Spooking: Monsters, Mayhem, and Marquees
And a Hand-Made Puppet Shall Lead Them --- Do click and
enlarge the Beast. He’s a model, so are cars, so’s the street itself … would we
have it any other way? Much appeal of Harryhausen was fans figuring they
could do what he did at home. That’s how he started after all, in the family
garage with a tabletop and stuff bought at the hardware. His was Dreaming the
Possible Dream as lots loving his work would. More than a few made films like
Ray, enough succeeding to realize it could be done. Have any effects
artists come up in the last sixty years who were not inspired by Harryhausen? What
astounds me is detail he lent, inside of the creature’s mouth, its roof, teeth,
tongue, all done with two hands and infinite patience. Such application was
unknown to my building of Aurora kits. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms probably
got the classiest first-run playdates of any monster movie made during the
fifties. Look how the Paramount Theatre gave it a blue-ribbon stage show for
accompany, and how their opener day ad emphasizes TV saturation. The Beast
stayed three weeks at the Paramount, amazing play for product insignificant on
the surface. Easy to forget that The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms also took more money
than most (any?) horror-sci-fi from the fifties. It may still be the most enjoyable
of them.
A One-Legged Race for Two Fright Films --- New York’s
Rialto was long a home to horror. Most chillers first-ran there to be observed
by showmen who might use them down the exhibition line. That was then, as in
late 30’s, early-to-mid 40’s, but this (1958) was now. Frightful combos were getting
the more so for low yield, MGM seeing minimal reward from The Haunted Strangler (domestic
rentals $208K) paired with Fiend Without a Face ($198K). Fans were weary of
sameness, more so cheapness as exemplified by American-International if not
worse cheapies. Strangler and Fiend were independently produced in England by
Richard Gordon. His horrors (two with Boris Karloff) were unpleasant in the
extreme, enough so for me to avoid them even in childhood. They’re well-made
enough, better than rivals, which is probably why Metro was willing to handle
them. Nice to see Karloff late as ’58 still referred to as “King of Monsters.” Who
else had come along to challenge him? Big companies needed product to eat
overhead and keep exchanges busy, monster duos beneath them in a sense but
necessary evil especially where a public was willing to buy. B/W packages like
here were fast fading, MGM finding out first with this foray.
I Was Three So Why Not Take Me? --- October 1957 was pre-Liberty by two years,
but I/we can dream of shows that preceded age and capacity to attend. AI asserted
its own creative bent with this ad which I tried to disabuse, but no luck. Sometimes the
oracle listens, other times won’t. That scarred up head might belong to
anybody, but not Chris Lee. Still it’s an OK swap for my “original” coming off
microfilm at the Community College and muddier than objects Baron Victor lowered
into his acid bath. What is life but swaps and settling? Point is night of
nights as hosted by Colonel Forehand and staff among whom were teen ushers I
spoke with years later who’d confirm the Colonel ran a taut ship (remember his
report card inspections? If grades fell, out you went). The Curse of
Frankenstein was the thousand watt show for summer elsewhere, limping down to
us for autumn, but what better occasion than Halloween Eve at which to revel? X --- the Unknown would join the program for next day and Friday
play. Wonder if attendees liked Curse enough to come back for another dose plus
the Hammer sci-fi. And what if somebody really fainted during the show? A boy
doing so would surely be branded for life (imagined conversation at a fiftieth reunion: Remember that time you fainted during the Frankenstein picture?).
UPDATE (10/26/2026, 8:20 pm): Donald Benson sent along the below astonishing ad. Would not believe it had I not seen it. Donald explains:
Somewhere I have this actual page, courtesy of my sister (pulled the attached image off reddit). The copy implies it was part of a campaign; wondering if the copy was as arch all the way through.
Many Thanks to Scott MacQueen for supplying the Roosevelt Theatre ad for The Mask of Fu Manchu.
UPDATE (10/31/2026, 12:15 pm): Lou Lumenick sent another Jiffy ad. Again, who knew? As ever, thanks a million, Lou.
16 Comments:
Wow. Touch all my buttons. I could comment on everything today! I think "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" is one of the best giant-monster-films of all time. And made for so little money.
Yep, "Return of Dr. X" might have been better for Boris or Bela, but I don't think it was really good for anyone.
Basil Rathbone - - He's both Sherlock Holmes and the son of Frankenstein to me, and I think he saved AIP's "The Comedy of Terrors" from being a waste. He stole the show from Peter Lorre, and that's hard to do!
I love the madness of "The Mask of Fu Manchu" - - Bias and bigotry to anything that was not of Euro descent: A showpiece that shows how disconnected America was from Asia. Everyone should watch this in the fully uncut version.
