Nino Carbé's Frankenstein

Much like the first Frankenstein play, in 1823, had spurred a new edition of Mary Shelley’s out of print novel, James Whale’s Frankenstein of 1931 brought the title back to prominence. The first books published in direct reaction to the film’s success were Grosset & Dunlap’s Photoplay Edition, featuring scenes from the movie and, in 1932, the Illustration Editions’ Frankenstein, with art by Nino Carbé (1909-1993).

The Italian-born Carbé was three years old when his parents immigrated to America, settling in Brooklyn. The boy’s artistic inclinations were encouraged and he proved something of a prodigy, studying the violin, drawing and painting, finally settling on the visual arts, enrolling at New York’s Cooper Union when he was 16. For a time, Carbé was mentored by master illustrator Willy Pogany, whose influence is palpable in Carbé’s Frankenstein. Pogany, by the way, worked briefly at Universal in Hollywood, painting a splendid poster for The Mummy (1932). Boris Karloff owned a Pogany drawing of himself in The Mummy’s Ardath Bey makeup.

Only 22 when took on Frankenstein, Carbé had already illustrated Tales of the Arabian Nights and Cyrano de Bergerac. Though he was clearly coming into his own as an artist, his Frankenstein pen and ink drawings evoke the elegant, elongated figures of Erté, the dark aesthetics of Audrey Beardsley, and Pogany’s dramatic illustrations for Tannhauser and Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Striking operatic poses, Carbé’s emaciated Monster is very much the “deamon” of the book, with fangs, a droopy lip and pointy ears. A clear sign that the movies’ Monster had already made its mark, Carbé gave his Monster neck electrodes.

The superb jacket design, in black and green, features a curving title that may have inspired the logo used a decade later by Dick Briefer for his Frankenstein comic book.

Carbé would go on to a long career as a children’s book illustrator, punctuated by stints in animation. He worked for Walt Disney in the Forties, contributing designs and lavish background art to such titles as Fantasia, Bambi and Pinocchio. He returned to Hollywood in the Sixties for Disney’s The Jungle Book, eventually working for all the major cartoon studios. In 1982, Carbé returned to Frankenstein, adding new color art to his now classic black and white illustrations for a fiftieth anniversary Danish edition. He also produced a complex, limited-edition serigraph of the cover art.

A profile of Carbé and a large selection of his work are featured in a recent issue of Illustration, No. 34, that can be read online. See also Nino Carbé’s website.

Related:
Frankenstein 1931 Photoplay Edition

The Whole Town is Talking

In November 1931, as James Whale’s Frankenstein rolled out across America, its early box-office-busting run at Milwaukee’s Alhambra proved an effective forecast of the film’s national success. The theater’s newspaper ads appearing in The Milwaukee Sentinel and The Milwaukee Journal not only ballyhooed the film with vivid pulp prose — “A Daring Experiment into the Soul Chilling Unknown!”, they also celebrated its success — “Crowds! Crowds! Crowds… Acclaimed by thousands!... It Holds the Season’s Record!”.

Opening on Friday, November 20, the film had been teased for days. “To Be Revealed At Last!” ads read, and “The Like Has Never Been Known Before!”. By Tuesday the 24th, after blockbusting weekend business, ads were boasting: “The whole town is talking… Yet words cannot describe soul-chilling, blood-curdling Frankenstein!” On the 26th, local reviews were quoted, “Milwaukee movie critics got a big thrill!”.

On the 27th, the films’ second week began with an ad proclaiming, “Capacity crowds cheering this thrilling, chilling masterpiece… Unbelievably creepy conceptions brought to the screen in a manner that will make your hair stand on end!” On the 28th, ads crowed, “2nd smashing week! The city is wild over it! We wish we had twice the seating capacity!”

On Sunday the 29th, The Milwaukee Journal ran a listing of films in town, their titles followed by a simple description, like “comedy” or “romance”. Frankenstein was tagged as “An orgy of horror”. The same day, an ad for the Alhambra showed The Monster’s head, Elizabeth thrown unconscious across her wedding night bed, and spooky cartoon eyes that recall the strange drawn figures in the film’s kaleidoscopic opening credits. “We wish we could print this in red ink” the copy read, “Shout it from the house tops! Milwaukee has gone for this picture in a great big way!”

On December first, Alhambra ads warned, “Only 3 days remain in which to see this wonder picture!”. Two days later, a new ad announced, “Wide-spread enthusiasm carries this phenomenal picture into a 3rd Gala Week… Public fancy is completely intrigued… See it now!” Then, on December 4, a large ad showed The Monster in full stride, bursting through the page: “Here he is… so potent is his weird appeal that a clamoring public demands this picture for a 3rd Request Week”.

