Broadway's Infamous Frankenstein of 1981

Here’s Gilbert Lesser’s classic poster for the infamous 1981 Broadway production of Frankenstein, a show that opened and closed on the same day.

Written by Victor Gialanella, this adaptation first played to good reviews at the Repertory Theatre of St.Louis, in March and April of 1979. Translating to Broadway, the play acquired an extravagant budget and massive, state of the art sets, including a towering fuse-blower lab for the creation scene. The usual number of stagehands was tripled to 35 just to handle the set pieces rotating into view on a giant turntable or swinging in from the rafters. The show’s opening, set for December 1980, was bumped twice, first to allow fine-tuning of the complex special effects, and again when lead actor William Converse-Roberts, as Victor Frankenstein, was replaced by David Dukes. Other cast members included Dianne Wiest as Elizabeth and Keith Jochim, brought over from the St.Louis version, as The Creature. In an inspired bit of casting, the formidable John Carradine appeared as the Blind Hermit. Forty-five years earlier, he had played a bit part as a hunter who stumbled into the Blind Hermit’s cabin and beheld Karloff’s Monster in Bride of Frankenstein.

Problems multiplied and costs soared through rehearsals and over a run of 29 previews. When it finally premiered at The Palace on Sunday, January 4, 1981, the unanimously dire reviews dealt this Frankenstein the final blow.

The New York Times’ Frank Rich was suitably impressed by the spectacular effects, the overwhelming sets and director Tom Moore’s “sure pictorial sense”, but noted that actors “hardly register against all the smoke and fog.” The narrative, Rich opined, was “plodding”, “stilted” and “lead-footed”, merging scenes from James Whale’s 1931 film and Mary Shelley’s novel into “a talky, stilted mishmash that fails to capture either the gripping tone of the book or the humorous pleasure of the film.” Jochim’s Monster “learns to talk - and once he does, he refuses to shut up… Though elaborately made up with the requisite cranial fissures, Mr. Jochim lacks a commanding physical or vocal presence. He's just a beery lout in a Halloween costume.” Also singled out for criticism was the “B-movie musical score” with spooky organ riffs, “thrown on top of the show's other noise to announce the desired emotional effect of each scene.”

In the end, Rich noted, “We feel nothing except the disappointment that comes from witnessing an evening of misspent energy. ''Frankenstein'' may be the last word in contemporary theatrical technology, but its modern inventions are nothing without the alchemy of plain, old-fashioned drama.”

Frankenstein was shuttered by dawn. Over the next 48 hours, desperate attempts were made to save the show. Cast members volunteered for pay cuts and creators waived their royalties. One plan called for investors to pony up an additional $400,000 for retooling and television commercials, but at two million and counting — four times the initial budget — Frankenstein was already the costliest of all Broadway failures, earning a permanent spot on top ten flop lists. On Wednesday, January 7, the show was officially cancelled.

Gilbert Lesser’s poster fared better. No sooner was it printed that it was snapped up by the Museum of Modern Art. "The show's folding notice wasn't even up yet,” Lesser recalled, “when the museum called to tell me the poster had been chosen for its permanent collection. It's the highest of honors."

Lesser (1935-19990) was a pure designer, working with geometrical shapes and typography to achieve rigorously sparse and stunning images. His theatrical contributions included a now famous poster for Equus using flat shapes like puzzle pieces for an image evoking Picasso’s Guernica. Lesser’s poster for The Elephant Man used the pictogram for ‘man’, skewing its limbs and replacing the dot on top with a large circle, suggesting the character’s misshapen head. For Frankenstein, Lesser took the original St.Louis poster — a monster’s white hand against a black background — to another level, using torn paper to assemble the jigsaw hand. Lesser was of a school of stark design with Saul Bass, and his Frankenstein poster recalls Bass’ posters and title sequences for Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and Bunny Lake is Missing (1965).

Victor Gialanella’s Frankenstein, in its original, pre-Broadway version, continues to be staged to this day. To be fair, the infamous Broadway version had been heavily rewritten. The author would go on to a brilliant career in television, earning two Daytime Emmy Awards for his work on Guiding Light and Days of Our Lives.

An appreciation of Gilbert Lesser, from The Baltimore Sun.

Frank Rich’s New York Times Review of Frankenstein (1981).

How Broadway’s Frankenstein “nearly came back to life”.

Edison's Frankenstein: A Physicalogical Phantasy

A hundred and one years ago, when the first Frankenstein film came to Bemidji, Minnesota, the Majestic Theatre advertised it as “A Physicalogical Phantasy”. What that means is anybody’s guess.

The Majestic Theater, inaugurated in December 1909, was one of a new wave of movie houses that would replace the fast-fading storefront Nickelodeons. The local paper reported that, “Mr. Currie”, then manager, “has the very best movie-making machine that Edison has ever devised, and with his personal knowledge of every intricate movement of the machine, the results are indeed splendid.”

The Frankenstein ad appeared on May 6, 1910, in the Daily Pioneer. On the same page, the Social and Personal column, a random collection of gossip, community news and product placement, ran a plug for the film as “one of the interesting and fascinating pictures ever thrown upon the screen. See it tonight…”

The evening’s entertainment kicked off with a fancy Overture featuring Miss Hazel Fellows. A song, no doubt, accompanied by the pianist who would play through the evening, providing music for the films. Miss Fellows, a frequent performer at the Majestic, was probably local talent. By the following year, she’d changed her first name to Hazelle, which certainly sounded more artistique. I’d like to think that Miss Fellows provided some novelty, playing a banjo or the ukulele, maybe working in a few dance steps.

