(This post is part of the TCM SUMMER UNDER THE STARS blogathon hosted by Kristen at JOURNEYS IN CLASSIC FILM! )
Boris Karloff made a trio of films for producer Val Lewton in the mid-40’s: THE BODY SNATCHER , ISLE OF THE DEAD, and BEDLAM. The Old Master of Terror was given the opportunity to show off his acting prowess in these dark, psychological horrors. Freed from the restraint of playing yet another mad scientist or creature, Karloff excels in the roles of murderous Cabman Grey, plague-ridden General Pherides, and here as the cruel martinet of Bedlam, Master George Sims.
Lewton cowrote the script with director Mark Robson , “suggested by” William Hogarth’s 8th painting in the series “A Rake’s Progress”. There are a lot of sly references to Hogarth in BEDLAM, and the artist even gets a screenwriting credit. It’s 1761 London, and the class struggle between rich and poor rages…
“Rooted in medieval fears of Genghis Khan and the Mongolian invasions of Europe, the Yellow Peril combines racist terror of alien cultures, sexual anxieties, and the belief that the West will be overpowered and enveloped by the irresistible, dark, occult forces of the East”- Gina Marchetti, Romance and the Yellow Peril: Race, Sex, and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction (University of California Press, 1994)
First, a brief history lesson: The Yellow Peril was a particular brand of xenophobia that spread in the late 19th/early 20th century. Named by (of all people) Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and given credibility during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, this “fear of the unknown” basically said those “inscrutable” Chinese were going to come over and slaughter all the good white Christians and rape their women. Popular culture of the times played on these fears by depicting villainous Oriental characters as barbaric, opium-smoking deviants who…
As many of you Dear Readers know by now, classic horror has always been my favorite genre. From the Universal Monsters to Bug-Eyed Aliens to Freddie Krueger and friends (fiends?), a good scary movie is a good time! Even a bad scary movie can be fun, if I’m in the right mood. So here are six (count ’em), yes six horror films I’ve recently watched, with some great horror actors and directors at their best (and worst!):
MIRACLES FOR SALE
(MGM 1939, D: Tod Browning)
The first great horror director, Browning teamed with Lon Chaney Sr. in the silent era to shock audiences with films like LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT and THE UNHOLY THREE. He kicked off the Golden Age of Sound Horror with DRACULA, followed by the controversial FREAKS. MIRACLES FOR SALE was his last film, and while it’s more of a locked-room mystery, it’s loaded with those bizarre Browning…
In 1911, a pregnant secretary named Nancy Voorhees (Frances Starr) shot and killed her boss and lover. It was quite a scandal at the time but, twenty years later, it has largely been forgotten. Nancy has married a successful businessman named Michael Townsend (H.B. Warner) and is a respected member of society. Her daughter, Jenny (Marian Marsh), has no idea about Nancy’s past and believes Michael to be her father. Jenny is now engaged to marry the handsome and rich Phillip Weeks (Anthony Bushnell).
Everything seems to be perfect but you know what they say about perfection.
Bernard Hincliffe (Oscar Apfel) is the publisher of a struggling tabloid newspaper. He is frustrated by city editor Joseph Randall (Edward G. Robinson) and Randall’s refusal to do whatever it takes to boost circulation. “Why, he won’t even print pictures of women in their underwear!” one of Hincliffe’s assistants exclaims. Finally, Hincliffe orders Randall to publish a series of articles that will take a retrospective look at both the scandal and what has happened to those involved in the years since. At first, the cynical Randall refuses but eventually, he gives in.
He assigns two reporters to crack the story. One of them, Kitty Carmody (Ona Munson) is first introduced showing off her legs and bragging about how there’s no way that she won’t be hired to work at the newspaper. (By the way, if anyone ever remakes Five Star Final and needs someone to play Kitty, I am ready and available.) The other is the incredibly creepy T. Vernon Isopod (Boris Karloff). Isopod was a divinity student until he was arrested on a “morals charge.” Now, he pretends to be a minister as a way to fool people into revealing their deepest secrets to him. Kitty and Isopod dig into the life of Nancy and Michael. The stories appear on the front page. Suicide and melodrama follow and Randall is forced to finally take a stand.
Released in 1931, Five Star Final was nominated for best picture but lost to Grand Hotel. Seen today, Five Star Final is undeniably stagey (it was based on a play) but it’s still a compulsively watchable melodrama, featuring good performances and a lot of memorably snappy 30s dialogue. Five Star Final is one of several films about journalism to have been nominated for best picture. Most of these films — like All The Presidents Men, The Front Page, and this year’s front-runner, Spotlight — have featured journalists as heroic seekers of the truth. Five Star Final, on the other hand, plays more like a pre-Code version of Network set at a newspaper. It’s a deeply angry film and, when Randall finally tells off Hincliffe, it feels like the 30s equivalent of Peter Finch shouting that he’s mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
Finally, the best part of the film, for me, was Boris Karloff as the sleazy Isopod. Karloff made Five Star Final right before he played the creature in Frankenstein and it’s interesting to see him play a totally different type of monster here. If I had to choose which character is scarier, I’m going with T. Vernon Isopod.
