tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61927733872674815622024-03-12T18:03:32.974-07:00Shock!An investigation of Screen Gems' package of Universal horror and mystery films called SHOCK! Available in 1957 to televisions stations all across America, the programming of these films would contribute greatly to the monster craze of the late 1950s. Tangential topics also discussed.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger81125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-36196331642914164242012-01-14T12:42:00.000-08:002012-01-16T09:40:50.406-08:00The Shock Influence on Shock!The Shock! phenomenon currently holds several mysteries as to who thought up the idea of the film package at Screen Gems, who developed the marketing plan for it and the choices made during that time regarding catalog design and even the name of the package of Universal films the company was preparing for television sale. I believe I may have accidentally stumbled upon a couple of answers. The genius or geniuses behind Shock! are still unknown, but it appears that the 1946 film SHOCK, with Vincent Price and Lynn Bari, may have generated the idea for the title of the package AND a significant part of the design of the Shock! catalog.<br /><br />Take a look at the cover of the Screen Gems catalog:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1ivsPW9yZPAC0_3itCB2BNckgpfbZtbz5T_VTgnxdzdF70HTbn6nekycYTGD28GX5BM9zU2j2i6cFo9hZA80Ebr1N0Epfs2D_KV1xjvw8L1DMtMiA2743c8AsfVIcpZOHlB4JkIbNs63r/s1600/shock_theater_booklet_350.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 350px; height: 277px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1ivsPW9yZPAC0_3itCB2BNckgpfbZtbz5T_VTgnxdzdF70HTbn6nekycYTGD28GX5BM9zU2j2i6cFo9hZA80Ebr1N0Epfs2D_KV1xjvw8L1DMtMiA2743c8AsfVIcpZOHlB4JkIbNs63r/s400/shock_theater_booklet_350.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697594046970596114" border="0" /></a><br /><br />And then a poster for the SHOCK film:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJRGPhj_8QjAWvNDEv2W7xeB2d8UNXeNdm7FfnSp4KQGdeWdaF7NRCU634B8iMHYkMDFHxkk7yfKTLeoB9cn-74dImOCUccRHcHPFp5gSE-hMJU4o7tGt1x7sp2vAJDYXmA1gnuC13MqAe/s1600/ShockMoviePoster.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 262px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJRGPhj_8QjAWvNDEv2W7xeB2d8UNXeNdm7FfnSp4KQGdeWdaF7NRCU634B8iMHYkMDFHxkk7yfKTLeoB9cn-74dImOCUccRHcHPFp5gSE-hMJU4o7tGt1x7sp2vAJDYXmA1gnuC13MqAe/s400/ShockMoviePoster.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697592774817565842" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Clearly, the font selection for the Screen Gems' catalog mimics to a substantial degree the font and color of font that had been designed for the film's poster, as well as the prominent placement of the upper face of a person above the "Shock" title. It is not a long stretch to deduce that Screen Gems also borrowed the film's title as an effective, bold pronouncement for their own catalog of Universal horror and mystery films.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-33915136824518847412012-01-01T18:29:00.000-08:002012-01-01T19:19:59.618-08:00SHOCK IT TO ME: GOLDEN GHOULS OF THE GOLDEN GATE<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.uhfnocturne.com/images/ShockItToMe-CoverF72x350.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 350px; height: 451px;" src="http://www.uhfnocturne.com/images/ShockItToMe-CoverF72x350.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Published recently, Michael Monahan's SHOCK IT TO ME: GOLDEN GHOULS OF THE GOLDEN GATE is an important document on the SHOCK! phenomenon in San Francisco's Bay Area and its aftereffects. Even though I wasn't raised in that part of the country, I could feel the same excitement as one felt on the East Coast as I went through the book's 135 pages, reading about the horror show programming of the time and viewing the many TV ad mats, horror host photos, and copies of pertinent TV guide pages that illustrate this handsome paperbound volume.<br /><br />In the Bay Area the first SHOCK! programming arrived with NIGHTMARE and the premiere of the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN on October 3, 1957. As in other parts of the country, this classic horror programming became a huge success among the younger crowd, in the Bay Area's case even causing wild monster-inspired disturbances at the UC Berkeley campus. NIGHTMARE lasted until October 1961, and it's interesting seeing the evolution of its programming through the years, from the original Screen Gems' SHOCK! package to films like THE BLACK SLEEP and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.<br /><br />Complete listings are given not only for NIGHTMARE, but the other horror film packages in the San Francisco area through the years, which were very similar to the types of programming that would run in varied areas of the country. So, for instance, we see the emergence of foreign horror films and Germany's krimis (mystery-crime films) into the viewing habits of growing monster kids, which for many such kids were the first, and very impressionable, samples of a cinema that was more askew, more deviant, than the type of classic horror cinema crafted by such studios as Universal.<br /><br />Of course, a good portion of Monahan's book is taken up with the horror hosts of San Francisco, to include by-now such legendary figures as Asmodeus and Bob Wilkins.<br /><br />If you have any interest in the SHOCK! phenomenon and its programming and horror hosts, you need to acquire and delight in Michael Monahan's book, which can be purchased <a href="http://www.uhfnocturne.com/nocturnehome.html">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-38205187716992514912011-11-28T05:43:00.000-08:002011-11-28T05:57:38.341-08:00Last Three Pages of the SHOCK! CatalogIn this SHOCK! catalog series, I will be skipping the individual film entries which follow page 8 (unnumbered in the original), placing, instead, each at the end of the corresponding SHOCK! film that may be reviewed on the blog.<br /><br />So we then arrive at the last three pages of the unnumbered catalog.<br /><br />Order forms for stills, ad mats, and balops. What's a balop, you ask? It's<span class="st"> a slide or card bearing a picture or other visual material for projection </span>in television.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7mX_rAJ7-z8i3hrftCexA8Hfpvjvw8oGPeHs3tEIJwV6asPtI8guoI8DzpRApFunP7PhfKWxRIlA6h_BezpNIZv350SCdLqnnGjka5BCJC2iGkwmscHBC3U7w3OGbeoVFPnYcrL3yeE8i/s1600/shocklast1.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 314px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7mX_rAJ7-z8i3hrftCexA8Hfpvjvw8oGPeHs3tEIJwV6asPtI8guoI8DzpRApFunP7PhfKWxRIlA6h_BezpNIZv350SCdLqnnGjka5BCJC2iGkwmscHBC3U7w3OGbeoVFPnYcrL3yeE8i/s400/shocklast1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680043142733478354" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Contact info for "the full SHOCK treatment":<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeD7yL66EGlmDkqLh12nfJx_WA4OjZbLsv7Z4UNZwv4G7XVbJGoWqqqSGgN0x_XDwvGiZuEWZHeAdRyPUmBrnEdAfvgg9TPJwb4NFtFl6mjb50dMaJd6sI4RBmBW-omef3jBjZ6l4LKK1H/s1600/shocklast2.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 312px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeD7yL66EGlmDkqLh12nfJx_WA4OjZbLsv7Z4UNZwv4G7XVbJGoWqqqSGgN0x_XDwvGiZuEWZHeAdRyPUmBrnEdAfvgg9TPJwb4NFtFl6mjb50dMaJd6sI4RBmBW-omef3jBjZ6l4LKK1H/s400/shocklast2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680043265526782994" border="0" /></a><br /><br />And we end with Frankie!...<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheNUPxUB4MePnqqM8HDj9XiOpkonzOJA8-vpZeCMVB3t5zIkGBJXGykPUPrlfLM28chxuxeS9DdiedIWHuczfCjhqIGNykDBIGhs46Ym7_WfpduFhRB_q8z3-D2hL1PRJG2YSpSg9Oh9Jt/s1600/shocklast3.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 317px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheNUPxUB4MePnqqM8HDj9XiOpkonzOJA8-vpZeCMVB3t5zIkGBJXGykPUPrlfLM28chxuxeS9DdiedIWHuczfCjhqIGNykDBIGhs46Ym7_WfpduFhRB_q8z3-D2hL1PRJG2YSpSg9Oh9Jt/s400/shocklast3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680043396572636914" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-57589387979115816652011-11-27T18:52:00.000-08:002011-11-27T18:57:04.315-08:00Shock! List (page 8 in the unnumbered original)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhb6S_TystIM41GeAtImvOc7LT4b9H5fAoHXxtFsmZ3RvB46JaGAKl8Lt4aPOQlSa6fqKB_6MdCCFwH6wti_AMigRxlSQ01hFTbpb5-7EB0SM_1pz1h87jdKfZ_TxbQJPtvgqjppVo_IN4/s1600/shockpage8.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 315px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhb6S_TystIM41GeAtImvOc7LT4b9H5fAoHXxtFsmZ3RvB46JaGAKl8Lt4aPOQlSa6fqKB_6MdCCFwH6wti_AMigRxlSQ01hFTbpb5-7EB0SM_1pz1h87jdKfZ_TxbQJPtvgqjppVo_IN4/s400/shockpage8.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679874500237128210" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The next page of the SHOCK! catalog lists, in alphabetical order, the 52 films presented by Screen Gems to TV station. The catalog numbers run from 693 to 744. I wonder what came before and after?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-82227247802265553552011-11-13T10:49:00.000-08:002011-11-13T11:21:19.511-08:00Audience Promotion to Excite Your Public (page 7; unnumbered in the original)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF7f2eXMDeKp6Ap8jOPaQZfI_tWIENepmTTgXsRlKalD_dzd7FnS3uK9OS4jZ-6YRaX2Punx7ubXCM5HbO9cnqY25jzrJCMjq5mMUcen6qKYnTFLXobH4soDryJxQf-F0MxxRHqA01mNIG/s1600/shockbook7.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 315px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF7f2eXMDeKp6Ap8jOPaQZfI_tWIENepmTTgXsRlKalD_dzd7FnS3uK9OS4jZ-6YRaX2Punx7ubXCM5HbO9cnqY25jzrJCMjq5mMUcen6qKYnTFLXobH4soDryJxQf-F0MxxRHqA01mNIG/s400/shockbook7.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674555300067921762" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The next page in Screen Gems SHOCK! promotion book contains advice on "how to excite your public."<br /><br />One direct audience participation gimmick is to consider what you would cook should a monster come to your house for dinner. (I'm sure we've hosted many a monster at a meal.) The public would be encouraged to send in their menus, from which a winning menu would be selected and then served at a restaurant to people in the city with the name of Frankenstein! According to the writer of the text, there were 13 Frankensteins in New York City at the time. I wonder what the number would have been in smaller cities?<br /><br />An exploitation item has a "mummy" escaping from a museum that's having an Egyptian exhibit. When the mummy is interviewed by the pseudo-press, he states that he made his escape in order to get his "SHOCK treatment." Crazy mummy.<br /><br />Another exploitation tactic mentions dressing up a woman in the style of a Charles Adams (sic) cartoon, clearly a reference to Charles Addams' main female character who would be named Morticia when THE ADDAMS FAMILY TV series was broadcast in the 1960s. The Morticia character was already iconic at the time. (Interestingly, Vampira, who took her look from the Addams character and who had been hosting horror films prior to SHOCK!, is not mentioned.) "Monster Society of America" membership cards would be handed out by this female character and the monster riding with her in a hearse.<br /><br />Fun suggestions all. I wonder how many were actualized?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-39198834418351069332011-08-27T09:37:00.001-07:002011-08-27T10:22:47.900-07:00Review: Famous Monsters of Filmland: The Annotated Issue # 1<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpbrizI9TPSrYScWrdR6ENUWGzUk56_bsPfy48vurMflj8fydzOCvQVWJX6cVNWorqHXf0gDQkebqDrzb6Ljlu2K4oKp3UMIp8bf3M4NOms57gUZF8BRPt4bdjExCdwiDrvS3vBqWp6IMA/s1600/FM1annotatedcover.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 307px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpbrizI9TPSrYScWrdR6ENUWGzUk56_bsPfy48vurMflj8fydzOCvQVWJX6cVNWorqHXf0gDQkebqDrzb6Ljlu2K4oKp3UMIp8bf3M4NOms57gUZF8BRPt4bdjExCdwiDrvS3vBqWp6IMA/s400/FM1annotatedcover.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645576010766264946" border="0" /></a>
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<br />Of all the publications released by the current regime of FAMOUS MONSTERS (shorthanded as FM 3.0 and headed up by Philip Kim "Kong"), I was most looking forward to THE ANNOTATED ISSUE #1. My enthusiasm was slightly lessened when I learned that this publication would most likely contain a major chunk of what once had been published before, a special mock FM edition honoring the 90th birthday of Forrest "Forry" Ackerman, FM's legendary 1st and longest-standing editor. So it seemed to be a reprint, rather than the promised original publication per its promotion, but the original was rare nowadays and, when found, fetching high prices. I was still very eager to own and read this annotated edition, as it would surely, I thought, offer an invaluable look at the crafting of the first issue of the first monster magazine in the world that was published at the epicenter of the Shock Theater craze. After all, that's what the word "annotated" implies, something that digs deeper into the text being offered.
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<br />Unfortunately, the people who put this edition together do not know the meaning of "annotated." Annotated is not just reprinting some typescript of issue number one of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. "Annotated" is offering editorial commentary at least--notes and research material that explain and expand upon the text being presented. There is no such commentary in this edition. It is <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> "annotated."
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<br />What we have, as the meat of the edition, is a simple photographic reprint of what we are told is the 1958 manuscript of the 1st issue of FM, interspersed with full-page photo illustrations, worked on a bit through Photoshop, so they don't look like the actual photographs being used. The vast majority of the manuscript is type-written, but there are some minor corrections in hand dispersed about, yet there's no way of knowing if these come from the hand of Ackerman or James Warren, the publisher of FM 1.0, a man as equally legendary as Ackerman and who rarely gets the credit he deserves in the making and success of FAMOUS MONSTERS. Nor do we know if a copy of a handwritten listing of contents with remarks on them comes from Ackerman or Warren, either. One assumes they come from Ackerman, but readers will be unfamiliar with Ackerman's handwriting to make a judgement. If one compares Forry's signature, which can be found in the publication, the answer may be that the markings come from Warren! (Warren is still alive and may have been able to resolve this very easily. In fact, it's a considerable lost opportunity that this publication does not have Warren making his own comments on the manuscript or at least offering up an introduction to the whole.)
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<br />So rather than providing a genuine annotated edition of issue 1, which would have been work and have taken some knowledge and intelligence to put together, we have a cheat. Something being sold as something it is not.
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<br />That said, there are a few perks to this softbound edition, which is admittedly handsomely designed and on glossy paper, with a nice wraparound illustration by Pete Von Sholly. The first 33 pages of the 160 pages is made up of a reprint of Ackerman's "Birth of a Notion," in which the first editor of FM goes through the history of the rise and making of the 1st issue. Forry wrote variations on this article several times, but it's impressively illustrated and quite readable. Two articles follow this one--"Following Forry" by Kevin Burns and "The House that Ack Built (and Re-Built)" by Joe Moe--and both are equally very well illustrated and engaging reads.
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<br />There are several typescripts after the manuscript proper that are the most interesting pieces of all. One, shows the editorial markings (or were they the publisher's markings?) on a Shock Theater press release from Screen Gems that was employed in FM #1 as original matter. A couple of other typescripts look of interest, but since there is no <span style="font-style: italic;">annotation</span> regarding them, we are lost in suppositions as to where they may or may not fit into the history of FM 1. The one I got the biggest surprise from is something titled "TV Means Terrified Virgins." As you can see from the following sample sentences, it was definitely not meant for public consumption....
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<br />"The chips are down in TV, and so are the heroine's panties. It's the next step after strip-tease: pan-tease."
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<br />"One impatient televiewer's reaction was: 'I'd rather see a girl raped by a monster than watch a good five minute commercial.'"
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<br />"Yes, TV augurs well for Terrific Vaginas, Thrilling Vulvas and Tortured Victims."
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<br />Did Ackerman write this? If so, was it a way to let off steam from the task at hand? Was it sent around the FM "office", ie, to Warren? You won't know in the ANNOTATED edition that's being sold for $29.99.