The Edison Kinetograph’s Frankenstein was up next. Shot on a Brooklyn rooftop just four months prior, the film went into circulation on May 18. Its stars, Charles Ogle, Augustus Phillips and Mary Fuller were Kinetograph regulars, miss Fuller on her way to silent-era stardom. The film has miraculously survived for us to judge, but what a thrill it must have been to see it when it was new, and pristine.

Next came an “illustrated song”, in which a popular song was either performed live or a recording played while a dozen or so glass slides were projected, “illustrating” the lyrics. The elaborately posed photographs, lavishly hand colored, bankrolled by sheet music vendors, were the music videos of the times. A vastly popular form of entertainment, some Nickelodeons played nothing but illustrated songs, with vaudeville performers and future film stars such as Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor and Fatty Arbuckle appearing as models. Audiences would often demand repeat viewings. Sing-alongs were encouraged.

“I’m Going to Do What I Please”, written by music publisher Ted Snyder and lyricist Alfred Bryan was one of the most popular songs of its day. Snyder, a future songwriting Hall of Famer, also wrote The Sheik of Araby and Who’s Sorry Now?, and famously gave Irving Berlin his first break.

Rounding up the evening’s entertainment, “Another Of Those Thrilling Wild West Stories”, was The Girl and the Fugitive, starring Gilbert Anderson, the original Bronco Bill, the movie’s first cowboy star. Anderson had appeared, playing three different roles, in Edwin S. Porter’s seminal The Great Train Robbery (1903). He went on to write, direct, produce and star in his own movies. In 1907, he co-founded the famous Essanay Studios where he made some 300 short films, half of them westerns. The Girl and the Fugitive, released on March 9, 1910, was just one of the 44 Bronco Bill films made that year.

All told, the Majestic’s complete program ran about an hour. Not bad for ten cents. Children paid a nickel. I wonder if any kids were upset by Ogle’s scarecrow-like Frankenstein Monster.

And I wonder if anyone ever made out what a Physicalogical Phantasy was.

Related:
Watch the Edison Kinetoscope Frankenstein of 1910
The First Frankenstein of the Movies
After Frankenstein
A Weird, Fantastic Conception: Edison’s Frankenstein in New Zealand
The Silent Frankensteins

Frankenstein in Stitches

Several comments posted here, on Facebook and points between have noted how Primo Carnera’s Frankenstein makeup from 1957, revealed here last week, was very similar to that worn by Robert De Niro in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein of 1994.

True enough. Bald and stitched cranium, sutured cheeks, upper lip and chin, and a damaged left eye. Very similar indeed, but Primo and Bobby were neither the first nor last of their monstrous kind.

Lon Chaney’s Monster for TV’s Tales of Tomorrow in 1952 heralded Carnera’s version with a baldhead and face-splitting stitch work. Springing 60 years ahead, the effect was revisited and worn by Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch, sharing the part, in the celebrated British National Theater version of 2011. Call it same-school monster makeup.

Somewhat related, without facial distress, chrome-dome Monsters are known to sport ‘round the head, dotted line stitching indicating radical brain surgery. The two finest examples are — going from the ridiculous to the sublime — Cal Bolder in Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966) and Freddie Jones’s heart wrenching Creature in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969).

These Frankenstein Monsters are of a family. When opting for a baldhead look, similarities are perhaps inevitable. There are only so many ways to stitch a baseball.

Related:
Exclusive! The Monster: Primo Carnera
Exclusive! 1957 Frankenstein Makeup Session
Revealed!
TV’s Lost Frankenstein of 1957
Tales of Tomorrow: Frankenstein’s Notorious TV Adventure.

The Posters of Frankenstein : Constantin Belinsky

The Monster and attending Mad Scientists are blinded by the light of a glorious, luminescent Bride on this pastel poster by Constantin Belinsky (1904-1999) marking the release of Bride of Frankenstein in France, in 1935.

Belinsky arrived in Paris from his native Ukraine in 1925. He would come to share his time between commercial work as a movie poster artist and fine arts as an award-winning sculptor. His first poster was a vivid one-sheet for Scarface with a prominent credit for Boris Karloff. Though many of his posters were done in traditional oils, he was also known for his unique, modernistic posters with angular drawings and flat, vibrant colors.

After a wartime lull when his poster work fell way off — he managed to produce two elaborate posters for the 1943 Phantom of the Opera — Belinsky picked up again in the late Forties and became, through the next three decades, one of the most prolific movie poster artists in Europe. He would create art for the French release of such genre titles as The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Mole People, Creature from the Black Lagoon (and sequels), The Deadly Mantis, The Monolith Monsters, Monster on the Campus, Dinosaurus and Destroy All Monsters.

Belinsky also produced numerous posters for Sword and Sandal epics, Spaghetti Westerns and B-grade gangster movies, culminating in a series of Seventies Kung Fu action posters until his retirement in 1983. Along the way, he painted a number of Hammer Films posters, notably Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, and classic exploitation work including Ricardo Freda’s The Specter of Dr. Hichcock (aka The Ghost) and Jean Rollin’s The Lake of the Living Dead/Zombie Lake.

