The Covers of Frankenstein : Horror Monsters No. 2

Ghouls! Gags! Gore! A rough painting of the Teenage Frankenstein, artist unidentified, graces the cover of Charlton Publications’ Horror Monsters number 2, in the summer of 1962.

In this issue, the film I was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957), rates a short, two-page photo spread, played for laughs, under the title “Exclusive! Teenagers muscle in on monster racket!”

Frankenstein Friday Round Up

Don Megowan kicks back and chills on the set of Tales of Frankenstein (see previous post) while we round up recent Frankenstein sightings on the net.

Frankenstein Elected

On the news front, Frankenstein won his elections in the Indian northeastern state of Meghalaya. Other candidates for Congress included Hitler, Newton, Kennedy, Rockefeller, and Tony Curtis. Read all about it in the Hindustan Times.

The Frankenswizzler

On the novelty front, Frankensteinia reader Tony Lee spotted a Mon-Stir Frankenstein swizzlestick on eBay. Produced by Zoo-Piks in 1964, it was part of a Universal-licensed set that included the Mummy, Wolfman and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The red Frankenstein swizzlestick is shown here with a Frankenstein iron-on transfer, a Mister Softee Ice Cream premium, also from 1964. Stick and iron-on are offered by Mpgstuff.

Thanks, Tony!

Frankenstein Mask

Also on eBay recently, this one from Toy Ranch, is Herman, a rare Don Post Frankenstein mask from 1989. It’s a full-head job with real hair and a yellow-tooth grin.

Don Post created the very first commercially available Frankenstein rubber mask sixty years ago. His studio produced several Frankenstein models through the years, either licensed likenesses or generics, like Herman. It is said that back in the 50s and 60s, Frankenstein masks accounted for 70% of all monster mask sales.

Plug-In Frankenstein

Another Toy Ranch offering is the Telco Frankenstein Motionette, a 24-inch statue with a big green head and a melancholic expression. Plug it in and it rattles its chains. These were produced in the early 90s and available in various sizes and your choice of A/C or battery versions.

Frankenstein Legion

And finally, those of you who enjoyed David Lee Ingersoll’s fabulous Legion of Frankensteins illustration that I originally posted about here, should check out his Skook blog where he is currently sharing some of the preliminary sketches for that piece.

Tales of Frankenstein

Fifty years ago this week, on March 25 to be precise, Hammer Films executive producer Michael Carreras fired off a letter to his counterpart Ralph Cohn of Screen Gems in New York. The subject was the recently completed pilot for Tales of Frankenstein. The proposed television series was to be co-produced in equal measure, thirteen half-hour episodes apiece, by Hammer in England and Screen Gems, the television arm of Columbia Pictures, in America.

Carreras had not yet seen the pilot, The Face in the Tombstone Mirror, shot in Hollywood, but when news came that it had cost $80,000, Carreras complained that the episode could have been made at Bray Studios for roughly half the price. “The reason I am making such a bloody nuisance of myself” he wrote, “is because I have tremendous faith in this series and I honestly believe that we can make them better than anyone else.” Somewhat presumptuously, he added, “Let me know when you are ready to start.”

The pilot turned out to be competent enough to attract cautious interest by the ABC network. Development of the series continued through the coming months, but the collaboration between Hammer and Columbia was never an easy one. Hammer producer Anthony Hinds had dropped out of the project after a frustrating visit to America, and Carreras would later refer to the project as “one of the unhappiest experiences of my screen career”. The project, perhaps inevitably, fizzled. The pilot aired occasionally as late-night filler on American TV and eventually fell into the Public Domain.

The Face in the Tombstone Mirror is a curious hybrid, mixing the classic Universal Frankensteins with a distinct Hammer Film vibe. Curt Siodmak, who, a dozen years previous, had written Universal’s Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman (1943), and House of Frankenstein (1944) wrote the story, produced and directed the episode. The script was finished by Catherine and Henry Kuttner (also known as Lewis Padgett). Henry was a famous science fiction writer who had been friends with H.P.Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. He passed away suddenly, of a heart attack, in February of 1958, shortly after delivering the script.

For all the name talent, the script proved to be simple-minded and clichéd. The direction was workmanlike and pedestrian. Spark was provided by the curt, calculating Anton Diffring as Baron Frankenstein, very much in the cold-hearted Peter Cushing mold. The striking Helen Westcott was also effective as the devoted wife of a doomed artist. The doughy-faced Monster is played by six foot six character actor Don Megowan, who holds the distinction of being the only actor to have played both the Frankenstein Monster and the air-breathing Gillman, in The Creature Walks Among Us (1956).

As this Tale opens, in a scene reminiscent of Hammer’s then recent Curse of Frankenstein (1957), the Monster is no sooner brought to life that it lunges to strangle its creator. There’s an explosion and The Monster shorts out. Frankenstein reflects over the fallen Creature: “Your brain came from the skull of a murderer. You still wanted to kill. But, with the right brain, the brain of an intelligent man, a good man… Where will I find it?”

Enter Christine Halpert (Westcott), seeking urgent help. Her husband, Paul (Richard Bull), is dying of some unspecified “critical” illness. The Baron turns them away, but not before registering interest in Paul’s “good hands” and artistic bent.

In quick succession, Paul dies and is buried in the local cemetery. Frankenstein promptly digs him up and performs a brain upgrade on his hulking Monster. Meanwhile, visiting the grave, Christine finds a discarded locket that had been buried with her husband. She gets the caretaker, Frankenstein’s grave-robbing accomplice, to spill the beans, and heads for the castle. The Monster recognizes her and carries her away, but stops in his tracks when he sees himself in a mirror.

