Boris Karloff Presents ...

 

Stories To Go Bump In The Dark

Occasion was Wally and Beaver wanting to go downtown for a horror combo, their having enjoyed Hot Rod Cuties and Rope Justice the previous week. Leave It To Beaver writers clearly had no respect for Saturday stuff as followed by children in the late 50’s, but a line of Ward’s stuck with me as what a then-generation of fathers had themselves grown up on. Ward at least understands basis for his boy’s enthusiasm, his having “seen Dracula four times and had a subscription to Weird Tales magazine” during long past youth. The line struck me for what it revealed not only of fictional Ward Cleaver, but also series staff. So there were grown men in the fifties and early sixties who once enjoyed chiller movies and scary mags. And here we thought such decay was our generation's alone. Someone went to Dracula in 1931, in fact, throngs did. My father even admitted to having been there at advanced age of twenty-four when surely vampires would not impress him unduly. I grew up assuming no grown-up but Forrest Ackerman cared about monsters. Others thought them silly, regressive, a bad influence. I might have looked askance upon any adult professing to like horror films. Hollywood did not help by making chillers childish and silly. Exception of The Haunting in 1963 was for me like eating off fine China at my aunt’s house on Thanksgiving. Surely a few past adolescence saw The Haunting too, but none acknowledged it to me. Horror could enter however, through a back door that was literature, enjoyment to be had in private, stepped up from pulp that once was Weird Tales and like kind. To this came Boris Karloff as surface Bogey Man, but erudite scholar beneath, dispensing spooky but tasteful tales we’d not be ashamed to be caught reading.

Karloff was a cultivated man. He attended public schools in England, King’s College in London. These I suspect offered more rigorous instruction than could be had from Ivy Leagues selling degrees today. Karloff enjoyed the company of others who read prodigious as he, among them Edmund Speare, an editor for Knopf, whose The World’s Great Short Stories --- Masterpieces of American, English, and Continental Literature had been a considerable success when first published in August 1942, five more printings by June 1945. It occurred to Speare that a collection of goose-bumpers, so-called Tales of Terror, might click if vetted by Sultan of Scares Karloff, credited as editor and penning an introduction in addition to helping with story selection. He and Speare drew on material dating from the nineteenth century forward. There was Poe, Joseph Conrad, Faulkner, Bram Stoker, plus others of less renown, each thought by the pair to merit inclusion. Fourteen tales in all, which I read because Boris Karloff recommended I read, a strongest of incentives (“Full marks,” he might say upon my completion --- why did I not curry such favor with instructors at school?). Karloff as connoisseur of fright fiction was known to me far back as when a series of comic books used his name and image for monthly cover art and as “host” to open stories. Tales of Terror appeared in 1943, obviously early for me, so a copy was latter-day got, distinctly second-hand and sans a dustjacket, but for a low price. The Karloff intro at five plus pages reminded me that here was a man seasoned in the arts and a more than capable guide to fiction worth reading. The yarns being short meant gratification was had within thirty to forty-five minutes, a best kind of reading for one restless as I sometimes can be (check e-mail, investigate noise in the carport, what makes the neighbor dog keep barking?).

If you couldn’t take Karloff word as to what chills, then no one was reliable. My second-hand Tales of Terror arrived by mail, worse for the wear, pulpwood paper the necessary wartime option, as it would remain for Karloff's next anthology, As The Darkness Falls (1946). Add intervening years and pages flake apart just for looking at them too hard. I made a pencil note and the point sank right through the yellowed parchment. A lot of copies must have sold because both books are common on used terms. With a dust cover, however, let alone intact and unworn, cost can run higher. I went to Facsimile Dust Jackets LLC for a faithful reproduction of what wrapped both books when new. You can’t tell them from originals, an enhancement for my time reading. Editor Karloff says he gave “help in compiling” the collection, but “major job of reading” went to Speare. Still, “stories literally rained on me by the hundreds," recalled Karloff, "for weeks on end I regaled myself at this wonderful feast and was a mass of delicious goose pimples.” Karloff had wit himself as a writer, enjoyed authority to pick out the best and weed out the rest, a “fine frenzy of egomania” he wished could “last forever.” The process took place during Karloff’s road tour for Arsenic and Old Lace, as he refers to conference and correspondence with Speare through a period of constant travel. Timing was perfect for Tales and Darkness, as Karloff had never enjoyed such prestige as he would for the extensive run of Arsenic. I bet every library and book stall in the country snatched up these volumes soon as they came available.

