Lights Out at Monster Housing
A Happy Ending Universal Took Away: House Of Dracula (1945)
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| A 50's Bring-Back for HoD w/Fiend Accompany |
posted by John McElwee at 5:30 AM
Monday, May 23, 2016
A Happy Ending Universal Took Away: House Of Dracula (1945)
21 Comments:
I like the transfer very much,on the French Elephant Blu Ray.
No "forced" subs either except,sadly on the extensive trailer gallery.
The success of HOUSE OF DRACULA has much to do with George Robinson's wonderful
photography.Universal did have a couple of other attempts to revive Gothic Horror
in the early Fifties (THE BLACK CASTLE and THE STRANGE DOOR...the latter due out
on Blu Ray from Elephant at some point)
I also like THE BLACK SLEEP especially after viewing Kino-Lorber's lovely widescreen
Blu Ray.After THE BLACK SLEEP nothing much happened until Hammer and Roger Corman
showed the World how Gothic Horror should be done.
Elephant's WEREWOLF OF LONSDON Blu Ray is a revelation,but the film is far too
intelligent for the likes of me.
Next up from Elephant are a couple of The Mummy follow-ups on Blu Ray plus the
A & C entry.The deal with Elephant is if Universal can supply a high-def master,then
it's a Blu Ray release otherwise,standard DVD.
I await with great interest to see if Elephant's forthcoming THIS ISLAND EARTH
Blu Ray can improve on last year's sub standard German release.
Interesting info about the Elephant releases, John. Will look forward to the Mummies on Blu-Ray.
Late June Elephant will release all the Mummy follow-ups.
THE MUMMY'S HAND,THE MUMMY'S CURSE and A & C MEET THE MUMMY will be Blu Rsy
releases. I understand the A & C entry will be in 1.85 ratio.
Great post I might add...curious about the $750,000 budget.
Interestingly, according to Robert Nott's excellent book "Last Of The Cowboy Heros"
$750,000 was quoted as the budget for Universal's first Audie Murphy Western THE KID
FROM TEXAS.
Comic Gilbert Gottfried may be an acquired taste, but his monster-kid recollection of dead-seriously answering his grade school teacher's question with the reply "Onslow Stevens" had me in stitches. Heard it on a L. Maltin Podcast.
Okay, Dave K, you've got me hooked. What was the question to which he gave that answer.
The DRACULA segment of this film with THE MOONLIGHT SONATA is really good. Though I wish Universal had made use of Lugosi in both this and HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, Carradine is effective. Neat to hear about the Elephant Blu-rays. While it was disconcerting to find The Wolfman's cure did not take ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN is so damn good it is easy to overlook that. I first saw A&C MEET FRANK at 6. I did not know it was supposed to be funny. The scene where Costello sits in the chair with the Frankenstein monster not only scared the yell out of me, it haunted my dreams for years. It's great to see the bonus footage of Strange breaking up as they try to film that scene.
Think the kids were supposed to come up with names to match initials; A.L. might be Abe Lincoln. And O.S., naturally, was Onslow Stevens.
Now I'm trying to figure out other names with those initials. I like Buster Keaton's response when asked in school to use the word "delight" in a sentence. He said, "De wind blew in de window and blew out de light." The teacher, unlike the class, was not amused.
I never felt the injustice in Larry Talbot's renewed lycanthropy. I like my werewolves stayin' werewolves.
Besides, the one thing that's never mentioned is that Talbot was not just a werewolf, he was a revenant. Killed at the end of THE WOLF MAN, he was dead and buried (or entombed, at least), at the opening of FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN. So what the authorities were dealing with was a resurrected dead man, back after (supposedly) four years deceased.
That whole angle was prominent ... for about 35 minutes. Halfway through FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, the notion of Talbot having been a corpse was dropped and forgotten, never to return. I assume this was primarily to avoid the whole touchy issue of "where was he for four years? did his soul leave his cadaver?" and other such which got too close for comfort to religious and spiritual questions. It would also have made it kind of icky for Larry to romance any of the ladies if he was, you know, a zombie.
But, like you with the "cure", I never let go of his resurrection status. FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN was the first Universal horror I ever saw, on Shock! Theater when I was eight years old. Needless to say, that graveyard opening imprinted itself Big Time on my little brain. So, to me, Larry Talbot was always a walking dead man, and I always regretted that Universal abandoned that whole theme because playing around with it could have brought about much creepier stuff than what we got.