The Monster now turns on the Baron and the chase takes them back to the graveyard where Christine reasons with The Monster: “The life you had was brief, but it was decent and good. Don’t destroy everything now because of a hideous face and grotesque body… that aren’t yours!”

The Monster contemplates his situation and hurls himself into the open, collapsing grave, embracing the death he had briefly cheated. A constable appears and arrests the Baron for grave robbing.

“You have your job to do,” Frankenstein says, “and so have I. And I don’t think either of us would let anything stand in the way of fulfilling our respective destinies. Time is of small matter, you see… There’s always tomorrow!”

Before the project was finally canned, Hammer Films hired a handful of writers to come up with potential script material. Jimmy Sangster, author of Hammer’s Frankenstein, Dracula and Mummy pictures, came up with a dozen one-line story ideas (“He has a set to with Zombies”). Other writers provided themes that would be recycled in upcoming Frankenstein movies, notably a mesmerist episode that wound up as the core of Evil of Frankenstein (1964), and a beautiful, but soulless female monster that anticipates the character in Frankenstein Created Woman (1967).

One understands Michael Carreras’ enthusiasm and frustration. Hammer Films had just recently exploded on the scene, its gothic horrors were box-office gold. In 1958, Monsters were beginning to hit big. The Shock Theater package of Universal horror movies was a late-night TV phenomenon. Today, we know that monster magazines, bubble gum cards, plastic kits and toys, the Corman/Price pictures of AIP, The Addams Family and The Munsters were all coming down the pike. In retrospect, it seems that there was a Monster Kid audience out there that would have embraced a Frankenstein TV series.

Tales of Frankenstein: The Face in the Tombstone Mirror can be seen online or downloaded from Archive.org. It’s definitely worth a look.

Some of the details in this post were found in the excellent The Hammer Story (1997, revised 2007) by Marcus Hearn and Alan Barnes.

The Covers of Frankenstein : Bizarre No. 24-25

A forlorn Frankenstein on the cover of Bizarre no. 24-25, from 1962. Karloff in his Bride of Frankenstein makeup graces more book covers than any other Frankenstein Monster of the movies. Perhaps it’s simply a question of ready access to a cache of good studio photographs, but I think that the burn effects, the signed hair and exposed forehead clamps make this Monster the most photogenic of all.

Not to be confused with the current magazine of the same name, or the legendary fetish title published by John “Willie” Coutts, THIS Bizarre was an intellectual literary and arts magazine with a surrealist bent, first launched in Paris by maverick publisher Eric Losfeld in 1953.

Abandoned after just two issues, the title and concept were revived by editor Michel Laclos for publisher J.J.Pauvert in 1955 and ran until 1968. Subject matter ran from the provocative to the weird and profane, with special thematic issues devoted to such names as Boris Vian and Arthur Rimbaud, edgy cartoonists like Wolinki and Chaval, and pop culture subjects like Monsters in myth and real-life “freaks”, horror and mystery writer Gaston Leroux, and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan.

In the late summer of 1962, this double issue, numbered 24-25, was entirely devoted to the work of four men: James Whale, Tod Browning, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Midi-Minuit Fantastique editor Jean-Claude Romer profiled the directors, and avant-garde writer Jean Boullet handled the actors. The short bios were followed by exhaustive filmographies, including cast and crew, detailed synopsis and, when available, excerpts from contemporary reviews.

The filmographies have long since been improved on, but at the time, it was a stunning piece of research coming early in the new, nascent era of horror film study and criticism. The only disappointment with the issue lies with Boullet’s opinionated “biographies”. He gives short shrift to Karloff’s abilities, essentially reducing him to an interchangeable actor who “owed everything” to the genius of makeup man Jack Pierce. As for the Lugosi profile, it veers to the ridiculous, with the actor, in drugged old age, “becoming Dracula” and living in a house with live bats. Writing partner Romer, famously rigorous, was incensed by Boullet’s sensationalistic exploitation of “every cliché in the book” about Lugosi. The men remained friends, but there were no further published collaborations, despite editor Laclos’ introduction saying that Romer and Boullet were planning bio-filmographies of the Chaneys, father and son.

The 98-page magazine includes 36 pages of photographs. You can see 16 of those pages scanned here on the excellent zine blog. Once you get there, be sure to scroll around. The site reproduces wonderful covers and content from older French magazines devoted mostly to b-movies, science fiction and horror, and mild erotica. If you’ve never seen an issue, you can get eye-popping glimpses inside the legendary horror film magazine Midi-Minuit Fantastique, like this interview and layout on Christopher Lee, and a great photo essay on actress Barbara Steele, from 1967.

Oh, and an anecdote about that issue of Bizarre… The day I bought my copy, late ’62, in Montreal, I went directly from the store to the Cinematheque Québécoise where film historian William K. Everson was appearing that evening. After his lecture, he stepped offstage to sign books and meet people. I went up and I pulled out my new copy of Bizarre Nos. 24-25 with the Frankenstein cover. Everson’s eyes bugged out. He looked inside and stopped on the Karloff filmography. Turning the pages slowly, he said, “This is incredibly complete!”. I offered him my copy, he wouldn’t hear of it, but he had me write down the name of the bookstore for him.

The French literary blog, l’Alamblog, ran a lenghty series of posts detailing the history of Bizarre magazine, with covers.

I Saw What I Saw When I Saw It: The Legacy Of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein by Frank Dietz

Along with his wonderful award-winning art, Frank Dietz shares his love for a classic film and discusses its abiding influence with a number of genre luminaries.

