Bootlegs No More #4

 

Further Online Pearl Dive: Two-Color Dix, Norma's Last Silent But With Sound, and Cats Scratch Canaries to Disc Accompany

The Vitaphone Soundtrack Project astounds anew, each upload a revelation. They make multiple landfalls a week with treasures unheard, sometimes unseen, latter at last on quality terms not accessible before. Often they’ll go reel by reel as a feature is assembled from elements gathered, Vitaphone discs unearthed like combing tombs in Egypt. Platters are extant, or they are not. Studios may have them and choose not to share. Same with archives. VSP is a citizen’s archive. There should be, ultimately will be, more like them. Whatever is found is funneled to a fanship hoping the Project knows how much we appreciate them. Of late is Redskin (1929), Paramount’s two-color modern-set saga of the West, its native-borns torn between tradition and white man ways. Richard Dix stars, notable Noble Johnson a primary threat. Redskin was offered years ago as part of an “American Film Archives” DVD box, long out of print and not cheap when they surface. VSP has that beat anyway for finding more Vitaphone discs and wedding them to High-Def image courtesy the Library of Congress.

Redskin uses Technicolor for splendor of nature, then switches to tints when Dix is seized as a boy and put in a white school, his college career also rendered in monotones. Mood is enhanced or subdued by whatever drama suggests, a technique common to silent cinema but lost once talkers imposed their sameness. Kevin Brownlow wrote about Redskin in The War, the West, and the Wilderness. He as would others noted social issues touched upon in early sections with action seizing emphasis for a vigorous third act. Redskin is among reward for copyrights falling like nine pins, and note upcoming New Years gift that is all of 1931 free to stream. Ads are rife at You Tube unless you premium-subscribe which lots do because it’s well worth the tab and they offer hundreds of comp movies besides, features licensed by YT and containing many classics. VSP can’t always locate whole of sound for a feature although they do reassemble available records to cover sections where accompany is currently missing (not to despair as these records continue to turn up).

I couldn’t tell a difference, so skilled are their tech efforts. Lately VSP came across sound for the last two reels of Seven Footprints to Satan, which Greenbriar loudly lauded last year when Serial Squadron released the feature with a modern score. What VSP tenders is twenty so-far minutes of what went out to 1929 audiences, Reels Five and Six so far. “What music they make” as Dracula said, and here’s hoping the other four discs turn up, which considering re-surface rate of these relics, I’m more than hopeful they will. Same for Reel Two of 1928’s A Lady of Chance, where Norma Shearer falls in with crook Lowell Sherman and minions. All VSP has is one Vitaphone record that covers ten minutes of screen action, a story within the story that pleased me wholly plus gave hope that maybe we’ll someday get the whole thing with original music accompany.

Warner Archive offers a standard DVD of A Lady of Chance, a good print with a lately composed score. I wonder if Warners has any of the original Vitaphone music/effects disc for A Lady of Chance. If so, they should make them available to the Project, unless of course Warner Archive intends to release the feature on Blu-Ray. VSP’s in-progress ventures are fun following, and of course we are all invited to keep eyes open for Vitaphone records that might turn up … where? … at flea markets, eBay, attics, possibilities are infinite. Met a guy once who was using them for serving plates. I am guardedly optimistic that A Lady of Chance and Seven Footprints to Satan will someday be complete in terms of picture and original sound, but that will need a fan community’s diligence. Rest assured this stuff is out there, and in the most unexpected places. In the meantime, I await whatever treasure the Vitaphone Soundtrack Projects rains down upon us, and appreciate their efforts to rescue and revive our early sound heritage.

