pleasure, here’s the original version of Casino Royale:
105 years ago today, Jack Webb was born.
Webb appeared in a handful of films but he’s probably best remembered for developing, directing, and starring in America’s first cop show, Dragnet. As Sgt. Joe Friday, Webb dealt with crimes both big and small. In the late 60s, he dealt with hippies and other anti-American forces. A few years ago, I binged the 60s version of Dragnet and I have to admit I got totally addicted to it. It was somehow both effective and totally camp at the same time. That takes skill!
Webb is the narrator of today’s Blast From The Past. 1961’s A Force In Readiness is a 30-minute short film about the Marines. Seen today, it seems like a lengthy commercial but, when it was first released, the director was awarded a special Oscar “for his outstanding patriotic service in the conception, writing and production of the Marine Corps film, A Force in Readiness, which has brought honor to the Academy and the motion picture industry.”
Webb provides the narration in his trademark style. If the Greatest Generation could all speak in one voice, that voice would probably sound a lot like Jack Webb’s.
Our regularly scheduled review of Degrassi High will not be posted tonight so that we can bring you this special presentation.
My Retro Television Reviews will return on Monday but for now, check out this 1990 program called Testing Dirty! In this short film, Christopher Daniel Barnes (best known for playing Greg Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie) is a high school athlete who tests positive for drugs despite not using them. As he tries to clear his name, the adults in his community debate whether or not random drug tests are actually fighting or helping the problem. That’s an important topic but, for the most part, this film is best-known for a cameo appearance by Adam Sandler as a drug dealer.
And now, without further ado …. it’s time for Testing Dirty!
Through the Shattered Lens 