Panelists on Information Please: John Kieran, Franklin P. Adams, Boris Karloff, and Oscar Levant

Karloff as editor and interlocuter for these stories made sense, his intellect familiar to listeners of Information Please, a radio panel where never-easy questions were posed to regulars and guests, BK frequent among latter. I played an episode (2-20-42) where John Carradine joined the group, he and Karloff visiting “monsters” whose acumen was put to the test. As both occasionally recite from Shakespeare, Grimm Fairy Tales, Arabian Nights, or Joseph Conrad (a writer pet of Karloff’s), it seems unlikely they were briefed as to mere answers in advance, since their responses often amount to spontaneous performance. How humbling to hear those of past time who were broadly educated, knew folklore, the classics. A lot of radio was frivolous, not shows like this. You’d think Information Please was a sustaining program, but then comes the Lucky Strike announcer and we know theirs was a mainstream audience. Karloff had definite ideas as to what made scary storytelling, distinction between “horror” (repels) and “terror” (un-eases) one he would often point out to interviewers. His was a thinking man’s appreciation for fiction dealt dark. As would later be the case with Christopher Lee, Karloff was fascinated by chilling aspects of literature, realized his own contributions on film were seldom what he hoped for, but ray of hope did come with his three for Val Lewton at RKO, who Karloff credited with “rescuing him from the living dead, and restored, so to speak, his soul.” Must have pained Karloff to perform in what he knew were inferior films, even if final tally did reveal worthy work, law of averages to permit a fair number turning out well and sometimes exceptional.

Karloff maintained that power of suggestion was what frightened best, and yes, some of writers in the anthologies served this end nicely. Much of text on the other hand goes way more explicit than movies could dare in the forties, graphically descriptive of mayhem, rotted corpses, varied “putrescence” let loose to prey on man. Radio dramas in which Karloff appeared were often as morbid. Did parents oblige Junior to switch off sets where graves were dug too deep? Separate picture from words and you’d go places a visual image was forbade to enter. We could argue that rawest chilling Karloff or anyone did was through a microphone, broadcast censorship laxer on horror than oversteps re sex. Did rawest meat on radio come courtesy chill broadcasts such as Karloff and kin supplied? License at least for a while extended to comic books, an EC line peaking, if that’s a right word, with content senate investigators would call deleterious to mental health of youngsters. Imposition of a “Comics Code” took ginger out of dime mags for a generation to come. Karloff’s own Tales of Mystery pulled its punch with the title alone, the stories thin milk beside wild-wooly EC efforts of not-so-distant yore. My interest was served in the 60’s by Creepy, a Warren publication where art was spun not in color as with comic books, for to do so on horrific terms would violate the Code, even late as 1964, so what we got was gore denuded of blood reds. Some of outlaw artists and writers from EC past again plied trade, Creepy and its sister success Eerie a newsstand presence I eventually got along without, for how many times could you tell essentially a same story?

Edmund Wilson in 1944 wrote a blanket review of the ghost anthologies. He could be severe upon books the rest of us call good, did not hesitate to pan even The Maltese Falcon for a column where he said mystery novels were largely the bunk. Maybe it’s no surprise that Wilson took a dim view of scare stories and said none could discomfit any reader over age ten, notion of ghosts having been product of a candlelit era “killed by the electric light.” As darkness was what bred spooks, all you need do to rout them is throw a switch and “flood every corner of the room.” Outdoors as site for haunting was undone by flashlights with which we could ferret out ghosts. Here was why such resolute product of a past century was best left behind as we entered a wired world. But how to account for recent slew of the supernatural? Wilson said it was “real horrors loose on the earth,” fantasy a means to cope with “periods of social confusion,” and come to terms with the madness of war via pleasure got from imaginary horror. The stories themselves “do not pretend to a literary standard,” said Wilson, most of them “trashily or weakly done.” He cited some authors who should have been included in the collections, but weren’t. Wilson having limited himself to elevated prose was not of mind to embrace “the phantom fringe which has been exploited by these anthologies,” even as he recognized that readers of such appetite would ignore his advice to seek more enlightened pastime.

The two Karloff collections were rivaled by Random House’s Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, which beat both for thickness and wider selection. Yet more was Dashiell Hammett introducing over 500 pages of “Chills and Thrills,” none having been published in book form previous. His was to-the-point entitled Creeps By Night, first appearing in 1931, back at half its original length in 1944 (so much for the 500 pages), a response to wartime demand for C's&T’s. So how chill/thrilling by today’s measure? The Hammett picks were of more recent origin, many having debuted in Weird Tales, which was why they were new to hardbound printing, Weird Tales down-market and regarded as anything but worthwhile literature. Future writers of note, however, began with pulps: Sinclair Lewis, Tennessee Williams, Louella Parsons (!), numerous others. Buyers could rely on 200,000 words in each issue, all pulps cut along same or similar pattern. Covers alone were enough to call out riot squads in response, lurid beyond what any Barnes and Noble would display in timid times we know. Never mind movies … pulps were where horror was most horrific. Did children do the buying, or sick-minded adults? Price varied from dimes to fifteen cents to two bits … depending on survival skills or cunning of your competitor. I could delve into and read the whole of pulpy lot, Horror Stories, Strange Tales, Dime Mystery Magazine, plus what was done with westerns, romance, war themes, but how to live long enough to fulfill such commission? I expect most fans read history of pulps rather than pulps themselves, few claiming merit in literature hurry-up generated at vast quantity. Adventure magazine during its peak came out three times a month, so how could minimum of 600,000 words, served every ten days, maintain any sort of standard?