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-52550931346348078502011-07-08T08:01:00.000-07:002011-07-08T08:21:45.665-07:00Daughter of Shock! - Bombay Mail (1934)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUeKjcL6BwIevk88itR3CriG6lKPgICjdaFrAQ5lZnIclBnlRFc60fmvw091YjqpsZoQ-8xwmeSyFchzTdpUCLmQyUeaMvdaKbZxo8ZwMFABiOwweO60fzdYVk3xUK8RvJmzm0HDgIdgV9/s1600/bombaymail2.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUeKjcL6BwIevk88itR3CriG6lKPgICjdaFrAQ5lZnIclBnlRFc60fmvw091YjqpsZoQ-8xwmeSyFchzTdpUCLmQyUeaMvdaKbZxo8ZwMFABiOwweO60fzdYVk3xUK8RvJmzm0HDgIdgV9/s320/bombaymail2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627001985337583954" /></a><br /><br />Here's an interesting curio, a film that would have fit perfectly into the SHOCK! or SON OF SHOCK! packages--and better than some other films that made it into those two lineups. It's BOMBAY MAIL, a Universal murder-mystery film from 1934, with Edmund "Chandu" Lowe. The music should be very familiar. The score by Heinz Roemheld was reused by Universal, most notably in the Flash Gordon serials. We'll call this part of the never released package of films from Screen Gems, their follow-up to SON OF SHOCK!: DAUGHTER OF SHOCK!<br /><br /><object width="400" height="364"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1pdDeQ3UL_M?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1pdDeQ3UL_M?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="364" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-10436988192500810752011-06-17T09:58:00.000-07:002011-11-13T11:18:56.093-08:00Inspired Stunts (page 6; unnumbered in the original)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRod9PDGxXyU-d9MdJ4fdILLC_4qNGYofqR5PhsjPDfDw8vW9eDr8TekVfjfJ1v6taM0Gvv6voAoeJ7saIXsb0Y11MKvdbO3VPyLjntRn1xXGlEXo5xWdl_g31so710jV5N-EZVL0FpU6Z/s1600/shockbook6.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 317px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRod9PDGxXyU-d9MdJ4fdILLC_4qNGYofqR5PhsjPDfDw8vW9eDr8TekVfjfJ1v6taM0Gvv6voAoeJ7saIXsb0Y11MKvdbO3VPyLjntRn1xXGlEXo5xWdl_g31so710jV5N-EZVL0FpU6Z/s400/shockbook6.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5619234515935130386" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The next page in the SHOCK promotional book gives TV programmers suggestions on how to promote the package to potential sponsors and news-people. You are urged to have a party at your studio or a haunted house. (Yeah, good luck trying to find a haunted house!) "Ghoulish props" include masks and daggers on the walls, a coffin, and....<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Your buffet supper should be "ghouled-up" with a witch serving meat balls from a steaming cauldron.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />Bottles labeled poison, bowls of aspirin and <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2010/10/shock-ballyhoo-1-fistful-of.html">milltown</a>, and a bucket of ketchup labeled "BLOOD" should be placed at convenient spots for the use of your guests.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Masked waiters, horror-inspired door prizes -- such as daggers, nooses, etc., and a public address system emitting weird sounds should add to the creepy atmosphere.</span><br /><br />Then come the "inspired stunts" for your guests, such as:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The lights go out -- a scream is heard -- and a "spider-woman" dressed in a long, sleek, black gown enters the studio with a lighted candle.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A shot is heard -- a weird character staggers in with a knife in his back, and falls cold in the middle of the room. He is nonchalantly carried out by two waiters.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Men dressed in Frankenstein's monster make-up, converge on the room.</span><br /><br />The day after these stunts it's recommended that you send your guests a bottle of smelling salts and a note asking them if they have recovered!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-45082360210696355232011-06-12T09:21:00.000-07:002011-11-13T11:19:16.326-08:00The Stunning Impact (pages 4-5; unnumbered in the original)The unnumbered pages 4 and 5 from the SHOCK! promotional book. (I've increased the pixel size; click on photo to make larger in a new window.)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ8B8O8mdpB3ZLm-6nk1ihIqutrghydD6D5u3dLMX4lRe7a8sIR-EomYWMEtsrrErJBjHYwvKFMkvbq7R_kXUlfOOFhDdijZZQVsiJa2FcaYxzFkAvr_vMwHl3TjUmYO_b9FclO6jomQ1g/s1600/shockbook4.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 314px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ8B8O8mdpB3ZLm-6nk1ihIqutrghydD6D5u3dLMX4lRe7a8sIR-EomYWMEtsrrErJBjHYwvKFMkvbq7R_kXUlfOOFhDdijZZQVsiJa2FcaYxzFkAvr_vMwHl3TjUmYO_b9FclO6jomQ1g/s400/shockbook4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5617369808772399378" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXMpgMZSXjtR8blm78YEEIzB7r7d7YVIQ1NdHhWYDgp_n0CGnw25PtaTxISy2tGpNNkPK7axnKa5f-bQs1Av1xEXZFMFGTPl50CQEzOoLGBUGpXJe5yNkP-C4bA0FBXt1TJK4u83Os_Aal/s1600/shockbook5.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 315px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXMpgMZSXjtR8blm78YEEIzB7r7d7YVIQ1NdHhWYDgp_n0CGnw25PtaTxISy2tGpNNkPK7axnKa5f-bQs1Av1xEXZFMFGTPl50CQEzOoLGBUGpXJe5yNkP-C4bA0FBXt1TJK4u83Os_Aal/s400/shockbook5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5617369915442008802" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Starting with: "For years, tales of terror, macabre stories of ghouls and ghosts have fascinated millions in every form of entertainment. Now, for the first time, this eerie world of the weird and supernatural comes to television with stunning impact in SHOCK -- an irresistible attraction for mood programming of feature films."<br /><br />And ending with:<br /><br />"SHOCK! captures audiences! holds audiences! builds audiences!"<br /><br />... these pages try to convince television programmers about the enduring fascination the public has with horror, and how Screen Gems is offering just what they need to attain impressive audience numbers.<br /><br />Interesting that the "screen's titan's of terror" includes the Mad Ghoul (hardly on the level of Universal's other classic monsters), but does NOT mention The Mummy! Also of interest is that E. Phillips Oppenheim is placed on the same literary and popularity level as writers Edgar Allan Poe and H. G. Wells. Oppenheim (1866-1946) was, indeed, a popular writer of thrillers, but one wonders if by 1957 his renown had faded. The SHOCK! package included a film based on one of Oppenheim's most successful novels, THE GREAT IMPERSONATION.<br /><br />The promo mentions Universal's THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA as examples of the company's "memorable films," but neither of these silent films was in the SHOCK! package--understandably so, as television audiences would not have patience with non-talkie films.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-34651606361403747612011-06-11T21:38:00.000-07:002011-11-13T11:19:35.208-08:00Pop-up Frankie (pages 2 & 3; unnumbered in the original)If you were one of the lucky TV station programmers to receive from Screen Gems your promotional SHOCK! book in October 1957, you may have been shocked (well, slightly shocked) to have a pop-up Frankenstein Monster jump at you as you opened it up. What a fun idea from whomever crafted this promotional book.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiafnayrqYXPn-QgpKM6SHmXoKTqKrXd-3HKi4HZt_8JL1HhU1HAMizMBd2bcyegkPeS0kf1CswRpFDvkkngS7HBemlJxr6y_GO7Gw1hFc21fueDdDeHSjOg7iVFQ-v0PR8QyJU6-FJ0n_v/s1600/popupFrankie.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 285px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiafnayrqYXPn-QgpKM6SHmXoKTqKrXd-3HKi4HZt_8JL1HhU1HAMizMBd2bcyegkPeS0kf1CswRpFDvkkngS7HBemlJxr6y_GO7Gw1hFc21fueDdDeHSjOg7iVFQ-v0PR8QyJU6-FJ0n_v/s400/popupFrankie.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5617065178649890354" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Tellingly, the promotion on the first two pages zeros in exclusively on Universal's monster films, not any of the other films that were also offered in the package.<br /><br />The first several pages of the book were unnumbered. The numbering is reserved for the films themselves, one film per page.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-34043329834551171532011-06-11T13:35:00.000-07:002011-06-12T09:51:33.593-07:00Shocking Cover (Cover of SHOCK!)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil3pKipm_6Qk7yWFlsC9f_3wA8p4roBpSDj2vcK0EuB-AoczGNwhsKXlZUVA2lQFJl_fBhCjxOdzE_Qj_6L0hDN1KImOx3TmlPmX5Ao5XuIlbqdgvjfIPoREFI1h2j54RCb5YJBWwQFwiv/s1600/shockcover1.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 312px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil3pKipm_6Qk7yWFlsC9f_3wA8p4roBpSDj2vcK0EuB-AoczGNwhsKXlZUVA2lQFJl_fBhCjxOdzE_Qj_6L0hDN1KImOx3TmlPmX5Ao5XuIlbqdgvjfIPoREFI1h2j54RCb5YJBWwQFwiv/s400/shockcover1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5617154954986262034" border="0" /></a><br /><br />In this next series of posts, we will be taking a look at the Shock! promotional book, sent to TV program directors in October, 1957. The rectangular 11" x 14" publication was plastic-comb bound. The top part of the cover shows a man's frightened upper face peering through his fingers. The bottom part of the cover shows John Carradine as Dracula, Bela Lugosi as the Frankenstein Monster, Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man, Eric the Ape from MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE and Noble Johnson as Janos, from the same film. In between is the now legendary name for the film package being presented: SHOCK!<br /><br />We currently do not know who the cover artist was, nor do we know the names of the person or persons who thought up the campaign, including the SHOCK! title. Perhaps one day an investigation in the archives of Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems, if such archives exist, will give us the answers.<br /><br />Regarding the artist, I would consider the possibility that two artists worked on the cover, one for the top work and the other for the monster gallery bottom, which is a tad more primitive than what's above it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-65920506406746615542011-03-12T18:00:00.000-08:002011-03-12T18:08:22.563-08:00More Ads from Nightmare!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5HluZgACnj4rQUPoGwmy5eL0gdzcMZ7B71mVu1FxsL1F6j9-xQsjfcn7En8XOEttElceSuZsme_V4jXb5jwhr4d-U6fY2biv97NWw7N9Mu8IQ9s9LREU9F9MauzKlisYUDEocY8tt_3lu/s1600/ShockCallingDrDeathWeb.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 187px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5HluZgACnj4rQUPoGwmy5eL0gdzcMZ7B71mVu1FxsL1F6j9-xQsjfcn7En8XOEttElceSuZsme_V4jXb5jwhr4d-U6fY2biv97NWw7N9Mu8IQ9s9LREU9F9MauzKlisYUDEocY8tt_3lu/s400/ShockCallingDrDeathWeb.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583379054843987282" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgofwlNOhZbcLO7l0cm9grYFurx3zmQxrLskAFKeLLkxkN-Y8K_alXGuz8gBirE1E_bJN6si1OIcgQKd5OVOKmD618H6eKaco_ZHqwl9SjfYeNKbFffL6TZ6ktiEHnMvAhhvRymbMamX7fp/s1600/ShockStrangeCaseWeb.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 183px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgofwlNOhZbcLO7l0cm9grYFurx3zmQxrLskAFKeLLkxkN-Y8K_alXGuz8gBirE1E_bJN6si1OIcgQKd5OVOKmD618H6eKaco_ZHqwl9SjfYeNKbFffL6TZ6ktiEHnMvAhhvRymbMamX7fp/s400/ShockStrangeCaseWeb.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583378903232440098" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Thanks to Michael Monahan (Doktor Goulfinger) for the above ads from Nightmare, San Francisco's Shock showings.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-15647263037239818872011-02-01T02:11:00.000-08:002011-11-27T19:06:35.000-08:00MYSTERY OF THE WHITE ROOM (1939)<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd-tPMKG0ICLLAmSSRRzdZU3LAwiN_qM4Un0bLh0cyiDAPetowGQM879N27IiFj-K_CIOH5Z1pKhI9LPGgCutXwEMtiHWFV94F9H2754h6Tq-VJcPhpyJwTOaP5rsLTLn_iFpmRreI6yxB/s1600/WR_poster.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 278px; height: 379px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd-tPMKG0ICLLAmSSRRzdZU3LAwiN_qM4Un0bLh0cyiDAPetowGQM879N27IiFj-K_CIOH5Z1pKhI9LPGgCutXwEMtiHWFV94F9H2754h6Tq-VJcPhpyJwTOaP5rsLTLn_iFpmRreI6yxB/s400/WR_poster.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567828576348548386" border="0" /></a>The "white room" of the title is the operating room where Dr. Finley Morton is stabbed in the back with a scalpel during surgery on a rich society woman. By the time the operation is over, hard-boiled big city police Sergeant MacIntosh Spencer has arrived and is untangling the various relationships of the doctors and nurses in the operating room in order to find a motive. It is the usual soap opera-- some of doctors and nurses are romantically involved with one another; two rival doctors are competing for the big promotion that Morton is helping to decide; there are senior medicos with a complicated professional relationship involving medical ethics, jealousy, and a five year-old botched surgery; and there's even a skulking senior medical staff superintendent thrown in for good measure. One of the most likely suspects is the dashing Dr. Bob Clayton (Bruce Cabot), but he confounds Sgt. Spencer by trying to solve the case on his own with the help of his lover, Nurse Carole Dale (Helen Mack). There is also an irritating comedy relief couple consisting of a meddlesome half-witted ambulance attendant (Tom Dugan) and a braying, grating nurse (Mabel Todd), but the less said about these two, the better.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRYrqcv8ledMfHNckAkslHXYB55jbc-K0Evmw1lUG7h04VeWWNS_R88Vyb3-LIqSCTXVKLvWN34rDvD9Ef5CKDUrZWtVQWjEQjjg8JT6AHt7tJfux7NQsBX1QPIpphixtD_vMxJNx5b6kd/s1600/WR_The+Daily+Times-News+Burlington+NC+SatOct2839.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 337px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRYrqcv8ledMfHNckAkslHXYB55jbc-K0Evmw1lUG7h04VeWWNS_R88Vyb3-LIqSCTXVKLvWN34rDvD9Ef5CKDUrZWtVQWjEQjjg8JT6AHt7tJfux7NQsBX1QPIpphixtD_vMxJNx5b6kd/s400/WR_The+Daily+Times-News+Burlington+NC+SatOct2839.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567828642290941986" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Daily Times-News,</span> Burlington NC, October 28, 1939, seven months after MYSTERY OF THE WHITE ROOM was released theatrically<br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The only witness that can help solve the Morton murder is Tony the deaf janitor; the killer tries to do away with Tony by viciously smashing a bottle of acid into his face, an attack that leaves Tony blind, unable to speak, and paralyzed. This surprising bit of nastiness is one of the fleeting grotesque touches in MYSTERY OF THE WHITE ROOM that makes this whodunit into something different from the usual fare. The other bit of pulp wackiness is the lurking scalpel-wielding murderer; on the eve of an corneal transplant operation (using Morton's <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2010/11/dead-mans-eyes-1944.html">dead man's eyes</a>) that will hopefully restore Tony's sight and allow him to recognize his attacker, the shadowy, surgical-glove-wearing killer appears in the middle of the night on the fire escape outside of Tony's room and hurls a scalpel at him through some venetian blinds.</span><span> </span><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF13t46Kp5L2MLIuOJ-_R73ORRRdF5R7vCVip3XUhZ82ex7Wzg2yBCsn66AYWdmGJMYtu_HC3FULGLKunFP8Nh22b_fOaEbaQd8WlTaZz5_ERFvvVmCukZV28Kqq8lXdW1Ti8B9-upgD2y/s1600/motwr_shock.jpg"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg6KIvUu71rrLH9vymrmoo7uTAltpzD3eOXPCUbsqnHaK_BBQ5wk7unolMsiIdoo7k_9VLTMj_Gz031BQLsVuFIc6-bVYVcEZ6KRi1C7J6oS5ILCGXsgUx934mxTY3af5DyB1kIThuv3ZR/s1600/motwr_tony.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 319px; height: 233px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg6KIvUu71rrLH9vymrmoo7uTAltpzD3eOXPCUbsqnHaK_BBQ5wk7unolMsiIdoo7k_9VLTMj_Gz031BQLsVuFIc6-bVYVcEZ6KRi1C7J6oS5ILCGXsgUx934mxTY3af5DyB1kIThuv3ZR/s400/motwr_tony.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567828912485406866" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbXjnk0W6WQwm7-Aztx4PhQPfiVEOQRd7COsSl2cRebVVkUJPvAxARbHvyYGjDjyy4t0Zwilib4hrI1Gg1Xz47hA0xjjTjl504AoVKYOkN5wBWEOyqNGzHLcvGwhhGupvR2XN6Zf1UtgsG/s1600/motwr_scapels.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 327px; height: 233px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbXjnk0W6WQwm7-Aztx4PhQPfiVEOQRd7COsSl2cRebVVkUJPvAxARbHvyYGjDjyy4t0Zwilib4hrI1Gg1Xz47hA0xjjTjl504AoVKYOkN5wBWEOyqNGzHLcvGwhhGupvR2XN6Zf1UtgsG/s400/motwr_scapels.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567828792484858578" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7uuMiCacVtrQzGvGAFP9fCiZf5VCW3XhQ3S_XTySQGOQp7UqyxO4FSNWTEqieA57Fy85maJ6IBZO3kzOchswd8xTnRoBKDhhiV09YcGxddfihdQMJNFzorjD0biBACbIRZPuhwzPQstsc/s1600/motwr_scapel+attack.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 341px; height: 251px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7uuMiCacVtrQzGvGAFP9fCiZf5VCW3XhQ3S_XTySQGOQp7UqyxO4FSNWTEqieA57Fy85maJ6IBZO3kzOchswd8xTnRoBKDhhiV09YcGxddfihdQMJNFzorjD0biBACbIRZPuhwzPQstsc/s400/motwr_scapel+attack.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567828729865639842" border="0" /></a> <span>But none</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span><span>of these almost-horror tweaks is enough to make MYSTERY OF THE WHITE ROOM into anything other than a </span><span>B-movie murder-mystery of the 1930s</span>. The cast is interesting one that connects MYSTERY OF THE WHITE ROOM to KING OF THE ZOMBIES, KING KONG, SON OF KONG, MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM, DR. X, HOUSE OF FEAR, MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE MUMMY'S CURSE, MAN MADE MONSTER, VALLEY OF THE ZOMBIES, and some of other things, but there's really not a whiff of horror to be had despite the best efforts of some TV horror hosts over the years.<br /></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPZGWhSkBI6wI0V83v8IAq3OWSEEY-qSx884mo0Zdp_DWn39wxLz-9zh3WGZz2sV2MUGS-UMs0W6yYM24UkO8a14OCOJYq6OLGU-qiQolOa6Veh339xgz0KUhdsw8NxkFzPSqWTNJlLqp4/s1600/WR_San+Antonio+Express+TxMay0258.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 102px; height: 572px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPZGWhSkBI6wI0V83v8IAq3OWSEEY-qSx884mo0Zdp_DWn39wxLz-9zh3WGZz2sV2MUGS-UMs0W6yYM24UkO8a14OCOJYq6OLGU-qiQolOa6Veh339xgz0KUhdsw8NxkFzPSqWTNJlLqp4/s400/WR_San+Antonio+Express+TxMay0258.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567841376683776002" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >San Antonio</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> [TX] <span style="font-style: italic;">Express</span>, May 2, 1958</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The copy in this oddly-shaped ad reads in part: "A mystery 'Shock' thriller about the terror that stalks the corridors of a hospital. To bed before the Witching Hour"</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjusXNjsDEWKaBj9DZ-93L2v7YhSMNCPvzLnMJJks7bzLAgHsAjTE9zRKM_tgfLnrGY4_Wih3e2eRVv6XU1jw7gCQMdzEp0YYjl9aSQqtsS4c9pZDk1AMXKeBgMksJwGUYgy3QGDfiRMuql/s1600/WR_Daily+Review+Hayward+CA+Apr0960.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 227px; height: 153px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjusXNjsDEWKaBj9DZ-93L2v7YhSMNCPvzLnMJJks7bzLAgHsAjTE9zRKM_tgfLnrGY4_Wih3e2eRVv6XU1jw7gCQMdzEp0YYjl9aSQqtsS4c9pZDk1AMXKeBgMksJwGUYgy3QGDfiRMuql/s400/WR_Daily+Review+Hayward+CA+Apr0960.