Fiendish Foursome for Fun

 

The Comedy of Terrors as All-Star Third Acts

Grumpy Old Creeps might apply were The Comedy of Terrors reissued today, ground since 1963 littered by aged men not venerable but ill-content and objects less of laughter than derision. “Your Favorite Creeps Together Again!” was legend over flattering portraiture of Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, and “Also Starring” Basil Rathbone, the artist Reynold Brown depicting each on affectionate terms. The Comedy of Terrors was maybe a first for headlining old-timers to mirth-make and be respected despite ’63 youth-be-served attitude otherwise prevailing. Comedy’s creeper clutch had never been away since beginning eons before, joy to masses and now offspring since the 1930’s. All were of “Spook Show” tradition even though none to my knowing worked matinee spoof stages (as Bela Lugosi of departed league had). Each could be funny as in laugh with us, not at us, but here were clown masks on and us entreated to guffaw for whole of 84 minutes. To view The Comedy of Terrors best however is to ponder things other than what is said and done on the screen.

Being shot on rented space at General Services Studio, I’d ask how principals arrived to work each morning. Who drove as opposed to who was driven? What sort of vehicle could Peter Lorre afford at this point? At lunch break, where did they eat? And did they eat together? Suppose Evie chauffeured Boris and brought bag lunch and thermos for consult through the work day? What of pay for the cast? Price got the most surely, so what did that leave for Karloff, Lorre, Rathbone? Ten thousand … as much as $20K? Karloff like Price was an AIP star under contract. I went to The Terror, Black Sabbath, and Die, Monster, Die, but skipped The Comedy of Terrors for not liking horror stars as potential objects of ridicule. Same kept me away from Hillbillies in a Haunted House and Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. I sat through snowy transmission of a Dr. Kildare episode to see Rathbone guesting. Pieces of this can be accessed here and there on You Tube. He is rancorous as Basil was known to be when fans called him “Sherlock.” He came across in the sixties as a man whom time and custom had passed by. Base in fact was our era and Basil was perhaps too good for us. He looks gaunt in The Comedy of Terrors, but his voice is crisp and borrowed teeth behave. In larger TV markets he hosted movie programs, shilling for a sponsor beer in one instance. Rathbone wasn’t fond of being in scare shows but would do them to serve necessity. He had aversion to boys who approached him holding monster magazines, one of them chased off the set of The Comedy of Terrors (lucky boy ... chased away by Basil Rathbone). I met writer Russ Jones at a West Coast show years ago and asked him about the time he interviewed Rathbone for Castle of Frankenstein magazine. He said Basil was polite if aloof on the topic of horrors, but enjoyed telling of sword roles and how he could have bested E. Flynn or Tyrone Power in duels if only scripts had let him. Basil had just bought a classical music album and was listening to it when he tipped over on July 21, 1967. I’m still hoping to wake up one morning and from that moment on talk just like Basil Rathbone.

Was Vincent Price the only Comedy creep who would someday work for fans who lined up to see his AIP’s? (Tim Burton a hirer at near career-close for VP). Price had edge of age (younger) and understood inherent humor in the genre he served. He is beyond broad in The Comedy of Terrors and so is Lorre. Peter Lorre had been a goofy gargoyle doing all sort of support work and being unlike any definition one could apply to acting, clear case since 1930 and Germany’s M. Did he really have no memory of doing Moto mysteries for all-of-time drug loop? I believe it for Lorre himself having confessed so. He would play mean practical jokes and scamper away when victims retaliated (ask George Raft). You’d think being short and pudgy would make Pete more cautious, but no. He was dear friends with Humphrey Bogart and not many people were. A stuntman wears a Lorre mask in The Comedy of Terrors and it looks spookiest of all faces on view. I was able to identify to some degree with favorites, but Lorre … might as well be a man on the moon. Halloween was busiest time on all of casts' calendar. You hope they gathered up nuts enough to eat through sunnier days when phones rung less, but hold --- Karloff secured posterity with a Christmas project, the Grinch he’s best known for now and maybe for always. Boris offscreen was too genial for monsters, and lots knew it. I recall Castle of Frankenstein’s cover headline for Die, Monster, Die that Karloff was “Playing a Monster for the First Time in 30 Years,” and me thinking, well who needs that? I’ll take him in a wheelchair and just talking, thank you.

I read of Chaney showing up in mid-sixties, his and the apx. date, at amusement parks to hand out flyers of himself in varied monster guise. What was needed was all of us older, maybe approaching our own sixties, to show up, be worshipful, and tell Lon how revered he’d be in nostalgia years to come. Presumably only Price lived long enough to grasp full dimension of monster fan culture. Yes, we were out there when The Comedy of Terrors played first-run, buying Famous Monsters, staying up late to see veterans young then, old and still serving yet, an emerging army loving them either way. Trouble was we weren’t connected to each other, small/large towns isolation wards for genre-loving to exclusion of adult endorsed recreation. Look today at the Classic Horror Film Board, lore and fan exchanging that never sleeps. I’ll bet there are more of the dedicated today than ever was during so-called Monster Booms of the fifties and sixties, which for all its remembered glories, was lonely outpost for overwhelming most. Is there present-day joy in watching The Comedy of Terrors? Depends on mood, capacity to look back longingly. I forgive any or all overage from this cast. “Karloff timed his delivery of that line flawlessly,” I will say … “Rathbone steals the show with his most exquisite late-in-life performance!” Too much cat squalling via “Rhubarb” (didn’t he/she once work with Ray Milland?), Joyce Jameson whom the script insists “sing,” Joe E. Brown (why? Because he’d been funny in Some Like It Hot?). There are those who assign “labored” to The Comedy of Terrors. Mere jiggery-pokery, I say. Will admit however to its not being for everyone, appeal limited perhaps to Grumpy Old Creeps now approaching age of Comedy's quartet.

You need a life’s exposure to this fantastic four and their associations prior: Karloff and Rathbone in Son of Frankenstein, together with Price for Tower of London, Lorre with Karloff in You’ll Find Out and again for The Boogie Man Will Get You, Price, Lorre, Karloff in The Raven, Rathbone and Price, Lorre in Tales of Terror, these for ’63-64 fanship board meetings via theatre or TV, fact of many preceding our birth all the better. Karloff and Lorre made a NY boroughs bus tour to promote The Raven and we can imagine fervid greeting they got from monster kids youthful still but walking much among us. Think how many accumulated since, having lost none of glow for ghouls. There is of late a book to confirm this and more: The Ghost of Frankenstein No. 16 of Scripts from the Crypt presented by Tom Weaver. He’s all over 380 pages with Gregory W. Mank, Bill Cooke, Roger Hurlburt, Frank Dello Stritto, and research associate Scott Gallinghouse. I’ve said same of previous Scripts/Crypt. Each goes straight from postman to lamp and chair, nary rise nor break for me till bones are as Minnie says, a last to be consumed. I last lauded Weaver work with The Mummy’s Hand, his having come out with follow-up volumes The Mummy’s Tomb and The Mummy’s Ghost since. Want to lift your mood, learn a lot plus laffs in the bargain? Any/all of these should brighten any midnight (strongly suggest watching respective movies for appetizer, dessert, or both).