Halloween House of Dracula

The Count (and Films From Beyond) bids you welcome, and wishes you a...

In all the annals of living horror, one name stands out as the epitome of Evil!

In praise of MMA: Mixed Monster Adversaries (Part One)

You can’t convince a kid that less is more. Try telling an eight-year-old that instead of getting into that awesome [fill in the blank] costume and driving to the neighborhood where they give out full-size candy bars, the family will be going over to grandma’s for Halloween, where she keeps a bowl of dusty, 20-year-old Werther’s candies for all her visitors. See how that goes over.

Monsters are like candy bars. One is nice, but there’s nothing like emptying out a full bag of candy at the end of a great night of trick or treating. Sure, you can parcel out your monster enjoyment one solitary vampire, werewolf or man-made abomination at a time. But throw them all together in a single film, and you’ve got a party like no other, the monster equivalent of Friday Night Smackdown.

I was a greedy little kid as far as my monsters were concerned. The local Saturday night horror show, Gravesend Manor, introduced me to the Universal monsters (and appropriately enough, it featured not one horror host, but a whole cast of macabre zanies). Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man and the Mummy were revelations to the 10-year-old me. But my little heart really got racing when I realized that there were films out there featuring not one, but two or even more of the beloved classic monsters.

Watching the monster combos on TV -- Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein -- inspired me to round up neighborhood friends and put on short plays in the garage featuring my favorite fiends. By the time I was in high school, I’d seen each monster rally multiple times.

Of course, much has been written, especially in the snobbier critic and fan circles, of the exploitative cheapness of the rallies, especially in comparison to the Golden Age films of the 20s and ‘30s that started everything. (I think we forget that the original classics were considered cheap and exploitative when they first debuted.) They aren’t great movies, but they are a lot of fun when you’re in that “more is more” frame of mind.

Let's be honest, Bela Lugosi as the monster in Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943) is anything but frightening. So much footage of Lugosi ended up on the cutting room floor that the film is disjointed in places (all of the excised scenes were of Franken-Lugosi speaking in his inimitable Hungarian accent, which had the production execs nearly “convulsed with laughter” when they ran the dailies.) [ Tom Weaver, Michael Brunas and John Brunas, Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 1931-1946, Second Edition, McFarland, 2007, p. 327]

But Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) has never been more angsty, and the old gypsy woman (Maria Ouspenskaya) from the original Wolf Man is there to provide gravitas. And you just know that Larry’s doctor, mild-mannered Dr. Mannering (Patric Knowles) -- full of good intentions at the beginning -- is going to be seduced into dabbling with things better left alone, like revving up Frankenstein’s monster and seeing what he can do.

Next, the monsters went house hunting. House of Frankenstein (1944) is also disjointed, playing much like a series of vignettes organized by the wraparound story of mad Dr. Niemann (Boris Karloff) and his loyal hunchback assistant Daniel (J. Carrol Naish). And John Carradine’s suave Dracula is ridiculously easy to defeat, hardly sticking around long enough to make an impression.

But Daniel’s unrequited love for the gypsy girl Ilanka (Elena Verdugo), and Ilanka’s dangerous love for Larry Talbot, is truly heart-rending. Plus, there’s something satisfying about Boris Karloff coming round full circle to play the umpteenth doctor to revive the monster that he immortalized.

Did you know? The success of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man got Universal execs thinking that if two monsters in a film was good for the box office, three (or even more) would be that much better: “On June 7, 1943, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Universal was developing a new shocker entitled Chamber of Horrors with an all-star cast of goons including the Invisible Man, the Mad Ghoul, the Mummy and ‘other assorted monsters.’ George Waggner was named as the ringleader of this three-ring circus of horrors. The cast read like a Who’s Who of cinemacabre: Karloff, Chaney Jr., Lugosi, Lorre, Rains, Zucco, Hull and … James Barton (!).” [Weaver, Brunas & Brunas, p. 448]

Chamber of Horrors never saw the light of day (or the full moon for that matter), but the monster rally concept was soon realized by House of Frankenstein. See my post, “What Might Have Been: The Universal Monster Rally You Never Saw,” which lays out an imaginary Chamber of Horrors film with the original slate of monsters.

And then there’s House of Dracula (1945). Universal was in no mood to mess with a winning formula, so the unholy trinity of Dracula, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein’s monster are back (I guess including the Mummy would have been too much of a good thing). To complete the deja vu feeling, there’s a reprise of the kindly, serious doctor who turns mad midway through (Onslow Stevens as Dr. Edelmann), and yes, there’s another hunchback, this time in the form of a female nurse/assistant (Jane Adams as Nina).

When I first saw House of Dracula, I was turned off by Edelmann’s prosaic, scientific explanations of the “curses” inflicted upon the Count and the Wolf Man: the former supposedly suffering from a parasite in his blood, the latter from pressure on the brain (!?). Supernatural monsters should be just that -- super - natural, beyond conventional scientific reasoning. When you explain away the mystery, it just becomes a sort of dull, pedantic science fiction.

So House of Dracula became my least favorite monster rally. But subsequent viewings have given me a new appreciation of the film. John Carradine’s Dracula is much more of a malignant presence in this one.

In a great, understated scene, the Count seduces Edelmann’s beautiful assistant Milizia (Martha O’Driscoll), who is playing a haunting, elegiac piece on the piano:

Miliza: "You like it?"
Count Dracula: "It breathes the spirit of the night. They played it the evening we met at the concert."
Miliza: "I'd forgotten... until I saw you again."
Count Dracula: "Perhaps I wanted you to remember."  [IMDb]

As an added bonus, Onslow Stevens gives it his all playing perhaps the maddest of all doctors in the Universal canon -- the result of an attempt to cure Dracula with a blood transfusion, but which instead infects Edelmann’s blood when the conniving Count reverses the transfusion machinery.

1948 saw the release of the greatest monster rally of them all, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. I know a lot of people don’t appreciate mixing comedy with horror, but I find that A&CMF threads the needle masterfully, not overdoing the duo’s routines that in other movies overstayed their welcome, while juxtaposing clever sight gags with effective chills.

