Karloff stars as Professor Henry Morlant a fanatical Egyptologist who rises from his tomb to seek revenge!
Also co-starring Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Ernest Thesiger, and Ralph Richardson. Directed by T. Hayes Hunter.
Happy Bump in the Night-Yours Truly…MonsterGirl
Here is my song Wash Away from Hunting Down The Ceremony Volume II. Featuring The Cricket Chance in his first vocal performance. ( he sneaked inside the vocal room with me while I was laying down the track for Wash Away. I left him in there, because it seemed relevant and the right thing to do, since he sang in key!)
MonsterGirl (jogabriel)
I had the honor of being the next person interviewed with Tura in Indie Filmmaker Steve Balderson’s experimental art film, Phone Sex. It was a thrill to come after the vivacious and wonderful Ms. Satana!
Three wild women, Tura Satana as Varla, Haji as Rosie, and Lori Williams as Billie, are strippers thrill-seeking cross paths with a young couple in the desert. Once they get rid of the boy, they take the girl hostage and set out to steal a crippled man’s stash of cash, that he’s supposedly hiding. The old man has two sons who they try to seduce in order to get at the old man’s money. But they don’t realize that they’re dealing with something a little more than a feeble man in a wheelchair. Exploitation at its best. Satana is a treasure to watch. She just plain kicks ass!
R.I.P you warrior woman! (July 10, 1938 "“ February 4, 2011).
I dedicate this video to Bette Davis for I adore and worship her more than mere words can ever express!
MonsterGirl (jogabriel)
Bette Davis appears on The Andy Williams Show
Starring the lovely Joan Fontaine as the empathetic Jane, Orson Welles as the brooding Edward Rochester, the great unsung character actor Henry Daniell, and 2 very young and wonderful actresses the uncredited immortal Elizabeth Taylor as Helen Burns and the pixie Margaret O’Brien as Adele. Also appearances by Agnes Moorehead and Hillary Brooke. And Peggy Ann Garner as young Jane.
MonsterGirl (jogabriel)
Directed by Lazlo Benedek, Written by Donald S. Sanford and music scored by Morton Stevens. Starring Robert Vaughn as Dr. Frank Cordell and Kathleen Crowley as Dr. Lois Walker.
There are obvious elements of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with more of a neo-realism that displaces the Gothic romanticist nature of the story of dualities of the mind/soul connection transplanting it in a modern setting, making it almost hyper eerier. This episode is also one of the few in the series that is an integration of post-world War II science-fiction mystery with the reoccurring themes of crime drama and Gothic horror that most of the other episodes pivoted on in this timeless hybrid television show. Not only are there traces of Neo-Noir realism of the 60s, but it also flirted with good science vs bad science. I find a correlation with the original novella published by Stevenson in the late 1800s.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the original title of a novella written by author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in London on Jan 5th, 1886. The work is commonly known today as simply Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Dr Henry Jekyll has unleashed a bestial alter ego Edward Hyde, a violent misanthrope. A fracturing of the self, into two clashing and opposing natures. It is the ultimate parable of good vs evil where 2 vastly different personalities within the same person battle over their moral character and the question of right and wrong.
When I first started blogging on The Last Drive In, I chose one of my most beloved memories, a thing of nostalgia for me, and what I consider to be one of the greatest television programs that contained not only the classic crime mystery drama, but Gothic horrors based on some of the most prolific writers of these genres back then, such as Cornell Woolrich , Robert Bloch and August Derleth.
I recently covered episodes like The Hungry Glass, The Hollow Watcher, The Grim Reaper, The Cheaters, The Incredible Doktor Markesan and Pigeons From Hell.
This time I will be blogging about a few more interesting tales such as The Ordeal of Dr Cordell starring Robert Vaughn. The Remarkable Mrs. Hawk starring Jo Van Fleet and John Carradine, The Premature Burial starring Sidney Blackmer (the piercing Roman Casstavette in Rosemary’s Baby) and Boris himself as Dr. Thorne. And finally Rose’s Last Summer starring Mary Astor since I’m on a Mary Astor kick what with working on my Aldrich series and Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte post that’s giving me an infarction, it’s so detailed, yet I don’t know how to write any other way.
