The Late Films Blogathon

David Cairns is hosting The Late Films Blogathon all this week on his superlative film blog Shadowplay.

David writes, “The idea is that late in many filmmakers’ careers, when they’re no longer in fashion, they often produce work which is underrated at the time: it’s compared negatively to their Golden Age work, and to the hip hits of the moment, and then consigned to the dustpile. But with nearly every great filmmaker, whatever the problems of the late films (often produced on low budgets, sometimes literally shot in the filmmaker’s back garden), they nevertheless encapsulate the mature reflections of great artists, and are worth appraising with an open mind.”

My contribution to The Late Films Blogathon is a repost, tweaked a bit, of my article on Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, the last of Hammer Films’ remarkable Frankenstein series. The film also marked the end of director Terence Fisher’s career and the impending demise of the studio itself. Here is...

Twilight of the Goths: Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell

Released in May of 1974, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell reflected the end of an era. It was the last of the Hammer Films’ Frankenstein series as well as Terence Fisher’s final directorial effort and, ultimately, it was one of a handful of films that effectively closed out the history of the studio and its gothic horror heritage.

As the Seventies dawned, the market for Hammer’s classy, low budget horrors was shrinking fast. Double bills were being phased out, the small neighborhood cinemas and the second run houses were vanishing from the landscape. The company tried desperately to hang on to its share of the market, but ambitious co-productions deals with Japan’s Toho, Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers and America’s AIP fell apart.

Most damaging to Hammer’s fortunes, sensibilities were changing, too. The Gothics that had made Hammer the most copied horror studio in the world were going out of style. In 1968, a wildly popular independent American film, Night of the Living Dead, yanked horror films out of the Victorian parlors and back into the Twentieth Century, making Hammer’s civilized chills feel suddenly very quaint. The major Hollywood studios entered the horror field with big-budget titles like Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976). Hammer introduced nudity, the famed, deep-cleavaged Hammer Heroines dropping their bustiers altogether, but still, even with extra helpings of Kensington Gore, a new generation of horror film fans looked upon Hammer’s Victorian settings as old hat.

Despite the best efforts of studio head Michael Carreras, the partnerships and distribution deals that Hammer had always relied upon were disappearing in a sea change of mergers and realignments. Financing was drying up and distribution became problematic. Hammer’s Dracula series, the studio’s most lucrative franchise, ground to a halt with The Satanic Rites of Dracula. Shot in late ’72, the film wasn’t released in England until January 1974 and it would be another four long years before it finally limped onto North American screens.

Likewise, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell wrapped in October 1972, yet it would take a year and a half before it came out in England, to poor box office. It would eventually make it to North America in the Fall of ’74, on a double bill with Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter — a bold but failed attempt at creating a new franchise — sneaking into second rate cinemas for a quick week’s run with no publicity save a newspaper ad. It was an ignominious end to the Hammer Frankenstein series, though the film itself, a true valedictory piece, is quite remarkable. Despite its shrunken budget, it has all the trappings of the classic Hammers, with detailed period sets beautifully lit and photographed, and a sterling cast, every player excellent, headed by the formidable Peter Cushing.

Older now, emaciated, his hands burned and useless, Cushing’s Baron is still at it, hiding under one of his barely disguised names. This time he’s “Dr. Victor”, the resident medical man in an asylum for the criminally insane. Harvesting parts from the inmate population, as he did with the patients of a charity hospital in The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), he is helped in his secret experiments by the mute Sarah (Madeline Smith), a willing but unskilled assistant, beloved by the inmates who see her as an angel come among them. Things go into high gear with the highly coincidental but very timely arrival of Simon Helder (Shane Briant), a young surgeon sentenced to the madhouse for his unholy experiments inspired, as it happens, by the writings of Baron Frankenstein.

Frankenstein’s living canvas is Herr Schneider (David Prowse), a colossal, shaggy brute incarcerated for violence, namely a propensity for attacking people with broken glass. The gorilla-like creature is given new eyes, the delicate hands of a sculptor (a brief appearance by Bernard Lee), and the brain of a genius, but the sum of the parts don’t add up and the violent nature of the beastly Schneider re-asserts itself.

