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

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The Mad Doctor of Market Street 1942

GENIUS – OR FIEND?…

I’ll be the most important man to have ever walked the earth!

Mad Doctor of Market Street is a lesser-known 1942 American horror film directed by Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy 1950). A product of early ’40s horror, the film is unintentionally campy and racially offensive as with the scene during Atwill’s wedding with Clarie Dodd when the ceremony is interrupted and perplexed by this he tells the chief to have the native men, ‘Dance… or something!”

The film tells the story of Dr. Ralph Benson (played by the classically trained actor Lionel Atwill who has enjoyed the role of over-zealous mad scientist with high-strung verve! ), a brilliant but deranged scientist who conducts unethical experiments on human subjects. Atwill is always arrogant and wild-eyed in films like The Pre-Code Doctor X 1932 and Murders in the Zoo 1933 beloved Universal monster movies like Son of Frankenstein 1939, to Poverty Row Pictures like Man Made Monster 1941 and Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman 1943.

In this comedy/crime/horror drama, the allure of cinema’s obsession with the mad scientist, a character akin to Dr. Moreau, is on full display. Atwill possesses a messianic complex, feigning the ability to resurrect the dead to maintain control over his followers.

Una Merkel stars as Aunt Margaret Wentworth, Claire Dodd as Patricia Wentworth, Anne Nagel as Mrs. William Saunders, Milton Kibbee as Hadley, and John Eldredge as the ship’s officer Dwight.

Dr. Ralph Benson is wanted for murder and escapes on a ship bound for a remote tropical island. At the film’s outset, he escapes aboard a cruise liner bound for New Zealand, inadvertently landing on uncharted terrain alongside a group of fellow passengers. The island’s residents become suspicious of the mysterious doctor’s activities. As they investigate, they uncover Dr. Benson’s dark secrets and the horrifying results of his experiments.

Unfazed by his circumstances, he persists in his experiments, exploiting the locals as both convenient and susceptible test subjects. When a native woman falls into a coma from a heart ailment, he can’t resist showcasing his life-reviving “magic.” This act leads to him being anointed as the “God of Life” by the natives, and he promptly declares himself the island’s supreme ruler.

Unlike the traditional gothic laboratories of Univeral horrors, this story unfolds amidst a lush jungle backdrop. The remaining survivors from the civilized world include a callous ship’s officer who abandons his companions in a futile attempt to escape the island via canoe, only to meet his death at the hands of one of the natives.

A predictable romantic duo emerges, between Una Merkel’s niece Patricia (Claire Dodd) and  Jim (Richard Davies) a former crew member from the sunken liner. Despite an initial clash, they are gradually drawn together. When Tanao’s wife (Rosina Galli) the old woman Atwill “resuscitates” urges him to take a wife—and he goes after Merkel’s niece Patricia to be his unwilling bride. By the end, his disdain for his followers and his being exposed as a charlatan not really able to work miracles ends with them turning against him.

This film made it’s television debut on 18 January 1958 on New York’s channel 7 (WABC).

The Mad Ghoul 1943

The Mad Ghoul is a 1943 American horror film directed by James P. Hogan. The film follows the chilling tale of a university chemistry Professor Dr. Alfred Morris (played by George Zucco another horror movie Mad Doctor classic), a brilliant scientist who discovers a secret ancient Mayan gas that can turn people into mind-controlled zombies.

After the unsuspecting Ted Allison (David Bruce) becomes an unwitting subject of Professor Morris’s (George Zucco) experiments, the professor’s mind wove a fanciful tapestry. He deludes himself into believing that Allison’s fiancée Isabel (Evelyn Ankers), the captivating concert diva engaged to Ted Allison harbors intentions of ending their engagement because she finds the professor more sophisticated. The truth is, Isabel’s heart dances to a different melody, one orchestrated by Eric Iverson, her devoted accompanist (Turhan Bey). To rouse Ted out of his trance-like state, Dr. Morris compels him to perform the macabre art of cardiectomy, on recently deceased and even living bodies, extracting the serum from their hearts needed as a short-term antidote. As a series of gruesome murders appear to coincide with Isabel’s concert tours, investigative journalist “Scoop” McClure (Robert Armstrong) takes it upon himself to pursue this unhinged mad scientist.

