"Frankenstein" Sued... For Being Scary!

From The Billboard of 24 October 1942 — with bandleader Kay Kyser on the cover — an article about performers and exhibitors’ liabilities reveals “the recent dropping” of a lawsuit brought against comedian Billy De Wolfe by “a woman patron for scaring her when doing his Frankenstein bit in the aisles of a Milwaukee theater”. The article goes on to say that the law regards patrons as “going into a place of amusement at their own risk”, including sports events and the risk of getting beaned by flying baseballs and hockey pucks. Artists and venue operators are essentially immune from prosecution for mishaps, save for cases of demonstrable negligence.  

Billy De Wolfe was a song, dance, impersonation and comedy performer whose Frankenstein act had him putting his coat jacket on backwards, slicking his hair down onto his forehead, sucking his cheeks in and affecting The Movie Monster’s grunts and stiff-limbed walkabout. The bit was immortalized in glorious Technicolor in Blue Skies (1946). See my previous post for a video clip.

As an interesting aside to this story, here are two ads from The Montreal Gazette of February 27, 1939. Son of Frankenstein was playing at The Princess while Billy De Wolfe was kicking off a stand a few blocks away at the très swanky Chez Maurice dinner club. Was the Frankenstein bit already part of De Wolfe’s show?

Note how the Massachusetts-born artist is billed as “England’s Magnificent Entertainer”, on the assumption that Canadian patrons would appreciate a Commonwealth connection. Misleading, certainly, but not an outright lie: De Wolfe had just returned from a long and very successful tour of England.

Related:
The Frankenstein Special: Blue Skies (1946)

Shock Theater Frankenstein

Originally posted in three parts, here's my SHOCK THEATER FRANKENSTEIN article collected in a single convenient post for easy reading. Enjoy!

Part One: Hard Sell

San Francisco TV execs look on as Screen Gems’ Jerry Hyams and his towering silent partner, the Frankenstein Monster, set a macabre mood for this contract signing.

The gag shot, from the September 7, 1957 issue of Sponsor — a trade publication for radio and TV advertisers — celebrated KRON-TV’s buying up the Shock! syndication package that would bring classic horror films to television. Shock! offered a whopping 52 films — including Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Dracula, The Mummy, The Invisible Man and The Wolf Man — a treasure trove of mystery and monster movies that would find a whole new generation of fans.

Station managers did not have to be coerced with knives or stand-ins in Don Post Frankenstein masks. They were well aware of the teenage demographic packing drive-ins for AIP horror films, and Hammer Films of England had recently entered the field with a bang. Sponsor magazine contributing editor Joe Csida reported, “The overwhelming success at the box office of the New York Paramount Theater of the English-made ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ is a fairly good sign that the ‘Shock’package will be a rating success.”

By the time the series aired in October ’57, twenty-seven stations were aboard, including all the major TV markets. Flagship stations in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco geared up for “National Weird Week”, an October coordinated launch that would, according to Sponsor, “telepremiere the Shock films, most likely with the original Boris Karloff  Frankenstein.”

The Monster was a key player, with the 1931 Frankenstein spearheading the Shock! package and rubber mask ‘Frankensteins’ putting in personal appearances across the continent. And if it wasn’t already obvious that The Monster was your go-to guy, station managers who flipped opened the handsome, spiral-bound Shock! promotional catalog were treated to a pop-up cardboard cutout of The Monster.

Part Two: The Ratings Are In

There’s nothing to it: Find a tall employee, or stand some skinny guy up on a box, slap on a joke-shop Frankenstein facemask, throw in a rubber shrunken head — scary enough for ya? — and snap a photo with TV station execs. It’s a simple gag, and it gets you a spot in the October 12, 1957, issue of Sponsor, a trade magazine for Radio and TV advertisers.

The first real taste of horror business on TV harked back to the week of March 5, 1956, when WOR of New York booked King Kong on its Million Dollar Movie program, drawing what Sponsor called “the almost unbelievable rating of 79.7.” Could the Shock! collection pull those kinds of numbers? WABC pumped up the promotion. On October 5, 1957, Sponsor reported, “three ‘monsters’ are parading about the city, with a special one assigned to visit advertising agencies. There’s also a menu contest based on what viewers think is tasty monster fare.”