I’ll be periodically choosing other great episodes from the series,but these were the ones I thought would be really interesting to cover right now.
I am talking about Boris Karloff’s television series that ran from 1960-1962: Thriller: The Complete Series.
Also the contributions by directors like John Brahm, Ida Lupino , Herschel Daugherty, Arthur Hiller and Paul Henreid who had a unique visual perspective that created creepy landscapes and lighting that would fit the noir canon very well.Also very notable for me as a musician are the musical scores by Mort Stevens, Pete Rugolo and Jerry Goldsmith that were nothing short of stunning, evocative melodies that tore at your soul and fit the mood of each episode,adding another vivid dimension to the atmospherics.
I have written earlier about some of my favorite episodes from Boris Karloff’s anthology series Thriller, which was an unusual collection of mixed genres. The series seems to be a very popular one here at The Drive In, so I’ve decided to write about a few more that have stayed with me over time, not that I didn’t absolutely love every single episode, all 67 of them. I only wish there had been more, or that someone would discover lost episodes that were never released. I have virtually watched each episode hundreds of times, not only catching little details for the first time with each reviewing, but never do I grow tired of them. That is the sign of something timeless, and masterful. And the more time goes by, I realize even further how preeminent this body of work truly is.
I can only imagine how excited fans like me were when they finally released the box set.I cried, I am not even kidding you. I, like many other devotees, waited a very long time for them to release this masterpiece on DVD. I used to have to wait up until 3am back in the day so that I could set my VCR to record when the Sci-Fi Channel had the good sense to run the episodes. Although I’d always get hocked off that the commercials were ads with nude girls telling me to “pick up the phone” while they were sliding up and down a pole. I know that boys and men love sci-fi and horror, but news flash! girls and women actually can have an avid appreciation for all things scary, thrilling and wondrous like the marvels of science, just as much. We can have a visceral passion for action and frightmares just like anyone else. So having to endure the “babes” of late night Sci-Fi Channel commercial land was irksome. Now I can watch Boris with some undisturbed dignity and I don’t have to be told to “pick up the phone” by some bimbo jutting her tongue over her shiny lip gloss, as if that were sexy to me. I’d rather watch Marisa Mell or Barbara Steele sitting under a tree reading a book. But again I digress as by now you know I am apt to do. Forgive MonsterGirl her little occasional rants.
So anyway, not only was there unmistakable atmosphere to each of Thriller’s episodes, but the stories themselves were lensed in a unique way that was very ahead of it’s time. The actors brought a serious attitude to their characters and the plot development, and didn’t treat them as merely short pulp stories as fodder for the tv masses. This was an intelligent show, and the presence of Boris Karloff only added a charming sage fabulist narration that was like being tucked in by your remarkable grandfather who loved to tell a good spooky tale to you right before bedtime. I’ve said this plenty, I wish Boris Karloff had been my grandfather.
MonsterGirl
Virginia – “I caught a big fat bug right in my spider web and now the spider gets to give the bug a big sting. Sting, Sting, Sting, Sting, Sting!”
Spider Baby is one of the most original psychological horror gems that is as queerly frightening as it is endearing. It opens with Bruno the Chauffeur played by Lon Chaney Jr. singing a little nursery song about werewolves and vampires and it’s quite effectively eerie as the opening hymn. Chaney’s character delivers one of my favorite lines–it’s a childish hymn that tributes oddballs in the world who struggle to find their place in the world.
Bruno, The Chauffeur: “Just because something isn’t good doesn’t mean it’s bad.”
The film is special partly due to the presence of Lon Chaney Jr. as Bruno who looks after the Merrye children with undying devotion. Living in the decrepit and crumbling old family mansion, they are the last generation of surviving Merryes occupying the odd space like a whimsical little fun-house.
Because of inbreeding the family has been cursed with a type of mental regression, and arrested development. Bruno sort of cleans up any of the messes or homicidal fatalities that happen due to the Merryes being like wild unchecked gremlins.
Including the postman (Mantan Moreland busy actor in the 40s who often took off on black caricatures for the all-white films he played all jittery or stereotyped buffoonery Hollywood made a brand out of his name and his ebullient persona. Anyway, he should have known better than to try and leave a package any further than the steps, instead of poking his head inside the window and being trapped in Virginia’s theoretical web and being sliced up with a large pair of knives, losing an ear that will be kept in a little box as a token. He was a big bug caught in her net after all.
