A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! Halloween A-Z

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The Jungle Captive 1945

The Jungle Captive is a 1945 classic American B-movie horror film directed by Harold Young. The film is part of the Universal Pictures series of horror movies featuring iconic characters like the Mummy and Frankenstein’s Monster. In this installment, the story revolves around the reanimation of a gorilla named Cheela from Captive Wild Woman 1943 which starred Aquanetta.

In a macabre turn of events, Paula Dupree, known as the Ape Woman, is resurrected once more, this time at the hands of a deranged scientist and his grotesquely disfigured assistant Moloch the Brute (Rondo Hatton). In their sinister quest, they also abduct their female lab assistant, intending to use her as a source of female blood. Tragically, Paula’s previous ordeals have left her with severe brain damage

The plot centers on Dr. Stendahl, (Otto Kruger) a scientist who is conducting experiments to bring the dead back to life. He becomes obsessed with the idea of transferring the brain of a dead woman, Paula Dupree (Vicky Lane), into the body of his captive gorilla, Cheela. Paula Dupree was a character from the earlier films in the series, “Captive Wild Woman” (1943) and “Jungle Woman” (1944), who had undergone a transformation into a gorilla-like she-creature.

 

Jack the Ripper 1959

Jack the Ripper is a 1959 British-American crime thriller film directed by Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman featuring a script by Jimmy Sangster. The movie is another fictionalized account inspired by the infamous series of unsolved murders that occurred in London’s Whitechapel district in the late 19th century, attributed to a mysterious and never-apprehended serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.

In the film, the story follows the investigations of a determined police inspector named O’Neill (Eddie Byrne) as he tries to catch the elusive Jack the Ripper. O’Neill becomes deeply involved in the case, even as the brutal murders continue to shock and terrify the city. The film explores the dark and atmospheric streets of Victorian London, creating a sense of tension and suspense as the inspector gets closer to uncovering the killer’s identity.

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter 1966

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter is a 1966 American horror-western film directed by William Beaudine. It’s a unique and somewhat campy crossover film that combines elements of the Western genre with classic horror tropes.

The story centers around the legendary outlaw Jesse James (played by John Lupton), who is on the run from the law. Jesse and his partner Hank Tracy (Cal Bolder) seek refuge in a small town in the Old West. Unbeknownst to them, the town is home to Dr. Maria Frankenstein (played by Narda Onyx), the granddaughter of the infamous Dr. Frankenstein.

Dr. Maria Frankenstein is determined to carry on her grandfather’s experiments in reanimating the dead. To further her scientific pursuits, she coerces Jesse and Hank into assisting her by using their bodies as subjects for her experiments.

Jesse James and Hank find themselves trapped in a bizarre and terrifying situation, caught between the law and the monstrous creations of Dr. Frankenstein’s granddaughter.

Just Before Dawn 1981

Just Before Dawn 1981 is a gruesome horror installment in the slasher genre directed by Jeff Lieberman. A far cry from another horror film under Lieberman’s belt, as he directed one of my top favorite unsung horror films of the 1970sSquirm 1976. Further exploration needs to happen here at The Last Drive In. And I promise it will happen. Cast aside the title’s wriggly veil, and place your trust in my whispered refrain, for “Squirm” emerges as a tapestry of haunting Southern gothic atmosphere, a raw and whimsical nightmare delicately woven within the fabric of the ’70s hybrid horror-sci-fi genre. I stand in quiet wonder, as it lies untouched by the idiots who seek to remake everything, and just so happy they haven’t tried to reawaken the steel-teethed blood worms with CGI.

It follows a group of young adults who venture into the remote wilderness to explore the untouched forest one of them has recently inherited. As they embark on their camping trip, they are unaware of the dark and violent history of the land, which has a curse hanging over it. As soon as they arrive, they meet an odd reclusive mountain man who tries to warn them about the dangers that surround them in the woods. But they continue to explore even though something is lurking, watching them. They are not alone. A crazed killer begins to hunt them down and kill them one by one as it goes in these slasher movies. It becomes a fight for survival while they try to outwit the relentless, sadistic killer who seems to be superhuman. Just Before Dawn stars George Kennedy as Roy McLean, Chris Lemmon as Jonathan, Mike Kellin as Ty, Deborah Benson as Constance, Ralph Seymour as Daniel, Jamie Rose as Megan, Gregg Henry as Logan, Katie Powell as Merry Cat Logan, and John Hunsacker as the mountain twins.

