What Kind Of Boots Did Frankenstein's Monster Wear? (video)

In "Frankenstein" (1931), Boris Karloff wore special boots for greater height.

They were a modified pair of knee-high "asphalt spreader" boots with the soles greatly enlarged.
Each boot is said to have weighed 13 pounds.  This added to the Monster's lumbering gait.

There have been conflicting accounts over the years...
...as to how the construction and weight of the boots vary in subsequent sequels.
They do seem smoother and more custom crafted in later films.

The Monster has been caught without his trademark boots only once...
...at the end of "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" (1944).

I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it!

Thanks to Joro Gaming for the music.

What Kind Of Boots Did Frankenstein's Monster Wear? (video)

THE MUMMY (1932) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 3/5/17

 

THE MUMMY (1932) stars Boris Karloff, receiving sole over-the-title billing here only a year after FRANKENSTEIN plucked him from relative obscurity.

He plays Im-ho-tep, an Egyptian high priest who was mummified alive for the sacrilege of trying to use the Scroll of Thoth to bring his dead Princess Ankh-es-en-amon back to life.

Thousands of years later his tomb is discovered by archeologists led by Sir Joseph Whemple (Arthur Byron), and when a junior member of the team reads aloud from the Scroll of Thoth, the mummified Im-ho-tep returns to life in one of the creepiest and coolest scenes in the Golden Age of Horror. 

The poor assistant is driven stark raving mad when the crumbling corpse emerges from his sarcophagus, grabs the scroll, and shuffles off to Buffalo (or its Egyptian equivalent, anyway), bestowing screen immortality upon the actor, Bramwell Fletcher, playing the unfortunate lad who would later die laughing in an insane asylum.

Jack Pierce's makeup job on Karloff here is magnificent, but after one really great close-up (a dummy is used in the wide shots), we never get to see it again.

For the rest of the film Karloff appears sans wrappings (but with another fine, densely-wrinkled makeup job by Pierce) under the guise of the fez-headed Ardeth Bay, a mysterious Egyptian who shows up years later to lead the archeological team of Whemple's son Frank (David Manners) straight to the tomb of Princess Ankh-es-en-amon.

With the recovery of her mummy and the Scroll of Thoth, Ardeth Bay plans to bring his ancient princess back to life--until he discovers that her soul has been reincarnated in the body of young Helen Grosvenor (the fascinatingly-eccentric actress Zita Johann), whom he now begins to lure into his sinister clutches.

Sir Joseph Whemple and his son Frank discover Bay's intentions and try to foil them, with the help of a wise old expert in the Egyptian occult named Dr. Muller (Edward Van Sloan).

Unlike FRANKENSTEIN and THE WOLF MAN, there was no basis in literature or folklore for the character of the living mummy. In fact, the original script by Nina Wilcox Putnam was based on the life of French mystic Cagliostro, who claimed to have been several centuries old.

But due to the sensation caused by the discovery of King Tut's tomb, the script was changed to take advantage of the public's mummy-mania at the time and present Karloff as the undying Im-ho-tep.

It was also heavily influenced by the previous year's DRACULA with Bela Lugosi, containing many of the same story elements right down to the almost-identical characters played by Edward Van Sloan and David Manners, and the replacement of the crucifix with an Egyptian ankh as a talisman against evil.

The cinematographer on DRACULA and a major influence on its look (especially in the early scenes in Dracula's castle) was German filmmaker Karl Freund, and THE MUMMY marked his first official stint in the director's chair.

He gave the film its beautifully somber, almost expressionistic look and a deliberately-paced restraint that make it--as it has been called--a "tone poem" of horror as opposed to the more lurid and over-the-top offerings in the genre.

Today, unfortunately, many viewers find it too slow and boring to sit through. But those whose attention spans encompass an old-style form of storytelling that offers a wealth of exquisite subtlety and mood over visceral sensation, not to mention a great performance by Karloff, will most likely find THE MUMMY to be one of the finest horror films ever made.


Read our overview of the entire original Universal Mummy series

THE MUMMY (1932)
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-mummy-1932-movie-review-by-porfle.html

THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940)
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-mummys-hand-1940-movie-review-by.html

THE MUMMY'S TOMB (1942)
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-mummys-tomb-1942-movie-review-by.html

THE MUMMY'S GHOST (1944)
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-mummys-ghost-1944-movie-review-by.html

THE MUMMY'S CURSE (1944)
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-mummys-curse-1944-movie-review-by.html

THE MUMMY (1932) -- Movie Review by Porfle

"You're Hurting Me!!!" (video)

 

 

"You're hurting me!!!"

Definitely one of the most often used lines in movie and TV history. 

We collected as many examples as we could find, but there are doubtless many more of them out there. 

 

Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

 

"You're Hurting Me!!!" (video)

SUSPENSE: THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 5/7/09

 

I'm fascinated by the early days of television, and you can't get much earlier, or more fascinating, than SUSPENSE: THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION.  

This is Jurassic TV, a primitive-looking, melodramatic thriller anthology that premiered in 1949 and lasted for 260 live, half-hour episodes until 1954. Ninety of those episodes have been unearthed and are now available in this 12-disc set which spans the series' entire run. 

As in any anthology series, the quality of the writing varies--in fact, some of the stories are clunkers. But for the most part, these episodes are consistantly exciting and imaginative, and live up to the series' title with stories that quickly establish a suspenseful situation and then keep us on edge till the end. 

Several stories are adapted from the works of authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Allan Poe. Rod Serling's contribution, the eerie "Nightmare at Ground Zero", is a tense and unsettling atom-bomb tale that really stretches the limits of live television. 

Knowing that these teleplays were performed live gives them the immediacy of theater combined with the intimacy of television. You can imagine the actors and crew rushing into their next set-ups during a slow dissolve, and sometimes you can hear them doing it, too. 

Gaffes by these skilled actors are few, while the occasional technical blooper is unavoidable. In "The Comic Strip Murder", a piece of equipment can be seen moving past a high-rise balcony like a UFO. In "The Parcel", a stock clip of a crowd enjoying a ballgame runs out before the director can cut to Ray Walston, Royal Dano, and Conrad Janis sitting in a bleacher mock-up. Cues are missed, boom mike shadows flit across walls, focusing is done on the fly, and sometimes you can even spot an errant crew member where he shouldn't be. But mistakes like this are part of the appeal of watching live television, and the fact that there are so few of them in this smoothly produced and directed (mostly by Robert Stevens) series is impressive. 

Most of the stories are grounded in reality, with the occasional foray into the supernatural. The very first episode in this collection, "A Night at the Inn" with Boris Karloff, is an unabashedly nutball tale of a gang of thieves stalked by knife-wielding, turban-wearing Indians for stealing a sacred idol's jeweled eye, until the indignant idol itself shows up to reclaim it. Another episode, "Black Passage", features none other than Stella Adler as a hot-blooded Latin vampire and a very young William Prince as the unwary suitor of her equally bloodthirsty daughter. 

Hardboiled crime drama rubs shoulders with frequent doses of Hitchcock-style mystery and creepiness, along with the type of macabre irony often found in EC comics. Richard Boone gives a super cool performance as a homicide cop closing in on a medical examiner whose guilt has been inadvertently captured on film in "Photo Finish." In "My Old Man's Badge", Barry Nelson plays a beat cop who singlehandedly takes on a drug-smuggling ring to avenge his father's murder, and in "Dead Fall", he's framed for passing industrial secrets to the Commies. 

On the darker side, "Dr. Violet" gives us Hume Cronyn as the proprietor of a carnival murder museum who takes a chillingly active part in his exhibits, while "Dead Ernest" generates suspense by showing us a catatonic man mistakenly pronounced dead and lying on a morgue slab awaiting the embalmer. 

