The Art of Frankenstein : Feg Murray (Part 2)

The formula for Feg Murray’s Seein’ Stars was typical of newspaper cartoon features: Large drawings accompanied by a short caption, usually some trivial or curious factoid. Here, in two examples from 1938 recycled as comic book filler, Feg Murray captures Karloff’s Monster in excellent likenesses, with copy addressing the endlessly repeated tidbit about “Frankenstein” being the creator’s name, not The Monster’s, and some rather creative math adding up Karloff’s time in the makeup chair.

It was not uncommon for newspaper strips and features to be re-used in comic books. In fact, comic books began as collections of newspaper strips, soon to be augmented with and eventually replaced by original material. Beginning in 1937, Murray’s Seein’ Stars was recycled along with other King Features syndicated material in Ace Comics and Magic Comics, published by the David McKay Publications out of Philadelphia.

Click the thumbnails to see the whole feature.

Breaking News! Halloween Celebrations Extended!

Er… Have you noticed, my Countdown to Halloween celebrations have yet to kick off?

Apologies. Professional obligations have taken up all my time this month, and I even managed to get in some serious Frankenstein-related research that I’ll be sharing with you in due time, so it’s all good. Nevertheless, I had a series of very special posts meant for Countdown October that I’ll be running now, beginning on Halloween day. Put it this way: I’m not late… Think of it as getting a headstart on my Countdown to Halloween for 2015!

Starting now — just a taste, above. Be sure to click the full feature to see it bigger — and through the next two weeks, I’ll bombard you all with a series of posts dedicated to the great Feg Murray, newspaper cartoonist and radio personality of the 30s and 40s whose Seein' Stars feature carried loads of monster art, mostly Universal films and frequent Frankenstein art. Feg Murray was, I believe, the #1 master of monster movie art before Basil Gogos came along.

Don’t forget to check the Countdown to Halloween site and have fun clicking through all the blogs that have made this Halloween another spectacular event. And be here tomorrow and over the days to come for the Feg Murray Art series, brought to you with the indispensable complicity of movie monster historian extraordinaire, George Chastain.

Happy Halloween!

Boris Karloff in Aunt of Frankenstein

Here’s an overlooked curio: Boris Karloff and Frankenstein are name-checked and cartooned in a British wartime short from 1943.

Running a brisk one and a half minutes, THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD SAVE combines simple animation and live action footage. The story has a lonesome ghost — a caped skeleton — called George who, the narrator tells us, has “no one around to frighten”. He’d like to “do his bit” for the war effort but, with no demand for his services, George goes to the movies “to cheer himself up”.

At the show, George sees a Government film about saving bones to be used, we learn, to make explosives, glue and fertilizer. Our patriotic skeleton donates himself to the war effort and is transformed into a shell that chases Hitler himself back to Berlin.

The Karloff/Frankenstein reference comes roughly halfway through the proceedings, and again at the end, outside the theater, where posters advertise “Boris Karloff in Aunt of Frankenstein”. Illustrations depict a lugubrious character in drag. Karloff as Frankenstein, of course, was often depicted in cartoons as a menace. Here’s it’s just a fun, throwaway gag. Frankenstein family jokes were not uncommon, given the titles of the early Universal Frankensteins: Bride of, and Son of. In 1935, a reviewer of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN suggested that the next film be called “Frankenstein’s Baby”.

For the record, Karloff did play a little old lady in full little old lady getup as the nefarious Mother Muffin in TV’s THE GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E. in 1966, and there really was a FRANKENSTEIN’S AUNT movie in 1987, compiled from a multi-national, European TV series, itself based on two books by Allan Rune Pettersson.

There are no credits for THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD SAVE, its artisans anonymously devoted to the British war effort. The short can be viewed online on the British Pathé archives website.

THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD SAVE, British Pathé website.

"The best friend I ever had"

Here’s a short clip from 1963 in which an affable Boris Karloff discusses FRANKENSTEIN. Here, in his own voice, is Karloff’s oft-told, oft-quoted, gently humorous anecdote of being asked to test for The Monster’s part by director James Whale. It makes for a good story but it is unlikely, of course, that Karloff was simply picked out of a studio lunchroom crowd. It has been said that it was David Lewis, Whale’s companion, who had first spotted Karloff looking perfectly sinister as Ned Galloway, the murderous trustee in Howard Hawk’s THE CRIMINAL CODE.