History for Fun #3

 

From Fact: The Hindenburg and The Big Lift

THE HINDENBURG (1975) --- Ultra-classy for Universal at a time they seemed poised for industry leadership after years an also-ran, The Sting a recent winner for Best Picture, American Graffiti an all-time profit getter, plus Jaws making history a same summer The Hindenburg was being completed. I was there for June-July 1975 as pupil with USC’s Filmmaker program, or whatever they called the course. We were turned loose on the lot three days per week and for me that was like a cat at the fish stand. Commissary lunch was a daily highlight. Stars were in and out to/from lunch. They all had been told about us so were indulgent. Jackie Cooper let me walk with him back to the Mobile One stage as we talked about Our Gang. I probably told that story before. You kind of forget after twenty-six hundred columns. One thing I know wasn’t mentioned before was us going to a scoring session for The Hindenburg and me sidling over to where director Robert Wise supervised the orchestra led by composer David Shire. Here we all were wandering around the room, not told where to sit or stand, as if at home, so much had the lot come to seem that way. USC must have had real pull at Universal for such to be allowed. Of course it was a more relaxed time then. Mr. Wise was polite if distracted. I had forgot how music booms where live, us students practically sitting on performer laps. I had chance to pose but one question to Mr. Wise and you may judge for yourselves how fully I bungled it: “Mr. Wise, are you satisfied with how The Hindenburg turned out?” He didn’t yell Security! but maybe wanted to. Wise was famously patient with young film enthusiasts, accommodating to buff interviewing. At least I didn’t ask him if he felt guilty for mutilating The Magnificent Ambersons. That would have earned me a bum’s rush. So what did he say to my query? “Ask me again in two weeks.” Now there was tact. No wonder his was unbroken industry success.

But what of The Hindenburg? I wouldn’t see it for years, enjoyed it OK when I finally did, looked again lately at a Fandango HD stream where it played splendidly. Wise by all measure was a pro director in classically trained sense. Like Jacques Tourneur, another of so-called journeyman favorites, he always came fully prepared to shoot, ducks in a row before action was called, no time wasted. There is a book called Robert Wise on His Films where he comments at length on what got accomplished over a long career. Among data on The Hindenburg, Wise told how original plans for the dirigible had been lost during the war and they had to go elsewhere for details to reconstruct the ship, primary model for which was twenty-seven feet long, this an interesting comparison with Hell’s Angels, where the zeppelin built for the London air raid sequence was sixty feet long. The Hindenburg was too good to be classified as a mere “disaster’ movie, being elegant in ways most film had stopped being by the mid-seventies. Appropriate that it should revolve around comfort that was lighter than air travel. Robert Wise represented something contrary to forces moving fast toward dominance of the industry. The Spielbergs and Lucases were about to inherit the earth. When I went to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture and saw Wise had directed it … well, Star Trek seemed beneath him. 1975 was at cusp of convulsive change, yet Universal seemed that summer to be on a kind of nostalgia trip. Not only were they recreating incident that was the Hindenburg crash in 1937, there also was ongoing celebration of old Hollywood in the persons of W.C. Fields (Rod Steiger) and Gable/Lombard as essayed by James Brolin and Jill Clayburgh. Both these projects skimped somewhat on period detail that The Hindenburg emphasized yet had a surface polish that made them at least seem authentic. The Hindenburg boasted visual effects equal if not better than any industry-done at the time and received an Academy Award for visuals.

We got to visit Albert Whitlock’s workshop where he showed us drawings, matte paintings, models, all that was stacked up or leaned against walls. It was OK for us to walk around picking stuff up. Imagine such license today. Among merits considerable of The Hindenburg: George C. Scott in the lead. He is a “good” German working for the Reich but wanting out. There are support parts for players who all but had cots at Universal, each excelling because here was a first-rate project worthy of anyone’s best effort. No one knows for sure what made the Hindenburg blow up. The Germans acknowledged possibility of sabotage but had no concrete evidence. The movie claims evil was afoot and early on shows us the plotter. We knew from history what ultimately happened and that the “disaster” from actual account must be brief. The thing exploded, caught fire, and everybody who was going to get out, got out, all within minutes. Query to 2026: Would modern watchers be aware what happened to the Hindenburg? At least in 1975 there were plenty who recalled the event having took place but fifty years previous. Staging of the crash was novel, for most part black-and-white like the famous newsreels, actual footage blended with outcome for characters. Not sure how audiences reacted to such taut recital of the blow, but how else do you depict something seen for real, and often, since 1937 when it was photographed in “real time” (a phrase oft-used enough of late to become tiresome). It’s remarkable that so many passengers got out alive, 64% of them. 62 lived, 35 died. Looking at the newsreels you wouldn’t think anybody could get past a conflagration like that. I didn’t want Scott to die but of course he pretty much had to given circumstance of him trying to defuse the bomb when it goes off. The Hindenburg cost $15 million and “grossed” $27.9 million domestically. They (online sources) may mean rentals which is entirely different from gross, this sort of info getting often confused. Maybe The Hindenburg got by, but not on the level of a Poseidon or Towering Inferno. Might it have been too good for an audience so far fed on those simpler concepts?