One of the main pleasures of watching this collection is its incredible array of familiar faces, from past, present and future stars to the great character actors, often doing brilliant work. Ray Walston (billed as "Wallston" in one episode) and Royal Dano appear several times. Leslie Nielsen, just beginning his career as a dramatic actor which would later give way to comedy, stars in "The Brush Off" with future "Superman" star George Reeves. Boris Karloff shows up more than once and Bela Lugosi gives a delightfully florid performance in an adaptation of Poe's "The Cask of Amantillado." 

Other notable names include Paul Newman, Otto Kruger, Kim Hunter, Anne Francis, Lee Marvin, Harold J. Stone, Conrad Janis, Eileen Heckart, Walter Matthau, Eddie Albert, Lloyd Bridges, Mike Kellin, Ward Bond, James Whitmore, Vic Morrow, Jackie Cooper, Brian Keith, Darren McGavin, Franchot Tone, Jack Klugman, Tom Drake, Gene Lyons, Cloris Leachman, Mildred Natwick, Lilli Palmer, Eva Marie Saint, Richard Kiley, Joan Blondell, Jack Palance, Eva Gabor, Peter Mark Richman, Jayne Meadows, Robert Webber, and many more. Several of them make multiple appearances. 

These episodes are kinescopes, meaning that a monitor was filmed during the live performances so that copies of each episode could be sent to various network affiliates (this was before videotape or cable). This gives the show a somewhat murky picture and sound quality that is unavoidable; otherwise, however, I think these DVDs look very good. 

The 12 discs are contained in six attractive slimline cases which were originally released in three seperate sets, and contain all 90 episodes of the show that are known to exist. The final episode, "The Funmaster" with Keenan Wynn, is the only non-live entry and was aired in 1958, four years after the show's demise, presumably in an effort to revive it. 

The musical score for "Suspense" is performed almost entirely on Hammond organ (with the occasional piano, tubular bells, etc.) in the style of the early soap operas, and sounds similar to the music in Herk Harvey's CARNIVAL OF SOULS. As a bonus, almost every episode contains the original commercials for the show's sponsor, Auto-Lite automotive products, featuring dulcet-toned announcer Rex Marshall and a delightfully corny assortment of cartoons and animated clips.

SUSPENSE: THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION is over 43 hours of pure, unadulterated nostalgia that I found irresistibly entertaining. Whether you're a fan of early TV, or simply curious about what the medium looked like before it began to earn nicknames like "vast wasteland" and "boob tube", this time capsule from television's infancy should give you just the sort of buzz you're looking for. Buy it at 

 

 

SUSPENSE: THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION -- DVD Review by Porfle

"FRANKENSTEIN" (1931): The Infamous Censored Scenes (video)

In 1931, individual state censor boards demanded various cuts to "Frankenstein."

But two passages in particular were universally condemned.

One was a quote by Henry Frankenstein at the end of the creation scene.

The second occurs when the Monster meets little Maria.

The confused Monster believes that Maria will float like the flowers.
The censored version ends with him reaching for her, and...

The two censored scenes were finally rediscovered and restored in the 1980s.


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

"FRANKENSTEIN" (1931): The Infamous Censored Scenes (video)

Bela Lugosi At His Most Unhinged! "The Raven" (1935) (video)

In this bizarre thriller, Bela plays Poe-obsessed Dr. Vollin…

...the only surgeon who can save the life of Jean Thatcher (Irene Ware).

He also operates on an escaped convict named Bateman (Boris Karloff).

But instead of giving him a handsome new face, Bela makes him hideous.

Bela relishes gaining an advantage over others...
...and then torturing them mercilessly.

Bela's performance becomes more and more unhinged as the film progresses.

He pulls out all the stops in this one, and the result is glorious.


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

Bela Lugosi At His Most Unhinged! "The Raven" (1935) (video)

Una O'Connor Totally Befuddles The Frankenstein Monster ("Bride Of Frankenstein", 1935) (video)

After surviving a lynch mob and falling through a burning mill...

...the Monster is understandably peeved and in a mood to lash out.

But then he meets Una O'Connor.

The Monster doesn't know what to make of her.

He just stands there in silent awe.


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

Una O'Connor Totally Befuddles The Frankenstein Monster ("Bride Of Frankenstein", 1935) (video)

GETTING THE STORY STRAIGHT: THE UNIVERSAL "FRANKENSTEIN" SERIES (Part Two of Two) by Porfle

Here's the intro for Part One:

If you're just a casual viewer of the classic Universal horror films from the 30s and 40s, you might sometimes wonder exactly what's going on in a particular episode of the "Frankenstein" saga.  How come the Monster can talk in one movie, but is mute in the next?  How did he end up in that block of ice?  Why does he suddenly look like Bela Lugosi? 

Let's see if we can't get the story straight, and make as much sense out of things as possible, so that the next time you watch a "Frankenstein" movie, you'll know exactly where it fits in the continuing story of the Monster.  Although there's certainly more nitpicking that can be done with these films, such as various anachronisms, changing locations, and multiple spellings of certain names, we'll be dealing with the basic storylines and more fun-type details here.

And if you already know all of this stuff--well, what the heck, you can read it anyway.

And now, continuing with our recap of Universal's classic "Frankenstein" series with regard to its film-to-film continuity, we set our sights on the final four films...

(Warning: wall-to-wall spoilers ahead!)



FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943)

In this installment, which is more a sequel to THE WOLF MAN than anything else, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) once again finds himself roaming the earth waiting for those dreaded nights in which the full moon will transform him into a bloodthirsty beast.  He seeks help from the gypsy woman, Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya), who once cared for her own lycanthropic son Bela before he passed his terrible curse on to Talbot and was then killed by him.  Together they travel to the village of Vasaria, where Maleva is sure Dr. Frankenstein will be able to help Talbot. 

When they arrive, they discover that Dr. Frankenstein is dead and his castle (into which the mental institution of the previous film seems to have morphed) is in ruins.  The full moon rises, and Talbot once again becomes the Wolf Man.  With a passel of torch-wielding villagers hot on his heels, he darts into the ruins of Frankenstein's castle and falls through a hole into an underground ice cavern.  There, after returning to his human form, he discovers the Frankenstein Monster frozen in a wall of ice (with stuntman Gil Perkins in full makeup providing the impressive first closeup).  How did he get there, after last being seen burning alive in Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory?  Hmmm.  I guess he fell through the floor again like he did in the windmill at the end of the first movie. 

Anyway, Talbot has the bright idea that the Monster might be able to lead him to Frankenstein's records, which contain the secrets of life and death and might show him a way to end his miserable existence.  The Monster, now played by Bela Lugosi (which is fitting, since Lugosi's "Ygor" donated his brain to the Monster in the last movie), obligingly leads Talbot to a hidden panel where he believes Frankenstein's diary resides.  But it is empty.  Talbot then devises a plan to contact Frankenstein's daughter, Elsa (played by Evelyn Ankers in GHOST, but now embodied by bombshell Ilona Massey), to see if she knows the diary's whereabouts.  Talbot persuades Elsa to come to the castle with him, where she shows him a hidden compartment that contains the actual Frankenstein records.
 

Dr. Mannering (Patrick Knowles), who treated an injured Talbot earlier in the film and believes him to be dangerously delusional, inexplicably agrees to help him in his self-destructive endeavors, restoring Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory and using his records to come up with a way to drain off Talbot's life energies.  Elsa urges him to use the same technology to finish off the Monster as well, to which he agrees.  But at the crucial moment, Mannering realizes that he can't destroy such a monumental scientific achievement as the Frankenstein Monster, and must see it at its full power. 

With Talbot and the Monster both strapped to tables in the laboratory, Mannering fires up the machinery and fills the Monster with life-giving electricity.  The Monster blinks his eyes--he can see again!  For indeed, in the original script he was blind just as he had been at the end of the previous film, and what's more, he spoke throughout the film in Ygor's voice.  But, as the story goes, the studio executives thought this sounded too gosh-darn funny (especially when they heard Lugosi speaking some of the really bad lines that Curt Siodmak had written for him), so they simply cut all of the Monster's speech, and references to his blindness as well, out of the finished film.  This explains why Lugosi plays the Monster with his arms stiffly outstretched, and why in some scenes his mouth moves even though there are no words coming out of it!  It's also one of the main reasons Lugosi's earnest performance as the Monster has been so unfairly maligned ever since this film premiered. 