If memory serves, I first saw A&CMF sometime after the original Draculas, Frankensteins and Wolf Man, but somehow, the 1948 film seemed entirely fresh, even though it repeated the monster combo from the two "House of" films. And it certainly didn’t hurt that Bela Lugosi was there, resplendent in cape and formal wear, reprising his signature role.

I remember being just as creeped out by Larry Talbot’s transformation into the Wolf Man in this outing, and alternately bemused and on the edge of the couch as Wilbur (Lou Costello) blundered his way around the screen, narrowly missing falling into the clutches of the various monsters.

One of the great laugh out loud moments is when Wilbur, exploring the dark dungeons underneath the castle, stops to rest for a moment in a large chair and ends up in the Frankenstein monster's lap -- only realizing his situation when he looks down at his own hand and sees two there.

The addition of Vincent Price’s voice as the Invisible Man at the very end of the movie was an inspired comic version of a “shock” ending.

Did you know? “The original working title of the film was The Brain of Frankenstein. Aside from Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Wolf Man, the Mummy was also to be worked into the script, but was eventually eliminated. [Editor’s note: the Mummy could not catch a break!] The script evolved into the Wolf Man (in his sane moments) trying to prevent Dracula’s attempt to transfer Costello’s brain into the Frankenstein creation. … To keep the actors happy, the studio hired comic Bobby Barber (who also played a role in the film) to act as court jester, thus speeding up the shooting schedule. Practical jokes occurred all the time, including the comedians throwing pies at each other during dull stretches between scenes.” [Richard Bojarski, The Complete Films of Bela Lugosi, Citadel, 1980, p. 223]

In Part Two, the classic monsters go up against masked Mexican wrestlers, and meet a guy by the name of Waldemar Daninsky. Don't miss it!

What Might Have Been: The Universal Monster Rally You Never Saw

When the Metzinger Sisters at Silver Scenes put the call out for participants for their Imaginary Film Blogathon, I experienced a flashback (the cinematic kind of course -- I hardly ever drop acid anymore). I saw a skinny, pasty-faced 10 year-old-boy wearing a Dracula cape and directing a motley assortment of neighborhood kids in short plays based on the Universal monster rallies he'd recently seen on the late night horror show (specifically Gravesend Manor, central Iowa's Saturday night horror fest broadcast by WOI Channel 5, and hosted by Malcolm, the Duke, Esmerelda and Claude). The plays were held in my parents' garage, with the garage door used as a very noisy curtain. The audience consisted of extremely patient, slightly bemused parents, with a few semi-curious siblings and friends also parking their butts in the folding chairs.

As you can imagine, this was in a place and time far away and long ago: a.) neighbors actually knew each other and would hang out together; b.) adults would occasionally find the time to sit still for the nerdy neighbor kid's monster movie-inspired plays; and c.) garages were still used primarily for parking cars vs. storing a lifetime's worth of accumulated junk, and could therefore easily be converted into a makeshift theater.

Alas, from those promising beginnings I failed to become another Steven Spielberg or George Lucas (or even a Joe Dante for that matter), but from time to time over the years, I've thought about what I might do with a Universal monster mash-up. Frankenstein meeting the Wolf Man was a revelation for the 10-year-old me. (At the time, I wasn't the sharpest pencil in the box -- I wondered why Bela Lugosi was listed in the credits but didn't seem to appear in the movie. It took me some time to realize it was dear Bela under all that Frankenstein monster make-up!) Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man was a tasty appetizer, but the chefs at Universal outdid themselves with the sumptuous feast of House of Frankenstein! (On the other hand, House of Dracula, while certainly moody and atmospheric, left a taste in the mouth like Tuesday leftovers. Can you tell it's getting close to dinner time as I write this?)

For a kid who's very, very into monsters, two in the same film is great, but three classic monsters is sublime. Sometimes, more is indeed more, and the best recipes come from piling on the ingredients: starting with a base of Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man, throw in Boris Karloff as a mad, vengeful doctor, add the gaunt, debonair John Carradine as Dracula, and you've got the perfect monster stew! (Yep, it really is getting close to dinner time.) Sure, the various plot lines don't coalesce very well, and the monsters don't really meet up with one another, but there's just something very satisfying and likable in the attempt to merge three classic monster universes. And for those of you who like a side dish or two of pathos with their monster main course, I challenge you not to shed a tear for the lovelorn hunchback Daniel (J. Carrol Naish) or the tragic gypsy girl Ilonka (Elena Verdugo) who loves a wolf man. (Okay, I'm taking a break and getting something to eat…)

(Alright, I'm back.) I know that as a responsible adult, I'm supposed to revere Universal's classic monsters of the '30s and disparage the make-a-quick-buck kiddie matinee monster rallies of the '40s, but as a lover of B's, I can't bring myself to be that high-minded. Frankly, the original Frankenstein, Dracula and Mummy are slooooowwwww-moving and sleep inducing compared to the frenetic, wacky energy of the rallies. One of the greatest horror movies of all time, The Bride of Frankenstein, is essentially an intellectual exercise in spite of its B horror trappings. In contrast, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein engage the cheesy fun center of the brain. And that's not a bad thing, as I've tried to demonstrate with this blog.

Make no mistake, cheesy fun is hard to pull off. Like good comedy, it requires a delicate balance. Try just a little too hard, and you've got something that's patently artificial and just plain bad. Did the producers of Universal's monster rallies of the '40s fail miserably? Look at it this way -- these films have been issued on VHS and DVD multiple times, are still in print, and have been rated by thousands of fans and analyzed by hundreds of reviewers on sites like IMDb. Glenn Strange, the B western actor who donned the Frankenstein monster makeup for several of the rallies, over the years has become the iconic monster, more so perhaps than Boris Karloff. Not bad for throwaway kids' stuff, huh?

So, it is only with the deepest respect for the later films that I try my hand at conceptualizing a Universal rally that might have been. Mixing and matching monsters is no easy task. Naturally, any similarity in what follows to an actual B movie is purely coincidental.

