La Casa degli orrori — The House of Horrors — was the Italian title for 1945’s House
of Dracula, Universal’s penultimate
“Monster Rally”. The garishly colored manifesto is an early effort for painter/illustrator Angelo
Cesselon (1922-1992) who would go on to a brilliant and influential
thirty-plus-year career as a movie poster artist renowned for his portrait
work. Although his Frankenstein Monster and Wolf Man here are very fanciful
interpretations, note the excellent likenesses of Onslow Stevens and John
Carradine.
Speaking of Onslow Stevens, notice anything? Prominently
featured, top left, the film’s lead — playing a scientist who cures Chaney’s
lycanthropy only to be tragically poisoned by Carradine’s vampire blood — is
inexplicably identified as Ludwig Stössel, the perennial supporting actor who appears as a doomed gardener. Another mistake: Top right, the
Frankenstein Monster is credited to Boris Karloff. Mind you, Karloff does
appear as The Monster in brief stock footage scenes lifted from Bride of
Frankenstein, as does Chaney from The Ghost
of Frankenstein, but the role in this film,
of course, belongs to Glenn Strange.
Mixed-up credits aside, La Casa degli orrori is a dynamic poster with pulp illustration
sensibilities.
A two-minute short film about a Cesselon retrospective
exhibition.
3 comments:
Cool weird poster. Oddly, I noticed Ludwig Stossel's name instantly, but Karloff's not at all. I guess I'm so used to seeing Boris's name on posters that it just slides by.
Nice image, Pierre. Thanks.
Is it possible that Mr. Pratt's presence there is not a mistake, but a marketing ploy?
Wich: Considering the random credits and mixups, I think we have an honest mistake here as opposed to a nefarious ploy. I went looking for more CASA posters and found the wackiness was generalized: http://frankensteinia.blogspot.ca/2013/11/more-casa-degli-orrori-posters.html
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