But back to the story--the Monster can see again, and he feels unlimited power surging through his body as he breaks the straps and lumbers off of the table to grab the unwilling Elsa (apparently electricity works pretty much like Viagra).  Meanwhile, the full moon has risen again and Talbot has turned into the Wolf Man.  He also breaks free, then performs a flying tackle on the Monster. 

Elsa and Dr. Mannering hightail it out of the castle just as one of the villagers blows up the dam above, sending a raging wall of water down the mountainside while the Wolf Man and the Monster (with stuntmen Gil Perkins and Eddie Parker filling in for the aging Lugosi) take each other on in the monster rumble to end all monster rumbles.  The water hits the castle and destroys it, washing both monsters away as the villagers gape at each other in confusion.  Should they be happy?  Or should they run for their lives as the massive wall of water descends upon their village?



HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944)

Karloff is back, but this time he plays the evil Dr. Niemann, a maniacal devotee of the late Dr. Frankenstein's scientific endeavors who has no qualms about applying this knowledge to such dubious efforts as transplanting the brain of a man into the head of a dog.  In the opening scenes, Niemann and his hunchbacked minion Daniel (J. Carrol Naish) escape from prison and kill the owner of a traveling horror show (George Zucco), assuming the identities of him and his driver. 

As this film is a multi-monster extravaganza (with the classic monster era fading, Universal was drawing audiences into theaters with the promise of more monsters for their money), they have a brief encounter with Dracula (John Carradine) before arriving at Frankenstein's castle to look for his records.  Venturing into the same underground ice cavern seen in the previous film, they discover the frozen bodies of both the Monster and the Wolf Man, apparently deposited there by the flood waters, and set about thawing them out.  Talbot comes to first, none the worse for wear but a bit cranky after his long nap ("Why have you freed me from the ice that imprisoned the beast that lives within me?" he asks). 

But the Monster is in bad shape and in need of rejuvenation again, which Dr. Niemann is quite willing to provide once they journey to his old laboratory with Talbot and the Monster in tow.  On the way there, they pick up a gypsy girl named Ilonka (Elena Verdugo), who turns the smitten Daniel into a palpitating bundle of jealousy when she promptly falls in love with Talbot.  Back at the lab, Niemann straps the Monster to a table (where Glenn Strange, the former stuntman and bit player who now plays the role, will spend most of his time in this movie and the next) to prepare him for his electrical "pepper-upper".
 

Talbot grows more and more agitated as the next full moon approaches, impatient for the doctor to help him instead of fiddling around with the Monster.  Ilonka takes pity on him, and plans to shoot him with a silver bullet ("fired by the hand...of one who loves him enough...to understand" she recites gravely) the next time he turns.  In one of the best transformation scenes in any of the Wolf Man films, Talbot once again becomes a hairy, fanged beast and rushes out into the night looking for a jugular vein to bite.  Ilonka follows him and is fatally wounded, but not before she can fire the crucial shot that will end Talbot's misery. 

Daniel is heartbroken when he finds her body, and blames Dr. Niemann for devoting all his attention to the Monster instead of fulfilling his promise to put Daniel's brain into Talbot's healthy body and turn him into a chick-magnet.  He attacks the doctor and breaks his back.  The Monster, grateful to the doctor for restoring his strength, breaks his straps and lunges off of the table, grabbing Daniel and heaving him through a window to his death.  At this point, the omnipresent torch-wielding villagers arrive right on schedule to herd the Monster, carrying the dying Niemann, into a nearby swamp where he stumbles into some quicksand and the two of them sink slowly into oblivion.



 HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945)

This is the last film in the series and is another monsterfest like the previous one, again featuring the Frankenstein Monster, the Wolf Man, and Dracula.  Also on hand to make it even more monster-packed are "The Mad Doctor" and "The Hunchback", although Jane Adams as a kindly hunchbacked nurse named Nina isn't exactly my idea of a monster. 

The "Mad Doctor" in question, Dr. Edelman (Onslow Stevens), is first seen as a respected physician and scientist who is currently working on the creation of a special technique that can heal all sorts of physical maladies without traditional surgery.  But progress is slow, and Nina longs for the day in which the doctor can finally work his magic on her. 

It isn't long before John Carradine's Dracula shows up at the doctor's seaside mansion, this time seeking a cure for his vampirism.  The doctor examines a sample of Dracula's blood under a microscope and discovers that it contains parasites that may cause his craving for blood.  He prescribes a series of transfusions which he hopes will solve the problem.  Of course, Dracula's ever-roving eye is drawn to Dr. Edelman's other nurse, the beautiful Miliza (Martha O'Driscoll), and before you know it he's forgotten that silly notion about being cured and is hard at work luring Miliza over to the dark side. 

Not only that, but during his next blood transfusion he proves what a real first-class jerk he is by reversing the flow and injecting his own blood into Dr. Edelman's veins, which will eventually turn the kindly doctor into a ravening madman (the "Mad Doctor" promised in the film's publicity).  But Dr. Edelman manages to thwart Dracula's plans by dragging his coffin into the light of the rising sun and opening the lid, thus reducing the vampire to skeletal form once again. 

Meanwhile, Larry Talbot (who somehow survived being shot with a silver bullet in the last movie) has also arrived at the mansion hoping for a cure for his particular problem, but he's come at a bad time--the doctor is busy, and it's almost full-moon time again.  He races into town and begs the local police to put him up for the night.  They call upon Dr. Edelman to come and take a look at the "madman" they've got locked up in their cell.  Edelman tries to convince Talbot that his problem is merely psychological, but Talbot effectively proves him wrong by promptly turning into the Wolf Man (in another excellent transformation scene). 

Edelman theorizes that Talbot is so convinced he's a werewolf that it affects him physically, and plans to use his new surgical techniques to attempt a cure.  But the next day a despairing Talbot hurls himself off a cliff next to the mansion and into the sea.  Edelman has himself lowered down the side of the cliff and discovers Talbot in a cave where the sea has deposited him, then almost dies at the Wolf Man's hands before Talbot returns to human form.  Also in the cave is the body of--wouldn't you know it--the Frankenstein Monster.  Somehow, after sinking into that quicksand back in the last movie, he has turned up buried in the muck in this cave beneath Dr. Edelman's house, along with Dr. Niemann's skeleton.  There's a brief line of dialogue that attempts to explain this, but I hardly find it worth repeating. 

Edelman does what anyone else in the circumstances would do--he straps the Monster to a table in his lab, snaps on the old jumper cables, and starts pumping electricity into him.  But Talbot and Nina use some really, really corny dialogue to talk him out of it, and he realizes that, sometimes, dormant monsters are better off left alone.  So he focuses his attention instead on performing Talbot's operation. 

 

That night, Talbot is sitting in his room recuperating, when he looks out the window and sees Dr. Edelman jumping onto a passing horse-drawn wagon.  Edelman, thanks to Dracula's blood, has begun to have spells in which he turns into a maniacal killer.  He murders the driver of the wagon and is chased by the villagers back to the mansion.  When the police arrive, he has reverted back to his normal self and persuades them to search elsewhere for the killer.  But Talbot later confronts him and finds out the truth.  Edelman pleads with Talbot to kill him if he becomes a danger to others again, and wishes only to remain lucid long enough to perform surgery on Nina.

The next night, the full moon rises once again and, after a tense few moments, Talbot realizes that his own operation was a success and he is no longer a werewolf.  But as he and Miliza celebrate, Edelman goes mad and starts recharging the Monster again.  Nina interrupts, so he strangles the poor girl as Talbot rushes in.  Edelman advances with murder in his eyes, and Talbot shoots him.  In a last moment of sanity, Edelman smiles gratefully and falls to the floor, dead. 