The Mad Ghoul co-stars Charles McGraw, Milburn Stone, and Rose Hobart. Costume design by the fabulous Vera West and distinctive ghoulish makeup by Jack P. Pierce who was responsible for Universal’s parade of memorable characters- especially beloved is his work on Boris Karloff’s expressive Frankenstein’s monster. A must-mention for the moody cinematography by the brilliant Milton R. Krasner (The Woman in the Window 1944, The Dark Mirror 1946, A Double Life 1947, The Set-up 1949, No Way Out 1950, All About Eve 1950, Beneath the Planet of the Apes 1970).

The Mummy’s Ghost 1944

Read John Carradine feature here:

The Mummy’s Ghost is a 1944 American horror film directed by Reginald Le Borg and part of Universal Pictures’ Mummy film series. The movie continues the story of the ancient Egyptian mummy, Kharis, and the cursed love that binds him. The film is set in the United States, where Kharis (played by Lon Chaney Jr.) and Princess Ananka/Amina (played by Ramsay Ames) are still entwined in a tragic love story from their past lives. Kharis, the living mummy, is brought back to life by an Egyptian priest who wants to reunite him with Princess Ananka, who has been reincarnated in the body of a young woman named Amina.

Journeying from Egypt to America, a high priest (George Zucco) embarks on a quest to reclaim the earthly remains of the ancient Egyptian princess, Ananka, and her guardian mummy, Kharis. Discovering that Ananka’s ethereal spirit has been reborn into a new vessel, he seizes a young woman of Egyptian heritage who bears an enigmatic resemblance to the long-lost princess. Yet, in his insatiable greed, the high priest unwittingly unleashes forces beyond his control, setting in motion a series of deadly events that defy the bounds of his control over Kharis.

As Kharis seeks to find and reunite with his love, he embarks on a reign of terror and destruction. Archaeologists and authorities must stop him before he reaches Amina, who is unaware of her past life and the danger she’s in.

The Mummy’s Ghost continues the themes of love, reincarnation, and supernatural vengeance that are characteristic of the Mummy film series. It’s known for its moody and atmospheric portrayal of Egyptian mythology and the tragic fate of its titular character, Kharis.

John Carradine’s performance in The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) is a notable aspect of the film and adds to its charm within the context of Universal Pictures’ Mummy film series. In the movie, Carradine portrays Yousef Bey, an Egyptian priest who is responsible for resurrecting Kharis, the living mummy, in his quest to reunite him with the reincarnated Princess Ananka.

Carradine’s portrayal of Yousef Bey exudes an air of mystery and malevolence and is shrouded in secrecy and driven by an unwavering commitment to his mission, making him a formidable and enigmatic antagonist. His performance contributes to the overall atmosphere of Egyptian mysticism and supernatural intrigue that is characteristic of the series. While “The Mummy’s Ghost” is not as well-known as some other entries in the Universal Mummy franchise, John Carradine’s performance as Yousef Bey remains a noteworthy element, adding to the film’s enduring appeal among fans of classic horror cinema. The film also co-stars George Zucco as the High Priest, Robert Lowery, and Barton MacLane.

Macabre 1958

Macabre is a 1958 American horror film directed by William Castle.

Small-town Dr. Rodney Barrett (William Prince) has been given a gut-wrenching task: he has become ensnared in a sinister vendetta where he must rescue his little girl who has been abducted and buried alive. He must find her before her air runs out. He races against the merciless ticking clock, with mere hours to unearth her before the suffocating darkness claims her life. Producer-Director William Castle extended He provided every attendee with an official certificate, underwritten by Lloyds of London, assuring them of a $1,000 insurance coverage in the unlikely event they died of fright!