In an unexpected and sobering twist, perhaps hinted at by the very surroundings of the tale, Baron Frankenstein’s solution to his miserably failed experiment is to propose the mating of the mountainous monstrosity with the helpless, innocent Sarah. The creature would be “Reborn… A new version of his true self,” says the Baron to his incredulous assistant. We’d always known the Baron to be a cold, cruel man, but this shocking development betrays a fleeting grasp of sanity. “I think you’re mad,” says Helder. “Possibly,” Frankenstein laughs, “I must admit I’ve never felt so elated in my life!”

Helder squelches the Baron’s ludicrous plan. The Monster, on a rampage, is set upon and literally ripped apart by the assembled inmates. Censors having warned Hammer not to shoot the written scenes of the mad crowd eating chunks of Monster flesh, director Fisher shows one inmate “feeding” strips of flesh to a doll.

In the final scene, Cushing’s Baron shrugs off the loss of his tormented creation. “Best thing that could have happened to him,” he says, “He was of no use to us or himself.” With Helder and Sarah watching in sad silence, The Baron starts sweeping up the laboratory debris, babbling on, “We must get this place tidied up so we can start afresh… We will need new material, naturally. Herr Adler in 106, perhaps…”

The scene fades to an outside shot of the asylum, dark but for the light in the laboratory window, and the end titles crawl up the screen.

In a film curiously devoid of the patented Hammer Glamour gloss — no cleavage to speak of — the gore is ramped up, though it seems very tame by today’s standards. Eyeballs are frequently jiggled in front of the camera, collected in jars and spilled on the floor. There’s an extended scene, almost documentary in detail, where a brain is methodically removed from a freshly sawed skull. When it’s transplanted into the Monster’s head, Cushing dumps the old, useless brain to the floor and kicks it away. The Monster is last seen as a bloodied, disemboweled mess. Most memorably, there’s a brief moment, unfortunately cut from some copies, where Cushing’s Baron, unable to use his hands, helps his assistant re-attach a severed hand by biting down and holding a vein between his teeth.

Peter Cushing turns in a typically commanding performance as the snappish Baron, in full possession of the character, ordering people around with élan and apparently delighted with having an assistant he can teach his dark arts to. Cast as the diligent Simon Helder, Shane Briant had appeared in three other Hammer Films as well as playing Dorian Gray in a television adaptation. He would go on to a busy career as an actor and an accomplished novelist. Sarah, the mute “angel” who wafts demurely through the picture is played by Madeline Smith, a former model used to far sexier roles that included a couple of Hammer vampire films, a Carry On part and being Roger Moore’s first Bond Girl. Of special note, veteran actor John Stratton puts in a rousing performance as the dastardly, corrupt and ever-harried asylum director.

The “Neolithic” Monster is played by David Prowse, unrecognizable in an ugly full-head mask and bulbous upper body suit covered with long matted hair. It was Prowse’s third appearance as Frankenstein’s Monster. He had a tiny walk-on part in the James Bond comedic curio, Casino Royale (1967), as a Universal-style flathead Frankenstein. In 1970, he was the muscular Monster in Hammer’s Horror of Frankenstein, a smirking remake of The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and an ill-fated attempt to relaunch the franchise with a younger cast headed by Ralph Bates in the Cushing part. Prowse would play another role in a concealing head to toe costume, opposite Cushing again, in 1977, as Darth Vader in Star Wars (1977).

Director Fisher, though in ill health and insecure, made Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell a sure-handed, sober film that projects a fin-de-siècle weariness. It’s as if Fisher and Cushing understood — with Hammer in slow motion collapse — that this was their last stab at Frankenstein and they conspired to give the Baron a proper sendoff.

In the climactic scene where The Monster lies eviscerated on the flagstone floor, surrounded by the blood-spattered inmates, Cushing’s Baron steps up and orders the inmates back to their rooms…

“There’s nothing more to see,” he says. “It’s over now... All over.”

Related:
After Frankenstein: Almost 40 years on, actor Shane Briant revisits the part of Simon Helder in a short YouTube video.
The Posters of Frankenstein: Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell
Who Am I? Frankenstein Created Woman
Peter Cushing
The Director: Terence Fisher

The Boris Karloff Blogathon : Wrap Up

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.