Suddenly realizing that all of the other monsters in the movie have either been killed or cured, the Frankenstein Monster breaks his straps and heaves himself wearily off of the table for one last final-reel stomp.  The police arrive and he manages to dispatch a couple of them before clumsily knocking over a tall shelf full of volatile chemicals that burst into flame, which, needless to say, he proceeds to wade around in like an idiot.  Talbot and Miliza escape to live happily ever after, while the last official chapter in the celebrated saga of the Frankenstein Monster concludes with stock footage of Lon Chaney, Jr. stumbling around during the fiery finale of GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN.



ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948)

I don't consider this to be an official part of the Frankenstein series, but it's worth mentioning just to note what our old friends are up to in this alternate comedy universe.  Somehow, Dracula has come into possession of the Monster (played for the third time by Glenn Strange) and is planning to transplant a different brain into his skull to make him more submissive (which would seem unnecessary, since the Monster follows all of Dracula's orders throughout the movie and calls him "Master"). 

As fate would have it, of course, the brain he plans to use belongs to Lou Costello as the not-so-bright "Wilbur."  Wilbur and his bossy companion, Chick (Bud Abbott), happen to work for the shipping company which receives the crates from Europe containing Dracula and the Monster.  Here, Dracula sets up shop in a castle (in Florida?) where, with the help of the evil Dr. Sandra Mornay (Lenore Aubert) posing as Wilbur's girlfriend, he plans to perform the brain transplant.

But Larry Talbot has discovered Dracula's plan and, for some reason, has taken it upon himself to thwart it.  The "cure" given him by Dr. Edelman seems to have worn off--he's still regularly wolfing out (in some fantastic transformation scenes).  Dracula and the Wolf Man finally do battle before the movie is over, and both end up falling from the balcony of the castle into the sea far below, which apparently kills them (not...bloody...likely!) 

After a prolonged slapstick finale--during which Strange racks up more screen time than in the previous two films combined--the Monster chases Bud and Lou onto a dock which is promptly set ablaze, and ends up being roasted alive--again.  But as I said before, as fun as this movie is, I regard it as a fanciful footnote in relation to the rest of the Frankenstein films.  (Read our full review here.)


And there you have it--the Frankenstein story from beginning to end, one film leading into the next (with varying degrees of continuity) in a saga that lasted for seventeen glorious years.  Some of them are among the greatest films ever made, while others are just above-average monster flicks.  But they are all endlessly entertaining classics, and all of them feature the most celebrated character in the history of horror movies--the Frankenstein Monster.

  

GETTING THE STORY STRAIGHT: THE UNIVERSAL "FRANKENSTEIN" SERIES (Part Two of Two) by Porfle

GETTING THE STORY STRAIGHT: THE UNIVERSAL "FRANKENSTEIN" SERIES (Part One of Two) by Porfle

If you're just a casual viewer of the classic Universal horror films from the 30s and 40s, you might sometimes wonder exactly what's going on in a particular episode of the "Frankenstein" saga.  How come the Monster can talk in one movie, but is mute in the next?  How did he end up in that block of ice?  Why does he suddenly look like Bela Lugosi? 

Let's see if we can't get the story straight, and make as much sense out of things as possible, so that the next time you watch a "Frankenstein" movie, you'll know exactly where it fits in the continuing story of the Monster.  Although there's certainly more nitpicking that can be done with these films, such as various anachronisms, changing locations, and multiple spellings of certain names, we'll be dealing with the basic storylines and more fun-type details here.

And if you already know all of this stuff--well, what the heck, you can read it anyway.

(Warning: wall-to-wall spoilers ahead!)



FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

This is the original, the one in which renegade scientist Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) first stitches together various parts of dead bodies to create a man, which he and his hunchbacked assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye) then bring to life via electricity.  (Note that the name "Frankenstein", despite popular misconception, refers to Clive's character and not to the Monster himself.)  While outdone in the sequel, the thunderous creation sequence is still a highlight of horror cinema, punctuated by Clive's frenzied declaration, "It's ALIVE!"

Boris Karloff rightfully became famous overnight for his portrayal of the Monster, a pitiful, confused creature (possessed of a criminal brain thanks to the bumbling Fritz) who longs for acceptance but is greeted only with fear and loathing.  To make matters worse for the poor soul, his fickle creator, despite all of his initial enthusiasm, seems to lose interest in his creation pretty quick when the pitiful brute shows his savage side due to the cruel taunting of a sadistic, torch-wielding Fritz. 

The Monster manages to kill his twisted tormentor, prompting Frankenstein's concerned mentor, Dr. Waldman (Edward van Sloan), to suggest dissection.  The exhausted Henry washes his hands of the whole matter and scampers back to town to marry his sweetheart, Elizabeth (Mae Clarke), leaving Dr. Waldman to perform the grisly task alone.  But as Waldman bends over the lab table with his scapel, the Monster wakes up from his anesthesia and does away with him. 

Free at last, the confused creature makes his way out the front door of the old watchtower laboratory and into the wild. He ends up accidentally drowning the one person who is nice to him, a little girl named Maria (Marilyn Harris), who shows him that flowers float just like boats, but little girls don't.  The Monster then terrorizes Frankenstein's bride Elizabeth on their wedding day, but, unlike what occurs in Mary Shelley's novel, lets her live. 

A hunting party comprised of enraged villagers tracks him down to an abandoned windmill, where the Monster and his creator have their final confrontation.  Henry Frankenstein survives being throttled and thrown from the mill (thanks to a happy ending tacked on by the studio), but the Monster meets a fiery death when the villagers set the building ablaze and gleefully watch it burn to the ground.  The poor Monster, who is deathly afraid of fire, screams in agony as a heavy beam breaks free and pins him to the floor while the raging flames close in around him.



BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935)

Picking up where the first film left off, we find that the Monster (Karloff again) didn't die in the fire after all.  Instead, he plunged through the collapsing floor into the stream that flows beneath the windmill.  Maria's father, who must see the Monster's charred bones for himself in order to be able to sleep at night, ventures too close and falls in himself.  The Monster angrily drowns him, then kills the man's wife when she offers her hand thinking that it's her husband who is climbing out of the ruins.  Surprise!  It's the Monster, and he's loose upon the countryside once again. 

The villagers hunt him down as before, tying him to a pole like a wild animal and lifting it straight into the air before letting it fall into a hay wagon.  In this moment, as the Monster is suspended over the crowd upon the upraised pole, director James Whale creates an audacious crucifixion analogy featuring the Frankenstein Monster as a Christlike figure.  He escapes from captivity later on, of course, and finds his way to the isolated hut of a blind hermit, who takes him in and cares for him as a fellow outcast from society.  During their time together, the kindly hermit teaches him basic English ("Breeead!  Gooood!"), and introduces him to the dubious pleasures of smoking and drinking before a couple of passing hunters (including a young John Carradine) break up the party and send the Monster stumbling into the wilderness once again. 

Making his way into an underground crypt, he encounters a flamboyantly unbalanced individual named Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Theisiger), who seeks to collaborate with an unwilling Henry Frankenstein in the creation of life and considers the Monster to be the perfect means of persuading him to cooperate.  This persuasion will include the kidnapping of Frankenstein's bride Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson this time) as an additional incentive. 

The Monster is particularly interested when he discovers that Pretorius plans to create a woman as a fitting companion for him ("Wo-man...friend...wife..." he muses).  And in one of the most thrilling sequences ever filmed, full of crackling lightning, blazing showers of sparks, and generally bravura filmmaking, this is accomplished.  But the towering bride (Elsa Lanchester), a magnificent creation of perverse Gothic beauty, rejects him with the same fear and loathing with which he has been greeted by everyone else. 

In a fit of angst and despair, the Monster grabs a convenient lever ("Get away from that lever!  You'll blow us all to atoms!" Pretorius warns) and, after graciously allowing Henry and Elizabeth to escape unharmed, destroys the mountaintop laboratory in a spectacular explosion.  His last words to Pretorius and his erstwhile bride-to-be are:  "We belong dead."

SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939)

Traveling to the village of Frankenstein by train, Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone), son of the infamous monster-maker, looks forward to moving into the house he has inherited from his father with his wife Elsa (Josephine Hutchinson) and their young son, Peter (Donnie Dunagan).  While the first film featured a roomy high-ceilinged mansion and the second an even larger and grander one, SON OF FRANKENSTEIN's oversized and stunningly Gothic castle is practically cavernous and designed in a style dripping with German expressionism.  The ruins of the once-remote watchtower laboratory are now situated directly behind it.

The Frankensteins receive a rather chilly reception from the villagers, and the local chief of constables, Inspector Krogh (Lionel Atwill), warns Wolf not to attempt to resume his father's work lest he risk their wrath. Krogh himself has an unfortunate history in this regard, the Monster having torn his arm from its roots when he was a child.  Before long, however, Wolf discovers the comatose Monster (who survived the explosion of the previous film, and is played by Karloff for the third and last time) beneath the ruins of the laboratory, tended by the faithful Ygor (Bela Lugosi in one of his finest performances). 

Ygor, a grotesque, broken-necked graverobber who was hanged for his crimes but survived, now lives in a cave beneath the laboratory with his friend, the Monster.  "He...does things for me," Ygor cryptically tells Wolf, alluding to the fact that, one by one, the Monster has been dispatching the members of the jury that sentenced Ygor to death before being immobilized by an errant bolt of lightning.  (Which is curious, as in other films lightning is the very thing which makes him stronger.)

Wolf is thrilled to discover the indisputable proof of his father's genius, and, even as Inspector Krogh and the volatile villagers become more and more suspicious of his actions, he quickly begins work on bringing the Monster back to full power.  But when this is accomplished, he finds the Monster (inexplicably mute once again) still in the vengeful thrall of the evil Ygor, who tasks him to finish off the rest of the jury that condemned him.  Realizing his mistake in reviving the Monster, Wolf attempts unsuccessfully to kill him, and later is forced to shoot Ygor in self-defense.  

Upon finding Ygor's body, the grief-stricken Monster strikes back by entering Peter's bedroom through a secret passage and kidnapping him.  In a climactic confrontation within the ruined laboratory, with the Monster holding both Wolf and the Inspector at bay with one foot on the little boy's neck, Wolf performs a swashbuckling rope swing and kicks the Monster head over heels into a boiling pit of sulpher, where he apparently meets his parboiled doom.  Wolf decides to take his family and leave the charming little village while the getting's good, and, for some inexplicable reason, the villagers give him a hero's send-off.

GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942)

As this story begins, the villagers are complaining to the mayor about what a dump their little burg has become due to the curse of Frankenstein.  One woman moans that her children cry themselves to sleep each night because "there is no bread."  What, did the Monster eat it all?  ("Breeead...goood.")  Did he knock down the bread factory?  Anyway, the mayor finally gives in and allows the villagers to blow up Frankenstein's castle, which prompts them to grab an armload of the nearest dynamite and gleefully scurry off to perform the impromptu demolition. 

Before you know it, the castle is a smoking, crumbling ruin, and Ygor, who somehow survived having several bullets pumped into his gut by Wolf von Frankenstein in the previous movie, is weaving his way through massive chunks of flying debris until he comes upon a startling sight--a wall has given way to reveal the solidified mass of sulphur which contains the body of the Monster (a stone-faced Lon Chaney, Jr. this time out), and he is still alive.  "The sulphur...was GOOD for you!" Ygor crows as he digs the Monster out.  Together they escape the destruction of the castle and, after the Monster is rejuvenated by an obliging bolt of lightning, make their way to the village of Vasaria, where yet another son of Frankenstein (Cedric Hardwicke as "Ludwig") presides over a mental institution while conducting his own advanced scientific research. 

Ygor is confident that this Dr. Frankenstein can restore the Monster to his full capacity, but his plan is sidetracked when the Monster breaks into the institution and murders an assistant, one Dr. Kettering.  Ludwig will have nothing of Ygor's dastardly plan, instead plotting to destroy the Monster by dissection, until the ghost of his father appears (also Hardwicke) and talks him out of doing away with his creation.  Ludwig decides instead to vindicate his father's genius by replacing the criminal brain within the Monster's skull with that of the murdered Dr. Kettering.

Taking advantage of this rare opportunity, the cunning Ygor persuades Ludwig's unscrupulous associate Dr. Bohmer (a leering Lionel Atwill) to make sure that his own brain is placed in the Monster's skull instead.  (The Monster's idea of having his brain replaced with that of a little girl he has befriended is vetoed.)  When the operation is over, Dr. Frankenstein is shocked to encounter a Monster that speaks not in Kettering's voice, but with the sinister tones of Bela Lugosi's Ygor, who schemes to take over the world now that his evil mind is housed in such a powerful body. 

But neither Ygor nor Bohmer foresaw a crucial element--while Kettering had the same blood type as the Monster, Ygor does not--and sudden blindness is the result.  As the ever-vigilant villagers once again take action and set fire to the institution, Ygorstein kills Dr. Frankenstein and then rampages blindly through the laboratory, knocking over several vials of flammable chemicals and turning the place into an inferno which, presumably, engulfs him.


That's it for part one!  Don't miss the thrill-packed conclusion, in which we'll take a close look at the final four films in the series: FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, HOUSE OF DRACULA, and ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN.  Coming soon to this theater!

 

GETTING THE STORY STRAIGHT: THE UNIVERSAL "FRANKENSTEIN" SERIES (Part One of Two) by Porfle

SHOW ME THE MUMMY: A Look At The Classic Universal "Mummy" Series by Porfle

(The Mummy/The Mummy's Hand/The Mummy's Tomb/The Mummy's Ghost/The Mummy's Curse)

(Originally posted in 2009) 


Run! Or at least walk real fast! Here comes the Mummy--again!

Yes, I figure this is as good a time as any to take a look back at the classic original Universal Studios "Mummy" films that started it all back in the 30s and 40s. Let's see what we can dig up, shall we?

(Warning--this article contains a sarcophagus-load of spoilers!)

THE MUMMY (1932) stars Boris Karloff, receiving sole over-the-title billing here only a year after FRANKENSTEIN plucked him from relative obscurity. He plays Im-ho-tep, an Egyptian high priest who was mummified alive for the sacrilege of trying to use the Scroll of Thoth to bring his dead Princess Ankh-es-en-amon back to life. Thousands of years later his tomb is discovered by archeologists led by Sir Joseph Whemple (Arthur Byron), and when a junior member of the team reads aloud from the Scroll of Thoth, the mummified Im-ho-tep returns to life in one of the creepiest and coolest scenes in the Golden Age of Horror and drives the poor guy stark raving mad when the crumbling corpse emerges from his sarcophagus, grabs the scroll, and shuffles off to Buffalo (or its Egyptian equivalent, anyway).

Jack Pierce's makeup job on Karloff here is magnificent, but after a few wide shots and one really great close-up, we never get to see it again. For the rest of the film Karloff appears sans wrappings (but with another fine, densely-wrinkled makeup job by Pierce) under the guise of the fez-headed Ardeth Bay, a mysterious Egyptian who shows up years later to lead the archeological team of Whemple's son Frank (David Manners) straight to the tomb of Princess Ankh-es-en-amon. With the recovery of her mummy and the Scroll of Thoth, Ardeth Bay plans to bring his ancient princess back to life--until he discovers that her soul has been reincarnated in the body of young Helen Grosvenor (the fascinatingly-eccentric actress Zita Johann), whom he now begins to lure into his sinister clutches. Sir Joseph Whemple and his son Frank discover Bay's intentions and try to foil them, with the help of a wise old expert in the Egyptian occult named Dr. Muller (Edward Van Sloan).