As the film played its third and final week, a December 5 ad used a tag line that would forever be associated with the film — Dare You See It? — answering, “Thousands and thousands have had the courage…!” On December 6, a warning read, “Absolute last 5 days… And attend now because it won’t be shown again in Milwaukee this year”, adding “What an Experience to Meet FRANKENSTEIN”. On December 8, a terse ad advised, “Avoid disappointment by seeing this picture now… !”

Finally, on Wednesday, December 9, the Alhambra ran an ad for its upcoming program, A House Divided with Walter Huston, with a notice for Frankenstein across the top: “Hurry… Today and tomorrow only… Then this wonder picture departs.”

Exhibitors would run similar campaigns across America and around the world. In an era when films were typically sold on booming ballyhoo and extravagant claims, Frankenstein stood apart, delivering on every promised chill and thrill. Frankenstein opened with a bang that still resonates today.

The Alhambra series:
Frankenstein Turns 80
Thanksgiving Frankenstein

Thanksgiving Frankenstein

On this American holiday, falling on November 26 in 1931, the Alhambra Theater of Milwaukee gave thanks for Frankenstein — “a really great picture!” — and a solid box-office hit.

A week earlier, on Thursday the 19^th, another stunning ad ran, setting the stage for the next day’s big opening. It featured the curious test makeup shot of The Monster combined with mystery play effects of claw, dripping blood and a note pinned with a dagger. “He produced a monster from the parts of men departed…” the prose read, “It had the strength of a dozen men, and a mechanical brain”. Karloff, we are told, “is the actor nominated as Lon Chaney’s successor”.

The film would run three weeks, making it the season’s biggest hit in the city’s largest theater.

Built for vaudeville by the Schlitz Brewery in 1896, briefly named The Uihlein after the company owners, the Alhambra Theater was the centerpiece of a massive, seven-storey entertainment complex that included four beer bars, a bicycle park and a rooftop photo studio. It was, for a time, proclaimed the world’s largest movie house with its vast floor, two balconies and opera-style private boxes totaling some 3,000 seats. The Alhambra even sported its own advertising staff and carpenters to design and build elaborate displays for new films. Another Karloff vehicle, The Mummy (1932), saw the Alhambra festooned with Egyptian motifs and a large sarcophagus occupied by a homemade mummy. Designer Milton Schultz had wrapped a store dummy in bandages and set it on fire to great effect.

For all its opulence, the Alhambra would have a tough go at it. Prohibition closed down its bars and the movie house would chronically struggle to fill its cavernous interior, competing with several theaters that had sprouted within a few blocks. In the summer of 1931, the Alhambra got an upgrade, scoring a new, larger screen; wall-to-wall carpeting and a $50,000 air-cooling plant but, still, it couldn’t beat the Depression. By the Forties, the Alhambra was a second-run house given to frequent and increasingly long closings. By the Fifties, the twin punch of television and suburban migration spelled its doom. The Alhambra was shuttered and razed in 1961. It would be another twenty years before the abandoned lot was built up anew.

Coming up tomorrow: More terrific Alhambra ads for Frankenstein.

The Alhambra Theater on Cinema Treasures.
The Alhambra on Milwaukee Cinema Graveyard.

Frankenstein turns 80... a day earlier!

When, exactly, was James Whale’s Frankenstein released? All sources, all the books I’ve seen, and the IMDB, all point to November 21, 1931. However, spelunking the newspaper archives of the times, I have found that Frankenstein actually opened in Milwaukee a day earlier, on November 20!

Was Milwaukee given the unofficial premiere or did the film open elsewhere on the 20th? It makes sense to open on a Friday for a weekend rollout. For that matter, where, exactly, did the film open on the 21st, a Saturday?

Milwaukee’s Alhambra theater cranked up the ballyhoo a week earlier: “To be revealed at last… No one has ever seen the like… Weird, Wonderful!” All the ads point to it’s Friday, November 20 opening, and insisting that “It will not be seen in Milwaukee again this year!”