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567828519251676594" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Daily Review</span> Hayward, CA, April 9, 1960</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-xssT7XYuLEEoNsONbH9ICKzhjWHDr6DLzaakk3LJLVeqmdSdacrGgHPrJeoUu5WnBUvAd7zeTuFCfzrvDg_FB7tttdiB_IWUFL29HRmf7EksAJq3-4Z3dF3qTyqAyD_5zBiIfc3Aa0Bk/s1600/white+room_The+Capital+Annapolis+MD+Dec2273.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 236px; height: 104px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-xssT7XYuLEEoNsONbH9ICKzhjWHDr6DLzaakk3LJLVeqmdSdacrGgHPrJeoUu5WnBUvAd7zeTuFCfzrvDg_FB7tttdiB_IWUFL29HRmf7EksAJq3-4Z3dF3qTyqAyD_5zBiIfc3Aa0Bk/s400/white+room_The+Capital+Annapolis+MD+Dec2273.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567828441694335106" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Capital</span>, Annapolis, MD, December 22, 1973</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">MYSTERY OF THE WHITE ROOM was one of three "Crime Club" movies that Screen Gems had bundled into the SHOCK! assortment for TV (Universal made eight all together between 1937-39 and MYSTERY OF THE WHITE ROOM was the second to last). <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mirek</span> mentioned the "Crime Club" series in <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2008/06/crime-club.html">a post here </a>two and a half years ago; the helpful <a href="http://the-crime-club.blogspot.com/">"Crime Club" blog</a> sketches out the history of Doubleday's series and includes mention of both the Universal film series and the radio show (CBS 1931-32; Mutual 1946-47). According to that blog, Universal subcontracted Irving Starr Productions to make the films and retained control over only half of them later on, with the last three being sold off to Screen Gems in 1957. I know nothing about the history of the book series' sales figures or its popularity in the late 1950s-- would knowing that this was a "Crime Club" movie draw in viewers to the SHOCK! telecast? I didn't see any promotion of that angle in the television listings, so maybe not...<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">From the perspective of 2011, the copyright business seems tangled enough to doom MYSTERY OF THE WHITE ROOM to never appear on legitimately-licensed DVD. There's not a big market for obscure B-movie thrillers these days, particularly those that would require some expensive legal wrangling to secure the rights. That's unfortunate, because this might be the best of the "Crime Club" bunch-- once the relationships between all the characters are established in the first reel, this 58-minute film plugs right along and does its damnedest to cover up some of its flaws in narrative logic. And the sprinkles of weirdness help this one go down easy on late-night viewing.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">(As a footnote to this, let me add that any viewer interested in seeing a murder-mystery set in a hospital ought to check out the well-made British film GREEN FOR DANGER [1946].)<br /></div><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF13t46Kp5L2MLIuOJ-_R73ORRRdF5R7vCVip3XUhZ82ex7Wzg2yBCsn66AYWdmGJMYtu_HC3FULGLKunFP8Nh22b_fOaEbaQd8WlTaZz5_ERFvvVmCukZV28Kqq8lXdW1Ti8B9-upgD2y/s1600/motwr_shock.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 352px; height: 270px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF13t46Kp5L2MLIuOJ-_R73ORRRdF5R7vCVip3XUhZ82ex7Wzg2yBCsn66AYWdmGJMYtu_HC3FULGLKunFP8Nh22b_fOaEbaQd8WlTaZz5_ERFvvVmCukZV28Kqq8lXdW1Ti8B9-upgD2y/s400/motwr_shock.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567828846191168002" border="0" /></a><br /><span>MYSTERY OF THE WHITE ROOM page from the SHOCK! catalog:<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJouclnwvroVdmcPJhoDdJxr8YDLqFkQoFldlmfoiDg7Ooa4NXnWMXq1m-sE2kQxwTWZIbvmy6Gt5l2VLOjBgM2jKiYDBNnUrpGM5uS5imHhY1ELjmlLif0kMJ9ioausNNloI28GwxjEak/s1600/shockmysterywhiteroom.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 315px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJouclnwvroVdmcPJhoDdJxr8YDLqFkQoFldlmfoiDg7Ooa4NXnWMXq1m-sE2kQxwTWZIbvmy6Gt5l2VLOjBgM2jKiYDBNnUrpGM5uS5imHhY1ELjmlLif0kMJ9ioausNNloI28GwxjEak/s400/shockmysterywhiteroom.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679877093576654322" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">click to make larger<br /></span></div><span><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">NEXT:</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> "They accused him of risking human lives for his experiment! Shrieking headlines declared he invented a mechanical monster. For top thrills and excitement in televiewing, see William Gargan fight the man-made terror stalking the skies in REPORTED MISSING, the Shock feature film presentation coming on this channel."</span>The Creeping Bridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06164625940022489443noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-38167417457971447582011-01-28T19:42:00.000-08:002011-01-28T19:47:05.899-08:00WEIRD WOMAN (1944)<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2kvpLlbEBpJBwYNo7lZHas4kOe47XyJXQjzohFyuGuaBSkedXNtvhhyphenhyphen6l9lbDBtMVBQlPfVj8h4d6he6czgPulsXwpX4bN2G1fZFnlQZ0nJhquzwZA524oHWH1T5MGv1jPiIMjjbe8Bo_/s1600/ww_fetish+doll.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2kvpLlbEBpJBwYNo7lZHas4kOe47XyJXQjzohFyuGuaBSkedXNtvhhyphenhyphen6l9lbDBtMVBQlPfVj8h4d6he6czgPulsXwpX4bN2G1fZFnlQZ0nJhquzwZA524oHWH1T5MGv1jPiIMjjbe8Bo_/s400/ww_fetish+doll.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567434302764312002" border="0" /></a>Monroe College sociology professor Norman Reed (Lon Chaney, Jr.) is jinxed. A "mental giant" and a rising star, Reed has just returned from a jaunt somewhere in the tropical isles of the South Seas; he has brought back with him new research for a groundbreaking study on religion called <span style="font-style: italic;">Superstition vs. Science and Fact</span> and a new wife, a lovely woman-child native priestess named Paula (Anne Gwynne). He seemed to be on the fast-track to becoming department chair, but that's when things spiraled out of control: his colleague Professor Millard Sawtelle (Ralph Morgan) shot himself to avoid a possible plagiarism scandal; Sawtelle's Lady Macbethian wife Evelyn (Elizabeth Russell) accuses Reed and his "witch" of engineering the scandal; and nasty rumors that Reed "has taken advantage of" his pretty undergraduate research assistant (Lois Collier, who may have been recognized by some SHOCK! viewers for her recurring appearances between 1951 and 1953 on Ziv's "Boston Blackie" TV show) dog him all over campus-- in fact, Reed is said to have beaten up his assistant's boyfriend when the latter tried to defend her honor. Then, while Paula continues to be the target of terrorizing harassment by Reed's bitter ex-lover Ilona (Evelyn Ankers), there is shooting on campus and the blame falls on Reed.<br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8nJ7N2Lq84xesCh_N-7c6uY2LezJj-ZzXqx5xU-ARgb401f0AZ8X2Z7vW2DWkICBzfCqXWtD-WF6E7eCOtMCcSW69x1RhHklfiie066Cs7KlpmZXr2fgGjs0-sxbhm5UqEiLrloEm-8Ly/s1600/ww_mans+struggle.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 376px; height: 282px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8nJ7N2Lq84xesCh_N-7c6uY2LezJj-ZzXqx5xU-ARgb401f0AZ8X2Z7vW2DWkICBzfCqXWtD-WF6E7eCOtMCcSW69x1RhHklfiie066Cs7KlpmZXr2fgGjs0-sxbhm5UqEiLrloEm-8Ly/s400/ww_mans+struggle.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567434495592403362" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8cBBx0iCYBqY5vr6rd34MJWnyEZT6v-YnhdiEOPhSVNpPd9N8ECmVsVCEqGFcAUX82NVYMS4l3k8kS_jyfnfStuzy0euHxf7lfi2bvoDfwk52_nskvwzyfUKUEQNB1tvigEA_1xj936GR/s1600/weird_Salt+Lake+TribuneFeb2760.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 358px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8cBBx0iCYBqY5vr6rd34MJWnyEZT6v-YnhdiEOPhSVNpPd9N8ECmVsVCEqGFcAUX82NVYMS4l3k8kS_jyfnfStuzy0euHxf7lfi2bvoDfwk52_nskvwzyfUKUEQNB1tvigEA_1xj936GR/s400/weird_Salt+Lake+TribuneFeb2760.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567429390487852258" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Ad for KUTV-Channel 2's "Shock Theater" with horror-host Roderick in </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Salt Lake </span>[UT] <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span>, February 27, 1960</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">. </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;">COUNTER-ESPIONAGE (1942) was one of the "Lone Wolf" mystery-thrillers</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">As I've said previously when I've written about <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2008/07/inner-sanctum-mysteries.html">the Inner Sanctum series</a> in the SHOCK! collection, these were popular with audiences when they were first released and when theatrically re-released (WEIRD WOMAN made the rounds again starting in 1952). I've also seen a few of them turn up as special midnight spook shows, so Screen Gems' inclusion of these titles in SHOCK! was probably viewed as a selling point for the package.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAbwJVaeUQx_s6lqmtNSQbkrH8tzKEdjctP07S-tAvUSSW5EMbQtr78E1e34KXZ4zZKGgUOFhpZhT2TxhIQNJGqgg5WjFu-b06h-BQG5Q8KjzGO600lNxP6VWQGThBPnYbj2WAjK4IJdOy/s1600/san+antonio+light+6jun57.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 275px; height: 441px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAbwJVaeUQx_s6lqmtNSQbkrH8tzKEdjctP07S-tAvUSSW5EMbQtr78E1e34KXZ4zZKGgUOFhpZhT2TxhIQNJGqgg5WjFu-b06h-BQG5Q8KjzGO600lNxP6VWQGThBPnYbj2WAjK4IJdOy/s400/san+antonio+light+6jun57.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567435522022119010" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">San Antonio</span> [TX] <span style="font-style: italic;">Light</span>, June 6, 1957</span>. <span style="font-size:85%;">What a Universal horror drive-in line-up! WEIRD WOMAN (the typo that pluralizes the title is actually more accurate considering what happens in the movie) is shown here on Monday night with NIGHT MONSTER.</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOk15Fub853w6FPhdmHXOL-w9TOEugvc_YCwui78hFxRAq76SFE8Gp3jeRezcrEpkoToOU9iajV7-xel99ntWeqa_wh74gPp0UuhyphenhyphenCBtu5Z5sNnelzEjABLfRiom1CenIKPjLS-xcqdYJN/s1600/ww_Daily+RepublicMitchellSDFeb2461.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 119px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOk15Fub853w6FPhdmHXOL-w9TOEugvc_YCwui78hFxRAq76SFE8Gp3jeRezcrEpkoToOU9iajV7-xel99ntWeqa_wh74gPp0UuhyphenhyphenCBtu5Z5sNnelzEjABLfRiom1CenIKPjLS-xcqdYJN/s400/ww_Daily+RepublicMitchellSDFeb2461.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567429489506053810" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Daily Republic</span>, Mitchell, SD, February 24, 1961</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Many fans seem to like WEIRD WOMAN best; I prefer it because there is at least a not-easily-explained-away supernatural thread that runs through this picture that you don't find in the other five films of the series. But I also like it because of the almost campy level of neurotic hysteria that energizes everything here, particularly Paula, Ilona, and Evelyn (when all is said and done, who is the titular weird woman, anyway?).<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQGIxTHfFVMP-9yrPabxfs7grdOu9xgtxIkrAE3IZI9yrtWrqNSnrAzR3gQuQuzjDfwssmRGUl8FRNc9ifxOH56lDehLxLQ3K0GhU1xo4Iae_-eL_f3eGQ9QlzvMJn1u1iEM6tYQ4402FA/s1600/ww_russell.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQGIxTHfFVMP-9yrPabxfs7grdOu9xgtxIkrAE3IZI9yrtWrqNSnrAzR3gQuQuzjDfwssmRGUl8FRNc9ifxOH56lDehLxLQ3K0GhU1xo4Iae_-eL_f3eGQ9QlzvMJn1u1iEM6tYQ4402FA/s400/ww_russell.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567434550522390066" border="0" /></a>Ordinarily, watching WEIRD WOMAN elicits a few harsh hoots of derisive laughter from me, but I made a very conscientious effort to watch it in good faith this time for the SHOCK! Viewing Project. Lon Chaney, Jr. still seems miscast as the brilliant and desirable intellectual, and his acting cannot keep up with the work done here by Gwynne, Ankers, and Russell, but I wanted to avoid thinking about that and just try to focus on the persistence of supernatural elements in an effort to recreate the horror-movie-on-TV experience as best as I could. And I feel that I largely succeeded-- I think that I could see WEIRD WOMAN's horror movie appeal for the first time.<br /></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Bx3mAhHeZokVkCOVJfmYqPbEQ0sc1xFc_k83unRVkuOBW4RswpmwXQkEQrd-KW_MhyphenhyphenUUsfDCO-Tpme8DvnCmJUf7gLfDTBHMGbHOJ6qSzrlqoYUi2tx7NB8kp_P4oYigZDHRwSt9qzU5/s1600/ww_lobby.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 296px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Bx3mAhHeZokVkCOVJfmYqPbEQ0sc1xFc_k83unRVkuOBW4RswpmwXQkEQrd-KW_MhyphenhyphenUUsfDCO-Tpme8DvnCmJUf7gLfDTBHMGbHOJ6qSzrlqoYUi2tx7NB8kp_P4oYigZDHRwSt9qzU5/s400/ww_lobby.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567430227327610850" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB_Zj_IlOjq4bseUCv1-M71vUnOpJu8fvRap75xnV2TXsD2mRFfX_yveMaiCgEL7P4TfcrhWtCT1Zmbb7-q_Y-sKci7Qh0W5YAr8GrGiB2Qgh3U33JUvs3MVJT0VIQFbwB1HNI7jv1eCmT/s1600/ww_lobby-detail.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 136px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB_Zj_IlOjq4bseUCv1-M71vUnOpJu8fvRap75xnV2TXsD2mRFfX_yveMaiCgEL7P4TfcrhWtCT1Zmbb7-q_Y-sKci7Qh0W5YAr8GrGiB2Qgh3U33JUvs3MVJT0VIQFbwB1HNI7jv1eCmT/s400/ww_lobby-detail.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567430279948971266" border="0" /></a>A big stumbling block for me, though, was the handling of the dance and prayer ceremony on Paula's island. In <span style="font-style: italic;">Drums o' Terror: Voodoo in the Cinema </span><span>(1998)</span>, Bryan Senn describes this more as "a genteel luau" than a "frenzied rite": "Though Paula ominously labels it the 'Dance of Death,' sarong-wearing native girls pathetically stomp their feet and clap and wave their hands in an innocuously choreographed motion, making this weird pagan ritual look like low-rent nightclub filler." I have to wonder if the ceremony could have had a more disturbing edge in the hands of a director other than Reginald LeBorg (John Fulton's shooting star that crosses the sky at the climax of the Dance of Death looked good, though).<br /></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihPmcbvKKPyw7Z8E_1k0ingG6KxXHoUhb35KcMsQT9lsdXg8G-xEttmflH_za77d5u-uJNNqMkv6spuYvmBWp6NfS06nIEA26SkVlyDHLUsh6tZPINW9m_OQvsRY9JgagLXurGmzmgRPZv/s1600/ww_kahuna+idol.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 398px; height: 298px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihPmcbvKKPyw7Z8E_1k0ingG6KxXHoUhb35KcMsQT9lsdXg8G-xEttmflH_za77d5u-uJNNqMkv6spuYvmBWp6NfS06nIEA26SkVlyDHLUsh6tZPINW9m_OQvsRY9JgagLXurGmzmgRPZv/s400/ww_kahuna+idol.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567434362389636738" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEFFVagSej2LMX5daIXS6cBhE-c0Y9Te2B04HCA7sU7yFZC-cEahTqEHr4e8eFbgacWfOEnv8lbPE1hQ2RsxvJXrK1MemdoAzolZCfjEgIMuCk68c7PDwxvkeMI0lzPR-4uvimC3mHRphE/s1600/swingshift.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 302px; height: 170px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEFFVagSej2LMX5daIXS6cBhE-c0Y9Te2B04HCA7sU7yFZC-cEahTqEHr4e8eFbgacWfOEnv8lbPE1hQ2RsxvJXrK1MemdoAzolZCfjEgIMuCk68c7PDwxvkeMI0lzPR-4uvimC3mHRphE/s400/swingshift.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567430151050916082" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Dunkirk Evening Observer</span>, Dunkirk-Fredonia, NY, January 14, 1958<br /></span></div><span><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>I enjoy seeing some of the names that television stations used for their </span><span>late-night movies-on-TV showcases. "Operation: Swing Shift" on WGR-Channel 2 in Buffalo, NY is one of the most unusual names. "Operation: Swing Shift" featured a variety of film genres in their offerings and very few of them seemed to have been horror films.</span><br /></div><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjprP-ke0MJSrS0Bhkx7Pf_GXXOweZVmMC-J_9jEIGCugE-cGOF0_fSzhseQaFKAreKM7lKelKTvLricWpa2-DfzJdcMKpULP5PXyHBkcHMf_XO1DAq32pK0L9H-At1Ap92Sjgfo9lVxc3C/s1600/weird_woman_poster_01.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 281px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjprP-ke0MJSrS0Bhkx7Pf_GXXOweZVmMC-J_9jEIGCugE-cGOF0_fSzhseQaFKAreKM7lKelKTvLricWpa2-DfzJdcMKpULP5PXyHBkcHMf_XO1DAq32pK0L9H-At1Ap92Sjgfo9lVxc3C/s400/weird_woman_poster_01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564494413405636770" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">NEXT:</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> "A young doctor-- a beautiful nurse-- and murder! For spine-chilling entertainment, set your dial to this channel and see MYSTERY OF THE WHITE ROOM starring Bruce Cabot. It's an absorbing feature film, another premiere telecast on Shock. Don't miss MYSTERY OF THE WHITE ROOM." </span><br /></div>The Creeping Bridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06164625940022489443noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-72995392150002577932011-01-24T02:03:00.000-08:002011-01-24T02:03:00.241-08:00THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET (1942)<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjZeVUfXRBygegjF2WOnE1CCF1x7wSmtQyJjM03pQiRPZGaBKKXWPRgiHTcHM25ZDkZ0oJATTYyEgDLpJEA5Dh4HBpxE8dY7YdxSqHOe8sN7CV1aK2JArukbccCViLAZ5rvNJ2592dPIzd/s1600/momr_morgue.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 314px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjZeVUfXRBygegjF2WOnE1CCF1x7wSmtQyJjM03pQiRPZGaBKKXWPRgiHTcHM25ZDkZ0oJATTYyEgDLpJEA5Dh4HBpxE8dY7YdxSqHOe8sN7CV1aK2JArukbccCViLAZ5rvNJ2592dPIzd/s400/momr_morgue.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565205955377610050" border="0" /></a>There is no monster, nor is there any supernatural or paranormal menace. But there are two very sinister humans-- one who murders and mutilates beyond recognition the faces of two women; another who is a greedy, amoral sociopath whose disembodied brain (stolen from the Paris morgue in the middle of the night) is ruled as pathological by an examining criminologist. And there's also a ton of nighttime gothic gaslight atmosphere that makes the movie interesting to look at (even though it's not that great to watch). So while there are others who will complain that THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET is just a murder-mystery that has gotten a lot of hot-air horror-film hype over the years, I'm going to say that it is a very minor Universal horror film that would satisfy those viewers who can tolerate a weird mystery or two every once in a while in their monster-movie diet.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYWu1LEcxQfevI400Fba_KBCsfLqQ0-fEt_qVW5MNs6LeIzfC_-DCEYdbcgXnmRYS3-8R40rjbDntKDQbfIvR55XmGxKJJi8ZKHzN4oQd0K2cir3pDYDdd8X9H0yEPFDSHnAZ9K26qwZBp/s1600/momr_headline.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 224px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYWu1LEcxQfevI400Fba_KBCsfLqQ0-fEt_qVW5MNs6LeIzfC_-DCEYdbcgXnmRYS3-8R40rjbDntKDQbfIvR55XmGxKJJi8ZKHzN4oQd0K2cir3pDYDdd8X9H0yEPFDSHnAZ9K26qwZBp/s400/momr_headline.