The Boris Karloff Blogathon : The Day After

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 4^th 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.

The Boris Karloff Blogathon : Day Seven

There’s a fresh pot of tea on, just for Boris, here on the set of Son of Frankenstein, as we begin the last day, the final chapter of the Boris Karloff Blogathon.

Enjoy.

It’s safe to say that all of us who have congregated here this week are fond of Boris Karloff. We’ve celebrated his life and his career because we admire him and, yes, many of us could even say that we love Boris Karloff. Greg Ferrara does, too, and he says so, but his intelligent, mature essay is not about love or sentimentality. It’s not about our hearts. It’s about Boris Karloff’s heart.

You must read The Heart of an Actor: Why I Love Boris Karloff, on Cinema Styles.

There’s something on the cover of Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery No. 32 that no other comic book could show. There’s also something missing. Something that every other comic book carried on its cover.

Steve Senski discusses Gold Key’s Boris Karloff comics, and the Comics Code in The Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead, on Heart in a Jar.

Filo Loco posts a picture of Boris wearing an early, unused version of the makeup for the original Frankenstein, and he has a little Karloff-related contest going, with chocolate for a prize! On the always savory Deadlicious.

Even Paul Castiglia, our esteemed expert on Hollywood’s horror-comedies, over at Scared Silly, can’t quite make sense out of the nonsensical The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. Then again, it’s an AIP Beach movie starring Boris Karloff. Maybe it’s not supposed to make sense! Worth noting that this one has the obligatory Harvey Lembeck as Eric von Zipper, it’s got Nancy Sinatra, and Basil Rathbone. It also has Susan Hart in an invisible bikini, and it’s got a gorilla named Monstro. Told you. It doesn’t make any sense.

Stacia, at She Blogged by Night, loves the concept, digs the corpse-powered lab (who wouldn’t?), but wasn’t all that impressed by Boris’ 1941 Mad Scientist programmer The Devil Commands, and she spells out why.

Daedalus Howell namechecks Boris, and comes up with some fun results, including a Salvador Dali connection, and stars in a sidewalk. A Karloff by Any Other Name.

A Karloff quote, courtesy of Todd Franklin, at Weird Hollow.

Newspaper ads for Karloff movies. Excuse the cliché, but they sure don’t make newspaper ads like those anymore! Visit Scenes from the Morgue.

A selection of Karloff stills and colorful lobby cards on John’s Forbidden Planet.

When my makeup is off, I’m really quite cute… Boris and Bela sing! Listen to “We’re Horrible, Horrible Men”, on Ormsby’s Cinema Insane Blog.

In The Man Who Changed His Mind (UK, 1936), Karloff has found a way to download — so to speak — the brain’s “thought content”, sort of like brain swapping without the messy surgery. Robert Ring explores the precepts of the mad scientist genre, and how this particular film deals with issues of morality and the nature of evil. A fascinating review, on Sci-Fi Block.

Writer Ryan Harvey makes a case for Imhotep, the sorcerer “whose love has lasted through eternity, but whose humanity has left him” as Karloff’s finest performance. Read Uncanny, on Realm of Ryan.

If, for some inexplicable reason, you’ve never actually seen Frankenstein, you can now do so online, courtesy of Dravens Tales.

William Henry Pratt came from England to Hollywood by way of Canada, landing in Montreal, heading out to Toronto and, from there, stepping across the country, heading west. Somewhere along the way — on a train, as he recalled — Billy Pratt became Boris Karloff. Read The Cold Canadian Air, on Orange and Black.

We know Boris Karloff through his work, and we understand his work — much as we have here this past week — through the words of writers, essayists, critics, film historians and experts who have shared their expertise in print.

John Cozzoli, the generous host of the elegant Zombos’ Closet of Horror, goes looking for Boris in the pages of a shelf-full of books for us. Read Chapters on Boris the Uncanny.

Hal Astell is that most readable of critics: He really loves the films he covers, and he communicates his enjoyment. Hal offers up his smart and entertaining reviews of three Karloff classics…

First up is The Black Room (1935), with Karloff in a rare dual part, shining, obviously, as the more evil of the twins. Best line, splashed across the original poster: Kiss Him and Die!