So for me, "cure...schmure" Larry Talbot was a dead man walking...and biting and clawing. That's the Larry I missed. Your attitude is much more sympathetic, wishing him cured. Mine is very selfish, wanting him, while still upright, dead as a doornail.
Born in '55, I was well aware of the Universal Monsters despite seeing comparatively few of their films. The late-night TV slots in the Bay Area seemed to favor scifi, rubber-suited Japanese beasts, AIP and off-brand knockoffs. A&C was my primary exposure to the originals until near-adulthood, and it wasn't until then I was aware of the early feints at continuity (thanks to a book). I just assumed certain dials were always reset to zero, the way series heroes who ended one film all but married would revert to footloose bachelors in the next film.
True, I was too wimpy to be a true monster kid; preferring the omnipresent monster comedy stuff and toys to the scary real article.
Coming to the "House" movies as an adult, I was disappointed and puzzled at how they kept the monsters apart. "Frankenstein Meets Wolfman" delivered the goods, with Talbot befriending the monster and finally battling him in werewolf mode. But in "HOF" Dracula is in and out before Talbot appears, and then he has no interaction with the Monster whose last-minute rampage is directed elsewhere (was this script originally written as a pure Wolfman movie?). In "HOD", the Wolfman is effectively benched early on and Talbot becomes one of those bland heroes whose main job is to get the heroine out of the burning lab. And again Dracula has checked out long before the finale.
Odd that A&C made the cleverest use of the gang: Dracula wanting the Monster to be a reliable henchman (as prelude to bigger plans?); Talbot as Dracula's nemesis, a monster trying to bring down Monsterdom. They even had the Monster unbound and busy. That setup would have made for a good "real" movie.
Giving Talbot a happy fadeout was nice, as if they were officially closing the Monster franchise on a cheery note. But given how "HOD" largely ignored what happened in "HOF", I don't think I'd have been too concerned with A&C's non-continuity if I'd seen the previous films.
Again, it bothered me because I liked the Talbot character and wanted him released from lycanthrope bondage. One thing I realize from reading your comment, Donald ... By the time I saw "A&C Meet Frankenstein," a little late in 1966 (our stations ran the other A&C meet monsters often, save Frankenstein), I had by then been exposed to preceding Universal horrors numerous times. Our viewing markets were rich with the Shock package all through the 60's. For having seen "The Wolf Man" at least three times, plus sequels, BEFORE "A&C Meet Frankenstein," I had a much greater emotional investment in Chaney as Talbot, and so took umbrage at this violation of what had been a continuing narrative (also fortunate for me was seeing most of the Uni horrors in chronological order).
For me, as a kid growing up in New Brunswick, SHOCK THEATER was a horror just to get to watch. On Saturday nights we had HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA, followed by the NEWS and then a show called MY PET JULIETTE (she was a Canadian singing star). Then came SHOCK THEATER. Often Juliette put me to sleep. The first FRANKENSTEIN I saw was SON OF, The first DRACULA, SON OF. FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND (and the other horror mags) had me drooling to see the rest. BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN took me years to see complete and then only after I rented it in 16mm to show at Rochdale College. The HOUSE OF films I never saw until I rented them in 16mm. Boy, those were the days. Kids who walk into a video store and casually pluck titles off a shelf have no where near the pleasure we had in the days when these films appearing on TV had all the power of The Second Coming. I mean, we got excited! Not only that, we were never let down. I had the same problem trying to see CITIZEN KANE until I rented it and broke the curse.
Remember we used to watch these with commercials and jump cuts. I loved these Universal monster movies as a kid. I remember making a great effort to stay up past 10pm. For the Denver area kids in the late 60's and early 70's it was "Sci-Fi-Flix" on channel 7 on Friday nights. They had a lot of more recent horror films, radiation films, etc. But channel 2 KWGN had the Universals on "Creature Features" on Saturday night. I also remember a kid having a Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine on the bus around this time and it took me a couple of months to get him to lend it to me. Great times to be a kid monster fan.
