Carradine found himself accepting ludicrous parts in Poverty Row and low-budget chillers to fund his ambitious theatrical productions. By the 1960s, he was degraded by taking on roles just to pay the bills.
He traveled to Africa for Paramount's Tarzan the Magnificent and acted on Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone 1960 episode ‘The Howling Man.’
When David Ellington (H.M Wynant) seeks refuge at a remote monastery where Carradine is the solemn Brother Jerome in a heroic white beard, robes, and staff and the brotherhood stands guard over the devil (Robin Hughes) whom they trapped and locked away. Ellington disregards their warning and unwittingly releases evil upon the earth. This was a more sedate role for Carradine.
On February 8, 1960, he was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6240 Hollywood Blvd.
In 1962, he returned to Broadway in Harold Prince's production A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He played Marcus Lycus, the scheming whoremaster of a Roman house of ill repute. The show saw 964 performances in New York's Alvin Theatre.
“A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum” – Zero Mostel, right, is the lead performer in the Broadway musical “A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum,” along with (left to right:) John Carradine and Jack Gifford.
Carradine also appeared in several television series. Lock Up 1960 – as James Carew in the episode "˜Poker Club.'Â He made an appearance in The Rebel 1960 as Elmer Dodson in episodes "˜Johnny Yuma' and "˜The Bequest.'
These were difficult times for Carradine. He wasn't making it financially for all his film and television work. In 1960, he starred in an episode of NBC’s Wagon Train called ‘The Colter Craven Story,’ directed by John Ford.
Considered his favorite experience working in the horror genre – was appearing in Boris Karloff’s superior horror/film noir anthology series Thriller 1961, which ran from 1960 to 1962.
From an interview with KMOX in 1983:
What was your favorite horror film that you did?
“Oh god I don't know. Eh, I don't think I had one. I think it's probably something I did with Boris. I did several for Boris. He had his own series that he introduced as a host and on a couple of them he worked also on as an actor. And I did two or three of those with him and for him. And I think that was the best part of the horror genre that I did.”
What was he like to work with.?
“Oh, charming. He was a charming man. And I first worked with him on the first thing he did in this country. We had a play down in Los Angeles, the old Egan Theater which was a 400-seat theater down on Figueroa street. And we did a play together called Window Panes which he played a brutalized Russian peasant immigrant unlettered. And I did a Russian peasant half-wit and there was a character sort of a Christ-like character who was wanted by the authorities as he was, was a rebel. But the ignorant peasantry took on him almost as a Christ figure and I did that for ten weeks and we moved over to the Vine Street Theater which is now the Huntington Hartford in Hollywood. And Boris played the brutalized Russian peasant and played it to the nines. And we became very good friends then. And that was in 1928. And we remained good friends until he retired and went back to England.”
For Thriller, Carradine was cast as Jason Longfellow and Jed Carta in ‘The Remarkable Mrs. Hawk’ starring Jo Van Fleet and directed by John Brahm, and ‘Masquerade’ starring Elizabeth Montgomery and Tom Poston directed by Herschel Daugherty and blessed with a whimsically macabre score by Mort Stevens.
Above are two images from the episode ‘Masquerade.’
For the series, Carradine appeared in two of the most comic and compelling episodes. In‘The Remarkable Mrs. Hawk’ and ‘Masquerade’ he was both sardonic and sinister.
In Masquerade, airing in 1961, Carradine plays Jed Carta, leader of a depraved family of murderers and cannibals who entraps wayward travelers, stealing their money and butchering them like hogs. When Tom Poston and Elizabeth Montgomery stumble onto the creepy, dilapidated house to get out of a rain storm, Carta greets them with dark glee, trading menacing cracks with Montgomery. What lies beneath the surface might be something more nefarious than the mere suggestion of evil cloaked in black humor that surrounds the Carta family and Carradine's spooky wisecracks. He's magnificently droll, skulking around the dreadful house, with Poston and Montgomery being assailed by disembodied cackling and dimwitted Jack Lambert, who wields a large butcher knife lumbering around. Dorothy Neumann plays the feral Ruthie chained to the wall, spewing animosity for the Carta clan and demonstrating an itchy type of lunacy. It’s both comical and arouses jitters simultaneously. In my opinion, it is one of Carradine's most underrated roles in the horror genre, emphasizing his ability to shuffle both dark humor and horror equally.
In ‘The Remarkable Mrs. Hawk,’ starring Jo Van Fleet as Mrs. Hawk/Circe, Carradine plays Jason Longfellow, an erudite transient who stumbles onto Mrs. Hawk’s true identity and the secret of her ‘Isle of Aiaie Home of the Pampered Pig.’
Cultivated and shrewd, Longfellow is a scheming vagabond who plans to use his revelation about Mrs. Hawk to his advantage"”much to an ironic end.
It's an inspiration for writers Don Sanford and Margaret St. Clair to transform a classical tale from Greek mythology and position it within a southern Gothic rural setting, using a hog farm and a visiting carnival/State Fair that adds a layer of mystique and mayhem. There's a great scene that utilizes theatrical anachronism wonderfully when Cissy Hawk (Van Fleet)Â carries the bowl, or "˜Circe's cup' the night she feeds the pigs grapes and proceeds to turn Johnny (Bruce Dern) back into a man for a while. Under the moonlight, she conducts an ancient rite on modern rural farmland as Pete (Hal Baylor) watches in fright and disbelief from his window.
Not only is this particular episode so effective because of Jo Van Fleet’s performance as the modern-day witch, but it’s also due to the presence of the ubiquitous John Carradine, whose facial expressions alone can be so accentuated by his acrobatic facial expressions that make him so uniquely entertaining to watch not to mention listening to his Shakespearean elucidations, hard-bitten insights, and crafty machinations.
Carradine enters the story: A train whistle is blowing in the backdrop. There is a close-up of Jason's (John Carradine's) face. Carradine is the perspicacious Jason Longfellow, an erudite transient, shabby and unshaven, dressed like a gypsy with white tape holding his black-framed glasses together. Skinny, almost skeleton-like, and lanky. Longfellow’s razor-sharp acumen betrays his urbane sensibilities that travel incognito like a stowaway. He may look like a scraggly bum, but he is a highly educated defector of society. He also enjoys giving his companion Peter grief, waging his intelligence that he uses as a refuge. Pete is a wayward boxer who looks to Longfellow as a mentor. This horror-themed, fable-like episode is overflowing with ironic, comical repose until the baleful scenes leap out at you when Circe wields her powerful magic.
A Pan flute is trebling a child-like tune, a delightful wisp of scales. To the left of the screen are a pair of black & argyle socks with holes worn in the toes, tapping out the melody in the air with his feet. A fire is burning in the trash can. This is a slice-of-the-night mystique of the hobo's life. Carradine, as Jason Longfellow is sitting in a cane back fan rocking chair, a junkyard living room, and a cold tin coffee pot atop an oil drum.
Suspecting their friend Johnny's disappearance is connected to Mrs. Hawk (Jo Van Fleet) and the rumors about her young handymen all gone missing.
"If I knew Johnny's fate, my friend, I'd understand why Mrs. Hawk's farm is designated Caveat Accipitram among the brotherhood." Jason's eyes bulge out of the sockets with glee and rancor.
Carradine manifests an exquisite mixture of the facial expression of a malcontent. Pete seems stupefied –" Hhm?" "Come on.. speak American, would ya?" Jason raises his voice and changes his tone to indicate the hierarchy in their educational backgrounds." Caveat Accipitrum… Caveat Accipitrum  BEWARE THE HAWK"¦." Longfellow ends his little lesson for Pete with emotive punctuation.
He grunts/laughs dismissively, "Oh"¦Hey!" and looks away. He takes a drag of his cigarette with his bone-like fingers, squinting his thoughtful blue eyes (not obscured by the black-and-white film) as if in deep contemplation about the matter. Longfellow was written for Carradine.
Following Thriller, John Carradine made nine guest appearances on the popular The Red Skelton Hour 1961.
Carradine as Major Starbuckle in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 1962.
Ford found working with Carradine a trial because of his free-spirited style, but he cast him once again, this time joining him in 1962 with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, starring James Stewart and John Wayne. Carradine played the bombastic Senator Cassius Starbuckle.
Carradine's cameo happens toward the end of the film in a scene at the political convention with him kicking up a fuss "soldier, jurist, and statesmen." he's a mouthpiece for the cattle ranchers opposed to statehood. This would be Carradine's last significant role with director John Ford.
"Offering up a caricatured portrayal of a bombastic Southern blue-blood blowhard, he strikes poses, grandstands, and dishonestly paints his political foe (Stewart) as a killer not fit for government. Without half trying Carradine was capable of exuding just the right sort of seedy grandeur in this pompous scoundrel role; his theatrical oratory enlivens the final reel of a movie. "(Mank)
In 1963, he directed Hamlet at the Gateway Playhouse on Long Island, where he performed the melancholy Dane.
Carradine made appearances on the television series The Lucy Show in 1964 as Professor Guzman in the episode ‘Lucy Goes to Art Class.’
Also in 1964, he appeared with Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, and Richard Widmark, with Carradine playing Major Jeff Blair, a gambler who joins James Stewart in a card game in Ford's western Cheyenne Autumn 1964.
The Wizard of Mars and Curse of the Stone Hand, where he appeared for one minute as part of director Jerry Warren's added footage in order to use Carradine's name in the credits for his movie pieced together from two French dramas creating an incoherent mess.
Throughout the 1960s he worked constantly in Summerstock – appearing in Enter Laughing, Arsenic and Old Lace 1965 and in Oliver as the sly Fagin in 1966.
Carradine in John Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn 1964 starring Carroll Baker.
Carradine with Andrea King in House of the Black Death 1965/71.
in the low-budget House of the Black Death, Carradine had more of a prominent role as Andre Desard, plays the patriarch of a family of Satanists and werewolves, with Lon Chaney, Jr. playing his evil brother Belial who sports a pair of horns and battles over their ancestral home. The film also stars Tom Drake and noir star Andrea King.
1966 saw Carradine cast as a smarmy Dracula once again in the bottom basement horror/western Billy the Kid vs Dracula directed by William "˜one shot' Beaudine, with supportive roles by Virginia Christine and Marjorie Bennett. Carradine is painted as looking like a pasty-faced, maniacal magician with a greasy satanic goatee mustache, widow's peak, frills, cravat, and top hat. Traveling by stagecoach in the Old West, Dracula meets James Underwood on his way to the cattle ranch to see his niece Betty (Melinda Plowman). When the passengers are killed by Indians, he assumes Underhill's identity and seeks out Betty as his next undead bride. Carradine comes under suspicion for a series of unexplained murders. His Dracula sleeps in a bed, not a coffin, and moves around in broad daylight. Whenever Carradine exerts his hypnotic stare, Beaudine uses a colored spotlight that turns his face a bright red, with Dracula dashing in and out of the frame in a badly designed special effect.
"I have worked in a dozen of the greatest, and I have worked in a dozen of the worst. I only regret Billy the kid versus Dracula. Otherwise, I regret nothing"¦ it was a bad film. I don't even remember it. I was absolutely numb."