Karloff, always grateful and generous with praise, namechecks his friend, makeup man Jack Pierce, and figures “too or three weeks” of experimenting on the Monster’s makeup before it was ready for a screen test. This timeline is much more plausible than some claims having Pierce working on it for months on end.

Karloff also discusses the appeal of horror films and stories and reflects on how The Monster “changed the whole course of my life”. He’s understandably unclear about how many Frankenstein sequels were made, guessing at “at least a dozen of them”. There were eight, all told. There’s also a bit of an exaggeration when he says he came to the part “an obscure, struggling, unknown actor”. Fact is, Karloff was very busy, scoring showy parts in such films as THE GUILTY GENERATION, FIVE STAR FINAL and the aforementioned THE CRIMINAL CODE, three of the 16 films he made in 1931. Without FRANKENSTEIN, that made Karloff a household name, he still had a fine career underway as a supporting player in gangster and villain roles, typified by his performance in SCARFACE of 1932. Karloff was also garnering good press notices. In early 1931, well before the Frankenstein project was even underway, a prescient critic had already tagged Karloff as a contender for Lon Chaney-type parts.

Karloff was a gracious interviewee and it’s lovely hearing him say, in palpable sincerity, how “The Monster turned out to be the best friend I ever had”.

I spotted this clip on Facebook, courtesy of Stephen Jacobs, author of Boris Karloff: More Than a Monster.

Charlie Chan Meets Frankenstein

After two decades toiling in bit parts and secondary roles, Boris Karloff was propelled to instant stardom with the release of Frankenstein in 1931. A box-office draw on his own, the actor, through most of the Thirties, would still be routinely billed as “Boris ‘Frankenstein’ Karloff”. Even ads for a gangster film, like Behind the Mask or Scarface, tagged Karloff as ‘Frankenstein’. 

In 1936, when 20th Century Fox landed Karloff as guest villain in Charlie Chan at the Opera, the studio gleefully played up their star menace  — the film’s title card reads “Warner Oland VS Boris Karloff” — and went all out with Frankenstein references, even name-checking The Monster in the film itself. Maurice Cass, playing the harried stage manager says, “This opera is going on tonight even if Frankenstein walks in!”.

Karloff plays Gravelle, opera singer and revenge-minded sanitarium escapee. Dressed in a flamboyant Mephisto costume, with cape, lipstick and a cat-eared skullcap, Karloff lip-synchs tunes written by Oscar Levant in a rich baritone provided by Tudor Williams. “Never has Charlie Chan met an opponent like Karloff!” crowed the film’s promotional herald. “Never as he been staggered by the enormity of the crimes known only to the Frankenstein of the Mad House!” 

Newspaper ads exploited the Frankenstein angle: It’s “Boris “Frankenstein” Karloff” in North Carolina’s Davidsonian of January 13, 1937, and an February 5 ad for Schine’s Strand in Lexington, Kentucky, misspells Boris’s name, but bills the film as Charlie Chan Meets ‘Frankenstein’. I wonder if this fooled anyone. Were there any patrons who were disappointed that the famed Oriental detective didn’t actually go up against Karloff with bolts in his neck?

Due, in no small part, to Karloff’s presence, Charlie Chan at the Opera is considered by many to be the best of all the Chan films.

Created by Earl Derr Biggers, Charlie Chan was, ostensibly, a heroic antidote to Yellow Peril enormities and Asian stereotypes. Nevertheless, in the Hollywood series — stretching to an amazing 44 titles over 18 years at Fox and Monogram — Chan was played by Caucasian actors Warner Oland, Sidney Toler and Roland Winters. Asian actors Keye Luke and Victor Sen Young appeared in support, often as comedy relief.

An interesting side-note: Scott Darling, one of the screenwriters for Opera, went on to pen some of the Mr. Wong films — poverty row Chan knockoffs — wherein Karloff played the Oriental sleuth. Darling also scripted The Ghost of Frankenstein (1941), Universal’s fourth Frankenstein film, with Lon Chaney Jr. replacing Karloff as The Monster.

Charlie Chan at the Opera is up on YouTube. The Frankenstein reference comes on at 17:30.

The films of Charlie Chan at the Charlie Chan Family Home.

Karloff on the Radio

The Monster steps up to the microphone in this cartoon illustration by Vernon Lind displayed large and very prominently in The Pittsburgh Press’ Radio News and Gossip section of January 15, 1939. Caption: “Boris Karloff will try to scare Eddie Cantor and his Mad Russian, Monday night, which is some undertaking even for Frankenstein...”