Directed by Jack Hill (Blood Bath 1966, The Big Doll House 1971, Coffy 1973 and F0xy Brown 1974) who brilliantly populates this queer little world with the perfect characters, all on a budget of $65,000.
Lon Chaney was only paid a flat fee of $2,500 for his role and it was a little poignant to watch his performance with bits of his alcoholism seeping through the character, he had been drinking pretty heavily at that point but had remained sober during filming. The role had meant a lot to Chaney, who got the part after John Carradine turned it down.
Ronald Stein’s music is often lyrical & offbeat (Attack of the 50 Ft Woman (1958), Dementia 13 (1963), It Conquered the World & She Creature (1956) Not of this Earth, Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Undead, Dragstrip Girl (1957) The Girl in Lovers Lane (1960) The Haunted Palace (1963).
The film’s alternative titles are The Liver Eaters. Cannibal Orgy– I assure you there is no orgy, and there isn’t any cannibalism on screen. There is the family bible or a reference book that explains how exclusive Merrye Syndrome affects only that family, where the disease: causes its victims to regress mentally to a pre-infantile state of savagery and cannibalism. The three surviving children of Titus Merrye are Elizabeth who dresses like a little girl (creepy) and Virginia who thinks she’s a giant spider.
The Merrye sisters Virginia (Jill Banner) and Elizabeth (Beverley Washburn) are suited as the demented girls, and then there’s Ralph, adorable feral little Ralph manifested by the quirky Sid Haig who would later take on grittier roles as screen heavies in exploitation films.
Carol Ohmart (House on Haunted Hill 1959) comes into the picture as Cousin Emily Howe who is after the family fortune not expecting to uncover the house of Merrye madness.
31 Flavors of Noir on the Fringe to Lure you in! Part 4 The last Killing in a Lineup of unsung noir
The film has been compared to the work of iconoclast Luis Buñuel. who was considered a moralist director who definitely populated his films with the sense that revolution was necessary to change the stagnant ways people conform to their lives.
I can see the dinner scene as a nod to his The Exterminating Angel, as the table is set where everyone but the guests are vegetarians. Ralph has caught a Rabbit. Unfortunately, it’s the neighborhood cat. When Ralph grabs the ‘rabbit’ and starts tearing into it, Cousin Peter (Quinn Redeker)Â is confused because he thought he was a vegetarian. Bruno tells him “But Ralph is allowed to eat anything he catches!”
Spider Baby creates its own little universe of characters who move in their own orbit with a sense of unorthodoxy. Virginia with that large bow in her hair is ridiculous as it is uncomfortably creepy for an obviously grown young woman to sport a child’s ribbon like a doll, where she evolves into a monstrous assassin with her two sharp knives in her anxious hands elevating her to a truly gruesome character and not just a childish simpleton.
It’s this teetering irony of the film that takes us from darkly whimsical to suddenly going for the jugular that creates the uneasy feeling surrounding the Merrye family.
It’s one of THE definitive Cult films for sure, as it’s witty, macabre, quirky, irreverent, and a bit of film noir in its use of shadows and devious figures doomed from the beginning. Spider Baby is an adult fairy tale with dark corners and speculative questions about madness and responsibility and who gets to make those decisions. And Carol Ohmart just looks damn sexy in her black lingerie as she runs around amidst the ‘old dark house’ trope as the woman in peril.
IMDb Fun Fact:
The film was shot in August and September of 1964 with the title “Cannibal Orgy, or The Maddest Story Ever Told”, but its release was held up for years because the producers went bankrupt, which tied up the film in legal limbo. Independent producer David L. Hewitt acquired it for distribution in 1968 and changed the title to “Spider Baby” and “The Liver Eaters.”
EDGAR G.ULMER’S: THE BLACK CAT (1934) “ARE WE BOTH NOT"¦ THE LIVING DEAD?”
Amazing Rasputina score The New Zero feat to The Black Cat 1934.
Melora Creager plays a wicked Cello!!!!!!
Chills -M.G.
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