Next is The Boogeyman Will Get You (1936), a comedy “as joyous as it is improbable”, with Karloff’s shenanigans gleefully supported by Peter Lorre. Best line, spoken by Boris: “You almost ruined my electric helmet!”

Then there’s Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), with Boris as a baritone gone bonkers, and Warner Oland using his wits and then advanced technology to snare him. Best line in this one: “This opera is going on tonight even if Frankenstein walks in!”

If you came for the Karloff reviews, you’ll want to stay for all of Hal’s reviews, on his blog, Apocalypse Later.

Mike Jones introduces us to Kaibutsu-Kun, The Little Monsters, stars of manga, recordings and anime. There’s a tiger-like werewolf, a flying monkey in a top hat Dracula, and Frankenstein’s box-headed Monster, who growls and grunts like Boris did. You have GOT to watch the trailer. Godzilla puts in a cameo!

Also from Mike, aka Michael Sensei, is a look at bobble-head toys, including a Boris Mummy and a Boris Furankenshutain! On the always fun My Two Yen Worth.

A striking monochrome painting of The Monster, captured in acrylics as he makes his first baleful appearance. On Rouble Rust.

Reanimated Rags honors “Boris Karloff's gender-bending, undead glam-mummy fashion metamorphosis”. A celebration of that dreamboat Imhotep, turkish slippers, harem pants, and black kohl eyeliner. What a fun post!

Though it wasn’t the very last film he made, Targets (1968) remains, unarguably, “the one movie that serves as a fitting epitaph” for Boris Karloff. So writes Steven Senski, about Karloff’s self-referential Byron Orlock, “a part that cleaves so close to the truth as to be bittersweet, if not downright sorrowful.”

Read Epitaph, a wonderful contribution, on this last evening of the Blogathon. On Heart in a Jar.

There’s a wealth of great posts up on Adam Gott’s superlative Cool-Mo-Dee. You can click through and explore, or follow me as I spotlight the highlights!

First up, print material, and a fantastic find! Here’s a 1941 article from Liberty magazine called Houses I Have Haunted, attributed to Boris himself. I suspect it was ghosted by a PR man but, anyway, it’s LOADED with material that has been quoted ever since, including his first viewing of Frankenstein, a story about the 1940 All-Star Baseball game, and a line about playing Santa Claus at a Baltimore hospital during tryouts for Arsenic and Old Lace that has since become something like an urban legend claiming that Boris played Santa in Baltimore for sick children every year thereafter.

Here’s another rarely seen print article: A 1946 “Movie of the Week” feature from Life magazine about Bedlam, with great photos. And also from Life, here’s the complete March 15, 1968 issue that celebrated the 150th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with Boris and a birthday cake on the cover.

Boris Karloff and Saturday Morning offers up some Karloff animated fun, including a couple of must-sees, The Daydreamer and Juggler of Our Lady. Old Time Radio fans will enjoy episodes of Duffy’s Tavern and Creeps By Night, and you can hear Boris narrate Rip Van Winkle.

Boris on TV is on view. See episodes of Tales of Tomorrow: Past Tense, Colonel March of Scotland Yard, and Thriller!

Plenty of movie treats on Cool-Mo-Dee: There are trailers for Black Sabbath and Frankenstein 1970 (made in ’58), and complete, full-length movies: There’s British Intelligence from 1940, two Mr. Wong programmers, The Fatal Hour and Doomed to Die, and one of Boris’ final features, The Incredible Invasion. Rarely seen, here’s Boris’ Indian adventure, Sabaka, and, my personal recommendation: The Ghoul, Boris’ first British feature, from 1933. It's genuinely hair-raising in spots, and it’s got Ernest Thesiger.

And finally, a couple of fun posts: Boris doing a cocktail mix ad, and for vintage horror fans, an unofficial Mummy Soundtrack album you can download.

All of it, up on Cool-Mo-Dee! Thanks, Adam, for a fabulous week’s worth of contributions!