Frankenstein hit the air on October 13, inaugurating the Shock! series. The impact was measured in the October 19 issue of Sponsor: “First Trendex ratings on Screen Gems ‘Shock’ package were as startling as the film itself — they were enormous.” Focusing on premiere markets in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Antonio and Los Angeles, “the thrillers 1) Boosted ratings anywhere from 38% to several hundred percent, and 2) Increased sets in use by 24% to 150%." Citing “astronomical statistics”, Sponsor suggested that “The shocker may be the key to opening the advertising door in the late evening”, and noted “the current Screen Gems sponsors are no penny-whistle lot. It’s a pretty impressive list with such representation as American Chicle, Hit Parade cigarettes, P&G, Whitehall Pharmaceuticals, and Block Drug.”

The floodgates opened and new stations eagerly signed up. Reporting on December 14, Sponsor noted the addition of Cleveland, and WKBK Chicago’s first showing at 10PM on a Saturday night scoring, “a 24.7 rating and a 46.4 audience share, topping all competition in that time period.” Stations in Phoenix and Fort Worth tested earlier time slots, late afternoon or early evening, to determine “whether stations and sponsors would be content to confine this tempting fare to ‘fringe’ time.” One announcer reported tons of phone call from excited kids “who wanted to know when the next installment was coming.”

The Shock! package, and a follow-up Son of Shock offering 20 more titles, would be a syndication sensation and a ratings phenomenon for years to come, with new stations joining in well into the Sixties.

For all its corny simplicity, the October ’57 WABC photo stunt, masked Monster, shrunken head and all, shot on the eve of the first broadcast, marked a momentous occasion. It was the signal, true and clear, that the Monster Kid era was kicking into high gear.

Part Three: Shock Theater Frankenstein
Horror Host Warren Reed of Seattle’s KTNT entertains his sidekick, “Frankie”, with a reading of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in this shot from the May 26, 1958 issue of Life, as the fabled picture magazine reported on the rise of the “ghoulish announcers” introducing horror movies on late night TV.

Right from the start, in October ’57, many stations running the Shock! Package dressed up their broadcasts with humorous voiceover introductions or short sketches with comically macabre hosts in cheap dungeon sets and flashing bulb castle labs, attended by rubber-mask assistants. As Monster mania began to spread across America, the Frankenstein Monster stomped front and center.

Things had been percolating for some time. Back in March of ‘57, Boris Karloff had guested on The Rosemary Clooney Show, with Clooney’s backup singers pulling a gag in Don Post Frankenstein masks. At the movies, Hammer Films had scored a major summer hit with The Curse of Frankenstein, and AIP was set to release I Was a Teenage Frankenstein by year’s end.

In September ‘57, the advertisers’ trade magazine Sponsor reported on deals that would “highlight the trend in the so-called ‘horror’ field.” The befuddled columnist announced two new series in the works: “Screen Gems will produce a tv series called Tales of Frankenstein, with Boris Karloff as host. Hammer Films Productions is readying a half-hour Baron Frankenstein program… this is the same company that made Curse of Frankenstein for Warner Bros.” These turned out to be one and the same, a doomed transatlantic effort between Hammer and Screen Gem, Tales of Frankenstein, sans Karloff. The pilot, The Face in the Tombstone Mirror, was an uncomfortable hybrid of classic and contemporary movie Frankensteins, with Anton Diffring as a Cushing-style scientist and Don Megowan as a lumbering flattop Monster in Glenn Strange mode.

In February 1958, publisher Jim Warren posed in a Frankenstein mask on the cover of the inaugural issue of Famous Monster of Filmland, the instant touchstone title of the Monster Kid era, its punning editor, Forry Ackerman, providing a pitch-perfect mix of information and humor, a Horror Host in print. By year’s end, Zacherley, the most famous of all TV Horror Hosts, expanded his reach with Dinner with Drac, a pop-chart top ten novelty record. A rash of Frankenstein movies released in 1958 included Hammer’s The Revenge of Frankenstein, AIP’s Teenage Frankenstein and Teenage Werewolf meeting in How to Make a Monster, a schlockfest Frankenstein’s Daughter and Boris Karloff as the Monster-making Baron in Frankenstein 1970.

The monster boom, fanned by Shock! showings that brought the classic horror films to home screens, ruled through the Sixties, translating into an avalanche of merchandising that would include monster bubblegum cards, plastic kits, puzzles, toys, monster fan mags and comics. And on it went. Bobby Pickett scored a number one hit with Monster Mash and The Monster was reconfigured to comic effect in a sitcom, The Munsters.