Constantin Belinsky’s fabulous Fiancée poster is signed “C Belin”, a form he abandoned early in favor of “C Belinsky” or, more often, simple initials: “CB”. Film historian Christophe Blier published a book, Constantin Belinsky: 60 ans d’affiches de cinéma in 2000. Long out of print, it deserves to be reissued.

Related:
The Posters of Frankenstein

A FRANKENSTEINIA EXCLUSIVE! The Monster : Primo Carnera

Always formidable looking to an opponent, former heavyweight champion Primo Carnera, 6 feet, 1 inch and 280 pounds, will scare the cold cream and curlers off the average housewife with his portrayal of Frankenstein.

Thus read the caption to this United Press Telephoto sent out to newspapers on February 2nd, 1957, promoting the February 5 broadcast of the NBC Matinee Theatre adaptation of Frankenstein. The presentation, the network insisted, “will not follow the movie as done by Boris Karloff but does follow the novel”.

The stunning image of Primo Carnera in full makeup was accompanied by a comparison photo of the smiling actor and suggested for use in tandem with a short news item by UP’s Aline Mosby. As an interesting side note, Mosby was the Los Angeles-based United Press reporter who famously revealed that Marilyn Monroe had posed for a nude calendar. She would become the first American female correspondent in Moscow where, in 1959, writing about American defectors, she interviewed one Lee Harvey Oswald. After the JFK assassination, Mosby’s recollections became part of the Warren Report. In Moscow, Mosby also interviewed the notorious Doctor Demikhov, the “real life Frankenstein” whose grafting experiments led to the creation of a two-headed dog. Mosby’s would go on to serve in Paris, London, Vienna and New York. In 1979, she opened the UPI’s first bureau in Beijing, China.

Primo Carnera’s acting career would remain a sideline to his athletic endeavors. A mere ten days after the Frankenstein broadcast, Carnera was in Sydney, Australia, where he drew a record crowd of 20,000 at the White City tennis stadium for a bout against Emile Czaja, nicknamed King Kong. The Vancouver Sun reported, “The match was declared no contest when both wrestlers fell out of the ring and Carnera began punching King Kong.”

Carnera’s crazily stitched Frankenstein Monster stares dead-eyed back at us across 55 years, long gone but no longer forgotten, thanks to film archeologist George Chastain.

Related:
Exclusive! 1957 Frankenstein Makeup Session
Revealed! TV’s Lost Frankenstein of 1957

A FRANKENSTEINIA EXCLUSIVE!1957 Frankenstein Makeup Session

Collector George Chastain does it again! Back in November, we posted a fabulous photo he’d uncovered of Primo Carnera’s wardrobe and makeup test for the February 1957 Frankenstein episode of NBC’s Matinee Theater. Now, new photos have surfaced and, again, Mr. Chastain is generously sharing them here with Frankensteinia readers.

The two AP wirepotos show boxer/wrestler turned actor Carnera submitting to makeup men for a January 30th dress rehearsal. The broadcast went out live from Burbank, California on February 5.

The photos show two stages of the application. First, Carnera is fitted with a skullcap and, later on, the full-face makeup is completed with textured skin and a network of crude stitches. Five artists were required to transform Carnera into The Monster, three of them seen in the photos. Walter Schenck and Edwin Butterworth would work together again, twenty years later, on the 1977 film version of The Island of Dr. Moreau. William “Bill” Morley was makeup man on the AIP TV special, The Wild Weird World of Dr. Goldfoot in 1965.

Matinee Theatre’s Frankenstein of 1957 is one of many lost programs from the early days of TV. These images, unseen for 55 years, are possibly the only remaining record of this historical broadcast.

But wait… There’s one more! Check this post for the most stunning portrait you are ever likely to see of Primo Carnera as Frankenstein’s Monster!

With thanks to George Chastain.

Related:
Revealed! TV’s Lost Frankenstein of 1957

The Great War Frankenstein

This editorial cartoon appeared on the front page of the original Washington Times — no relation to the current newspaper of that name — on May 12, 1918. The Kaiser figure in ceremonial uniform — “Afraid that the monster of his own creation will destroy him” — cowers from a looming giant wearing an eerie-looking gasmask, wielding a bomb, poison gas and “liquid fire”, a term describing gasoline or naphtha-spitting flamethrowers, sometimes mounted on airplanes.

The Frankenstein comment refers to Germany’s own attack strategies being used against it, The Monster effectively turning on its creator. “Germany is suggesting mutual cessation of air raids and gas attacks now that we have secured the ascendancy in both”. There would be six more months of horrific warfare until Armistice, in November.

The original Washington Times, first published in 1884, went through a succession of owners including, for a time, William Randolph Hearst. Eventually called The Washington-Times Herald, it was absorbed by The Washington Post in the 1950s.

The striking pen and ink drawing is signed, but I can’t make out the name. Can anybody ID the artist?

Nurses will be in attendance

Real live nurses and a real ambulance from nearby St.Joseph’s Hospital are ready to handle panicked patrons as Frankenstein comes to Parkersburg, West Virginia. It’s early 1932, with Holiday decorations still in evidence.