In May 1948, Universal Studios released a film that would change the direction of two of their most celebrated franchises. The movie was Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, and it put Bud and Lou back at the top of their game. And while it rang the death knoll for the classic monsters, it would also secure their longevity in the hearts and minds of audiences for decades to come.

At the age of six, I was introduced to this film by way of a local network airing, broadcast in all its glory across a black-and-white television screen. To my memory, it was the first time I had ever heard of Count Dracula, The Wolf Man or The Frankenstein Monster. My young mind was already craving anything that stimulated the imagination. Like Lou Costello’s Wilbur, I became caught in the hypnotic draw of Bela Lugosi’s beckoning. Here were situations so compelling, alternately frightening and amusing, that each new sequence would draw me closer to that screen. That is until a concerned adult would order me to back away, citing the time-honored admonition of ruining one’s eyesight. By the time The Wolf Man and Dracula plunged to their doom, and the Monster crumpled into the blazing pier, I had a calling in life. I didn’t know how or where this magical thing was made, all I knew was that I wanted to be a part of it.

What followed my enlightenment that morning was a surge of invention, arching like the manic machinery in Dr. Mornay’s laboratory. The Crayola-rendered drawings gushed from my memory and were ceremoniously pinned to the walls of my rickety backyard clubhouse. I would spend what seemed like hours in front of the bathroom mirror, “transforming” into The Wolf Man. My neighborhood chums were cajoled into performing living room reenactments of key scenes from the film, with me as director and star (either as Wilbur or Talbot…or both).

Memory was all I had to go on, for I would not see my creative muse again for several years. Unlike the privileged, instant-access youth of today, airings of movies like Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein were events to be wished for from month to month. When I was finally “gifted” by the gods of programming, Glenn Strange’s Monster himself could not have deterred me from taking my place in front of that old Zenith.

Somehow I missed the wonderful animated opening credits the first time around, but that second viewing immediately galvanized my already feverish brain. Watching that cartoon Frankenstein lumber into frame brought a whole new element into play. As the silhouetted Wolf Man and Dracula skulked over the hill, a tiny switch clicked “ON” inside my noggin. It was the first time any kind of animation had triggered such a specific response in me. Woody Woodpecker had been taken for granted, but the Frankenstein Monster brought the respect that the art form deserved. Cartoons suddenly had the potential to be really cool.

So my drawings began to improve, reloaded by this fresh clip of Frankensteinia. Shortly after, I happened upon my first issue of Famous Monsters Of Filmland, and with it the revelation that there were other Frankenstein and Wolf Man movies out there. When the Shock Theater syndication packages began to play on the Saturday night “Creature Feature” movie, I was ready for them. They didn’t always look exactly the same, but they were definitely my monsters.

Through subsequent viewings, I came to appreciate the film for its actual merits. The genuinely funny script, that wisely sidesteps the potholes of Bud and Lou’s vaudeville routines. The atmospheric production design and lighting. Lugosi’s improvement over his own 1931 Dracula performance. Lon Chaney’s Talbot fighting for a noble cause between his moonlight metamorphoses. Glenn Strange’s proof that he could do more than be a prop that sits up from the slab in the final five minutes. The rousing Frank Skinner score, with memorable motifs for each monster. All of these ingredients make for a thoroughly entertaining stew. Sadly, the film was the swan song for the three great movie monsters, and its tremendous success would make Abbott & Costello films the “elephants graveyard” for all the remaining cinema spookies. But perhaps killing off their erstwhile cash cows by way of a multi-demographic comedy was the shrewdest monster move the Universal suits ever made.

Very often I have found Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein to be a common denominator on the inspirational rap sheets of my professional colleagues. Like my experiences, many of my fellow writers, actors, directors and artists can cite the movie as a pivotal step in their own evolutions. We who marveled at these creations in our youth, have grown to become the creators. I asked a few of them about their own A&CMF memories.

“When I was a little youngster (radio carbon dating figures on request) I was packed away to" day "camp in the summertime,” recalls Emmy-winning makeup fx artist John Goodwin, “and I remember the younger kids had to listen to the camp counselor tell stories about trees (!?) while the older kids got to see a movie, "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" in 16mm, whatever that was. Well, I knew liked Abbott and Costello, but I wasn't too sure about monsters yet. I snuck away into the darkened cabin where they were showing the movie - just when Lon Chaney Jr. was changing into The Wolf Man!! Scared me to death! I was back out in tree story land faster than you can crush an acorn. But the seed had been sown…”

Director Tom Holland, who created a formidable horror-comedy of his own with 1985’s Fright Night, explains how A&CMF inspired a key moment in his film. “A & C meet Frankenstein gave me the inspiration for the moment in Fright Night where Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) has killed the vampire's helper, and he and Charley Brewster start up the stairs again...while the monster sits up behind them, rises and starts up the stairs. The moment where Roddy hears the creak of the footsteps behind him and turns to see the monster he just killed coming toward him...is right out of A&CMF, and gets much the same kind of giggle.”

Creator of some of the most recognizable movie posters of all time (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, et al.), award-winning artist Drew Struzan had this to say: “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein? I remember it being the stupidest, tackiest and most disrespectful take on Frankenstein I ever saw. And I enjoyed every moment of it!”