Did you know Lon Chaney, Sr. faked his death so that the younger horror stars like his son, Karloff, and Lugosi, could have better careers? It said so in the magazine. ;-)
Which magazine said that Chaney faked his death? Not FM to be sure. Forrest J Ackerman was looking for a home for his collection. I brought him to Toronto for three days as part of an event I did. Judith Merril, the mother of modern SF, had donated her collection to The Toronto Public Library. Originally called "THE SPACED OUT LIBRARY" it is now known as THE MERRIL COLLECTION OF SF. Judy and Forry knew each other from way back. Unfortunately, Forry's colection is now scattered all over the place. No one will have the thrill I and thousands of others like me had roaming through the Ackermansion. Forry's favorite film was Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS. A complete copy was found in Argentina just before his death. I campaigned hard to get it shown to him before he passed away. I believe that, because of my efforts, RUE MORGUE magazine was able to get it shown to him. I sure hope. That man fired up the imaginations of so many of us. There was nothing like FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND nor will there be again. The current mags are very, very serious which is fine but they lack FM's charm and Forry's warmth. It's a shame his collection was not valued as highly as it should have been. A lot was lost to posterity (and research) when it was scattered to the winds.
House of Drac the real underrated gem of the series. A truly progressive reboot, it eliminates all the Olde Worlde Curses in favor of pesudo-science. Takes God right out of the equation, in the manner of Matheson's I Am Legend. Ir's practically a '50's version of a Universal.
It also rewrites the ugly, evil hanchbacked lab assistant, a cliche that universal had created. NONE of this was necessary for what was assumed as an end of the road movie.
And just relegate Bud and Lou to an altenbate reality, and everyone's happy.
In Toronto "Captain" George Hendersen in his shops VIKING BOOKS on Queen West for about a year and in Mirvish Village after that led the way in comic books, movie magazines and posters. I started my film programs out of his shop. There I discovered the great joy of sharing what I knew to be good with others who knew that too. I could have gotten posters people are now paying thousands (and hundreds of thousands)for for dollars. I just was not into the posters as much as I am into the films. Getting God out of the equation is something a great many seemed determined to do. Ain't gonna happen. I acquired a full sized authorized replica of THE SHROUD OF TURIN mainly because so many scientists of all faiths and of no faith at all in the beginning have been doing fascinating studies on it. Dis-belief can be and often is as blinding as what many call belief. Thanks to the science of Dame Isabel Piczek (a particle physicist) and others we know that the image on the Shroud was formed while the body was floating in space between the top and bottom layers of the Shroud. Thanks to the science of Israeli botanist Avinoam Danin we know the Shroud, despite the carbon dating tests, dates back to March-April and to just outside of Jerusalem. Thanks to many other scientists we know a lot more than I have space to post here(and, possibly others have an inclination to read). Still, it is neat to discover that there is more than just myth behind that Cross that brings Dracula to a stop dead in his tracks.
Craig Reardon considers Universal's various logos, and various monster make-up artists (Part One):
Don't forget the mirror ball, John! When they swept away the Westerns and the Monsters, they also smashed the 'ballroom version' of their world globe logo, together with its upbeat musical theme, and we got the 'classier' rotating earth under 'Universal-International'...accompanied initially with simple chimes! That logo had a long reach, by gosh. I remember seeing it, myself, in Universal films up into the early '60s, including if I'm not losing my marbles "The List of Adrian Messenger". But, then I also vividly remember the very nice looking replacement, which read just plain 'Universal', which preceded the great Stanley Donen film "Charade". (Including the short-lived insert in one corner, "Ed Muhl in Charge of Production"! Hitchcock drolly wrote the brass during "The Birds" or perhaps "Marnie" in a deadpan manner, challenging the legal department's equation of this credit with potential profits for the studio! He had no intention of crediting Ed Muhl, and the very unusual titles for both pictures make that plain.) I'm guessing that's the same year they introduced it. That's actually my favorite Universal logo of them all. The later replacements were garish or bombastic, including the dreadful current one, which never fails to make my finger hit the fast forward key, the 'jump' to the next stop key, and/or the MUTE key! (Probably also features the late, great Jerry Goldsmith's least-effective work, the musical signature that goes with it.)