Unlike FRANKENSTEIN and THE WOLF MAN, there was no basis in literature or folklore for the character of the living mummy. In fact, the original script by Nina Wilcox Putnam was based on the life of French mystic Cagliostro, who claimed to have been several centuries old. But due to the sensation caused by the discovery of King Tut's tomb, the script was changed to take advantage of the public's mummy-mania at the time and offer Karloff as the undying Im-ho-tep. It was also heavily influenced by the previous year's DRACULA with Bela Lugosi, containing many of the same story elements right down to the almost-identical characters played by Edward Van Sloan and David Manners, and the replacement of the crucifix with an Egyptian ankh as a talisman against evil.


The cinematographer on DRACULA and a major influence on its look (especially in the early scenes in Dracula's castle) was German filmmaker Karl Freund, and THE MUMMY marked his first official stint in the director's chair. He gave the film its beautifully somber, almost expressionistic look and a deliberately-paced restraint that make it, as it has often been called, a "tone poem" of horror as opposed to the more lurid and over-the-top offerings in the genre. Today, many viewers might find it too slow and boring to sit through. But if your attention span encompasses an old-style form of storytelling that offers a wealth of exquisite subtlety and mood over visceral sensation, not to mention a great performance by Karloff, you will most likely find THE MUMMY to be one of the finest horror films ever made.


Strangely enough, it took Universal eight whole years to get around to making a sequel. But in 1940, they finally came up with THE MUMMY'S HAND, which, as it turned out, had nothing to do with the original story. This time, a couple of down-on-their-luck archeologists, the dashing Steve Banning (Dick Foran) and his pudgy comedy-relief sidekick "Babe" Jenson (Wallace Ford) are about ready to give up and leave Egypt when they stumble upon a clue that leads them to the ancient tomb of the Princess Ananka. But the tomb is guarded by the undying mummy of Kharis, who, like Im-ho-tep, was mummified alive for sacrilege. In lieu of the Scroll of Thoth, however, Kharis is kept alive by the fluid of boiled tana leaves, given to him over the years by a succession of High Priests who are dedicated to preserving the sanctity of the princess' tomb. The archeological expedition, which includes financial-backer and stage magician The Great Solvani (the lovable Cecil Kelloway) and his daughter Marta (the even more lovable Peggy Moran), is menaced by the Mummy until Steve and Babe locate the High Priests' temple and, in the exciting finale, vanquish the evil Professor Andoheb, current High Priest of Karnak (George Zucco) and set fire to the Mummy.

By this time, Karloff had better things to do than shuffle around wrapped head-to-toe in gauze, so actor Tom Tyler took over the title role. Better known as the title character of one of the greatest serials ever made, 1941's THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL, as well as a prolific Western star, Tyler brought an eerie presence to the role of the homicidal Kharis. In the movie's trailer and in some of the wider shots of the film itself, Tyler's eyes are menacing and expressive, yet in his close-ups they're masked to appear solid black. Some prefer this and consider it scarier-looking, but I think he looks much more impressive without the special effect. Anyway, this time the Mummy remains mute and leaves his wrappings on, thank goodness--no fez for Kharis--as will also be the case in the subsequent sequels.

Other precendents for the future films are set here as well. THE MUMMY'S HAND begins with an old priest handing down his knowledge and responsibilities to a successor, and relating the history of Kharis and Princess Ananka through flashbacks from the first film. Here, scenes from THE MUMMY are combined with new shots of Tom Tyler replacing those of Karloff to depict Kharis defiling the tomb of Princess Ananka and being condemned to a living death. This is a scenario we'll see again. Another is the discovery of "a greyish mark...like mold" on the throats of the Mummy's victims. And finally, there's the inherently lovelorn and amorous nature of these new-model High Priests of Karnak, who just can't seem to keep their hands off the leading ladies. George Zucco sets this precedent in motion by developing a high-school crush on the captive Peggy Moran and planning to give her and himself the old tana-leaf injection until Steve and Babe show up just in time to stick a fork in his scheme.

With THE MUMMY'S HAND, the series was already double-bill fodder with a running time of only 67 minutes. Even so, the expedition doesn't even reach the desert until the halfway point, and the Mummy makes his initial appearance several minutes after that. But the comedy bits and character scenes leading up to that are fun, and once the action gets started it never stops. The scene of the Mummy coming to life before the horrified eyes of expedition member Dr. Petrie (Charles Trowbridge) and strangling him as the gloating Andoheb looks on is one of the high points of the entire series. The cast is fine and the film as a whole is a polished, competent effort that stands on its own as one of the most likable horror films of the forties.


In 1942 came the follow-up, THE MUMMY'S TOMB, which brought a surprisingly downbeat and decidedly unsentimental aura to the series. Gone was the comedy relief, along with the exotic Egyptian setting itself, and with it the security of knowing that certain characters were immune from the Mummy's wrath. This is powerfully illustrated early on as the Steve Banning character from the previous film, now thirty years older and living in peaceful retirement in the quiet New England town of Mapleton, is visited in his bedroom one night by a vengeful (and somewhat singed) Kharis and strangled to death. The next night his elderly sister Jane, whose misfortune is to be of the same bloodline as a defiler of the Princess Ananka's tomb, meets the same fate. And when Babe (whose last name has somehow changed from Jensen to Hanson) hears the news and comes to Mapleton to pay his respects, sure enough the Mummy runs into him that very night, corners him in an alley, and gives him the old five-finger chokeroo. Even when I saw this as a kid, I was aghast that these characters were getting killed off--this was eighteen years before Janet Leigh's fatal shower in PSYCHO proved that no one was safe.

Well, Steve Banning's goofball son John (John Hubbard) survives and goes skipping merrily through the woods with his fiancee' Isobel (the lovely Elyse Knox, who happens to be actor Mark Harmon's mom) while the new current High Priest of Karnak, Mehemet Bey (Turhan Bey) scarfs an eyeload of her and falls head-over-heels in love just like his predecessor. So, using Kharis as a sort of proactive go-between, he orders him to kidnap Isobel and bring her to the cemetary where he works as caretaker so they can share tana-leaf cocktails and go sailing off into eternity together. Which doesn't seem quite right to Kharis, but he does it anyway (in later films he'll get righteously fed up with such tomfoolery). But this eventually brings the whole town down upon them and, in a fiery finale, John rescues Isobel while the Mummy is trapped on the balcony of the Banning home as it goes up in flames.

THE MUMMY'S TOMB establishes Universal's new horror star, Lon Chaney, Jr., as the Mummy for the remaining three films in the series, and the tall, beefy actor is definitely the most intimidating incarnation of Kharis. He's big, mean, and vengeful, and somehow Chaney is able to convey this through the rubber mask now used by Jack Pierce to create the character, with a combination of body language and hand gestures along with his imposing physique. The film itself is a lean one hour long, with a full eleven minutes devoted to a recap of the previous film as recounted by Steve Banning to his disbelieving houseguests right before his final encounter with Kharis, and there's also the traditional passing of the baton from one High Priest to another. This time, it's George Zucco again, who somehow survived being shot two or three times by Babe and managed to keep his job after having failed so miserably, handing things over to the young Turhan Bey, who proves to be a not-so-great choice himself. But somehow, even with its brief running time and generous padding, THE MUMMY'S TOMB manages to generate a good deal of monster-type entertainment. It also adds a curious element to the series' timeline--if THE MUMMY'S HAND takes place in the forties, then how come THE MUMMY'S TOMB, which is supposed to be about thirty years later, also takes place in the forties? Hmm...