Through it all, TV’s Horror Hosts, dubbed “harbingers of horror” by Life magazine, were the first-line facilitators who introduced countless new fans to classic horror movies. They made monsters cool and, for many of us First Generation Monster Kids, “Frankenstein” was the coolest monster of them all.

A comprehensive list of Horror Hosts, compiled by George Chastain.

Shock Theater, Part Three Shock Theater Frankenstein

Horror Host Warren Reed of Seattle’s KTNT entertains his sidekick, “Frankie”, with a reading of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in this shot from the May 26, 1958 issue of Life, as the fabled picture magazine reported on the rise of the “ghoulish announcers” introducing horror movies on late night TV.

Right from the start, in October ’57, many stations running the Shock! Package dressed up their broadcasts with humorous voiceover introductions or short sketches with comically macabre hosts in cheap dungeon sets and flashing bulb castle labs, attended by rubber-mask assistants. As Monster mania began to spread across America, the Frankenstein Monster stomped front and center.

Things had been percolating for some time. Back in March of ‘57, Boris Karloff had guested on The Rosemary Clooney Show, with Clooney’s backup singers pulling a gag in Don Post Frankenstein masks. At the movies, Hammer Films had scored a major summer hit with The Curse of Frankenstein, and AIP was set to release I Was a Teenage Frankenstein by year’s end.

In September ‘57, the advertisers’ trade magazine Sponsor reported on deals that would “highlight the trend in the so-called ‘horror’ field. The befuddled columnist announced two new series in the works: “Screen Gems will produce a tv series called Tales of Frankenstein, with Boris Karloff as host. Hammer Films Productions is readying a half-hour Baron Frankenstein program… this is the same company that made Curse of Frankenstein for Warner Bros.” These turned out to be one and the same, a doomed transatlantic effort between Hammer and Screen Gem, Tales of Frankenstein, sans Karloff. The pilot, The Face in the Tombstone Mirror, was an uncomfortable hybrid of classic and contemporary movie Frankensteins, with Anton Diffring as a Cushing-style scientist and Don Megowan as a lumbering flattop Monster in Glenn Strange mode.

In February 1958, publisher Jim Warren posed in a Frankenstein mask on the cover of the inaugural issue of Famous Monster of Filmland, the instant touchstone title of the Monster Kid era, its punning editor, Forry Ackerman, providing a pitch-perfect mix of information and humor, a Horror Host in print. By year’s end, Zacherley, the most famous of all TV Horror Hosts, expanded his reach with Dinner with Drac, a pop-chart top ten novelty record. A rash of Frankenstein movies released in 1958 included Hammer’s The Revenge of Frankenstein, AIP’s Teenage Frankenstein and Teenage Werewolf meeting in How to Make a Monster, a schlockfest Frankenstein’s Daughter and Boris Karloff as the Monster-making Baron in Frankenstein 1970.

The monster fad, fanned by Shock! showings that brought the classic horror films to home screens, ruled through the Sixties, translating into an avalanche of merchandising that would include monster bubblegum cards, plastic kits, puzzles, toys, monster fan mags and comics. And on it went. Bobby Pickett scored a number one hit with Monster Mash and The Monster was reconfigured to comic effect in a sitcom, The Munsters.

Through it all, TV’s Horror Hosts, dubbed “harbingers of horror” by Life magazine, were the first-line facilitators who introduced countless new fans to classic horror movies. They made monsters cool and, for many of us First Generation Monster Kids, “Frankenstein” was the coolest monster of them all.

A comprehensive list of Horror Hosts, compiled by George Chastain.

Shock Theater, Part Two The Ratings Are In

There’s nothing to it: Find a tall employee, or stand some skinny guy up on a box, slap on a joke-shop Frankenstein facemask, throw in a rubber shrunken head — scary enough for ya? — and snap a photo with TV station execs. It’s a simple gag, and it gets you a spot in the October 12, 1957, issue of Sponsor, a trade magazine for Radio and TV advertisers.

The first real taste of horror business on TV harked back to the week of March 5, 1956, when WOR of New York booked King Kong on its Million Dollar Movie program, drawing what Sponsor called “the almost unbelievable rating of 79.7.” Could the Shock! collection pull those kinds of numbers? WABC pumped up the promotion. On October 5, 1957, Sponsor reported, “three ‘monsters’ are parading about the city, with a special one assigned to visit advertising agencies. There’s also a menu contest based on what viewers think is tasty monster fare.”

