“You can never have too many Frankenstein pictures” says artist Kevin Nowlan on his blog, a treasury of gorgeous illustrations.
The pencil and gouache Frankenstein here is a work in progress. Though several steps away from a final, fully realized portrait, the classic Monster’s unsettling presence has already been captured, mute and solemn, with a flinty, dead-eye stare.
Kevin Nowlan’s blog, his website, and a gallery of his comic book art.
Related:
Kevin Nowlan’s Frankenstein Meets Vampirella
I love old behind-the-scenes photos, like this glorious shot of the Frankenstein laboratory set, taken in the sweltering summer of 1931. DVDs today always seem to come with a “making of” documentary, but there are very few backstage photos from bygone films, and a mere handful from this particular title, one of the most important and influential films ever made. These rare photos are silent witnesses, privileged glimpses into a distant, black and white past, laden with information and tantalizing clues.
A rickety ramp leads to a raised platform, and down again to the heart of the tall set, the tower laboratory where The Monster will ride up to the stormy sky on an elevator slab. At front, left, someone is standing in the dark. A technician, perhaps, or director James Whale? In the light beyond, a stagehand crouches under the tubular microphone hanging from its extension arm. To the right of the picture, wooden scaffolding, freestanding lights, and a pile of sandbags.
Who is the man standing at center? He looks like the camera operator seen in another backstage shot. Could it be cinematographer Arthur Edeson? High above, another man stands amidst overhead lights on an elaborate rig, the camera boom used extensively by Whale. This, probably, is an operator filming the lab from on high, though one is reminded of a quote from Boris Karloff, “In Frankenstein, during the laboratory scenes, I was never as nervous as when I lay half naked, strapped to the operating table. Above me, I could see the special effects men shaking the white-hot scissor-like carbons that simulated the lightning. I prayed very hard that no one got butterfingers.”
At center, the image is blown out by the intense lights focused on the set crowded with Kenneth Strickfaden’s electrical gizmos. Someone is glimpsed there, perhaps Strickfaden adjusting his equipment, or Frankenstein himself, Colin Clive, dialing up the life-giving rays.
The set photo comes from the wonderful Universal Monster Legacy site, launched to promote the new version of The Wolfman, coming out in February. The navigation is sometimes balky, and fans will note a couple of minor mistakes — Lon Chaney’s 1923 Hunchback of Notre Dame is illustrated with a poster from the 1939 RKO version with Charles Laughton, and a picture of Boris Karloff in his 1935 Bride of Frankenstein burn makeup is mixed in with the 1931 Frankenstein stills — but overall it’s a very handsome site with film clips and some truly eye-popping photo galleries. Most definitely worth a visit.
The Universal Monster Legacy site.
An interview with Boris Karloff.
James Arness cuts a distinctly Frankensteinian figure as The Thing, in 1951. There’s even a bit of a diagonal fold across the forehead, reminiscent of The Monster’s scar.
As the Fifties dawned, Hollywood embraced science fiction. Space aliens and atom age monsters — mutants, giant insects and one very famous radioactive dinosaur — took their place alongside the classic movie monsters of gothic origin.
The Thing (from Another World) was inspired by a 1938 novella, Who Goes There?, by John W. Campbell, Jr. (writing as Don A. Stuart). The paranoid story of a shape-shifting alien who assumes the appearance of his victims was considerably simplified by screenwriter Charles Lederer (with an assist by an uncredited Ben Hecht). The science fiction trappings fall away after the creature is loose, the film playing out as an “Old Dark House” thriller, substituting a remote arctic station socked in by a blizzard for the classic haunted mansion, and featuring an bullet-proof vegetable-man as stand-in for the usual killer, ghost or gorilla menace. The same story device was used for It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), and Alien (1979), with its space monsters stalking victims trapped in a spaceship.
A reluctant James Arness, all of 6’6”, was cast as the title creature. He would become a household name in America as the star of the long-running Gunsmoke TV series. Shots here show Arness, sans makeup, testing his torn spacesuit fitted for the smoke effect that accompanied the monster’s climactic electrocution. You can see more photos of the test run on the remarkable Life magazine online archives. Note that the date given, March 1951, if correct, means that this was an absolute last minute job. The film premiered on April 6 and went into release on April 29.
The Thing’s Frankenstein profile was no coincidence. Makeup supervisor Lee Greenway worked for months on the project, submitting numerous sketches and sculpts — 18 different versions in all — to producer Howard Hawks. Eventually, Greenway would put makeup on Arness and the two men would drive over to Hawks’ home to show it off. As the shooting date approached, Hawks, frustrated, told Greenway to “make him look like Frankenstein!”