He had a small role in Munster, Go Home in 1966 for Universal, where he played the oddball butler Cruikshank. On television, he appeared on episodes of Daniel Boone in 1968 and Bonanza in 1969 as Preacher Dillard.
In 1967 he hosted five horror tales as part of Gallery of Horrors – Not to be confused with the superior portmanteau – Amicus' Dr. Terror's House of Horrors. Five short tales of the supernatural introduced by Carradine, who does appear in the first edition as a 17th century Warlock in "˜The Witch's Clock' about a young couple who find a cursed clock that can raise the dead.
‘The Witch’s Clock’ segment of Gallery of Horrors.
Daring hold-up nets $2,000,000! Police baffled by fantastic crime! Masked bandit escapes with race track loot! These 5 Men Had a $2,000,000 Secret Until One of them told this Woman!
Narrator – At exactly 3:45 on that Saturday afternoon in the last week of September, Marvin Unger was, perhaps, the only one among the hundred thousand people at the track who felt no thrill at the running of the fifth race. He was totally disinterested in horse racing and held a lifelong contempt for gambling. Nevertheless, he had a $5 win bet on every horse in the fifth race. He knew, of course, that this rather unique system of betting would more than likely result in a loss, but he didn’t care. For after all, he thought, what would the loss of twenty or thirty dollars mean in comparison to the vast sum of money ultimately at stake.
The Killing is an enigmatic tour de force directed by the fiercely independent Stanley Kubrick, who also penned the screenplay adapting its non-linear story structure from Lionel White’s novel ‘clean break.’ Kubrick chose Jim Thompson for the atypical style of writing in his pulp fiction books and had a great ear for dialect and an original approach to dialogue.
{about writer Jim Thompson} “At the time he was just another bitter alcoholic wordsmith living on paltry advances for paperback originals like Savage Night, The Grifters and The Killer Inside Me. Kubrick recognized his affinity for desperate characters and the great gallows humor in his dialogue. Thompson had a nasty falling out with Kubrick after Kubrick took a screenwriting credit, and reduced Thompson’s credit to merely – dialogue by…” (Eddie Muller)
Kirk Douglas and Stanley Kubrick on the set of Paths of Glory 1957.
Thompson and Kubrick came together two years later to collaborate on his break-out film Paths of Glory 1957. Working within the Hollywood system there would always be strings attached, initially, Kubrick and writer Thompson’s screenplay (Thompson was popular as a writer of hard-boiled paperback crime novels) did not include a narrator, but the studio insisted they use one in order to lessen the audience’s confusion.
Kubrick’s insistence on staying true to White’s novel and his style of writing made him bang heads with United Artists who were distributing the film. They thought they were getting an unambiguous film noir heist picture, not a rip-off story told in the middle of a time warp.
Kubrick cleverly disrupted the studio’s demand for a Narrator and only used Gilmore when the narrative became linear, making him an unreliable storyteller, which had the outcome he was looking for from the beginning which was – to confuse the audience.
When Kubrick turned in his final cut United was furious and insisted he restructures the film so it wouldn’t mess with the audience’s heads. After a bit of a debate, Kubrick held his ground and stuck with White’s vision. The result was rather than spending any more money editing the film, United Artists marooned it under the half of a double bill with Robert Mitchum’s western, Bandito directed by Richard Fleischer who made some interesting B noir/crime movies His Kind of Woman 1951 with Robert Mitchum, The Narrow Margin 1952, Compulsion 1959, Crack in the Mirror 1960, and The Boston Strangler 1968.
A lonely girl — a man on the run and 72 hours reckless hours that shock you with the impact of unleashed emotions!
Directed by John Berry (Tension 1949), with the screenplay by two victims of HUAC Dalton Trumbo (The Prowler 1951, The Brother’s Rico 1957, Papillon 1973) and Hugo Butler (The Southerner 1945.) Based on a novel by Sam Ross. All three men’s names Berry Trumbo and Butler were struck from the credits due to the blacklist, but have since been restored.
Garfield stars in his final film, as Nick Robey and Shelley Winters as Peg Dobbs. Wallace Ford plays Fred Dobbs, and Selena Royle as Mrs. Dobbs. The incomparable Gladys George is Mrs. Robey. Norman Lloyd as Al Molin. With music by Franz Waxman, it is not overwrought but has a beautiful, restrained melody. The film is shot by prolific cinematographer James Wong Howe ( The Thin Man 1934, They Made Me a Criminal 1939, King’s Row 1942, he shot Garfield in Body and Soul 1947, The Rose Tattoo 1955 Sweet Smell of Success 1957)
While under contract to Warner Bros. John Garfield could have had his pick of any major studio in Hollywood, RKO, 20th Century Fox even MGM wanted him to sign, but being the tough, rebellious everyman, in 1946 he did not renew his contract with Warners, and since none of the other studios would touch He Ran All the Way, Garfield released the film under his own new independent production company with Bob Roberts (Body and Soul 1947, Force of Evil 1948, All Night Long 1962) and Paul Trivers.
In an interview with Look magazine, he said, “I wasn’t carrying a chip on my shoulder at Warners. I appreciated the fact that they made me a star, but they didn’t pick me up from a filling station.”
"When an actor doesn’t face a conflict, he loses confidence in himself. I always want to have a struggle because I believe it will help me accomplish more." "“ John Garfield
A kid from the streets of New York, during John Garfield ‘Julie’s career between Body and Soul 1947 and He Ran All the Way 1951, he did not work in Hollywood when HUAC targeted the actor as a communist sympathizer. Garfield suffered at the mercy of the blacklist when he refused to name names. Criminal considering he not only raised money for the war effort during WWII, but also co-founded the Hollywood Canteen. The stress of the constant persecution he endured led to him suffering a massive heart attack leading to his tragic death at only 39, less than a year after He Ran All the Way.
In 1946, John Garfield a naturalistic actor was box-office gold, ( I think he set the stage for Dean and Brando) having a successful run as a superstar in Hollywood with Humoresque, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Nobody Lives Forever. Garfield was able to transform an unsympathetic guy, into a heavy, might-have-been, and deeply humanize him. And though the fatalistic creed of ‘film noir’ is that no flawed anti-hero can escape their dark destiny, we feel for their consequences.
Film historian Eddie Muller calls Garfield the ‘pied piper’ because he led the way for all the actors from New York’s Group Theater and the Broadway scene. Not only a bold actor on screen, but he was also a terrific stage actor as well having used sense memory a lot.
John Garfield was magic because of his authenticity at playing brooding, defiant, working-class guys, his Nick Robey is a lost soul – living in a claustrophobic nightmare that he can't outrun, that he cannot escape. Even while he's asleep. The nightmares chase him into a frightened sweat.
Set in Southern California over a 72-hour time frame, under the sweltering summer heat, the film opens A fevered dream, running so hard… "my lungs are burnin"˜ up."
Mrs. Robey –“Nick, Nicky you were hollering in your sleep.” Nick- “Alright Mom so I was hollering in my sleep what's wrong with that?” Mrs. Robey –“It's 11 o’clock Mr. Robey you can't lay there all day.”
Nick –“Beat it, blow.” (She rolls the shades up to let the harsh morning light into the room)
… Hey Cut that out!"¨
Gladys George is an intense searing beam of deplorable as Nick’s mother who swills cheap beer like a well-oiled lush and treats him like she resents having given birth to her loser son. Mrs. Robey persistingly harassing Nick. Later she even tells the cops to “Kill him! Kill him!”
Mrs. Robey –“If you were a man you'd be out looking for a job.”
Nick- “If you were a man I'd kick your teeth in.” Mrs. Robey –“There's coffee on the stove, Don't ever talk to me like that Nick.” Nick- “You've been talked to worse.”
Mrs. Robey –“Only by you dirty punk.” Nick -“Oh knock it off Mom you just got too big a hangover.” (She slaps him) Mrs. Robey –“I'll kill ya if you talk like that.” Nick-(Laughs) “You're losing your punch Mom.”
The role Barbara Steele plays in the legacy of Italian Gothic cinema of the 1960s achieving cult status, is arguably her most recognizable contribution to the sub-genre of the horror film. She’s been christened The High Priestess of Horror, Queen of Horror, and The Dark Goddess, the latter, the implication being her prowess is proof there’s a link between beauty (a woman’s power) and evil. Steele’s persona is suitable as a femme fatale, and the sum of her work is extremely feminist.
According to journalist Maitland McDonagh, she is The Face that Launched a Thousand Screams. She is the sadomasochistic Madonna of the “cinefantastique”; the queen of the wild, the beautiful, and the damned.”
“Of all the stars of horror cinema, Barbara Steele may have come the closest to pure myth {“¦} she suggests a kinky and irresistible sexual allure” – (David J Hogan)
“With goldfish-bowl eyes radiating depraved elfin beauty, and what she calls her ‘old, suspicious Celtic soul burning blackly within, Steele played the princess in a dark fairytale.” ‘They sense something in me’ she once said of her fans, but surely it was true of her directors also. Steele followed with ‘Maybe some kind of psychic pain. The diva Dolorosa of the 1910s, reincarnated as a voluptuous revenant.’ – (from David Cairns and Daniel Riccuito for Sight and Sound)
“Angel Carter (1982) named the three surrealist love goddesses as Louise Brooks first and foremost followed by Dietrich and third Barbara Steele. With regards to Steele however, not all the following descriptions emanate from surrealists caught in the grip of amour fou”(obsessive passion).- (The Other Face of Death: Barbara Steele and La Maschera Del Demonio by Carol Jenks from NECRONOMICON edited by Andy Black)
“The very symbol of Woman as vengeful, alien and “˜other’.” (Nicholls 1984)
“Steele perfectly embodies both the dread and the desire necessary to imply alluring and transgressive sexuality.”(Lampley-Women in the Horror films of Vincent Price)
“It’s not me they’re seeing. They’re casting some projection of themselves, some aspect that I somehow symbolizes. It can’t possibly be me.” Barbara Steele quoted-(Warren 1991)
“You can’t live off being a cult.” Barbara Steele
By now with Parts 1 and 2 under my belt, it’s pretty clear that one theme has emerged. It is my love for three shamefully underrated noir actors that really carry the genre, John Garfield, Victure Mature, and Richard Conte! Victor Mature is a swarthy jewel in his darker noirs, The Long Haul, I Wake Up Screaming, and Kiss of Death. Even in the western noir masterpiece My Darling Clementine 1946 where he plays the brooding Doc Holliday. Conte possesses a sublime brutality, with the lure of a Minotaur charging. Think of him In The Big Combo, Thieves’ Highway, and Brothers Rico. Garfield is deeply vulnerable and edgy, giving off an existential sensuality as in He Ran All the Way, Force of Evil, Body and Soul, and They Made Me a Criminal. I think I’ve fallen in love with all three!