The nurse gag was a ballyhoo staple, arching back to the silent era and still in use as late as 1973 to promote The Exorcist. Stretchers, a waiting ambulance and girls in starched white costume patrolling the lobby with smelling salts were sure signs that the current feature was meant to wrack nerves.

Note the banner stretched under the marquee, spelling out the title in die-cut letters. It was offered through Universal’s Campaign Book to exhibitors as “A giant streamer to give your front and lobby that ‘Frankenstein’ flash!” It could be stretched “to fit any desired space… around the edge of the marquee, across the top of the main entrance, along lobby walls… Put them up wherever you need extra life in the lobby.”

The streamer, made of extra-ply cardboard and printed in two colors, came strung with two wires and ready for hanging, all for $2.50. None of these wonderful banners appear to have survived.

The Smoot Theater was originally built for vaudeville in 1926 by the Smoot Amusement Company. Just four years on, it was bought by Warners and transformed into a Vitaphone/Movietone movie house, “comfortably cooled”. A simple brick building with terra cotta decorations on its façade, the typically lavish movie palace trappings were reserved for its interiors, notably some Tiffanesque hand-cut Austrian chandeliers, mahogany and brass doors, and gold gilding throughout. For a time, the Smoot was Parkersburg’s finest theatre. Movie stars and famous performers stopped over when swinging through the region. Guests included Rudolph Valentino, Guy Lombardo, Miss West Virginia and, in 1939, an visiting army of Munchkins, and two elephants.

Time and urban renewal caught up with the Smoot in 1986 when it was shuttered and marked for demolition, despite being listed on the American National Register of Historic Places. In 1989, literally two days before its scheduled extreme transformation into a parking lot, the theater was saved through community effort. Today, the grand old Smoot Theater is a vital showplace again.

The Smoot Theatre website, and page on Cinema Treasures.

Read about the remarkable Felice Jorgeson and her work keeping the Smoot Theater going.

This blacked out post is brought to you by SOPA and PIPA

Frankensteinia, Frankenstein Forever and Monster Crazy are on strike today.

Learn about the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act and how this legislation, if passed, would affect all of us, all over the world.

And do something about it.

The Frankenstein Clock

Released in November 1931, James Whale’s Frankenstein stepped across America and the world through the Holidays and into the New Year.

The Frankenstein Lobby Clock was a do-it-yourself promotional gag proposed by Universal’s publicity department. Exhibitors were told to paint a clock on a standup display, replace the twelve numbers with the twelve letters of "Frankenstein", add The Monster’s silhouetted head and fill in the number of days until the playdate. Copy should read, your choice, “Now is the time to think about Frankenstein coming here…” or “The Hour of Doom Approaches!”

We’ll look at more Frankenstein ballyhoo in days and weeks to come as we continue to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of Frankenstein.

With thanks to John McElwee for this image. John runs the ever-fabulous Greenbriar Picture Shows movie blog.

The Posters of Frankenstein : Il Mostro di Frankenstein

There’s precious little material left attending the release of Il Mostro di Frankenstein, the lost Italian Frankenstein film of 1920. Here, recently surfaced, and predating a similar ad from 1926, is what becomes the earliest known poster of the film, for two showings in August 1922. Cheaply printed in two colors, these typographical posters were produced in low numbers for neighborhood distribution.

The “Frankenstein” name is misspelled, as it was, differently, on the 1926 poster. Producer/actor Luciano Albertini, an early Italian movie star known for his role as “Samson”, gets top billing.

“An extraordinary film of sensational adventures”, the copy reads, “superbly interpreted by Albertini and his troupe”. The troupe in question included fellow strongman Umberto Guarracino, who played The Monster to Albertini’s Frankenstein. “A Masterpiece without precedent… An enormous success”.

The accompanying film, La Caniglia — literally “the rabble”, and usually translated as “the gangster” — was another film from 1920, directed by and starring Enzo Longhi.

The long-lived Cinema Teatro Aurora opened in 1908 on the narrow Via Paolo Scarpi in downtown Milan. For a time, patrons could gather in an inner courtyard on warm days to be serenaded by the house orchestra. The Cinema switched to sound film in 1931 and underwent periodic upgrades through the years. After a season’s shutdown in 1980, the Teatro was revived as an adult movie house, operating briefly as the Aurora Pussycat. It closed definitely in 2003, after a remarkable 95-year run. The building is still standing, its façade intact, with the insides remodeled for commercial and cultural use.

Source: Wonderful research by film historian Giuseppe Rausa, notably a detailed account of the Cinema Teatro Aurora (in Italian), with links to numerous placard-type posters.

Related:
A placard from 1926 and a Belgian ad for Il Mostro di Frankenstein
The Silent Frankensteins

The Art of Frankenstein : Ben Templesmith

A nasty-looking, zippered, patched, stapled and stitched Monster created by Ben Templesmith.

The artist is best known for 30 Days of Night, penned by Steve Niles and turned into a 2007 movie. Templesmith’s other titles include Wormwood and Fell, all exclusively for IDW Publishing.

Ben Templesmith’s blog

The Art of Frankenstein : Tyler Crook

The Monster is a gentleman, never mind the ominous stare and the alarming forehead, in Tyler Crook’s handsome watercolor portrait.