The original "Mighty Joe Young" - - as popular as it is - - remains an underrated film. I think it's a marvelous achievement. I love old Joe!
"The Haunted Strangler" and "Fiend Without a Face" are both B- films, but I think both are entertaining (despite lots of nonsense). Old Richard Gordon was often at the Monster Bash Convention (even in 2011, a few months before his passing). He was full of bull like most people when they live long enough to be the only one to tell their version of a story (and everyone else is gone). I still think that his other Karloff film (made after "The Haunted Strangler), "Corridors of Blood" is a classic. Worth anyones attention. By far Richard Gordon's best project.
And, yes, I was there - - 1957 - - at 6 years old and sitting front row of the balcony in Asheboro NC's Sunset Theater to see "The Curse of Frankenstein" - - And, like the ad claimed, the film has haunted me forever. Not a great movie, but a worthy and monumental one.
Dan Mercer reacts to today's Halloween musings:
I share Phil Smoot's regard for this Greenbriar episode.
My first acquaintance with Basil Rathbone came Christmas morning in 1959. I had gotten a crystal radio set as a present and my Dad set it up for me, rigging the antenna and ground wire. The first show I listened to was a reading of "A Christmas Carol" by Rathbone, as broadcast by WCAU in Philadelphia with its 50,000 watt flamethrower of a transmitter, the one station my set could pick up. This was a tradition on the CBS radio network, which had long been performed by Lionel Barrymore, who died five years before. I don't know if Rathbone had carried on since then, but I loved what came over the ear phones that morning, with his mellifluous voice and his skill in altering it for each of the characters. It was the opening of a brand new world for me, the door to which has never closed. That evening, I listened to William Conrad as Matt Dillon on the radio version of "Gunsmoke."
Rathbone died in 1967, just a few years after that broadcast, when network radio was itself dying. There was always work for him, even to the very end, though much of it was of a sketchy variety, the sort one does when a continuing income is necessary, like that advertisement for Fatima cigarettes.
"The Mask of Fu Manchu" is a wild and woolly movie but quite a lot of fun, as though it was one of those feature film condensations of a serial. Karloff was as uncanny as ever and Myrna Loy reached the acme of her career as an exotic, with her impersonation of his daughter. Her little yips as Charles Starrett is being flayed certainly added a piquant touch to the scene. I can only imagine what Karen Morley thought of the show, given her political sensibilities.
It's curious, but it seems that none of the Hammer horrors ever came to theaters in my area, not that I would necessarily have been allowed to see any of them. The Fox Theater in Levittown, New Jersey, where I almost always went for their Saturday matinees, would usually show science fiction pictures or whatever was offered on the evening program, if it was suitable, but never horror pictures. So, "The Haunted Strangler" and "Fiend Without a Face" never made an appearance, either, though older science fiction pictures, like "Twenty Million Miles to Earth" or "Kronos," were staples for its matinees. Alas, but this meant that the red meat that growing boys need and thrive on--or so I've been given to understand--was never a part of my diet.
At least the Liberty only cautioned that you should try not to faint. The Fox actually promised a prize if somehow you didn't die of a heart attack during its Halloween spook show, which promised two movies and live monsters menacing a girl. Did I say that it never offered horror films? Well, it gave us only one of the two movies, which proved to be "Francis in the Haunted House," so I stand by what I said. The "monsters" proved to someone in what was apparently a gorilla suit chasing someone else, who may have been a girl, down the ill lit theater aisles. Despite having survived all of this, I did not come away with a prize, which closed the show for me on a crescendo of disappointment.
A good time to revisit "Matinee", the nifty comedy about a William Castle type. Technically it's set during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it works for the holiday.
In "The Ghost Breakers" (1940), Bob Hope reacts to a thunderstorm: "Basil Rathbone must be throwing a party." That could play as a reference to his scary movies or as a Hollywood in joke.
For me, the deal with Harryhausen is that he DELIVERED. What you saw in the posters and newspaper ads was as good or better onscreen. Most B movie art and a lot of A promotion played fast and loose with reality.
Thanks for the terrific ad you sent, Donald. Rathbone selling Skippy! ... and why not?
John Goodman gave a tremendous performance as the "William Castle type" in "Matinee", which I looked at again a few weeks ago. I envied the boy lead for all the FM back issues he had, plus posters and 8mm Castle Films stacked all round his bedroom. Wonder how many monster kids back then had it so good.
Would wish myself to that balcony seat at Asheboro's Sunset Theatre in 1957. What a treasured memory that must make.