Editorial use only.No book cover usage. Mandatory Credit: Photo by 20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock (5876973e) Robert Siodmak, Victor Mature Cry Of The City 1948 Director: Robert Siodmak 20th Century Fox USA On/Off Set La Proie.
The moody black and white photography is by cinematographer Lloyd Ahern Sr. and the music is by Alfred Newman. Eddie Muller refers to Cry of the City as “Siodmak’s most operatic noir.” It is Siodmak’s most focused work, and the first film noir he shot extensively on location. The film reunited Siodmak with producer Sol Siegel who worked on three Paramount B pictures together after the director settled in Hollywood during the early 1940s. The song ‘Street Scene’, a recurring motif heard in several noirs and written by composer Alfred Newman, plays at the opening of the film. The song can be remembered in I Wake Up Screaming, also starring Mature. It is an urban melody that evokes dreamy nightscapes of the city. Siodmak loves a rain-soaked street in his noir films, with its themes of fatalism and obsession, and the shocking story of the clash between law and lawlessness. The story borrows from a familiar plot device which sets up an opposition between two characters who come from the same background as children, but wind up clashing in their adult life.
Cry of the City is the most ‘operatic’ (Muller) film noir not just stylistically, but the theme its essential that you not hate Marty Rome’s character. The whole idea is that these are two boyhood friends who come from the same neighborhood and it's just through circumstance one becomes a criminal and one a lawman, but they're basically the same guy. That’s the whole point of the film. It's essential that he play someone with that swagger (Conte) and that criminal intent, but he also has a vulnerability you can see in both of them. You can see the boy in the man. It ends so tragically that it feels operatic…You could see that Siodmak is using the street like this huge stage."
Cry of the City stars Victor Mature as Lt. Vittorio Candella, and Richard Conte as the ruthless Marty Rome. Fred Clark plays Cadnella’s partner Lt. Jim Collins whose tongue is fast on the trigger. Shelley Winters is Marty’s old flame Brenda Martingale. Brenda is Martin’s loyal ex-gal who spirits the wounded Conte around the city, while an unlicensed doctor works on his bullet wounds in the back seat of her car.
Betty Garde is Nurse Frances Pruett, and Berry Kroeger is the unsavory, amoral lawyer W. A. Niles. Debra Paget plays angelic Teena Riconti. Tommy Cook plays Conte’s cop-hating kid brother who worships him, and it’s clear is heading down the same doomed path, as his older brother Marty.
Garde and Emerson worked together in John Cromwell’s Caged 1950. Garde is Conte’s sympathetic nurse And Hope Emerson is the darkly imposing Rose Given. Emerson, a masseuse and a sadist, is the nefarious Amazon who desperately wants the jewels that Conte has lifted from sleazy lawyer Kroeger. One of the best supporting roles in Cry of the City is Hope Emerson as the ‘monolithic’ (Dinman) Rose Givens who dominates the scenes with Conte.
In Robert Siodmak's sublime noirCry of the City 1948Emerson plays Madame Rose Given who runs a massage parlor, loves to cook, is a pancake eatin' -looming "˜heavy'"¦ who loves jewels and just wants a little place in the country where she can cook, eat pancakes and fresh eggs"¦ ‘yeah that's livin'. From her brawny swagger to her grumbling yet leisurely voice, Emerson’s deliciously diabolical performance is the highlight of the film!
I Wake Up Screaming is the first official noir produced by Fox, directed by H. Bruce Humberstone (he worked on Charlie Chan programmers and B-movies) who was not considered a noir director. With a screenplay by Dwight Taylor based on the novel by Steve Fisher. Eddie Muller said it personified film noir and calls the 1941 film – Proto-noir, as it was the first of its kind.
Darryl F. Zanuck wanted the film’s location changed to New York City, so it wouldn’t reflect badly on L.A. There are a number of sleazy characters involved and he wanted to shift the story from Hollywood to Broadway.
The film was remade as Vicki in 1953 (with Jeanne Crane and Jean Peters, though it lacked the highly stylized artistry) Photographed by Edward Cronjager (Seven Keys to Baldpate 1929, Hell’s Highway 1932, The Monkey’s Paw 1933, Island in the Sky 1938, The Gorilla 1939, Heaven Can Wait 1943, Desert Fury 1947, Relentless 1948, House by the River 1950, The Girl in Lovers Lane 1960) pours out murky noir shadows, darkened streets, unusual camera angles, low key lighting and the high contrast, one-point lighting that illuminates the ink black threatening spaces. The film is stark yet dynamic.
With music by Cyril J. Mockridge, you'll hear the familiar often-used noir leitmotif, the melody Street Scene by Alfred Newman. I Wake Up Screaming stars Betty Grable as Jill Lynn, Victor Mature as Frankie Christopher, Carole Landis as Vicki Lynn, and Laird Cregar as Ed Cornell. The film also co-stars Alan Mowbray as Robin Ray and Allyn Joslyn as Larry Evans. Quirky character actor Elisha Cook Jr. plays Harry Williams the desk clerk in Vicki’s apartment building who’s a real weirdo. William Gargan plays Detective Jerry ‘Mac’ MacDonald.
Cook is great at playing quirky oddballs (Cliff the crazed drummer in Phantom Lady 1944, George Peatty in The Killing 1956, anxious trench coat-wearing Wilmer in The Maltese Falcon 1941, Watson Pritchard in House on Haunted Hill 1959).
I Wake up Screaming bares a resemblance to a whodunit, as the killer is chased down with the story playing a bit of a shell game with us. There are common noir themes of obsession, perverse lust, corruption, and homicidal jealousy. The film also has a preoccupation with images and artifice, tossing up flashbacks like a circus juggler.
Right before model, Vicki Lynn heads to Hollywood to reach for her rising star, she is brutally murdered. Delicious Betty Grable in her first non-music role, plays Jill Lynn, Vicki’s sister, who is drawn to the man (Victor Mature) who is presumably her sister’s murderer.
Vicki functions as an essential part of the narrative early on in the film and is resurrected by way of flashbacks. Frankie knows that while there are images that still exist of Vicki she is no longer present. In fact, Vicki is a myth and a manufactured deception in some ways. Jill on the other hand is genuine, unpretentious, and warmhearted.
Carol Landis who died at 28 from an overdose, plays murder victim Vicki Lynn. I Wake up Screaming backflips into the weeks leading up to her death. The film is also somewhat of a noir variation on Pygmalion, as Victor Mature who plays Frankie Christopher, sports and show business promoter, discovers a beautiful girl waiting tables and gets the hot idea of turning Vicki into a celebrity and society girl. Vicki’s appeal is the sphere of influence that drives the plot. Mature always makes the screen sweat with his sexy brawny build, swarthy good looks, strong jaw line, and the aura of his glistening obsidian hair.
The film opens with a sensational news headline ‘MODEL MURDERED’ Right from the top Frankie is being grilled by the cops in the interrogation room. Burning white hot lights are up close in his face. He says to the shadow of Cornell (Cregar) who's a bulky shadow shot with single source lighting) to his opaque figure, "You're a pretty tough guy with a crowd around.”
The flashbacks begin. Frankie goes back to the first time he meets Vicki at the lunch room on 8th Avenue while eating with Larry Evans (Alan Joslyn) and Robin Ray (Alan Mowbray). Vicki asks "Is that all?" Lary Evans says "No, but the rest of it isn't on the menu." She handles his come on, "You couldn't afford it if it was.” Frankie pours on the charm. He gets the notion to take Vicki and mold her into a celebrity. “You know I bet in 6 months I could take that girl and put her on top of the ladder." Mature and Landis worked together in One Million Years B.C.
Has-been actor Robin Ray (Mowbray) and ruthless gossip columnist Larry Evans (Joslyn) decide to get involved in developing Vicki Lynn’s mystique and cultivate her glamour on the road to fame. Of course, both men wind up having a yen for her. A cynical Ray (Mowbray) complains that all women are alike. Evans (Joslyn) tells him, “For Pete’s sake, what difference does that make? You’ve got to have them. They’re standard equipment.”
Frankie takes Vicki Lynn out into New York cafe society – All three schemers, the columnist, the washed-up actor, and Frankie, bring her to the cafe and make a big noise, grabbing the attention of Lady Handel (May Beatty) who invites them over to her table. In order to give the impression that Vicki will now be a new sensation, Larry Evans brags in front of the table, that he'll plug her In his column. They also think that it’ll help Vicki to get noticed if she’s seen on Robin Ray’s arm. The outing is a success. When they bring her home to her apartment building they meet the squirrely desk clerk Harry Williams (Elisha Cook), who takes his sweet time, getting up for Vicki. Frankie gives him a hard time after being so disrespectful. Williams sneers, “She ain’t nobody.”
Back to the present and Frankie's still in the sweat box. They're questioning Jill too. She’s telling the cops about Vicki’s plans. She’s got, "Grand ideas about becoming a celebrity." They ask about Frankie’s involvement. Another flashback – the sisters are talking about Vicki’s new venture. Vicki tells Jill, "They're gonna glamorize me." Jill tells Vicki that she doesn't trust Frankie’s promises, and apologizes for sounding stuffy. She warns Vicki about having unrealistic aspirations. Flashback even further. Frankie shows up at the cafeteria. Vicki keeps dishing out the wisecracks. He shows her the newspaper article about her making a splash at the El Chico Club.
"Why all the cracks you don't even know me?""I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like." Back in the present day, at the police station. Jill continues to tell the cops how successful Vicki's climb was. Backward once again-
Jill Lynn I don’t want to tell you your business, but don’t you think you’re making a fool of yourself?
Vicki Lynn What do you mean?
Jill Oh, this Frankie Christopher. People like that, what have they got to do with people like us?
Vicki Jill, they’re going to help me!
Jill In what way?
Vicki They’re gonna’ glamorize me. They may have started this thing as a gag, but, after taking one look at those million-dollar debutantes tonight, I realized I can give them cards in spades and still come out on top.
Jill Vicky, you’ll never come out on top by any shortcuts. One week your picture’s on the cover of a magazine, the next it’s in the ash can.
Frankie arrives at the girl’s apartment, and Vicki breaks the news to Frankie that she's going away to Hollywood. She'd done a screen test and signed a long-term contract. He's angry. She went behind Frankie's back after everything he did for her. She defends herself "Some people think I'm a pretty attractive girl. I'm no Frankenstein you know!" Frankie comments, "I wonder."
Jill tells the cops she was pounding a typewriter breaking her fingernails, and Vicki did get the Hollywood contract, so she might have been right about taking the risk with an acting career and becoming a star.
Another flashback The three men are sitting around the bar.
Robin Ray [indignant] Can you imagine her walking out on me, after all that I’ve done for her? Me!
Larry Evans [slightly incredulous] “You’ve” done for her? What have *you* done for her?
Robin Well, I took her out to all the bright spots, I let her be seen with me everywhere… It made her feel important.
Larry Why, you parboiled old ham! You don’t think anybody thought there was anything between *you* two, do you? If it hadn’t been for my plugging in the column, people would’ve thought she was your trained nurse.
Robin Why, you ink-stinking word slinger! I was famous when they were changing your pants 20 times a day!
