Shock Theater Frankenstein

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

Part One: Hard Sell

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

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

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

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

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

Part Two: The Ratings Are In

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shock Theater, Part Two The Ratings Are In

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read Shock Theatre, Part 1: Hard Sell Frankenstein

Rondo Awards Voting Closes April 7!

Last Call! Voting closes Sunday! There are only 13 days a few days left for YOU to decide who wins this year’s Rondo Awards, so wait no more!

The Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards celebrate “the best in monster research, creativity and film preservation”. The ballot — 35 categories! — is huge, but you can vote is as many or as few categories as you like. All the info is here.

Should you wish to give us your support, vote FRANKENSTEINIA for Best Blog, Category 19. And if you would consider me for the Writer’s Award, enter Pierre Fournier in Category 28.

This post, by the way, is the 801st since I launched the blog back in 2007. I made 104 posts last year, tracking Frankenstein in films, books, comics, art and popular culture. Here, for your consideration, are some of my personal favorites from 2012…

Ballyhoo, Oz-style… A case study in 5 posts on how the 1931 Frankenstein was promoted in Brisbane, including a photo of Australia’s Tallest Man touring the country in Frankenstein makeup and costume.

Primo Frankenstein… Unseen for 55 years, Primo Carnera’s TV Monster of 1957!

Cagney Does Frankenstein… Fun find as James Cagney pays onscreen homage to his friend Boris Karloff in Footlight Parade (1933).

And finally, I am very proud of my Silent Frankenstein series, 8 posts in all, featuring new information about the Edison Frankenstein of 1910; Life Without Soul of 1915 — notably how the film resurfaced in 1931 to compete with the blockbuster Karloff film! and Il Mostro di Frankenstein of 1920 — featuring vintage trade ads and the only known photograph from this lost film! The Silent series also covered Frankensteinian themes in silent films such as The Golem, Homunculus, Alraune, and many other titles.

My favorite post of all from last year was The Silent Frankenstein’s Roving Props about the Edison film of 1910, in which we learn that Charles Ogle’s creepy, branch-like hands came… from Mars! True! Go look!

Thank you for your kind consideration. The Rondo Award ballot is here. Voting closes April 7.

Cagney Does Frankenstein

Late 1931, James Whale’s Frankenstein was an instant hit. Propelled by its photogenic Monster, the film’s popularity grew as it circulated across America and around the world. Very quickly, “Frankenstein” was name-checked in movies — typically, a line in Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) went, “I don't know what he was, but he made Frankenstein look like a lily!”— and Karloff’s square-headed profile cameod in Betty Boop and Mickey Mouse cartoons.

One reference, significant but rarely if ever mentioned, punctuates a scene in Footlight Parade, a big budget Warner Bros musical of 1933. You can see the Frankenstein reference in the video clip embedded above. Here’s the set-up…

James Cagney plays an energetic musical comedy director who’s going out of business because of the new talking pictures. In the late Twenties, theaters had begun transitioning from live vaudeville to all-movie programs. By the early Thirties, with the advent of sound, short musical and comedy acts could be filmed and shown as cheap alternatives to increasingly expensive live entertainment. In Footlight Parade, Cagney’s character has a brainstorm: If he can put his shows — so-called “Prologues” — on tour, their cost would be shared across dozens, perhaps a hundred different theaters, making his live, “ready-made” Prologues affordable to exhibitors.

Soon, Cagney is in over his head managing several Prologues playing natiowide and having to come up with new themes every week to keep up with the demand. “I’m daffy coming up with new ideas,” he complains to his girl Friday, Joan Blondell. “We’ve done everything!” he says, pointing to a long list of touring “units” with themes including Soldier Girls, Bull Fighters, Ghosts, Voodoo, the Russian Revolution and a Cuban show. “A unit a week, where am I going to get any more ideas?”