Now Playing: Chamber of Horrors (1944)

Pros: Brings together neglected and underrated Universal monsters in an atmospheric setting
Cons: Script is a confusing mess (okay, so I'm not a screenwriter!)

Directed by George Waggner
Cinematography by George Robinson
Cast: Henry Hull (Kruller), Claude Rains (Cedric Griffin), Evelyn Ankers (Isabel Lewis), Turhan Bey (Eric Iverson), Martin Kosleck (Peter Hoffman), Bela Lugosi (Ahmet), George Zucco (Andoheb), Lon Chaney, Jr. (Kharis), Acquanetta (Ananka)

In their comprehensive and cheesily fun survey of Universal Horrors: The Studio's Classic Films, 1931-1946 (McFarland, 2nd Ed. 2007), Tom Weaver and John and Michael Brunas note that the penultimate monster rally, House of Frankenstein, had something of a shaky start:

"On June 7, 1943, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Universal was developing a new shocker entitled Chamber of Horrors with an all-star cast of goons including the Invisible Man, the Mad Ghoul, the Mummy and 'other assorted monsters.' George Waggner was named as the ringleader of this three-ring circus of horrors. The cast read like a who's who of cinemacabre: Karloff, Chaney Jr., Lugosi, Lorre, Rains, Zucco, Hull and … James Barton (!). Chamber of Horrors never saw the light of day."

(However, the film that was eventually released as House of Frankenstein did get the green light in the summer of 1943 under the working title The Devil's Brood.)

"Hey, where's my invitation to the House of Frankenstein?"

I've always loved Universal's Mummy movies (as well as Hammer's), and I feel badly for dear old Kharis that he never got invited to any of the rallies. As described, Chamber of Horrors has a completely different cast of monsters from the two House rallies. It sounds like after Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, the studio execs wanted to give their other franchises a shot in the arm (and in the case of the one-shot The Mad Ghoul, possibly make it into a franchise). The 10-year-old kid that still occupies a good portion of my brain was tempted to just throw the Mummy into the pot with Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man, but I decided to stick with the concept as originally reported -- although I've played around with the cast somewhat. Here goes!

The story: In the Egyptian desert, a uniformed Nazi SS officer, Kruller (Henry Hull) stands at the opening of a newly excavated tomb, interrogating an old local dressed in a traditional robe and wearing a fez. Andoheb (George Zucco), High Priest of Karnak and protector of ancient secrets, is surrounded by soldiers, but he is unnaturally calm. "Your people have betrayed you and led us to Princess Ananka's tomb," he tells Andoheb. "It's all over-- you might as well turn over the Scroll of Life to us as well. We will find it with or without your help!"

"For defiling Ananka's tomb, you and your men will be cursed for a thousand lifetimes," Andoheb responds defiantly. "The Scroll will never end up in infidel hands like yours!"

Henry Hull

Kruller nods at his men, who grab Andoheb and take him off camera. As a shot rings out, we see a face peering out from behind a large rock near the tomb (and it looks a lot like Bela Lugosi!). Schiller motions his men: "pack up the tomb's contents and ship it to Berlin. The Princess herself will come with me."

Cut to the sleepy college town of Mapleton, New York, where an inquest into the bizarre death of Dr. Alfred Morris is being held. On the witness stand, concert pianist Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers) tells a weird tale of how the seemingly kindly Dr. Morris exposed her fiance Ted to an ancient Mayan poison gas, turning him into a living dead man and mindless slave to the mad doctor. Worse still, Ted had to have regular injections of fluid from fresh human hearts to keep going. After her testimony, Isabel and her new boyfriend, debonair Eric Iverson (Turhan Bey) are approached by a strange, rat-faced little man who introduces himself as Peter Hoffman (Martin Kosleck), a researcher with the newly opened Museum of Metaphysics and Ancient Sciences. When Hoffman insists that Isabel knows more than she's telling and tries to grab her arm, Iverson steps between the two and advises the strange man to get lost. Regaining his composure, Hoffman apologizes and invites the couple to visit the museum. Fade out.

Night. The camera slowly zooms in on what looks to be a deserted house. The night wind moans through the gnarled branches of the trees surrounding the house. Close-up of the front door, and a nameplate: Dr. Alfred Morris. The doorknob starts turning by itself. Inside the house, a chair is knocked over by an invisible body, and another door opens by itself. We see a large room set up as a laboratory. Beakers are brushed aside by an invisible arm, file cabinets open by themselves and disgorge their contents, and finally, a cabinet door flies open and a test tube seems to float through the darkened room.

Martin Kosleck

Cut to another night shot, where Hoffman is entering the gate in front of a large, ramshackle mansion. A sign over the gate reads "Museum of Metaphysics and Ancient Sciences." As he walks up to path to the house, a shadowy figure observes him from a hiding place behind a gnarled old tree. The wan light from the house illuminates his face, and we see it's the same man who watched Kruller and Andoheb at the excavation site. Hoffman proceeds into the house, passing by bizarre tableaux with wax figures depicting ancient Egyptian burial rites and blood-curdling Mayan sacrifices. He touches an ornamental dagger hanging on a nearby wall, and a secret door creaks opens to reveal a passageway.

Cut to a large, underground laboratory lit eerily by torches. Kruller, now dressed in civilian clothes, is hovering over an open sarcophagus. He looks up momentarily as Hoffman enters from the steep, narrow stairway. "It's all coming together now Hoffman!" he says triumphantly. "First we stole Griffin's invisibility formula from the British, who had forgotten it even existed! Then we recovered Morris' secret for creating the living dead from right under the noses of these ignorant townspeople. And we're close -- very close now -- to discovering the Egyptian secret of eternal life!"

"Berlin will be very pleased," Hoffman responds. "Ah yes, Berlin…" Kruller says with a smirk, "we'll keep all of this to ourselves for right now… at least until the final piece is in place." Hoffman frowns. "Do you think it wise that we openly advertise ourselves with this museum? Won't it attract suspicion?" "That's the beauty of it Hoffman! We're hiding in plain sight, and scholars with knowledge of the esoteric arts are coming to us, unwittingly giving us the information to uncover these dark secrets. To them it's all an academic exercise, good for a scientific paper or two. But it will be Germany that will reap the rewards! We'll create whole armies of invisible soldiers, turn our enemies into living dead slaves, and while we're at it, help ourselves to eternal life courtesy of the Egyptians!"