Jumping to the present again, Jill is still being questioned by the cops. They want to know if Vicki had anyone in her life. Jill remembers a peculiar thing that happened. She tells them she was sitting at the table in the cafeteria waiting for Vicki to get off work. The peeping prowling, Ed Cornell's giant shape stares at Vicki through the window. He has a queer look on his face. Jill maintains her stare, holding her coffee cup, she is unable to put it down as she studies him, uncomfortably. Once he notices Jill catching him ogling Vicki, he skulks away. Mockeridge's score undergoes a sinister change, with emphasis on the rhythmic accents of a classic horror picture.
Jill tells her sister, "You seem to have an admirer there's some guy looking through the window like the wolf looking for the 3 little pigs." The girls are walking on the street, Cornell is leaning against a wall, and Jill points out to Vicki that he's the one. "He gives me the creeps," Vicki says, "You'll have to get used to that, they've got more wolves in New York than they have in Siberia," She tells the cops she saw him several times after in odd places. He never said anything but watched Vicki, it frightened Jill. There was something strange about him, the way he looked at Vicki. Always turning up in strange places. The cops look skeptical about her "mysterious stranger."
The cops think Jill is trying to protect Frankie "I just don't believe he did it, that's all" They ask if she's involved with him, and accuse her of being in love with him and wanting Vicki out of the way. Jill demands to see someone in authority, so they tell Mac to get Cornell. Who walks in? The creep who watched Vicki through the plate glass!
Enter rabid, self-righteous homicide Detective Ed Cornell (Cregar). Once he sets his sights on Frankie he begins to mercilessly hound him to the ends of hell if necessary, going after him with a flaming vengeance, trying to pin the murder on him. Cornell knows that Frankie is innocent but he is determined to persecute him. Cregar made an all too short career out playing imposing characters. He died at 28 in 1944 due to complications from a crash diet, always struggling with his weight, striving to obtain leading man status.
Jill is startled, the room is smoky and this massive shape looms over her with his girth "That's him, that's the man!" They think she's crazy. First, it's a mysterious stranger peeking through windows and now it's Ed Cornell. "That’s my job to look at people." Leaving the dark corner of the sweat box into the smoke factory with Frankie, things become more visible as Cornell emerges as a menacing force. She insists, "I did see you."“Alright Alright, I'm a peeping tom."
Jill Relates what happened on the car ride with Frankie, the night he learned Vicki was leaving, and she tells him he'll be glad to get rid of her because Jill is in love with him. Jill is just covering up her feelings. Frankie says Jill being in love with him, never entered his mind. Vicki is sure, "I know it's much deeper than that. That's why it’s so dangerous. Anything might happen."
Cornell writes down everything on his pad. Jill says that Vicki didn't mean the line about being glad to get rid of her, but he corrects her, “What she meant doesn't count. It's what she said.”
The night Jill found Vicki, as soon as she came out of the elevator she got a feeling something was wrong. There was music blasting from the radio. Frankie was there already – "Jill you don't think I did it, do you?" Jill is in shock.
Cornell goes back into the interrogation room with Frankie and tells him he knows about Vicki’s ‘get rid of me’ statement. The obsessed Cornell comes up with a scenario. Frankie’s mind got more and more inflamed with jealousy and hurt pride. Went up there and killed her in cold blood. Cornell loses his cool and lunges at Frankie, "I've got a mind to kill you right now."When Cornell gets rough, the other cops have to break it up. They all like Frankie and ask if he's got any tickets to the fights. They ask Cornell "What's the idea of riding him, so hard?” "I have years of experience in this racket. If that isn't the look of a guilty man, I'll take the rap myself." The District Attorney winds up getting his back up with Cornell when he focuses so much on Frankie’s guilt.
The District Attorney (Morris Ankrum) apologizes to Frankie. Jill is in the office too and tells him they think they know the identity of the killer. It’s the switchboard operator at the sisters’ apartment building. They think it’s Harry Williams. Jill leaves the police station and Frankie asks why they think it’s Williams. The D.A. tells him, William’s been missing since 5 pm last night, probably hiding out scared and shaky.
Frankie is released and later that night, Mature wakes up to find the huge, menacing Cregar sitting beside his bed, “Well that's the first time, I had a bad dream with my eyes open."“Someday you’re going to talk in your sleep, and when that day comes I want to be around.” The scene hints at Cornell’s repressed homosexual passion.
Cornell tells him he’ll get all the evidence he needs and tie him up like a pig in a slaughterhouse. Frankie unrattled, tells him, "You're the bright boy” and reminds him that they think Williams murdered Vicki. Victor Mature is so smooth, so mellow when he’s playing at being sarcastic, He says, "You're like something out of a museum you ought to have a magnifying glass and one of those trick hats with the ear flaps" Frankie throws Cornell out after he calls him cocky, and has had it his way too long. First with Vicki, then Jill. Cornell’s resentment is showing.
Jill finds Harry Williams who’s returned to the apartment building. She’s moving out, but he has already packed up her bags and taken them down to the lobby. Williams is a suspiciously hollow little insect who Jill finds strange. Frankie meets up with Robin at the police station. The cops show a reel of Vicki singing at a nightclub. Cornell watches her longingly which gives Frankie a window into Cornell’s longing for the dead girl. Cornell looks at Frankie with contempt.
The film of Vicki appears in the dark room filled with cigar smoke that makes wispy clouds float, and the rays of light from the projection booth. The light cast on Frankie's eyes is like an illuminated mask, it accentuates his epiphany "” that Cornell is obsessed with Vicki. He catches something in his stare. The light on Cornell’s face as HE stares back at Frankie, unmasks only half of his face, revealing the duplicity Cornell projects throughout the picture. It’s a brilliantly framed shot by Cronjager.
The film reel resurrects Vicki from the dead, like a ghost haunting the room. Robin Ray squirms in his chair and runs to get out. The door is locked. His behavior hints at his guilt. They put the lights on and bring him into the D.A.’s office. Ray tells them how he felt about her. She laughed at him. Called him "a has-been and didn't want to hitch her wagon to a falling star." He's the one that arranged the screen test but she went down there alone. He is obsolete, they decided they didn't need him. While he talks about her, Cornell looks out the window. Daylight casts patterns from the Venetian blinds that cut across his face. Odd angle profiles tilt the two-shot of Cornell and Mac off-kilter. Ray has an alibi. He was at a sanitarium. Cornell checked it out already and is gleeful that it rules out yet another suspect. He wants Frankie to fry for it. Cornell would have Frankie in the death house by now. “That won’t prevent you from going to the hot chair.”Â
As Frankie is leaving the police station Cornell asks him for a lift uptown "Sure, always happy to oblige a goon"
Ed Cornell [bumming a ride in Frankie’s car] “I’m sorry to have to ask you to do this, but I’m a little short on cash lately. You see, I’ve spent so much of my own dough, trying to build up this case against you.”
Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature) “Well, if there’s anything you need, just let me know.”
Ed Cornell “Oh, I imagine they’ll make it right with me when I bring in the material for your trial. They usually do in these cases. I nick a guy on my own time and send him up to the chair, then I get back pay.”
Frankie Christopher “Must be a great life – like a garbage man, only with people!”
Ed Cornell “I got practically all the evidence I need now. I could arrest you today for that matter, but you might get some smart mouthpiece and get off with life instead of the chair. I won’t be satisfied until I’m *sure* it’s the chair.”
Frankie Christopher “You’re a gay dog, Cornell. You make me feel as if I’m driving a hearse!”
Ed Cornell “Oh, I know your type. I’ve seen hundreds of them. I don’t scare you enough to make you commit suicide, but I worry you just the same. And when the day comes they all act different. Some scream, a few faint, some light a cigarette and try a wisecrack. But it sticks in their throats – especially when they’re hung.”
Cornell shows up at Jill's new apartment to intimidate her. Jill “What’s the good of living without hope?” Ed Cornell signals his own personal torture- “It can be done.” He advises her to just play along, insisting that she’s not even sure Frankie’s innocent. Once he’s left, Jill pulls out a note from behind a framed painting on the wall. It's from Frankie to Vicki, "After what you did last night, the sooner you're out of the way the better it will be."
Frankie takes Jill to the fights and then out on the town. She asks if he ever brought Vicki to the fights, and tells him it’s the first New York nightclub she’s ever been to. The El Chico club, he first took Vicki to. She sees how nice he is without all the flashy bluster and pretense. He's actually very real. Cornell follows them. Frankie asks her why she suddenly called him, "The trouble with you is that you pretend you don't care about things but you do. You were very upset about Vicki’s death weren't You? He tells her he'd like to find the guy, –“Save the State on its electric bill. She was a good kid” Jill doesn't want him to be guilty. "Did you love her?" “No, do you think if I'd loved her I would have tried to exploit her the way I did?… Vicki was pretty, gay, and amusing She had lots to offer and I wanted to put her in the right place on the map. After all, that's my business But when a man really loves a woman, he doesn't want to plaster her face all over papers and magazines. He wants to keep her to himself."
Looking into her eyes, he tells her he’s in love with her. Larry Evans sees them together and calls in the story "Stepping out"¦ Dancing on the grave."
Frankie takes Jill to his favorite swimming spot. It’s a lovely scene, that brings some lightness to the external space in the story. She shows him the note he wrote to Vickie and he asks why she didn’t turn it in to the police. Jill tells him she knew he was innocent and what the note meant, at the moment they were dancing at the nightclub. When they are back at the apartment, Cornell walks in and takes the note. They cuff Frankie. Cornell who is obviously framing him is just waiting for the chance to catch him. Frankie tells him anyone could have written a note like that. He was burned up when Vicki dropped the bomb that she was leaving. He finds out that Cornell has planted a set of brass knuckles in his apartment. Vicki was hit hard behind the ear with a heavy object. The depraved Cornell punches Frankie in the guts. "You're like a rat in a hole."
As Cornell is about to take him downtown, Frankie is on the ground after Cornell’s hostile assault, Jill hits Cornell from behind and helps Frankie escape. Big fat head bullying him, she says.
Frankie proposes, “Mind marrying a hunted man?” She tells him, "Most married men have a hunted look anyway." He tells her his real name – Botticelli, the son of Italian immigrants. Then he shows her how to hide in the city. They duck into an adult movie house, watching the same picture over and over. Then they decide to split up for the time being and she goes to the public library. The cops find her, and Frankie sees them taking her away. The newspaper headline says "Christopher eludes police dragnet." Cornell stalks the streets. Frankie sneaks up on him. "Let Jill go”, and he'll turn himself in. Ed Cornell (Laird Cregar) “I’ll follow you into your grave. I’ll write my name on your tombstone.”"You're not a cop you're crazy trying to frame an innocent man."Frankie throws a tootsie roll at him and takes off. Cornell assures him, he'll eventually get him. Always smirking like the devil.