Blondell talks Cagney into closing down for the night and going home to rest. Cagney reluctantly agrees and, as he walks away, he can’t help coming up with a new idea…

Cagney starts for the door and jerks to a stop. “Say,” he asks. “What’s the name of that foreigner that built a monster he couldn’t stop?” . “Frankenstein” Blondell replies. “Shake hands with his Aunt Emma!” Cagney quips. Then comes the payoff: Cagney opens the door, stops, stands with his back to us, and turns. “Frankenstein…” he says. “Swell idea for a unit!”

The scene might suggest that Cagney sees himself as Frankenstein, overwhelmed by his work, a monster he can’t stop. More obviously, the scene shows Cagney as preoccupied and always “on”, thinking up new themes even when he’s knocking off for the day. Best of all, Cagney takes it to the limit, specifically referencing The Monster’s introduction when Karloff first appears at the laboratory door, backing into the room and slowly turning on the doorstep for his big reveal. 

Footlight Parade — with 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933 — was the last of a trio of Warners musicals released in 1933, all featuring incredibly elaborate musical numbers staged by the legendary Busby Berkeley. A late pre-code film, it abounds in racy dialog — with many great lines delivered by the fabulous Blondell — and risqué situations, notably the Honeymoon Hotel number. It even dares to lampoon censors, with comic Hugh Herbert appearing as a clownish inspector. At its core, Footlight Parade is just another “Show Must Go On’ musical, albeit one done on a dazzling scale. It’s also wildly  entertaining yet, for all its memorable music and All-Star cast, what had audiences really buzzing was leading man Cagney, best known for his violent, tough-guy gangster roles, who steps up and delivers a formidable song and dance number in the film’s all-out finale.

In another Frankenstein connection, one of the waterlogged chorus girls in the film’s mind-boggling By a Waterfall number was Cynthia Lindsay, a one time stunt double who went on to write TV sitcoms, notably episodes of My Three Sons in the Sixties. In 1975, Lindsay wrote Dear Boris, an affectionate biography of family friend Boris Karloff.

Here's a terrific, vintage trailer for Footlight Parade.

Related:
Cagney Does Frankenstein, Again!

The Posters of Frankenstein : La Maison de Dracula

A followup to House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945) used a similar formula, each of its all-star monster cast characters featured in individual segments, with little or no interaction. Tying everything together is Onslow Stevens as an intense doctor — soon made mad — who proposes cures for vampirism, lycanthropy and, er, hunchbackism. A bit of a novelty, the hunchback assistant is female, nurse Nina, played by Jane Adams.

In the waning moments of this 67-minute thriller, poisoned by Dracula’s blood, the now Jekyll/Hyde-like doc reanimates Frankenstein’s Monster, but his plans for world domination are quickly thwarted by a handful of townspeople, the heroics of Larry Talbot — a Wolf Man cured of his full-moon addiction — and a catastrophic house fire.

Posters for Universal’s Monster Rallies typically feature its creature stars as a parade of floating heads around a central image. Here, on a luminous — almost radioactive — poster for the 1947 French release, we have John Carradine as Dracula with a pencil mustache, Glenn Strange as The Monster, Lon Chaney as The Wolf Man and Mad Doctor Onslow Stevens. The balletic central image has the titular vampire, in top hat and a sweeping crimson-lined cape, menacing the stunning Martha O’Driscoll.

Related:
A Spanish poster for House of Dracula.

Hellboy Meets Frankenstein

Hellboy turns wrestler and goes up against a battling Frankenstein Monster in House of the Living Dead, a graphic novel to coming in November.

If you only know the character from the films, fine as they are, you don’t know Hellboy. Mike Mignola’s comic books are much darker and more complex, evoking Lovecraft, Machen and Poe. Here, eerie Victorian ghost stories, ancient mythology and supernatural folk tales collide with Vernian technology, pulse-pounding pulp sensibilities and b-movie tropes.