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565215161481602674" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">Paris, 1889: Hot-ticket Comédie-Française warbler Marie Roget (Maria Montez) has been missing for a week and half, prompting all of Paris (it seems) into speculation that she's either run off with one of her lovers or fallen victim to foul play. Minister of Naval Affairs Henri Beauvais (John Litel), an intimate friend of the Roget family (especially of Marie's, it turns out), pressures Prefect of Police Gobelin (Lloyd Corrigan) to solve the case. Gobelin calls on his pal, police forensic chemist Dr Paul Dupin (Patric Knowles), for help. Dupin is famous for having solved the ghastly Rue Morgue murders some years back, and he agrees to help out just as word comes that a horribly disfigured corpse of a young woman has been dragged out of the Seine.</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIQt4zmmm4Fer0QlooIv7dgeEq4xvYLGf9D-Kqu1DL-Lg0sVSPpTAaG1nInEgZ4SPmQV2fEfGC5Vh8llMkUiu2NJbrks_xigeRxIIjLB52dDe55kExQd2x4HerWjoQNAOI95rYpIewfH9C/s1600/momr_San+Mateo+Times+Aug1658.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 256px; height: 132px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIQt4zmmm4Fer0QlooIv7dgeEq4xvYLGf9D-Kqu1DL-Lg0sVSPpTAaG1nInEgZ4SPmQV2fEfGC5Vh8llMkUiu2NJbrks_xigeRxIIjLB52dDe55kExQd2x4HerWjoQNAOI95rYpIewfH9C/s400/momr_San+Mateo+Times+Aug1658.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563727865035504386" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">San Mateo</span>[CA] <span style="font-style: italic;">Times</span>, August 16, 1958</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Things get cluttered and confusing quickly from there: Dupin is hired by the cantankerous Roget matriarch <span style="font-size:100%;">(Maria Ouspenskaya) to bodyguard Marie's stepsister Camille (Nell O'Day, almost looking like a monochrome Gillian Anderson in a few shots) at a swanky party; Camille's sketchy </span><span style="font-size:100%;">fiancé Marcel</span> Vigneaux (Edward Norris) lurks around and muddies the water a bit; Marie disappears again; Beauvais threatens and blusters and looks suspicious; Madame Roget's pet leopard is accused of mauling the faces of the dead women; and Dupin and Gobelin argue about who and what is behind it all.<br /></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Peor8m87tLwV9MRXsM-UvqYWxR5NhfrD14FRgvLqnaIoAowPAipqeBVM4IqQCM6YXkvKVbd30vprG36hvJ6sUVKDhapJw2Iuw7pQxv0EAoU3CfeJN_1fFcLuhP_zneMPbQisiVJoExvr/s1600/momr_Gazette-Mail+May0458.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 257px; height: 230px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Peor8m87tLwV9MRXsM-UvqYWxR5NhfrD14FRgvLqnaIoAowPAipqeBVM4IqQCM6YXkvKVbd30vprG36hvJ6sUVKDhapJw2Iuw7pQxv0EAoU3CfeJN_1fFcLuhP_zneMPbQisiVJoExvr/s400/momr_Gazette-Mail+May0458.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563727785177249090" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Gazette-Mail</span>, Charleston, WV, May4, 1958</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdRCMZ0Nd_5Kx_I3W3lWsapoefqWyNH-4DzrPJOmHPvxYnIHUrcdtsgqcgAEUEP38NctrFfxN2vtryzpcpXVIbl1zbpMuW43DyqR4yz5vN7j4iWva0ZpEzRxaRVrCwBAr76GLX8yoqeKD8/s1600/momr_leopard.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 223px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdRCMZ0Nd_5Kx_I3W3lWsapoefqWyNH-4DzrPJOmHPvxYnIHUrcdtsgqcgAEUEP38NctrFfxN2vtryzpcpXVIbl1zbpMuW43DyqR4yz5vN7j4iWva0ZpEzRxaRVrCwBAr76GLX8yoqeKD8/s400/momr_leopard.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565219321030062274" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRHJlqheIcPV3k14bIBWHOZaX9w_gY0BwVmibcnCEryJy2t5hoH5-3o5zZVoKVd4b2GeN6Xch-nM6xYKL2Y0bqYKTropjW8uWIgijBuCJiuJq-qy7NLvHWEOFWIxJLb94gdLh5ZQG4KpCZ/s1600/momr_prowler.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRHJlqheIcPV3k14bIBWHOZaX9w_gY0BwVmibcnCEryJy2t5hoH5-3o5zZVoKVd4b2GeN6Xch-nM6xYKL2Y0bqYKTropjW8uWIgijBuCJiuJq-qy7NLvHWEOFWIxJLb94gdLh5ZQG4KpCZ/s400/momr_prowler.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565219752688948914" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">To be honest, the mystery doesn't work at all-- none of it makes a lot of sense when the movie is over and you try to figure out some of the basics (like motive). This is frustrating since the movie is very talky in parts as Dupin (as Sherlock Holmes) and Gobelin (as a cross between Dr. Watson and Inspector Lestrade) work through various scenarios in their efforts to solve the case, yet the solution still leaves a lot of unanswered questions: with all the yammering that these two do, why didn't they also have a conversation that ties up all the loose ends of the case instead of introducing more complications? So, as a viewer in search of maximum enjoyment, it's probably just best to kick back and go along for the ride.<br /><br />Viewers would be less forgiving, I suspect, if not for the impressive work of director of photography Woody Bredell. Bredell did good, textured cinematography for BLACK FRIDAY, <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2010/12/mummys-hand-1940.html">THE MUMMY'S HAND</a>, HORROR ISLAND, SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE VOICE OF TERROR, MAN MADE MONSTER, and THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, as well as the very visually-interesting <span style="font-style: italic;">films noir</span>s THE KILLERS, PHANTOM LADY, and THE UNSUSPECTED. The night scenes in THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET (and there are a lot of them) are really well-done and must have worked wonderfully on late-night SHOCK! television. Whatever horror movie ambiance is in this movie comes from Bredell and he does a helluva job that these screen-caps can't even begin to illustrate. (Perhaps someday soon this title will turn up as a Universal manufactured-on-demand DVD-R like HOUSE OF SEVEN GABLES [1940] recently did and I can finally throw away my murky bootlegs.) </div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvgpomTWBmpxnhbp19hEXXm3fRZEu2Th6GL01di4sbZLqBO_ytN-0GZbbx5VqFCQl_FLvH0vFqJyhRpwrlhEEt0TGNpF8ala4QMG8hrdeFSocBxAuTFh3_bQRe9AHkoUWpnEuqRsWKlIfL/s1600/momr_deluc+garden.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvgpomTWBmpxnhbp19hEXXm3fRZEu2Th6GL01di4sbZLqBO_ytN-0GZbbx5VqFCQl_FLvH0vFqJyhRpwrlhEEt0TGNpF8ala4QMG8hrdeFSocBxAuTFh3_bQRe9AHkoUWpnEuqRsWKlIfL/s400/momr_deluc+garden.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565226474383044658" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">One of the many mysterious nocturnal comings and goings in the garden during Du Lac's party </span></span><br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJFr525o_m9SzIj2c9qVe8vVjufJqQ616qdNIMO9s9ENitDwpzzr3j9hNbDLKDfwe8E1p65i6sLbQgL1H2OoTSCgzg01m4DqtjInEtt32KnQyhT3YbzABI1Psmq7XmoHn35PjfFuAoF62K/s1600/momr_carriage+chase.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJFr525o_m9SzIj2c9qVe8vVjufJqQ616qdNIMO9s9ENitDwpzzr3j9hNbDLKDfwe8E1p65i6sLbQgL1H2OoTSCgzg01m4DqtjInEtt32KnQyhT3YbzABI1Psmq7XmoHn35PjfFuAoF62K/s400/momr_carriage+chase.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565226611513761778" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Lots of coaches zipping through the wet, cobble-stoned streets of Universal's European village set</span></span><br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowHiRTnYbBBOZtsJUhYfqVmvuAVaYjEPwXXTzvxdWQCjUkhQKGhkNZd9GpOslpnFhWpv_yU8fbRLV2Rm1xMqHn6RoTI7NWG3knXSblHmAacfFWEBEDdrMEBcdNwjEJYsqtYUFi8_h26dT/s1600/momr_rooftops.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowHiRTnYbBBOZtsJUhYfqVmvuAVaYjEPwXXTzvxdWQCjUkhQKGhkNZd9GpOslpnFhWpv_yU8fbRLV2Rm1xMqHn6RoTI7NWG3knXSblHmAacfFWEBEDdrMEBcdNwjEJYsqtYUFi8_h26dT/s400/momr_rooftops.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565226789952310178" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The cloaked killer escaping across the Paris rooftops in the dead of night</span></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Armed with the Edgar Allan Poe pedigree for this tale, Universal's publicity department did a lot to convince people that this was a straight-ahead horror flick-- the original theatrical trailer for THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET that <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mirek </span>posted on Friday certainly seems to push things in that direction as does this movie poster with its spectral, scarlet-cloaked fiend with clawed, clutching hands.<br /></div></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmLBam2TZEjaUWJonGTfR5OEB034zRWDrFVZwB44gXxkWz7dCX1aCjEIe1TXE15QuDUficHau0G2QONp4jcON3NjjcQQEyOrhZiFp9lLEsf3fM-iXEL0YNwCLKhMKH7rIMN1E10lI4QgOT/s1600/mysteryofMarieRoget.jpeg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 270px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmLBam2TZEjaUWJonGTfR5OEB034zRWDrFVZwB44gXxkWz7dCX1aCjEIe1TXE15QuDUficHau0G2QONp4jcON3NjjcQQEyOrhZiFp9lLEsf3fM-iXEL0YNwCLKhMKH7rIMN1E10lI4QgOT/s400/mysteryofMarieRoget.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565219604880483586" border="0" /></a>Realart Pictures followed Universal's lead when it re-released THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET in 1951. They refer to the killer as "the Phantom Mangler" in the promotional materials (the name sounds like a foe in an El Santo movie), re-titled the film PHANTOM OF PARIS, and sent it back out to theaters as part of a double-feature with WEREWOLF OF LONDON.<br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD2WuIqoHmLZAyEkoTQWXOrOlwN6S-9QFkQM_gwg2K69ydxAMCU6JhiFthBoS4X-TJzs2NqPDoCLbxfdfEZLgKEwLZgDUrd-r6kFJscWqGr4JhuGXCL3OdlRJng_EpujBM7DZlgWPqxjVY/s1600/mystery+of+marie+roget.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 295px; height: 446px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD2WuIqoHmLZAyEkoTQWXOrOlwN6S-9QFkQM_gwg2K69ydxAMCU6JhiFthBoS4X-TJzs2NqPDoCLbxfdfEZLgKEwLZgDUrd-r6kFJscWqGr4JhuGXCL3OdlRJng_EpujBM7DZlgWPqxjVY/s400/mystery+of+marie+roget.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563727395974374290" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgFvEAC41X6OE6kIa-c7tXnnvHTVuD_agH1RmzJ00ZZqtqKMSKd4wveOD9ysqY9wMtGI9NqgDgY-cL9DyUml0fmjkiLoBcdrjpbDgS59dDuHWbTwa7r6vkZTLeyuNZ1Y7QlSw0CAvWmBNn/s1600/Charleston+Daily+Mail+Feb1352.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 208px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgFvEAC41X6OE6kIa-c7tXnnvHTVuD_agH1RmzJ00ZZqtqKMSKd4wveOD9ysqY9wMtGI9NqgDgY-cL9DyUml0fmjkiLoBcdrjpbDgS59dDuHWbTwa7r6vkZTLeyuNZ1Y7QlSw0CAvWmBNn/s400/Charleston+Daily+Mail+Feb1352.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563735421206944146" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Charleston</span> [WV] <span style="font-style: italic;">Daily Mail</span>, February 13, 1952</span><br /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><div style="text-align: justify;">But I've got no problems with this sort of packaging because this movie delivers a satisfying kind of horror-movie atmosphere that is missing from many other SHOCK! offerings. For all of its lack of narrative logic and general incoherence, THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET could hold its own against one of the spookier Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies (such as THE SCARLET CLAW or THE PEARL OF DEATH), dopey "Inner Sanctum" titles like <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2010/12/frozen-ghost-1945.html">THE FROZEN GHOST</a> and THE PILLOW OF DEATH, and not-so-weird mysteries like <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2010/11/cat-creeps-1946.html">THE CAT CREEPS</a> and <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2010/10/she-wolf-of-london-1946.html">SHE-WOLF OF LONDON</a>.<br /></div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-o8f8eCOnhFH3XsrVMhGDgG_EFZxvh1KLCKP_41Pl8OpeXdG46FydeHw3UckrfUmrGn1t9JOCHu7c0cMbdaC1_8_wv4f8uSp36dY27pvy1nrthFXLBvOJ81Apo_F7LQqNV57Z5C2XHuy/s1600/roget+still.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-o8f8eCOnhFH3XsrVMhGDgG_EFZxvh1KLCKP_41Pl8OpeXdG46FydeHw3UckrfUmrGn1t9JOCHu7c0cMbdaC1_8_wv4f8uSp36dY27pvy1nrthFXLBvOJ81Apo_F7LQqNV57Z5C2XHuy/s400/roget+still.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563727580902843394" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><br />NEXT:</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> "Superstition and fear terrorize a tropic island in WEIRD WOMAN, the full-length feature film on this channel. It's an exciting Shock premiere. Don't miss it!"</span>The Creeping Bridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06164625940022489443noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-47112851122328720132011-01-21T10:00:00.001-08:002011-01-21T10:02:03.807-08:00THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET preview<span style="font-style:italic;">"Is she a beautiful beast? Maddening with her soft caress-- murdering with steel-clawed terror? Only Edgar Allan Poe could pen such a masterpiece of horror and thrills. See THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET, the full-length feature film on Shock on this channel."</span><br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="400" height="364" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rdUXnayeqOg" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-75512291181133341352011-01-19T01:31:00.000-08:002011-01-20T06:52:59.115-08:00THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET (1942)<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGgWoR3DnRrPMc9pp5TaA4Ta0bWqAlJCJF5hlJz5ZQyMoO2NEaVHRij_4sqDVFBktaxbQloQ1J1NoPstoZLUnsD3Zv6aWP3aJ-OlfgFw7vLXImYomzgg4UbKJS1u48cQqRzD3XTgAm8EVT/s1600/mdoms_weird+beard.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 393px; height: 301px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGgWoR3DnRrPMc9pp5TaA4Ta0bWqAlJCJF5hlJz5ZQyMoO2NEaVHRij_4sqDVFBktaxbQloQ1J1NoPstoZLUnsD3Zv6aWP3aJ-OlfgFw7vLXImYomzgg4UbKJS1u48cQqRzD3XTgAm8EVT/s400/mdoms_weird+beard.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563251788599582050" border="0" /></a>How many horror-movie fans have actually seen this on commercial-broadcast TV? I pose this question because I was surprised to see just how infrequently THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET was shown in the usual "Shock Theatre/Creature Feature"-style time slots. In fact, it turned up more in the late afternoon and early evening, sometimes as part of of showcases with unintentionally amusing titles like "Hollywood's Best" and "Million Dollar Movie" (this movie is a long way from meeting either of those descriptors). Perhaps one reason for its appearance in those other programming niches is that it plays more like <a href="http://www.southseascinema.org/index.html">a tropical island adventure tale</a>-comedy-romance than it does a horror melodrama.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Mirek first wrote about THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2008/06/mad-doctor-of-market-street-1942.html">back in June 2008 for this blog</a> and emphasized the atmosphere of the first seven minutes or so when we visit Dr. Benson's lab in San Francisco one dark and stormy night. Most of the research that I've read about this movie says that these scenes were tacked-on as an afterthought-- the entire movie was originally set on the New Zealand-bound luxury liner and on the island after the shipwreck. This underscores for me the possibility that this film had been meant more as a South Pacific island adventure than a horror movie.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn7UyTjzB3Z60Oeo-sQH6YYPaHaOukc1DsS4hvxIWPSPWNq-1yFwgwPCWApgx7J2UyNorJ5rt7y-5N0rIZPdrqEBqfWA1WFavAgitdEXy-XOMfW8Llbda4mBWJXlWx76CRNKX_qcaetVKO/s1600/mdoms_Gazette-Mail+CharlestonWVNov2259.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 255px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn7UyTjzB3Z60Oeo-sQH6YYPaHaOukc1DsS4hvxIWPSPWNq-1yFwgwPCWApgx7J2UyNorJ5rt7y-5N0rIZPdrqEBqfWA1WFavAgitdEXy-XOMfW8Llbda4mBWJXlWx76CRNKX_qcaetVKO/s400/mdoms_Gazette-Mail+CharlestonWVNov2259.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562977748043891234" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Gazette-Mail, </span><span>Charleston,WV, November 22, 1959</span></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">It's worth watching for Lionel Atwill's work as Dr. Benson; the guy seems to be savoring his every line as the megalomaniacal research chemist who believes that he can find a way to make suspended animation a viable medical procedure for beating death. When he sets up himself as the "God of Life" among the island's "superstitious savages," things almost get a little bit<span style="font-style: italic;"> Heart of Darkness</span>, but Atwill's mad scientist is too incompetent to really pull off the Kurtz business. He's not a mad scientist because he's brilliantly unorthodox; rather, he's dangerous because he doesn't realize that he's not very smart at all. This is the one interesting idea-kernel at the center of this silly movie: what would happen if one of those sad, creepy misfits who would ordinarily be shunned by society was able to achieve absolute social power? (When the movie was made in 1941, this could very well have been meant as a pointed critique of the anti-social losers who had risen to the top by joining fascist political parties. And then in 1965, that theme gets applied to juvenile delinquents in Bert I. Gordon's VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS, I suppose...) There's not enough time in this movie to explore the theme, but it is in there somewhere.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgufHmVnnSuHMU9D7t_QT8VB-icHQWd_DyIV8SBjbtggVgzC0DdJ6kYFkQcQL1RBIaFbv2HaI5T0sc3jkRO_JnWyu36r7gBAUtFcGnhjqksTud-iUh2vFTfhcmo04KdaH-7HEw583DTLGdk/s1600/mdoms_micro.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 377px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgufHmVnnSuHMU9D7t_QT8VB-icHQWd_DyIV8SBjbtggVgzC0DdJ6kYFkQcQL1RBIaFbv2HaI5T0sc3jkRO_JnWyu36r7gBAUtFcGnhjqksTud-iUh2vFTfhcmo04KdaH-7HEw583DTLGdk/s400/mdoms_micro.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563251652579718674" border="0" /></a>I also like small parts of THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET because I'm a fan of director Joseph H. Lewis; as in a previous SHOCK! offering <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2010/11/spy-ring-1938.html">THE SPY RING</a>, Lewis manages to smuggle in some cinematic style and atmosphere despite the microscopic budget and two-week shooting schedule. (One bit of business that's overdone, though, are the scenes where Atwill delivers anesthetic to his patients by advancing into the camera and smothering the lens with ether-soaked items-- Lewis does this three times in 61 minutes).<br /><br />Beyond Atwill and Lewis and the mutant fusion of horror, comedy, romance, and South Seas island picture (and it's as messy as it sounds), THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET is sort of entertaining in a goofy, Poverty Row horror kind of way. I almost want to like it, but top-billed Una Merkel's shrill, grating Aunt Margaret and Nat Pendleton's distracting mugging as boxer Red Hogan is a deadly, unfunny combination. The two of them all but snuff the life out of this motion picture for me.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1HRVmXtw80Kid8quPoNEYykXQF0Nqyiz9ud9rG6OnXmsN8EJuAmUYzmzjwFHWEoP9JRIiM0G0EzE4dC0bkhPsQyzzu3-unSci5EW_eq9lh6aEHClnmqYBAZE4MR_F0AdU0UW8TWqRLUM0/s1600/mdoms_una.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1HRVmXtw80Kid8quPoNEYykXQF0Nqyiz9ud9rG6OnXmsN8EJuAmUYzmzjwFHWEoP9JRIiM0G0EzE4dC0bkhPsQyzzu3-unSci5EW_eq9lh6aEHClnmqYBAZE4MR_F0AdU0UW8TWqRLUM0/s400/mdoms_una.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563377092759525522" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >"PSSST!! PSSST!! PA-TRICCCCC-IA!!"