As he finishes his speech, Hoffman's eyes widen in horror. Both men look down at the sarcophagus, where a moldering, bandaged body is slowing sitting up. After emitting a low moan, the mummy slowly and painfully lays back down. "Don't be such a mouse Herr Hoffman," chides Kruller. "I administered the tana leaves to the princess, but by themselves, they can only animate the body for a moment or two. It's the Scroll of Life that we need. We'll find it eventually. But for now, we'll concentrate on Prof. Morris' discoveries. Our test subject here," nodding at Ananka's mummy, "might still be revived with fluid from the hearts of some, shall we say, volunteers.

Bela Lugosi

Cut to the ruins of the Banning house (site of the fiery climax of The Mummy's Tomb). The lurking man previously seen shadowing Kruller is standing just outside the charred foundation of the house. His face is lit by a single candle. "Kharis, your work here is not done. I, your loyal servant Ahmet, have traveled to this strange land to call you yet again to your sacred mission. I have read from the Scroll of Life. It is time to arise again to avenge the House of Karnark and reclaim your Princess!"

The earth in front of Ahmet (Bela Lugosi) stirs, and a clutching, bandaged hand breaks through the clods of dirt. Close-up of Ahmet's grim face as a shadow falls across it. Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) stands in front of his summoner, his face and body blackened by fire and dirt. Cut to Kruller's basement laboratory. Closeup of Ananka's mummy. As Kruller and Hoffman converse in the background, the Princess stirs and takes a gulp of air through the moldering bandages. Fade out.

Isabel, with Eric by her side, is being interviewed by a wire service reporter about her recent brush with the living dead. She recaps the story of how Prof. Morris, madly in love with her, gassed her fiance Ted Allison with his deadly Mayan poison. The reporter mentions in passing that he also interviewed a Dr. Kruller and his assistant Hoffman at the new museum, who seem to know a lot about the recent tragedy and Morris' macabre discoveries. Isabel and Eric exchange glances, recalling their encounter with Hoffman at the inquest. "Maybe it's time we visit this museum, since we were so graciously invited," Eric suggests. The reporter suggests that if they're going to visit the museum, they should get in touch with Cedric Griffin (Claude Rains), son of Britain's notorious Invisible Man. He's heard that the museum staff have been researching Griffin and the invisibility formula, and he's traveled all the way from London to interview them.

Isabel and Eric meet Cedric in the lobby of the hotel he's staying at. Cedric tells them that there was a break-in at the university housing his father's papers, most of which have disappeared. Cedric is concerned that Griffin's formula will fall into the wrong hands. Even in the right hands it's dangerous stuff, since the serum still creates madness in anyone foolish enough to take it. Cedric has learned through the academic grapevine that Kruller and Hoffman have studied his father and his research extensively, and they're his only lead to tracking down the papers.

Claude Rains

The three agree to visit the museum together, and arrange a special night tour with Hoffman. Cut to the museum, where Kruller and Hoffman are standing amidst the macabre tableaux in the main room. Hoffman is clearly nervous. "It's not just the singer and her escort visiting tonight, it's Griffin's son as well! I tell you he knows something-- why else would he travel all this way to our humble little museum? It's time to tell Berlin everything we know and get out!"

"Why so faint of heart now Hoffman, when we're so close to capturing the secrets of the ages?" Kruller sneers. "Besides, the bureaucrats in Berlin wouldn't have the faintest clue what to do with our discoveries! Forget them! We hold in our hands the power to kill our enemies without being seen, make others into our slaves, and to live for eternity. With that power, we can move nations, we can rule the world! Now's the time to be a lion Hoffman, not a mouse!"

Hoffman backs away, his mouth agape. Kruller's hands, which had been balled into fists, suddenly turn pale white, then translucent as capillaries and veins pop into view. Kruller opens his hands and brings them up to his face as they disappear altogether. "It's treason!" Hoffman sputters, "you can't mean it!" "Ah, I thought I had more control over it," Kruller mutters to himself. He grins evilly as his dark eyes bore into Hoffman. Kruller advances toward the subjective camera, two handless arms stretched out in front of him. "Here Hoffman, come with me to the lab. It's time we tested Morris' discovery on a living subject. Take heart Mouse, it's all for a good cause…"

Evelyn Ankers

When Isabel, Eric and Cedric arrive at the museum, Kruller, his hands swathed in bandages, greets them. He makes his apologies for Hoffman, who's off on an errand, and explains that he scalded his hands making tea. The visitors exchange glances among themselves as Kruller walks them through the tableaux in the main room. Kruller's face is unnaturally pale, almost translucent as he explains the research he's doing into ancient, occult arts. "We can learn much from what we formerly dismissed as superstition and cheap mysticism," he explains. "The Griffins and the Morris's of the world have proved that…" When Cedric presses him on what he knows about his father's work, Kruller apologizes to the group that he's not feeling well, and needs to retire. At this point, his head is entirely in shadow. The group mumbles their good nights as Kruller, his bandaged hands covering his face, quickly escapes to a back room.

Out in the night air, the three shake their heads in near disbelief. "What an odd duck!" Eric exclaims. "He's clearly hiding something," Cedric says with a frown. "And what do you make of those grotesque displays?" Isabel asks. "Not the work of serious scholars," replies Cedric. Eric finishes his thought: "More like a chamber of horrors!" Isabel suddenly stops walking and shudders violently. Eric grabs her. "What's wrong?" "It felt like a cold hand reached out and brushed my face!" she says breathlessly, her face pale.

At that moment, a horse-drawn wagon noisily bursts out of the dark, nearly sideswiping the group by the side of the road. It clatters on down the road and vanishes in the darkness. "Did you see that?" Cedric exclaims. "I don't think there was anyone driving it!" "Well, we've survived the Chamber of Horrors and a driverless wagon tonight," Eric says drily, trying to lighten the mood. "Let's get out of here before our luck runs out!"