William Castle, known for his innovative and gimmicky promotional techniques, added an extra layer of excitement to the release of “Macabre.” He introduced a promotional gimmick called the “Fright Break,” where audience members were provided with certificates of life insurance in case they were to die of fright while watching the movie. Additionally, Castle hired nurses to be present in theaters during screenings to assist any patrons who might be overwhelmed by fear. These marketing tactics were a precursor to Castle’s later, even more elaborate gimmicks used in films like House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler. The film also stars Jim Backus as Police Chief Jim Tyloe, Christine White as Nancy Wetherby Tyloe, Jacqueline Scott as Nurse Polly Baron, Ellen Corby as Miss Kushins, Dorothy Morris, Phillip Tonge, and Susan Morrow.

Mill of the Stone Women 1960

”Trouble began with a woman…”

Mill of the Stone Women alternative title Drops of Blood” The Horrible Mill Women -is a stylish 1960s Gothic Italian Euro-Cult horror film directed by Giorgio Ferroni and based on the Flemish writer’s short story by Pieter Van Weigen. It is quite Hawthornesque – giving a nod to his short story ‘Rappacini’s Daughter’ as well as the 1953 film House of Wax starring Vincent Price and of course the mythos of Ovid’s Pygmalion & Galatea and a bit of a derivative story based on Franju’s Eyes Without a Face that was released that same year, but nearly as poetic. Ferroni imbues the film with a claustrophobic and hallucinogenic tone, with a nostalgia for the above stories.

The opening scene of the Mill underneath a ponderous sky as Scilla Gabel stares – secretly dark and broken -behind the drapery. Carlo Innocenzi’s score bellows an unsettling lament. In 19th century Holland, a professor of fine arts Professor Gregorius Wahl, and the strange rogue surgeon Wolfgang Preiss as Doctor Loren Bohlem (who secretly desires Elfie ) run a secret lab where the professor’s daughter (Scilla Gabel) who suffers from a strange and rare blood disorder, is kept hidden in the house and forbidden to leave the mill as she must receive blood transfusions with the help of Dr. Bohlem and kidnapped female victims who are later transformed into macabre statuary art. A young journalist Hans von Arnim (Pierre Brice) is sent to Holland to write a piece on the famous ‘carousel’ powered by the windmill, its artist, and the Mill’s famous exhibition of waxen women subjected to gruesome torture and death and becomes fascinated by the work of the brilliant yet reclusive sculptor, Professor Gregorius Wahl (Herbert A.E. Böhme) renowned for his lifelike figures of strikingly beautiful women, who are known to be eerily realistic tableaus. Professor Wahl lives on an island in a historic old windmill the locals call the ‘Mill of the Stone Women.

Hans eventually discovers that the professor’s sculptures are created from the preserved bodies of women who have mysteriously died (sacrificed for their blood in order to sustain Elfie ). In some of the horrifying sequences a wide-eyed Gabel leans over a bound and gagged Dany Carrel and Böhme looms over a kidnapped victim about to have her blood drained, her death soon to come, he has a look of righteous madness on his face as the camera frames him from underneathThe young journalist falls under the spell of Wahl’s alluring daughter Elfie (Gabel) though his true love is Liselotte (Dany Carrel). Eventually, Liselotte’s life will become threatened when Wahl seeks to make her his next victim. Wahl is determined to achieve perfection in his art, and he believes that only the bodies of women who must die can provide the ideal subjects to keep Elfie alive and used for his sinister waxworks. The film works on a grotesque level due to its Gothic Guignol of mechanized forms that emerge forcefully through a door – revolving around a stage of expressionist, historical icons whose fates were shocking and violent  – Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, Mary Queen of Scots – life-size figurines from a music box meeting the camera as they turn – eerie specters of the victims in a nightmarish procession upon a rotating carousel.

As Hans delves deeper into Wahl and Dr. Bohlem’s (Wolfgang Preiss)  disturbing and ghastly transgressions against the local women of the village who go missing, he becomes increasingly entangled in a web of dark secrets and surreal horrors. There is a  nightmarish sequence where Wahl and Bohlem subject Hans to a potent hallucinogenic that plunges him into a surrealistic realm where the boundaries of reality and fantasy converge.