Artist Lind’s barrel-cheated Monster, with tiny head, big boots and dangling hands prefigures Dick Briefer’s “Merry Monster” from the 40s.

Boris Karloff enjoyed a prolific career on radio, performing drama and guesting on quiz shows and many comedy and variety programs. This appearance on Camel Cavalcade, broadcast out of Hollywood on CBS stations at 7:30 EST, January 16, 1939, came just 3 days after Son of Frankenstein’s Friday the 13th release.

Guest host Eddie Cantor, an energetic songster and comic, filled the show’s brisk 30-minutes with upbeat songs and patter with announcer Bert Parks — who slips in a couple of Camel cigarette commercials — and comic “foils" Sydney ‘Mister Guffy’ Fields and Bert ‘The Mad Russian’ Gordon. Karloff is introduced thirteen and a half minutes into the half-hour show. Unfortunately, the show is lost, but a script survives.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Cantor announces, “You are about to hear the voice of the man whose tones chill the marrow of your bones… A man whose actions are much more frightening than even thunder and lightning… The gruesome guy who makes you jump in bed and pull the covers over your head… The Monster Man in person… Boris Karloff!”

Karloff banters with Cantor, playing off his “boogie man” reputation…

KARLOFF: Come to my house tonight… At midnight I’m having a few friends-- Bela Lugosi --

CANTOR: Dracula --

KARLOFF: Peter Lorre --

CANTOR: The guy with the eyes and no body?

KARLOFF: Yes – and the Invisible Man… We’ll turn out all the lights and tell ghost stories!

Later on, when Cantor says Karloff is “really a home-loving man”, Karloff says, “I have a very lovely wife – and just of late I became father of a baby.” Karloff is referring to Sara Jane, born on his birthday, November 23.

As the show races to a finish, the cast does a quick courtroom sketch with Karloff as defendant, forced to admit murder just to stop The Mad Russian from telling any more bad jokes. Cantor plugs Son of Frankenstein a couple of times and wraps up with a pitch for the March of Dimes, a term he had coined for his favorite charity.

It’s a shame this show is lost, but another Cantor and Karloff show survives, from December 1941, and it gives a good idea of how the two men worked together, alternating as each other’s straight man and both landing some good punch lines. Listen to the Christmastime Time To Smile show as an audio file on YouTube. 

Frankenstein Out-Frankensteined!

Frankenstein is referenced in this 1935 ad in Film Daily for a proposed Karloff movie to be made in England. The announced director, Graham Cutts, a co-founder of Gainsborough studios and once a powerful figure in British films, had seen his career decline with the advent of talkies. For reasons unknown, the project was shelved and Karloff was recast in a mad scientist yarn, The Man Who Changed His Mind, directed by Robert Stevenson and released in 1936.

Karloff would have made a formidable Nikola, a super-villain character forgotten today but said to have been as popular as Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes — and twice as deadly as Professor Moriarty.

Created by Australian-born Guy Boothby (1867-1905), Dr. Nikola was a charismatic occult villain bent on world domination. His quest for immortality yielded five best-selling novels between 1895 and 1901, a hit London play in 1895 and two silent films, in 1909 and 1917. With his weird laboratory, international connections and nefarious methods, Boothby’s criminal mastermind is believed to have influenced Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu (1913) in many ways. Even Fu’s pet marmoset is thought to be the equivalent of Nikola’s black cat companion. Note the ad, artist unidentified, showing a greenish Karloff with a black cat on his shoulder, a typical Nikola pose found on book covers and the stage play’s poster.

In a curious connection involving Karloff, it has been suggested that another Boothby story, A Professor of Egyptology (1904), inspired the screenplay to Karloff’s The Mummy (1932).

Dr. Nikola was one of 17 films advertised by England’s premiere studio, Gainsborough Pictures, in a colorful 8-page spread appearing in an October 1935 issue of the New York-based Film Daily trade paper. Other titles promoted included the early science-fiction adventure Transatlantic Tunnel, two Hitchcock films: The 39 Steps and Secret Agent, and two Conrad Veidt vehicles — “Women fight for Conrad Veidt!” — King of the Damned and The Passing of the Third Floor Back. Another Universal classic, The Invisible Man (1933) was name-checked — “The Invisible Man makes the future visible” — in an ad for The Clairvoyant, with Claude Rains and Fay Wray.

With thanks to Joe Schwind.

Tonite... In Person!