"The Return of Dr. X" is such a hoot. Bogart doesn't seem to be taking it seriously for a minute, as if he knows it's utterly ridiculous, especially when it turns into a gangster shootout at the climax. It's odd that he's billed third in the opening credits (as I recall) while being first at the close and in that theater ballyhoo photo. Maybe Jack Warner's way of apologizing for putting him in such a B-picture?
This is the first time I saw that non-Christopher Lee head on a CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN poster. Harryhausen always put more into his work than he was paid for.
As I indicated in the column, that image was an AI creation, which despite several entreaties to that unseen authority, I was unable to change for Christopher Lee's benefit. Worth the discrepancy however, for color plus sharpness increase, a tremendous upgrade from a microfilm copy that looked pretty awful.
Maybe Bogart's stock had gone up during the interim between production and release, exhibitors realizing by then that he was the primary draw.
That arch text for SKIPPY PEANUT BUTTER catches the archness of many of Basil Rathbone's roles. Clearly the copywriter had fun.
'The Return of Dr. X' holds a strange fascination for me, beyond it being a hoot to watch. Bogart is top-billed in those ballyhoo displays, and in the film's trailer. However, if you watch that trailer you'll see several moments that are nowhere to be seen in the final product. There's even a strangely touching moment in the trailer where Bogie tells the doctor who resurrected him 'I should really kill you for what you've done to me.' Bogie delivers that line with sincerity and I can't watch that moment and think Bogie wasn't taking this movie seriously as he did every role he played.
Still, the fact that he disparaged this film for the rest of his life signals that either he didn't respect the material or something happened that burned him.
It's my theory that something (bad preview? Bogie kicking up too much of a fuss at being compelled to be in a role he considered beneath him?) caused the film to be heavily reworked to center more on Wayne Morris' reporter character, and also to make Morris' character more goofy (there isn't even a hint of comic relief in the trailer). I really, really wish we could see the movie the trailer was advertising.
I would like to think Bogart gave his all to this part at least while he was playing it, but also understand that he would have preferred to distance himself from "Return of Dr. X" once stardom was achieved. Question I'd ask: Did Bogart ever watch the completed film, or would that have been too painful?
Dan Mercer with more emeralds he has sprinkled about the Web (Part One):
“Tell It to the Marines” (1926)
To appear as himself was in the nature of a disguise for Lon Chaney, so seldom was he seen without an elaborate makeup. However, as the tough Marine sergeant in love with the corps and other things, he is superb. The many service films made over the years have reduced plot and incident here to cliches, but not his performance, which is alive with his character and remains undiminished in its excellence.
Mickey Rooney
Rooney played a ruthless, egotistical television star in "The Comedian," a drama on the Playhouse 90 anthology series. He gave a powerhouse performance in it, proving yet again his immense versatility. His character was purportedly based on Milton Berle, but there is a sense that he was somewhat type-cast, being just as much the kind of monster who terrorized those in his inner circle.
“The Night of the Hunter” (1955)
"The Night of the Hunter" is a remarkable film for its eerie, dreamlike sequences, but a masterpiece only if one accepts that it is not intended to be realistic in any way, but a highly subjective telling of its story from a child's perspective. There is no subtlety but only exaggerations, looming shadows, and monsters lurking in the dark. The Preacher is scarcely more than a caricature, menacing and apparently dangerous--he killed the children's mother, after all--but is set to flight by good woman who will not be frightened. So, the children are allowed to awaken from what was, in effect, only a bad dream. Whether this is unsettling or overly theatrical, even cartoonish, will depend on the viewer's acceptance of the validity of its approach.
“Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot” (“Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday”) (1953)
Jacques Tati introduces Monsieur Hulot, a tall, Langdon-like character who proceeds through life in a series of discrete, evasive maneuvers. He is at the seashore, where nothing much happens, but that is the source of its humor. Gags are set up as preludes to other gags, usually without a payoff as such. So, there are little anticipations, like a clock work mechanism tick tocking towards “Finis.” Oddly, for a film with no plot and scarcely any dialog, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing (Story and Screenplay). But this also expresses the essence of why it is funny.
“Nosferatu” (1922)
Various elements of "Nosferatu" were transcriptions intended to remove a direct correlation between it and "Dracula," a commercial property still under copyright protection. As it turned out, the effort was unsuccessful, and the holder of the copyright, Florence Stoker, the widow and literary executor of the author, Bram Stoker, was able to enforce it against the makers of "Nosferatu." Count Orlock, the vampire in "Nosferatu," is distinctly different, however, from Count Dracula. There is no glamor or sexual attraction associated with him, even of a perverse variety. There is also no nostalgic longing for a life that can end in death. There is only an appetite that can never be satiated and thus a cosmic malice towards living things. Such evil is manifested not merely in his killing, which he must do continuously to live, but in the rats which swarm into the town with his arrival and the plague that accompanies them. This aspect is also found in "Dracula" but is incidental, while in "Nosferatu," it is primal. Such distinctions were not sufficient to protect "Nosferatu" from copyright infringement, the finding of which turned primarily upon plot considerations, but does make the film very different thematically from the story it sought to exploit.