Frankenstein hit the air on October 13, inaugurating the Shock! series. The impact was measured in the October 19 issue of Sponsor: “First Trendex ratings on Screen Gems ‘Shock’ package were as startling as the film itself — they were enormous.” Focusing on premiere markets in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Antonio and Los Angeles, “the thrillers 1) Boosted ratings anywhere from 38% to several hundred percent, and 2) Increased sets in use by 24% to 150%.” Citing “astronomical statistics”, Sponsor suggested that “The shocker may be the key to opening the advertising door in the late evening”, and noted “the current Screen Gems sponsors are no penny-whistle lot. It’s a pretty impressive list with such representation as American Chicle, Hit Parade cigarettes, P&G, Whitehall Pharmaceuticals, and Block Drug,”

The floodgates opened and new stations eagerly signed up. Reporting on December 14, Sponsor noted the addition of Cleveland, and WKBK Chicago’s first showing at 10PM on a Saturday night scoring, “a 24.7 rating and a 46.4 audience share, topping all competition in that time period.” Stations in Phoenix and Fort Worth tested earlier time slots, late afternoon or early evening, to determine “whether stations and sponsors would be content to confine this tempting fare to ‘fringe’ time.” One announcer reported tons of phone call from excited kids “who wanted to know when the next installment was coming.”

The Shock! package, and a follow-up Son of Shock offering 20 more titles, would be a syndication sensation and a ratings phenomenon for years to come, with new stations joining in well into the Sixties.

For all its corny simplicity, the October ’57 WABC photo stunt, masked Monster, shrunken head and all, shot on the eve of the first broadcast, marked a momentous occasion. It was the signal, true and clear, that the Monster Kid era was kicking into high gear.

Coming up next: Horror Hosts, Famous Monsters and The Shock Theater Frankenstein.

Read Shock Theatre, Part 1: Hard Sell Frankenstein

Shock Theater, Part One Hard Sell Frankenstein

San Francisco TV execs look on as Screen Gems’ Jerry Hyams and his towering silent partner, the Frankenstein Monster, set a macabre mood for this contract signing.

The gag shot, from the September 7, 1957 issue of Sponsor — a trade publication for radio and TV advertisers — celebrated KRON-TV’s buying up the Shock! syndication package that would bring classic horror films to television. Shock! offered a whopping 52 films — including Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Dracula, The Mummy, The Invisible Man and The Wolf Man — a treasure trove of mystery and monster movies that would find a whole new generation of fans.

Station managers did not have to be coerced with knives or stand-ins in Don Post Frankenstein masks. They were well aware of the teenage demographic packing drive-ins for AIP horror films, and Hammer Films of England had recently entered the field with a bang. Sponsor magazine contributing editor Joe Csida reported, “The overwhelming success at the box office of the New York Paramount Theater of the English-made ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ is a fairly good sign that the ‘Shock’ package will be a rating success.”

By the time the series aired in October ’57, twenty-seven stations were aboard, including all the major TV markets. Flagship stations in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco geared up for “National Weird Week”, an October coordinated launch that would, according to Sponsor, “telepremiere the Shock films, most likely with the original Boris Karloff Frankenstein.”

The Monster was a key player, with the 1931 Frankenstein spearheading the Shock! package and rubber mask ‘Frankensteins’ putting in personal appearances across the continent. And if it wasn’t already obvious that The Monster was your go-to guy, station managers who flipped opened the handsome, spiral-bound Shock! promotional catalog were treated to a pop-up cardboard cutout of The Monster.


It’s Shock Theater Frankenstein Week on Frankensteinia.
Coming up next: Frankenstein hits New York, and the ratings are in!

Kaiju Karloff

We’re always on the lookout for a good Karloff/Frankenstein reference — quite common, by the way — in pop culture, but few are ever as unlikely and fun as this one, from the year’s big summer movie, Pacific Rim.

The film’s robot-fighting, skyscraper-size Godzillian monsters bristle with spikes and crustaceous armor, serrated slice and dice appendages, extra arms and whipping tails. Heads are fitted with too many eyes, and spring-loaded, double-jointed jaws. Their mouths glow as if lit from inside. Called Kaiju — the Japanese name for giant monsters — the one pictured here, drawn by creature designer Guy Davis, is nicknamed “Karloff”!