Crook recently took over art chores on B.P.R.D., the superlative horror comic overseen by creator Mike Mignola and written by John Arcudi. Crook keeps a terrific blog where the image above was found. Go look, other Universal Monsters get the suit and tie treatment.

Tyler Crooke’s blog

Previews of Tyler Crook’s art for Dark Horse Comics

The Art of Frankenstein : Jill Thompson

Exceptional art by an exceptional artist, here’s a beautiful wash study of Boris Karloff from Son of Frankenstein by Jill Thompson.

The multiple-award-winning artist has worked for all the major comics companies, notably on titles such as Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman at DC, and X-Men and Spiderman for Marvel. As a storyteller, Thompson’s Halloween-flavored Scary Godmother series has appeared in comics, children’s books and two animated films for television.

Jill Thompson’s Tumblr.

A 3-page sample of Scary Godmother.

The Art of Frankenstein : Mike Mignola

Let’s kick off the New Year with a handful of images, appearing daily this week, of the Frankenstein Monster as drawn by top comic book talent. First up, the master, Mike Mignola, whose simple, raw sketch captures Karloff’s soulful Monster with a bold black shape and a few essential lines. Typical of Mignola’s work, it is a beautifully designed piece, at once elegant and austere.

Visit Mike Mignola’s website, and explore Dark Horse Comics’ Hellboy Zone.

Related:
Monster and Bride, by Mike Mignola
Hellboy Meets Frankenstein
Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein
Cover: The Frankenstein/Dracula War

T.P.Cooke in Paris, in which the actor is stricken by gout, arrested by gendarmes, and paints himself green. Or is it blue?

The Monster appears! Yet another image from the blockbusting 1826 Paris run of Le Monstre et le magicien, again showing The Monster confronting its maker.

Béraud and Merle’s Le Monstre borrowed heavily from Richard Brinsley Peake’s Presumption, or The Fate of Frankenstein of 1823 — they even hired the original play’s Monster, actor T.P.Cooke. The Monster’s first appearance, as evidenced by the numerous illustrations it inspired, was the highlight of both plays. In a blast of smoke, lit by colored lights, The Monster bursts out of the laboratory. Frankenstein — Zametti, in the French version — pulls a sword. The Monster grabs it away and snaps it in two. In the original London play, The Monster then ran to a large window and leaped to freedom. In the French version, The Monster breaks the sword, throws it down and vanishes on the spot, dropping out of sight by means of a trap door. Cooke was familiar with the perilous device, having used one repeatedly to extraordinary effect as Polidori’s Lord Ruthven, The Vampire, in 1820. Cooke’s trap door, which came to be known as a “vampire trap”, used rubber doors and sandbags as counterweight, innovating on an old stage trick.

In a case of reverse influence, the French Le Monstre et le magicien would, in turn, transform Presumption when author Peake adopted Le Monstre’s stirring conclusion aboard a storm-tossed schooner, replacing the original avalanche ending. Both plays would influence new adaptations while still competing against each other for years to come. T.P.Cooke, crossing effortlessly from one play to the other, would, in time, rack up 365 performances as The Monster. Back in 1826, his Parisian sojourn would prove to be quite an adventure…

Upon his arrival, Cooke was stricken with gout, a painful affliction he blamed on the acidity of French wines. Laid up at his hotel, his foot wrapped in flannel, Cooke was unable to attend rehearsals but he rallied quickly and, relying on his familiarity with the part, he was able to make his June 10 premiere. Le Monstre was a phenomenal success, with police called out to handle the crush of sell-out crowds. On July 15, the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin touted its triumph and spoofed its competitors with a vaudeville revue called Les Filets de Vulcain, ou le lendemain d’un succès (Vulcan’s Nets, or The Day After a Success). Cooke participated, speaking heavily accented French and sans makeup, in a sketch called Le Monstre.

Cooke was the toast of Paris yet, having vanquished the gout, another incident threatened his continued participation in the season's hit play...

In August 1867, an unsigned article in the “Parisian Sketches” section of The People’s Magazine, An Illustrated Miscellany For All Classes, published in London by The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge — whose ministrations apparently did not extend to them foreigners — related an anecdote about “the well-known and highly respected Mr. T.P.Cooke” having played The Monster at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, “about as ugly a building as can be imagined”. According to the article, “a misunderstanding arose between (Mr. Cooke) and the manager, in consequence of some unfair advantage the latter wished to take.” The problem went unresolved until Cooke was forced to action. One morning, he sent word that he would not be appearing onstage that evening, whereupon the manager had Cooke picked up by gendarmes and marched to the theater “almost as a prisoner”. Cooke remained adamant and, ultimately “fearing a disturbance among the audience”, the manager gave way and the performance went on as planned. The incident, according to the chauvinistic People’s Magazine, was “a circumstance… which not only showed the despotic power the French police can exercise in theatrical affairs, but brought to light the determined character of our countryman as well.”

A final controversy of sorts has to do with the likely-never-to-be-resolved question of The Monster’s exact color. In The Recollections and Reflections of J.R.Planché (London, 1872), the playwright of The Vampire visited his friend Cooke in Paris, noting, “his success was so great that “monstre bleu”, the color he painted himself, became the fashion of the day in Paris.”