Turhan Bey

In the morning, Eric and Cedric meet at the hotel to compare notes. Cedric shows Eric a copy of the local newspaper, and taps his finger on the headline. "Here's the explanation for the driverless wagon!" "Local Junk Man Found Dead," the headline reads. "The corpse was mutilated, the poor man's heart cut out. Sound familiar?" Cedric asks. "Except that Morris and Ted are dead," Eric responds. "Something's not right here," Cedric observes. "Kruller's evasiveness, and his strange skin condition, and now this murder happening practically on his doorstep… He seems to know an awful lot about Prof. Morris' monstrous work, and my father's … and now the old horror seems to be playing out again. We need to find out what's going on at that so-called museum, and not by taking tours from evasive hosts."

That night, the two men meet nearby the museum to discuss strategy. "I've got to get into the house to look at records, see what they're up to," Cedric says. "Stay here where you have a good view of the whole house, and whistle if anyone gets near while I look for a way in."

Just then, a shadowy figure emerges from the back of the house. Cedric squints. "Too short to be Kruller -- must be Hoffman. Well, one less to worry about," he says as he moves stealthily toward the house. With Cedric seemingly confident about breaking in undetected, Eric decides to follow Hoffman. He shadows the figure through dense forest, then hides behind a tree as Hoffman stumbles into a cemetery. In the light of the moon, Eric can see that Hoffman's face is unnaturally grey and hideously wrinkled-- a living corpse! The ghoulish Hoffman proceeds to get down on his hands and knees, digging furiously at a fresh grave. Before Eric can react, another shadow looms up behind him and he's knocked out with a large tree branch. Closeup of Ahmet, smiling evilly. Kharis appears behind him and shuffles into the clearing.

The ghoulish Hoffman, obsessed with his digging, looks up just in time to see the 3000-year-old mummy hovering over him. Hoffman stands up just as Kharis clamps a moldering hand around his throat. The ghoul struggles in the mummy's grip, but soon weakens and collapses in a heap on the grave he'd been digging at just a few moments before. Ahmet and Kharis head off into the woods, toward the museum.

Cut to Cedric, who's found the door to the museum conveniently unlocked. He carefully makes his way through the main room, reeling around as a tree branch, blowing in the night wind, taps against a window. He backs up into a bandaged hand, freezing until he realizes it belongs to one of the wax figures-- ironically, a depiction of his father, the original Invisible Man.

Cut to another bandaged hand reaching for Isabel sleeping in her bed. It covers her mouth just as she awakens and starts to scream.

Back to Cedric, who's found a room full of file cabinets. He starts rifling through the drawers.

Back to Eric, who shakily stands up, rubbing his head. He heads off to the museum at a dead run.

Cedric is startled by a noise. He peeks out from behind the office door and gasps at the sight of a headless man in an overcoat, his hands bandaged, carrying the unconscious Isabel. Kruller, now completely invisible, nudges the dagger to open the secret passageway. Cedric pauses, then hurries over to the passageway, slipping through before the door can close. Closeup of Ahmet's face at the window, silently observing, Kharis standing patiently behind him.

Cut to Ahmet's hand opening the passageway. The unholy pair proceed down the staircase.

Cut to Cedric, who slips unseen into the laboratory behind Kruller. The German is completely mad now. The invisible man is almost crooning to the unconscious Isabel: "I may not yet be able to awaken Ananka, but every King must have his Queen, and you shall do nicely for now… and perhaps for eternity!" As he lays her out on the lab table, shuffling footsteps echo from the stairway. Kruller whirls around to confront the centuries-old Kharis shambling toward him, arm outstretched, hand clutching at the air. Behind the mummy, Ahmet is intoning the words of a sacred rite over and over.

Unseen by Kruller, Ahmet's incantation has awakened Ananka in her sarcophagus, who rises slowly, the decaying bandages falling away to reveal… the beautiful and exotic new Universal starlet Acquanetta! Ananka/Acquanetta places her still bandaged hand on Kruller's shoulder. As he turns around again, Kharis is on him, gripping Kruller's invisible throat.

On the lab table, Isabel stirs, sits up, and emits a healthy scream as she takes in the macabre tableau of an ancient mummy and an invisible man locked in mortal struggle. Cedric rushes over to her. Upstairs, Eric has burst into the house and hears Isabel's screams. Trying to locate the source, he reflexively grabs for the dagger on the wall. The passageway opens up, he hears another, louder scream coming from below, and he plunges down the stairs.

He runs straight into Cedric and Isabel, who rush to the exit as the monsters grapple. The quick-thinking Eric chucks the useless dagger, then grabs an old-fashioned gas lantern hanging on a hook. He throws it at a table of lab equipment. The chemicals quickly ignite, and the three stumble up the steps as an intense fire roars through the lab. Ahmet is still chanting even as the flames consume him. Outside of the house, Cedric, Isabel and Eric look back to see that the flames have spread to the main floor, and are now consuming the Chamber of Horrors.

The End.

Imaginary production note #1: Lionel Atwill, king of sinister character actors, was originally slated for the role of Kruller. But health and legal problems caused him to bow out, and the Werewolf of London, Henry Hull, stepped in.

Note #2: Realizing he had other commitments, Universal execs nonetheless tried to entice Boris Karloff to take the small role of Andoheb, hoping to hawk the film as another pairing of the two horror greats, Karloff and Lugosi. When Boris begged off amiable George Zucco agreed to reprise his role from The Mummy's Tomb.

Note #3: The script originally called for a much larger speaking part for Acquanetta, who as Ananka was supposed to be fully revived much earlier in the film. When Waggner showed the producers some test footage, they drastically cut her part and kept her mute.

Note #4: The setting of Mapleton was borrowed from The Mummy's Tomb, but for the purposes of the script, Mapleton was also identified as the setting for The Mad Ghoul.


Trailers for some real Universal monster rallies:

"Hordes of Horror... Spawned by the Devil..."

"Hang on to your parkas!"