I asked Davis how the name came about. “The Karloff resemblance was really unintentional,” he said. “I was inspired by a huge boulder I saw jutting out of a mountain during a drive through California. It made me think of a creature whose giant head was a big piece of rock. When I started sketching out the face design, parts of it started to remind me of a Karloff Frankenstein caricature with the sunken cheeks and giant forehead.” Next step was submitting the design to director Guillermo del Toro. “When I showed Guillermo the original head sketch, I joked it kinda looked like Boris Karloff.” The name stuck. “All the Kaiju's we worked on had fun names at the start that we'd use to remember them, like "Meathead" or "Bat-Ears Brady". But Karloff’s stuck through the end.”

Davis’ art concept was refined and eventually passed on to Simon Lee who sculpted a final version used as a guide for CGI animators. In the film, the Karloff monster puts in a very brief appearance, attacking Vancouver in the film’s prologue.

Kaiju Karloff gets more exposure in a comic book “prequel”, Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero, by screenwriter Travis Beacham and a team of artists. 

Here, the monster’s Karloff/Frankenstein resemblance is most evident, with gaunt face, high forehead and pronounced brow.

Artist Davis would get in one more reference. “Bride of Frankenstein is still my favorite horror movie of all,” he said. “I did sort of homage the original Karloff Frankenstein for one of the Kaiju Karloff keyframes. The shot of Kaiju Karloff through the trees with the soldiers in the foreground was a nod to one of my favorite parts from Bride of Frankenstein as he was pursued by the villagers through the forest.”

The art, by Davis and digital painter Doug Williams is, indeed, a beautiful tribute to the iconic Frankenstein Monster and it’s originator, Boris Karloff.

Guy Davis has created some of the most compelling comics published over the last two decades. As the original artist on Vertigo’s Sandman Mystery Theatre in the Nineties, Davis, with writers Matt Wagner and Steven T. Seagle, created a stunning noir universe featuring eerie villains and horrific violence expertly balanced with a surprisingly touching love story between its Nick and Nora Charles-like protagonists. Davis was later picked by Mike Mignola to illustrate the Hellboy spinoff title B.P.R.D. for Dark Horse Comics. The stories, written by Mignola and John Arcudi, with art by Davis, were, in this writer’s opinion, some of the best horror comics ever published. All are available in graphic novel collections and are well worth seeking out. For B.P.R.D. and Davis’ own creation, the Inquisitor character The Marquis, Davis created extremely original and genuinely disturbing monsters, drawing the attention of director Guillermo del Toro who has used Davis’ unique talents on the Hellboy films, Pacific Rim, and a projected movie adaptation of H.P.Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness.

Guy Davis’ web site.

Davis is one of many artists whose designs are on display in the lavish “art of the film” book, Pacific Rim: Man, Machines and Monsters.

The Art of Frankenstein : Laurent Durieux

Belgian artist Laurent Durieux is a veteran A-list illustrator whose work has only recently become known in North America, mostly through his alternate movie posters created for Mondo. Durieux’ talent is on generous display in his singular take on James Whale’s Frankenstein.

Illustrating the pivotal flower scene, Durieux focuses on The Monster, holding a daisy. Note the little girl’s presence as a shadow, barely visible, under the titles. Note the ominous background, a field of brambles. Note The Monster’s expression, hesitant, perhaps captivated by the flower’s fragrance, trying to understand what is happening.

The Monster’s brief existence has been couched in fear and violence. Roaming the countryside, he encounters a child who takes him by the hand and invites him to play. It is the only solace he will ever know. In the next instant, everything will go terribly wrong. You can see the wheels turning in his head. Is the little girl like a flower?

Durieux has captured a fleeting moment, at once beautiful and terrible, suspended in time. A key scene, a simple statement, beautifully designed and rendered, laden with meaning.

Durieux’ posters are typically charged with suspense. A poster for The Wolf Man captures the cursed Larry Talbot’s despair at the soul-crushing moment when he has just begun to transform. A poster for The Mummy is full of mystery, romance and terror, a knife signifying that immortal life begins with death. Durieux favors genre films, fantasy worlds and space opera, everything from King Kong and The Wizard of Oz to Metropolis and Buck Rogers. His Frankenstein poster, you will agree, is a masterpiece.

Visit Laurent Durieux’ website and portfolio.

Mondo poster site.