</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikST9MiqUHJnYpG4qCWi96EZ2NWcvALqzVHwIpTZP7vM9akgBjXXb5EJoDU8f8vE9yT2xl6RIKe8ABXlJT3SfZWp1v6zKXByQrrWhE9OhfmedKK-hXud01RKwlgy3Go4BTZgZBPAJ2VCep/s1600/mdoms_group.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 394px; height: 301px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikST9MiqUHJnYpG4qCWi96EZ2NWcvALqzVHwIpTZP7vM9akgBjXXb5EJoDU8f8vE9yT2xl6RIKe8ABXlJT3SfZWp1v6zKXByQrrWhE9OhfmedKK-hXud01RKwlgy3Go4BTZgZBPAJ2VCep/s400/mdoms_group.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563251724158531170" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET <span style="font-style: italic;">drinking game: take a shot of liquor every time that</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" > Nat Pendleton rolls his tongue along the inside of his cheeks like he's doing in this still. </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >But beware the "weenie roast" scene!</span><br /></div></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><span><br /></span></span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I don't know much about these South Pacific island adventure movies; I've read that they were very popular with audiences over the years. The filmmakers do they best that they can with camera set-ups and blocking to give you the impression that this is a sizable tropical island rather than some Universal studio lagoon beach. The natives on the island are of the usual hokey Hollywood ooga-booga variety and there is plenty of grunting and mumbling gibberish that is supposed to pass for language. African-American actor Noble Johnson-- last seen around here a few days ago in whiteface as Janos the Black One in <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2011/01/murders-in-rue-morgue-1932.html">MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE</a>-- returns in the MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET as chief Elan; he really makes the most of this very limited material and comes off better than you might expect. It's a shame, though, that Dr. Benson's hubristic fall at the hands Elan is alluded to off-screen rather than shown. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEite49ICIFJTk8pWkX9ANzUagxgDFd1YrGz652ZzQu4MiSAG62iwfBwbhTDhdFqXSycZg4fmWQJvei1YVd0LUHiL_XC9xE9Y4YXOMcAJGJiSMv5dVvc7DUSguIgbMFHb8wCf_JIelUVhOFT/s1600/mdoms_Lowell+Sun+10PM+FriOct2767.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 226px; height: 178px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEite49ICIFJTk8pWkX9ANzUagxgDFd1YrGz652ZzQu4MiSAG62iwfBwbhTDhdFqXSycZg4fmWQJvei1YVd0LUHiL_XC9xE9Y4YXOMcAJGJiSMv5dVvc7DUSguIgbMFHb8wCf_JIelUVhOFT/s400/mdoms_Lowell+Sun+10PM+FriOct2767.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562979376442867938" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Listing in the </span>Lowell <span style="font-style: italic;">[MA]</span> Sun <span style="font-style: italic;">for WLVI-Boston's 10PM double-feature, Friday October 27, 1967. </span> <span style="font-style: italic;">It's a full ten years after the launch of the SHOCK! package on TV and so outside of my usual scope of investigation, but I had to reproduce the listing here-- how's <span style="font-weight: bold;">that</span> for some clever programming of a late-night double-feature?!?</span></span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >And what a completely bizarre description of what THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET is about...</span><br /></div></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">NEXT:</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> "Is she a beautiful beast? Maddening with her soft caress-- murdering with steel-clawed terror? Only Edgar Allan Poe could pen such a masterpiece of horror and thrills. See THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET, the full-length feature film on Shock on this channel."</span><br /></div>The Creeping Bridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06164625940022489443noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-33219233913758284772011-01-15T19:50:00.000-08:002011-01-15T20:52:24.424-08:00MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1932)<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg260gxy13f0NqPYJn1GUQCMwRPUUMPtM3cbkL-OWS8QfXwHYFDDx50P_3whCJPELCQ-ofgZJ_UYbUp16ovHxKqp_lGbyFclcxtB0bxMtK5_dlA_GL_RksdFnKZxUFSXsFFcPEbVrpSPGjD/s1600/rue+morgue+rooftops.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg260gxy13f0NqPYJn1GUQCMwRPUUMPtM3cbkL-OWS8QfXwHYFDDx50P_3whCJPELCQ-ofgZJ_UYbUp16ovHxKqp_lGbyFclcxtB0bxMtK5_dlA_GL_RksdFnKZxUFSXsFFcPEbVrpSPGjD/s400/rue+morgue+rooftops.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562621997837992578" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>It's difficult for me to imagine how any SHOCK! fan who tuned in to watch MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE on television in 1957-58 could not have been swept up by this movie. How could SHOCK! watchers who had fallen for FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA, and THE MUMMY not take to MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE? Yet, oddly enough, it is a film that not a lot of people mention as among their favorites of Uni's golden age of horror. "Though flawed and creaky, MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE is very likely the most underrated of Universal Horrors," Tom Weaver, Michael Brunas, and John Brunas write in the 2007 edition of their <span style="font-style: italic;">Universal Horrors: The Studio's Classic Films, 1931-1946.</span> "Beyond its vulgar excesses and insipid theatrics lurks a daring, full-throttled, Poe-inspired thriller couched in a darkly sinister aesthetic all its own."<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgclY4dkgWdMHLjVQJruJppyYq3Et_a4Y-2PfBKfCd2QWblU1Rxu0z8NUEjnps0AE1h69UJSuRr60-PTHMUEOM_jR3sHJpATlCqK0cVU3xF0n2bOgydlahGNSkJXrZt_J4Zbd0Mdz2gyjOq/s1600/mitrm_mirakle1.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgclY4dkgWdMHLjVQJruJppyYq3Et_a4Y-2PfBKfCd2QWblU1Rxu0z8NUEjnps0AE1h69UJSuRr60-PTHMUEOM_jR3sHJpATlCqK0cVU3xF0n2bOgydlahGNSkJXrZt_J4Zbd0Mdz2gyjOq/s400/mitrm_mirakle1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562621866193024482" border="0" /></a>To my eyes, MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE is a darkly twisted and wildly subversive horror film. Although occasionally it does get bogged down in what seems to be some of the old-fashioned visual grammar of silent film-making, I think that, in terms of radiating a sense of out-and-out pre-Code unclean weirdness, this movie is second only to THE BLACK CAT. Anyone unsuspectingly stumbling upon it on TV in the late '50s just had to have been unnerved by it.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5fALaBUjcCwEm-uxEEKCuk5wHUwfdPfN4C0maJF_Y7eq3nG1rihqithsFLggD05PmMPuV2St_1Kj3qf2jVCnMBEH935xv5cZ5naho_SLhrbPJjaTZsWdmU0ZNdJGa2Nno_UIXWbQUfrIF/s1600/rue_morgue_Salina+Journal+Apr2558.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 198px; height: 218px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5fALaBUjcCwEm-uxEEKCuk5wHUwfdPfN4C0maJF_Y7eq3nG1rihqithsFLggD05PmMPuV2St_1Kj3qf2jVCnMBEH935xv5cZ5naho_SLhrbPJjaTZsWdmU0ZNdJGa2Nno_UIXWbQUfrIF/s400/rue_morgue_Salina+Journal+Apr2558.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5561136780335873394" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Salina</span> [KS] <span style="font-style: italic;">Journal</span>, April 25, 1958</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">For my part, I had never seen MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE on TV back when I was a kid. I knew the Poe tale very well, but I had seen only Warner Bros.'s 1954 PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE, which I had seen multiple times on WOR-Channel 9's outstanding "Fright Night" showcase in the 1970s ("Fright Night" also showed Universal's MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE four times, but somehow I always missed it). To further confuse things, scenes from Hammer's THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1962) which I saw on "Chiller Theatre" on WPIX-Channel 11 during that same period were tied into my memories of PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE. But I never saw MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE until it was available on home video in 1992 or 1993, and never as a television broadcast, so I can't even imagine how the film works broken up by commercials.<br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />I mention these commercial interruptions because on of the most notorious things about MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (and maybe one of the things that keeps fans from liking it more) is that the narrative is a little choppy in the telling because of some out-of-sequence editing that took place in post-production. This scrambled the continuity of the film-- it would seem that a block of TV commercials every 25 minutes or so would add to the confusion, and maybe that would turn off some people to this tale.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjykFyhD1kLh-iESDyxPp8pO9hbacMG_t6win9IGpCsBfWggDb95mjC1xXyhohuBXGENCaDDmaW72TYGHLpc8KCgZX6eny1xwYm-jObGObs4YveiIj_ZbnrTyP3VcDfgBwOrYhEWP6cwjt8/s1600/rue+morgue.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 317px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjykFyhD1kLh-iESDyxPp8pO9hbacMG_t6win9IGpCsBfWggDb95mjC1xXyhohuBXGENCaDDmaW72TYGHLpc8KCgZX6eny1xwYm-jObGObs4YveiIj_ZbnrTyP3VcDfgBwOrYhEWP6cwjt8/s400/rue+morgue.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5561136573440895778" border="0" /></a>Another aggravation for many is the dispelling of Erik the Ape's monstrousness through the use of actual chimpanzee close-ups (some of which reminded me of shots in THE UNHOLY THREE [1925]). Erik is hailed as the "gorilla with a human brain," and there's something missing-link-y about him as he is presented in the sideshow by Dr. Mirakle (I really enjoy Lugosi's lecture in this movie). Charles Gemora was the guy in the shaggy gorilla suit; Gemora is legendary for his performances, yet someone on the film's production staff decided to toss out his very expressive facial close-ups as Erik in favor of chimpanzee footage which really breaks the spell, I think.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_YRXHuia7LcB5EztO6lokCeLfIiE-nE01sjsKSaV5MvHBgW6jOD5wHiPN4iz5nttBMi-4js8Zg3EQVZGrx_U5VddfIlaE6Ns1twh0tC2NKKF514C6v6RUuEAT_zG9B4LoJD4NZ3wmMRvN/s1600/rue+morgue+lab2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 290px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_YRXHuia7LcB5EztO6lokCeLfIiE-nE01sjsKSaV5MvHBgW6jOD5wHiPN4iz5nttBMi-4js8Zg3EQVZGrx_U5VddfIlaE6Ns1twh0tC2NKKF514C6v6RUuEAT_zG9B4LoJD4NZ3wmMRvN/s400/rue+morgue+lab2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5561139228371265170" border="0" /></a>And what in the name of the Hays Production Code is Mirakle up to? The movie description that I posted above suggests that Mirakle wants to create "an ape-woman," but what Mirakle actually says is that he wants to prove to his pre-Darwinian Parisian audience that human beings evolved from apes by "mixing blood" between a human and Erik. His "great experiment" (carried out in a fantastically Caligarian old deserted house in the Rue Morgue) so far has involved injecting Erik's blood into at least three women (presumably sex-workers whose syphilitic "dirty blood" compromises his experiment).<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLq-859dP8UegPgkpLKNSH2atyBkwwzc6yUCPPoTZZDRiRDUIk-7wrS2tD6WDMyG5VDtdjqWd6n2-kwgsgEovB54gBOwtHWBaiwoZx7crGYDpLztfv1_uf0QVgfZE6_E-aBR7umP0ST7eY/s1600/rue+morgue+bed.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 298px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLq-859dP8UegPgkpLKNSH2atyBkwwzc6yUCPPoTZZDRiRDUIk-7wrS2tD6WDMyG5VDtdjqWd6n2-kwgsgEovB54gBOwtHWBaiwoZx7crGYDpLztfv1_uf0QVgfZE6_E-aBR7umP0ST7eY/s400/rue+morgue+bed.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5561138899561602130" border="0" /></a>Finally, Mirakle hits upon the idea of kidnapping a virgin in order to avoid contamination by venereal disease, but he doesn't count on the fact that Erik has fallen in love with Camille; Erik attacks Mirakle during the course of the experiment because he has already seen what happens to the women subjected to Mirakle's transfusions and he doesn't want this happening to her. So Erik kills Mirakle and makes off with her across the rooftops of Paris like a mid-nineteenth century Kong. What is Erik's plan for Camille if he ever eludes the crowd that is chasing him? Is this-- like so many apesploitation movies like INGAGI (1931)--suggesting the threat of bestial rape?<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG_Njhom7YcK14U-PO0VlRy-htVNLRpnyYM19h4uC0bXSAL1LyUQjRkEb9H7OHrEcs266vGfLHHntwfTl5HQa8IZc1McHdPfcpPV8u4JBuaAd14kpdxiy6q-SWLgJDVYQBkMlAnPJ-m7ll/s1600/fremiet+1887.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 351px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG_Njhom7YcK14U-PO0VlRy-htVNLRpnyYM19h4uC0bXSAL1LyUQjRkEb9H7OHrEcs266vGfLHHntwfTl5HQa8IZc1McHdPfcpPV8u4JBuaAd14kpdxiy6q-SWLgJDVYQBkMlAnPJ-m7ll/s400/fremiet+1887.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562631010747228962" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >detail from Emmanuel Frémiet's 1887 sculpture; an earlier version was displayed in Paris in 1859</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm not sure what the hell is going on in all this or what a TV-viewing audience some thirty years after the Scopes Monkey Trial would've made of the thing, but I do think that MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE is a kind of delirious, bizarre horror movie that would've made excellent late-night viewing.<br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjocoqTCIIZ2Eji4YWstwyia8rfeQNTSZBzuLBF2oWzGzcrIEnoGNSVo9iQt_itMNFtL0p1HnCDhqjLlTvOqlwWObomxWlFsa87pz995DrlVcR_433UXUs1MFhixGS1L4EW12FPHyMMipzv/s1600/shock_theater_booklet.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 350px; height: 277px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjocoqTCIIZ2Eji4YWstwyia8rfeQNTSZBzuLBF2oWzGzcrIEnoGNSVo9iQt_itMNFtL0p1HnCDhqjLlTvOqlwWObomxWlFsa87pz995DrlVcR_433UXUs1MFhixGS1L4EW12FPHyMMipzv/s400/shock_theater_booklet.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5561140306430186034" border="0" /></a>One last point about this film as it relates to SHOCK! requires us to look at the cover art of the Screen Gems promotional book. The painting used for the cover illustration is not a terribly good work, but it is certainly evocative of the horror film programming that Screen Gems was selling. Uni-holics will have no trouble matching the figures here with the movies despite the sometimes just-off caricatures. One of the things that surprises me about the rogues' gallery here on the cover is the inclusion of the troglodytic Janos the Black One (Noble Johnson in whiteface, of all things) and Erik from MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixxHnke9PsgsZQ9hEM0P9j_s45oQGi7mgAyt0IgCaMqQIEUH0aWL0IGucg1ISyP3dr3eK3HKT-0dCvgjmhsOF27Qd0kcgZUfO6RJJngwXtty9Em78QKTnYN5pijIROx0afjAQCJVtIa3mi/s1600/janos+and+erik.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 176px; height: 190px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixxHnke9PsgsZQ9hEM0P9j_s45oQGi7mgAyt0IgCaMqQIEUH0aWL0IGucg1ISyP3dr3eK3HKT-0dCvgjmhsOF27Qd0kcgZUfO6RJJngwXtty9Em78QKTnYN5pijIROx0afjAQCJVtIa3mi/s400/janos+and+erik.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5561140382600488386" border="0" /></a>I don't know if there was a source for Erik's image, but it would appear that Janos' simian-like posture is lifted directly from this production still.<br /></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNHEXaRWbEN0r6yVVPGi2DOQt_4xB9nY1DW4dPASGNKsHcb0lr5bRbdjigf2ZS1S-q2Smdr6JiuRmlaCQND8iI_yAU-M6iUkIS0G4lsNGQ6T5JdyT_Xane0-1sTyzF8tv8xfN_xdBHkqV1/s1600/mitrm_janos.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 338px; height: 281px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNHEXaRWbEN0r6yVVPGi2DOQt_4xB9nY1DW4dPASGNKsHcb0lr5bRbdjigf2ZS1S-q2Smdr6JiuRmlaCQND8iI_yAU-M6iUkIS0G4lsNGQ6T5JdyT_Xane0-1sTyzF8tv8xfN_xdBHkqV1/s400/mitrm_janos.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5561411114845601698" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></div></div><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">NEXT:</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> "A fire at sea maroons a strange group on a savage-infested island. See this thrilling adventure in THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET. It's another Shock feature film presentation on this channel. Lionel Atwill stars as a crazed scientist who believes he holds the secret of life."</span><br /></div>The Creeping Bridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06164625940022489443noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-22991342780112810152011-01-12T18:32:00.000-08:002011-01-12T18:34:54.434-08:00MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE preview<span style="font-style:italic;">"MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, the masterpiece of America's greatest creator of horror, Edgar Allan Poe, is coming your way in the Shock feature film presentation starring Bela Lugosi on this channel."</span><br /><br /><object width="400" height="364"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/W3ONG8qFw_4?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/W3ONG8qFw_4?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="364"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-1285037605328903862011-01-11T01:15:00.000-08:002011-01-11T07:06:33.905-08:00SHOCK! and the Communist Menace<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGWvYd9jitXckiSLCBUSdoYAqLFomsgbwP_0rDWu6AThkVXPNsDBaUi_5suqjrvU2qlTz4QSyXRKALN9Uc3OaqI-7zHkvFF2W9PBHuCftutxelG3uNXEUASD89IP-lItj_xVMsDqGTKJIS/s1600/hollywood+reds.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 374px; height: 322px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGWvYd9jitXckiSLCBUSdoYAqLFomsgbwP_0rDWu6AThkVXPNsDBaUi_5suqjrvU2qlTz4QSyXRKALN9Uc3OaqI-7zHkvFF2W9PBHuCftutxelG3uNXEUASD89IP-lItj_xVMsDqGTKJIS/s400/hollywood+reds.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560394948795347202" border="0" /></a>On February 3, 1958, King Features syndicated editorial page columnist George Dixon identified SHOCK! as a threat to US homeland security. He went on to propose that SHOCK! programming be used as a psychological weapon against Russian kids in the Cold War with the Soviet Union.<br /><br />I don't know a lot about Dixon; my casual snooping around turned up a little bit about his work in newspapers during the post-war years. He seems to have worked for a few different Hearst publications before getting his nationally-syndicated column, "Washington Scene"; he was associated for a time with the right-wing <span style="visibility: visible; font-style: italic;" id="main"><span style="visibility: visible;" id="search">Washington Times-Herald </span></span><span style="visibility: visible;" id="main"><span style="visibility: visible;" id="search">of the late 1940s</span></span> and ended up at the <span style="font-style: italic;">Post</span> before his death in the early 1970s.