THE BIG LIFT (1950) --- Allies forgive, Paul Douglas does not. He’s an officer suspicious of anything/anybody German and lo/behold is proven right for a finish where he proves Montgomery Clift’s former enemy love to be anything but reconstructed. To root out Germans pretending to be de-nazified was a job army personnel had not adequate time or manpower for, millions after all to be investigated and near as many slipping through nets. Pretty soon the job was barely being done, which was why lots never answered for war crimes or attitudes unchanged since peace was won. Clift is the innocent abroad and easy prey for Cornell Borchers who will use him to enter America and rejoin her SS escapee lover who now runs a camera shop in St. Louis (wonder if there was a spinner rack offering 8mm Castle Films). It takes raw realist Douglas to unmask her and set Monty straight. The Big Lift is perhaps plainest spoken of occupation dramas, one we know least, at least in quality prints, for it having gone into the Public Domain years ago and abused ever since on television and online. It should be recovered, but by who? “Fox” owns it, but that means Disney, which means ongoing obscurity. Location shooting for The Big Lift is a given, writer-director George Seaton and producing William Perlberg by postwar insistent on believable backgrounds. Virtually all of shooting took place in Berlin, Frankfurt, even inside the Russian sector. The Big Lift went past limited location efforts of A Foreign Affair, Berlin Express, others less semi-documentary for intent and outcome. Even the old Ufa studio hosted shooting of interiors for The Big Lift, which can be accessed on You Tube and elsewhere but do try finding a better transfer if one can be had. My best yield so far has been barely tolerable if that.

Showmen Sell It Hot #6

 

Showmen: For a Few Dollars More and The Valley of Decision

FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (1965/1967) --- Nearly a year and a half elapsed between Italian release of For a Few Dollars More and its American open. Did this bespeak a lack of confidence? Turns out United Artists, as US distributor and financier on the second and third “Dollars” westerns, wanted to release all three over four-month intervals beginning in January 1967, like episodes of a TV program offered close enough together so patrons could recall each as they ate through the lot. For a Few Dollars was the middle one that improved upon the first, wickets-wise and artistically, while third and epic last (with Clint Eastwood) surpassed formers all-wise. Foreign grosses drove them, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly getting twice as much overseas ($12.3 million) as it realized stateside ($6.097). These pictures were not made so much for us as for other markets that responded more to a Yank vid actor suddenly an international sensation, but was it Eastwood or style Sergio Leone brought to the trio of new-fangled westerns? Brutal after fashion of James Bond, the Man with No Name was seen as period variation on 007. The Dollar man as embodied by Eastwood killed not only in cold blood but in bunches. Should the star weary as a lone act, there came Lee Van Cleef as even better recognized refugee off American frontiers, and from features, having menaced back to Gary Cooper in High Noon. Van Cleef swaps all that past for Dollars authority, so much for Eastwood to recognize and refer to Lee’s “Colonel Douglas Mortimer” as the “Old Man” whose greater experience he'll rely upon for planning next moves. They make a felicitous team and we like seeing both survive the end title. Col. Mortimer to my approval identifies his home state as “Carolina,” not which Carolina, though I’ll assume it’s North Carolina, the Colonel having fought honorably at Fredericksburg, Bull Run, other sites of Confederate victory.