Cornell tells the D.A. a parable about the African Butterfly and how to trap the male to set the female free. He wants him to let Jill out of her box to lure Frankie. She goes home, sneaks out through the window, and surprises Frankie at the adult movie house. At the apartment, she has found little cards from flowers that were sent to Vicki, and at the funeral. She shows them to Frankie. The message on the cards says, "Because I promised."
They go to Rosedale Cemetery and when he meets the caretaker, Frankie pretends to be a reporter and asks if anybody lately has been around Vicki’s grave. There were many flowers at the funeral, and the caretaker tells him that the grave's been getting flowers each day since she died. Frankie learns where they were sent from, and goes to Keating Florist. It turns out that Larry sent them. Frankie confronts Larry who admits he was with Vicki the day she died. He had promised to send her flowers every day when she left for Hollywood, and he wanted to keep his word. Larry winds up giving Frankie a clue about the killer, and he goes to the old apartment and gets Mac to give him a half hour. He has a strong hunch.
The next scene is ripe with atmosphere when Frankie leans against the wall in Vicki’s old apartment. The lattice shadows fence Frankie in. Harry Williams is sleeping at the front desk. Vicki rings the desk and speaks in Vicki's voice "Hello Harry, this is Vicki" He's visibly shaken. Frankie watches his reaction. His eyes open wider as the buzzing mocks him, "Harry this is Vicki. Why did you do it, Harry? Didn't you love me?" Frankie confronts Williams. “You let yourself in with your passkey and waited for her. You loved her. She panicked and screamed.” Williams admits, “I told the cop that when he chased me to Brooklyn. Cornell knew all along it was Williams. The dirty Cornell told him to just come back and keep his mouth shut. Mac hears the confession. Frankie tells him, he wants 5 minutes alone with Cornell.
He goes to his apartment and finds a perverse and macabre shrine to Vicki. Her image is like a talisman in his suffocating little apartment. He discovers the prominent photograph of Vicki in an elaborate frame. Cornell unaware that Frankie is there, comes in and places fresh flowers underneath the photograph, as an offering. Frankie watches then emerges, "You knew. Why'd you want to fry me?"He tells Frankie, "I lost Vicki long before Williams killed her. You were the one who took her away from me" Cornell wanted to marry her. Had this furnished apartment set up. Bought her perfume. “Til he came along and put ideas in her head. She thought she was too good for me. He could have killed him then.” Frankie puts it to him, "Why didn't ya?""Cause I had the hook in your mouth and I wanted to see you suffer."
Cornell resented Frankie’s closeness to Vicki and inhabits a world that excludes him. In contrast to the suave Frankie Christopher, he is a lumbering and awkward outsider. To Cornell, Vicki will always be as unattainable as the first time he gazed upon her through the window. He was struck by her beauty, but she was completely and forever out of his reach. Cornell is like a lurking monster straight out of a classic horror movie. His uneasy presence lends to a surreal and menacing mood.
For this upcoming Halloween, I thought I’d pay the Boogeyman off with a few fearful trailers! I put together a little theme here at The Last Drive In – and I thought to myself… how ’bout offering up several off-beat & groovy horror flicks from the 1970s featuring that smooth & sinister villain – cult horror star!-Robert Quarry, the enigmatic dark anti-hero of horror, suave yet not overtly theatrical. He’s got a sublime sex appeal with the underlying trance like magnetism of a viper – mysterious, charistmatic and dangerous. He even attained his villainous status to go head to head with Vincent Price as Darrus Biederbeck, his nemisis in Dr. Phibes Rises Again 1972 and in Sugar Hill 1974 he plays another predatory bastard – Morgan who needs to get his arrogant ass whooped by the entrancing Marki Bey as Diana ‘Sugar’ Hill.
It’s his aesthetic that works so perfectly in the cult horror genre. And I believe that the sophistication and malignant evil of his Count Yorga is perhaps one of THE most exquisitely predatory vampires in the history of terror on screen! Quarry’s vision of his style of vampirism, was to move away from the conception of what we experienced watching Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee’s Dracula. Not to downplay the significance of those two great performances. He wanted to give Yorga ‘a kind of reality and play him straight.’ (Robert Quarry in an interview)
Narrator: (George Macready) A vampire, in ancient belief, was a malignant spirit who when the earth lost its sunlight rose nightly from its dark grave to suck blood from the throats of the living. Its powers were many. It could see in the dark, which was no small ability in a world half-veiled from light. Its hypnotic skills baffled the domain of science. It was of a cunning more than mortal, for its cunning was a growth of ages, since it could not die by the mere passing of time. It had to have been by a wooden stake driven deep into its heart, or exposure to the rays of the sun, which would instantly decompose its body into a miasma of putrid decay. The believers of this superstition referred to vampires as the living dead. I seem to be making use of the past tense. Perhaps the present would be more precise, for it stands to reason that if one is superstitious, even on a small, seemingly insignificant level, one must be vulnerable to all superstitions, conceivably even those of vampires.Superstition? (laughs maniacally)
Dashing, Dark and Deadly-MISTRESSES of the DEATHMASTER – sharing his hunger for human flesh, his thirst for human blood, his evil lusts that even Hell cannot fulfill!
“… the special appeal of Count Yorga, Vampire may well be its Los Angeles locale… Count Yorga’s ambience is pure Hollywood and the seamy elegance of Robert Quarry’s performance… exactly compliments {sic} that ambience. Bob Kelljan’s direction, often resourceful, does especially well by Quarry’s disdainful civility… “ – Roger Greenspun, New York Times, November 12, 1970.
I was so lucky to have seen Count Yorga, Vampire during it’s theatrical release in 1970. I hadn’t experienced anything like it before having grown up being transfixed by Bela’s swarthy, sensual, old world vampire, and Christopher Lee’s terror inspiring, blood red eyed Count. With Yorga, he evokes a level of disquiet in me from watching a slew of campy yet shockingly gruesome scenes in the film. There’s a languidness, an eerie dread, a modern Gothic sensibility that washes over films like Yorga, overcast with a hazy lens of 70s colors and an uncanny pacing that is indicative of many of the decade’s horror films. Consider Let’s Scare Jessica to Death 1971 – and any attempt at contemporary homage to that grand decade of experimental horror, will always lack that organic moody vibe that is persistent in 70s classic cult horror. To me it all seems to appear – a forgery.
Directed by Bob Kelljan Yorga co-stars Roger Perry, Michael Murphy, Michael Mcready (George’s son), Donna Anders as Donna, Judy Lang as Erica, Edward Walsh as the brutish Brudah, Marsha Jordan as Donna’s mother (reigning queen of softcore cinema in the 1960s), Julie Conners, Paul Hansen as Peter and Sybil Scotford as Judy.
The next day, Paul notices the strange puncture wounds on Erica’s neck and takes her to see his friend, a blood specialist, Dr. Hayes (Roger Perry), who discovers that the pale as chalk Erica has been drained of blood and is now suffering from pernicious anemia. After they find Erica drinking the blood from her WARNING: – kitten- Paul is skeptical about the existence of a modern day blood sucker, but Hayes suspects that she is the victim of a vampire attack. That evening, Yorga summons Erica and offers her eternal life, taking her back to his secluded castle where his other brides await. She is transformed into a lustful creature, ghostly, predatory, under Yorga’s masterful spell and hungry for blood.
Paul, Donna, her boyfriend Michael and Dr. Hayes show up at the castle looking for Erica. Her boyfriend Paul who had arrived earlier and has been killed by his servant Brudeh.
There begins a restless game of cat and mouse as Dr. Hayes insinuates himself in Yorga’s castle, and tries to talk Yorga into dawn, working his way up to the question, does he believe in vampires? Vampires are real and more superior than humans, he smugly informs Hayes. Onto Haye’s game, Yorga manages to evade the daylight, so he and Michael plan on coming back the next night kill him. Donna, under Yorga’s hypnotic domination, exercising his influence on others, is summoned to the castle. Hayes and Pete (Paul Hansen) must somehow fight off the grotesque servant, Brudah, Yorga’s thirsty brides (Donna’s mother being one of them), who dwell in the castle like deathly Hammer nymphs, and must somehow save Donna and ultimately destroy Yorga.
Quarry would go on to reprise his role in 1971 with The Return of Count Yorga.
The overlord of the damned… The last of the vampires walks again among us… and Evil will have its bloodiest hour!Â
American International Pictures brought back Yorga using the original crew, a script by Yvonne Wilder, directed by Kelljan and a bigger budget. The film also stars Mariette Hartley as the heroine, Cynthia Nelson, who will become the object of Yorga's desire. There's a looming sense of expressionist disharmony. It opens with a sequence in a graveyard, in almost Jean Rollin fashion, where buried vampire brides break through the ground while young Phillip Frame (as creepy Tommy from the neighboring Orphanage), plays with his ball, and winds up coming face to face with Count Yorga. Once again Yorga uses his powers of hypnosis to get his victims to do his bidding, and the film does suggest that Tommy has himself become a fiend.
The undead vamps slaughter a family at a fancy dress party in suburbia. Yorga, wipes the memory of the surviving members who were attacked. Tommy has an evil little ghostly angel face, and he lies about what happened to the family who were murdered, as well as helps Yorga ensnare his victims and he too commits murder, when he stabs Jennifer to death. Jennifer (Yvonne Wilder) is mute and somehow resistant to Yorga’s influence. She’s the only one who knows what happened the night of the attack, but no one believes her.
Once again, Count Yorga waves his powers of hypnosis over Cynthia, who also survives the attack, and eventually pieces from that night start coming back to her. The overlord of the damned decides that he is in love with Cynthia and wants her to share an eternity with him, though he wants her to come willingly. She comes to stay with him at Gateway Mansion, where David (Roger Perry) fights for her eternal soul.
Incidentally, George Macready is the producers father, which explains the actors involvement in both films, though Macready is not a stranger to being cast in eerie narratives. He gave a feverish performance in Boris Karloff's anthology series, Thriller episode The Weird Tailor, (written by Robert Bloch) where he will stop at nothing, even black magic, to bring his son back to life.
Eyes Like Hot Coals…Fangs Like Razors! Khorda the Deathmaster Has Left His Tomb!
Directed by Ray Danton(actor I’ll Cry Tomorrow 1955, The Longest Day 1962-directed the very freaky Psychic Killer 1975) Screenplay by R L Grove, music by Bill Marx who also worked on Scream Blacula Scream 1973. The Deathmasterresurrects Robert Quarry’s synergy of sophistication and menace, this time as Korda, a long haired vampire who washes up on a Southern California beach in his coffin, and is met by a flute playing spaced out hippie, that serenades his arrival, then proceeds to drag his master along the sand on his back. Only after he has strangled a surfer who has made the mistake of looking inside the coffin. The opening feels like an exploration into the bohemian netherworld, somehow inverted into a modern dance of the macabre. Marx’s opening score, using bell trees, clarinets and harpiscord are truly a moody piece of work.