The film has one of the most memorable self-defense death scenes of the 1980s horror canon. Nuff said…

This is your EverLovin Joey – that begins with the letter J! Sayin’ stay tuned for the letter K, it’s a killer!

 

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! Ape Women & The Boogie Woogie Boogie Man

JUNGLE CAPTIVE (1945)

Another Universal horror film starring Vicky Lane who resurrects Paula Dupree – the Ape Woman who is brought back to life, by a mad scientist Otto Krueger as Mr. Stendahl who then dispatches Moloch the Brute (Rondo Hatton) to kidnap his female lab assistant Ann Forrester (Amelita Ward) in order to use her blood for the Ape Woman. Co-stars Jerome Detective W.L. Harrigan.

Murder in the Blue Room (1944)

This is a remake of Secret of the Blue. Room (1933) The blue room is the key to the whole mystery! It’s got music by The Three Jazzybelles and mayhem at a party thrown at a haunted mansion, with an unsolved murder twenty years prior. People go missing and are murdered, as Larry Dearden (Regis Toomey) who spends the night in the locked “blue room” first disappears and is then found shot to death.

With a ghost who walks the property asking for a light and directions to the cemetery!

Directed by Leslie Goodwins with a screenplay by I.A.L Diamond and Stanley Davis. Stars Anne Gwynne as the lovely Nan, Donald Cook as Steve, John Litel as Frank Baldrich, Grace McDonald as Peggy Betty Kean as Betty “I don’t like dead people they’re not my type!” and June Preiser as Jerry. Regis Toomey plays Larry Deardan, Nella Walker as Linda Baldrich, Andrew Tombes as Dr. Carroll and the ubiquitous Ian Wolfe as Edwards the butler. Milton Parsons is the creepy chauffeur!

The lively music and laughs are jammed packed with great lines and a few good chills…

This is your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl Joey sayin’ boogey woogie on over to The Last Drive In again and grab yourself some chills!

Heroines & Scream Queens of Classic Horror: the 1940s! A very special Drive In Hall–ween treat!

Evelyn Ankers
promo shot for The Wolf Man- Evelyn Ankers

THE WOMEN OF CLASSIC HORROR: THE 1940S!

You could say that Evelyn Ankers is still the reigning queen of classical 1940s horror fare turned out by studios like RKO, Universal, and Monogram. But there was a host of femme scream tales that populated the silver screen with their unique beauty, quirky style, and/or set of lungs ready to wail, faint, or generally add some great tone and tinge to the eerie atmosphere whenever the mad scientist or monster was afoot. Some were even monstrous themselves…

For this upcoming Halloween, I thought I’d show just a little love to those fabulous ladies who forged a little niche for themselves as the earliest scream queens & screen icons.

ELSA LANCHESTER 1902-1986

I’m including Elsa Lanchester because any time I can talk about this deliriously delightful actress I’m gonna do it. Now I know she was the screaming hissing undead bride in the 30s but consider this… in the 40s she co-starred in two seminal thrillers that bordered on shear horror as Mrs. Oates in The Spiral Staircase 1945 and a favorite of mine as one of Ida Lupino’s batty sisters Emily Creed in Ladies in Retirement 1941

I plan on venturing back to the pre-code thirties soon, so I’ll talk about The Bride of Frankenstein, as well as Gloria Holden (Dracula’s Daughter, Frances Dade (Dracula) and Kathleen Burke (Island of Lost Souls) Gloria Stuart and Fay Wray and so many more wonderful actresses of that golden era…

Elsa Lanchester in The Spiral Staircase
Elsa Lanchester as Mrs.Oates in director Robert Siodmak’s The Spiral Staircase 1945
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The Sister Creed in Ladies in Retirement 1941 starring Elsa Lanchester, Ida Lupino, and the wonderful Edith Barrett (right)

ANNE NAGEL  1915-1956

Anne Nagel
the playfully pretty Anne Nagel.
Anne Nagel & Lon Chaney Man Made Monster Promo photo
Anne Nagel & Lon Chaney Jr in a promo shot for Man Made Monster
Anne Nagel, Lon Chaney & Lionel Atwill Man Made Monster
Anne Nagel was strapped to the slab and at the mercy of the ever-mad Lionel Atwill. Here comes the glowing Lon Chaney Jr! in his electric rubber suit in Man Made Monster!