I became an actor, a screenwriter and an animator, all of which can be almost directly traced back to my early exposure to A&CMF. But the real test of the movie’s magic became apparent to me after my older daughter Caitlin watched it, at about the same age I was when I first saw it. She enjoyed it so much, she insisted on watching it again…and again…and again. This was now possible in the instant techno-gratification nineties. Before long she was quoting Wilbur (“SANDRA! Junior? SANDRA! Junior?) and had perfected the Dracula hand gestures to the point that she could bend the will of any second-grader in class. Shortly after, she would begin to inquire about other vintage horror movies. She knew who these characters were now, and was curious to find out more. I took her to a screening of the 1931 Frankenstein at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. She faced the film without fear, and by its fiery climax, expressed pity for Karloff’s monster. Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein had vaccinated her against fear of the original films, and the bias against “old” movies that were not in color. It occurred to me at that point that the film has become a kind of “portal,” allowing young people to be introduced to the classic monsters in a gentler, acceptable manner.

Noted horror author David J. Schow suggests one explanation to the appeal. “I don’t have research to bear me out on this, so it’s a suspicion rather than a confirmed fact, but I daresay A&C Meet Frank was a convenient conduit for “first contact” between a lot of kids and a lot of monsters because by the time TV syndication rolled around, A&C were deemed “kid-friendly” matinee fare – no sharp edges, etc. – and therefore the film was broadcast often during the daytime on Saturdays, as opposed to later-night “melodrama” slots containing programming that might scare somebody, as wrongly or rightly determined by affiliate broadcast standards. Since it was thumbnailed as a “comedy,” kids came for A&C and stayed for the monsters, so to speak. A lot of monster magazine cover art – in particular images of Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster – around this time were derived from this film’s images to a degree that almost makes it look biased.”

This is certainly true of the Universal monsters licensing art during the 1960’s Shock Theater boom. The colorful Frankenstein images that appeared on the lunchboxes, wallets and 3-ring school binders were almost always of Glenn Strange. The Dracula image was Lugosi, direct from A&CMF. Since these items were marketed for kids, it makes sense that the imagery be plucked from the film created to appeal directly to them.

David goes on to make an excellent point about the film’s intention from the start. “It’s also important that a fundamental turning point occurs early in the movie, where the Monster is frightened by Lou in the wax museum; it is the big wink to the audience that everything will be safe and okay, and cannot be underestimated as the “doorway” through which every subsequent monster spoof or lampoon followed. That one gag is a big red flag signaling the end of the reign of gothic monsters at Universal.”

Only the monsters and villains perish in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, and while the innocents are placed in great peril, not a single one is harmed during the film’s 83 minute running time. Even the obnoxious Mr. MacDougal survives an attack by The Wolf Man. This makes it an easier pill to swallow for those second-grade first-timers. And once they have made it through to see Chick and Wilbur emerge triumphant, most are quick to grab that remote and return to the main menu for another spin through MacDougal’s House Of Horrors.

The beautiful irony is that the film that was meant to be a stake in the heart for the Universal monsters may in fact be the film that keeps them alive forever. It provided inspiration for the filmmakers of today, and continues to serve as the welcome mat for new generations of classic monster fans. A couple of weeks ago, my younger daughter Tabitha, age 7, decided it was time that she watch her father’s favorite movie. She’s watched it six times since, and is now inquiring about a movie called The Bride Of Frankenstein.

The legacy lives on…

Burbank-based Frank Dietz is the creator of the Sketchy Things series of classic monster sketchbooks. Just a week ago, he won his second consecutive Rondo Award as Artist of the Year!

Don’t miss Frank’s enormous, and enormously entertaining website.

If you enjoyed this Guest Post as much as I did, leave a comment and let us know. I’d like to get Frank to contribute again!

The First Frankenstein of the Movies

“In making the film, the Edison Company has carefully tried to eliminate all the actually repulsive situations and to concentrate its endeavors upon the mystic and psychological problems that are to be found in this weird tale."

— The Edison Kinetogram, March 1910

The first Frankenstein film was released on March 18, 1910. The image above announces the later release of the film in England.

The 12-minute film was shot in January of 1910 at the Edison studios on Decatur Avenue, in The Bronx, New York. In an era when film were made in just one day, three whole days were lavished on this production, no doubt due to the demands of elaborate makeup and the special effects of the creation and mirror scenes.

Frankenstein was overseen by J. Searle Dawley, serving as producer, writer and director. A former actor, stage manager and vaudevillian, Dawley had been hired by Edwin S. Porter of the Edison Company in 1907, specifically to direct. He would later lay claim to the title of “the first motion picture director” because, until then, “the cameraman was in full charge”. Dawley would direct well over 200 silents, including Rescued from an Eagle's Nest (1908), a thriller famous for its scene of a baby carried aloft by an eagle, and the acting debut of one D.W.Griffith.

The same year he made Frankenstein, Dawley traveled to California as one of the leaders of a movement that would see filmmaking in America switch to the West Coast. In 1917, he became the first secretary, under Alan Dwan, of the newly formed Motion Pictures Directors Association. Dawley quit films in 1927 to work in radio.

In Dawley’s Frankenstein, the scientist literally cooks up his Monster in a boiler-cabinet. A dummy of the Monster, complete with a movable arm, was set afire and the film was reversed so that we see The Monster apparently assemble itself in a cloud of roiling ash and smoke. Frankenstein is overcome with horror and remorse at the sight of his horrible, hairy creation. In the one scene straight out of Mary Shelley’s novel, The Monster appears at the bed curtains to hover balefully over the collapsed Frankenstein.

In the final scene, as he looks at himself in a full-length mirror, The Monster vanishes, but his reflection remains. Frankenstein enters and sees himself as The Monster in the mirror. The image of The Monster dissolves and is replaced by Frankenstein’s reflection. The title card reads: “The creation of an evil mind is overcome by love and disappears¨. The concept of Frankenstein and his Monster as being intimately connected, perhaps even one and the same, has since been explored in countless retellings.