The ad shown above appeared in the Milwaukee Journal of Wednesday, November 18. The copy, “The Picture That Public and Press Have Been Breathlessly Awaiting” speaks to the very real anticipation over a film said to be scarier than Universal’s springtime hit, Dracula. Earlier, on November 10, syndicated gossip columnist Mollie Merrick had fired up the suspense, reporting: “A pre-view audience made up of stoic press members were a bit pale around the gills when the film reached its conclusion. When it was pre-viewed in Santa Barbara one hears of fainting women, irate men and sobbing children” adding, “the film contains no sex-appeal whatsoever. It’s plain grand-guignol material, and you are warned about it before it unfolds.”

Note how Boris Karloff’s name, amusingly misspelled, has already moved ahead of the film’s big-name stars, Clive, Boles and Clarke. Boris, even before anyone has seen the film, is proclaimed as Lon Chaney’s Successor… Only more weird!

The film would go on to play a smashing three-week run at the massive Alhambra (3000 seats!). By the time it made it’s highly publicized December 4 opening at the Mayfair in New York, Frankenstein had already mauled box-office records across the nation.

Frankenstein was a hit, and let the record hereafter show that it opened not on the 21st, but on Friday, November 20, 1931.

I’ll have more on the Milwaukee Alhambra’s wonderful ad campaign later this week.

Revealed! TV's Lost Frankenstein of 1957

Here’s a great find, courtesy of horror film expert and collector extraordinaire George Chastain. Previously circulating as a blurry thumbnail, here, at last, is a large, sharp image of Primo Carnera as TV’s Frankenstein Monster of 1957.

The show was NBC’s anthology series, Matinee Theater, beamed live and in color at noon — 3PM on the East Coast — out of Burbank’s Color City Studios.

Running from 1955 to 1958, Matinee Theater would tally an astounding 650 episodes, offering a mix of original teleplays and adaptations of classic novels. A generous selection of horror, science fiction and fantasy titles included Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, Death Takes a Holiday, and The Bottle Imp. John Carradine played Dracula with a mustache and a Grampa Munster haircut.

A version of The Invisible Man was hailed by TV Guide as a television milestone for its pioneering special effects. In fact, the whole series was a bold experiment, with a rotating crew of directors producing five hour-long plays every week, testing the RCA color equipment along the way.

The Frankenstein episode’s Monster was played by Primo Carnera, one of the most storied and tragic sports figure of the Twentieth Century. Born in Northern Italy, stricken with acromegaly, he stood 6 feet 6 inches when he began his career as a circus wrestler, barnstorming through Europe, taking on all comers, sometimes fighting as many as 12 men in one day. Introduced to boxing, he was brought to America in the late Twenties by a shady promoter with mob ties. Soft-spoken, affable and utterly guileless, Carnera would be mercilessly exploited, embarking unawares or, at least, gullibly, in a world-spanning series of fixed fights, his opponents — fueled by cash or literally threatened at gunpoint — gamely walking into Carnera’s weak uppercuts and diving operatically for the count. The giant was a sensation, landing on the cover of Time Magazine in October of 1931 even as a newspaperman in England joked about his fights being “as rehearsed as a Shakespeare play”.

In February 1933, when one of his opponents died after being knocked out — the man had been ill and desperate for fight money — Carnera’s reputation peaked. In June, he became World Heavyweight Champion in a bout one reporter said was won “with an invisible punch”. Soon thereafter, feeling the heat and having squeezed everything they could out of the Amblin’ Alp, Carnera’s mobster handlers abandoned him, walking away with the millions he had earned. Now booked into real, up-and-up fights, Carnera was led to the slaughter. The sight of the once proud giant helpless, bloodied and battered, shocked America.

Humiliated, his career in shambles, Carnera returned to Italy where he was promptly hailed and exploited again, this time as a national hero by fascist leader Benito Mussolini. And yet again, Carnera would be abandoned to his own fate after losing badly in an ill-conceived showdown against Joe Louis, a fight that amounted to a veritable massacre.

On his own, surviving as best he could, even scavenging for food through the war years, Carnera made it back to the States after the war for an unlikely but spectacular comeback, becoming one of the most popular and beloved pro wrestler of the Fifties. Meanwhile, his boxing days proved rich fodder for drama, serving as inspiration for a novel turned into a 1956 Humphrey Bogart movie, The Harder They Fall, with Mike Lane as “Toro Moreno”. Lane, like Carnera, would go on to play Frankenstein’s Monster, opposite Boris Karloff in Frankenstein 1970 (1958). Another Carnera-inspired piece was Rod Serling’s Requiem for a Heavyweight, produced for television in 1956 with Jack Palance playing “Mountain McClintock”. A 1957 British TV version had Sean Connery in the role and a film adaptation from 1962 starred Anthony Quinn.