Korda proceeds to play a Guru surrounded by hippies, sans cape this time, instead trading in his smoking jacket for a Nehru or ruffled poet shirt and beads and a talisman around his neck and leather sandals and sardonic goatee. The Deathmasteris a trippy low-budget dive into the craze for spiritual growth and metaphysical discourse, with Korda spouting philosphical meanderings that Quarry in fact improvised. After fusing together a Manson type cult, they all become lambs to the slaughter. Korda radiates his connection to immortality which gives him a godlike aura he uses to mesmerize this 1970s generation that are renegade seekers of truth and transcendence, and free will and free love. The only one who rebels against the master, is Pico who sees him as a false prophet. Pico’s girlfriend, Rona becomes Korda’s object of desire.
Deathmasteralso features John Fiedler as poncho wearing Pop, Bill Ewing as Pico and and Brenda Dixon as Rona-who appeared in 165 episodes of the popular soap opera- The Young and The Restless.
FUN FACT:
A production still reveals that the picture was filmed in December 1970 under the shooting title “Guru Vampire.”
The critic Robert Ebert claims that the Santa Monica beach used at the start of the movie is the exact same location used by Corman’s “Attack of the Crab Monsters”.
Quarry wears the same set of prop vampire fangs in this as he did in both Count Yorga movies. They were specially made and fitted by his dentist.
This is your EverLovin’ Joey sayin’ keep your homemade stakes wittled out of broom handles, ready in case Robert Quarry’s lurking round your VW van… don’t you wish you had one! I do…
Words that come to mind when I think of The Man Who Laughs: beautiful, disturbing, hauntingly poetic, disquieting, dreamlike, tragic, memorable.
Flicker Alley & Universal Pictures have released all these visual thoughtscapes into one gorgeous pristine Blu-ray/DVD combo! It’s Paul Leni‘s visually arresting masterpiece restored to all its glorious original flavor and so much more! Thank you, Aurora, for giving me an opportunity to review it!
I have always been drawn to the tragic beauty of Victor Hugo’s classical romantic horror story The Man Who Laughs. Now a new generation of film lovers can experience the powerful visual poetry of director Paul Leni’s film starring one of the most enigmatic screen presences. Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine brings to life the kidnapped heir to an earldom who was hideously deformed into a perpetually smiling clown, baring a sad eternal grimace. It leaves us with the eternal question — what is the quality of beauty or ugliness? There is an aspect of Beauty and the Beast to the story. Mary Philbinportrays the innocent waif Dea with her long blonde mane of curls and to me, Conrad Veidtis the ONLY Gwynplaine who could have brought the pathos to that infamously hideous visage (though I do not see his eternal smile as hideous).
This remastering of The Man Who Laughs is part of Universal Pictures’ ongoing silent restoration initiative. The source of the restoration is a 35mm composite fine grain film reel from the Universal Pictures vault, created in 1954 from the original nitrate camera negatives. The restoration team stabilized and deflickered the film, repairing scratches, warps, and dirt. The final gorgeous 4k digital restoration was completed by NBCUniversal StudioPost and is accompanied by the extraordinarily evocative score, newly recorded by the Berklee College of Music Silent Film Orchestra.Â
Conrad Veidt’scharacter, Gwynplaine, is The Man Who Laughs. Veidt’s face is well known to most cinephiles, particularly for inspiring Bob Kane’s legendary flamboyant Batman villain, the Joker. Orphaned as a child, Gwynplaine is kidnapped by gypsies, and King James II orders that his face be carved into a hideous grin as punishment for the sins of his father, the Scottish Nobleman Clancharlie. Alone after his disfigurement, he rescues a blind girl named Dea. They are taken in by Ursus and star in a traveling theatre troop. Dea and Gwynplaine fall in love. She can’t see her lover’s tormented smile. They enjoy years of prosperity until Gwynplaine is recognized by the surgeon who disfigured him and the malevolent court jester, Barkilphedro, who served under the patronage of King James II.
Much like Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932), I would imagine The Man Who Laughs (1928) would have been a very difficult picture to sit down and get comfortable with given the subject matter. As Kevin Brownlow writes the film is “far too unpleasant” for some.
circa 1928: Mary Philbin (1903 – 1993) with Conrad Veidt (1893 – 1943) in a scene from the film ‘The Man Who Laughs’, directed by Paul Leni for Universal. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
As I’ve always been into Gothic classical horror and fantasy stories, while the narrative is no less disturbing to me, I’m incredibly drawn to Gwynplaine as a romantically tragic hero. He is not a monster or a freak. He is a victim of monsters and cold-blooded opportunists who forced him into a mold in which he had to rely on fate to be kinder to him later on in life than it was when he was a little lad. As a French romanticism writer, Victor Hugo wrote poetry and was struck with an acute social consciousness in tune with social misery and injustice. Gwynplaine is one of his tragic figures.
Because of the success of his Cat and the Canary a year earlier, Leni was entrusted to direct The Man Who Laughs. There were the elements of horror that were expected from Paul Leni, the concept of disfigurements, of children sold into slavery, and the torture chambers with its Iron Maiden. This is considered Paul Leni’s best American film.
Leni was a German director and set designer most known in the U.S. for his Waxworks 1924, The Cat and the Canary 1927, The Chinese Parrot 1927, and The Last Warning 1928.
The Man Who Laughs influenced director James Whale who acknowledged Leni’s innovative technique as a major inspiration for his The Old Dark House 1932,Frankenstein 1931, and Bride of Frankenstein 1935. It has been said that Leni had an ‘Intoxicating flair for the grotesque’. This was a moment in filmmaking when movie studios had a flair for extravagant stylized horror!
“The highly sophisticated qualities of mise-en-scene, decoration, lighting and playing of German Expressionist cinema are effectively combined with the marvelous expertise, pace and attack of the best American films of the period: and The Man Who Laughs proved to be one of the most vivid and dynamic films to survive from the silent cinema.” –From the booklet, Kevin Brownlow
Warrenton uses expressive camera angles, along with moody and beautifully executed low-key lighting, and atmospheric backlit frames. Each shot is framed like an exquisite 17th-century Hogarthian painting, utilizing Leni’s background in German Expressionism, culminating in scenes of pageantry, the elegance of its set pieces and stylized grandeur, and at times uneasy gruesomeness.
For example, the opening shot of Barkilphedro coming into King James II’s bedroom from behind the wall of imposing religious statues is quite remarkable in its ability to draw you into the story swiftly as a dark fairy-tale once Barkilphedro creeps along the wall like a goblin in a nightmarish fever dream.
And there’s a moment Clancharlie (Conrad Veidt playing a second role) is being sent to the Iron Lady floats into the frame and the darkness closes in around him. The shot is set up with black empty space to devour him, it’s brilliantly executed. The Duchess Josiana’s room is cluttered like a den of sensual pleasures, and even her little monkey adds a touch of the bizarre.
Another incredible cinematic moment is little Gwynplaine wandering the cold countryside of Cornwall among the swinging corpses hanging from the gibbets. The whole scene is hallucinatory in the fashion of expressionist art. The Southwark Fair and the show with the theatre troop with Ursus’ storytelling’ theatrics is shot with flair. Warrenton knew how to utilize space to tell a visual story.
Art Direction Charles D Hall worked with the Universal art directors from Hunchback for the standing sets.
“The whole design was very strongly under the influence of Paul Leni. Charles D. Hall who later became very big with Frankenstein, Dracula and All Quiet on the Western Front was one of the art directors. The research was done so well that it had an ancient European ‘imprint’ You felt that it was barely 1600. Every costume was specially designed and carefully executed.”
Hall went on to design the sets for Dracula and Frankenstein at Universal. Joseph Wright, and Thomas F. O’Neill. The set design is resplendent, especially in King James II’s bed chambers with the wall of Religious Saints and secret passageways.
The sets were by the brilliant Charles D. Hall, the designer of Frankenstein's laboratory, the spooky staircase in Dracula, the creaking mansion in The Old Dark House, the Bauhaus nightmares of The Black Cat, and for Chaplin, the madly teetering cabin in The Gold Rush and the out of control factory machinery in Modern Times. His sketch for the scene where Gwynplaine is abandoned on a frigid rock is reproduced in the film almost exactly. There are many memorable aspects to The Man Who Laughs, but the production design is indispensable to the atmosphere of horror. -William K. Everson
There are hints of German expressionism. “One Needs to grasp the full implications of this style The low ceilings and vaults oblige the characters to stoop, and force them into those jerky movements and broken gestures which produce the extravagant curves and diagonals required by Expressionist precept. A few years later Leni was to use the same attitude in The Man Who Laughs, made in America when his King of England creeps down a corridor accompanied by his sadistic jester.” –From The Haunted Screen by Lotte EisnerÂ
Film Editor Edward L. Cahn (Yes!, my favorite schlocky B director famously known for films like Creature with The Atom Brain 1955, The She-Creature 1956, Zombies of Mora Tau 1957, Invasion of the Saucer Men 1957, It!, The Terror from Beyond Space 1958, Curse of the Faceless Man 1958, Invisible Invaders 1959, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake 1959)
THE COLORFUL CASTING
Interestingly, Conrad Veidtwas Carl Laemmle’s first choice to portray Dracula in the film adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, after Bela Lugosi emoted his bloody heart out on Broadway for 33 weeks.
Universal Studio made a big splash with The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) with Lon Chaney. According to Kevin Brownlow, director Rupert Julian said “Lon Chaney-or it can’t be done”before casting Phantom of the Opera. And there was the same sentiment about The Man Who Laughs as well. They had their minds set on casting Lon Chaney as Gwynplaine. The problem was that Universal had let Chaney out of his contract already, and while he was now under contract at MGM and could loan him out, he for some reason withdrew at the last minute.
Conrad Veidt in Lady Hamilton (1921).
And so Conrad Veidt wound up playing Gwynplaine, the role intended for Lon Chaney. Veidt had already established himself as one of the world’s top “tragedians” when Laemmle contacted him and got him interested in taking the role. “I rarely have had such a satisfying experience.” in a letter written to a German journalist during production.
Veidt had returned to Berlin after playing a role with John Barrymore in The Beloved Rogue (1927). He worked with Leni on Waxworks (1924). Veidt was most known for his role in Robert Weine’s as Cesare the chilling somnambulist in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and with this performance, he helped pioneer the horror film industry.
"No matter what roles I play, I can't get Caligari out of my system"-Conrad Veidt
(Eingeschränkte Rechte für bestimmte redaktionelle Kunden in Deutschland. Limited rights for specific editorial clients in Germany.) 1893 – 1943 Schauspieler, D in dem film ‘Der Student von Prag’ 1926 (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
Noah Beery and Conrad Veidt in King of the Damned (1935)
He was active in German Expressionist theatre and starred in The Hands of Orlac (1924) Waxworks (1924), The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1935), Dark Journey (1937) Blackout (1940), A Woman’s Face (1941), as Major Strasser in Casablanca (1942). He was targeted for death by the Nazis for his anti-Nazi sentiment he fled to England and fought with the Brits. He also donated his earnings to help with the Allied cause. Veidt was one of the stars who appeared in Casablanca (1942). Veidt would ironically play Nazis in several film roles.