The part of Frankenstein is essayed with gesticulating fervor by Augustus Phillips, an actor whose otherwise unremarkable film career spanned the next ten years. The small part of Elizabeth was secured by Mary Fuller, an actress whose popularity would go on to match that of Lillian Gish or Mary Pickford, albeit briefly. She retired, abruptly, in 1917, and lived the rest of her life as a recluse.

The Monster of the film is played by Charles Ogle, a respected and prolific character actor who would appear in over 300 silents. It is assumed he designed the makeup for The Monster, though helping hands must have been recruited to assemble it. The grimacing Monster has a deformed skull, wild hair, big bandaged feet and hands like dead tree branches. He wears rags slung with ropes.

Frankenstein was just one of thirty films released by the Edison Trust that week. It seems that Frankenstein had the typically short distribution life that most films could hope for back then. Copies were sent through the exhibition circuit and soon returned to the Edison lab and destroyed, their silver content recycled. Cinema art and technology progressed rapidly in those days and, a mere five years later, the theatrics of Frankenstein were already old hat. The film was to be forgotten for half a century.

In 1963, a copy of the March 15, 1910 issue of The Edison Kinetogram trade magazine surfaced with a picture of the Ogle Frankenstein and a synopsis of the film. Among other sources, Famous Monsters of Filmland carried an article about it and, almost overnight, the film became one of the most sought after of all “lost film”. Against all expectations, it did not remain lost for long.

An eccentric collector and archivist, Alois F. Dettlaff, Sr., revealed that he owned a complete print of the now famous film. While some historians are grateful to Dettlaff for preserving the film, there are others who accused him of hoarding an historical artifact. Dettlaff circulated copies with proprietary markings on the screen, and is said to have lobbied the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for an Oscar in recognition of his work saving the film. It was all for nothing. Dettlaff passed away, alone, in 2005, and since then the film has become an ubiquitous download on Internet film sites.

The film is usually referred to as “The Edison Frankenstein”, but the real-life scientist and experimenter, Thomas Edison, only ushered the fictional scientist, Frankenstein, into the world of films in his remote capacity as president of the Edison Kinetograph Company. There is no record of Edison himself mentioning the film or, for that matter, even seeing it, from among the veritable torrent of product his company churned out every week.

Charles Ogle is now remembered as the first Frankenstein Monster of the Movies. Humorously, perhaps, the actor who made a his career in silent films lends his name to the Ogle Awards for Best Fantasy/Horror Audio Production of the Year, sponsored by the American Society for Science Fiction Audio.

View or download the film on Archive.org.

Review and analysis of the film on And You Call Yourself a Scientist, and a good, in-depth article on Film Buff On Line.

The Wikipedia page for the film carries the plot writeup from the original Edison Kinetogram.

Obituary of Alois Dettlaff on Film Buff On Line.

Frankenstein Decal

A dyspeptic Frankenstein Monster appears on a lacquer decal, circa 1960s, made by Baxter Lane of Amarillo, Texas. The company made novelty items, including popular travel-themed decals. You’d dunk these in water, which activated the glue, slide them off the paper support and stick ‘em anywhere. Anybody remember when luggage was plastered with colorful destination tags, or when car windshields were decorated with garish vacation spot logos?

The company cashed in on the Monster Boom with a series of monster decals including this classic flattop Frankenstein, without bothering to license the design from Universal Pictures. The Monster was already a pop culture artifact by then, as instantly recognizable for his neck bolts as the solid green skin color he had somehow acquired over time.

The color, you must admit, is appropriate for Saint Patrick's Day!

These decals came in transparent wax paper envelopes and were sold all over America in roadside convenience stores and truck stops. They can still be found on eBay, of course, like this one, from Toy Ranch of Dallas, Texas.

Thanks to The Drunken Severed Head for the decal!

Todd McFarlane's Frankenstein

Artist and entrepreneur Todd McFarlane’s toys were never meant for children. Along with companies like Sideshow Collectibles, McFarlane Toys, launched in 1994, carved a new niche in the marketplace, producing toys, playsets and action figures aimed squarely at the young adult and collector’s market.

McFarlane’s large articulated figurines set the standard for quality sculpts, with amazing likenesses and scrupulous detail lavished on its collections of licensed movie character, rock stars and famous sports figures. The company also produces original action figures, led by McFarlane’s own Spawn superhero character, and dramatic re-interpretations of classic fictional characters.

McFarlane’s horror and fantasy toy series include wildly pumped-up, radical rethinks of the classic movie monsters, legendary horror figures like Jack The Ripper or Elizabeth Bathory, and gleefully sordid, horror versions of assorted fairy tales including The Wizard of OZ characters, and Santa Claus! The OZ series features a Tin Man that looks like a steampunk robot and disturbing, nightmarish versions of Toto, the Scarecrow and the Lion. Dorothy appears as a blimp-chested, bondaged babe. The Santa Claus collection also features blood-chilling renditions of Santa, demonic elves, pointy-tooth reindeer and, here we go again, Mrs. Claus as a candy cane pole dancer.

Between 1997 and 2002, McFarlane Toys offered three different Frankenstein Monsters…

The first Frankenstein Playset, released in 1997, features a deformed, blood-splattered mad scientist and a slabbed Monster on a castle lab stand. The characters are rather crude when compared with versions to come. Note that Dr. Frankenstein holds a severed head that bears a likeness to The Monster’s final iteration, five years hence.

The Dr. Frankenstein Playset of 1998 is a variation of the original. Both playsets are designed to snap together and create a large, multi-character tableau.