Carnera himself appeared in a handful of movies, notably turning up as one of the wrestlers in a tug of war with Mighty Joe Young (1949), even throwing a few punches at Joe, and he would go mano a mano with Steve Reeves in Hercules Unchained (1959).

Frankenstein director Walter Grauman hired Carnera for size, bulking him up further with torso padding and thick-soled monster boots. The New York Times reported that “Only television could round out the square head of Frankenstein”, with makeup men instructed to steer clear of Universal’s iconic design from the movies. NBC PR claimed that the Monster transformation required a tag team of five makeup artists working in shifts over a period of three hours. The Monster’s appearance, bald head crisscrossed with baseball stitches, is similar to that of Lon Chaney in the Tales of Tomorrow Frankenstein episode of 1952, and anticipates the makeup sported by Robert DeNiro in the 1994 film, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

The photograph at hand is actually from a dress rehearsal. It was circulated to newspapers on January 31, five days ahead of the February 5 broadcast. Note how the futuristic costume — called “a snowsuit” by one reporter — and somewhat reminiscent of the outfit James Arness wore in The Thing (1951), is unfinished, with threads hanging and material wrapped loosely around the arms. The collar of the outer garment appears to have been cut away, with flap pockets removed and front opening sewn shut. This clearly being a work in progress, the final makeup and costume might have been a bit different by showtime. It’s impossible to know for sure, as the Frankenstein episode, like much of early live television fare, is considered lost.

One might entertain the hope it can still be found as it was one of the few episodes of Matinee Theater to ever be rerun — on October 7, 1957 — meaning that there was, at least, a kinescope — film shot off a television monitor — made of the broadcast, perhaps even a videotape copy, the still-new technology first introduced in 1956.

See a video of director Walter E. Grauman reminiscing about his experiences in early television. In part one, at roughly 35:45, he talks about the Primo Carnera Frankenstein and recalls an on-air incident.

The Dark of the Moon, a rare surviving episode of Matinee Theater, starring Tom Tryon as a Warlock, and Gloria Talbott. Both would reunite in 1958 for I Married a Monster from Outer Space.

A very short documentary clip gives us a glimpse of Color City Studios and a rehearsal for an episode of Matinee Theater.

A complete and detailed episode listing for Matinee Theater.

A harrowing 1948 account of Primo Carnera’s life and career, by Jack Sher.

Related:
Tales of Tomorrow: Frankenstein’s Notorious TV Adventure

The Art of Frankenstein : XNO

This stupendous drawing shows a Karloffian Monster with rotting flesh and pulsating veins, its massive head held together with crude sutures, screwed-in metal clamps and plumbing. The piece was done in 1992 for a proposed but unreleased bubble-gum card set.

The eye-gouging, brain-frying lowbrow art of Chet Darmstaedter, the enigmatic artist known as XNO, evokes Weird-Ohs, Big Daddy Ed Roth, and Basil Wolverton on crack. A prolific contributor to the underground scene of the 80s and 90s, XNO took his gloriously gory art to the mainstream with Topps’ memorable Dinosaurs Attack! Series of 1988, painting 43 of the 54 cards in the set.

Frankenstein’s Monster is a favorite subject of the artist, given a toxic green complexion and often pictured in a woolen vest and chains, seen driving the Munsters coach or mingling with a cast of classic monsters, and often sharing the canvas with his bandaged Bride — sometimes depicted in images meant only for adults accompanied by grown-ups.

XNO also paints Frankenstein derivatives like the high-flying Frankenstein Jr. and Milton The Monster. His Frank’n’pop character mashes The Monster with Popeye.

What the world needs now is an XNO art book — with a large Frankenstein section, of course.

XNO paintings on the Copro Gallery site.

Another XNO gallery on the dormant Lowbrow Artworld site.

Xavier Cugat Meets Frankenstein

Francisco de Asis Javier Cugat Mingall de Brue y Deulofeo was a Spanish-born Cuban violin prodigy who first came to America in the mid-1910s as a teenage accompanist to the legendary opera singer Enrico Caruso. The boy would go on to become the Big Band era’s most flamboyant orchestra leader, known worldwide as Xavier Cugat.

It was Caruso who taught the young musician how to draw, and by the mid-twenties, Cugat had quit music for a job as a cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times and the King Features Syndicate. Though he soon returned to his first love, Cugat continued drawing, providing humorous covers for several of his own record albums, publishing collections of his star caricatures and even producing an illustrated curtain for Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

Cugat famously played New York’s Waldorf-Astoria and The Coconut Grove in Los Angeles, rising to national fame through radio and a string of Latin-flavored hits, notably Perfidia (1940) and Brazil (1943). Along the way, Cugat helped fellow Cuban Desi Arnaz get started in American showbiz.