What makes Hawks’ instructions particularly interesting is that earlier on, in the film’s development stage, Hawks had sent memos to RKO boss Howard Hughes assuring him that The Thing would be a modern horror story and its monster nothing like “the usual Frankenstein”. Hawks’ change of heart suggests a realization that the general profile of the iconic Jack Pierce-designed Frankenstein Monster, 20 years after it was first seen, was still a truly scary and potent symbol of alienness. Many critics, including the New York Times reviewer, alluded to Frankenstein in their assessment of the film.
The Thing from Another World was a worldwide box-office hit and a hugely influential film. Among its admirers, director John Carpenter referenced the film in Halloween (1978) and went on to shoot his own extraordinary version, The Thing (1982), hewing very close to the original Campbell story, with creature shape-shifting made possible by the elaborate and stunning special effect makeups devised by Rob Bottin.
Life Magazine online archives: The Thing.
References from Howard Hawks: Hollywood's Grey Fox (Grove Press, 1997) by Todd McCarthy.
Who Goes There? print and audio versions available from Rocket Ride Books.
Young Frankenstein celebrates its 35th anniversary today. The film was first released in North America on December 15, 1974.
Much like that other Frankenstein comedy, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), which became a literal template for monster movie comedies, Young Frankenstein was such an inspired spoof — and a worldwide box-office hit — that it triggered a slew of decidedly minor copies including at least one soft-core version, Frankenstein All’Italiana (1975), and an outright scene-for-scene clone, the notorious “Turkish Young Frankenstein”, Sevimli Frankestayn (1975).
Assembled in a color shot from the set of the black and white film: Director Mel Brooks, Peter Boyle in blue/green makeup, Marty ‘Eye-Gor’ Feldman, Gene Wilder (who wrote the film), and Terry ‘Inga” Garr.
Brooks adapted Young Frankenstein as a Broadway musical in 2007. The go-for-broke production played 14 tumultuous months, shutting down on January 4, 2009, its expensive trappings at odds with a collapsing economy. After some retooling, the show is now touring with its highly acclaimed original leads, Roger Bart as Dr. Fronkensteen, and Shuler Hensley as the tap-dancing Monster.
Young Frankenstein Musical website.
Related:
Posts about the Young Frankenstein Musical
Don’t let the name fool you, Bob Canada hails from Evansville, Indiana. He is a cartoonist and graphic designer who keeps a fine blog where he posts his hilarious illustrations and holds forth, with tongue somewhere in cheek, on pop culture.
Bob’s “all time favorite monster” is Frankenstein’s “because,” he says, “deep down he's not really a monster, he's just misunderstood and wants to be loved and accepted like everyone else. Or maybe it's because he's got green skin and a flat head and throws little girls into the lake.”
Recently, Bob challenged himself to draw 100 different versions of The Monster, and there’s a handful of those already posted. They include a diapered baby Frankenstein, a Fred Flintstone Frankenstein, and a fine, properly muscle-bound Teenage Frankenstein. I got a kick out of the caricatured Christopher Lee from Curse of Frankenstein, complete with Moe haircut, dead eye, pea coat and dangling chains. The bloody background burst suits the character, star of the first Frankenstein movie made in color and originally notorious for its gore.
I’ll be keeping an eye on Bob Canada’s blog for all the Frankenstein goodness to come.
Bob Canada’s blog, posts under the 100 Frankensteins Project tag, and a large Flickr set.
Here are two variants in an elegant series of posters for Yoshihiro Nishimura‘s Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (2009).
Poster above features a highly romanticized image of the two protagonists. The second poster focuses on Shôjo Furanken (Frankenstein Girl) in Geisha costume, a companion piece to the film’s original poster that showcased Vampire Girl in her schoolgirl outfit, also with the Tokyo Tower as background.
Related:
Original poster, and Alternate poster for Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl
I’m still pulling myself together after hosting the Blogathon last week. It was a great and thoroughly overwhelming experience. When you’re in it, you’re sort of running on adrenaline, just getting all the links posted and trying not to mess up, and when you’re done, you’re happy and you’re fried.
I tried writing a wrap-up post this week, my own thoughts about Boris Karloff, but it wasn’t happening. I realized that so many others had said it so much better than I ever could. Go click some links, see for yourself. There’s tons of info posted, new ways of looking at Karloff’s pictures, fresh perspectives on an incredible career, and sincere, touching tributes.
