The Monsters Rally For Part Two

The Black Sleep Scares Up 1956 Business

There was trouble between Lugosi and Lon Chaney, going back far as Bela's resentment over Lon getting Son Of Dracula in 1943 when everyone knew (or should know) that only Bela Lugosi should play the vampire king. There's report that the conflict got physical, but my interpret is that Lon was being playful in that alarming way Lon had of being playful, especially when in cups (to wit tossing Bela over his shoulder like a sack o' taters). Anyway, the two had to be kept apart for duration of shoot. My question, though: If Lugosi was hot toward Chaney re the Dracula thing, how did he feel about John Carradine, who did Daddy Drac twice for Universal in the mid-40's and was figured for that period to own the part? There was Black Sleep succor of Tor Johnson to help (sometimes literally carry) Bela on and off the set. This man was really sick. He probably shouldn't have been there at all, but BL was dedicated trouper to the end, a hero of the horrors to fanship then and now.

Aubrey Schenck and producing partner Howard W. Koch dreamed up a stunt for peaking awareness of in-progress The Black Sleep. They'd converge upon L.A.'s famed Tail O' The Cock restaurant with most of a motley cast (Rathbone notably absent --- I can hear him shouting "I'll not!" when invited). Tail O' The Cock was an eatery always filled, their specialty steak and prime rib. They were supposedly first in town to serve Margaritas. There were two locations, both closed now. Anyway, The Black Sleep's bunch convened there for a late February lunch, arriving in a hearse, photographer in tow. You'd figure Schenck or Koch to have called ahead --- to reserve a large table at least --- but who knows? Stills from the occasion show a fair crowd seated around the demonic diners. Imagine management and onlooker response to such foolery --- or maybe all were inured to dumb Hollywood publicity intruding on their lives.

A close look at faces reveal much. Tor cheerful and expectant (Steak good!), Bela glad to be among people who might notice him, Chaney wondering if there's something stronger than iced tea on the menu. Carradine's at head of the table, and I'll bet he led conversation, peppered perhaps with Shakespearean quotes. To make sure of a crowd's attention, there was the shaved-head woman and scarred sailor from Black Sleep's dungeon, all by way of making sure this wouldn't be confused with an Elk Lodge meeting. Plates were empty when these stills were taken. Otherwise, we'd know what everyone was having. Lugosi's taste for Hungarian repast would likely not be accommodated here. Lon the expert at barbecuing would judge well the meat being served, and I'd figure Tor took care of whatever others left on their plates. As for Carradine, his gaunt frame did not suggest a hearty appetite. Was JC a little self-conscious at being here? He had, after all, just come off The Ten Commandments for C.B. DeMille.

Aubrey Schenck had lately been on a "Senate Juvenile Delinquency Sub-Committee" grill, lawmakers burned over "scaring people" with "too much emphasis on violence and crime" in he and Koch's latest for Bel-Air, Big House U.S.A. Retort by Schenck exposed the idle threat: "The very fact that crime is violent and brutal should be a deterrent to crime" (yes, well ... O.K.). Besides, he was too busy prepping The Black Sleep and Pharaoh's Curse to worry about it. "Scaring people," said Schenck, "is popular entertainment and can be had not only in theatres but in every amusement park and public library." Say, maybe it was time to start cleaning up all that mayhem in school books and redirect youth toward uplift of Schenck/Koch pictures. Might The Black Sleep be rescue from baleful influence of parks and libraries? By Schenck's reckoning, could be ...

Lon, John, and Bela Make a Frisco Meal of Tor

June 1956 Opening in L.A.

The "Zombie Pix" team pulled stops for Black Sleep openings. There'd be cast members in person at Frisco, Portland, and finally L.A., all during June '56. Gag photos were abundant, Chaney, Carradine, and Lugosi making apparent meal of Tor's bald noggin ... all in fun, and catnip to press cameras. Incidents on tour became legend. We'll never know if Lugosi stepped upon a window ledge in belief he could "fly," or if Tor dangled Bela there to teach his elderly pal a lesson (seems unlikely, considering real affection TJ had for BL). Bela biographer Arthur Lennig doubts veracity of such accounts, and frankly so do I. But they make fun stories, and fair game for most outside Lugosi worship. By Hollywood's bow on 6/27 (eighteen venues), there was Tor and by-for-a-buck Vampira, shill for this and subsequent Bel-Airs, to appear with The Black Sleep (she'd briefly double as boxoffice cashier to hypo ticket sales). Even Bela made the scene courtesy teens tending him --- well, it beat hauling BL to the deli again or getting his shoes soled, customary errands to which the boys were dispatched. Also opening that self-same Wednesday, at twelve theatre/drive-ins, was the '56 bring-back of King Kong. And oh, Frankenstein and Dracula revived at two locations. Otherwise, there'd be no genre competition that week in L.A. for The Black Sleep and its companion, The Creeping Unknown, let alone anything new or first-run. Could this account for sock business the combo did at these and other summer stands?

Teenage Visitor To The Set Gets a Shock

Variety was predicting a hot season for scares, twenty pics ready to go or in the hopper. All were low on budget but rich in exploitation spending. Radio, TV, and dailies got much of funds saved from production, all aware that horror sold best by spreading word among impressionable young with itch to dispose of allowance or lawn-cut money. Schenck/Koch figured to put $20,000 in circulation, "Barnum style," as Aubrey phrased it, "the largest (ad budget) in Bel-Air history." Some of kale went to wax figures (life size!) of Black Sleep cast that would tour with the film (today's burning question: might they still exist?). Composer Les Baxter jazzed up a theme written from his score and called it "The Black Sleep Mambo." Fly in ointment, which came in November after most cash had been grabbed, was real-life shock of a nine-year-old boy who died of heart failure while watching a Chicago parlay of The Black Sleep and The Creeping Unknown. Outrage came quick with expected call for ban of all chillers. The Cook County coroner wanted double-featured horror stopped, and toward purifying end, sent subpoenas to hapless management of the offending Lake Theatre. The incident briefly bestirred trades, but like previous Chicago attempts at censorship, came to little.

Schenck/Koch were overall satisfied enough with The Black Sleep to step up thrill production, Voodoo Island and Pharaoh's Curse a next parlay from Bel-Air. Theatrical encore for The Black Sleep would come in 1963, via independent Cari Releasing Corp., a distributor that was also handling initial US theatrical dates for Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin. Cari would amend The Black Sleep's title to Dr. Cadman's Secret, tandem billing the 1956 chiller with Silent Death, formerly Voodoo Island. Forrest Ackerman gave Cadman an eight-page boost in Monster World #1, published autumn 1964, this a mere exercise in frustration for ones of us whose close-by theatres would not book the combo. Close perusal of TV schedules might have afforded relief however, as The Black Sleep had been playing the tube since 1959, visibility renewed by its 1963 packaging with UA, Warner, and RKO evergreens in a 60 title "Science- Fiction/Horror/Monsters" group for syndication. The Black Sleep would be object of longing for collectors, pleas to owning United Artists gone unanswered until "On-Demand" DVD brought forth a full-frame transfer from old elements, hardly a best way to revisit a monster rally many hold dear, but better than nothing that preceded its disc release.