Now Playing: The Land Unknown (1957)

Pros: Intriguing premise of a lost world within a forbidding world (Antarctica); Imaginative production design on a limited budget
Cons: Wooden male lead; Variable monster effects; Budget too low for the high concept

Permit me to make a short plug for a book in a space normally reserved for movies. Several weeks ago I ran into a co-worker (and fellow horror fan) reading Dan Simmons' The Terror (2007) on his lunch break. I've had a lifelong side interest in tales of sailing ships, exploration and survival, so Simmons' unique mix of historical fiction and horror was intriguing to say the least -- the novel is based on the actual lost expedition of the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, under the command of Sir John Franklin, to find the Arctic northwest passage in the mid-to-late 1840s. So I picked up a copy at the first opportunity and took it with me on a recent vacation.

As if all the challenges and privations of an Arctic expedition in the age of wooden sailing ships weren't enough -- the bone-chilling, killer cold; frostbite; crushing ice flows; violent storms; rotting food stores; scurvy and food poisoning; the inevitable human failings of envy, greed, ignorance and fear -- Simmons adds a huge, seemingly supernatural entity that stalks the expedition and picks them off one-by-one in fiendishly violent ways, without warning. It's a dauntingly long read at 960 pages, but for me a compelling one.

At one point in the book, after two years of being stuck in the Arctic ice, one of the characters morbidly compares a quick death from the slashing claws of the Thing with the prospect of a slow, agonizing death from scurvy or starvation. Simmons has obviously done his research, and the experiences and even the conversations of the characters feel very authentic. Just when you think things can't get worse, they do. From time to time it hits you that these were actual men who in all probability experienced and suffered much of what Simmons describes in the novel (absent being torn apart by a demon-beast of course).

At another point, mention is made of men who had previously served on the Terror or Erebus in Antarctica under James Clark Ross. From a comfortable 21st century perspective, typing on a computer in a cozy heated room, it seems incredible that anyone in their right mind would subject themselves for years on end to all the discomforts and perils of long sea voyages in rickety wooden vessels, and then, on top of it all, add mind-numbing, sub-freezing temperatures and the distinct possibility of being trapped by ice and snow thousands of miles from home. Then again, home back in those days was no bed of roses. Even in England, the supposed apex of civilization, life tended to be nasty, brutish and short. If you went into debt, you went to prison. If you couldn't feed your family, they starved. And in an pre-antibiotic world, chances were high that you'd die young of a routine infection. So maybe these long, arduous voyages of discovery weren't so crazy after all. There was the camaraderie and sense of mission, and if you just happened to survive, big bonuses for the members of a successful expedition (not to mention the status, kind of like being an astronaut back in the '60s when it was still rare and cool).

If I'd lived back then, I no doubt would have taken my chances with debtors' prisons, starvation and runaway infections on good old terra firma (and perhaps written reviews of plays while munching on stale bread in a drafty attic apartment). I don't think I could have been persuaded to join such an expedition until say, the invention of the airplane, so that you could fly over all that ice and snow, the polar bears, the chasms, cliffs, avalanches, etc. Take Admiral Richard Byrd, for example -- on his fourth Antarctic expedition, he was backed up by 15 naval ships, dozens of aircraft (including helicopters and flying boats), and over 4000 personnel. Now that's my kind of exploring!

Not that there aren't risks even with such a large, modern undertaking. The weather of course is always tricky in the arctic and antarctic regions. Parts give out in the freezing temps. Wings and rotors ice up. Fuel runs out. Sudden storms blow you out of the sky. And if you're really unlucky, a stray pterodactyl grazes your helicopter and sends you crashing down into a cavernous, lost prehistoric world thousands of feet below sea level.

This last bit of bad luck forces an unplanned stopover and exploration of The Land Unknown. The movie kicks off with a briefing in Washington, D.C. concerning a new U.S. Naval Antarctic expedition to follow up on the discoveries of the Byrd expedition of 1947, which, among other things, uncovered a south polar oasis of unaccountably warm water surrounded by ice. But that's not all that interests the U.S. government. As the expedition commander Captain Burnham (Douglas Kennedy) describes deposits of coal, nickel and uranium found by past Antarctic explorers, a gorgeous, well-dressed woman enters the briefing room. All the men turn around in their seats to stare as if they'd been out to sea (or out to lunch) for years and hadn't seen a woman in all that time.

At a break in the briefing, we learn that the head-turning blonde is Margaret "Maggie" Hathaway (Shawn Smith, aka Shirley Patterson) of the Oceanic Press, who will be joining the expedition. In classic '50s style, as the Captain introduces Maggie to two of her fellow explorers, Commander Harold "Hal" Roberts (Jock Mahoney) and Lt. Jack Carmen (William Reynolds), much awkward banter, smirks, leering and and assorted sophomoric hijinks ensues. A sample:

Hathaway: Hello Lieutenant. I hope you won't mind having to fly the first woman over Antarctica.
Lt. Carmen: Ma'am, you just say the word and I'll fly you up to the moon!
Hathaway (beaming): Hmmm, in a helicopter?
Capt. Burnham (smirking): You won't have to worry about him Miss Hathaway, I'm sure he'll cool off as soon as he hits sub-zero weather.

Oh brother! Only the straight-arrow Commander Roberts manages to escape with his dignity intact, simply telling the reporter that he's an "ardent" reader of her columns (and of course, we immediately wonder what's wrong with that guy). A little bit later, on the deck of an ice breaker ship bound for the Antarctic, we get a better idea of just how far "off" this Navy commander and nerdy geophysicist really is:

Hathaway (hair perfectly coiffed and in place, despite standing on the windy deck of a ship bound for the south pole): Oh Hal, oil vapors, molecules… do you have to be so technical?
Roberts: A few things I can be quite romantic about.
Hathaway: Name one!
Roberts: Well, women. For example, although I know that basically women consist mostly of water with a few pinches of salt and metals thrown in, you have a very un-saltlike and non-metallic effect on me.

Shawn and Jock seem embarrassed by the jaw-dropping
"romantic" dialog in the scene aboard ship.