Not long after these events, however, comes THE MUMMY'S GHOST (1944), which opens with George Zucco's now-ancient Andoheb yet again breaking in another High Priest and hoping for the best. (They're the High Priests of Arkam instead of Karnak now, for some reason--new management, maybe?) This time it's John Carradine, who made movies like this mainly to support his theater habit, as Yousef Bey. When Andoheb asks him, "You are Yousef Bey?" it sounds like he says "Useless" instead of "Yousef", which turns out to be pretty accurate. With the Bannings and Babe all out of the way (except for the surviving John Banning, who is inexplicably given a free pass), Yousef is charged with a new mission: go to America, where the Mummy is still running around in Mapleton, and bring him and the Princess Ananka back home to their resting place in Egypt. Instead of brewing tana leaves to keep the Mummy alive, since he apparently doesn't need them for that purpose anymore, they're to be used now to lure him in the same way the aroma of a Brontosaurus steak used to lure Fred Flintstone.

The usual flashbacks are dispensed with this time as Andoheb gives Yousef a quick verbal rundown of the story thus far, which he hands off to the previous film's Dr. Norman (Frank Reicher of 1933's KING KONG) to finish in a lecture to his skeptical Egyptology students back in Mapleton. Unfortunately, Dr. Norman brews up a batch of tana leaves himself during a home experiment that night and the Mummy shows up to kill off yet another familiar character before chugging the concoction like a frat rat at a keg party. His presence somehow attracts a sweet young Egyptian college student named Amina (Ramsay Ames), who sleepwalks to the scene of the murder and passes out on Dr. Norman's lawn, then becomes a suspect when she's discovered there the next morning. Her stuffy boyfriend Tom (Robert Lowery, who played a dour Batman in the 1949 serial BATMAN AND ROBIN) whines to the local sheriff about this to no avail, then thoughtfully leaves his dog Peanuts with Amina to help cheer her up. (In one scene it sounds like he says, "Come on, Penis" to the dog--sorry, but this just sounds funny to me because I can't stand the stiff-arsed Tom character).

Yousef Bey's seemingly simple task is made more difficult when he and the Mummy reach the museum where Ananka's body is kept. For just as Kharis reaches out to touch it (he actually cops a feel--really!), it crumbles to dust as her spirit flees to another body. Whose body, you ask? That's right--Amina, who is the physical reincarnation of Princess Ananka, and now serves as the vessel of her living soul as well. So the Mummy kidnaps her and brings her to the abandoned tower where he and Yousef are hiding out. (For some reason, they pick the one place in town with the most steps for the slow-moving Mummy to have to walk up and down.) Yousef, of course, takes one gander at the lovely, bound Amina and goes ga-ga, his priestly vows flying out the window as he grabs for the tana fluid and professes his eternal love to her. The Mummy overhears this sacrilege, however, and turns him into a priest-Frisbee. Meanwhile, Penis--I mean, Peanuts has managed to lead Tom and the other townsfolk to their hideout, and while making his escape with the now rapidly-aging Amina, the Mummy wanders into a swamp and they both sink into the quicksand as the horrified Tom and Peanuts look on.

At 61 minutes, THE MUMMY'S GHOST is a pretty eventful little film with some good Mummy action. A lengthy subplot about Inspector Walgreen (Barton McClane, THE MALTESE FALCON) investigating Dr. Norman's murder and setting a trap for the Mummy at Norman's house goes nowhere, since the Mummy never shows up there again. (It was a dumb idea, anyway--dig a big hole in Norman's yard, cover it with leaves, and hope the Mummy falls in. "Duh.") But the Mummy's angry rampage at the museum after Ananka's body crumbles to dust and his killing of the museum guard are memorable, as are some good, spookily-lit closeups of him during the movie. Chaney's performance is energetic and effective, regardless of the fact that he hated playing the mute, heavily-wrapped character. Plus, the murder of Dr. Norman and the downbeat ending continue the unsentimental, anyone-can-die attitude of the series.


Continuity flies out the window faster than a Mummy-propelled John Carradine in 1944's THE MUMMY'S CURSE, the final film in the series. Timeline? While this one takes place twenty-five years after the events of the last film, it's still the forties. Mapleton? Never heard of it. Now, the Mummy and Amina are buried beneath a bayou in Louisiana which is being drained by land developers. Don't look at me--I don't know how they got there. But the workers start dying, and a Mummy-shaped hole is discovered by Dr. James Halsey (Dennis Moore), who is investigating on behalf of the museum against the wishes of the gruff foreman, Pat Walsh (Addison Richards).

Halsey's assistant is the delightfully-named Dr. Ilzor Zandaab (Peter Coe, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN), and it doesn't take long to find out that Zandaab is the new High Priest of Whatever, sent to finish the job that all the other idiots so overwhelmingly screwed up. This guy's different, though--he's hardcore, and nothing, not even Walsh's beautiful daughter Betty (Kay Harding), can sway him from his task. His eyes gleam with purpose as he narrates the extensive flashbacks (they're back!) for us, and if anybody has a chance of getting this long-standing Mummy business straightened out once and for all, it's this guy. He is my hero. One catch, though...he has a shifty-eyed henchman, Ragheb (Martin Kosleck), and sure enough, the henchman falls for Betty and screws everything up in the end. Somehow, I think Amon-Ra has a sick sense of humor and is just messing with these guys.

Comedy relief returns to the series--sorta--in the form of Cajun Joe (Kurt Katch) and a stereotypically-black swamp worker named Goobie (Napoleon Simpson), who exclaims at one point, "De Debbil's on de loose and he's dancin' wiff de Mummy!" Later, after some reconsideration, he amends this to observe, "De Mummy's on de loose and he's dancin' wiff de Debbil!" (Well, I did say "sorta.") Cajun Joe meets his end in a shot that graced the cover of at least one monster mag back in the 60s, while another likable character, Tante Berthe (Ann Codee), a singer who owns the local bar where everyone hangs out, gets hers while valiantly trying to keep the Mummy from grabbing a young girl found wandering around earlier in the swamp.

Played by Virginia Christine, who was "Mrs. Olson" in the old Folger's coffee commercials ("It's mountain grown!"), she turns out to be Amina herself. Her resurrection from the drained swamp is one of the most impressive, and downright odd, sequences in the entire series. Caked in dried clay, she struggles to break loose from her burial place and then staggers blindly through the woods, her head turned upward to the blazing sun as it glows through her closed eyelids, until finally she descends slowly into the water to cleanse herself. This is such a strangely beautiful, almost surreal sequence, it almost doesn't even fit into a relatively ordinary film like THE MUMMY'S CURSE, and is without a doubt the most memorable thing about it.

The Mummy has a lot more screen time in this film than in most of the others as he keeps trying to apprehend the fleeing Amina and killing anyone who gets in his way. He finally catches her and takes her to the abandoned monastery where he and Zandaab have been hiding out (and yes, it has about a hundred-and-fifty freaking steps for him to schlepp up and down), where he discovers that Ragheb has kidnapped Betty and has her tied up and ready for the old tana-leaf treatment. He's already killed Zandaab, who remained faithful to the cause to the bitter end (my hero!) and is duking it out with Dr. Halsey when the Mummy steps in and makes him sorry he ever went off-mission. Ragheb flees into a cell and locks the door, and the Mummy goes into a rage, ripping the bars out of the wall and bringing the roof down on both of them in a hair-raising scene that serves as a worthy end to this great character's involvement in the series. While discounted by some as the weakest "Mummy" film, I find THE MUMMY'S CURSE to be one of the most entertaining and unusual entries of all.

If you're into classic horror and especially the Universal monster flicks of the thirties and forties, and for some reason have managed to miss out on these movies after all these years, you can't go wrong with the "Mummy" series. From the undisputed classic Karloff original to the less prestigious but still totally cool programmers that followed, they remain some of the most highly-entertaining and rewatchable monster films that Universal Studios ever produced. So stick THE MUMMY--THE LEGACY COLLECTION (which contains all five films plus some cool extras) into your DVD player, pop some popcorn, brew up some tana leaves, and have some fun. It is the will of Amon-Ra!

 

 

SHOW ME THE MUMMY: A Look At The Classic Universal "Mummy" Series by Porfle

THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI (1966) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/11/21

 

Currently watching: THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI (1966), the last American-International teen flick to bear even the slightest resemblance to the studio's original "Beach Party" series that began in 1963 and lasted until original stars Frankie and Annette had moved on to other things and only a few hardy supporting players and extras still remained.