He is drawn into a nightmarish descent as he uncovers the truth about the mill, the mysterious deaths, and the professor’s obsession with creating his morbidly aesthetic masterpieces. Ultimately the phantasmic figures go up in flames, a close-up spectacle of grotesquery, the melting reflections of Wahl’s work, shown in  Technicolor – for example, Elfie’s glowing scarlet boudoir hinting at the theme of blood and the moment when she is revealed beneath the lid of her glass coffin holding bright yellow roses in contrast to her deathly pale complexion. All thanks to the art direction by Arrigo Equini and cinematography by Pier Ludovico Pavoni who employs a color palate that recalls Pressburger and Powell’s body of work.

Mill of the Stone Women (1960)stars Pierre Brice as Hans von Arnim, Scilla Gabel as Elfy, Wolfgang Preiss as Doctor Loren Bohlem, Dany Carrel as Liselotte, and Herbert A.E. Böhme as Wahl, Olga Solbelli as Selma and Liana Orfel as Annelore.

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly aka Girly 1970

Everyone is dying to meet Girly!

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly 1970’  is a cheeky British horror-comedy, an Impish yet grisly shocker released as Girly outside of the U.K. directed by cinematographer turned director Freddie Francis. Collaborating with writer Brian Comport, this quirky film emerged under the direction of cinematographer-turned-director Freddie Francis. It unfolds within the atmospheric Oakley Court, a location frequently favored by Francis for his film exteriors.

The film’s origins trace back to Maisie Mosco’s two-act play, “Happy Family.” Screenwriter Brian Comport ingeniously adapted this play into a novella titled “Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly.”

At a secluded manor house in the remote England countryside,  the eccentric lives of four peculiar characters play a bizarre role-playing pastime called ’The Game.’ Here, they immerse themselves in their archetypal personas.

The family members engage in a bizarre and disturbing game in which they “adopt” unsuspecting strangers from the outside world, bringing them into their home and forcing them to participate in their twisted role-playing scenarios. These scenarios start innocently enough but gradually become increasingly dangerous and deranged. Girly seduces unsuspecting men into their eerie world. Once hooked they are they have no choice but to join this unsettling hobby. As the family’s games take a darker turn, tensions rise, and their unsuspecting guests become trapped in a nightmarish world of manipulation and violence.

Girly: Nasty Nanny is no good! Chop her up for fire wood! When she’s dead, boil her head, make it into gingerbread!

Refusal leads to a dreadful death, preserved on film by the camera-wielding Sonny for the family’s morbid indulgence. However, a ‘New Friend’ their latest captive designs a way to use the internal conflicts of the four captors and begins to drive a wedge between them.

Mumsy: [Girly is visibly upset by the super 8 snuff reel her family is watching] Girly, come back here and watch the lovely film!
[Girly bites her nails and sits back down to watch the snuff reel]

The principle of The Game lies in the complete abandonment of each primary character to shed their true identity and choose a new role. Mumsy (Ursula Howells) domineering and eccentric assumes the role of the mother figure, Pat Heywood becomes Nanny, a strict and authoritarian caregiver, Sonny (Howard Trevor) a rebellious, mentally unstable son, and Vanessa Howard is the enchanting yet dangerous child-like Girly,  the seductive daughter who is the naughty siren luring men to their doom. Amidst the cryptic rules governing this twisted world, one commandment remains constant: “Rule No. 1 – Play the Game!”Things go awry after one fateful night, Girly and Sonny attend a swinging party in London and meet a prostitute (Michael Bryant) who is accompanied by his client (Imogen Hassall) When Girly fancies ‘New Friend’, she and Sonny entice the couple to join them for a wild night of mischief. At a playground, they push the woman off a giant slide and somehow convince the dazed guy that he murdered his paying date in a drunken stupor.

Girly [Girly watches as Sonny and the other man try to get the man’s girlfriend to go down the slide] Go on!… bitch.
New Friend: Yeah, go on!
Girly [Smiling slyly] Cowardy-cowardy-custard
[Sonny nods his head and then grabs the girlfriend’s leg, causing her to trip]
Girlfriend: AHHHH!!!
[the girlfriend falls several feet to the ground below, breaking neck. The man stares down in shock while Sonny and Girly pick up the girlfriend’s veil from her body]
Girly:[In a childish voice] What’d you push her for, Mister?