Cugat’s extravagant style — his band members wore flaming red and gold outfits — suited Hollywood and he appeared in numerous musicals, leading the orchestra with a violin bow in one hand while holding a miniature chihuahua in the other. The Cugat Show was known for its sexy female singers — and Cugat wives — that included Rita Montaner, Carmen Castillo, Lorraine Allen, Abbe Lane and Charo.

In brush outline and charcoal tones, Cugat’s caricature of Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster features a dark background and a lightning flash. The figure’s elegant, sweeping strokes suggest both The Monster’s awkward gait and a dancer’s grace. Perhaps this Frankenstein moves to Cugat’s trademark rhumba. The piece, undated, could have been drawn as early as the Thirties. Cugat produced his Hollywood caricatures in the same style well into the Sixties.

In the early Seventies, in declining health, Cugat returned to his native Spain where he passed away at 90, in 1990.

Xavie Cugat on Space Age Pop.

The Art of Frankenstein : Chris Schweizer

Victor Frankenstein might have been a genius, what with creating life and all that, but his skills at plastic surgery leave much to be desired, as evidenced here by cartoonist Chris Schweizer.

If this nightmarish, crazily mismatched, heavily bolted and massively sutured creature holds together long enough to stomp around the countryside and scare some local villagers, Frankenstein will have surpassed himself yet again.

Schweizer is an Atlanta-based comic book artist and comics teacher who once played Victor Frankenstein in a college play. His account of this experience is hilarious.

Chris Schweizer’s website and blog.

Frankenstein Does Vegas

Las Vegas Magazine celebrated Halloween last week with a Night of the Living Entertainers photo feature matching Vegas stars with classic monsters. Magicians Penn & Teller essayed The Mummy, female impersonator Frank Marino paid homage to Maila “Vampira” Nurmi and, landing the coveted cover spot, ventriloquist Terry Fator and his wife Taylor Makakoa transformed into a green-faced Frankenstein’s Monster and his lovely Bride.

In a Las Vegas Sun article, Fator commented on how grueling the makeup session and shoot had been, stoking his admiration for Boris Karloff and The Munsters’ Fred Gwynne. “Gwynne had to do this every week for years,” Fator said. “I can’t imagine what he went through.”

The Sun article carries behind-the-scenes photos of the makeup session and the studio shoot with makeup artist Zee Clemente, fashion stylist Christie Moeller and photographer Christopher DeVargas. The Vegas Undead concept was developed by Las Vegas Magazine Managing Editor Jack Huston and Art Director Erik Stein.

Las Vegas Magazine website.
Las Vegas Sun article.
Entertainer Terry Fator's website currently carries a short "making of" video.

Related:
Las Vegas Loves Halloween

The "It's Alive" Project

Here’s an art project that celebrates the 80^th anniversary of James Whale and Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein, and it also celebrates a good cause.

Eighty artists have been invited to paint, transform, re-configure and re-imagine a bust of Karloff as The Monster. That’s eighty wildly creative, new takes on an iconic image, all available for sale, with all proceeds going to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, an organization devoted to cures, treatment, means of prevention and outstanding patient care for children suffering from pediatric catastrophic diseases. Founded by entertainer Danny Thomas in 1962, the Memphis-based St. Jude’s is a world leader its field. It is a non-profit corporation and not affiliated with any religious organization.

The It’s Alive collection is currently on display at Orlando’s City Arts Factory until November 15, and all the Frankenstein busts are viewable on the It’s Alive Project website. You’ll see The Monster as Frankenberry and painted as a Dia de los Muertos figure, or Kiss-style. There’s a Justin Bieber hoodie-Franky, and Franky transformed into a biker with a handlebar mustache, Batman’s Joker and Mr. Spock. The Monster also moonlights as King Kong — with a tiny Bride standing in for Fay Wray, a Tiki Franky, a ninja and a pirate.

One bust has its flat top taken off, transforming Karloff’s Monster into a bucket of popcorn, and another bust is opened up and showing a tiny mad lab inside its skull, as if The Monster remembered its electrical origins. And it goes on and on, eighty variations on a very rich theme, and all for a spectacularly worthwhile cause. Bravo!

The It’s Alive Project website. The bust collection is here.

With Thanks to E. Francis Kohler.