Here are a few stats, for the record…
There were 105 participating blogs, many of them making multiple posts, a few contributing on a daily basis. We had bloggers participating from France, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Japan, Spain, Canada and the USA.
In total, I posted 292 links. I’m still finding the odd blog who either contributed without telling me, or promoted the Blogathon with a few lines of original text and a photo, so there are actually a few more Karloff-related posts out there. It’s impossible to actually tabulate everything, but with over 100 bloggers and certainly more than 300 individual posts, I think we can pronounce the Boris Karloff Blogathon a success!
Reader-wise, this blog recorded well over 8,000 hits between November 23 and 29. My hits are sky high this week as visitors are still discovering the Blogathon or returning to catch up with everything. There’s so much to read!
As to content, we had posts about Karloff in movies, radio, TV, recording and advertising work. A number of bloggers posted original art inspired by Boris. Sorting it out, I find that a lot of fans, it turns out, were first introduced to Boris through the Gold Key comic books*. We had the most posts of any category about those, 9 in all.
The films that got the most coverage were The Mummy (1932), and Targets (1968), with 7 posts apiece, and the Val Lewton trio from 1945-46 combined for 13 posts: 5 posts for The Body Snatcher and 4 each for Isle of the Dead, and Bedlam. The Mr. Wong series also got a lot of attention, mostly due to the films being freely available on the net. In all, fifty-eight films were reviewed.
I knew going in that Boris Karloff was a beloved actor. Through the Blogathon, I learned that the admiration ran deep. Karloff was an intensely charismatic actor who earned himself lifelong fans. Digging through the Blogathon posts, I found an actor with the chops to impress the toughest critics. I read about an artist who was versatile and enormously talented in all his endeavors. I saw how he charmed us with humor, generosity and genuine humility. I’m glad we paid homage to this extraordinary man.
The only thing left for me to say is Thank You to all the participating bloggers and Thank You to everyone who visited here, who clicked around, read about Boris Karloff and discovered great blogs. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
I’ll keep a link to the Blogathon archives on my sidebar. Click the Boris image and see all the posts that were made.
Illustration above: A Karloff caricature by Hirschfeld.
* Dark Horse Comics have collected the entire Boris Karloff Thriller/Tales of Mystery comics, available through (plug!) the Frankenstore: Volume One, Volume Two.
There’s still some tea left. Enough for another sip.
I still have a few late, lost, misplaced or last minute links to post, and really good ones, too, so let’s linger, shall we, and allow ourselves a few more minutes, perhaps a few hours still, in Boris’ gentle company.
Midday Update: Links still trickling in, another handful posted just now. I’ll be taking a bit of a break this evening and I’ll return with my wrap-up post tomorrow.
And do tell me if you’ve enjoyed your week with Boris. The comments section is yours to play with.
In an AWESOME contribution if there ever was one, Micha Michelle proposes an imaginary Things to Make and Do With Boris activity book!
Get out your construction paper, your glue sticks, ask Mom if you can use the scissors, and follow Micha’s easy, step-by-step instructions!
First up, Boris Karloff Finger Puppets! Micha even provides ready-made models with interchangeable heads. Just print, cut, stick your digits through the holes and make Boris dance!
Project Number Two is the No-Clothespin Theater. Cut out the characters, set them into a diorama, and you’ve got your Frankenstein Flaming Windmill playset! Again, there are readymade characters you can download. Just be sure to print out extra copies of the Disgruntled Villagers With Torches. You can never have too many Disgruntled Villagers With Torches.
Thanks, Micha, for an inspired, and insanely fun post! And thank you for helping me wrap up the Blogathon in great style!
Boris jabs with a needle, and Bela gets hypnotized. See a poster and some nice stills from Black Friday on Classic Movie Monsters.
Quick notes and an original trailer for The Body Snatcher (1945), on Panic on the 4th of July.
Karloff a go-go: Halloween Shindig 1965 is a blog entirely devoted to the search for the missing minutes of Boris performing Monster Mash on TV.
Writer John Rozum has posted some nice photos of Boris in various situations, and a set with makeup genius and friend Jack Pierce, including a rare 1939 color photo of Boris in Frankenstein Monster getup.
The Frankenstein Monster as family curse… A review of Son of Frankenstein (1969) by Joshua Reynolds, on Hunting Monsters. Also up on Joshua’s blog: Boris and Jack Nicholson square off in The Terror (1963). Click and watch the entire film.