Eastwood was identified on posters as “The Man with No Name,” but unless I’m mistaken, he had a name in all three Leones where he figured, even the last where Tuco dubs him “Blondie” for near-entirety of G,B,&U. To that last, we assume the “Bad” is Van Cleef and the “Ugly” Eli Wallach, for Van Cleef was never ugly in maturity, his hawk features distinct, ennobled, by maturity. There’s good reason we saw Van Cleef back, and back again, in a string of starring westerns extending well into the seventies. Was he a first among American players to become a bonafide star as ongoing anti-hero? Even Eastwood had to modify his act to get by in creamy-centered US westerns that fed off imports (see, or rather don’t see, Hang Em’ High). Amusing is the actor telling in offscreen chats how every ounce of sound for the Leones had to be post-dubbed, so frequent was distraction from unplanned noise on locations, plus most if not all support actors not knowing but one language, these movies meant to play in all markets worldwide, but wasn’t this every film’s reality by the sixties, and before? To my eye if not ears, For a Few Dollars plays smooth considering undoubted chaos to shoot it, let alone to apply dialogue. Faultless is structure, pace, these took for granted in stateside actioners, then comes Sergio Leone (who co-wrote) to surpass models he consulted, borrowed freely from. I place For a Few Dollars among fleetest 132-minute views I’ve lately had, one fun confrontation and/or killing(s) after another. We knew spaghettis for noses thumbed at convention plus punches too long pulled by American cowboys. Tuco’s deathless line in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly comes to mind, If you’re gonna shoot … shoot!

THE VALLEY OF DECISION (1945) --- Another for quick delivery to Radio City Music Hall. Certain shows were made for that address, being plush, lush, long, and star-studded. Greer Garson dominance of the Hall was known and an ongoing circumstance. House nut was high or MGM could just about have got their $2.1 million negative cost back from this one engagement. The Valley of Decision came from a novel by Alice Davenport, a music critic whose prior work was a Mozart biography before showing better aptitude for multi-generational family sagas, which this was and which readers spent leisure with and shared with bookish friends. Literary agent Maxwell Perkins is remembered best for backing Hemingway, Wolfe, Fitzgerald, but it was Davenports like Alice his company sat most comfortably on, sales surpassing novels that were critic-embraced, admittedly better regarded than what Alice wrote, but what mattered more than selling there and then? Legacy as ever meant less than current cash. The Valley of Decision took 800 pages to finish. Who among us ever read a book that long? Not me so far, at least not a novel, maybe thick books of famed quotations which is like having a massive jar of M&M’s alongside to also savor. The Valley of Decision made for ideal movie to adapt so far as two hours took you, pick of most engaging generation from three (or was it four?) that Alice Davenport covered but most of which old hands at Metro would discard. I bet credited scribe John Lee Mahin never read a fraction of Davenport’s massive book, his job not to reason why it went so long, but to do or die at a job efficiently done after someone else did epic reading for him. “The book was better” some would say, but even they knew impossibility of putting a thing so sprawling to film, a night out at the movies never meant to be all night at the movies.