The success of Hellboy has spawned a mini-universe of spinoff titles featuring imaginative characters such as the amphibian Abe Sapien and the Nazi-busting Lobster Johnson. Among these, B.P.R.D., about a team or paranormal investigators, is a singularly brilliant horror comic. I urge you to seek out the B.P.R.D. collections plotted by Mignola, with superlative scripts by John Arcudi and outstanding art by Guy Davis.

In recent years, Mignola has been concentrating on writing, reserving his elegant, much-copied but unequaled art for covers and leaving the insides to other artists. Such is the case with Hellboy: House of the Living Dead, with story and cover (above) by Mignola, and the rest entrusted to the great Richard Corben.

Mignola has stated that House of the Living Dead takes its thematic cue from the classic Universal Monster Rallies, House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, where a parade of monsters take their turn in the spotlight. The story picks up from Hellboy in Mexico (or, A Drunken Blur), a one-shot comic from 2010 by Mignola and Corben in which Hellboy teamed up with a trio of monster-hunting luchadores. This time, Hellboy, in full Santo mode, goes head to head with a patchwork Frankenstein wrestler.

Hellboy: House of the Living Dead, published by Dark Horse, will hit stores on November 9.

An interview with Mike Mignola about House of the Living Dead, on Comic Book Resources.

Publisher’s page for Hellboy: House of the Living Dead.

Publisher’s page for Hellboy in Mexico, featuring sample pages.

Mike Mignola’s website.

Richard Corben’s website.

Related:
Mike Mignola's Bride of Frankenstein
The Frankenstein Dracula War covers by Mike Mignola

Frankenstein's Flower Games

The Little Maria scene from James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) is rendered in petals, seeds and leaves on Universal Pictures’ float in the Tournament of Roses Parade held in Pasadena on New Year’s Day, 1969.

The Rose Parade is an American institution, first held way back in 1890 as a means of promoting Southern California’s year-round mild climate, exemplified by flowers in full bloom, even as the rest of America was laboring under cold and snow. The annual affair was originally accompanied by polo games, carnival exhibitions and exotic animal races until 1916 when a college football game, the Rose Bowl, became the Parade’s permanent companion event. By the 1930s, touted by newspapers as “the biggest thing of its kind in the country”, the Rose Parade was drawing over a million spectators and traveled across the country through movie newsreels and magazine spreads. In 1932, the Pittsburgh Press noted that the Parade and the attendant Tulane-Southern California football game would be “visualized for radio listeners” across America on the NBC network. In the Fifties, the Rose Parade was a natural for television, and even more so when color broadcasting began.

Universal’s 1969 float, called Remember When, landed the event’s Grand Prize with its rotating billboard-sized scenes from Frankenstein, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Phantom of the Opera (1925) and the then upcoming Sweet Charity (1969).

Details about past parades, anything ten years or older, is hard to come by. Digging through newspaper archives reveal a few more Frankenstein Rose Parade appearances. The 1993 event featured a gigantic Universal Monsters float with a tuxedoed, green-headed Frankie driving a massive vintage car with monster pal passengers The Bride, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Phantom of the Opera, and a 30-foot high Dracula. Sponsored by The Bank of America, this one brought home the Governor’s Award — for reasons unfathomable — as Best Depiction of Life in California. Fortunately, there survives a YouTube videoclip of the Universal Monsters float. It’s astounding how BIG this thing was.

Reports of the 1997 Parade single out the low altitude flyby of a B52 Stealth bomber and a Bride of Frankenstein float that earned a special award for humor. The Associated Press described the scene: “A giant black-and-white bride of Frankenstein clutching a picture of her beloved raised an arm and sat up from a laboratory table to the tune of ‘You Light Up My Life’.”

Another AP report from 1999 mentions a Classic Movie Monsters float sponsored by the United States Postal Service featuring Frankenstein and “real-life mistress of the night” Elvira appearing in a crypt setting. Yet another trophy-winning effort, Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) remembers the experience as “pretty damn strange”. The float broke down and had to be unceremoniously towed along Colorado Boulevard. The Postal Service, quipped AP, “couldn’t deliver”.