Karloff’s Frankenstein films have been reviewed, analyzed and poked at over and over again, so it’s very refreshing to read a new review of Son of Frankenstein by someone who didn’t, until recently, that the film even existed! No baggage here, no preconceptions. Just a fresh, new appraisal. On Things That Don’t Suck.

Mike Segretto did his homework and came up with 20 Things You May Not Have Known About Boris Karloff, another wonderful post from Psychobabble.

I hope this great still of the pre-Frankenstein, turbaned Boris sends you racing over to Shadowplay — one of my favorite haunts — where critic and filmmaker David Cairns turns his amused attention to the 1929 talkie, Behind The Curtain, a rare Charlie Chan film with an actual Asian actor in the lead role. The biggest mystery in this film is how Boris becomes “an Anglo-Indian actor with a Russian name pretending to be a white man pretending to be an Indian”.

Great stuff here. Read Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain!

On companion blogs: There are wonderful movie and backstage shots of Boris up on Peeping Tom, and a quote from Boris on taste and censorship, on Lost Eyeways.

Penny-pinching Karloff fans will envy Rhonny Reaper. Here’s a great thrift store find, on the appropriately named Dollar Bin Horror.

Fernando Rojas has been making short Karloff comments on Twitter!

I love the incongruous title card from Targets, showing Boris in a scene from The Terror. Ivan G. Shreve tells the story, in great detail, of the making of Targets. It’s an important review of an important film. On Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.

My first blogathon experience, a couple of years ago, was participating in the Slapstick event held by Thom Ryan at Film of the Year. I loved working with a theme and a deadline, and thanks to the enthusiastic encouragement of our genial host, I found myself writing my first long form piece, an overview of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

I am enormously happy to have Thom participate in my own blogathon adventure, and I’m delighted to bring you his contribution, a beautiful essay about Boris Karloff’s out of character narration of The Emperor’s Nightingale. “Given the eerie power of Karloff's tombstone voice,” writes Thom, “it is remarkable that his narration fits this children's picture like a velvet glove.”

Read His Monster’s Voice, on Film of the Year.

For many of us, in many ways, Boris Karloff has been a part of our life. Mother Firefly shares her own private and precious memories of Boris, on Faster Pussycats!

Of his cartoon, Dave Lowe wrote me, saying, “It's a nostalgic scene of my world growing up in the 70's in memory of Karloff, Ackerman and all the great things I loved in those days (and still do)”. I'm sure many of us see ourselves in this one, too. Go look, on Para Abnormal.

Four Boris records for download: There are two volumes of Tales of the Frightened, recordings of Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, and the legendary An Evening with Boris Karloff and His Friends:, scripted by Forry Ackerman. On The Captain’s Ramblings.

One last doodle from David Kirwan, cross-posted on his blog and tumbler.

Bill Adcock saved his favorite film for last, the sublime Bride of Frankenstein. A big-hearted essay, on Radiation-Scarred Reviews.

As a highly original tribute to Boris, Max, of The Drunken Severed Head, posts an original play, Too Many Creeps, written by writer, actor, filmmaker and all around horror horror film expert Ted Newsom. It’s a clever and affectionate valentine to the great horror stars. It has Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, and others. Ed Wood is in it. And it features the last “what if” collaboration between Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.

Part One of Six is posted now, in honor of the Boris Karloff Blogathon.

The image here announces one of the most troubling homecoming ever.

Curt Purcell explores the genre-breaking vampire short, The Wurdalak, one of three stories in Black Sabbath. “Karloff,” he writes, “just had a way of being iconic, and Bava had a way of crafting searingly iconic images, and together they conjure some truly unforgettable moments.” If you’ve never seen The Wurdalak, this review will make you want to, and you’ll be richer for it. On The Groovy Age of Horror.

The Boris Karloff Blogathon : Day Six

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.

There’s an unusual Karloff triple-bill playing on Need Coffee dot com. There’s John Ford’s The Lost Patrol, with Boris giving one of his best performances as a religious fanatic. You can see the notorious Mask of Fu Manchu, and then there’s The House of Rothschild, an historical drama, with Karloff essaying one of the most monstrous characters he ever played, Baron Ledranz, a vicious, despicable anti-Semite.

Stay up tonight and watch some Karloff movies!