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 did, 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 so amidst gravy scoopers and “career assist” to graze forever upon them. No-stop struggle to stay above the water line 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 that noxious beer while 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 on across-the-street stage. 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 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 Colonial 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?).

Many Thanks to Scott MacQueen for supplying the Roosevelt Theatre ad for The Mask of Fu Manchu.