They succeed in luring the ‘New Friend’ back to the manor, where he undergoes a rebranding of his identity, and forced to assume the appearance of a schoolboy, and is subjected to humiliating ordeals. His past client serves as a haunting reminder of his alleged crime, designed to keep him in his place.

When Mumsy and Girl both desire New Friend, it creates conflict within the family as he sows the seed of jealousy, conflict, and dissension between the women and turns the family against each other. The question lingers: Who will ultimately join the makeshift graves of their former ‘friends’?

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly is a rare British cult classic known for its unique blend of humor and horror, creating an unsettling and satirical commentary on societal norms and the dysfunctionality of family dynamics.

The original poster art for the film was an eerie black and white family portrait of “The Family,” dressed in traditional English attire (six form uniforms for Girly and Sonny, a maid’s outfit for Nanny, and a World War II era dress for Mumsy). Though this iconography would have struck a chord with British viewers, it was deemed that US audiences wouldn’t understand the image. For the US release, the distributor commissioned a poster of an anonymous girl standing in for Vanessa Howard wearing a cutoff skirt and clutching a doll in one hand and a bloody axe in the other.

This is your EverLovin Joey Sayin’ M is for Menace and Mayhem and lots More to come! The letter N is the nightfall where all things go bump in!

Chapter 4 – Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:

CODED CLASSIC HORROR THEORY “The Uncanny & The Other”

“Scenes of excessive brutality and gruesomeness must be cut to an absolute minimum…”

“As a cultural index, the pre-Code horror film gave a freer rein to psychic turmoil and social disorientation because it possessed a unique freedom from censorship… the Hays Office admits that under the Code it is powerless to take a stand on the subject of ‘gruesomeness.‘(Thomas Doherty)

Horror films in particular have made for a fascinating case study in the evolving perceptions of queer presence; queer-horror filmmakers and actors were often forced to lean into the trope of the “predatory queer” or the “monstrous queer” to claim some sense of power through visibility and blatant expressions of sexuality.- Essential Queer Horror Films by Jordan Crucciola-2018

Though Hollywood execs refused to show explicit queerness, they were willing to pay for scripts that dealt with characters that were social outcasts and sexually non-normative. The horror genre is perhaps the most iconic coded queer playground, which seems to have an affinity with homosexuality because of its apparatus of ‘otherizing’ and the inherent representation of difference. The horror genre crosses over boundaries that include transgressions between heterosexuality and queerness. The villain, fiend, or monster plays around with a variety of elements that while usually separate, might merge male and female gender traits.

The horror film, in particular, found its place asserting a queer presence on screen. The narratives often embraced tropes of the ‘predatory queer’ or the ‘monstrous queer’ in order to declare themselves visible while cinematic queers were elbowed out of the way. Filmmakers had to maneuver their vision in imaginative ways to subvert the structure laid out for them by the Code.

As Harry M. Benshoff explains in his book Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality in the Horror Film, “Immediately before and during the years of World War II, Universal Studio’s horror films began to employ a more humanistic depiction of their monsters,” and the films of Val Lewton, like Cat People, reflected “a growing awareness of homosexuality, homosexual communities, and the dynamics of homosexual oppression as it was played out in society and the military.” So even though Hollywood execs refused to show explicit queerness, during the first true horror boom in American cinema, they were willing to pay for stories about social outcasts and sexually nonnormative figures. Horror fans thus found themselves awash in some of the genre’s most iconic queer-coded characters of all time.

On a Greek Island, Boris Karloff plays Gen. Nikolas Pherides in Val Lewton/Mark Robsin’s Isle of the Dead 1945. Driven insane by the belief that Thea (Ellen Drew) who suffers from catalepsy is the embodiment of an evil vampiric force, is a demon called a vorvolaka. Lewton drew on collective fears, and all his work had an undercurrent of queer panic and a decipherable sign of homophobia.