Otherwise, in Sinnett’s Picture of Paris, published in London, 1845, the author’s description of the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin singles out Le Monstre, writing, “In the year 1826… Mr. T.P.Cooke was received in the most flattering manner, and became quite the fashion of the day. His performance of the Monster in Frankenstein for eighty consecutive nights saved the theatre from bankruptcy, replenished its treasury, and for several weeks everything in Paris was pale green à la Monstre.”

Monstre vert or Monstre bleu? Either way, T.P.Cooke’s Parisian adventure was a colorful affair.

The Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin website.

The National Library of France Digitial Library site, Gallica.

Related:
The Monster of La Porte Saint-Martin

The Frankenstein of 1826, in Color

The First Monster: T.P.Cooke

Mary Shelley Meets Frankenstein

The Monster of La Porte Saint-Martin

"It is he! Oh, despair!” exclaims Zametti, the Frankenstein character, in another color lithograph from Le Monstre et le magicien, staged at Paris’ Porte Saint-Martin theater in June 1826.

Zametti, played by Ménier, is an alchemist who, in the end, perishes at sea at The Monster’s hands. The part is often attributed — erroneously — to Paulin Ménier, Ménier’s son, born 1822, who would become an actor of considerable repute. Likewise, the illustration above is by Feillet, a prominent lithographer and teacher whose work is often confused with that of his daughter, Hélène, herself a prolific artist.

In a closeup look at Feillet’s illustration, T.P.Cooke’s Monster shows a darker green color to the face down to the jawline and streaks of red greasepaint at the mouth and eyes.

The Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, still operating today, is one of the most storied theaters in the world. Taking its name from the nearby triumphal arch, the original building was commissioned as an opera house by Queen Marie Antoinette in 1781. Incredibly, the building was erected in only two months — from the first stone laid on August 26 to its inauguration on October 26 — benefiting from money-is-no-object royal support. Twelve years on, a new Opera went up and the Porte Saint-Martin was transformed into a playhouse. The original building was destroyed by fire in the violent Spring of the Paris Commune in 1871. It was rebuilt and reopened as an 1100 seat theater in 1873.

In years to come, authors such as Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo presented their plays here, drawing in the most famous and accomplished actors and directors of the Continent. Edmond Rostand premiered his Cyrano de Bergerac in 1897, and Roman Polanski directed Master Class a hundred years later. Sarah Bernhardt appeared as Theodora in 1882, and Marcel Marceau triumphed in the Sixties. Today, la Porte Saint-Martin continues to boldly mix the classics and experimental theater, the two extremes coming together in the current offering, a contemporary version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Le Monstre et le magicien of 1826 was an early hit at the original Porte Saint-Martin, by far the most popular and lucrative play of its season, running 80 sold-out nights to often boisterous crowds.

More images from Le Monstre et le magicien coming up this week!

The Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin website.

The National Library of France Digitial Library site, Gallica.

Related:
T.P.Cooke in Paris
The Frankenstein of 1826, in Color
The First Monster: T.P.Cooke
Mary Shelley Meets Frankenstein

The Frankenstein of 1826, in Color!

A lithograph from an 1826 Paris performance reveals actor T.P.Cooke as Frankenstein's Monster, in color!

Cooke originated the role in London, July 1823, in Richard Brinsley Peake’s Presumption, or The Fate of Frankenstein, to phenomenal success. Within weeks, five different copycat plays sprang up, all featuring monsters based on Cooke’s interpretation. Mary Shelley herself, attending a performance on August 28, came away delighted with the play and Cooke’s performance.

Dressed in a short tunic, wrapped in a loose cloak, barefoot, fright-wigged and sporting a blue-green complexion, Cooke would be the inspiration, the template, the model for all the theatrical Frankenstein Monsters for nearly a century, just as Boris Karloff’s blockhead and bolts version has been an icon and a reference over the last 80 years.

A measure of his notoriety, Cooke, though hobbled by gout, was called to Paris in 1826 for Le Monstre et le magicien, a new play inspired not by Mary Shelley’s novel but by Peake’s play, as were all of the Frankenstein plays — more than a dozen by now — staged in England, all over Europe and in America. Save for the basic theme of an artificial man and the dire consequences for his presumptive creator, very little of Shelley’s work remained. The Monster and the Magician’s authors, Antony Beraud and Jean-Toussaint Merle, even did away with the Frankenstein name. Here, the creator was called Zametti.

In a scene lifted intact from the Peake play, The Monster, brought to life offstage, bursts out of the mezzanine laboratory in a cloud of smoke. He crashes through a balustrade and drops to the stage, confronting Frankenstein, snatching away his sword and snapping it in two. The same scene was first illustrated in 1823 (posted here), showing Cooke in a signature heroic pose. The scene was also used to illustrate Peake’s book of the play (posted here), with The Monster appearing as a baby-faced giant. In the 1826 illustration above, for the first time, Cooke appears in makeup, with full-body blue-green paint, red mouth and red highlights across the eyebrows.

The Monster’s color was variously described by contemporary critics as blue or green. One version of the play was called The Blue Demon. Cooke was such a sensation in Paris that his makeup color was replicated on gloves and dresses, with newspapers as far away as New Zealand reporting that the season’s fashionable color was vert de monstre — Monster Green!