This one featured another dungeons-like lab base, a different mad doctor, and a bizarre, two-headed Monster with accessories that include a bone saw and discarded intestines.

In 2002, the McFarlane’s Monsters collection was the most accomplished and extreme remix of the classic monsters to date, featuring Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, the Mummy, a Werewolf, a marginally Gillman-inspired Sea Creature, and a wholly original Voodoo Queen.

The elaborate design, careful sculpting and construction of this set are vastly superior to that of the previous efforts.

This skull-faced Frankenstein is equipped with a warrior’s wicked wrist-blade. He’s decked out in leather and armor, wears a partial helmet, chains, hooks, and what appears to be a cape made of stitched-together human faces. For reasons unexplained, he carries a mouldy skeleton with entrails in a cage on his back.

McFarlane’s Frankensteins are punk and gore, kickass cyborg monstrosities, worlds away from the Mary Shelley original.

Most of these figures are still available through resellers, though sometimes at inflated prices. The very nicely done McFarlane’s Monsters minisite is worth visiting. On the Frankenstein page, you can access closeups of the figure, and be sure to click the QVTR link to see it in the round.

Todd McFarlane’s site, and the McFarlane horror, fantasy and science fiction toys list.

On Wiki: Todd McFarlane’s page, and McFarlane Toys.

The Housekeeping of Frankenstein

Regular visitors may have noticed that posting here has been light over the last couple of weeks. Simply said, my time recently has been taken up by intense professional and personal obligations, on top of which I was offline for a couple of days while I broke in a new computer. Things are settling down and I’ll be cranking up the posts again. I’ve got tons of goodies lined up, including a couple of terrific Guest Blogger posts.

The Rondo Award winners were announced on Wednesday. The highly entertaining Trailers from Hell won the Best Blog or Website category, with Tim Lucas’ formidable Video WatchBlog as Runner-Up, and I was delighted to see my friend Max Cheney get an Honorable Mention for his fun, friendly and terminally silly The Drunken Severed Head blog. I profiled Max recently in my first Sites to See post.

Congratulations to the Rondo winners and all the nominees for their great work, thanks to all the voters (in record numbers this year!) and, most of all, hail Rondo Mastermind David Colton! Being nominated was a thrill, and great motivation for me. Thank you, David!

Speaking of awards, Brian Solomon of the indispensable Vault of Horror, has graciously bestowed an E for Excellent award on Frankensteinia! Thanks, B-Sol, I’m flattered and flattened!

OK, let’s get back on topic… See you all here in 24 hours or so with a new Frankenstein post!

The Hand of Frankenstein

One of the best things about blogging is reading the comments that you, the readers, add to the posts. Reacting to my recent Frankenstein of 1958 posts, Tim Lucas of Video Watchblog reflected on the use of the menacing claw imagery in advertising campaigns, the same year, for both The Revenge of Frankenstein and Frankenstein 1970. Here’s the evidence.

The claw pointing at a victim was a striking element of the Revenge poster (at right, and another one here).

As for the twisted claw on the Frankenstein 1970 poster (seen above, augmented with stitches, clamps and bolts!), it was suggested by the film’s opening sequence, a real pulse-pounding attention grabber, where a hulking Frankenstein Monster stalks a panicked woman. It turns out to be a trick sequence, a scene for a horror movie being shot on the grounds of Frankenstein’s estate.

I think many viewers came away from the film wishing the “real” monster in this one had been half as cool as the “fake” monster in the opening sequence.

The French poster for Frankenstein 1970 reads, "A Monster For Tomorrow... The New Demon of the Atomic Age!"

Posters courtesy Jean-Claude Michel.

The Monster Lives! By Rob Kelly

Dell Comics published this one-shot Frankenstein in 1963. The cover’s great, but what about the insides? Guest Blogger Rob Kelly walks us through the issue…

It's a standard tactic, in all of entertainment — go all-out on a grabber of an image to promote a project, even if that quality can't be maintained inside and/or later. Whether it be a paperback book cover, a movie poster, or a comic book cover, audiences have come to expect a certain amount of bait-and-switch when it comes to advertising.

But I would be hard-pressed to find a bigger bait-and-switch than the one Dell Comics pulled with their series of Universal monster movie "adaptations." I put that in quotes because once you get past the gorgeous painted cover (by Vic Prezio), you wonder if somehow a different comic got bound inside.

Published in 1963, the story, called "The Monster Lives", by Don Segall and Bob Jenney (pencils and inks), opens with all the familiar trappings of the Frankenstein story —Dr. Frankenstein and Fritz and conducting an experiment to bring the dead back to life! We flash back to Frankenstein's colleagues scoffing at his theories, so he and Fritz go about their secret work at night. Grave robbing, Fritz bringing back the wrong brain, etc.

Lightning strikes, and the monster arises! I assume that Dell, scared of the all-powerful Comics Code, didn't feel they could include too much horror (even though they were adapting a film over thirty years old at this point, and never submitted their books to the Code anyway), so you get panels like this, which aren't exactly draped in mood…

Fritz waves a torch at the Monster, which scares him off, and he escapes. It's here that the word "adaptation" really takes a beating, as the story completely diverges from the one we know, forging its own path in giant, size-thirteen boots.

The Monster comes across two kids having a picnic. As he approaches, he's not exactly met with kind words…

After the little girl falls to her death, The Monster picks up the boy, but accidentally drops him off the cliff, too, and the kid plunges to his death (serves him right for throwing a rock at the Monster!). Dr. Frankenstein and Fritz track the Monster down, drug him, and take him home.