Hopefully, photos of the 1997 Bride and the 1999 Elvira Meets Frankenstein floats will surface. Most of all, I’d love to see the 1969 Frankenstein panel in color, and the Phantom of the Opera image, too. If anyone has them, please share!

Frankenstein panel at top courtesy of journalist and film historian David Del Valle.

Color photo of the 1969 Universal float via JVH33 on Flickr.

Tournament of Roses Parade website.

The Boris Karloff Blogathon : Day Two

Boris takes a standing tea break while technicians tinker on the set of The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

Let’s see, we had an incredible 54 links posted on Day One of the Boris Karloff Blogathon! I woke up to 58 emails containing links, questions, requests and comments. Then we had a maintenance outage on Blogger, and the usual complement of weird glitches expected when you’re making a long, continuously updated post. No worries, I should get the hang of this by, say, Sunday, but then it’ll be all over.

A special note to contributors: I had meant to reply to every email you sent in, but obviously, the huge response to the Blogathon is eating up all my time. So please accept, here, my sincere thanks for your wonderful contributions! The range of subjects and the quality of your work is phenomenal, and I know, from comments posted here and received by email, that everybody is enjoying the Blogathon.

And a note to readers: Post comments when you see something you like! Every blogger appreciates an opinion, a remark, or just a thumbs up for all the work he or she devotes to his or her blog.

OK, so let’s get The Boris Karloff Blogathon, Day Two underway!

The European night shift is busy again, with Filo, out in Paris, contributing a selection of images from Karloff by Peter Underwood, the first Boris biography, published in 1972. On Deadlicious.

Based on several links posted yesterday, Gold Key’s Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery comic books provided an introduction to Boris for many fans.

Peter Osterled of Six-Shooter posts a cover gallery of the German edition, simply and significantly titled “Boris Karloff”. With a name as instantly recognisable, you really didn’t need to spell out what the comics were about.

I've got a handful of screen caps from The Invisible Ray (1936) up on my picture blog, Monster Crazy.

Karloff comics, again…

Karswell, whose The Horrors of It All is an essential daily ritual for me, posts The Hand in the Wall, with art by Jerry Robinson, from Boris Karloff Thriller No. 1, the comic book that would morph into Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery.

Over on Dravens Tales, see the trailer for Vatche Arabian’s makeup-centric documentary Kreating Karloff.

Can you stand the Boris Karloff Ronson Comet Lighter Torture Test? A Vintage commercial, courtesy of Wouldn't You Like to See Something Strange?

Another Karloff commercial, this one a print ad from the Forties featuring Boris in his Broadway hit play Arsenic and Old Lace. A Blogathon contribution from artist extraordinaire Richard Sala.

Sometimes images speak for themselves. The arresting film images displayed on Obscure Hollow betray impeccably eerie taste and eye for haunted aesthetics. Words are unnecessary, descriptions would be superfluous. Case in point, these haunting, enigmatic images from The Walking Dead capture the film’s underlying dread, its climate of apprehension. Let your eyes and your heart decipher their meaning.

Paul Castiglia continues to explore the career of Boris Karloff, Master of Comedy, with a look at The Boogieman Will Get You, a 1942 horror-comedy that managed to be neither scary, nor particularly funny. Still, it’s got Karloff and Peter Lorre, and Paul gives the film a thorough analysis. Posted over at Scared Silly.

Americans are celebrating Thanksgiving this week. In 1950, it fell on Thursday, November 23 and, on that day, Boris Karloff celebrated his 63rd birthday in New York, dressed up as Captain Hook, surrounded by rowdy buccaneers, riding a pirate ship float in Macy’s Parade!

It’s a wonderful tale, beautifully told by Jacqueline T. Lynch on Another Old Movie Blog. You must read this one!

George D. Allen writes, “With swine flu and religious extremism (sadly) popular topics of conversation at the close of the first decade of the 21st century, few Boris Karloff films are as topical as Isle of the Dead”.