Man, this guy's smoother than The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper! With that touching interlude over, the movie gets down to the business of getting its main characters lost in an unknown land. With Machinist's Mate Steve Miller (Phil Harvey) in tow, the group takes off in a helicopter in search of Byrd's warm water discovery. When the pilot reports that the temp is 40 below, Maggie comments that it's hard to believe the area was once sub-tropical. Little does she know that she'll soon be experiencing for herself just what it was like millions of years ago.

Back on the ship, the weather reports look bad, and Captain Burnham orders that the helicopter be called back. But Lt. Carmen matter-of-factly informs his passengers that he can't fly over the storm, there's not enough fuel to fly around it, and nowhere to land to wait it out. So he looks for calm patch to fly through. As he heads for a small break in the storm bank, he tells the group to "hold on to your parkas!" Just then, out of the fog, a screeching pterodactyl buzzes the helicopter and clips the rotor assembly. With the controls and the antenna damaged, the craft starts to go down, but then, in a nice, suspenseful touch, Carmen realizes that they're below sea level and still descending (and the temperature is rising dramatically). Roberts guesses that they're inside the crater of a volcano. "I hope it's got a bottom," Carmen responds.

They find the bottom-- and what a bottom it is!  (Okay, that came out wrong. Let's go with, "and what a lost world it is!") As Carmen and Miller try to repair the helicopter, Roberts and Hathaway look around. In the dense fog, Maggie is completely oblivious to a huge man-eating plant that is just about to grab her with its tendrils when she's called over by Roberts. Meanwhile, Machinist's Mate Miller tries hammering out the bent push-pull rod that allows the helicopter to ascend. When he succeeds in breaking it, they realize they're royally screwed. Roberts points out that if they're not found relatively soon, the expedition pulls out in a few weeks, and there's not likely to be another one for years. Miller panics, and when the others are distracted, runs down the helicopter's battery vainly trying to hail search planes over the radio.

Behold! The Land Unknown in spectacular black-and-white Cinemascope!

The crew spend a fitful night in their new digs, then wake up to find that the fog has lifted and they're standing in an strange world of towering volcanic peaks, weird tropical plants and strange creatures right out of the Mesozoic era. As the castaways stand awestruck at the vista in front of them (and in Cinemascope no less -- the effect isn't bad considering the limitations of the time), the viewer gets a taste of what might have been. Originally, Universal-International had planned a big-budget "epic" with heavy hitters William Alland producing and Jack Arnold directing (the team had recently scored a hit with The Incredible Shrinking Man, released in April, 1957). But the studio got cold feet, and drastically cut back on the budget and the cast. Arnold lost interest, and even though Alland is credited as producer, he also pulled out in all but name.

According to Virgil Vogel, the man who picked up the directing reins, the effects department was mostly responsible for the studio's change of mind (as told to Tom Weaver, Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes: Interviews with Actors, Directors, Producers and Writers of the 1940s through 1960s, McFarland, 1991):

"Universal went into this planning to make it the biggest science fiction picture of its time. But then the effects department and the makeup department spent all their money! Universal spent so much on the monsters, they didn't have any money left to make the picture. They didn't know that they couldn't make the biggest show of all time without spending money! Jack Arnold found out that Universal was pulling all that money -- they took the color away, they took the cast away -- and Jack kind of lost interest in it. It was no longer going to be an epic, it was going to be a typical, cheap Universal picture. So Jack said, 'I don't want to do it, let Virgil do it!'"

Considering all the money that was apparently spent, the monster effects are variable. They range from rear screen-projected monitor lizards as stand-ins for dinosaurs (standard issue for B dinosaur movies), to a 12 foot tall Tyrannosaurus Rex suit supplemented with hydraulic-operated eyes and jaws, to a 15 foot long "elasmosaurus" sea creature (also operated with hydraulics), to a simple pterodactyl prop hoisted on a fishing pole. Perhaps the most credit should go to the set designers, who had to create a complete lost world on a process stage when most of the money, and location shooting, was pulled. Vogel again:

"When we were on that big stage, we had a big cyclorama all the way around. That's a big piece of canvas, about 75 feet tall and about 300 feet long. It had the scenery painted on it and it hung all around the edge of the stage, like a backdrop in a theater. We also had that big pool in there, much bigger than an Olympic pool -- it was 300 feet long and 100 feet wide." (Ibid.)

T-Rex wants to pick his teeth with the helicopter rotor blades.

Another casualty of the studio's cold feet was the cast. Vogel claims that when the studio heads were still thinking "epic," Cary Grant (of all people!) was considered for the lead (but Vogel's not sure if he was ever contacted). The cast that ended up before the cameras is very lean -- one wonders if the original concept was to include a larger number of performers to be "lost and terrorized in prehistoric time" (tagline). 4 is not a lot of people to provide for such thrills as having the local fauna (or the man-eating flora) feast on a crew member or two, and still have somebody surviving at the end.

It doesn't help that Jock Mahoney (Roberts), the male lead, is pretty wooden and uninspiring, a far cry from Cary Grant (I still can't quite wrap my mind around Cary appearing in such a picture, even a big budget one). But it's hardly his fault. Vogel explains that he was a stunt man whom Universal had pressed into service as a cheap replacement on a cheap production. But in one sense it's fortunate he was around, as, according to the director, the man the studio had hired for the water stunts couldn't swim (??!!) Mahoney ended up diving in and saving the floundering man's bacon! (Ibid.)

Shawn Smith (who had appeared in earlier films as Shirley Patterson) is a very competent B movie heroine, and very easy to look at. As the days trapped in the hot and humid lost world drag on, she starts to look like Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island. But her blonde hairdo is never less than absolutely fabulous. Shawn/Shirley's other '50s sci-fi credit is World Without End (1956; check out my post on it here). Pretty boy William Reynolds' sci-fi/horror credits include Cult of the Cobra (1955) and the zero-budget The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958; both also reviewed on this blog-- click the links!)

The Land Unknown's friendly elasmosaurus is ready to give up smoking.