The Vorvolaka has beset the island with plague. Thea- “Laws can be wrong, and laws can be cruel, and the people who live only by the law are both wrong and cruel.”

The Pre-Code era was exploding with American horror films, that reflected the angst, social unrest, and emotional distress that audiences were feeling. Personified in films that used graphic metaphors to act as catharsis, the images were often filled with rage, as Thomas Doherty calls it ‘the quality of gruesomeness, cruelty and vengefulness’. Think of the angry mobs with their flaming torches who hunt down Frankenstein’s monster, eventually crucifying him like a sacrificial embodiment of their fury. James Whale’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein 1931 was a smash hit for Universal. Other studios were trying to ride the wave of the awakening genre of the horror picture. Paramount released director Rouben Mamoulian’s adaption of the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, published in 1886. The film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1931 stars Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins. During the period of Pre-Code, many horror films proposed grisly subject matter that would shock and mesmerize the audience. For example, actor/director Irving Pichel’s The Most Dangerous Game (1932) starring Joel McCrea, Leslie Banks, and Fay Wray.

In 1932 Michael Curtiz directed Doctor X starring Lionel Atwill who would become one of the leading mad scientists of the genre.

Michael Curtiz’s macabre horror/fantasy experiment of homosocial ‘men doing science’, crossing over into profane territories and embracing dreadful taboos!

All scenes below from Dr. X (1932)

Fay Wray is Atwill’s daughter who is the only woman surrounded by a group of scientific nonconformists.

The adaptation of Bram Stoker’s story of the Eastern European incubus was interpreted by Tod Browning in Dracula 1931, immortalized by Hungarian stage actor Bela Lugosi with his iconic cape and mesmerizing stare. While his nightly visitations were blood driven and cinematically sexual in nature, there is a very homoerotic element to his influence over Renfield (Dwight Frye) and his gaze of gorgeous David Manners as John Harker.

Bela Lugosi looks down upon David Manners in a scene from the film ‘Dracula’, 1931. (Photo by Universal/Getty Images)

Robert Florey directed the macabre Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe. And a film that has no connection to Poe’s story but in the name is one of the most transgressive, disturbing horror films rampant with vile taboos, such as necrophilia, incest, sadism, satanism, and flaying a man alive, is the unorthodox The Black Cat (1934). The film stars Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, one of four pictures they would do together. A pair of enemies who have a score to settle, ghosts of a past war, and stolen love all take place with the backdrop of a stylish Bauhaus set design and high-contrast lighting.

Paramount released Murders in the Zoo (1933) with Lionel Atwill a sadistic owner of a zoo, who uses wild animals to ravage and kill off any of his wife’s (Kathleen Burke) suitors. Kathleen Burke is well known as the panther girl in Erle C. Kenton’s horrifically disturbing Island of Lost Souls 1932, an adaptation of master fantasy writer H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau. Incidentally, Welles, Laughton, and wife Elsa Lanchester had been good friends earlier on, before the filming of Lost Souls. The film stars Charles Laughton as the unorthodox, depraved scientist who meddles with genetics and nature. He creates gruesome human/animals, torturing them with vivisection in his ‘house of pain.’ The film also stars Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams, and Bela Lugosi as The Sayer of the Law.

And in 1933 King Kong shows a giant ape grasping the half-naked object of his affection with unmentionable connotations of bestiality between the ape and Fay Wray. With scenes of Wray writhing in his gigantic paws, he lusts after her, until his desire kills him. It’s almost like fantasy noir, the object of your desire, will ultimately kill you!

The 1930s and 1940s — Fear the Queer Monsters

Re-assessing the Hitchcock Touch; by Wieland Schwanebeck -As Rhona Berenstein asserts, the horror genre “provides a primary arena for sexualities and practices that fall outside the purview of patriarchal culture, and the subgeneric tropes of the unseen, the host and the haunted house.”

By the same token, Kendra Bean concludes that Mrs. Danvers is portrayed as “a wraith; a sexual predator who is out to make Mrs. de Winter her next victim.”