The depraved mad scientist Lionel Atwill working with electro biology pins gorgeous red-headed Anne Nagel playing June Lawrence, to his operating slab in Man Made Monster 1941. Lon Chaney Jr. comes hulking in all aglow as the ‘Electrical Man’ which was his debut for Universal. He carries Anne Nagel through the countryside all lit up like a lightning bug in rubber armor. Man Made Monster isn’t the only horror shocker that she displayed her tresses & distresses. She also played a night club singer named Sunny Rogers also co-starring our other 40’s horror heroine icon Anne Gwynne in the Karloff/Lugosi pairing Black Friday in 1940.

She played the weeping Mrs.William Saunders, the wife of Lionel Atwill’s first victim in Mad Doctor of Market Street 1942. And then of course she played mad scientist Dr Lorenzo Cameron’s (George Zucco’s) daughter Lenora in The Mad Monster 1942. Dr. Cameron has succeeded with his serum in turning men into hairy wolf-like Neanderthal monsters whom he unleashes on the men who ruined his career.

Anne Nagel and Lionel Atwill Mad Doctor of Market Street
Anne Nagel and Lionel Atwill Mad Doctor of Market Street.

Poor Anne had a very tragic life… Considered that sad girl who was always hysterical. Once Universal dropped her she fell into the Poverty Row limbo of bit parts. Her brief marriage to Ross Alexander ended when he shot himself in the barn in 1937, and Anne became a quiet alcoholic until her death from cancer in 1966.

Anne Nagel Lon Chaney Lobby Card

Lon Chaney Jr and Anne Nagel Man Made Monster

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Dr. Cameron’s daughter Lenora (Anne Nagel) discovers the wolf-like man in his laboratory in The Mad Monster.
Hairy beast The Mad Monster
Glenn Strange as Petro the Hairy man in The Mad Monster 1942.

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1940 UNIVERSAL
the sultry Anne Nagel and Bela Lugosi in Black Friday 1940 photo courtesy Dr. Macro.

MARTHA VICKERS- 1925-1971

Martha Vickers
the beauty of Martha Vickers.

Martha was in noir favorites The Big Sleep 1946 & Alimony 1949. This beauty played an uncredited Margareta ‘Vazec’s Daughter’along side Ilona Massey as Baroness Elsa Frankenstein and the marvelous older beauty Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva the gypsy! in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man 1943. Then she played heroine Dorothy Coleman in Captive Wild Woman 1943 and Miss McLean in The Mummy’s Ghost 1944.

Originally Martha MacVickar she started modeling for photographer William Mortenson. David O Selznick contracted the starlet but Universal took over and put in her bit parts as the victim in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and in other ‘B’ guilty pleasures like Captive Wild Woman & The Mummy’s Ghost. She was also the pin-up girl for WWII magazines.

Martha also starred in other noir features such as Ruthless 1948 and The Big Bluff 1955. She was Mickey Rooney’s third wife.

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Martha Vickers and Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep photo courtesy of Dr. Macro.
Martha Vickers and Lon Chaney in Frankenstein Meets the wolf man
Martha Vickers and Lon Chaney in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.
Martha Vickers and John Carradine in Captive Wild Woman
Martha Vickers and John Carradine in Captive Wild Woman
Martha VIckers
I just can’t resist Vicker’s sex appeal here she is again… Wow!

JANICE LOGAN 1915-1965

Though Logan made very few films including Opened By Mistake 1940, her contribution to women who kick-ass in horror films and don’t shrink like violets when there’s a big bald baddie coming after you with a net and a bottle of chloroform, makes you a pretty fierce contender even if you are only 7 inches tall! As Dr. Mary Robinson (Janice Logan), Logan held it all together while the men were scattering like mice from the menacing google eyed Dr. Cyclops played superbly by Albert Dekker.

FAY HELM  1909-2003

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Fay Helm as Nurse Strand with John Carradine in Captive Wild Woman.