He had the perfect demeanor to play the murderous sleepwalker, Cesare, in the Expressionist masterpiece The Cabinet of Dr. Caligariand soon would be called the "Man with the Wicked Eyes."
Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr Caligari) 1920 – Germany Director: Robert Wiene stars Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover.
When I think about how expressive Veidt is in The Man Who Laughs, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligary, or The Hands of Orlac, I turn to Eisner to describe it perfectly–
“A dynamic synthesis of their being, by concentrating their movements which are almost linear and which-despite a few curves that slip in-remain brusque, like the broken angles of the set; and their movements from point to point never go beyond the limits of a given geometrical plane.” — From Lotte Eisner The Haunted Screen
In this way, she is describing a type of ballet or modern dance that takes discipline and mindfulness. I thought by watching Veidt’s external reality in The Man Who Laughs that he truly expressed the journey of a tortured soul merely through his eyes, and his hands. This he learned from working in the German expressionist theatre and his time with Max Reinhardt’s theatre troupe.
Conrad Veidt Mary Philbin Erich von Stroheim and Paul at the premiere of The Man Who Laughs 1928
“It is precisely as if I am possessed by some other spirit when I enter on a new task of acting, as though something within me presses a switch and my own consciousness merges into some other, greater, more vital being.”-Conrad Veidt
“To play Gwynplaine was the dream of my boyhood. I have been fascinated by this character ever since I read Victor Hugo’s novel in high school. One has to feel pity for Gwynplaine, as he is mutilated, but the result of that mutilation -the laughing, grotesque face-looks funny. For a film actor, that presents an artistic challenge that could hardly be more complicated. So what did I have left as my main mean of communications? The eyes!” – Conrad Veidt
Film Review from 1928 — “…The picture is undeniably better than The Hunchback of Notre Dame…Â Conrad Veidt’s impersonation of the laughing man is at least as good as anything Lon Chaney ever did with the aid of makeup. Baclanova’s portrayal of the loose duchess is without parallel and burns holes in the screen….” Motion Picture World 13 October 1928
Conrad Veidt not only plays Gwynplaine but also portrays his father the wild-eyed Scottish nobleman Lord Clancharlie who is sent to the Iron Lady by King James II and sentenced to death for political defection. His young son to suffer the sins of the father.
Universal Studioshad their heyday with monsters at their studio with Frankenstein and Dracula beginning in the 1930s. But during the silent era, the big feature was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). Here The Man Who Laughs lent primarily to the talents of an actor who could express himself through the art of pantomime as only Lon Chaney could have. The character of Gwynplaine cannot speak ordinarily or alter his intensely forged smile framed and accentuated by the use of lipstick around a wide mountain of grinning teeth. This would pose a challenging limitation to any actor. Conrad Veidt had already proven he had the essential force within him to limit facial expressions to convey his mood.
Veidt’s incredible command of just his eyes as the source of his power — the place where his identity springs from are extraordinary. He utilizes scarves and handkerchiefs, sleeves, and Dea’s hair to block anyone’s sight of his mouth. It’s a very thoughtful and purposeful mechanism but is not done in a way that is artifice. He uses his eyes to create the semblance that he is a complete man. This conflict is saddening to us as we gaze upon him and understand his inner pain. The only way he can become whole especially when he is closest to Dea is when he covers his mouth. Veidt is masterful at telegraphing his conflict to us over his outer reality and his inner desires.
Originally Charles Dullin was to play The Laughing Man and Edith Jehanne was to play the beautiful blind girl Dea in the French version of the film, they were not known actors in the U.S.
The American version of the film also considered featuring Ernest Torrence as Gwynplaine and Mary Philbinwho had wonderful success as Christine Daae in Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera in 1925, she was perfect to play the lovely Dea.
The original choice for the seductive Duchess Josiana was French actress Arlette Marchal who had been suggested by Gloria Swanson after they worked together on Madame Sans-Gene 1925– but Olga Baclanova was chosen for the sensual Duchess Josiana sister to the wicked Queen Anne. American audiences never seemed to warm up to the glamorous Baclanova. Historian Kevin Brownlow tells a very interesting story about interviewing her in New York in the 1960s as part of his essay in the wonderful booklet. About she got started here in the States, her work on Freaks, and a few other funny tidbits.
One of the minor ‘ooh ahh’ shocks that draws to the film was the opportunity to catch a glimpse of Baclanova’s naked arse as she rises out of her bath. Her naked tuckus is shown through the keyhole in the European version of the film but her bare arse is obscured in the American version by the towel. Nudity was shown in pre-Code films up until the early 1930s.
Brandon Hurst (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1920, The Hunchback of Notre Dame 1923, Love (1927), House of Frankenstein 1944)is absolutely wonderful as the sinister Barkilphedro the goblin Jester who is perhaps one of the most photogenic and the most complex if not the most diabolical and sinister of all the characters in this dark fairy tale. He is like the boogeyman.
Josephine Crowellas Queen Anne, Sam De Grasse as King James II, Stuart Holmes as the buffoon Lord Dirry-Moir, George Siegmann as Dr. Hardquanonne the head Comprachico surgeon, Nick De Ruiz as Wapentake, Edgar Norton as Lord High Chancellor, Torben Meyer as The Spy, Julius Molnar Jr. as Gwynplaine as a child, Charles Puffy as Innkeeper, Frank Puglia as Clown, Jack Goodrich as Clown, and the star of the film–Zimboas Homo the Wolf.
MAKE-UP
The great Jack Pierce was responsible for Gwynplaine’s make-up. Pierce was chosen with the tremendous undertaking of replacing the remarkable artistry of Lon Chaney. The idea was to create the look on Veidt’s face of a “death’s head rictus grin.” It predated the grueling makeup hours that Boris Karloff would have to undergo for Universals Frankenstein’s monster! But Jack Pierce was the man to create the sympathetic anti-heroes!
“We had to have a mouthpiece made” said Andrew Marton, assistant director, “that kept Veidt’s cheeks in this horrible position . He was so ill from this. Day after day his muscles and his skin was stretched-he became sore in his mouth, and he was suffering. He was a marvellous actor, but no actor, no matter how good he is, can surmount a grimace that is imposed on him from the word go.”
Gwynplaine’s grotesque grin was achieved with a prosthesis. Veidt wore a set of dentures with metal hooks that pulled back the corners of his mouth. One can imagine how much pain he was in! He couldn’t speak with the prosthesis in his mouth. There’s only one scene in which he did not wear the prosthesis and that’s when he is ravished by the Duchess Josiana.
“Wearing dentures to give him a blinding set of piano-key set of choppers (framed by a lipstick mouth)added to his prominent nose, heavy eyebrows and nest of hair, Veidt is an unforgettable sight. (Metal hooks on the dentures pulled the actors lips into a laughing rictus)” – From John Dileo 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery
Veidt’s acting is mostly with his lyrical hand movements and his eyes, which transpires empathy and is one of the most heartbreaking visceral performances in cinematic history. Jack Pierce’s makeup helps to heighten the dramatized sense of fable with Gwynlaine’s deep-set piercing eyes, which are captivating and entrancing. Veidt had already been considered one of the great ‘tragedian’ actors Pierce using dark eye shadow helps to deepen the well of his sadness from where the tears spring. Through only the use of his eyes and his facial expressions we manage to understand the layers of emotions he is experiencing on his journey through his ordeal. Great gentility pitted against self-hatred then spirited courage, self-sacrifice, and soul searching. As John Dileo says,
“this is stylized acting simultaneously marked by bold operatic strokes and subtle graduations of feeling resulting in a Chaney worthy turn of significant pathos. It is especially chilling to see him to watch him cry ;the upper half of his face in torment and tears while the lower half frozen in maniacal glee.”
Oddly enough this was the third story in a cycle of Gothic historical, romantic tragedies eloquently macabre with themes of love and disfigurement adapted at major motion picture studios. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), and The Man Who Laughs (1928)
IMDb not-so-fun facts:
Gwynplaine’s fixed grin and disturbing clown-like appearance was a key inspiration for comic book talents writer Bill Finger and artists Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson in creating Batman’s greatest enemy, The Joker.
The process of carving a victim’s face to look like it is smiling broadly has come to be known as a Glasgow Smile or a Chelsea Smile after organized-crime rings in those two British cities used such mutilation as a terror tactic.
The Comprachicos, a Spanish term meaning child buyers, was coined by Victor Hugo for his novel this film is based upon. According to Hugo they could change one’s physical appearance through various methods such as physical restraints, muzzling their faces to deform them, slitting their eyes, dislocating their joints, and the malformation of their bones.
One wonders if director William Castle’s Mr. Sardonicus in 1961 was a much more exaggerated version, a more grotesque visage, and not the sympathetic character of Gwynplaine. This might have been something Castle thought about being a classic horror fan who loved his gimmicks.
Guy Rolfe stars as Mr.Sardonicus (1961) in William Castle’s film based on writer Ray Russell’s novel. The film co-stars Audrey Dalton and Ronald Lewis.Â
In recent years, in the contemporary horror genre assailed by rampant body violation and disfigurement (torture porn), there’s a host of horror films that include faces slashed from ear to ear but don’t give reference nor credit to Hugo’s character. The slashed face is common in 21st-century films, yet Gwynplaine is the earliest archetypal Gothic figure as a tragic hero. The true-life Black Dahlia murder in the 1940s is the next time a face is literally slashed from ear to ear. And we see this sardonic grin outside of horror films, in V for Vendetta (2005).
Ironically, Frankenstein’s monster and Gwynplaine have been the two classical figures in Gothic horror literature, and film adaptations are not unlikely due to the contributions of Boris Karloffand Conrad Veidt’s striking and soulful performances of their characters. It consistently breaks my heart every time I re-watch their presence on screen. Gwynplaine’s face is unusually arresting and his expressive eyes are absolutely heart-wrenching. It’s evocative without a word spoken. Perhaps the only comparison to this is Lon Chaney Sr.’s Quasimodo. Each is similarly tied to the other as tragic, misunderstood, as either an error of nature or a trespass of man on nature. They are prisoners in their bodies, hated by outsiders, in love with women they wish they could have, and all gentle souls within, and we ache for them to be released. As Shelley’s Frankenstein’s monster, asks, “Why did you create me?” And just as Gwynplaine cannot change his immortal grimace we cannot look away from him but embrace him as a whole man.
The striking coincidence that the great Jack Pierce did the time-consuming painstaking makeup for Karloff’s Frankenstein’s monster, years after creating the eternal smile on Conrad Veidt’s face is not lost on me. I find it a quite natural succession of events.
THE COSTUMES
The magnificent costuming with historical accuracy for the time period designed by Vera West and David Cox adds to the atmosphere and pageantry of the extravagant beauty of the picture.
THE SCORE
The Berklee College of Music Silent Film Orchestra’s collaborative efforts brought Hugo’s story, Leni’s direction, and the actors’ performances to a whole other level of feeling. Lyrical, playful, dynamic, ominous, or poignantly beautiful. The music uses strings, woodwinds, piano, flutes, tympani, harps, and bowed upright bass to represent certain characters in the film, brilliantly accentuating the scenarios and each scene’s moods. Dea and Gwynplaine’s lover’s theme is particularly poignant.