Karloff’s collaboration with writer/producer Val Lewton and director Mark Robson produced a film that is timeless and, indeed, timely. “The real fireworks, of course, belong to Karloff, “ reports Allen, “whose journey from sanity to madness is a marvel of discretion and raw force.”

Read the full review of Isle of the Dead on MovieFanFare.

Of all the films announced but never made, the most intriguing title ever proposed for Karloff was A Trip to Mars, to be directed by James Whale! The title conjures up images of futuristic Art Deco sets, spark-spitting Flash Gordon rockets, Buck Rogers rayguns and Ken Strickfaden mad labs. Illustrator Rob Kelly takes it further: He casts the films with Whale regulars and designs the poster for it!

See Boris Karloff’s Trip to Mars on Rob Kelly Illustrations.

Gleam of Evil is another story from the decidedly esteemed Boris Karloff Thriller No.1. Something about killer cats, posted, appropriately, by Kitty LeClaw at Killer Kittens from Beyond the Grave.

Orrin Grey writes, “Characters like John Gray and Master Sims from Bedlam don’t invite pity, but Karloff brings to them a reality that makes it impossible for them not to invite some understanding.”

Here’s Orrin’s review of The Body Snatcher.

Illustrator, cartoonist and designer Dave Lowe turns his Web Comic page, Para Abnormal, over to the Karloff Blogathon this week. Two posts already up: Imhotep gets the Shepard Fairey treatment, and Dr. Frankenstein goes shopping for brains.

Lon Chaney takes Boris Karloff for a ride. Words of wisdom for a young actor, from The Man of a Thousand Faces. On The Roads of Autumn Dusk.

In 1958, Boris donned scars and a badass crewcut to play Dr. Frankenstein, brewing up an atomic monster in the far-flung future of 1970.

Micha Michelle tells the story of Frankenstein 1970 in 23 sublime screen caps, on Obscure Hollow.

Micha will also be contributing through her own blog, Baking With Medusa. Proclaiming WE LOVE BORIS K, Micha writes, “His very name launches a million smiles throughout my entire being and a slight tingle up my spine”.

Raid the kid’s craft supplies for glue, glitter and construction paper. Later this week, Micha will be posting some do-it-yourself Karloff Crafts!

Fire... Good? Here's that great Ronson lighter ad again, posted on Igloo of the Uncanny.

On Silents and Talkies, Kate Gabrielle singles out The Body Snatcher as Karloff’s best performance and provides a beautiful ink wash drawing of Boris.

More art: Zombie Rust posts a large assortment of his drawings, all inspired by Boris.

Boris was as masterful behind a microphone as he was in front of a camera. Blogue Macabre posts selections from classic radio programs Lights Out, Inner Sanctum and Suspense.

Here’s more of Karloff’s unforgettable voice: Listen to The Hand of Fate and Don’t Lose Your Head, from Tales of the Frightened, on The Captain’s Ramblings.

Get Your Karloff Face On! Arbogast on Film steps through Karloff’s career, and his life, with a straightfoward gallery of head shots.

Before I Hang and The Boogie Man Will Get You, reviewed on Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.

There’s a blast of Karloff imagery up on the Portuguese blog, Periodic Circumspection.

Boris Goes Ape! Karloff and Crash Corrigan share a gorilla suit in The Ape, on Radiation-Scarred Reviews.

This Guy Over Here corrals the Top 10 Boris Karloff Films.

Oriental detectives were practically a fixture of Hollywood’s Golden Era, usually played by Europeans with, unfortunately, Asian actors relegated to minor parts. It’s much to Karloff’s credit that he brought a quiet dignity to his interpretation of Mr. Wong.

Chris Regan posts a perceptive survey of the Monogram series on Writer By Night.

Boris narrates Rudyard Kiplings' How The Rhinoceros Got His Skin, posted on Wouldn’t You Like to See Something Strange? and Need Coffee dot com.

Boris Karloff was enormously proud of his collaborations with producer Val Lewton at RKO. He obviously relished the intelligent chills and mature horrors he was given to play in.