I think it's cute what you say about Larry Talbot having his cure revoked for "A & C...", but I also consider that that one exists in a separate, you should pardon the term, 'universe'. The whole thing about Count Dracula suddenly investing the Frankenstein Monster with such importance! You have to love the straight-faced way they go about all this stuff which is patently more ridiculous than anything up to that movie. That, and Larry Talbot suddenly a 'monster expert', hot on the trail. I mean, it's...well, it's an Abbott and Costello movie, is what it is. By this movie, the studio itself has a new name, a new logo, and some significantly different staffers, including of course basically executive-type Bud Westmore replacing Jack Pierce, the latter of whom was famously hands-on, and quite proprietary about 'his' monsters. I can only surmise, but it seems that Pierce insisted on personally making up the monsters in each-and-every Universal horror film right up to and including "House of Dracula"; and any other stragglers dating from that period, including the sequel to "Captive Wild Woman"!
Part Two from Craig Reardon:
As Pierce was a pure inspiration to me, I also wanted my hands in the 'stuff' on my jobs, versus many of my own contemporaries who were content to hand off what they may have come to consider the 'grunt work' to publicly-anonymous parties either in the prep stages or application. That said, I think Westmore's management of the makeup department benefited Universal-International in the long run, as it seems unlikely to me that Jack Pierce's fierce adherence to his own brilliant-but-limited techniques which were largely rooted back in 1920s origins would have been inadequate to the challenges posed by scripted creatures coming along at U-I in the early '50s, most notably 'the' Creature (from you-know-where)! That, and the fact that the front office was unwilling to indulge the makeup division in four-hour-and-more daily prep times suggests that Westmore's more technically-progressive and diversified team of workers was the only way to go, forward from "House of Dracula". I also think the reboot of Pierce's designs refresh more than it degrade these already-beloved characters, though I don't think they would have benefited the earlier films. Of course, the wonderful, palpable atmosphere, even when it was dripping with 'cheap' and 'recycled', of those earlier horror sequels is also different, if not entirely different (we see newly-recycled sets and buildings, in the '50s films!) Furthermore, the monsters generated under Westmore by Jack Kevan and others have a distinctive appearance that ranges from the brilliantly-effective Creature to some that are not all that credible, stylish, nor realistic, and also often lack the organic credibility of Jack Pierce's lovingly hand-fashioned makeup designs. Yet it ultimately boils down to apples and oranges, most likely.
I think that there are fans for each separate era of Universal (or, U-I) monsters, and also those of us who happily bridge both eras, not that there is anything in what you've written here to imply otherwise.
I'm a big Lon Jr. fan and I'm always pleased to see his work as the Wolf Man spoken of with affection and respect. Ditto all the others, of course. But, also, Chaney Jr. was THE one classic horror performer I was fortunate to meet. I'd have loved to meet or even see in person any of the other iconic Universal horror actors. Due to his being so industrious and long-lived, John Carradine might have been a likely candidate, but the stars never aligned for me, there (though I did meet his sons Keith and Robert.) I do also recall meeting the very, very important Hans J. Salter through my pal Preston Neal Jones, who knew him and wrote a wonderful, lengthy career piece about him for Cinefantastique magazine. This was at a marvelous film music symposium arranged by the late Tony Thomas through UCLA Extension in the late '70s. Salter was a dignified guy, very Euro charming, rather like Miklos Rozsa in that regard. Salter's music (and that of his colleague Frank Skinner) really amplified the early atmosphere and impact of the the strange world and emotional milieu of Universal monsters, and it's certainly impossible to think of "The Wolf Man" without their music, nor "Son of Frankenstein", before it. ("Bride of Frankenstein" with its equally-distinctive Franz Waxman score was great, but a kind of 'one-off'.)
Random footnote to all this: The current interlocking Marvel Comics movies may be taken as a modern take on Universal Monsters franchise, presenting a nice contrast between the efficient and agreeable matinee fodder fed to a generation of movie-going kids and the outsized blockbusters designed to lure modern kids from a multiverse of diversions.
Amen to the influence of Forry and FAMOUS MONSTERS....where else would I have learned of the existence of ALPHAVILLE or A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS as well as the usual films? He really opened up the horizons beyond the SHOCK THEATRE group to include the 50s quickie,foreign etc. ...made me look far and wide to catch what I could.
And the comment by Tommie about the jump cuts on local broadcasts....has any parody of the genre NOT used the jump cut trope somewhere?
Ironically, Universal '16 currently mapping an interlocking series based on the Marvel model. Marvel was always designed as consistent, interlocked, comic universe, overseen by uber editor Stan Lee. DC Comics had separate editorial fiefdoms for each of its "families". Aside from designated ream books, they very rarely acknowledged the existe nce of other characters. A model that cost them dearly when Marvel got in the superhero biz.
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