Queer characters in horror films during the early period, reveal similarities between Mrs. Danvers and the staging of earlier sapphic characters, such as Gloria Holdens’s well-known portrayal of Countess Marya Zaleska in Dracula’s Daughter 1936. Yet, similar to the self-discipline of Mrs. Danvers, Dracula’s Daughter remains a figure of primacy and pity Ellis Hanson argues Dracula’s Daughter presents “the possibilities of a queer Gothic” early on in Hollywood history, “rich in all the paradox and sexual indeterminacy the word queer and the word Gothic imply.

There was a revival of the horror craze during the period of WWII. The Hollywood studios, both major and ‘Poverty Row” like Monogram and Republic realized that horror movies were a lucrative business. The studios began to revisit the genre looking for, not only fresh formulas, but they resurrected, the classic monsters, dropping them into new plots. They also envisioned uniting the gangster film with horror films, and this homogenizing led to a ‘queering’ of the two styles, that demonstrated phallocentric ( guns, scientific penetration) and homoerotic themes and images into a sub-genre.

Public awareness of homosexuality reached a new height during these years, primarily due to the new set of social conditions wrought by war. Slowly , the love that dare not speak its name was being spoken, albeit in ways almost always obscurantist, punitive and homophobic. The linkage of homosexuality with violence and disease remained strong. Monsters in the Closet -Harry Benshoff

Rhona Berenstein in her insightful book Attack of the Leading Ladies points out that films featuring the mad scientist trope operate with the homosocial principle which speaks of the homo eroticism of males working together in consort subverting science together, as a group of men who hide behind their objectification -the female object of their gaze, are in fact, figures of objectification themselves. They are simultaneously homosocial, homoerotic, and homophobic in aspect; … potentially possessing an extra-normative commitment between the two men.

Mad Doctor movies are homosocial in nature. The mad doctor movie is a subgenre that below the surface glorifies intimate male camaraderie and male homosexuality, and by the close of the picture, society, the prevailing culture must in turn annihilate, that which is repressed. But it is not exclusively a vehicle to express homosexuality through homosocial interactions. There is a component not only of male bonding, a world without women, the thrust is a synthesis of misogyny and patriarchal tyranny and oppression of women. Homosocial relationships between men in these science horrors show the man’s desire for connection to other men, even one created by his own hand.

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According to (Twitchell) in his Dreadful Pleasures, and Attack of the Leading Ladies (Rona Berenstein) Colin Clive as Dr. Frankenstein in all three Universal pictures, was at least performing bisexuality. Whale’s 1933 Frankenstein might give way to the homosocial realm of the mad scientist trope, of ‘homoerotic indulgence’ as these men exclude women from the pursuit of their fulfillment. Twitchell views the scientist’s fluid sexuality in order to examine the concept of a man controlling women’s primacy of giving birth. This might explain Dr. Frankenstein’s venture into unnatural reproduction. A process he wants to divert to himself without women’s exclusive right to motherhood. In the scene where he is as close to giving birth to a full-grown man, he seems to display a sexual arousal, when his creation comes to life. Henry Frankenstein provokes nature and defies his heterosexuality. As Whale was an openly gay director in Hollywood, it can be pondered whether he knew exactly what he was suggesting. Thesiger’s sexually ambiguous, or okay, not so ambiguous Dr. Pretorius, the mad scientist who pressures Henry Frankenstein to revitalize his experiments and create a mate for the monster. Pretorius is the scientist who insists Henry continue his creative efforts in Bride of Frankenstein. Vitto Russo called Thesiger, a “man who played the effete sissy… with much verve and wit.”

George Zucco like Lionel Atwill often portrayed the unorthodox scientist who flirted with taboos. He plays mad scientist Dr. Alfred Morris in The Mad Ghoul (1943) As a university chemistry professor, he exploits medical student Ted Allison (David Bruce) with his experimental gas that transforms Ted into a malleable, yielding macabre ghoul, whom Morris directs to kill and remove the victim’s hearts using the serum to temporarily bring Ted back from his trance like death state. David Bruce’s character is represented as a ‘queer’ sort of young man. Not quite masculine and is unable to get his girlfriend Evelyn Ankers to fall in love with him. As the Mad Ghoul, he becomes a monstrous queer.

