Greenbriar Dares Again The Inner Sanctum
Thawing Out The Frozen Ghost (1945)
It's old news that the Inner Sanctums aren't
much good, so I resolved this time to say nice things about repeat-watch of The
Frozen Ghost, criticism suspended in consideration of forty-nine years it's
been in my life (how many views? Only the man in the crystal ball knows). Let's
start thus: it beats tar out of Columbia's
Whistler, a Sanctum's closest relative among series mysteries. Any Universal B for
me is better than Columbia's
same. Sanctums are visually polished, support casts familiar and friendly, with
Chaney combative (watch those lapels, co-workers --- he grabs!). Ghost's scheme
is to drive Lon into a "psychopathic court." Did Simon and Schuster
really publish books with plots like this? Apparently so ... they're credited
in all six Sanctums. We expected too much of these as kids, but didn't TV GUIDE
"melodrama" listing of a Frozen Ghost or Dead Man's Eyes, with Lon
Chaney yet, imply horrific happenings?
Universal's was a same quack-like-a-duck ruse
when The Frozen Ghost came out, pairing it with Jungle Captive for a show sold
as shocking to 1945 audiences. But would The Frozen Ghost really "freeze
blood" among first-run viewership?
Perhaps it needed companionship of a Jungle Captive to accomplish that. The ad
here is from Chicago's
first-run. That town's RKO Grand had a sock week with the horror combo ($14K)
thanks largely to ongoing August '45 revelry over Japan's
surrender and everyone crowding the Loop to
celebrate. How they felt coming out of Universal's parlay might have been
another matter. What to do when neither end of a double feature delivered?
Small wonder Universal's monster franchise fizzled within a year after, though
happy ending came when the six Inner Sanctums (including long out of
circulation Strange Confession) took DVD flight with quality comparable to what
froze 40's blood. We still await, with increasing anxiety, the disc bow of Jungle Captive, but in a meantime would tender below progression of Acquanetta, the original starlet-to-ape of 1943's Captive Wild Woman, first of Universal's "Paula Trilogy" that culminated with Jungle Captive.
More Inner Sanctum at Greenbriar's Archive.
The Inner Sanctum series was pretty much "rock-bottom" Universal even though it did feature the first adaptation of Fritz Lieber's novel CONJURE WIFE. I have described the scripting of The Whistler series (too damned odd to be without interest) as examples of "radio drama logic." The Inner Sanctum series also had a lot of stream of consciousness narration and the oddly underpopulated world that was typical of radio drama. As a kid I felt extremely lied-to when I encountered these films packaged as "horror" films.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet I bought the DVD set. Cue the echo-y sound and eerie music … "I knew they weren't legitimate horror films yet I bought them anyway. My friends thought I was obsessed, unreasoning … mad! They all laughed at me at the Rondo Awards. And yet … for some reason … the obsession with having all of them … even borderline entries … all of the Classic Universal Horrors!"
Funny thing, all the women in the INNER SANCTUM series were just plain nuts about that big lug, Lon Chaney. What a hottie! Now that doesn't make the movies any more 'horrific' but it does edge them a little closer to science fiction!
ReplyDeleteI have the DVD set too, and enjoy the high production values, gorgeous photography, sets and transfer quality. The stories are another matter---FROZEN GHOST may have even played on Detroit TV back in the 1950s in Shock Theater! Imagine the viewers' wonder WHERE the "shock" was in this--or many of the other Sanctum B-melodramas. Perhaps we are jaded nowadays and these old films seem sophomoric!
ReplyDeleteEvanToledo
"PILLOW OF DEATH"
ReplyDeleteBest title EVER!