<br /><br />It looks like he was courted by politicians as a well-connected and very gossipy Beltway insider; for instance, I read in Donald A. Ritchie's <span style="font-style: italic;">Reporting From Washington: The History of the Washington Press Corps</span> that Joseph McCarthy appealed to Dixon for help in choosing a DC press agent for his first senatorial re-election campaign prior to kicking off his 1950 anti-communist witch-hunt. (I find it hard to read Dixon's columns and not picture J.J. Hunsecker from THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS [1957]). In general, the Dixon columns that I read reflect the dominant political mentality of the day, sprinkled with a bit of Red-baiting and some nasty, stupid comments about women and Blacks, all delivered with a lot of innuendo and between-the-lines suggestion and larded with lots of good-natured "aw, I was just joking" smarm that gave him room to backpedal if anyone called him out on what he said.<br /><br />His writings on pop culture were infrequent, but the few that I read struck me as being especially clueless: in one column in late December 1955 about the CBS radio show "The FBI in Peace and War" (1944-58), he expressed outrage that the theme music for such an upstanding and (in his words) "heroic" radio program had been composed by a Russian: "'The FBI in Peace and War' chases Communists and other misguided creatures each week to the tune of 'The Love for Three Oranges' by the late Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev!"<br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK7B0nWylJJHdHmS9tZCxEZVz7v4iZMrXkYbMhfEEeWDpwmdfeSh67gq7Q0O4ITkvbTNH9BfqiAljedNzdM0wsH86QWp9tmSUcV0nzktytRvGkTjIqbDOSDw36-hVwT39HdjiBSoxZjNjq/s1600/laika2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 324px; height: 245px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK7B0nWylJJHdHmS9tZCxEZVz7v4iZMrXkYbMhfEEeWDpwmdfeSh67gq7Q0O4ITkvbTNH9BfqiAljedNzdM0wsH86QWp9tmSUcV0nzktytRvGkTjIqbDOSDw36-hVwT39HdjiBSoxZjNjq/s400/laika2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560385051985988146" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Laika the space dog, 1957</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Dixon's denunciation of SHOCK! in early February 1958 reflects an intersection of two concerns: the Sputnik Crisis and the striking success of the Screen Gems package. Sputnik 1 was a basketball-sized Soviet orbital satellite launched October 4, 1957; Sputnik 2 was about the size of a washing machine and was launched a month later with a canine passenger named Laika. The sputnik launches freaked-out folks in the US-- in addition to escalating fears of Red nuclear weapons raining down on Americans (the first Soviet H-Bomb test was in 1953), the success of the Soviet sputnik program provided hard evidence that the Russians had a considerable educational, scientific, and technological edge on Americans. The effort to catch-up to the Russians (and the Russians' efforts to stay ahead) started the intense scientific and political competition called the Space Race that lasted well into the 1970s. (TCM frequently airs a short 1957 film from RKO called DECADE FOR DECISION that captures this moment really well; there's also a 2007 PBS documentary called SPUTNIK DECLASSIFIED that <a href="http://video.pbs.org/video/980040656/">you can watch on-line</a>. I haven't see the History Channel's SPUTNIK MANIA [2007], but I see that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVjOL1vA4i8">it is available in chunks on YouTube</a>.)<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhts0YlPHgNCTW4VUb3nQg-tGaCbpp_xGLsCT-5S8ulAfI5HGWKZ9-VAwrlS7S9zUA30svi9WVRHhyPAi9n1RO52fb_QNfjBONkDi6vOe3LRxLWdpNOxbqQNJPyezfkvxVFm4olXHeKc3uR/s1600/scouting+sputnik.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 308px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhts0YlPHgNCTW4VUb3nQg-tGaCbpp_xGLsCT-5S8ulAfI5HGWKZ9-VAwrlS7S9zUA30svi9WVRHhyPAi9n1RO52fb_QNfjBONkDi6vOe3LRxLWdpNOxbqQNJPyezfkvxVFm4olXHeKc3uR/s400/scouting+sputnik.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560388023103925122" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Boy Scouts train to spot Red satellites, Summer 1958</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Dixon's second concern, as I said, was the enthusiastic response by TV viewers to the SHOCK! movies. Based in DC, I'm going to guess that Dixon at least knew about SHOCK!'s rating numbers on local markets (WTOP-Channel 9 on Sunday nights and maybe WBAL-Channel 11 [Baltimore] on Saturday nights), as well as the broader national trends in other cities-- as I have mentioned before, <span style="font-family:Georgia;">it was clear by January 1958 that SHOCK! had struck a nerve with sizable ratings advances made in the largest US television markets (NYC and LA) and elsewhere, such as KRON-San Francisco's notorious 807% jump in the numbers.</span> Anecdotally, it seems like those most attracted to these programs were young people who had never seen the movies in the theaters.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnC2JhXvybHmu8y64b6lswP3BeyGUVvh3QS4hyjUC6L5aBBY2exJyXjzrKVy7CYpC-AIF_8VcrHqLB528BZkeVzR3igKq1KeFRpPxWraIVyZGuCvnmKxL-GZETj6EWnreDIVa0wP3mMiG9/s1600/drlucifer.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 244px; height: 383px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnC2JhXvybHmu8y64b6lswP3BeyGUVvh3QS4hyjUC6L5aBBY2exJyXjzrKVy7CYpC-AIF_8VcrHqLB528BZkeVzR3igKq1KeFRpPxWraIVyZGuCvnmKxL-GZETj6EWnreDIVa0wP3mMiG9/s400/drlucifer.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560380048416013122" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Dr. Lucifer, Mrs. Lucifer, and Lucretia, horror hosts of "Shock!," WBAL-Baltimore, 1957-59. </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">For more on the Lucifers, see</span> <a href="http://myweb.wvnet.edu/e-gor/tvhorrorhosts/hostsd.html">E-gor's Chamber of TV Horror Hosts</a></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In a few weeks, I'll be putting up a blog post on SHOCK! and moral panic: outrage by concerned politicians, teachers, clergy, and parents about what monstrous effects late-night monster movies had on kids. But you get a whiff of some of that in Dixon's remarks here; this column is not just an attack on the Soviets but also a warning that SHOCK! was endangering a young generation of Americans by making them "logy" and unwilling "to be torn from their television sets." How can we possibly overcome the Russians' scientific advancements if our kids are more interested in monster movies than in hitting the books?<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Dixon begins his column by mentioning a new Eisenhower-initiated USA-USSR agreement to exchange culture and entertainment as a means for lessening Cold War tensions. "If only we could send them some of our television programs, we could clutter up their minds so they couldn't concentrate on weapons of destruction," he writes. "Unlimited possibilities lie in our weekend horror shows alone" which could be used to "stultify that country's future generations," since "instead of cramming themselves with dangerous science, all they would want to do is get back to the gory romance of Frankenstein's unblushing little Bride."<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHh3qWZUk32B5Nu6Pez3epGielyxt9jIpjGf1t5sInDzWdO3vXOinJcjWUGRLlGQWfh3oeb36rw4RJVi2YIHfE_MvepnLEkBcF6gfGGK_1ZLlM7PxK7Of-rKfCPWrrKat4RXcFXrCFCoD0/s1600/bride.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHh3qWZUk32B5Nu6Pez3epGielyxt9jIpjGf1t5sInDzWdO3vXOinJcjWUGRLlGQWfh3oeb36rw4RJVi2YIHfE_MvepnLEkBcF6gfGGK_1ZLlM7PxK7Of-rKfCPWrrKat4RXcFXrCFCoD0/s400/bride.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560389789790016498" border="0" /></a>"Every weekend in this more advanced land [the USA], we have late and late, late horror shows that keep the kiddies up later than the bars keep open for adults in the nation's capital," he continues. "We have 'Shock,' 'Horror,' 'The Creeper,' 'The Invisible Man,' and vintage movies that are horrible without even trying. The Russian youngsters would probably be so entranced they wouldn't even stick their heads out of a window to look at a third sputnik." Dixon adds that "these grisly programs, of course, would only be for Russians of a tender age" because "the older Bolsheviks wouldn't see the characters as anything out of the ordinary."<br /><br />Dixon's column goes on to poke gentle fun at the National Symphony Orchestra and to suggest swapping the Philadelphia Symphony for the Bolshoi Ballet. He concludes by calling for nuclear war: "If we really want to impress our new trade partners, we should launch a deal direct from the rocket pad and send them our only remaining member of the peerage-- Count Down."<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-ZGgUrSpAl67oriXXSB7Bxax-JQjFhRSBofYPbAGgxttLm5AEGd0YAJfsn3igCwZPIho6XYSP7fMJhx1LpR4BfMaHiYfnX106o2ANxsGHGpj6scsBJSP8Qb_V9wmLOP03SXN4zvlOYmv/s1600/dixon_washscene_feb0358.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 340px; height: 339px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-ZGgUrSpAl67oriXXSB7Bxax-JQjFhRSBofYPbAGgxttLm5AEGd0YAJfsn3igCwZPIho6XYSP7fMJhx1LpR4BfMaHiYfnX106o2ANxsGHGpj6scsBJSP8Qb_V9wmLOP03SXN4zvlOYmv/s400/dixon_washscene_feb0358.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560377491314175378" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">excerpt from Dixon's "Washington Scene" column as it appeared on the editorial page of </span><span>The Dominion-Times</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Morgantown, WV, February 4, 1958 </span></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Dixon is joking, of course, about exporting Screen Gems' horror movie selections to the USSR as part of a cultural exchange. But I think that he is seriously concerned about how SHOCK! programming is going to retard the development of young minds at a time when they needed to be ideologically yoked to the educational rigors of the Space Race.<br /></div>The Creeping Bridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06164625940022489443noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-65796198425203499702011-01-08T04:23:00.000-08:002011-01-08T06:35:51.381-08:00NIGHT KEY (1937)<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5qB_gfPInTYwzZIoaoOEcCd28Xsizl1J7tmg0akawj0fk5H_6UiMriUUxVydvv2Vf3hYpWZ4MyVvgpfRX2kIOg_6f799Sa8JzOAtqXvB0iX613zrbW99UaGq0fUSIC1OD7oxwlWfP9ua/s1600/night+key_+night+key.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5qB_gfPInTYwzZIoaoOEcCd28Xsizl1J7tmg0akawj0fk5H_6UiMriUUxVydvv2Vf3hYpWZ4MyVvgpfRX2kIOg_6f799Sa8JzOAtqXvB0iX613zrbW99UaGq0fUSIC1OD7oxwlWfP9ua/s400/night+key_+night+key.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559629299610389074" border="0" /></a>A question that I like to return to in the course of this viewing project is how and why some of the horror-less SHOCK! features have come to be horror-ized over the years while others have not. The most recent example of this that I have written about was <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2010/11/secret-of-chateau-1934.html">SECRET OF THE CHATEAU</a>; SECRET OF THE CHATEAU is no more of a horror movie than, say, THE WITNESS VANISHES (a film from <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2008/06/crime-club.html">the "Crime Club" series</a> that also turned up in SHOCK!), yet SECRET OF THE CHATEAU frequently passes as a horror film among Universal fans. The only explanation that I can see is that the inclusion of some movies in the post-SHOCK! feature showcases of the 1960s and 1970s must have given them reputations as horror films, but how did some films benefit from this horror-movie notoriety and others did not?<br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZIowkrikXcytiG8PdH14l6SMyn4LiFN_cHWJp1kT25L6ughw0jKiQQV_VbICCZBrUgkRgP8Fxx9QT_ELf4-viItKUufZNyWmVfpHYXXUYVPhPIUroePa752DUJDt0gMQlKp_FlOyG6n-V/s1600/nightkey_Apr1859WTOL.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 187px; height: 55px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZIowkrikXcytiG8PdH14l6SMyn4LiFN_cHWJp1kT25L6ughw0jKiQQV_VbICCZBrUgkRgP8Fxx9QT_ELf4-viItKUufZNyWmVfpHYXXUYVPhPIUroePa752DUJDt0gMQlKp_FlOyG6n-V/s400/nightkey_Apr1859WTOL.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559278008827839890" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">listing for WTOL-Toldeo, Saturday April 18, 1959</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In NIGHT KEY, Boris Karloff plays David Mallory, a gentle, mild-mannered inventor (as opposed to the crazed, cunning mad scientist) who is losing eyesight and would do anything to protect and care for his beloved daughter. Not very monstrous. But 1937 was a tough year for lovers of Universal horror films: the British ban on horror movies robbed the studios of European markets and dampened their enthusiasm for making them; moreover, it appears that ticket sales in the US were dropping off. A new horror cycle would begin at Universal in 1939 with SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, but in the meantime, the pickings were mighty slim. (Karloff did three pictures for Warner Bros [WEST OF SHANGHAI; THE INVISIBLE MENACE; DEVIL'S ISLAND] and the Mr. Wong movies for Monogram during this time.) This explains why the only listing for "1937" in Tom Weaver, Michael Brunas, and John Brunas' <span style="font-style: italic;">Universal Horrors: The Studio's Classic Films, 1931-1946</span> is a crime melodrama: NIGHT KEY.<br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSVGCSdlLrfzTISSo-lo2m4u5ZaaWnAplOMe8U5JachXg8i4hjQ868qnNnFOBXw2uLQHtomcywCgUHmOngxEej978V5VYMm54Qqw6nxvCvAnr1JONLOs9UwRYbexm9WdnVss8PktsKE1C4/s1600/nightkey_Times+RecordTroy+NYAug2858.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 71px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSVGCSdlLrfzTISSo-lo2m4u5ZaaWnAplOMe8U5JachXg8i4hjQ868qnNnFOBXw2uLQHtomcywCgUHmOngxEej978V5VYMm54Qqw6nxvCvAnr1JONLOs9UwRYbexm9WdnVss8PktsKE1C4/s400/nightkey_Times+RecordTroy+NYAug2858.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559265378798382434" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Times Record</span>, Troy, NY, August 28, 1958. The "CinemaSix" show frequently featured SHOCK! pictures.</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">NIGHT KEY got a lot of play on the SHOCK! circuit (probably because of the Karloff factor: "Let's see: Universal, Karloff, a spooky title like 'NIGHT KEY'-- this <span style="font-style: italic;">must</span> be a horror movie," etc.). Based on small sample that I perused, it appears that, remarkably, the film got <span style="font-style: italic;">even more</span> play as a horror movie between 1970 and 1980 (as well as putting in some appearances on "Science-Fiction Theater"-types of shows, thanks to the titular anti-alarm gizmo, Mallory's electric eye security system, and the d.i.y. electrical force-field that he rigs to get away from the crooks).<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0imZbLsAlnFJyQd0j9LRu8bw7pWdSwlCpfpgf6PvSStAkjKz9iV3cc6lBDLoOZjIbPWqkWtusurT0BMNmFHvLuX6ZE4lsnoefw9z4SwfeDcHT5RKaB47do_rXqAZ0nXv7faH__vX_y_O0/s1600/night+key_lobby+card.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0imZbLsAlnFJyQd0j9LRu8bw7pWdSwlCpfpgf6PvSStAkjKz9iV3cc6lBDLoOZjIbPWqkWtusurT0BMNmFHvLuX6ZE4lsnoefw9z4SwfeDcHT5RKaB47do_rXqAZ0nXv7faH__vX_y_O0/s400/night+key_lobby+card.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559265154175722386" border="0" /></a>I wonder if NIGHT KEY's horror-movie reputation in the late 1950s on TV had gathered some momentum from the Realarts publicity push. Realarts theatrically re-released NIGHT KEY in 1954 and had no qualms about concocting the idea that the movie had horror-content. In this Realarts lobby card that I lifted from the <a href="http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/1051/Night-Key-1937-">NIGHT KEY thread on the Classic Horror Film Board</a>, the image of Karloff isn't Dave Mallory from NIGHT KEY but the far more sinister Dr. Friedrich Hohner from THE CLIMAX (1944). The "Death in the Wax Museum!" come-on line is completely make-believe... there is no wax museum in this movie.<br /><br />Amusingly, even today, NIGHT KEY's reputation as a horror film continues: the cover of Universal's 2006 five-film DVD set "The Boris Karloff Collection" promises "The Master of Horror in His Most Frightening Roles!" To put it plainly, I don't think that anyone who has ever seen Karloff playing a practical joke with twirling open umbrellas or wearing a party hat made from an old newspaper while eating cake in NIGHT KEY would classify David Mallory as one of Karloff's most frightening roles.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDux_aHd59X60Rn7CKVpMl-iO676aLI4PQDVEwQ997iSNBSaZBzHHpTXWCeSSPIDEYAn6VffaOsHM8ChTl5Elot8iTNrWQ0MQzjl1ZzKo3VrvppS29zwFx492V3RpwMxj2gx-_7QnrfpZc/s1600/nightkey_Evening+StandardUniontown+PA+Mar1459.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 62px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDux_aHd59X60Rn7CKVpMl-iO676aLI4PQDVEwQ997iSNBSaZBzHHpTXWCeSSPIDEYAn6VffaOsHM8ChTl5Elot8iTNrWQ0MQzjl1ZzKo3VrvppS29zwFx492V3RpwMxj2gx-_7QnrfpZc/s400/nightkey_Evening+StandardUniontown+PA+Mar1459.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559265224231516338" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">edited from a listing in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Evening Standard</span>, Uniontown, PA, March 14, 1959</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Lastly, here's a listing for a telecast of NIGHT KEY on a program on WJAC-Johnstown called "Ghoul's Paradise." It's counter-programmed against BEHIND THE MASK (a Son of SHOCK! title) on WTAE-Pittsburgh's "Shock Theatre," hosted by Sir Rodger (see <a href="http://myweb.wvnet.edu/e-gor/tvhorrorhosts/hostss.html">E-Gor's Chamber of TV Horror Hosts</a> for details and scroll down to "Sir Rodger"). I couldn't find any information on the wonderfully-named "Ghoul's Paradise"-- it appears to have run for only a few months in 1959 and I believe that it was hostless with an offscreen announcer. If anyone reading this has more information on "Ghoul's Paradise," please let me know-- I'd like to learn more.<br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NEXT: </span><span style="font-style: italic;">"MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, the masterpiece of America's greatest creator of horror, Edgar Allan Poe, is coming your way in the Shock feature film presentation starring Bela Lugosi on this channel."</span>The Creeping Bridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06164625940022489443noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-31370690420142048682011-01-04T20:06:00.000-08:002011-01-04T20:40:06.932-08:00THE BLACK CAT (1934)<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5BHO8hCk2hRYNqGw9ME3weO8jkGhQ8h-auxFn0EMOUogZn3fP-XJERNdhyyWGwnabXjaUEGgJbIjc7exAzZL_ox5bFeIb4HX3MlSwxaKGZbbiatKepF20CpSwbC5iPImHGnixsMFUp81m/s1600/blackcat_black+mass.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 298px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5BHO8hCk2hRYNqGw9ME3weO8jkGhQ8h-auxFn0EMOUogZn3fP-XJERNdhyyWGwnabXjaUEGgJbIjc7exAzZL_ox5bFeIb4HX3MlSwxaKGZbbiatKepF20CpSwbC5iPImHGnixsMFUp81m/s400/blackcat_black+mass.