Henry Brandon rounds out the cast as Dr. Carl Hunter, a survivor from a previous expedition, who through pluck and brains has created his own little fiefdom in the prehistoric world. The character reminds me of a poor-man's Dr. Morbius from Forbidden Planet (1956). At the climax, Hunter becomes an action hero as he does battle with the hungry elasmosaurus. The poor creature gets so many fiery torches (and one flare gun) in the mouth that by film's end I'd mentally dubbed him "Smokey" ("Only you can prevent fiery elasmosaurus breath!")

We'll never know if a bigger budget, color, and Cary Grant might have vaulted The Land Unknown from its status as a near-forgotten Universal sci-fi programmer to a classic on par with Forbidden Planet, but what did survive the studio's second guessing is a decent, unpretentious movie with plenty of action, good production design (for the budget) and some snappy dialogue. I haven't found a streaming version, but it is included on the highly rated 6-disc "Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection" released by Universal in 2008.

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Where to find it:

Oldies.com


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Mr Movie Fiend: Macabre Monkey Business

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue, ” published in 1841, is considered by many scholars to be the world’s first detective story. Although I haven’t researched it extensively, it’s probably safe to say that “Murders” is also the first instance of a great ape — in this case, an orangutan — being the culprit in a “locked room” murder mystery. Why an orangutan? It’s elementary my dear reader– gorillas weren’t discovered and described by western science until 1847. Of course, once the noble yet fearsome gorilla penetrated western consciousness, there was no stopping its appropriation and exploitation by popular culture. Here was a supposed real-life monster tailor-made to scare children and adults in countless stories and films. Only relatively recently has society at large recognized the gorilla’s high intelligence, its sophisticated social life, and kinship with humankind. It’s hard to look at the world famous Koko cradling a kitten and ever again think of gorillas as lurid monsters.

But there’s no doubt that for many, many years the gorilla’s public image was one of a dangerous, ravening monster. (While I love vintage movies and always get a kick out of seeing men in furry suits trying their best to look like apes, I have to acknowledge the possibility that these very images, by both trivializing gorillas and making them into monsters, may have in some small way contributed to a culture that has nearly driven this great species into extinction.) Universal’s adaptation of Poe’s infamous story certainly exploits the image of the murderous ape, but it (and the original story) is also tempered with pathos and sympathy for the beast. In Poe’s story, the orangutan unwittingly kills by imitating the behavior of his master. In Universal’s version, the ape is cruelly manipulated by a human who is the real monster, and eventually turns on him, refusing to help carry out his evil designs. In contrast, many contemporary movie monsters are relentless, remorseless and unfathomable– crude plot devices to get the bloodletting and gross-out effects going.

Universal’s translation of Poe’s tale into film (some might say exploitation) can be a real eye-opener for those who think adult themes, suggestiveness and even outright depravity didn’t make it into popular movies until sometime in the 1960s. The studio took Poe’s tale of “ratiocination,” dropped most of the ratiocinating, and turned it into an hallucinatory, expressionistic horror thriller complete with a wild-eyed, unkempt mad scientist (Dr. Mirakle played by Bela Lugosi).

See the full post at Mr Movie Fiend.

A Mr Movie Fiend Double Feature

I was recently invited to join Mr Movie Fiend to write about older movies. It was very gracious offer-- no pressure, write when I want about what I want -- so it was next to impossible to turn down. I'm old, I like old movies, I like writing about them, and I can expand my movie blogging horizons without having to develop another site from scratch or change the focus of this one. So, I'll be taking my old movie show on the Mr Movie Fiend road from time to time, visiting other genres like westerns, film noir, action-adventure, and even straight-up drama. I may even take occasional side trips to the wild and wooly '80s and '90s.

Of course, horror being my co-favorite genre (with sci-fi), I couldn't resist going that route in my first two MMF posts. I decided to write about a couple of Universal(-International) B-listers that have earned little respect over the years, but nonetheless have some unique things going for them and are fun to watch. Check-em out!

The Mummy's Curse (1944)

I live in Arizona. You may recall that a few weeks ago Phoenix was enveloped by a massive, mile-high wall of dust (some pretty impressive photos and videos have been circulating on the internet ever since). The next day I was watching TV coverage in my dust-free house (fortunately, I live well north of Phoenix). One of the local Phoenix stations had prepared a tongue-in-cheek feature comparing footage of the Arizona desert storm with the CGI-enhanced storm-with-a-giant-face in the 1999 version of The Mummy. As the anchors were chuckling over it, I was thinking, “That Brendan Fraser so-called remake was a deplorable piece of dreck, but I haven’t seen a classic Mummy movie in a long time, and I know my Legacy Collection is around here somewhere…” And that’s how this review came to be.

... I picked The Mummy’s Curse because even by low-budget, B movie standards this one’s an underdog. It was the last of Universal’s Mummy series, released toward the tail end of Universal’s second horror cycle as the public taste for horror movies was ebbing. Critics often cite it as the least of the Universal Mummies, a half-hearted, low budget end to a series that started so well with Boris Karloff’s creepy, low-key portrayal of the title character. And yet, and yet…

See the full post at Mr Movie Fiend.

Cult of the Cobra (1955)

In 1958 a political novel, The Ugly American, became an influential bestseller in the U.S. It’s a fictional account of the failure of American foreign aid workers in an imaginary Asian country to win over the local population or effect any real change due to their arrogance and ignorance of their host country’s culture and customs. The irony of the novel is that the title character, a homely engineer by the name of Atkins, is the only American who really gets it– he lives with the locals, works with them as equals, understands their needs, and makes meaningful, if somewhat small scale, improvements to his adopted village. The book’s title has since become a catch phrase for loud, ignorant American tourists who make fools of themselves in places they can barely understand or appreciate.

Cult of the Cobra is a B-movie forerunner of The Ugly American, featuring a similar sort of arrogance and ignorance, but with immediate, tragic consequences. The film’s titles provide a somewhat cryptic introduction to the melodrama to come:

Slender hangs illusion, fragile the thread to reality.
Always the question: Is it true?
Truth is in the mind and the mind of man varies with time and place.
The time is 1945. The place is Asia...

See the full post at Mr Movie Fiend.