The Valley of Decision ran one minute under two hours. I watched Warner Archive’s Blu-Ray and liked there being no misunderstanding as to what the experience will be, us taking these best for knowing what we’ve got into, “Greer Garson” medicine we don’t expect to blanch on, as it’s gummy plus cherry-flavored in the bargain. Garson, MGM too, is for those who have stood duty in old movie trenches for most of viewing life. I rue the day when none such fanship is left, but know well it's coming. To Greer Garson followers: Ever feel you might end up the last of your kind standing? That sometimes comes to me with regards Deanna. Among Valley joys: Leo buying talent and spreading same like butter on toast. They pressbook-brag of “Hollywood’s Meanest Juvenile in (a) Big Role,” Dan Duryea who probably hadn’t thought of himself quite that way, nor expected a part small and supporting as here, but bets are on his having got more money than Universal dreamed of giving for him having been even meaner. Gladys Cooper was a presumed free agent, she and her agent not having things so good since she, according to Metro blurb, stumbled by chance into movies. Contractees get colorful look-ins: Lionel Barrymore, Marsha Hunt, Marshall Thompson, Dean Stockwell, each able to “act” more here than for stock parts given with weekly checks for predictable effort. To that last, did G. Garson feel too much defined by Metro plow she had been pulling? I wrote her once in the eighties, address in Texas, to ask a series of questions about working with Gable on Adventure in 1945. She went down my list writing Yes, No, an occasional Maybe or Sometimes, to my inquiries. Single word replies to everything I asked. How does one but admire such brevity? Here’s last to speculate upon: The Valley of Decision was shipped by the War Department to service personnel throughout the world. Imagine sitting through it in undoubted valleys of death where every movie you saw might be a last you’d ever see. They say that for some of deepest jungle shows, the enemy would climb trees so they could watch too.

More Halloween Harvest for 2026

 

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.

Runt of That Season’s Litter --- Humphrey Bogart said Karloff or Bela Lugosi should have done this rather than him, Return of Dr. X a frank “B” with no relation to the landmark 1932 thriller. Well and good, but how many B’s got such a splash as this outside theatres? Horror was something you could sell no matter how sorry, quality not anyone’s expectation. I would have figured X opening for New York’s Rialto, but no, the Loew’s Criterion got it, and we could hope they didn’t hang too high with it. Still … Return of Dr. X as a single? Wiser heads might have picked something else, but this was Thanksgiving weekend, so maybe the Criterion took a punt and hoped for better things from Kay Kyser in That’s Right --- You’re Wrong, scheduled to come in next. Return of Dr. X was done and out after one week of play.

Be Rich, Rathbone! --- Above is the sort of daily life I would have wished for Basil Rathbone. Comfortable surroundings, wanting for nothing, a full pipe always, work awaiting with demand for him constant. Above was posed for The Bishop Murder Case, wherein Rathbone played Philo Vance, a gentleman detective who solved murders not for money but to test his skill against killers and police whose resources could never match his own. Rathbone should have been Vance offscreen, wealth assured, servant or staff at always beck and call. Unfortunately, not many film stars got to live that way, fewer even died comfortable thanks to gravy scoopers and “career assist” to graze forever upon them. No-stop struggle to stay above water lines is illustrated by Basil shill for “Fatima” cigarettes. Did he use them? I’m going to guess no, or a tentative could-be. Doubt too he drank Leisy Light Beer despite hosting movies the brewer sponsored on local TV. That was later when chips were headed down. Basil spent (too much) to please his wife. She liked lavish parties and showing off, so he fed parasite multitudes. I’ve thought since kid-hood that Basil could have done better than Ouida. There are grandchildren by son Rodian (of a previous marriage). One of them is a pathologist with Yale New Haven Hospital. Next time you get a biopsy, let him perform it.

Fu Manchu Wore Many Masks --- Boris Karloff came out and said that Mask of Fu Manchu was a lousy picture, such breach of tact not common to this actor. Debate persists as to whether it is, or not, a lousy picture. Fans insist no. They all bought the Blu-ray and no telling how many times they’ve watched. I once had a 16mm Films, Inc. rental print made up before MGM cut Fu in the early seventies for a triple reissue with Mark of the Vampire and the Paramount Jekyll and Hyde, latter which MGM had come to own. What’s remarkable are these ads, both resolutely precode. Chicago basks in the torture, Faster! Faster! Faster! Fu’s devices for pain are individually celebrated. Here was sort of stuff that brought Code enforcement upon the industry, not content of movies themselves. Were such shows wrecking our youth? Chicago’s Roosevelt answers with dime rate “for children.” As remarkable is Broadway’s Capitol ad, Fu’s “love drug” a lure surpassed only by Bing Crosby and Bob Hope paired on stage. Was this when/where the boys had their first impromptu teaming? If so, it was history made in Karloff’s sinister shadow.