The local constabulary and the Burgermeister figure this must be the work of Dr. Frankenstein, and head for his castle with torches (ah, I see they have the Patriot Act in wherever this is). The three of them escape via a secret tunnel, where the Doctor reads in a newspaper that America is hosting a meeting of the world's leading scientists! They hypnotize the Monster, put him in a coffin, and board a steamer bound for the U.S.

After cryptically hinting to the ship's captain as to what's in the coffin, the Captain unexpectedly drops by their cabin, and sees the Monster! The Monster, still hypnotized by the Doctor, is ordered to strangle the Captain, which he does…

The three of them arrive on shore, meeting up with Hobbs, a farmer that Frankenstein made arrangements with (?). He comments "You know, this is pretty risky business, helping people get into the country illegally." Dr. Frankenstein's response? "You've been paid well enough for your trouble." So shut your yap, Farmer Brown!

While in the barn, Fritz proves to be way more trouble than he's worth, provoking the giant, murdering monster for no good reason…

This causes the Monster to cry out, which attracts Hobbs' wife, who knows nothing of her husband's nefarious dealings. She screams at the sight of the Monster, which startles some horses, who kick loose. Frankenstein grabs them both and strangles them to death. Sheesh!

Hobbs returns with yet another partner, who helps Dr. Frankenstein load the coffin into his truck, bound for New York City. Soon after, Dr. Frankenstein bursts into the scientist's meeting, and tells them of his experiment. Meanwhile, that idiot Fritz wants to hypnotize the Monster himself, and using the code word "Wake!"

Unfortunately, Fritz can't remember what the code word for "stop" is, and the Monster is now again on the loose! He smashes his way out of the hotel, knocking the good Doctor over.

He seeks refuge on an ocean liner, marked with "Danger — High Explosives On Board" signs. Some welders, scared by the Monster's sudden appearance, drop their tools, setting the ship on fire. To make matters worse, they tell the cops the Monster started the fire! Geez, ol' Frankenstein can't catch a break in this story!

The police and fire department don't want to risk an explosion so close to the city, so they tug the ship further out to sea. An explosion knocks the Doctor and Fritz into the water, but traps the poor Monster…

As you can see, the Doctor is just so torn up over the living hell he's put his creation through. The End!

It seems unfathomable to guess what Dell was thinking with this. Selling the book as a movie adaptation (it appeared as part of their Movie Classic umbrella title) is a cheat beyond belief, and in their own way Dell came up with an even grimmer story than the one they were diverging from!

This wasn't the only time Dell pulled this--they did adaptations of Dracula, The Creature From the Black Lagoon, The Wolfman, and The Mummy all in the same style--gorgeous covers, dripping in atmosphere and making one think of the classic films--but with insides that seem to be from another planet, what with their complete lack of shadows and day-glo colors.

The Monster deserved better, but that cover still rocks.

"Rarr--Prezio good!"

Rob Kelly describes himself as a professional illustrator, which helps him finance his true love: Blogging about comics. Check out All in Black and White for 75 cents, The Aquaman Shrine, and Hey Kids, Comics!. Look there for links to his many other blogs. And don't miss Rob's outstanding portfolio site where his love of monster movies is on show. 

Here's another post featuring artwork by Vic Prezio.

The Revenge of Frankenstein Wraps

We Dare You To See It! We Double-Dare You To Forget It!
— Advertising slogan for The Revenge of Frankenstein.

Fifty years ago today, March 4, 1958, filming wrapped on Hammer Films’ The Revenge of Frankenstein.

In January, actor Peter Cushing, director Terence Fisher and crew had gone directly from making (Horror of) Dracula to the new Frankenstein film with barely three days off between shoots. The Revenge of Frankenstein, originally advertised in the trades as Blood of Frankenstein, was a direct sequel to the hugely successful Curse of Frankenstein, shot almost exactly a year earlier and still in distribution. The action picks up as Baron Frankenstein is led to the guillotine, delivering the first of several shocking twists that drive the grisly and literate script, probably writer Jimmy Sangster’s finest.

The film features impeccable period sets by Bernard Robinson, gorgeous photography by Jack Asher, and a superlative cast. Francis Matthews plays Frankenstein’s studious assistant, Eunice Gayson appears in standard issue Hammer Glamour décolletage, and Richard Wordsworth plays a conniving orderly. The always reliable Wordsworth had played the infected astronaut, Carroon, in The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and would essay the doomed beggar in The Curse of the Werewolf (1961). In smaller parts, Hammer regular Michael Ripper teams up with Lionel Jeffries as a memorable pair of grave robbers.

Michael Gwynn is outstanding as the woebegone hunchback who submits to a brain transplant, swapping his broken body for Frankenstein’s handsome creation, only to transform into a violent and brutally twisted monster with cannibalistic appetites. Gwynn’s performance is heart wrenching. Scenes where he stuffs his old body in a fiery furnace, and his poignant confrontation with Frankenstein, interrupting a society evening, are highlights.

Topping the cast, Peter Cushing delivers a crowning performance, a career tour de force, adding layers of nuance to his reading of the energetic Baron, a part he would have the unique opportunity of developing further in four more films. In the Revenge’s ultimate switcheroo, the Baron is subject to his own experiments and Cushing gets to play both creator and created in the same film, a trick also used with Boris Karloff in Frankenstein 1970 (1958), and Ian Holm in television’s Mystery and Imagination: Frankenstein (1968).

In the summer of ’58, (Horror of) Dracula and The Revenge of Frankenstein would consolidate Hammer’s growing reputation. The posters for the Frankenstein film featured Gwynn’s leering pop-eyed face, and a hairy claw. The unique and unusual trailer has Peter Cushing talking directly to the audience, establishing Hammer’s Frankenstein era by placing his botched execution in the year 1860.