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5558533219592918258" border="0" /></a>THE BLACK CAT made the rounds as a Realarts re-release starting in 1953 under the title THE VANISHING BODY; it looks like Realarts paired it with THE MISSING HEAD, which was their re-release of the "Inner Sanctum" title STRANGE CONFESSION (thanks for the spoiler, Realarts). I'm sure that there's some legalistic explanation that is too arcane for me to understand, but why didn't Screen Gems go with the re-release titles? Presumably TV audiences would've been more familiar with THE VANISHING BODY from the early '50s than THE BLACK CAT from almost twenty-five years before, right? (And where did they get that title from? Part of what's so unnerving about this movie is that the bodies <span style="font-style: italic;">haven't</span> vanished-- they are kept in glass coffins in the basement for everyone to see and that's what's so freaky...)<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdh8FXO3guFYLLeRfJg-MZWpIKaCKGPd7XqY5rtZqPxqH5w3zrgdq4JtYhbNF0_hDjMr-lbgMlzZBsYlNO1L1LUTJ09vGvExCAvbnC4F2kA_LoDPe4sroxocJHDjg3EnFkhaz1cNEnfZIy/s1600/blackcat_council+bluffs.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 397px; height: 341px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdh8FXO3guFYLLeRfJg-MZWpIKaCKGPd7XqY5rtZqPxqH5w3zrgdq4JtYhbNF0_hDjMr-lbgMlzZBsYlNO1L1LUTJ09vGvExCAvbnC4F2kA_LoDPe4sroxocJHDjg3EnFkhaz1cNEnfZIy/s400/blackcat_council+bluffs.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5558523269158850834" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Council Bluffs</span> [IA] <span style="font-style: italic;">Nonpareil</span>, May 22, 1953</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm one of those tiresome classic horror movie fans who is absolutely obsessed with this obsessive movie, so it is difficult for me to write about THE BLACK CAT without dragging in all the research that I've read about it over the years-- the artistic sensibilities of director Edgar Ulmer, the controversies surrounding Ulmer and the film, the multivalent symbolism in many of the scenes, the re-writes, re-shoots, and re-edits, and all the rest. But for the purposes of this SHOCK! Viewing Project blog, I can't get into any of that fascinating back-story behind-the-scenes stuff about this feverishly visionary horror film. What I need to do is imagine what audience reaction might have been like for those seeing it on television in the late 1950s and to leave out all my theories about the movie's enigmatic atmospherics of morbid ecstasy.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVCwdtlo3BEnN7CGGNVurLeJUEeJU7SKCXvmwOYuj6YDKX7tPdMLnMMMtoOA9nC68Zded-5k3KrbuC6EmcD2i2Rbx79Qeh3NyZpObwI_zO8h7aSXFnHVaUieDGjxGqODp71m3ZHF0l1D7S/s1600/blackcat_Charleston+Daily+Mail+Mar1260.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 260px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVCwdtlo3BEnN7CGGNVurLeJUEeJU7SKCXvmwOYuj6YDKX7tPdMLnMMMtoOA9nC68Zded-5k3KrbuC6EmcD2i2Rbx79Qeh3NyZpObwI_zO8h7aSXFnHVaUieDGjxGqODp71m3ZHF0l1D7S/s400/blackcat_Charleston+Daily+Mail+Mar1260.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557646630564809874" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Charleston</span> [WV] <span style="font-style: italic;">Daily Mail</span>, March 12, 1960</span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiOwW12liSIwAwx9Vdlh6pMT4VJFn3Ek8-9riTaT7Ieax4ZLqc5h1-8XOUrYq01Ktn7HxMh2m-Gp4eZbIHluRtn4L9O-VYFGZNUX-_en7fsrcOjht-laVKFVBtCC0e1ozIkxVGhyphenhyphenZ2O-8D/s1600/blackcat_Salina+Journal+Dec0958.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 254px; height: 238px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiOwW12liSIwAwx9Vdlh6pMT4VJFn3Ek8-9riTaT7Ieax4ZLqc5h1-8XOUrYq01Ktn7HxMh2m-Gp4eZbIHluRtn4L9O-VYFGZNUX-_en7fsrcOjht-laVKFVBtCC0e1ozIkxVGhyphenhyphenZ2O-8D/s400/blackcat_Salina+Journal+Dec0958.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557777689636024434" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Salina</span> [KS] <span style="font-style: italic;">Journal</span>, December 9, 1958<br /><br /><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9sPWrw8GoeIowf2zh1ZJVs_rRvSey-5bwJq3YzSGmms3vW0J9BTYJRx52wAlzx4Pat5Ocy5WounSNXEpapyxRvOz5H1CleEw-P8QGyaA-PGrrUipKaT5xOI_RxQJx22WW5Kr0Dj4Xdeeg/s1600/blackcat_Hammond+Times+Hammond+INMar1860.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 310px; height: 112px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9sPWrw8GoeIowf2zh1ZJVs_rRvSey-5bwJq3YzSGmms3vW0J9BTYJRx52wAlzx4Pat5Ocy5WounSNXEpapyxRvOz5H1CleEw-P8QGyaA-PGrrUipKaT5xOI_RxQJx22WW5Kr0Dj4Xdeeg/s400/blackcat_Hammond+Times+Hammond+INMar1860.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557646824533798706" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Hammond</span> [IN] <span style="font-style: italic;">Times</span>, March 18, 1960</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To get into that mindset, I tried to find someone to watch THE BLACK CAT with me who had never seen it before, but no one was interested in being my guinea pig with this one. The best that I could do was to think back to the time in the early 1970s when I first saw THE BLACK CAT. It was a Saturday afternoon in late Spring on a New York City television station and I figure that I was about eight years old. Of course, I knew nothing about Ulmer or the First World War or Aleister Crowley or the aesthetic tensions between Expressionistic Caligarism and Neue Sachlichkeit in post-Habsburg Central Europe at the dawn of the Nazi era, so that would've been the most "raw" viewing experience of this movie that I have ever had.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqLcT8Xu1GG9M3QfZ4ze6_hiNG09E7VBVI-4yu-bO5Txs8CduXhH3h62asjHUqNvbct0YXVZC7Wr8u1UOsQponQdm-nOAovhpuIlyI1gjVyyyKK_utmzvdUYfrlMEDWInIgaT7u50CfqSj/s1600/blackcat_figurine.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 353px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqLcT8Xu1GG9M3QfZ4ze6_hiNG09E7VBVI-4yu-bO5Txs8CduXhH3h62asjHUqNvbct0YXVZC7Wr8u1UOsQponQdm-nOAovhpuIlyI1gjVyyyKK_utmzvdUYfrlMEDWInIgaT7u50CfqSj/s400/blackcat_figurine.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5558533924593627314" border="0" /></a>My memories are wispy, distant and vague: the only thing that I can recall with any certainty was my general feeling of unease that something very confusing and very disturbing was going on that involved my favorite monster-actors Boris Karloff and <span style="visibility: visible;" id="main"><span style="visibility: visible;" id="search">Béla Lugosi. I remember only the last twenty minutes or so of the film-- the showdown in the dank, sepulchral </span></span>cellars beneath the outrageously modernist mansion, the detonation of Fort Marmorus' high explosive self-destruction system, and the escape of the two clueless American newlyweds. I have to wonder if the SHOCK! television audience in the Eisenhower era identified themselves most closely with those newlyweds (Jacqueline Wells and David Manners) when the film was over: "Damn! What the hell was that all about? I can't wait to get back to my normal life." In his edited volume <span style="font-style: italic;">Edgar G. Ulmer: Detour on Poverty Row</span> (2010), Gary Don Rhodes includes an essay of his on the reception of THE BLACK CAT in 1934; I would be very interested in reading a similar study of its reception by TV viewers of the SHOCK! films.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcn6lbDQnnO8c2LWmSxVmZS1tsPjN0PWpOmmVXlvB9Vg2PzDPZaZZbGpsSo7MT8C0zOSTvSXod9Po6UQMVeLxqEnLqHlkQHeG6Rd_9JEQRKA2swBWvhhjY9QolEBWTFI2TAheqEoF5keYT/s1600/blackcat_San+Mateo+TimesNov1260.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 277px; height: 106px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcn6lbDQnnO8c2LWmSxVmZS1tsPjN0PWpOmmVXlvB9Vg2PzDPZaZZbGpsSo7MT8C0zOSTvSXod9Po6UQMVeLxqEnLqHlkQHeG6Rd_9JEQRKA2swBWvhhjY9QolEBWTFI2TAheqEoF5keYT/s400/blackcat_San+Mateo+TimesNov1260.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5558535791804986210" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">San Mateo [CA] Times, November 12, 1960</span></span><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy_SbIH5HDhaUMPuljRS7OFlpfxZ1p_oDEv5sqrIFM3QVspcVQx858fTQad851sHt7bVVhQgBr8MnOGENrM4SHX87V0rW5F5nFZbXCCX0vDGJQHME2WSFBJhqfTh4E3dZ-uW4qYiWwog9s/s1600/blackcat_chess.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 310px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy_SbIH5HDhaUMPuljRS7OFlpfxZ1p_oDEv5sqrIFM3QVspcVQx858fTQad851sHt7bVVhQgBr8MnOGENrM4SHX87V0rW5F5nFZbXCCX0vDGJQHME2WSFBJhqfTh4E3dZ-uW4qYiWwog9s/s400/blackcat_chess.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5558535513930300706" border="0" /></a>A couple things about the entry on THE BLACK CAT in the Screen Gems SHOCK! promotional booklet: the first is a mistake in the copy for the twenty-second on-air promotion that was meant to be read or telop'ed. I edited it when I used it as a preview at the end of CHINATOWN SQUAD blog entry, but I reproduce it here verbatim:<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;">"Two fiends clash in a death struggle while THE BLACK CAT creeps on Shock this [day], [date], at [time] on this channel! Who will be the loser when Karloff and Lugosi meet! It's anyone's guess. Be sure to see the full-length feature film, THE CAT CREEPS, on this channel [day], [time]."</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">As you can see, the movie changes in the course of twenty seconds from THE BLACK CAT to <a href="http://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2010/11/cat-creeps-1946.html">THE CAT CREEPS</a>. It's easy to understand how such a slip-up happened in the Screen Gems office, but it is sort of amusing to think that these two movies were confused for one another when they are so very, very different.<br /><br />The second item that I want to mention is that the Screen Gems books uses a photo of Boris Karloff to promote THE BLACK CAT which is clearly from a later time. Like the use of a 1950s-era photo of Lyle Talbot to promote 1935's CHINATOWN SQUAD that I talked about in my last blog entry, Screen Gems chose to use a picture of an older and mustachioed Karloff, more like YOU'LL FIND OUT (1940) or THE DEVIL COMMANDS (1941) than the unmistakably distinctive look of Hjalmar Poelzig that one sees in THE BLACK CAT. In the newspaper TV listing ad reproduced below, KUTV-Channel 2 has chosen to use that picture of Karloff that Screen Gems has provided for THE BLACK CAT; for comparison, a production still of Karloff as Poelzig is reproduced directly below it.<br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm9xC8_NSeBTA8PwqvKXuY8oCgnA6Ftz5kWXpEeO6OxXoyLK93xGUI72oAHOcNz5bGSaPPSnW0DqC4y2vyfGtMqpJDxknIFhIUPvzNAo6UQPnOmm2pcLKtLXa1Ne2wFrQXugiTRpBJrM9m/s1600/blackcat_Salt+Lake+Tribune+FriOct3158.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 331px; height: 215px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm9xC8_NSeBTA8PwqvKXuY8oCgnA6Ftz5kWXpEeO6OxXoyLK93xGUI72oAHOcNz5bGSaPPSnW0DqC4y2vyfGtMqpJDxknIFhIUPvzNAo6UQPnOmm2pcLKtLXa1Ne2wFrQXugiTRpBJrM9m/s400/blackcat_Salt+Lake+Tribune+FriOct3158.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557777837870269938" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Salt Lake City</span> [UT] <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span>, October 31, 1958</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP_RBeVej31hJdqixqEHgubLw600hrSpZtft1CUe6rqUo6iJgvvu63Sfwa-jEpuGCQ8NxWrc5cheBpgpNAgnzwhyphenhyphenGpdpeegJ-22DPaWbZ7ey-4qbPSmK-ZBI-LCDJbHd9mzF5qvtES378C/s1600/blackcat_poelzig.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 289px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP_RBeVej31hJdqixqEHgubLw600hrSpZtft1CUe6rqUo6iJgvvu63Sfwa-jEpuGCQ8NxWrc5cheBpgpNAgnzwhyphenhyphenGpdpeegJ-22DPaWbZ7ey-4qbPSmK-ZBI-LCDJbHd9mzF5qvtES378C/s400/blackcat_poelzig.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557646419294188258" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">NEXT: </span><span style="font-style: italic;">"A city in turmoil at the mercy of the underworld. See NIGHT KEY starring Boris Karloff as the inventor who falls into the hands of a gangster mob. NIGHT KEY is a tense, absorbing drama, grand entertainment on Shock. Tune in for the premiere telecast of this full-length feature film on this channel."</span><br /></div>The Creeping Bridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06164625940022489443noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-60769994812481124282011-01-02T03:02:00.000-08:002011-01-07T08:00:30.584-08:00CHINATOWN SQUAD (1935)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjJOHGgEHghQU8asYfWJsr2IvYXLTnRRMkQhuaxA5KI-srR1o1Mfj3c58qhK7pAf5pghlHHj_eylqNRzKrXtax5f2r-7bWrgjPlAHidZakIsxL45xxGfFMAENLS_wOjWVt1zajeFU0Hnh_/s1600/chinatown_poster.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 314px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjJOHGgEHghQU8asYfWJsr2IvYXLTnRRMkQhuaxA5KI-srR1o1Mfj3c58qhK7pAf5pghlHHj_eylqNRzKrXtax5f2r-7bWrgjPlAHidZakIsxL45xxGfFMAENLS_wOjWVt1zajeFU0Hnh_/s400/chinatown_poster.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557383040818054210" border="0" /></a>Shady importer/exporter and "high-class con man" Albert Raybold is stabbed in the heart with a fork (!!) one night in a private booth at the Peking <span class="synopsistext"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Café </span></span></span>in San Francisco's Chinatown. A number of the restaurant patrons are suspects: Raybold's secretary George Mason (Andy Devine), international tea dealer William Ward, businessman Claude Palmer, restaurant manager Quong Su, and restaurant owner (and presumably tong elder) John Yee. <span class="synopsistext"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Details surrounding Raybold's dirty dealings complicate things as it is learned that he was in the midst of a transaction to sell fighter planes to Communist rebels in Fuzhou at the time of his death-- $70,000 of the rebels' money held by Raybold has gone missing, as has a packet of incriminating letters written to him by a mysterious Woman in Black (Valerie Hobson) and a valuable jade ring. </span></span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibV1Xu5AcWY5gWJvINxkqsDKHD7BN4xbgqnRXvg8Kyb8tEOypKKh6X2iWWH50XPRRRBrBgr8prKvjcHQueNEFPRmeeuo8HcxeCym9wqUbPh7q3MPmuVOA89Vkb6mROZs3bOvDx1sxz5wE-/s1600/chinatown_ring.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 357px; height: 299px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibV1Xu5AcWY5gWJvINxkqsDKHD7BN4xbgqnRXvg8Kyb8tEOypKKh6X2iWWH50XPRRRBrBgr8prKvjcHQueNEFPRmeeuo8HcxeCym9wqUbPh7q3MPmuVOA89Vkb6mROZs3bOvDx1sxz5wE-/s400/chinatown_ring.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557412900126968242" border="0" /></a>(Whoever wrote up the <a href="http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=70856">synopsis for this movie on TCM's website</a> describes "a mystical jade ring" which "gives its wearer the power to do irreparable harm to his enemies," but this makes it sound like a prequel to THE LORD OF THE RINGS or something. Actually, the ring is like a letter of introduction or a password or a secret handshake that can give its enterprising wearer entry <span class="synopsistext"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >into the darkest and most lucrative corners of the Chinese criminal and political underworlds. After all, if the ring was so powerful, how come it didn't protect Raybold from being forked to death?)</span></span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="synopsistext"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" > </span></span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-lWYrXXhWYtY4HmQ6Jf0SfMvNh8PzCT4uqRXvlf1iE6jvr3NnsfswsujHPYCaLHofUKI987w3vgSDCM-L5zbMKcv28-98T9mETKDj9jUPJ2q5Emww4lDTY4m_lOf3dt6ZpLwHZtFnLwOv/s1600/chinatown_two+shot.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 357px; height: 273px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-lWYrXXhWYtY4HmQ6Jf0SfMvNh8PzCT4uqRXvlf1iE6jvr3NnsfswsujHPYCaLHofUKI987w3vgSDCM-L5zbMKcv28-98T9mETKDj9jUPJ2q5Emww4lDTY4m_lOf3dt6ZpLwHZtFnLwOv/s400/chinatown_two+shot.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557412847440104258" border="0" /></a>Another diner at the Peking <span class="synopsistext"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >Café at the time of Raybold's murder is ex-cop Ted Lacey (Lyle Talbot), formerly of the SFPD's elite Chinatown Squad but presently a neighborhood tour-bus guide (Jake Gittes, he ain't). Lacey's accidental involvement in the Raybold case reminds him of how much he enjoyed being part of the Chinatown Squad despite his conflicts with </span></span></span><span class="synopsistext"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >his sergeant, McLeash</span></span></span><span class="synopsistext"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >. Before long, Lacey joins forces with the Woman in Black and works with the squad to put all the clues together to solve Raybold's killing; he also squeezes a confession out of the killer and personally drives him to SFPD headquarters in a stolen police patrol van where the chief offers him his old job back with a promotion.</span></span></span><br /></div><span class="synopsistext"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1FzaMhoHsYQcZXtj_BW9Rq3PHXeXQr2olzHMdFtNw2FgmMyn1NOh-kR68FY9OR1Zq2KLUTwHQaJfxMnnClwMRY11ePYWYt-Z2D_dNddOev0fZRTEBixiaKyYsJKa62ucsj1tesyc5wHXJ/s1600/firecrackers.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 358px; height: 270px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1FzaMhoHsYQcZXtj_BW9Rq3PHXeXQr2olzHMdFtNw2FgmMyn1NOh-kR68FY9OR1Zq2KLUTwHQaJfxMnnClwMRY11ePYWYt-Z2D_dNddOev0fZRTEBixiaKyYsJKa62ucsj1tesyc5wHXJ/s400/firecrackers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557412794189432818" border="0" /></a>CHINATOWN SQUAD is one of those utterly monster-less, non-horror movies that Screen Gems tucked into the SHOCK! bundle. It's a fast-paced B-movie whodunit (written by Dore Schary) brimming with light banter and humorous touches (a reviewer on IMDb likened it to a "Thin Man" movie, but that's going way too far). Lyle Talbot's Lacey spends much of his time making wisecracks, needling Sgt. McLeash, and chuckling and grinning... in the still shown below, he has just slammed the door of the Chinatown Squad office and shattered the glass; he smiles and makes some dumb joke before running off and leaving McLeash impotently fuming. Such jackassery is typical of Lacey in this movie and it gets tedious quickly.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The Chinatown Squad was a special unit of the San Francisco police organized in the late 1870s that was re-activated in 1921 in the midst of concern with the alarming number of homicides in that neighborhood linked to tong control of prostitution, narcotics, smuggling, gambling, illegal immigration, extortion, and municipal political corruption. But in this movie the squad comes across like a bunch of inept clowns, a day late and a dollar short for whatever is going on. McLeash's mugging is especially grating; at one point, he takes a pratfall off of the Sausalito ferry pier while tailing Lacey and Yee. A darker murder-mystery melodrama about Chinatown's crime world would've been a better fit for SHOCK!-- CHINATOWN SQUAD is very light-weight.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Op8wLp9yKS9FIK9tWsJ1v3kpEq2kH04ZKd4OQ4YrrI4JsRdZFnLQHQpDxwvlVXJV2UyrLKq9uN4x6IuxKh_Fg2Y-qSPauIHc87UwJl7jq-ctXibOKKdpZtnH7fIkiHDA4QnJUCRVAhdo/s1600/chinatown_talbot.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 277px; height: 352px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Op8wLp9yKS9FIK9tWsJ1v3kpEq2kH04ZKd4OQ4YrrI4JsRdZFnLQHQpDxwvlVXJV2UyrLKq9uN4x6IuxKh_Fg2Y-qSPauIHc87UwJl7jq-ctXibOKKdpZtnH7fIkiHDA4QnJUCRVAhdo/s400/chinatown_talbot.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557383134847828674" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI9jIjPwACzO5tQ5me8CcWN8mw87uC5y5puDWtH_73DhF8BGyzl1f0L0BZaqDRhh0iZxIKR8NeJxeAmvkdLqAgUTYHbqTDdm6M9JDW9hsmU64TvABpMw9AOmmPSnlX3r4y_zt47GlmwMGr/s1600/talbot-chinatown.