As sure as his name was Boris Karloff… Thriller, on Need Coffee dot com.
My friend Tony Espinosa has Karloff images all over the place, if you’re willing to click and scroll around his blog, Draculand, and his tumbler, Vade retro me satana.
Paul Castiglia sneaks in a bonus Blogathon post, in praise of Mad Monster Party?, the puppet animation classic that had Boris, perfectly caricatured in three dimensions, as the host of a joyous monster getogether. You could say that Boris was sampled twice, first as Baron Boris von Frankenstein, voiced by Boris himself, and as Frankenstein’s Monster.
Reviewed on Scared Silly.
Boris goes around the bend and way over the top in The Lost Patrol, a pedal to the metal performance analyzed on Hell on Frisco Bay.
Bill Adcock was a busy contributor to the Blogathon. He wraps it up on Radiation-Scarred Reviews.
Superb, Boris-inspired art by J. Mendez and Jen Lobo, up on The Ladies and Gents Auxiliary. See It Comes to Life!
Billy Pratt was born in England, Karloff the Uncanny was born to movie stardom in the United States, but Boris Karloff was born in Canada. Kitty LeClaw posts Canada Loves Boris Karloff, on Killer Kittens From Beyond the Grave.
Karswell posts another Karloff-inspired Frankenstein comic book story by the great Dick Briefer, this one from the ‘funny monster” period, called How I Conquered a Terrible Plague! On The Horrors of It All.
Boris goes bowling for bullets in the original Scarface (1932), a scene highlighted, along with quotes from Targets director Peter Bogdanovich, in a fine Karloff tribute posted on The Sheila Variations. Read Shocked by Unkindness and Never Less Than Polite.
Boris and Colin Clive share a quiet moment, away from the hubbub on the castle laboratory set of Bride of Frankenstein.
Day Six! Let’s go!
“In Bedlam, we see Boris Karloff playing the most despicable and evil character he ever portrayed during his career.”
Steve Miller contemplates the glorious villainy and the dastardly goodness of Bedlam, on The Boris Karloff Collection.
Something that has surprised me about the Blogathon this week is the lack of Frankenstein film reviews. The character, of course, is often mentioned, it’s an inescapable reference, but we’ve explored many Karloff films here, and no Frankensteins!
Bill Adcock remedies the situation on the spot, with his consideration of Boris’ final Monster turn in Son of Frankenstein. On Radiation-Scarred Reviews.
Orrin Grey, who still insists he’s a skeleton, makes his wrap-up post, with a list of his favorite Blogathon entries from the past week. On Who Killed Orrin Grey?
Fun post on Six-Shooter: A look at the Boris Karloff Collector Figure from Amok Time. Comes with three interchangeable heads!
Two posts from Filo Loco: First, a look inside the Film Classic Library book of Frankenstein, edited by Richard J. Anobile. An indispensable series, in the pre-computer and DVD freeze-frame and screen capture days of the mid-70’s.
Also on Deadlicious, a selection of oddball Frankentoyz. Love ‘em!
No sooner had The Raven gone out in 1963 that AIP quickly followed with The Comedy of Terrors, reuniting, the ads said, our “favorite creeps”. Vincent Price and Peter Lorre play an Abbot and Costello duo of murderous undertakers, with Boris enjoying himself as a cackling, out-to-lunch grandpa, and Basil Rathbone thrown in to chew whatever scenery was left over. Old school comic Joe E. Brown and the “abundantly blessed” Joyce Jameson round out the main cast.
Paul Castiglia sorts it all out for us, on Scared Silly.
Gold Key comics used to really stand out on the racks because of their fully painted covers, as opposed to the flat, four-color jobs with black ink outlines you saw on all the other comic books. Gary Lee posts a gallery of great covers from Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery. On Gary’s Goods.
John Rozum has some short and snappy Karloff-related posts up on his blog, just click around. And check out his superb Karloff collage.
A full filmed bio: Draven posts the documentary Boris Karloff, The Gentle Monster in five parts, on Dravens Tales.
Boris Karloff always said he wanted to keep going ‘till the end. He didn’t need the money, it’s just that acting was what he did. Fighting emphysema and arthritis, he troopered on, popping out of his wheelchair to the set whenever the director yelled, “Action!”. His next to last job, in April 1968, was shooting four films worth of material in three busy weeks in Los Angeles, with the rest of it to be filmed later, on Mexican soundstages.