“I, Baron Frankenstein… have escaped the guillotine” he says, “and I shall avenge the death of my creation!”

The trailer is online, on YouTube.

Poster from the Belgian release courtesy of Jean-Claude Michel.

Frankenstein, 1958

1958 was a good year for monsters, with Frankenstein front and center.

TV stations across North America were cashing in on the popularity of the Shock Theater package of Universal horrors, bringing the classic monsters to a new generation of fans. Philadelphia-based publisher, James Warren, picked up on the monster buzz and launched a monster movie magazine. That's him posing on the first issue’s cover in a rubber Frankenstein mask.

Edited by Forrest Ackerman, Famous Monster of Filmland hit the streets 50 years ago, on February 27, to be exact, even as blizzards hammered the East Coast. Success was instantaneous. FM was the right magazine at the right time, and it became the keystone of the Monster Kid era.

Anyone who ever read an issue back then is bound to wax nostalgic, and nobody does it better than VideoWatchdog editor and blogger Tim Lucas in this recent post, an homage to Famous Monsters that is both loving and level-headed. A great read.

Simultaneous with Famous Monsters being released in North America, Hammer Films of England was busy wrapping up the immediate sequel to their 1957 worldwide blockbuster, The Curse of Frankenstein. Reuniting writer Jimmy Sangster, director Terence Fisher and star Peter Cushing, The Revenge of Frankenstein would come to be recognized by many as the best of a series that would eventually stretch to seven films. In this perverse tale, Cushing’s cruel Baron runs a charity hospital, culling body parts from his unlucky patients. Michael Gwynn plays Frankenstein’s brain-switched experiment who develops a taste for human flesh.

Hammer was also involved in a second Frankenstein project, an ill-fated television series, produced in partnership with Columbia Pictures’ TV arm, Screen Gems. The pilot for Tales of Frankenstein was entirely shot in America, co-written and directed by Curt Siodmak, screenwriter for Universal’s monster-mix pictures Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman (1943), and House of Frankenstein (1944). Don Megowan played a classic, old school Frankenstein Monster to Anton Diffring’s Cushing-like, upturned collar Baron. The two styles mixed uneasily and Hammer producer Michael Carreras was not pleased. Work on the project continued through the year, inevitably to sputter out. Some of the concepts developed by Hammer writers would find their way into the company’s subsequent Frankenstein films.

American-International Pictures, in Hollywood, also rushed to sequelize their own Frankenstein, with Gary Conway returning as the busted-headed Teenage Frankenstein in How To Make a Monster. The story deals with a crazed makeup man (Robert H. Harris) who, when he gets canned by the studio, mixes drugs and greasepaint, turning his monster movie actors into zombies to do his murderous bidding. Gary Clarke played a snaggletooth Teenage Werewolf, a part originated by Michael Landon. In typical AIP hyperbole, the film was advertised as being in “flaming color!”, but it was really in black and white up to the last reel, when it switched to color for the fiery climax.

Also in 1958, Boris Karloff, the actor most identified with Frankenstein, then as now, returned to the fold in a low-budget shocker called Frankenstein 1970. Karloff gamely plays a scar-faced Baron Frankenstein cooking up a new atomic-powered Monster in the castle’s basement. Six-foot eight wrestler Mike Lane played the Gumby-like, mummy-wrapped Monster.

An even cheaper and unabashedly schlocky production was Richard Cunha’s Frankenstein’s Daughter. Actually, the scientist was Frankenstein’s grandson — the Frankenstein film family is large and complex — who produces a singularly homely creature played by acromegalic character actor Harry Wilson. Legend is that makeup man Harry Thomas did not know the Monster’s head was supposed to be female, so he applied lipstick to the creature he had designed, and that did the trick. Wilson’s robot walk is hilarious and the whole film is kooky enough to be weirdly entertaining.

The final Frankenstein of 1958 stalked South of the border. The influence of Universal’s Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein echoed, ten years on, in El Castillo de los monstruos, in which comic Clavillazo encounters the Frankenstein Monster, a Gillman, a Werewolf, a Mummy, and the great German Robles in a cameo as Dracula. I blogged previously about this and other Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein Knockoffs. That post includes a link to a YouTube excerpt from the film.

A couple of Frankenstein-themed films rounded out the year. Colossus of New York is a minor but fascinating science-fiction thriller in which a towering robot is fitted with the brain of a Nobel Peace Prize winner. The experiment fritzes the donor’s humanitarian impulses and culminates in a showdown at the United Nations. Real-life giant Ed Wolff works the bulky, expressionless robot suit. He had previously played the big, clumsy, totem-headed robot in the 1939 Bela Lugosi serial, The Phantom Creeps.

And, finally, Alraune, aka Unnatural, was a German film made in 1952 and released in America in the Frankenstein year of 1958. The story of a soulless, artificially created woman had been filmed a number of times before, notably with Metropolis robot star Brigitte Helm playing the part twice, first in a silent version and then a talking remake. This version featured the striking Hildegard Knef as Alraune to Erich von Stroheim’s Frankensteinian scientist, Ted Brinken.

And so it was, fifty years ago, when the all-purpose Frankenstein Monster launched a legendary magazine… Drove Hammer Films’ sudden, steep, upward curve of success that would establish it as the premier studio of cinema horrors… Tail-ended AIP’s drive-in, teen-monster era, soon to evolve into the Corman-Price-Poe gothic sixties… Provided the venerable Boris Karloff with yet another mad scientist credit… And distinguished a handful of B-movies.

1958 was a good year for Frankenstein.