Gape, Gasp, and Wonder --- RKO misled patrons with posters for both Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young, making the monkeys seem bigger than what screens would reveal. Call it puffing, or is it puffery? Don’t be blunter however with “lying,” which I guess everyone was used to, could even forgive so long as the film got by on minimal merits, which Son of Kong previously had, though word-of-mouth, quick and pitiless, resulted in Son taking less than half of domestic rentals as did Dad. Mighty Joe Young arrived to New York with a roar and stunt publicity to make its human fly of an ape-skinned wire walker defy death to fill seats at the Criterion Theatre. Why not a direct sequel to King Kong? The money for one thing, disinclination by now to play this sort of material for anything other than comedy. Mighty Joe Young would stay a kid show well into 60’s Saturdays, at least here in NC. Imagine local permits it took to put that faux ape aloft. Out of his costume and into the shower, he could have made it in time for the next performance of history-making A Streetcar Named Desire across the street. To have known New York in such hallowed days …

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.

Halloween Harvest for 2026

 

Compare Here and Below If You Can Stand It ...

'Tis Another Spook Season --- Part One

Here’s Where We Spot AI From a Mile Away --- To collect lobby cards, you often  make do. Pinholes, scuff marks, even paint dabs can be fixed. Fading cannot. Cards sat often in the sun, displayed outdoors to damaging rays. It didn’t take long for Old Sol to do his harm. I got this group scene from Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and tried to kid myself it was OK, self-deception collectors often engage, but no, it was bleached and no denying. Still I’ve kept it because a pristine specimen would cost upward of five hundred, Holmes and Rathbone always a lure, plus being early Fox offering. For fun’s sake, I turned AI loose on the image and got result shown here. Such modern, no ... miracle, treatment looks better than that $500 original would, sharper anyway, except who'd pay $500 for such chromo? We want the real thing, faded even, if that’s all there is.

To Think Folks Took Such a Gallery for Granted Back Then ...

Bridal Bouquets --- For every screen fiend there’d be an eventual Bride(s), gateway to sex and procreating a Son of said fiend. Healthy progress in its way, whatever the unholy results. Barbara Payton as Bride of the Gorilla suggested possibilities undreamt of to then, she being Barbara Payton, and what was a gorilla for her other than slight step down from Tom Neal? We’d all give much to have been at the Capitol when Lon Chaney made his live-on-stage appearance. What did he do or talk about? Was it enough to merely s tand there and let us stare at him? Would have been for me, Lon after all the Wolf Man, Mummy, Count Alucard, classics still rotating heavy in the early fifties when Bride of the Gorilla made its rounds. Producer Jack Broder was the man who kept such favorites in circulation thanks to his “Realart” deal with Universal which dated back to the late forties. I’d like knowing what Chaney was paid for showing up at the Capitol. Somebody please tell us too where this Capitol was located. Small town or large? I’ll bet small, but probably within driving distance of Chaney home and hearth.

And Multiple Brides for Dracula --- He came, saw, seduced many a lass by 1960 when Hammer, if not distributing Universal, realized that sex was an only way to profitably sell a Dracula movie, the vampire king becoming long-in-the-teeth otherwise (Francis Lederer for UA’s “Return” … who cared?). Hammer had David Peel, older than he looked, but a champ conqueror of manifold maids, several to make up guest lists at Hammer reunions into a next century. This Memphis Screamiere at the Malco was historic. Management had wanted to preem The Mummy a previous year, but Universal said no, be patient, your time will come, which it did in 1960 for blockbuster Brides event. There is experiencing Brides of Dracula at home, a sharpest Blu-Ray, seeing it even at a theatre back in the day, but nothing would approach this one-of-a-kind extravaganza, evoked if not replicated by Greenbriar on 4/14/2007 and between covers of Showmen, Sell It Hot. Of all places on heaven or earth to have been at a particular juncture of time, this would stand tall.