Tracking the release, 80 years ago, of James Whale’s Frankenstein, we circle back to Los Angeles, where the film was made, with its triumphal premiere at the RKO Orpheum in January 1932. By then, in a zigzag course across America begun in November ’31, Frankenstein had snowballed into a major box-office hit. Boris Karloff was wrenched from relative obscurity as a busy character actor — Frankenstein was just one of 16 films he appeared in for 1931 — to be touted as a full-fledged movie star and “the successor of Lon Chaney”.

Karloff himself finally saw the film when he attended a showing with his wife and friends at Oakland’s Orpheum in late ’31. Shortly thereafter, his newfound fame was confirmed when the RKO circuit booked him into a series of personal appearances, climbing onstage between vaudeville acts to introduce his film. What a thrill it must have been to see the film when it was new, with Karloff in person, all for 25 cents.

RKO’s Los Angeles Orpheum, where the film house records, cranked up the ballyhoo, proclaiming, “Not since Los Angeles was a pueblo has it seen such a sensation!” and adding a late night Spook Show’s “Ghouls… Weird Noises… Strange Lights!”, turning the evening's program into “A two hour reign of terror!” The ads warned that no one would be seated during the final reel, and a notice of “No children’s prices” indicated that the film was unsuitable for the very young. Nurses, of course, were said to be in attendance.

L.A.’s Orpheum was a movie palace that dwarfed all others in size and extravagance yet, despite big-name vaudeville performers and record-breaking runs by Dracula, Cimarron and Frankenstein, the Great Depression hit hard and the house was shuttered for a spell at the end of 1932. It re-opened in ’33 with new owners and would stay in operation until 2000 when its screen went dark and the massive stage was converted for live entertainment. Today, the Orpheum is still a premiere showcase for musicals and touring artists. Its sumptuous interiors are available for film shoots, standing in for classic movie palaces in such films as Barton Fink, Ed Wood, and most recently, The Artist.

Orpheum Theater photo gallery

L.A. Orpheum Theater website

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 Monster's Alemite Cups

We know Universal’s patented Frankenstein Monster for his tabletop skull, the dusty black suit, clubfoot boots and, of course, those neck bolts, ostensible electrodes, as if The Monster ran on AC/DC.

Boris Karloff had a name for them.

On November 20, 1957, Karloff appeared on This Is Your Life, a hugely popular show where host Ralph Edwards literally ambushed an unsuspecting celebrity on live TV, parading out acquaintances and family members, and piecing together a superficial biography of his surprised guest. Karloff was dismayed at first, but he played along like the good sport he was, eventually warming up to the proceedings. One of the show’s best moments came when makeup man Jack Pierce showed up. You can see the genuine fondness Boris and Jack had for each other, with Karloff calling his friend “the best makeup man in the world!”.

When Jack Pierce comes out, he hands Karloff a souvenir, one of The Monster’s electrodes. Karloff playfully holds it up to his neck and says, “I used to call it the Alemite cup”.

The Alemite company, founded in 1916, manufactures grease guns, pumps and oil mist systems for the lubrication industry. Among related accessories are a number of pins, couplings and fittings that could very well stand in for The Monster’s neck bolts. Three of these are shown in the photograph above.

The first one is a brass-colored Alemite fitting with locking cross pins that any Monster would wear with pride. The second item is a valved pressure cup that provides lubrication while bearings are in motion. It’s an Alemite cup, but too fancy a design for our purposes. The third one, though, is a good match. It’s an Alemite grease cup, very similar, with its flat, flanged end, to The Monster’s iconic neck ornament.

In the early days, Karloff worked a variety of side jobs, supplementing his meager income as a stage actor. On This Is Your Life, he mentions a stint in a building materials yard. There, or in any number of odd jobs held through the Twenties, Karloff could have handled the Alemite products he’d come to associate, jokingly, with The Monster’s neck bolts.

Here's video of Jack Pierce with Boris Karloff on This Is Your Life...

Related:
The Makeup Man: Jack Pierce

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!

Scrapbook Frankenstein

These yellowed clippings are not just from any old scrapbook. This is a page from makeup master Jack Pierce’s personal scrapbook, circa 1939.

The short article pasted at left (click the scrapbook image to enlarge) documents the first haircut, courtesy Pierce, given one-year old Baby Sandy for her role in Unexpected Father (1939), also known as Sandy Takes a Bow. It was the child actress’ second film appearance in her short career as Universal’s answer to Shirley Temple. “Sandy” , born Alexandra Lee Henville, generated tons of press and merchandising, but she only made eight films and was out of showbiz by the time she turned five.