Fay Helm played Ann Terry in one of my favorite unsung noir/thriller gems Phantom Lady 1944 where it was all about the ‘hat’ and she co-starred as Nurse Strand alongside John Carradine in Captive Wild Woman. Fay played Mrs. Duval in the Inner Sanctum mystery Calling Dr. Death with Lon Chaney Jr. 1943

Ella Raines and Fay Helm in Phantom Lady
Ella Raines and Fay Helm in Phantom Lady.

Fay Helm plays Jenny Williams in Curt Siodmak’s timeless story directed by George Waggner for Universal and starring son of a thousand faces Lon Chaney Jr in his most iconic role Larry Talbot as The Wolf Man 1941

Fay as Jenny Williams: “Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.”

Fay was in Night Monster 1942. Directed by Ford Beebe the film starred Bela Lugosi as a butler to Lionel Atwill a pompous doctor who falls prey to frightening nocturnal visitations. I particularly love the atmosphere of this little chiller with its swampy surroundings and its metaphysical storyline.

Dr. Lynn Harper (Irene Hervey- Play Misty For Me 1971) a psychologist is called to the mysterious Ingston Mansion, to evaluate the sanity of Margaret Ingston, played by our horror heroine Fay Helm daughter of Kurt Ingston (Ralph Morgan) a recluse who invites the doctors to his eerie mansion who left him in a wheelchair.

Fay gives a terrific performance surrounded by all the ghoulish goings on! She went on to co-star with Bela Lugosi and Jack Haley in the screwball scary comedy One Body Too Many (1944).

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Irene Hervey as Dr. Lynn Harper –Night Monster 1942.

Night Monster
Fay Helm in Night Monster.
Fay Helm with Bela the gypsy in The Wolf Man
Fay Helm with Bela the gypsy in The Wolf Man.

LOUISE CURRIE 1913-2013

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Ape Man Bela and Louise Currie

Ape Man and Louise stairs

Bela Lugosi as half ape half man really needed a shave badly in The Ape Man 1943, and Louise Currie and her wonder whip might have been the gorgeous blonde dish to make him go for the Barbasol. One of the most delicious parts of the film was its racy climax as Emil Van Horn in a spectacle of a gorilla suit rankles the cage bars longing for Currie’s character, Billie Mason the tall blonde beauty. As Bela skulks around the laboratory and Currie snaps her whip in those high heels. The film’s heroine was a classy dame referred to as Monogram’s own Katharine Hepburn! She had a great affection for fellow actor Bela Lugosi and said that she enjoyed making Poverty Row films more than her bit part in Citizen Kane! And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that she appeared in several serials, from both Universal & Republic like The Green Hornet and Captain Marvel.

Tom Weaver in his book Poverty Row HORRORS! described The Ape Man as “a Golden Turkey of the most beloved kind.”

Louise Currie followed up with another sensational title for Monogram as Stella Saunders in Voodoo Man 1944 which again features Lugosi as Dr. Richard Marlowe who blends voodoo with hypnosis in an attempt to bring back his dead wife. The film also co-stars George Zucco as a voodoo high priest and the ubiquitous John Carradine as Toby a bongo-playing half-wit “Don’t hurt her Grego, she’s a pretty one!”

Voodoo Man
Pat McKee as Grego, Louise Currie, John Carradine, and Bela Lugosi in Monogram’s Voodoo Man 1944.
Voodoo Man
the outrageous Voodoo Man 1944

Continue reading “Heroines & Scream Queens of Classic Horror: the 1940s! A very special Drive In Hall–ween treat!”

the clip joint: The Spider Woman Strikes Back (1946)”You beautiful creature!”

THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK (1946)

CapturFiles

Spider Woman Strikes lobby card

Gale and Rondo

Gale Spider Woman

Director Arthur Lubin’s quirky horror flick starring the wonderful Gale Sondergaard as the wickedly delicious Miss Zenobia Dollard… Brenda Joyce plays Jean Kingsley the young woman who goes to work as a caretaker for the creepy eccentric Zenobia, not realizing that the woman is draining her blood each night so she can feed her very beloved plant! Also featuring Rondo Hatton (The Brute Man, House of Horrors 1946) as Mario the Monster Man.

Gale Sondergaard The Spider Woman Strikes Back

MonsterGirl Strikes Back til next time!