Use What You Got to Look Like a Lot --- In the exhibition trade, you work with resources you have. For Halloween or horror theme, or sci-fi … well after all it’s the same pudding whipped different perhaps, but still standard recipe. Here was a manager with a 1956 show he probably didn’t know from any other shocker in and off the screen within a day or slightly more. Did local management figure Invasion of the Body Snatchers for an update on the 1945 Body Snatcher? That had done OK, and Boris Karloff was in it, so why not use an on-hand Frankenstein mask and horror gloves to march across lobby and street environs? This showman never knew from “seminal,” as we know Invasion of the Body Snatchers to be, but outlook then was very different. Any show of this sort went poof and was gone, then-audiences caring little more than men who booked and ran the film. Our Liberty used Invasion of the Body Snatchers for two days during mid-week, this a local equivalent to roadshowing for weirdies. I don’t believe Colonel Forehand kept a Frankenstein mask on hand. At least we never saw ushers wear one.

Low on Stars, But Here They Are --- Maybe not apropos to Halloween and horror, but being Star Wars is fantasy, and features a horror-associated player, here we go. How to bill a cast where most of that cast are unknown? This was summer 1977 remember, and no one knew from youths that “starred” in Star Wars. Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness, however, were stars, and where names are needed for the marquee, theirs would do. I like how Cushing went first. He’d been a jobbing British player for long after Guinness took pole position among UK luminaries, which ask yourself how many true such came out of Britain, at least until Sean Connery, and I’m talking worldwide mega-sort names. Cushing and Guinness were said to have received a percentage of Star Wars, enjoyed wealthy third acts as result. I wished while watching Star Wars that Cushing would be the principal villain and be active throughout the show, which wish came largely to naught. Also read where Mark Hamill showed up on days he didn’t work to grill Cushing about his previous work for Hammer and with Laurel and Hardy in A Chump at Oxford. Alec Guinness had a remarkable likeness to Stan Laurel and used it for early stage work. He also wrote Laurel “a gushing fan letter” in 1961 but never met the comedy great. Why not? ... for Stan was in the phone book. Perhaps Guinness being naturally shy had something to do with it.

This Jungle Was Greener Than Green --- Again more fantasy than straight-up horror, but when did Technicolor look so utterly fantastic as this, even on TCM where much comes across visually compromised to some degree or other. The Jungle Book was produced by Korda, filmed in Hollywood (1942). England shoot was hazardous due to war, especially hothouse handling here, color amidst wild, with animals wilder. Distinction of The Jungle Book is Sabu talking to, and with, wildlife. They understand and respond to him. Tarzan had same tricks but this played as something uncanny, and we buy it, or at least I did. Disney made The Jungle Book two decades later as a cartoon. Korda’s treatment was a lot more serious. It really should be available on a deluxe Blu-Ray with extras. United Artists distributed, but it looks like Janus/Criterion owns The Jungle Book now. Do they think it too obscure? You’ll not have a Technicolor experience like this anyplace else. Mark Vieira restored the color images above. One I believe was originally the cover for a soundtrack album, among earliest sold.

UPDATE (10/19/2026, 8:40 am): Ever-welcome Scott MacGillivray finds another Lon Chaney appearance on behalf of Bride of the Gorilla, "in Detroit, at the Capitol Theatre (a 24-hour grind house) and the Gratiot Drive-In, on October 10 and 11, 1951." Thanks as Always, Scott.

I Like the Above AI-Enhanced Gorilla Perhaps More Than the One in the Movie

More Halloween Horrors to come next week at Greenbriar.

Another round of thanks to Lou Lumenick for supplying a rare ad from Lon Jr.'s 10/19/51 appearance at the New York Theatre, "across Times Square" from the fabled Rialto, celebrated often at Greenbriar:

UPDATE (10/22/2013 --- Noon): Just came across a neat trade ad for a topic Greenbriar visited back in 2018, The Big Drive, all about Great War ravages with unexpurgated combat footage. Also freshened up the theatre fronts and marquees shown. Go see!