As a musician, I recognized the musical themes of the motifs used. The theme for the lovers — Gwynplaine’s and Deas, symbolizes their immortal love. As Sonia Coronado explains in her informative essay (another extra included in the lovely booklet that comes with the Flicker Alley Blu-ray/DVD) the scoring was divided into seven reels, 15 minutes each as the film is almost 2 hours. They had a list of themes representing each main character. It’s extraordinary how an entire class of music students took their own sections of music and came together at the end to piece the fabric of the full story like a tapestry. That confluence works so beautifully. One complete score was written by seven composers.
The studio had a strong response to their 1926 release of the French-produced Les Miserable (1923), Victor Hugo’s best-loved work. To the executives at Universal, the character of Gwynplaine had much in common with that of the other Hugo character, Quasimodo, played by Chaney in Universal’s success of 1923.
Let me just quickly say that there are two absolutely powerful moments in The Man Who Laughs. My two favorite scenes are:
1st — When Gwynplaine goes to Duchess Josiana’s bedchambers to be seduced. Perhaps what made this scene so believable is something I read in Kevin Brownlow’s booklet where he talks about interviewing Ogla Baclanova, and how she particularly liked Veidt “He was so adorable. We had a love scene on the bed-excuse me! I was crazy about him.” Apparently, she wasn’t acting…
2nd — One of the most poignant and well-orchestrated sequences is when the Theatre troupe of clowns try to pretend that there’s an audience waiting to see The Laughing Man, the show must go on, trying to prevent Dea from learning that Gwynplaine has been taken to the torture chamber until Barkilphedro shows up and announces that he’s dead. For the actors, it is what is not said, and how the scene manages to come together that is superbly coordinated.
I am so thrilled to be joining CMBA’s Hidden Classics Blogathon!There are many great contributions this year–Â so many unsung gems for the offering! Thank you CMBA for allowing me to share this little obscure suspense yarn with all of you!
The Great Broadway Melodrama Comes to Flaming Life on the Screen!
Ladies in Retirement, with its play-bound vibe and all its macabre thought processes, is directed by Charles Vidor who did not shy away from films that manifested a gutsy imagination. Vidor is known for films that bordered on the edge of their genres, such as the 1930s horror classic The Mask of Fu Manchu 1932, the sinister obscurity Double Door 1934, and the symbol of unforgettable film noirs like the tension-filled Blind Alley 1939 and the seductively arousing Gilda 1946.
While it’s been referred to as film noir, I believe it meets the criteria of the 1940s suspense genre with a trace of — I don’t know — ‘Gothic melodrama noir’ for its use of light and shadow and familiar noir tropes like the focus on class, scandal (Fiske was a courtesan, Albert -thief and blackmailer, Ellen -murderess, Emily-dangerously unstable), and of course by the end fate steps in. In addition, there’s the use of noir iconography, with its visual interest in staircases.
It’s also an old-fashioned horror story– not vampires or ghouls– but the haunting feeling you’d get from fog-filled marshes off the Thames River, the tinny sound of a not quite tuned piano, a body behind the wall, or the disorder of insanity vs a murder of desperation and opportunity. Whereas with all of Val Lewton’s startling contributions, the “unspoken and the unseen were the true sources of dread.” (Judith Crist)
The lighting particularly accents the player’s expressions as they emerge from the dark edges around their form, with merely an aureole on their face or eyes– like a lit mask. This is truly effective in bringing out the intense concentration of Ida Lupino’s beautiful eyes and Ellen’s inner turmoil. The angles in the set up of the interior are odd and sharp, once again the source of light, Lupino’s face lit from underneath used to provoke the contrast between black and a deathly pale white.
Columbia Pictures studio purchased the rights to Denham and Percy’s story with Rosalind Russell in mind for the starring role of Ellen Creed. Russell was featured as the lead Olivia Grayne in another psychological thriller Night Must Fall in 1937. But, Ida Lupino, as always, was worthy of the role and had a remarkably innate grasp of a woman torn by her strong sense of preservation. She was also married to Louis Hayward at the time of filming.
Lux Radio Theater broadcast a 60-minute radio adaptation of the movie on September 27, 1943 with Ida Lupino reprising her film role. According to contemporary articles in The Hollywood Reporter, Lillian GIsh Judith Anderson, Pauline Lord, Laurette Taylor and Helen Chandler were all considered for roles as one of the demented Creed sisters.Â
Though the film is stage-bound, it preserves the feel of the original play and has a visual moodiness thanks to distinguished and skillful cinematographer George Barnes (Footlight Parade 1933, Marked Woman 1937, Rebecca 1940, Meet John Doe, Jane Eyre 1943, Spellbound 1945, Force of Evil 1948, The File on Thelma Jordan 1949, The War of the Worlds 1953). Barnes started as a still photographer which explains the aesthetic of framing scenes like an arrangement of still lifes. He was nominated 7 times, one for his work on Ladies in Retirement, with over 200 films to his credit, he was a hard-working cinematographer from 1935- 1949.Â
Responsible for the art direction and interior design that won him an Academy Award isLionel Banks(The Awful Truth 1937, Holiday 1938, Golden Boy 1939, His Gal Friday 1940, The Boogie Man Will Get You 1942, The Soul of a Monster 1944, Cry of the Werewolf 1944. He designed the South American set for Only Angels Have Wings 1939, and conjured up the turn of the century for the fantasy Here Comes Mr. Jordan 1941 and again for Charles Vidor’s lavish A Song to Remember 1945. Banks added to the stage play atmosphere of the film with its collection of sparse surreal, gnarled trees that look fake, fog-shrouded heaths, and a heaviness to the interior as a suffocatingly enclosed space. The entire exterior scenes have a look of unreality, the outside appears like a murky dreamscape with painted clouds floating in a painted sky, where there is no departure.
Filmed mostly as a set piece in the parlor of a slowly waning old house on the marshes of the Thames Estuary some ten miles to the east of Gravesend, in 1885. The shots are set up with odd angles and the shadows create a sense of confined spaces with unseen rooms and staircases that go nowhere. Barnes and Banks even made a low stone wall of the cottage, which seems to constrain the borderline of the house.
The actors are positioned as the primary focus on the screen backdropped by the scenery that hints only at the suggestion of dank marshes, melancholy trees, and craggy rocks surrounding the house. Much of the set pieces remind me strongly of an episode of Boris Karloff’s anthology series THRILLER, titled ‘THE LAST OF THE SOMMERVILLES’released in 1961. Elements that are similar are the exterior shots that seem unreal, depicting an obscuring fog with fake trees and pale grays, with the interiors also as closed-in spaces of an antiquated house owned by an equally flitty old dowager (Martita Hunt) like Leonora, who preens and is prone to theatrics. She is taken care of by her dutiful companion played by Phyllis Thaxter who plans to murder the old gal. This perfectly macabre installment of the series happened to be directed by Ida Lupino! Perhaps she drew her inspiration from Ladies in Retirement. The art direction for that episode is done by Howard E Johnson, set by Julia Heron and John McCarthy Jr.
Martita Hunt and Phyllis Thaxter in The Last of the Summervilles 1961.
Ladies in Retirement flourishes from its tense and stodgy narrative more than the dark humor that Denham could have chosen. Unlike the brisk screwball comedy of Arsenic and Old Lace 1943, by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Julius Epstein which was also based on a play by Joseph Kesserling. That play inspired Denham and Percy to write their own story about a pair of eccentric older women.
The stage play in 1939 went on to receive rave reviews with 151 performances at the Henry Miller’s Theatre. The story was written by Reginald Denham who spent the main part of his career directing Broadway theater, and Edward Percy. The play starred Flora Robson in the role of Ellen. Director Bernard Girard’s psycho-sexual and often grotesque The Mad Room 1969 is a modern re-working of Denham and Percy’s play. The film stars Shelley Winters, and Stella Stevens with Michael Burns and Barbara Sammeth replacing the mentally ill Creed sisters. Denham also wrote the screenplay for the 1969 movie. He penned 2 episodes of Lux Video Theatre, ‘Help Wanted’ episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents 1956, 4 episodes of Suspense 1949-1950-‘Help Wanted’, ‘The Suicide Club’, ‘Murder Through the Looking Glass’, and ‘Dead Ernest.’ Denham also directed films from 1934-1940.
Will Ecstasy Be a Crime… In the Terrifying World of the Future?
Directed by Michael Anderson, the film is based on the novel by George Orwell that tells of a totalitarian future society in which a man whose daily work is rewriting history, rebels by doing the unthinkable– he falls in love. 1984 stars Edmund O’Brien as clerk Winston Smith of The Ministry of Truth for the Outer Party who refuses to accept the totalitarian state of 1984, where all the citizens are under surveillance at all times. When Winston meets Julia they bask in their physical pleasures outside of the watchful eyes of Big Brother but are betrayed by a member of the Inner Party, O’Connor (Redgrave). Each state functionary must adhere to their designated positions and Redgrave gives a superb performance as a proud drone who possesses a drive as he demonstrates his responsibilities to the state.
The underrated Jan Sterling plays Julia of the Outer Party, and David Kossoff is cast as Charrington the junk shop owner. Co-starring in the film are Melvyn Johns as Jones, Donald Pleasence as R. Parsons, Carol Wolfridge as Selina Parsons, Ernest Clark as Outer Party Announcer, Patrick Allen as Inner Party Official, British character actor Michael Ripper as Outer Party Orator and Kenneth Griffith as the prisoner.
It was in 1954 that Nigel Kneale (writer-creator of the Quatermass trilogy, The Quatermass Xperiment 1955, First Men in the Moon 1964, The Witches 1966, Quatermass and the Pit 1967, The Woman in Black 1989 first adapted George Orwell’s dystopian Ordeal for BBC television starring Peter Cushing as Winston Smith.
Director Michael Anderson (who would later take on another futuristic cautionary tale, Logan’s Run 1976) unveils Orwell’s bleak vision and its passage of vigilance, yet it has been criticized for lacking the deeper essence of his novel and the gravity of its contributions – a premonition of things to come. The ferocious inclinations of man create- Big Brother. A destiny intent on tyranny, depersonalization, the all-watchful eye of the totalitarian state, and the loss of free will.
There were two endings made. The British release presents Winston Smith (O’Brien) defying Big Brother and dying for his principles. The American version has lovers O’Brien and Sterling brainwashed, reconditioned and ultimately abandoning their relationship.
“Thus, in place of Orwell’s savage satire on the rise of the authoritarian state ( and specifically Stalinism), producer Rathvon and Anderson mount a vapid romance in which beefy O’Brien and mousey Sterling are clearly intended to represent the undying spirit of rebellion. Even the drabness of life in Oceania that Orwell creates so convincingly, is lost in the film which, like so many literary adaptations, centers on the slim storyline of the novel.” -Phil Hardy
"No matter what roles I play, I can't get Caligari out of my system"-Conrad Veidt