The art is by François LeVillain — not to be confused with a famous namesake who was a sculptor and medal engraver — a lithographer of renown who was at the peak of his powers in the 1820s. LeVillain’s spectacular illustration, by far the most dynamic representation of the creation scene, is filled with tension as Cooke’s Monster hovers like an Angel of Death over the Frankenstein character, Zametti, pulling his sword. Note the composition, with the flowing robe mirroring Zametti’s arching pose and feathered hat. Note the textured smoke, the beautifully rendered folds in The Monster’s costume, and the delicate, muted colors.

This remarkable illustration, unlike any other, reveals the original stage Monster’s true appearance.

The illustration is archived on the French National Library’s Digital Library site, Gallica. I'll be posting more images from the 1826 play over this coming week.

Related:
T.P.Cooke in Paris
The Monster of La Porte Saint-Martin
The First Monster: T.P.Cooke
Mary Shelley Meets Frankenstein

The Monster : Peter Boyle

A rare color photograph of Peter Boyle in makeup on the set of Young Frankenstein, the black and white horror comedy released 37 years ago this week, on December 15, 1974. The film was a pitch perfect parody of the classic Universal Frankenstein films, with an emphasis on Son of Frankenstein (1939).

Hailing from Pennsylvania, Boyle studied acting in New York, eventually landing with the Second City improv troupe in Chicago. His Hollywood breakthrough came with his harrowing portrayal of a violent bigot, in Joe (1970). Other early parts included memorable performances in The Candidate (1972) and The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), confirming Boyle as one of the best character actors of his era. He worked extensively in television, garnering ten Emmy nominations, beginning with his unflinching portrayal of Senator Joe McCarthy in Tail-Gunner Joe (1977) and culminating with an Emmy win for his role in the X-Files’ Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose (1996). The episode also won for Outstanding Writing and was crowned by TV Guide as the tenth greatest episode in television history. Boyle was also a sitcom star as the cantankerous Frank in Everybody Loves Raymond.

Young Frankenstein (1974) was conceived by Gene Wilder and written by Wilder and director Mel Brooks at the peak of their talents. Besides Wilder and Boyle, the wonderful cast includes Marty Feldman, Terri Garr, Madeline Kahn, and Kenneth Mars. Boyle played the zipper-necked Monster as a big baby, his most memorable scenes including a traumatic encounter with Gene Hackman cameoing as The Blind Hermit and a deranged musical number singing “Puttin’ on the Ritz”. The film’s authentic look was driven by cinematographer Gerald Hirschfeld’s meticulous recreation of 30’s style lighting and camera movements, along with the use of Kenneth Strickfaden’s laboratory props first used in the 1931 Frankenstein.

Peter Boyle passed away in December 2006. The following year, Young Frankenstein was turned into an expensive and boisterous Broadway musical, with The Monster’s part given to Shuler Hensley. It has since gone on the road with a new cast.

There are some more shots from Young Frankenstein up on our companion blog, Frankenstein Forever.

The Free Silver Frankenstein of 1896

Frankenstein entered the public consciousness almost as soon as the novel was published. Mary Shelley herself was thrilled by a Frankenstein mention made in Parliament. Soon, in comment and caricature, Frankenstein became a reference, the name applied indifferently to the creator and his monster. A Frankenstein could be someone jeopardized or destroyed by his policies, or the monster itself, the terrible result of one’s actions. Here, from 1896, Frankenstein is “The Free Silver Monster” unleashed.

“Free Silver” was the hot issue of that year’s Presidential election. Bi-metallists advocated the use of silver as a monetary standard along with gold, a willfully inflationary measure that would theoretically benefit cash-strapped farmers and laborers. The Silverites were opposed by the Goldbugs, bankrolled by bankers and industry barons who would see their champion, Republican William McKinley, elected. By 1900, the Pro-Silver movement had lost traction and fell out of favor.

The unsigned editorial cartoon of The Free Silver Frankenstein appeared front page, center, in the Marietta Daily Leader of Ohio, on Thursday, October 29, 1896. The wild-eyed giant tramples a farmer and threatens a mother and child. The landscape is littered with demolished factories and vultures appear over destroyed cities.

The lengthy caption loosely interprets the Frankenstein story, introducing the concept to anyone who might not be familiar with the inspirational novel. In prose even more terrifying than the illustration, The Silver Frankenstein, created by “well-meaning” bimetallists, is said to have run out of control, producing “much poverty and misery”. It must be destroyed on November 8, election day, lest it “turn upon the silverites themselves and crush and kill them.”

By 1896, when The Free Silver Frankenstein was sent on its rampage, Frankenstein’s Monster had already been referenced a number of times to editorial effect. The Monster is still used today, and often, as a cartoonist’s shorthand for things gone out of control.

The Art of Frankenstein : Gray Morrow

I hope I’m wrong, but I always felt that Gray Morrow was underrated. Comics fans may have preferred flashier artists, but Morrow was fast, he was reliable and he was prolific, producing realistic art for all the comic book publishers and a collection of dazzling paperback covers in a career that spanned four decades. His science fiction illustrations earned him three Hugo Awards as “Best Professional Artist” and he drew the syndicated Tarzan Sunday strip from 1983 until his untimely death in 2001.

The illustration here was found on Shades of Gray, a wonderful showcase of Morrow’s work, run by blogger Booksteve. In a rough drawing that sizzles with action, Morrow pits the Frankenstein Monster against The Heap, the original comic book “muck monster”, a template for Swamp Thing and Man-Thing.

