The Brisbane Frankenstein

Delighted to visit again with Brisbane’s Frankenstein impersonator of 1932. Rarely were ballyhoo men ever identified, but this one we know as Lance Robartson, reputedly the tallest man in Australia, standing six feet and eleven inches sans monster boots.

In our previous encounter, a photograph of Mr. Robartson was a poor one, as is often the case with microfilm sources. Here, finally, we get a good look at our Monster. No elaborate makeup was necessary. Size, costume, a deadpan stare and a matted wig did the job.

This photo from The Telegraph of June 10, 1932 chronicles Robartson’s arrival at the train station on Thursday the 9th, greeted by the press and a brave young man. That same evening, Robartson was the special guest at a dance cabaret soirée, all of it promoting Universal’s FRANKENSTEIN, opening that weekend at the city’s storied Tivoli theatre.

For more details about the event, read our original post: The Monster, In Person!

Source: The Brisbane Telegraph archives on Trove.

What a Sensation!

A unique, original ad in the Courier-Mail heralded the Easter weekend release of SON OF FRANKENSTEIN at the Tivoli Theater — misspelled at the top of the ad! — in Brisbane. Appearing in the Thursday, April 6 edition of the Courier-Mail, the large ad features a striking full-length Monster in charcoal.

The film was double-billed with a minor Universal musical, FRESHMAN YEAR (1938), starring the perky Dixie Dunbar in what turned out to be her final feature. The dancer quit her uneventful six-year Hollywood career playing showgirls, dancing co-eds and characters named Pasty, Mitzi, Ginger, Goldie, Polly and Tiny. She’s called Dotty in this one. Dunbar returned to better parts and real success on Broadway. In 1949, Dunbar achieved pop culture fame as the dancing Old Gold Cigarette box — only her shapely legs could be seen — on early TV, circa 1949.

Brisbane’s Sunday Mail critic gave SON OF FRANKENSTEIN and its cast his good-humored approval, noting, “The Monster has his spine-chilling moments… But he still looks heavily wooden enough to be harmless to anyone with a good pair of running shoes.” Spoilers weren’t an issue, the reviewer stating, “The Monster gets out of hand and eventually has to be tossed into a boiling sulphur pit for apparent lasting destruction.”

SON OF FRANKENSTEIN ran for a week and moved on across Australia throughout the year. Unlike FRANKENSTEIN in 1931, the film suffered no territorial bans to limit its release. SON would circle back across the continent over the next two years for second-run engagements including a 1941 stint that saw it packaged with another Karloff/Lugosi thriller, THE INVISIBLE RAY (1936).

An historical side note: By Saturday morning’s first showing, most Australians had something besides Frankenstein movies on the minds. On the first page of Thursday’s paper, a small notice had read, “Mr. Lyons Ill: Wife’s Dash to Hospital”, noting that the Prime Minister, in recent bad health and “suffering from a severe chill” had been taken to St-Vincent’s Hospital. On Saturday morning, the headline read, “Nation Mourns Death of Mr. J.A.Lyons”. The Prime Minister, suffering a series of heart attacks, had died on Good Friday.

Related:
Frankenstein in Brisbane series.

Loose Again in Brisbane

Bolt your windows, lock your doors! This dire warning appeared in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail on Monday, April 3rd, 1939. The Monster was “loose again” and heading straight for the city’s storied Tivoli Theater.

We couldn’t let the 2014 run out without celebrating this year’s 75^th Anniversary of SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, and these great newspaper ads from Australia make for very original Ballyhoo.

On April 5, this next ad ran, proclaiming The Monster as “the screen’s most sensational character” and SON as “easily the best of the ‘Frankenstein’ films”.

Back in 1932, when the first Universal FRANKENSTEIN came to Brisbane and the same Tivoli Theater, the PR went into overdrive with handsomely illustrated ads, “we dare you” hype, nurses in attendance, and a Lloyds of London insurance policy covering the first person who might croak during a showing. The festivities included a live event — a “Frankenstein Night” — at the Carlton Cabaret, with The Monster putting in a personal appearance!

In 1939, the PR was toned down but, still, the ad copy was wildly enthusiastic, patrons were urged to book seats in advance against the expected crowds, and another live event was scheduled. Note, at bottom left of the ad, on that Wednesday, a “Frankenstein Thrill Night Dance” was to be held at the vast Trocadero dance hall. The venue was known to roll out elaborate displays on theme nights — various charity events or the annual Police Ball — and one wonders how the hall was decorated in celebration of a Frankenstein Thrill Night. There is no record of a Monster stalking the dance floor this time. 

Coming up: Another beautifully illustrated SON OF FRANKENSTEIN ad from the Brisbane papers of April 1939.

Related:
Frankenstein in Brisbane series.