Gareth Walters reports on the trials of filming Fear Chamber, on The Amazing Movie Show.
I love the tea reference in Dave Lowe’s Karloff cartoon, on Para Abnormal.
A beautiful shot of the stunning waterfall set from Bride of Frankenstein (1935), one of the Karloff/Frankenstein images I posted today on my picture blog, Monster Crazy.
By 1945, Boris was a favorite guest on radio variety shows, and always good-humoredly willing to poke fun at himself. Listen to him spar with “America’s No. 1 Quip Master”, comic Fred Allen, on Hilarity Ensues, posted on Orange and Black.
He was not just a horror star, he was, first and foremost, a damn fine actor. Writer David Rattigan appreciates Karloff’s subtle handling of over-the-top characters. With a fine clip from Targets. On Rattigan Writes.
My friend Max’ Drunken Severed Head blog is devoted to everything horrible, including Max’s jokes. It’s a giddy celebration of monsters and Halloween, oddball news and everything cockeyed in pop culture. But for all the kamikaze brilliance and the inspired silliness on display, sometimes Max has a brief episode of lucidity, as if his meds just kicked in.
We’re treated to one of Max’ magical moments today as he shares a true and truly touching story. Read The Day Boris Karloff Came Back From the Dead, Just for Me.
Thank you, Max.
A Dave Kirwan caricature of the older, Thriller and Invisible Bikini era Boris, cross-posted on Kirdoodle, blog and tumbler versions.
Boris as Santa? More Karloff quotes, illustrated with stills, on Weird Hollow.
Frankenstein’s Monster awoke to a life of misery. The actor who played him awoke to celebrity status. Thoughts, posted on This Woman’s Work.
Today’s art interpretation, by J. Mendez, is a Friendly Boris, a Monster in daytime. On The Ladies and Gents Auxiliary.
I was always found this ad for GE clocks a bit disturbing, with Karloff posing sans his trademark bushy brows, and his hair badly drawn in. A little detecting and I found that this originally ran in Life magazine, in August of 1937. Bingo! Boris was then filming West of Shanghai in which, as Warlord Fang, he sports thin, painted-on eyebrows and a tall forehead.
This is just one of the wonderful ads featured in Mike Segretto’s hilarious article about Boris The Pitchman. Read Boris Sells Out!, on Psychobabble.
Ed Howard tackles the “fascinating and problematic” 1932 thriller, The Mask of Fu Manchu, addressing the film’s racism and lurid sexual undercurrents. It’s a top-notch analysis of “an utterly bizarre movie”, on Only the Cinema.
What are the facts behind “The Strange Case of the Monster’s Home Run”? Deadly Movies investigates! A fun and fond look back Boris’ participation in the legendary All-Star Charity Baseball Game of 1940.
Grab a hold of something. Here’s Nate Yapp’s monumental contribution, a video tribute to Boris Karloff's Mad Scientist roles, set to “Frontier Psychiatrist” by The Avalanches.
I want to thank Nate for allowing me to post the video here. Visit Nate’s Classic-Horror.com for more details about it.
Thanks, Nate. This one is a mind-blower!
Boris and Bela go head to head! Jeannette Laredo evaluates the two horror stars and their collaboration in The Raven and The Black Cat. Read Clash of the Titans on the scholarly and beautifully designed Monster Land.
Of all the films he made in a movie career spanning six decades, Boris Karloff was also in a little number called Frankenstein. “Look closely at this film”, writes Bill Adcock. “This, along with DRACULA (also 1931) marks the birth of American horror cinema.” On Radiation-Scarred Reviews.
Bill Ryan examines Karloff’s career as a movie mad scientist, a resuscitator and a relentless enemy of death, and how prolonging life in these films ends up, well, costing lives. The Man They Could Not Hang and Before I Hang, deconstructed on The Kind of Face You Hate.
Karloff and director Mario Bava shared a mutual admiration. Peeping Tom reports (in Italian) on the making of Black Sabbath on Lost Eyeways and posts wonderful behind the scenes photos on his tumblelog, Peeping Tom.
On Fear Fragments, an overview of Boris’ amazing career, from the 1995 A&E biography. Read The Gentle Monster.
Possibly the best of the Charlie Chan movies, it’s especially memorable for having Boris Karloff belting out opera tunes in a cat-eared skullcap and a sequined mask. Ivan G. Shreve Jr. turns a spotlight on Charlie Chan at the Opera, on Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.
Stay up tonight and watch some Karloff movies!