The large drawing of Boris Karloff in Son of Frankenstein was clipped from Feg Murray’s Seein’ Stars newspaper feature.

Frederic “Feg” Murray (1894-1973) was a popular cartoonist and radio personality of the Thirties and Forties. As a young man, he had served in the First World War, then shined as an Olympic athlete, winning a bronze medal in the 110-meter hurdle race at Antwerp, Belgium.

As an illustrator, Murray did a stint as a sports cartoonist with The Los Angeles Times before launching his long-running Seein’ Stars cartoon series, syndicated nationwide by King Features. Modeled on the Believe It or Not format of a large portrait done in pen and ink (in color on Sundays), surrounded by smaller filler pieces, Seein’ Stars was pure movie star trivia:

Fay Wray spends her spare time making sketches in charcoal and weaving Tapestries. She also collects rare perfumes… Ralph Bellamy was once driven by a dead man!! His car swerved erratically into a field and finally ended up against a tree, several minutes after the driver had died of heart failure!... Jean Harlow has a 15-minute workout on a rowing machine before her dip in the pool every morning.

No doubt, studio publicity departments must have fed stories to Murray. Case in point, the Son of Frankenstein piece ran on January first, just as Universal was rolling out the ballyhoo for a January 13 release.

Feg Murray parlayed his success as a famous “stargazer” into a radio career as the host of an interview and variety show called Seein’ Stars in Hollywood, also known as Baker’s Broadcast. In a celebrated episode, on March 13, 1938, Murray’s guests were Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Karloff performed a dramatic reading of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Supplication of the Black Aberdeen” and then joined Lugosi in a memorable if awkward duet, the two horror icons warbling, “We’re Horrible, Horrible Men”. Karloff’s lines went, “Though the movies would make me a terrible brute, when my makeup is off I am really quite cute.”

Boris, Bela and the Nelsons posed for a gag shot, and here's a YouTube sound clip of that momentous occasion…

A profile of Feg Murray in The Alpha Kappa Journal.

Porky's Road Race

Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster was an instant favorite with animators, appearing in droll cameos or as the story’s main menace in numerous cartoons throughout the Thirties and Forties. Karloff himself was also featured in a few cartoons, usually caricatured in gaunt deadpan. With Porky’s Road Race, in 1937, both The Monster and the celebrated actor were merged into one villainous, flat-headed character named “Borax Karoff”.

The simple story has Porky Pig driving his tiny roadster in a big race against Hollywood movie stars the likes of W.C.Fields, Laurel and Hardy, and John Barrymore. Charlie Chaplin appears wielding wrenches, Modern Times-style, and Charles Laughton is portrayed as Mutiny on the Bounty’s Captain Bligh, otherwise, most of the famous faces here are mostly forgotten today. George Arliss, anyone?

Borax Karoff is prominently featured, and he is the best-realized character in the piece with his elongated jaw, sawed-off head and Frankenstein bangs, unibrow and raccoon eyes. Borax drives a souped-up, 30-foot long, finned and streamlined speedster — Number 13, of course — with a death’s head hood ornament. He throws tacks, grease, glue and a torpedo at the competition to take the lead. On the home stretch, with every one else sidelined, Porky and Boris sprint for the finish line. Guess how it ends.

Comedy-wise, there’s not a lot going on here. There’s none of the wild creativity that we usually associate with the famous Warner Brothers “Termite Terrace” artists. This cartoon relies entirely on its star cameos for laughs that, I suspect, weren’t very loud even in 1937.

The seven-minute short was animated by Bob Bentley and Joe D’Igalo, under the direction of Frank Tashlin. Writer Allen Rose’s credits include Man of Tin, a 1940 cartoon featuring a Frankensteinian mad scientist and his robot creation.

Porky’s Road Race is distinguished for being voice master Mel Blanc’s first picture, providing Porky’s hiccups (and, I’m guessing, the “putt putt” sound of squirting oil cans). Blanc, incredibly, would go on to voice over one thousand cartoons! Borax Karoff’s sinister cackles were recorded by Billy Bletcher, a character actor and frequent cartoon voice artist. Bletcher, whose career spanned over fifty years, may be best remembered as the mad lab hunchback assistant “Gorzo” in the bizarre science fiction serial The Lost City (1935).

Porky’s Road Race is currently online here.

Related:
More vintage cartoons:
Porky’s Movie Mystery
Frankenstein’s Hollywood Capers
Frankenstein Meets Mickey Mouse
The Snow Man

Boris Karloff: The Blogathon That Wouldn't Die!

With the news this week that our Boris Karloff Blogathon has been Rondo-nominated as Best Fan Event of 2009, also comes a “lost” blogathon post, and a new, late entry to the celebrations.

First up, a Blogathon link I wasn’t aware of until just recently. It’s a gorgeous collection of posters and stills from Karloff’s The Mummy (1932), posted on the fabulous Wrong Side of the Art! blog. Photos include backstage shots with makeupman Jack Pierce and director Karl Freund, and the superb studio portrait of Boris reproduced above.

Wrong Side of the Art! is devoted to the poster and promotional art of cult and low budget films— the kind of films with the best poster art! — and if you visit once, you’ll keep going back, I promise you.

Checking in late, but boy was it worth the wait, Howard S. Berger and Kevin Marr —otherwise known as The Flying Maciste Brothers — offer a fascinating new perspective of James Whale’s Frankenstein films on their unique blog, Destructible Man, devoted to “the Theory and Practice of Cinematic Prosthetic Demise, aka The Dummy Death in Film”.

In step-through screen caps sequences, the Macistes deconstruct the stunt-dummy pitches performed by Karloff’s Monster, notably Colin Clive’s floppy fall from the windmill in Frankenstein (1931) and Dwight Frye’s disarticulated dive off the laboratory tower in Bride of Frankenstein (1935). And speaking of dummies, I was happy to see the cemetery skeleton from Frankenstein’s opening scene get singled out. It’s worth noting that it cameos in the second film, also in a graveyard setting. It’s my favorite Frankenstein prop ever.

In few words, but with tremendous insight, the Macistes suggest that The Monster itself, as a reassembled, reanimated collection of parts is “a kindred spirit of the cinematic FX-dummy from the outset”. And there’s a great visual catch, very astute, on the scene where Frankenstein and his Monster peer at each other through the drumspokes of the ratcheting windmill, equating the effect with that of the zoetrope, an early optical device that prefigured the cinema, and in another brilliant leap, postulating that the flickering images of Frankenstein and his ungodly creation are distorted reflections of each other.

Go read We Belong Dead, on Destructible Man.

Behind the scenes: Frankenstein, 1931

I love old behind-the-scenes photos, like this glorious shot of the Frankenstein laboratory set, taken in the sweltering summer of 1931. DVDs today always seem to come with a “making of” documentary, but there are very few backstage photos from bygone films, and a mere handful from this particular title, one of the most important and influential films ever made. These rare photos are silent witnesses, privileged glimpses into a distant, black and white past, laden with information and tantalizing clues.

A rickety ramp leads to a raised platform, and down again to the heart of the tall set, the tower laboratory where The Monster will ride up to the stormy sky on an elevator slab. At front, left, someone is standing in the dark. A technician, perhaps, or director James Whale? In the light beyond, a stagehand crouches under the tubular microphone hanging from its extension arm. To the right of the picture, wooden scaffolding, freestanding lights, and a pile of sandbags.

Who is the man standing at center? He looks like the camera operator seen in another backstage shot. Could it be cinematographer Arthur Edeson? High above, another man stands amidst overhead lights on an elaborate rig, the camera boom used extensively by Whale. This, probably, is an operator filming the lab from on high, though one is reminded of a quote from Boris Karloff, “In Frankenstein, during the laboratory scenes, I was never as nervous as when I lay half naked, strapped to the operating table. Above me, I could see the special effects men shaking the white-hot scissor-like carbons that simulated the lightning. I prayed very hard that no one got butterfingers.”

At center, the image is blown out by the intense lights focused on the set crowded with Kenneth Strickfaden’s electrical gizmos. Someone is glimpsed there, perhaps Strickfaden adjusting his equipment, or Frankenstein himself, Colin Clive, dialing up the life-giving rays.

The set photo comes from the wonderful Universal Monster Legacy site, launched to promote the new version of The Wolfman, coming out in February. The navigation is sometimes balky, and fans will note a couple of minor mistakes — Lon Chaney’s 1923 Hunchback of Notre Dame is illustrated with a poster from the 1939 RKO version with Charles Laughton, and a picture of Boris Karloff in his 1935 Bride of Frankenstein burn makeup is mixed in with the 1931 Frankenstein stills — but overall it’s a very handsome site with film clips and some truly eye-popping photo galleries. Most definitely worth a visit.

The Universal Monster Legacy site.

An interview with Boris Karloff.

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.