Critic Doug Bentin examines Bedlam, from 1946, noting that “Karloff delivers one of his best and oiliest performances”, which is really saying something!

“The Grinch had a wonderful, awful idea…” One of Boris’ immortal roles, remembered by Halloween Spirit, on Orange and Black.

Boris shops for horror comics. A great picture, on This Woman's Work.

El coleccionista de cadáveres, Blindman's Bluff, Cauldron of Blood, and The Corpse Collectors… It’s all the same film! And its all sorted out very nicely at The Amazing Movie Show.

Pete Regan shares his student animation reel that includes a wonderful story, An Appointment in Samarra, narrated by Boris himself — lifted from Targets. On No More Ghostly Game, Trick or Treat.

Boris and Bela go head to head in the most unusual film of the Universal canon, The Black Cat (1934). The Cathode Ray Mission pays homage with a set of feverish images.

The phenomenal success of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) launched the comedy duo on a seemingly endless series of Meet The Monster films. First one up was Boris himself, in a film that would bear his name, Abbott and Costello Meet The Killer, Boris Karloff.

The Lightning Bug gives it a spin in Who’s On First? No. Boris Killed Him!

And now, on to the Boris Karloff Blogathon,
Day Three!

Elvis Meets Frankenstein

The Frankenstein Monster is more popular than the King of Rock n Roll, signing autographs for admiring bobbysoxers as a befuddled Army Elvis looks on.

Monsters were all the rage in 1958, a phenomenon sparked a year earlier when Universal released its catalog of classic horror films to television. The trend percolated into the publishing field, notably with the launch, in February 1958, of the highly influential Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. In my previous post, we looked at Monster Parade, the first of countless FM-inspired titles, but the rise of monstermania was not limited to monster movie magazines in the FM mold.

In April 1958, Headline Publications’ Super-Science Fiction digest proclaimed a “Special Monster Issue!” in bold letters over its title. Stories like Vampires from Outer Space and The Abominable Creature signaled an editorial shift, mixing horror, and more specifically monsters, into its science fiction pulp. Three more issues appeared before the title folded, all of them announcing MONSTERS on their covers.

In May of ’58, a Mad magazine knockoff appeared, complete with its requisite mascot. The magazine, published by Counterpoint, Inc., was called Thimk and its Alfred E. Neuman was Otis Dracenstein, a flattop, scar-faced, bolt-necked Frankenstein featured on the covers and in cartoon strips within. In a reverse gag situation that heralds elements of The Munsters (1964), Otis is a perfect gentleman and his monster friends are “normal”, while regular people act like horrible monsters. In September ’58, the “Special Monster Issue” of Thimk had Otis and his pal Dracula on the cover sharing an ice cream soda.

The magazine’s title is a reference joke mostly lost on us today. In the first half of the 20th century, “Think!” was the motto of the IBM Company. Mad magazine spoofed that as “Plan Ahead! Thimk!” Seems like Mad not only inspired Thimk’s format, but its title as well.

Elvis appeared in Army uniform on Thimk’s December cover. The draft-era Presley had been inducted into the military on March 24 and the U.S.Army’s public relations branch made the most of it, releasing a steady stream of the rockin’ G.I.’s photographs to an insatiable press. The cover would have recalled widely distributed shots of the American star in dress uniform mobbed by fans in Germany, where he was stationed, or on leave in Paris.

Thimk is largely forgotten today, one of countless Mad clones. Glimpses of its contents found online suggest that Thimk, for a humor magazine, wasn’t all that funny. Of course, time and context are factors. Maybe Thimk played funny and cool for youngsters in 1958. Then again, maybe not. The magazine only lasted one year, six issues in all.

Thimk is mentioned, along with its Horror Host connection, Sir Rodger, on E-Gor’s Chamber of Horror Hosts by George Chastain.

Excerpts from Thimk on Jay Stephens’ Monsterama.

Elvis gags from Thimk on the Rare-Elvis site here and here.