First appearing in Hillman Comics’ Air Fighters of 1946, The Heap was a WWI ace who had died in a swamp, his body macerated and transformed into a living mass of vegetation. The character would be reconfigured, updated and re-used by various publishers, eventually landing as a menace in Todd McFarlane’s Spawn. The version illustrated by Morrow is from its early 70’s Skywald incarnation where the once indistinct blob had developed a face and a sharp-fanged mouth.

Shades of Gray blog.

Related:
Gray Morrow’s superb SON OF FRANKENSTEIN cover for Monster World magazine.

The Art of Frankenstein : Shane Oakley

Here’s a fake book cover for Frankenstein that looks better than most of the real ones out there. UK artist Shane Oakley created this image in the style of an old paperback cover. The symmetrical effect and simple color design are pitch perfect references to ‘60s graphics.

I love Oakley’s art, all hard angles and stark contrasts. Some of his black and white illustrations are as rigorously controlled as paper cutouts, witness his interpretations of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing from Curse of Frankenstein (1957), typical of his sparse and perfect, to-the-point work for Little Shoppe of Horrors magazine.

There’s lots of great art to admire and enjoy on Shane Oakley’s blog. The faux cover was originally created for Hey, Oscar Wilde! It’s Clobberin’ Time!

With thanks to David Lee Ingersoll

Badge of Courage

80 years ago today, on December 4, 1931, Frankenstein arrived in New York City. This is the ad that ran in the New York Times.

The film had played to boffo boxoffice in a handful of cities over the previous two weeks. Word was that Frankenstein delivered on every gruesome thrill the posters promised. New Yorkers lined up in the rain, every showing was packed.

Today, the bolt-necked Monster is too familiar. The film’s graveyard, the laboratory, the torch-bearing mob are well-worn clichés, but back in ‘31, these were new and wondrous and disturbing images. There had never been anything quite like it. It was true, then, that
No Thriller Ever Made Can Begin to Touch It!

With thanks to George Chastain.

Related:
All Seats 35 cents: A different ad from The New York Daily News, and the story of the Mayfair Theater.
Frankenstein Premieres: Boxoffice receipts and a look at the trailer with scenes cut from the film.

Discovered! Ultra-Rare Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Display

A crowd gathers on a chilly March evening in 1943, drawn to a garishly decorated cinema lobby. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man has come to town and the exhibitor blows the works: Floor to ceiling posters shout Mighty Monsters Clash!... Hair Raising Horror Hits New Heights!... Inhuman Beasts! Performers in costume entertain the throngs lining up for tickets and, look, up there on the box office booth, The Monster and the Wolf Man are at each other’s throats!

Miraculously, almost 70 years on, the mannequin monsters have survived and are shared here with us, thanks to collector Bobby Beeman. These unusual plaster heads, a bit battered but complete, are an unexpected and extraordinary find, and a wonderful example of classic movie ballyhoo.

There appears to have been more than one set of these built. The Frankenstein Monster in the old photos has a classic flattop and forehead bangs while the surviving plaster head is rounded out and made up like Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein, with exposed forehead clamps and a distinctive burn scar on the cheek. The Monster’s head shows signs of long-ago repair and may have been modified along the way. The Wolf Man head has fared better, still sporting its scraggly hair and eerie glowing eyes, the bulbs, sockets and cord embedded in plaster and, amazingly, still operational.

Based on a few tantalizing clues and some digging around, it appears that the heads were constructed by the J.H.Blecher Studio of Detroit. Through the first half of the 20th century, the Greektown company produced full-body mannequins for department and clothing stores, and display heads for hat, wig and cosmetic suppliers. It may have also produced affordable plaster statuary for churches. In 1963, Mario Messana, a long-time apprentice of Harry Blecher, bought out the business. Now called Mario’s Mannequin Studio, the company concentrated solely on repair work for a dwindling market, the classic plaster and fibreglass figures being progressively replaced by mass-produced plastic mannequins.

Until his own retirement, in 1995, Messana stored away a number of classic torsos, assorted limbs and exceptional heads, including delicate, early wax creations by the famous Dutch studio of Pierre Imans. This is where the Frankenstein and Wolf Man heads, no doubt saved for their novelty value, were first discovered back in the Eighties.

It is possible, of course, that the heads were manufactured by another company, landing at Blecher’s or Mario’s unclaimed or brought in for repairs, but there seems to be a direct line of provenance here, based on the recollections of previous owners of the Frankenstein/Wolf Man display. Still, we don’t know who ordered these originally. It could have been Universal’s promotion department, a regional distributor, a theater chain or even individual exhibitors. Until new info or new photos surface, we can’t tell. The theater in the photos is still unidentified.

I want to thank Bobby Beeman for so generously sharing his remarkable discovery with Frankensteinia readers. Bobby has posted more images here, at the Universal Monster Army board, an essential and enthusiastic celebration of movie monster toys and collectibles.

More great photos on Universal Monster Army.
Tragic Beauties, a collection of haunting photographs from Mario’s warehouse,
by Barbara Abel.
An article about mannequins, with references to Blecher and Messana on Detroit’s Metro Times.

Related:
When Frankenstein Met the Wolf Man