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 308px; height: 371px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI9jIjPwACzO5tQ5me8CcWN8mw87uC5y5puDWtH_73DhF8BGyzl1f0L0BZaqDRhh0iZxIKR8NeJxeAmvkdLqAgUTYHbqTDdm6M9JDW9hsmU64TvABpMw9AOmmPSnlX3r4y_zt47GlmwMGr/s400/talbot-chinatown.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557774056633634562" border="0" /></a>(Oddly, the publicity photo of Talbot that Screen Gems uses for CHINATOWN SQUAD in the SHOCK! booklet is older, heavier, and has grayer hair than the guy in this movie. Actually, it looks more like the Talbot of GLEN OR GLENDA? [1953] and JAIL BAIT [1954].<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">January 7th EDIT: </span>Thanks to <span style="font-weight: bold;">doctor kiss</span> for emailing me the following shots of Lyle Talbot from JAIL BAIT, confirming for me that this was the source for Screen Gems publicity photo.)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoyLEis_Dct3zM4wDXqPHLEkDOVrbeCbAPCznQceaKkjp9BqQ07ewhUcM_1kPjTk5AbCD5HdyjKQ9Hi2Q9J4nmfAWkhmBd8bQ4AegTfhRZaiGkYPjG0SB60qPz8VcDSUVWtmecbo6kaeYr/s1600/JailBait67m26s.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 298px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoyLEis_Dct3zM4wDXqPHLEkDOVrbeCbAPCznQceaKkjp9BqQ07ewhUcM_1kPjTk5AbCD5HdyjKQ9Hi2Q9J4nmfAWkhmBd8bQ4AegTfhRZaiGkYPjG0SB60qPz8VcDSUVWtmecbo6kaeYr/s400/JailBait67m26s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559473095539354354" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgKnw0EwwCdN9r2GHUS-CkxLmSyzmujwUrIyAP-VLe37RjsDORjDY_9B11RQUX5_gFZTrG8HyUqTuaWr_wkKv_qf9IfShXBhHH-UXbfcg5CM1Hp3cxkceRV5he1zNSSppYMNuz0HizUkm/s1600/JailBait68m6s.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 298px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgKnw0EwwCdN9r2GHUS-CkxLmSyzmujwUrIyAP-VLe37RjsDORjDY_9B11RQUX5_gFZTrG8HyUqTuaWr_wkKv_qf9IfShXBhHH-UXbfcg5CM1Hp3cxkceRV5he1zNSSppYMNuz0HizUkm/s400/JailBait68m6s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559473179659524034" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Lyle Talbot as Inspector Johns in Ed Wood, Jr.'s JAIL BAIT (1954)<br /></span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPzr-I3RUzFHbLBIHQ4e8cM92IjE01Fq6tYp_BoEfSzLJJu_BWdwxmHgVqusEwgW648jRGW_vOU8M0m_Je8EH_4_HhfLvXSiSk_gQFBs4_8m1aN-K9RZ1btxXv-As7SxCwZmDDYfviOkTK/s1600/chinatown_hobson.jpg"><br /></a>Probably the only saving grace here for Universal horror-movie lovers is Valerie Hobson as Janet Baker, the black-clad mystery woman. Hobson was supposed to be all of 18 years-old in 1935; immediately previous to CHINATOWN SQUAD, Hobson had appeared in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and WEREWOLF OF LONDON.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPzr-I3RUzFHbLBIHQ4e8cM92IjE01Fq6tYp_BoEfSzLJJu_BWdwxmHgVqusEwgW648jRGW_vOU8M0m_Je8EH_4_HhfLvXSiSk_gQFBs4_8m1aN-K9RZ1btxXv-As7SxCwZmDDYfviOkTK/s1600/chinatown_hobson.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 380px; height: 282px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPzr-I3RUzFHbLBIHQ4e8cM92IjE01Fq6tYp_BoEfSzLJJu_BWdwxmHgVqusEwgW648jRGW_vOU8M0m_Je8EH_4_HhfLvXSiSk_gQFBs4_8m1aN-K9RZ1btxXv-As7SxCwZmDDYfviOkTK/s400/chinatown_hobson.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557412945937208546" border="0" /></a> She's cool and lovely in this movie; surprisingly, she spends the last reel in a yellowface disguise meant to elude the Chinatown Squad (Lacey jokingly calls her "Ming Toy," a reference to Lupe Velez's character in Universal's EAST IS WEST [1930]). There are supposed to be romantic sparks between Hobson's character and Talbot's in this movie, but I didn't see them. Still, this film is worth watching just to see Hobson-- she's simply radiant (as usual) here.<br /></div><p style="text-align: center;" class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvQCUC__xXji0w9J2uW-JNJr0AqqB7leufF4-DTWV-trSPt1leFpte-iiyUpA7P15gepEmEapBOZchPRGvc5lcSP3t2Nc3KwevTyJsOswoeWGf7EkbKS52ne9I6iBoC5oCzCP0VAly4zPf/s1600/chinatown_Daily+Review+HaywardCA+Mar1160.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 223px; height: 144px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvQCUC__xXji0w9J2uW-JNJr0AqqB7leufF4-DTWV-trSPt1leFpte-iiyUpA7P15gepEmEapBOZchPRGvc5lcSP3t2Nc3KwevTyJsOswoeWGf7EkbKS52ne9I6iBoC5oCzCP0VAly4zPf/s400/chinatown_Daily+Review+HaywardCA+Mar1160.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557382893343437794" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Daily Review</span>, Hayward, CA, March 11, 1960</span><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal">After its syndicated release through SHOCK! and right up until 1979, CHINATOWN SQUAD appeared on television mostly in the morning and late afternoon time-slots. When it did show up at night, it was often as just a late show movie rather than part of a named "Shock Theater" or "Creature Feature" program. But it did make it into those showcases every once in a while. In an essay called "<a href="http://www.scrabo.com/scrivani4.htm">'Shock Theater' Memories</a>," writer Rich Scrivani (I recommend his <span><span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span id="btAsinTitle" style="">2006 book <span style="font-style: italic;">Goodnight, Whatever You Are! My Journey with Zacherley, the Cool Ghoul</span><span>) </span></span></span></span></span>recalls: <span style="">"Occasionally the supernatural aura of 1958 would be dispelled when some questionable entries would run. Titles like CHINATOWN SQUAD <span style=""> </span>[…] padded out the series. While we can enjoy them for their place in Universal history now, they were unwanted intruders at the time, tepid 'B' mysteries, holding no interest whatsoever for kids who wanted monsters."</span> <span><span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span id="btAsinTitle" style=""><span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span><span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span id="btAsinTitle" style=""><span>For fans of zippy B-movie mysteries of the 1930s, there are worse ways to spend an hour than CHINATOWN SQUAD. But, as Scrivani says, for monster-crazy kids who waited all week to stay up late for SHOCK!, this movie must have been an aggravating and unsatisfactory viewing experience.<br /></span></span></span></span></span></p><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NEXT:</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">"Two fiends clash in a death struggle while THE BLACK CAT creeps on Shock on this channel! Who will be the loser when Karloff and Lugosi meet! It's anyone's guess. Be sure to see the full-length feature THE BLACK CAT on this channel."</span>The Creeping Bridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06164625940022489443noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-8783931747556136132011-01-01T16:57:00.000-08:002011-01-01T17:00:46.926-08:00SON OF DRACULA trailerA bit too late to be a preview, but here's the trailer to SON OF DRACULA, discussed by Creeping Bride below. The Shock promo:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Alucard or Dracula? It doesn't matter which way you look at it when Shock brings to your screen SON OF DRACULA. You won't want to miss Lon Chaney and Louise Allbritton in this chill-drama about that famous vampire. It's a feature film presentation."<br /></span><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="400" height="364" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Qv4y_Y0bKWo?rel=0" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6192773387267481562.post-90395307391393839282010-12-31T01:57:00.000-08:002010-12-31T12:00:21.962-08:00SON OF DRACULA (1943)<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidtoyUk9BRmYQ9X6JvMwqp7O18QBrNkiLC8uDHkQIkdK-YOxmFFGSB_zMvxBESJ5YtQxgt4LgHKvFBpj6p3ilGl4e6wUibhij_dCA2kDGst8BstXxsUO_Z8KIUV5A6BtPTqCoemrT2hoc7/s1600/sonofdrac_kay.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 290px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidtoyUk9BRmYQ9X6JvMwqp7O18QBrNkiLC8uDHkQIkdK-YOxmFFGSB_zMvxBESJ5YtQxgt4LgHKvFBpj6p3ilGl4e6wUibhij_dCA2kDGst8BstXxsUO_Z8KIUV5A6BtPTqCoemrT2hoc7/s400/sonofdrac_kay.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556671020162858386" border="0" /></a>Old World vampire gothic meets New World Southern Gothic in SON OF DRACULA. It's an interesting idea, right? Transplant the Germanic expressionism of the Carpathian foothills to the Dark Oaks plantation in the Deep South and let's see what happens...<br /><br />For me, a lot of it works: the cellar under the Caldwell mansion is a great place to stash coffins, as is the old playroom in the disused attic and the swamp drainage flumes. And then there's the great ambiance of the family graveyard on the estate and the old shack of the hoodoo conjure-woman Queen Zimba. Kay Caldwell (Louise Allbritton)-- all jet-black bangs and diaphanous gowns and a "morbid" (as we're told a bunch of times by different characters) obsession with the occult-- is some sort of character that you might find threatening the heroine in one of those pre-Anne Rice <a href="http://womenrunningfromhouses.blogspot.com/search/label/Plantation%20House">gothic romance potboilers</a>. In general, I think the Southern setting works a helluva lot better in SON OF DRACULA than it does in THE MUMMY'S CURSE (1944).<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCCQ4vYSrz2O-34xkrPkET2ahdqC_5AVwqZM6pUIlTjQQIGyieqkxMf_C_b_af55rK2eUPsdLqX52sfxl_5zqiNvKbUCwX_xC5kmpQq14Wh7XKNBCcudA8cTpCubs4B3MIFnDzsY7I8LEH/s1600/sonofdrac_Southern+IllinoisanCarbondaleJul0160.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 181px; height: 215px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCCQ4vYSrz2O-34xkrPkET2ahdqC_5AVwqZM6pUIlTjQQIGyieqkxMf_C_b_af55rK2eUPsdLqX52sfxl_5zqiNvKbUCwX_xC5kmpQq14Wh7XKNBCcudA8cTpCubs4B3MIFnDzsY7I8LEH/s400/sonofdrac_Southern+IllinoisanCarbondaleJul0160.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5555585624364934818" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Southern Illinoisan, </span>Carbondale, IL, July 1, 1960</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The relocation of the vampire from Europe to the USA may have had something to do with the motion picture being a wartime production. There are a couple times in SON OF DRACULA when the comment is made that the vampire has left the Old Country because the land and its people are barren, weak and exhausted; America, by contrast, is a "younger country, stronger, more virile" (in the words of Dr. Brewster). Alucard materializes and confirms this theory in his conversation with Professor Lazlo: "I am here because this is a young and virile race, not dry and decaying like ours," he tells the Hungarian. "They have what I want...what I need...what I must have." For a bit of historical context, recall that the Kingdom of Hungary was run by a right-wing, pro-fascist Axis government when SON OF DRACULA was in production; when the movie first appeared on TV as part of SHOCK!, Hungary had been very recently invaded and occupied by the USSR after a failed attempt by its people to overthrow the Soviet-backed regime there. I don't want to make too much of this, but it seems like an interesting way to re-imagine the vampiric threat: America's youthful vigor, vitality, and virility menaced by a symbol of fascism during WWII and then later by a symbol of Stalinism during the Cold War. (This latter connection for SHOCK!-era viewers of SON OF DRACULA also makes me think of that other vampire-from-behind-the-Iron-Curtain movie from the same time, THE RETURN OF DRACULA [1958] from Gramercy Pictures and United Artists.)<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWK5Wsk_lCiUlLsqL73OSM1lVf-8yhMr6K0MAar3GgY2OI8JXVwl5T2ucVdVMS-amWaAv5dZW3_Zd1q6hj6G8gFYOmYCXDcf4SQtKcBr2nP1Y9Q6NVjJFMUF_Molr64xFfpoB4sXdZNN2-/s1600/sonofdrac_alucard1.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWK5Wsk_lCiUlLsqL73OSM1lVf-8yhMr6K0MAar3GgY2OI8JXVwl5T2ucVdVMS-amWaAv5dZW3_Zd1q6hj6G8gFYOmYCXDcf4SQtKcBr2nP1Y9Q6NVjJFMUF_Molr64xFfpoB4sXdZNN2-/s400/sonofdrac_alucard1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556688603752174258" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">"Hey, wait a minute... I wonder if...?"</span></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy2PXPO_5-SVNgMx5-oZqmaU86-Gm-UcfnhnmH3R5TQxOkcr4FQfMTHPSFw7zS9pnMmMjIRhtmNfmFL2dCDrmupXKrakLvU4anZhH_lFJOqqFfcM8zfRDqnXk0Vd0HBAbGFqPUblzVk0i7/s1600/sonofdrac_alucard2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy2PXPO_5-SVNgMx5-oZqmaU86-Gm-UcfnhnmH3R5TQxOkcr4FQfMTHPSFw7zS9pnMmMjIRhtmNfmFL2dCDrmupXKrakLvU4anZhH_lFJOqqFfcM8zfRDqnXk0Vd0HBAbGFqPUblzVk0i7/s400/sonofdrac_alucard2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556688675619806786" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">"Nah, it just couldn't be..."</span></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj42zUNZgWLuHIdSa6M1UCyYsnQ0Ptv15Dv_swjM2-PR8hgQXgQOponK84nxV5zn9dD0K7QdSgZymzbXlQ8VhDNsX8-uKeeJ4-aPdqDhUiGQ1cW9TUIt3KWi4992_Tb7WT-BiNTB_K-_pOO/s1600/son+of+drac_El+Paso+Herald-PostJun2858.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 331px; height: 142px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj42zUNZgWLuHIdSa6M1UCyYsnQ0Ptv15Dv_swjM2-PR8hgQXgQOponK84nxV5zn9dD0K7QdSgZymzbXlQ8VhDNsX8-uKeeJ4-aPdqDhUiGQ1cW9TUIt3KWi4992_Tb7WT-BiNTB_K-_pOO/s400/son+of+drac_El+Paso+Herald-PostJun2858.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5555585524737395346" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">"But that's what the TV guide in the </span>El Paso Herald-Post<span style="font-style: italic;"> for June 28, 1958 says! It must be!"</span></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I can't help but think what this film would have been like if someone other than Lon Chaney, Jr. played Count Alucard (or, as Frank Stanley [Robert Paige] sometimes sounds like he's pronouncing it in this movie, "Count <span style="visibility: visible;" id="main"><span style="visibility: visible;" id="search">À La Carte"). This is another instance of Chaney being painfully miscast</span></span>. At "six foot, three and one-half inches tall and weighing 220 pounds" (according to the SHOCK! promotional book's news release on Chaney), this doesn't look like the starving, desperate vampire refugee from a weak, dry, decaying race. Chaney goes for the mysterious, dangerous European vampire look by sporting that suave John Waters mustache from the "Inner Sanctum" pictures and spouting contraction-less English (as opposed to the article-free pidgin English he used to play a Native American in the 1957 series "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve6iWT-wSjw">Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans</a>"), neither which are very effective in making anyone think that he's someone other than Lon Chaney, Jr. One positive thing that I will say about Chaney's Alucard, though, is that his hysterical outburst at the end of the movie (bellowing at Frank : "Put it out! Put it out, do you hear me?!") makes me think of the ways that Christopher Lee would play a more ferocious, feral Dracula in the Hammer films starting in 1958.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD0eT-UeZaRjWAouh9gULdL6MhK7CZ6lRtbMnkiq56hKIlOHNY2RL-HwaIETt_dXGzwEFIVBqwOQrpkJ8J49U43_XNGMNu8p96tY6vsxM3B43SPSxZ1dn-fM4xcQlbUc74xBJ8UD4fdtgf/s1600/sonofdrac_jail+bat.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD0eT-UeZaRjWAouh9gULdL6MhK7CZ6lRtbMnkiq56hKIlOHNY2RL-HwaIETt_dXGzwEFIVBqwOQrpkJ8J49U43_XNGMNu8p96tY6vsxM3B43SPSxZ1dn-fM4xcQlbUc74xBJ8UD4fdtgf/s400/sonofdrac_jail+bat.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556705970377990690" border="0" /></a>I need to say a little something here about director Robert Siodmak. Just as his brother Curt has his fingerprints all over the development of the classic American horror film, Robert Siodmak was a key figure in<span style="font-style: italic;"> film noir</span>, directing important movies in that highly-stylized manner like PHANTOM LADY (1944), THE KILLERS (1946), THE DARK MIRROR (1946), CRISS CROSS (1949), and THE FILE ON THELMA JORDAN (1950). In each of these movies (and in his other quasi-<span style="font-style: italic;">noir</span> melodramas, like THE SUSPECT [1944], THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY [1945], and THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE [1945]), <span style="visibility: visible;" id="main"><span style="visibility: visible;" id="search">Siodmak includes a scene or two where he goes all-out to craft an almost haunted, symbol-laden mise-en-scène </span></span>of space and shadow that says a lot about the interior world of the characters on the screen, and you can see some of this skill in parts of SON OF DRACULA.<br /><br />This movie was Siodmak's first after signing a long-term contract with Universal in 1943 (within a year, he would direct Chaney in Technicolor in COBRA WOMAN) and just a few months prior to his exquisite work with cinematographer Woody Bredell on PHANTOM LADY. With this mind, I like to watch SON OF DRACULA with an eye to its <span style="font-style: italic;">film noir</span> elements: as we learn in the jailhouse scene, Kay is the <span style="font-style: italic;">femme fatale</span> who has been deceiving Alucard in order to gain immortality; she confesses that she really has loved Frank all along, despite her whirlwind romance with and wedding to Alucard. Frank, the typical masochist <span style="font-style: italic;">noir</span> protagonist who is ruined by guilt, teetering on the edge of insanity, and in jail for murder, is love-sick and isn't turned off at all by this revelation. Kay convinces Frank to destroy Alucard so that they can be together forever. Frank does away with Alucard, but then double-crosses Kay and destroys her as well, but not before he lovingly slips a wedding ring on her finger. What a sap. It's not hard for me to imagine Louise Allbritton's Kay as Yvonne De Carlo, Robert Paige as Burt Lancaster, and Lon Chaney, Jr. as Dan Duryea in some alternate-universe version of Siodmak's CRISS CROSS, or as Barbara Stanwyck, Wendell Corey, and Richard Rober in THE FILE ON THELMA JORDAN. SON OF DRACULA lacks the claustrophobic sexual tension and overdetermined Freudian mumbo-jumbo of Siodmak's later work, but I still think it's an interesting near-crossover of horror and <span style="font-style: italic;">noir</span> sensibilities.<br /></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFO59_c3rQSmqBqJmrTuLt4mGgIlW3FGxVAWkqBsllFizhjDqifQpUDUG0XpaYl0EoMzbrJ8TNM-dC226wsngwNQyJFWgWaST5E9Eo-2gXrdTZ7GQ8r9j61GqFxHuwQCJhHwkfZ4HPO7Gq/s1600/sonofdrac_morgue+bat.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 321px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFO59_c3rQSmqBqJmrTuLt4mGgIlW3FGxVAWkqBsllFizhjDqifQpUDUG0XpaYl0EoMzbrJ8TNM-dC226wsngwNQyJFWgWaST5E9Eo-2gXrdTZ7GQ8r9j61GqFxHuwQCJhHwkfZ4HPO7Gq/s400/sonofdrac_morgue+bat.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5556705899914613250" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />NEXT:</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">"Behind the Frisco fog lurk treachery and death. See the exciting thrill of the underworld battling the CHINATOWN SQUAD on Shock over this channel. It's an action-filled feature film premiere that will keep you gripping your seat with excitement."</span><br /></div>The Creeping Bridehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06164625940022489443noreply@blogger.com7