I got through twenty or so stories from the two Karloff volumes and Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural. But one needs to know when to quit, too many a route to numbness.  Some are plain nauseating, others an escort to slumber’s portal. “Just four more pages and I can say I read it,” but say to who? Thing is, I like ghost stories, because, well, there’s always going to be a ghost, and I like ghosts, in fact believe firmly in them. I am further of opinion that most everyone has had some sort of supernatural experience but are loathe to admit it. The Random House book says in its intro that our fascination for such content arises from “fear of the human dead.” Think of sitting in a group of say four or six and telling them you once encountered a spirit. It would be all over town by tomorrow that you were nuts. A moment when I know I’ve won someone’s confidence is when they tell in sotto voice of having seen/heard something not of this earth. Consider advantage in a ghost, preferably someone you knew of course, popping by to explain what awaits on the other side. Poof would go mystery of life and death, let alone “fear of the human dead,” provided of course that no malign entity shows up to haunt sleep, meals, or leisure. Deep thoughts pulpy tales inspire! For the record, writers whose contribution I enjoyed: Somerset Maugham, W.W. Jacobs (how about that Monkey’s Paw?), Ambrose Bierce, E.A. Poe (who turns up in virtually all collections). Him what gave me most willies was H.P. Lovecraft, distinctly not someone I would have wanted to trade lives with, or accompany for barbecue, as here was a weirdest guy to have written weird tales.

Photos of Lovecraft, all of them, more than faintly disturb. Suffice to say, there are none of him basking at the shore with Carole Landis balanced on his shoulders. Lovecraft lived with Mom, theirs a “pathological love-hate relationship” --- sounds like the home life of 16mm collectors I knew. Then was an aunt, and another aunt, each with sufficient pathology to carry on Mom’s spirit-breakage of Lovecraft. A wife-in-brief was run off by the aunts. Mom had already died when he met the wife, not that she could have made things worse than they were. Lovecraft was said to have been second only to Voltaire for prolific letter-writing. One missive ran to 20,000 words. He spent a lifetime burying nuts for fame he would not live to enjoy, a talent far ahead of his time and most of readership. Lovecraft was prominent within a circle that understood him, these for sure no part of any mainstream. He was on the one hand anti-social, but helped young writers who sought his counsel. Lovecraft and readers who rubbed him wrong would feud for months in correspondence addressed to, and published by, Weird Tales. One of his sparring partners was a young Forrest Ackerman. Some said Lovecraft was good only for bottom-feeder pulps, but do please compare numbers with what was called serious literature. Weird Tales sold a half million or more copies per issue --- Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby moved but 25,000 units in the author’s lifetime. How soon we forgot that pulps had an enormous following. More people read them than most anything in print. Trouble is, few if any left behind thoughts or analysis, pulp the very definition of ephemeral. Like newsprint, pulps were not designed to last, so why would thinkers or critics pay heed to them? An Edmund Wilson did not address himself to stories like Satan Is My Lover or Cult of the Lusting Carcass. I doubt Lovecraft expected to be appreciated in his time, for who of genius was, or is, unless they discover some new digital realm?

Lovecraft had friends who came to his legacy’s rescue soon after he passed, two of them starting a firm called “Arkham House” to publish his works. Arkham was the fictional Massachusetts site of varied horrors Lovecraft invented, a cursed place we assume was based on Salem of the same state, where twenty so-called witches were hanged. Arkham may have been Lovecraft’s supreme creation. This place unlike Salem had real witches … goblins … fiends … among populace. Was Salem cursed for its prosecution of faux witches? Indeed, they might still be cursed, mutant children born in succeeding generations, or folks spontaneously combusting in streets perhaps. 1963’s The Haunted Palace, based on Lovecraft (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward) and set in Arkham, got dose of these. Famed author Nathaniel Hawthorne had a granddad who was one of the hanging judges, by name “Hathorne,” so shamed by posterity that Nathaniel chose “Hawthorne” to go by. Lovecraft’s cult was wide by the 60’s when first I heard of him. 1965's Die, Monster, Die derived from The Color Out of Space by Lovecraft, which I read and found harrowing, then watched the bled-white movie again to steady nerves. Lovecraft books Arkham House published now demand $4000 and up. Did Lovecraft see that much from totality of stories he sold to Weird Tales and spots elsewhere? Pulps overall have been ennobled by fans. There are oodles of books about them, inspired mostly by garish, grisly covers that could never have got through the door of Rhodes' Newsstand on my Main Street. What made pulps finally go away? There were over 200 of them in mid-Depression. Cheap Thrills by Ron Goulart (agreed to be a best history of pulps) put blame on the rise of comic books, Goulart saying these were “somewhat like buffered aspirin, (and) cut down the time it took for the action to get from the page to the brain --- and they took away much of the pulp’s audience.” Thing is, pulps still lasted, if limping, into the seventies. Ones who still care hold conventions. Video from these are at You Tube. Gatherings seem composed of boys that never grew up (not a knock, for who am I to talk?), with an occasional college professor to ruminate on the meaning of it all as he/she bargains for a Weird Tales or Horror Stories. I am fascinated by pulps, but thankful not to have been lured by siren call of collecting them. Do we still care as did those who knew pulps when they were current? Like with old-time radio, you wonder how much longer the party can last.