Part Two from Dan Mercer:
Gloria Grahame
She was the epitome of the “femme fatale” in forties film noir, a blend of sultry, hard-boiled cynicism and a raw, trembling vulnerability. Her unique beauty added to the effect, the expressive eyes, retroussé nose, and a pout with a long but delicious upper lip. She had an intense insecurity about her appearance, though, especially regarding that upper lip, which she would often place cotton or tissue under to make it project more. She would later resort to cosmetic surgery as well, resulting in one procedure which temporarily paralyzed her upper lip and permanently changed her smile. No doubt the source of her insecurity was reflected in her rather tumultuous personal life, but it also brought a certain wounded quality to her performances which invited understanding and even sympathy for cold, calculating characters. I find her never less than fascinating on screen.
The Young Bela Lugosi
The young Lugosi was a man of action, appearing in many stage productions, serving as an infantry officer during the war, where he was wounded, then active again on stage and in films, and active as well in politics. It was a colorful life, but one that might have been forgotten, at least outside his native Hungary, had he not been forced to flee when political opponents took power. However, that took him eventually to the United States and then Hollywood, where he found another kind of immortality. Certainly, he is remembered today.
Renee Adoree
Pictures suggest that Renee Adoree was a very stylish and elegant young woman off screen. What attracted her audience, however, was the youthful innocence she conveyed, something in addition to her physical beauty and more important than what she wore. It allowed her to express a love for another that was unaffected and wholly committed. In "The Big Parade," when she throws herself at Gilbert as his troop carrier is taking him to the front line, holding on desperately to his leg as she is being dragged along, the poignancy of the moment shatters the heart, so uncaring is she of appearance that she would rather die than let him go on unaware that she loves him. It is one of the great moments of the cinema.
“Key Largo” (1949)
"Key Largo" was another of the movies made after the end of the Second World War, expressing the confusion that followed a victory won at great sacrifice, when it seemed that the human condition had not been transformed. Behind the facade of freedom and democracy, the baser values persisted.
Part Three from Dan Mercer:
Louise Brooks bob by Saveli
One advantage of this cut is that a fuller one would add volume to the upper head, making the lower portion of the face look smaller or disproportionate by comparison. The Brooks face is wonderfully symmetrical, with large eyes set wide apart, a small, straight and narrow nose, sensuous lips, and a sharp jaw with pointed chin. By shortening the bangs, shaping the sides, and shingling the back, the lower face is given greater prominence. It is a lovely, expressive face which needs to be seen.
Joan Fontaine in “Rebecca” (1940)
Strange, but in life, Joan Fontaine was an intelligent and sophisticated woman whom some said was closer to Rebecca than to the unnamed second Mrs. De Winter she played here, and yet in this movie and such others as "The Constant Nymph" and "Letter From an Unknown Woman," she was able to convey an almost childlike innocence, with no sense of guile or reserve, as though her heart had been laid bare. This is especially true of "Rebecca," when her inexperience and lack of self-confidence make her vulnerable to the machinations of Mrs. Danvers and to the malign influence of Rebecca herself from beyond grave. It is when her love has been challenged, however, that she draws upon the courage and will that were always hers and becomes a source of strength to those who had been compromised.
Fay Wray in “Thunderbolt” (1929)
These moments capture a quality Fay Wray possessed almost from the beginning of her career, that of an emotional transparency which made what her character felt in a particular moment or situation readily apparent to the audience. In "Thunderbolt," she was the kept woman of a criminal, who wants to go straight and lead a decent life. In this scene, she has become aware, as though for the first time, of how tawdry and decadent the nightclub environment she's inhabited really is. The shame she feels washes over her like something physically repellant. She draws a fur over her bare arms and decolletage, as if this renewal of her modesty would allow her to escape from it. This was her first talkie, but in contrast to her co-stars, George Bancroft and Richard Arlen, her handling of dialog was very natural and believable. The emotional depth and resilience she demonstrated here would serve as a foundation for other roles to come no less substantial.
If I recall correctly, after Rathbone quit Sherlock Holmes (on film and radio), he starred in a radio mystery series entitled TALES OF FATIMA. Fatima, best of all long cigarettes, later sponsored DRAGNET.
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