Have you ever woken up and thought to yourself, “I’d love to see a movie where a youngish Jack Nicholson played a French soldier who, while searching for a mysterious woman, comes across a castle that’s inhabited by both Dick Miller and Boris Karloff?”
Of course you have! Who hasn’t?
Well, fortunately, it’s YouTube to the rescue. In Roger Corman’s 1963 film The Terror, Jack Nicholson is the least believable 19th century French soldier ever. However, it’s still interesting to watch him before he became a cinematic icon. (Judging from his performance here and in Cry Baby Killer, Jack was not a natural-born actor.) Boris Karloff is, as usual, great and familiar Corman actor Dick Miller gets a much larger role than usual. Pay attention to the actress playing the mysterious woman. That’s Sandra Knight who, at the time of filming, was married to Jack Nicholson.
Reportedly, The Terror was one of those films that Corman made because he still had the sets from his much more acclaimed film version of The Raven. The script was never finished, the story was made up as filming moved alone, and no less than five directors shot different parts of this 81 minute movie. Among the directors: Roger Corman, Jack Hill, Monte Hellman, Francis Ford Coppola, and even Jack Nicholson himself! Perhaps not surprisingly, the final film is a total mess but it does have some historical value.
(In typical Corman fashion, scenes from The Terror were later used in the 1968 film, Targets.)
This scene that I love comes from the classic 1931 horror film, Frankenstein. In this poignant scene, Frankenstein’s Monster (Boris Karloff) meets young Maria. Maria is the first human to treat the Monster with true kindness. Unfortunately, the Monster does not understand that, unlike flower petals, Maria does not float.
I record a LOT of movies. Probably around ten per week, more or less. And since I also have to do little things like work, exercise, cook, clean, breathe, etc etc, I don’t always have time to watch them all (never mind write full reviews), so I’ve decided to begin a series of short, capsule reviews for the decades covered here at Cracked Rear Viewer. This will be whenever I find my DVR getting cluttered, which is frequent! I’ll try to make CLEANING OUT THE DVR a bi-weekly series, but there are no guarantees. Monthly is more realistic. Anyway, here are five films from the 1930s to the 1970s for your reading pleasure.
Today’s horror on the lens is a short horror comedy from 1942. In The Boogie Man Will Get You, Winnie Slade (Miss Jeff Donnell) buys an old house from Prof. Billings (Boris Karloff) with plans to covert it into a hotel. However, one of the conditions of the sale is that Prof. Billings and his servants be allowed to live on the property. What Winnie doesn’t know is that Prof. Billings had been conducting experiments on traveling salesman. He hopes to turn them into supermen who can then be sent overseas to fight the Nazis. (Kind of like Capt. America, when you think about it…) However, his experiments have yet to be successful and have mostly just resulted into a lot of salesman being buried out in the rose garden…
However, things start to look up for Prof. Billings when he meets Dr. Lorencz (Peter Lorre), who is not only a doctor but also a mayor, sheriff, and dog catcher. Seriously, Dr. Lorencz can do it all….
The Boogie Man Will Get You is a fun little time capsule of the time in which it was made. For horror fans, it is mostly interesting because it features both Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. Both Karloff and Lorre appear to be having a lot of fun parodying their usual screen images.
In this episode of Thriller, two brothers from up north (played by Brandon De Wilde and David Whorf) have car trouble while driving through Louisiana and, naturally, they decided to spend the night in a deserted mansion that happens to be sitting in the middle of a swamp. Needless to say, as is usually the case whenever Yankees get stranded in the bayou, bad things happen….
Pigeons From Hell is actually a surprisingly effective horror story. Director John Newland creates a pervasive atmosphere of dread and De Wilde makes for a sympathetic protagonist. This episode was originally broadcast on June 6th, 1961 and watching it today, it’s hard not to suspect that a lot of the kids who watched Pigeons From Hell later grew up to the be the directors who made the slasher films of the late 70s and 80s.
Incidentally, Pigeons From Hell is based on a short story by native Texan Robert E. Howard. Apparently, Stephen King once said that this was one of his favorite TV shows ever but we won’t hold that against it.
Down here in Dallas, channel 133 is the local Me-TV affiliate. Me-TV specializes in showing old TV shows from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The network sells itself as a nostalgic refuge for people who are several decades older than me, a place where they can go to escape from Seth McFarlane cartoons and Maury Povich conducted DNA tests.
But you know what?
I like Me-TV and I’m glad that it exists. It probably has something to do with me being a history nerd at heart. I love the chance to see what the world was once like. Add to that, some very good shows were produced in the 50s and 60s. Just because a lot of us weren’t there to experience them firsthand doesn’t mean that we can’t appreciate them in rerun syndication.
Case in point: Thriller.
Thriller aired for two seasons in the early 60s. It was an anthology series, in the tradition ofThe Twilight Zone. Whereas The Twilight Zone was hosted by Rod Serling, Thriller was hosted by horror icon Boris Karloff, who always introduced the macabre material with a bemused gleam in his eyes.
The Devil’s Ticket was the 29th episode of Thriller and it originally aired on April 18th, 1961. It’s an effectively creepy little story about an artist (MacDonald Carey) who sells his soul to the Devil. It was directed by Jules Bricken and written by Robert Bloch.
Through the Shattered Lens 