Frankenstein in Brisbane, Part 5: Sit Up and Take Notice

The Monster in dramatic silhouette dares Brisbanians to see Frankenstein, June 1932. They responded in droves.

As the film played its weeklong engagement at the Tivoli, the management kept the ballyhoo on high, running a different newspaper ad every day. Another oft-used slogan for the film, The Monster is Loose!, accompanies a photo of Mae Clarke's bedside swoon. 

Frankenstein was pronounced “The picture that is making Brisbane sit up and take notice” and, indeed, its showing at the Tivoli was immediately followed by a stint at the Majestic, and then on to a third week at the Valley.

Opened in 1915 as a Vaudeville house, the Tivoli was a unique twin theater. The lavish, main auditorium held 1800 seats and the Roof Garden sat another 1200. The cold air plant inside and the roof theater's large awning with open sides made the Tivoli “the Coolest Theater in Australasia”. Repurposed in 1927 as a cinema, the Tivoli was then billed as “Brisbane’s Most Popular Talkie House”. It would fall to urban renewal in the late Sixties.

By the time Frankenstein played Brisbane, the film was already a top box-office draw. As we’ve seen over this series of posts, the PR people at the Tivoli, with bold ads and even an in-person Frankenstein appearance, made sure that everyone knew that The Monster was in town.

In weeks to come, we’ll visit other towns and enterprising theaters all over the world where Frankenstein was rolled out in style.

The History of Brisbane’s original Tivoli Theater
The History of Brisbane's Majestic Theatre

Frankenstein in Brisbane, Part 4: Commencing To-Day

A grim Monster, a portrait in pencils, dominates the opening day ad for Frankenstein at the Tivoli Theater in Brisbane.

Another striking newspaper ad illustrated by the same artist, Julian Rose, shows Karloff’s Monster glancing back at panicked patrons. The heart pounding blurb reads, “You hate it… fear it… yet it wrings your heart with pity!”. The insurance policy is in effect, that “you may take solace” knowing that your next of kin will collect should the movie scare you to death. There’s no provenance given for this clipping, and there were several Capitol theaters in Australia, all part of the Hoyt’s chain. 

Obviously, Rose used promotional stills as reference. The profile drawing is from a photo of The Monster in the windmill and the standing Monster was posed on the mountain set.

Julian Rose’s precise origins are unclear. His parents, named Reznik or Resnick, also Russianized as Rezhnikoff, came from Odessa and a younger brother, Lou, was born in Sydney. Julian first rose to prominence as a vaudeville performer, sometimes billed as The Singing Cartoonist. He worked under the name Don Julian, no doubt to avoid confusion with a Brooklyn-born Julian Rose, a popular “Hebrew comic” who shuttled regularly between England and Australia.

Affecting a comedic French accent, Rose’s act was described by one reviewer as a “Frenchy artist who does lightning and clever caricatures with crayons, to the patter of wisecracks”. An ad for the Grand Opera House in Wellington, where he shared billing with The Harmonylarity Duo and a team of acrobatic violinists, has Don Julian down as The Continental Cartoonist, adding “He speaks a wee bit of English, yes”.

Rose played Melbourne’s Tivoli — where Frankenstein would open — in 1928 alongside Schistl’s Marionettes (Little People were often billed as “dolls” or “marionettes”) and Joe Termini, The Somnolent Melodist. In 1928, Rose was hired for a two-year, worldwide tour as a supporting act for the great Harry Lauder, Britain’s most famous performer and once the highest-paid entertainer in the world.

Returning to home to Sydney in June 1930, Rose set up Advertising Art Service Ltd., a company that would produce commercial art and display advertising for theatre and film. He would still moonlight, on occasion, as The Singing Cartoonist, at least through the Thirties, though he would devote himself mostly to his Art Agency until the Fifties after which Mr. Rose drops off our radar.

Julian’s brother, Lou, also an artist, worked for Advertising Art Service in the Thirties, later going on to a highly distinguished career serving the Jewish community. In 1973, he designed and sculpted a plaque dedicated to the memory of the murdered Israeli athletes of the Munich Olympics for the Jewish Memorial Center in Canberra.

Julian Rose’s Frankenstein ads suggest that he was hired to provide illustrations promoting the film’s release nation wide. Though his art is often signed, any number of unsigned sketches and eerie silhouettes in newspaper ads could be his work. Furthermore, no posters for Frankenstein’s Australian release have yet surfaced, and one wonders if Rose designed or illustrated any Frankenstein poster art.

We’ll keep an eye out for more Frankenstein art by the remarkable Julian Rose. 

The Capitol Theater ad courtesy of Greggory's Shock Theatre.

With thanks to Robert Kiss for his impeccable and exhaustive research into the life and career of Julian Rose.

Related:
Frankenstein caricature by Australian cartoonist Harry Julius.