For the first time, there's no reference whatsoever to the beach or surfing. In a repeat of the earlier PAJAMA PARTY, the action takes place in a large mansion (this time, it's the haunted hideaway of recently-deceased Hiram Stokely, played by a very aged Boris Karloff) and its swimming pool, giving the cast an excuse to cavort in bikinis and swim trunks and flail around to the music of a bland rock 'n' roll band, the Bobby Fuller Four.

Basil Rathbone (SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, "Sherlock Holmes" series) plays Hiram's crooked attorney, Reginald Ripper, who plans to eliminate the old man's heirs after they assemble for the reading of his will. They include beach-movie veterans Tommy Kirk and Deborah Walley, along with venerable comic actress Patsy Kelly as "Myrtle Forbush." 

 

Aiding in Ripper's deadly scheme is his cohort J. Sinister Hulk (Jesse "Maytag Repairman" White), along with series regular Bobbi Shaw and Benny Rubin as Princess Yolanda and Chief Chicken Feather. All three characters are holdovers from PAJAMA PARTY, although Rubin replaces an ailing Buster Keaton who originated the role.

Of course, Harvey Lembeck is on hand as motorcycle gang leader Eric Von Zipper, with his usual motley mob of sycophantic cycle stupes. This time, he falls in love with Princess Yolanda, thus giving the writers an excuse to have Von Zipper and crew scurrying around the mansion along with everyone else once the plot, as it is, finally goes into high gear.

When Myrtle's nephew Bobby (Aron Kincaid, whom I think of as "the male Joy Harmon") shows up with a double decker bus full of swinging teens who turn the mansion into party central, the search for Hiram's hidden fortune quickly becomes a frenetic free-for-all as the rightful heirs clash with Ripper's dastardly baddies and a gaggle of spooks and monsters have the freaked-out teens going ape.

 

This will lead to an extravagantly silly finale that's like a deluxe live-action episode of "Scooby-Doo", only dumber and less coherent as everyone runs screaming hither and yon throughout the mansion (finally ending up in old Hiram's ghastly torture chamber) while some of the hoariest gags and haunted house tropes imaginable are recycled by former Three Stooges writer Elwood Ullman, who co-wrote the script with beach-party regular Louis M. Heyward.

Amidst all this, the simple romantic subplot between Tommy Kirk and Deborah Walley is barely given a chance to develop. Meanwhile, Ripper's gorgeous but evil daughter Sinistra (Quinn O'Hara) directs all her considerable seductive powers toward eliminating Myrtle's nephew Bobby (I forgot why), a goal that's repeatedly thwarted by her extreme nearsightedness.

Also appearing in the film are Nancy Sinatra (who sings the wince-inducing "Geronimo"), a young Danny Thomas discovery named Piccola Pupa (who's cute but not much of a singer), famed gorilla suit actor George Burrows as "Monstro", and former silent film star Francis X. Bushman (BEN HUR), who joins the rest of the cast's rather impressive group of vintage stars having some late-career fun (we hope) in this bit of nonsense.

 

Not the least of these is the great Boris Karloff, whose scenes with gorgeous Susan Hart were added, according to Wikipedia, after AIP producers James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff were unhappy with the film and thought it needed improvement. In their framing scenes, Karloff, as Hiram Stokely, is awakened from death's slumber by the ghost of his dead wife Cecily (Hart) and told that they will be reunited in the afterlife if he performs one final good deed.

The result is Hart's character, clad in an "invisible bikini", being awkwardly inserted into already filmed scenes as a mischievous but helpful ghost, with cutaways to Karloff observing the action in his crystal ball and making various comments being fed to him from off-camera.

One of the film's best assets is its use of lavish sets that are obviously left over from other AIP productions. That, along with the interesting cast and an occasionally infectious sense of fun, are just about the only reasons to recommend THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI to all but the most diehard beach movie fans and lovers of bad movies in general.  As part of the latter group, I enjoyed it, but others may find it just shy of unwatchable.

THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI (1966) -- Movie Review by Porfle

Skelton Knaggs At His Most Endearing ("Isle Of The Dead", 1945) (video)

 

Skelton Knaggs usually played bad guys...

...and/or nutjobs, largely because of his rather unpleasant looks and creepy demeanor.

But in Val Lewton's 1945 classic "Isle of the Dead", in all-too-brief a role, Skelton gets to play a fellow so quietly endearing that you just wanna give him a hug.

 

Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

 

Skelton Knaggs At His Most Endearing ("Isle Of The Dead", 1945) (video)

MONDO BALORDO -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/9/20

 

It's the same old "mondo" mockumentary that we've seen numerous times before, and indeed these things seem as though they're churned out like sausage and packaged with new labels, but the difference with MONDO BALORDO, aka "A Fool's World" (Severin Films, 1964), is that it's narrated by none other than venerable Boris Karloff in his unmistakably dulcet tones.

This is sorta the flipside of Bela Lugosi's dour commentary on the human race in Ed Wood's GLEN OR GLENDA? "People! All going somewhere!" Bela grumbled with a scowl in that oddball classic, while Boris, in contrast, is at his most jovial here while narrating his way through the incredibly verbose script he's been handed--possibly more words than the actor ever uttered in a single movie--and seems to be rather amused by its non-stop, unabashed ridiculousness.

As always, naughty sex tales, trivia, legends, and anecdotes abound, whether joking vignettes staged for the film or actual documentary footage of strange social and sexual customs from around the world.

A Miss America contest which appears to have been held on an Italian soundstage gives way to Bedouin prostitutes selling their wares in desert tents or tribal natives engaging in unusual courting and marriage rituals.

The editing and continuity are also characteristically random. Just when we've settled into watching an attractive woman stripping for some Asian businessmen, a jarring edit places us in the wilds of Africa where a lion is savagely killing and feasting upon a zebra. Later we witness an actual exorcism in India which involves a chicken (you don't want to know how).

Homosexuality is again one of the film's major taboos to explore, as we're once again invited to marvel at how feminine the transvestites look as they dance with regularly-garbed gay men or enjoy the sight of lebians cavorting together in the sanctity of underground nightclubs.

Those who enjoy watching dwarves go about their daily lives are also indulged as we observe a diminutive hooker servicing her customer in the backseat of an abandoned car parked in an alley.

Elsewhere a man barely a meter tall in a crazy zoot suit shows off some incredible acrobatic dance moves in front of a hot rock and roll band. This guy is probably my favorite part of the whole film, partly because he's just so entertaining and partly because he helped rouse me out of the drowsy stupor that much of the rest of MONDO BALORDO was lulling me into.

Let's face it--despite its cornucopia of utter strangeness and some truly bizarre sights, much of this is a rather boring and even confusing experience. It's as though dozens of film clips of various unrelated sex jokes, titillating (for 60s standards) footage both real and staged, and standard travelogue stuff from several exotic locations around the world were swept up off the cutting room floor, thrown into a blender, pasted together, and made more palatable by having our beloved Boris bless it all with his warmly inviting vocal inflections.

The Blu-ray from Severin Films is scanned in 4K from the original negative which is in decent shape for an old and obscure film rarity of this type. (Any inherent imperfections in picture quality only add to its nostalgic appeal for me.) Anamorphic widescreen 1.66:1. Audio is English mono, with English subtitles.

Extras consist of a trailer and an added feature, THE ORIENTALS (1960), a genuine travelogue of various far Eastern locations that's told through the eyes of six women and which was scanned from a 35mm print in the Something Weird archives.

As per my usual disclaimer, many viewers will have absolutely no desire to subject themselves to such a strange mash-up of the banal and the bizarre as MONDO BALORDO--while on the other hand, there are those who will hungrily inhale this weirdly intoxicating sleazefest just like the hopeless drug addicts we see awaiting their daily fix of brain-rotting bliss.


Buy it from Severin Films

MONDO BALORDO -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle