Paul Naschy Meets Frankenstein

The Paul Naschy Blogathon is underway at MadMadMadMadMovies and there are tons of links up already. Go look! It’s going to be a wild week celebrating The International Man of Monsters.

Here’s my own humble contribution…

It’s Dracula and the Werewolf vs. Frankenstein, illustrated comic book-style on this ad mat for the venerable Victory Theater in Brussels. Actually, the film also featured a mad scientist, aliens and a mummy, but perhaps the title already ran too long. Also missing from the ad is Paul Naschy’s name, despite double duty as screenwriter and lycanthrope.

The film played in English alternately as Dracula vs. Frankenstein and Assignment Terror. In its original, 1969 incarnation, it was called Los Monstruos del terror — The Monsters of Terror. Multiple title confusion was typical for Naschy’s films, made in Spain and bumped around various distributors until they landed, dubbed, as drive-in and grindhouse programmers on this side of the Atlantic.

I first encountered Naschy’s films in the 70s as French dubs playing Montreal as bottom of the bill filler in second-run houses. I remember seeing this one backed with Viva Maria! with Brigitte Bardot. Naschy’s films were at once utterly confusing and strangely fascinating. I didn’t really know anything about Naschy until later, with the advent of VHS, but I had grown fond of the barrel-chested actor.
I came to think of Naschy as a monster movie fan who’d been given the keys to the studio, gleefully recreating the old Universal classics in widescreen and saturated colors, only with more blood and added cleavage. I don’t think I was too far off target.

By his own account, Paul Naschy’s life-changing inspiration came at a screening of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, the highly entertaining 1943 monster combo movie starring Bela Lugosi as The Monster and Lon Chaney as the Wolf Man. Naschy would reincarnate Chaney’s Larry Talbot as the cursed Waldemar Daninsky, El Hombre Lobo, in eleven films — perhaps even twelve, one title having gone missing and apparently never shown.

Naschy paid homage to the film that had influenced him by staging a Frankenstein vs. Lobo rumble in Los Monstruos del Terror, but — despite a career playing most if not all of the cinema’s famous monsters — he otherwise steered clear of Frankenstein, save for a couple of indirect connections.

Naschy donned the classic boxhead makeup for a short scene, playing an actor in Frankenstein getup in El Aullido del diablo (The Howl of the Devil, 1988). Another reference is, well, accidental: Naschy’s first Lobo film, La Marca del Hombre Lobo (Mark of the Wolfman, 1968), was released in America as Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror. Thing is, there’s no Frankenstein in the movie.

Picked up by Sam Sherman’s discount distribution house, Independent-International, La Marca del Hombre Lobo was dubbed and recut for American consumption. The misleading title was slapped on to satisfy exhibitors who had been promised a Frankenstein film. The Frankenstein reference is dealt in a fleeting instant, even as the titles scroll, with a simple statement that the Frankenstein family had evolved into the lycanthropic Wolfsteins, and that’s it.

I doubt that any patrons were overly upset. Back in the day, you pretty much rolled with the ballyhoo. B-Movies never delivered everything promised on their lurid posters and, besides, the film itself turned out to be a lot better than you had expected, not to mention the extra blood and cleavage.

A final Frankenstein reference: A new documentary about Paul Naschy is called The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry (2010). See my previous post about it and find out what the title means.

Again, there’s lots to see and read about Paul Naschy, and great blogs to discover all this week on The Paul Naschy Blogathon. Kudos to Blogathon host The Vicar of VHS!

Scoring The Bride

Here’s a great photo of director James Whale sitting in on an orchestral recording session for Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

That’s Whale, dapper as ever in a dark suit, sitting cross-legged in a wicker chaise. On the podium is Russian-born conductor Constantin Romanovich Bakaleinikoff, often billed by his last name alone, former director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and one of a large family of noted musicians, composers and conductors.

Standing directly in front of Bakaleinikoff, looking up at him, is the Polish-born composer Franz Waxman. Bride of Frankenstein was his first score for an American film. He would go on to score such films as the 1941 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and several Hitchcock titles including Rear Window (1954). He garnered twelve Oscar nominations, winning twice, for Sunset Boulevard (1950) and A Place in the Sun (1951).

Seen between Waxman and Bakaleinikoff, sitting at the pipe organ, is British-born Oliver Wallace who would go on to write music for some 150 Walt Disney productions from 1936 until his death in 1963. Wallace wrote the immensely popular WWII propaganda song, Der Fuhrer’s Face, for a 1942 Donald Duck short, and he picked up an Academy Award for his contribution to Dumbo (1941).

The recording studio is Universal’s famous Stage 10, built in 1929. After frequent and considerable remodeling, it is still in use today. It is here, in ’29, that sound editor Jack Foley first began adding ambient sound effects such as footsteps, crackling fire and creaky doors to films. The procedure is now called Foley Art, performed by Foley Artists on Foley Stages.

The photograph attests to James Whale’s deep involvement in Bride of Frankenstein, which began with his having the script tailored to his wishes, and all the way to attending a scoring session.

The photo and participant identification is from a fascinating, must-read History of Stage 10 article on TheStudioTour.com.

Happy Birthday, Boris and Sara

Boris Karloff is treated to a birthday surprise on the set of Son of Frankenstein, November 23, 1938. Before the day was over, there would be another reason to celebrate as Boris’ daughter, Sara, was born.

Here’s to fond memories of Boris, and a Happy Birthday to Sara!

More pictures from Karloff’s 1938 Birthday party here and here.

Check out the Frankensteinia archives for Boris Karloff posts, and there’s TONS more to discover in the Boris Karloff Blogathon Archives.

Blog Update

Posting has been sparse lately due to urgent, real/life obligations. I’ve got a lot of material lined up and some exciting posts that I can’t wait to get to, but my partial hiatus will have to run into December. See you then.

Cheers!

Frankenstein in Paris

A vintage postcard of a Paris landmark, the storied Théâtre des Gobelins on the avenue of the same name. Boulevardiers, bistro habitués, a cyclist and, perhaps, theater staff pose outside. A postmarked stamp indicates 1908, but the photograph itself might date ten, even fifteen years back. Of particular interest to us: The sandwich board poster advertising the theater’s current offering, Le Monstre et le Magicien, the French Frankenstein play. It’s very likely the first ever photograph of a Frankenstein marquee.

“The Monster and the Magician”, directly inspired by Richard Brinsley Peake’s Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein, the London stage phenomenon of 1823, opened in Paris at the Porte Saint-Martin in 1826. Not only would its success rival that of the British original, Le Monstre borrowed Presumption’s star when T.P.Cooke, the first actor to play Frankenstein’s Monster, came to Paris to reprise his celebrated role in the new French version. Amazingly, Le Monstre was still being staged eighty years on, at the turn of the century. I could find no listing of the players for this version, the last actor of record to play the Monster’s part being a certain M. Ravel in a revival of Le Monstre et le Magicien at the Théâtre de l’Ambigu-Comique in 1861.

The Gobelins, a spacious 800-seat theatre, was built in 1869 as a home to large-scale spectacles the likes of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. Its unique and elegant façade, dominated by the floating figures of a man and a woman representing Drama and Comedy, was sculpted by Auguste Rodin, no less, in his young Beaux-Arts student days. The Gobelins began showing films in 1906 and became a permanent movie house in 1934. The aging interior was gutted and transformed into a twin-screen cinema in 1993, operating as the Gaumont Gobelins-Rodin until its final closing in 2003, and used as a warehouse since then.

The good news is that the original façade has survived, protected under the historical monument act, and an entirely new building is currently being erected behind it to house the Pathé archives and museum.

Gobelins, though suggestive of folkloric monsters, is actually the name of a famous family of 15th century dyers whose factory turned to tapestry work in the early 1600s. The name, today, is literally synonymous with fine tapestries.

Théâtre des Gobelins postcard on Carthalia.

With thanks to Jeffrey Eernisse.

The Art of Frankenstein : Drew Struzan

Scholars and essayists have often explored the curious doppelganger relationship of Frankenstein and his creation. In his 2003 poster for the classic 1931 Frankenstein, artist Drew Struzan vividly illustrates the dual nature of the main protagonists, brought together on a shattered canvas, halved faces completing each other, separated by lines suggesting a stylized lightning bolt. In a further correspondence, the film’s beginning and end are illustrated with the distinctive cemetery scene and its guardian skeleton where Frankenstein gathered his grim materials, and the penultimate fate of The Monster in the burning windmill, its orange bonfire anchoring the composition.

Another Frankenstein image by Struzan pops up — Karloff’s Monster sizzling with electricity against a Las Vegas backdrop —in a 1975 promotional illustration for Universal Television.

Drew Struzan established himself right out of the gate, in the early Seventies, as a superlative portraitist and designer with a series of record album covers, the most famous of which is, no doubt, Welcome to My Nightmare, with Alice Cooper tipping his high hat in the sophisticated style of a Leyendecker illustration. It is listed today as one of Rolling Stone magazine’s 100 Greatest Album Covers.

Struzan’s fame would grow to superstar status with his movie poster work, running from 1975 until the artist’s announced retirement from commercial work in 2008. The list of titles, over 150 posters, includes authoritative work for the Star Wars and Indiana Jones series, classic posters for The Goonies, Coming to America, E.T.: The Extraterrestrial and First Blood, the noir glamour of the Blade Runner 25th Anniversary Edition, and truly iconic work, notably the image of Michael J. Fox raising his sunglasses and checking his watch on a trilogy of Back to the Future posters. Equally memorable is Struzan’s striking poster for John Carpenter’s The Thing, famously executed overnight without benefit of film stills for reference.

Struzan’s extraordinary work is on display in a new book, The Art of Drew Struzan, and onscreen in a documentary, Drew: The Man Behind the Poster.

Drew Struzan’s website is filled with gorgeous art.

Galleries of Struzan’s art on The Guardian and Time Magazine.

The Posters of Frankenstein : Le Fils de Frankenstein

The Monster appears twice on this 1947 Belgian poster in French and Flemish, celebrating the WWII-delayed release of 1939’s Son of Frankenstein.

The lithograph is typical of painterly Belgian movie posters. Unfortunately, the artists are never identified, forbidden to sign their work by orders from on high. In this article (in French), legendary poster artist Ernest Godst reveals that film distributors would hire freelance illustrators, providing them with black and white stills and specifics as to which actors would be featured and the size of title and credit lettering. Artists produced two or three rough layouts for approval before executing the final painted artwork. Printing was usually turned over to movie poster specialists J. Lichtert & Fils, a company that dominated the field throughout the Twentieth century. Print runs hovered around 5000 copies, for display not only in hundreds of theaters — Belgium boasted one of the highest number of movie houses in the world — but also in neighborhood bars and boutiques.

The Cinemax theater — originally called the Cineum — and its prestigious next-door neighbor, the Plaza Hotel, both opened on rue de Malines in 1930. According to Cinema Treasures, the storied venue operated as the Cinemax until 1957 when it switched name and vocation, briefly, playing German features as the Rubens. In 1959, as the Apollo, it specialized in horror films, hosting Hammer Films releases at the height of the studio’s popularity. After a series of further name changes and restorations in the Seventies, the old theater became the first-run Acropole Center in 1980 before closing in ’85, the building finally absorbed into the Plaza Hotel complex.

The Art of Frankenstein : Jason Krekel

Peter Cushing’s deadly serious Baron poses with his first creation, played by Christopher Lee, in linocut art, handprinted on a vintage press by North Carolina artist Jason Krekel. It’s one of several extremely affordable “Action Monster Prints” available through the artist’s Etsy shop.

Jason’s love of monsters spills into his other career as the multiple-instrument playing half of a highly original, upbeat, garage rockabilly duo with singer and electric ukulele player Ami Worthen. Known since 2004 as Mad Tea Party, Krekel and Worthen proudly hang on to their band name despite it having since been co-opted by the political extreme right.

MTP’s latest recording, a four-song horror-themed EP called Rock N Roll Ghoul features, among others, a song called Dr. Phibes and an exhilarating version of The Hollywood Flames’ Frankenstein’s Den. It’s available as a digital download or on vinyl, with an EC horror comic-inspired cover by Gus Cutty.

Explore The Mad Tea Party’s website for bios, background info, photos, and links to MTP videos.

Preview and download Rock N Roll Ghoul and other Mad Tea Party music.

See Jason Krekel’s Krekprints and a video demonstration of his lino art and printing process.

The Art of Frankenstein : 4gottenlore

The forever striking image of Charles Ogle’s Frankenstein Monster, celebrating its 100^th anniversary this year, is revisited and refreshed by the young American artist known as 4gottenlore.

The artist, who describes himself as a “guerilla voyeur of vintage fright photoplays”, produces elegant, beautifully colored digital art based on the monsters of the silent and early talkie eras. Subjects include Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera, the tongue-wagging devil from Haxan, King Kong, and robots from Metropolis and The Phantom Creeps

Compare 4gottenlore’s art to its inspiration, an original poster from the 1931 Frankenstein, to fully appreciate the quality of his interpretations.

You’ll enjoy 4gottenlore’s creations, on display at his DeviantArt page.

Book Giveaway Winners

Congratulations to our two Frankenstein Book Giveaway winners: Chad Wrataric of Niles, Ohio, and David Jones of Horse Cave, Kentucky. Gentlemen, your copies of DICK BRIEFER’S FRANKENSTEIN by Craig Yoe are on the way!

Thanks go to Craig Yoe, Yoe!Books and IDW Publishing — real professionals all — for making this exclusive Giveaway offer possible. It was a genuine pleasure working with you guys.

And big thanks, of course, to all who participated. The response was terrific, with entries from 40 American States, and 10 different countries. Many of you added a short greeting and kind words of encouragement about the blog, which is much appreciated, I assure you!

Disco Frankenstein

Chicago-based artist Johnny Sampson paints a Groovy Frankenstein for the Disco Age. This circa 1974 Monster has big hair and a Fu mustache. He wears a fat tie, wooly sweater and burnt orange shirt with a long, pointy collar.

This Frankenstein is part of the Horrorwood group show currently on view at the WWA Gallery in Culver City, California. Sampson also gives the Seventies treatment to a mulleted Wolfman and a turtle-necked Lagoon Creature. They would all look good tooling around in a Plymouth Duster.

Check out Sampson’s website and blog for more of his distinctive interpretations of monster and pop culture icons. All truly terrific, and Frankenstein is one of the artist’s favorite subjects.