Frankenstein in Brisbane, Part 3: The Monster, in Person!

“A stir was caused when the Kiyogle mail train came to a standstill at the South Brisbane Station yesterday, and a man more than 7ft. in height, with his face hideously made up, stepped on to the platform to face a battery of cameras.”

So read a short notice under the title “Giant’s Arrival” in the Brisbane Courier of June 9, 1932. Frankenstein’s Monster had come to town.

The sullen, lanky gentleman in the clunky Monster boots was one Lance Robartson, “6ft. 11in. in his socks”, self-proclaimed Tallest Man in Australia. Reporters dwelled on Mr. Robartson’s difficulties in securing sleeping accommodations, train berths and hotel beds invariably too small and uncomfortable.

Robartson would appear at the posh Carlton Cabaret — “FRANKENSTEIN will be present… A Monster” — on the night before the film’s premiere. Ads promised an “Evening of melody, song, dancing and laughter”, but there is no record of how The Monster worked the room. Did he dance or sing? Was there a skit?

The Courier reported, simply, that “An enjoyable time was held at the Carlton Cabaret on Thursday evening”. A long list of guests was published, local bigwigs no doubt, treated to a dinner party by the Tivoli Theater management, and a note saying that Mr. Robartson would soon entrain for Melbourne. Beyond that, all traces of Mr. Robartson or his stint as a Frankenstein stand-in are lost. As of this writing, all we have are some newspaper ads and an old grainy photograph.

The Carlton Cabaret, adjoining the Carlton Hotel, opened in March of 1930 as “a social rendez-vous” and “a thoroughly modern amusement palace”. It was said to combine the best features of the world’s leading cabarets. Several rooms allowed for all-day operation, serving luncheon, “tea dansant”, dinner and evening entertainment. A ten-piece orchestra, reportedly among the highest paid bands in Australia, occupied “a raised dais of beautiful design” in the large ballroom, its dance floor a sprung and polished surface of redwood. Once an opulent showplace, the Carlton Cabaret was later cut up into smaller venues and finally demolished in the late Eighties.

Next up in this series: Frankenstein Opens!

Frankenstein in Brisbane, Part 2: An Epic of Terror

June, 1932. In the week leading up to the June 10 opening of Frankenstein, the management of Brisbane’s Tivoli theater ramps up the promotion. On Wednesday, June 8, a private screening is held for the press, and this fever-pitch preview ad appears in The Brisbane Courier. Click the image to see it large.

The Chilling Horror… The Icy Mystery Of A Hundred Thrilling Tales Frozen Into An EPIC OF TERROR reads the copy, against an intriguing, featureless outline drawing of The Monster. 
                                                              
Conceived in Madness! He wrecked coffins and stole bodies to make a creature with blotchy face and blackened lips… He packed the brain of a criminal into its misshapen head…

Ballyhoo was the art of exaggeration, over the top was the only way to go, and a film as exciting and unusual as Frankenstein invited extravagant hype, but few ads we’ve seen were as delirious as this one. Witness this existential description of the film’s extraordinary Monster…

Out of the void of the Infinite it came, a snarling monster that sweated death and madness.

And the Tivoli’s PR people weren’t done yet! Next up in the series: The Monster, in Person!

Related:
Frankenstein in Brisbane, Part 1: Free Insurance!

Frankenstein in Brisbane, Part 1: Free Insurance!

The Monster peers through a window at Elizabeth draped across the bed in a faint. The image evokes the scene where Boris Karloff’s Monster confronts Mae Clarke on her wedding day, staged by director James Whale in emulation of the Fuseli painting called The Nightmare.

Summer of ’32, Frankenstein, already a massive hit, was deploying to cinemas in America and all around the world. In Australia, the highly anticipated film demolished house records in Sydney and Perth. Booked into Brisbane for a June 10 premiere, the management of the Tivoli theatre turned on the ballyhoo. As a measure of the film’s expected success, a newspaper ad published on Tuesday, June 7, announces that “sessions” will begin at 9 AM, effectively adding a couple of lucrative showings to the day’s schedule.

Just so there was no doubt about the film’s shocks, “trained nurses”— as opposed, one imagines, to those unreliable, unskilled ones — are promised to be in attendance throughout the film’s run. And should nurses fail to save you, free insurance, taken out with Lloyd’s of London, guaranteed ₤1000 cash paid out to next of kin if you were the first patron to die “caused by, and during, the screening of ‘Frankenstein’.” Fortunately, there is no record of anyone having collected.

All that’s missing now is for the Frankenstein Monster himself to show up. But what’s that “Special Frankenstein Night” coming up at the Carlton Cabaret two days hence? Stick around and find out as the Frankenstein in Brisbane series continues through the coming week.

Related:
Frankenstein in Australia
Frankenstein in Sydney
Uncanny Creature
A Premiere in Perth