In 1932, director Tod Browning’s Dracula based on Bram Stoker’s story of a fiendish vampire who in a sexually implicit way, violates his victims by penetrating them with his fangs. The story pushed the boundaries of storytelling, and there was an inherent subtext of ‘queer’ ravishment when he sucks the blood of Dwight Frye to make him his loyal servant.

In Jonathan Harker’s Journal, the protagonist recounts his impressions of his interaction with the vampire, Dracula “As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which do what I would, I could not conceal.” For (Noël Carroll) the entry in his diary conveys revulsion by the Count’s closeness and offensive presence, which causes him to become sickened.

But it also could be read that Harker’s ‘shudder’ is not about his revulsion, but rather, an uncontrolled sexual response to the vampire’s looming over him which could be interpreted not just as hunger for his ‘blood’ but an expression of repressed sexual desire and the fear it causes.

Horror movies have always pushed the boundaries of normalcy, by virtue of the fact that these films are inhabited by ‘monsters’, something ‘queerly’ different. And it is natural to observe two diverging responses to the impact of the horror genre and often, its persecution of what is ‘different’ and the source of what causes our anxiety.

Dracula may appear as the image of a man, but the count is far from human. While monsters in classical horror films are based on systems of maleness, they are split from being actual men. Although there are physical interactions and suggestive contact with the heroine, there isn’t the foundation of heterosexuality, but something quite deviant, within their aggressively erotic encounters and/or assaults. The understanding of sexuality and the most narrow identifications that are assigned to varying orientations in a large sense is not translatable for the deeper layers of the monster and their relationship to their victims. In Hollywood, horror films can be seen as heterosexuality being invaded by an abhorrent outside force, inherent in the underlying message could be racism, classism, sexism, and gay panic. Though it can be interpreted as a landscape of heterosexuality that is in the full power of its universal presence, horror films are perfect platforms that can illustrate the collapse of heterosexuality and the subversion of sexuality.

The horror genre is a breeding ground for portrayals of the shattering of heterosexual power. This can be seen in Lambert Hillyer’s Dracula’s Daughter (1936) starring Gloria Holden as the sapphic vampire who lives in a New Village-type artist’s den, it signals her outsider status from domesticity and normalcy.

In White Zombie (1932) Bela Lugosi plays the eerily menacing Legendre. He turns men into lifeless workers who run the sugar mill. Legendre also begins to turn the plantation owner, Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer) into one of his zombies. His motivation for his control over people is ambiguous, though there seems to be sexual reasoning for both the beautiful Madeline (Madge Bellamy) and Beaumont. In the scene where Beaumont is nearly paralyzed, Legendre’s control over his male victim parallels the sexual entrapment of the movie’s heroine.

MAD LOVE (1935) I have conquered science! Why can’t I conquer love?

Karl Freund’s Grand Guignol Mad Love (1935) shifts from gazing at the female to gazing at the male. Here the focus is on Peter Lorre in his American screen debut as Dr. Gogol, who has an obsession with Frances Drake as Yvonne Orlac an actress who works at Grand Guignol Theatre. To Gogol, she is the typified defenseless heroine whom he tries to lure away from her husband Stephen (Colin Clive) using his knowledge of scientific alchemy.

Though Gogol tries to become Yvonne’s master, his Galatea, there are critics who read the struggle between the two men, as not just a rivalry for Yvonne’s love, but Gogol’s desire for Stephen as well. Gogol is responsible for grafting new hands onto Stephen’s mangled body after a train crash. Mad Love could fit the criteria for the subgenre of science/horror films where the male gaze is diverted from the female object toward other men, in this case, what connected the two was the preservation of Stephen’s hands. Why then is it not possible that the focus could shift from Gogol’s attraction to Yvonne to the homosocial dynamics between Gogol as a doctor and his subject Stephen?

Mad Love possesses some of the horror genre’s most tenacious performances of gender play. (Carol Clover) asks us to take a closer look at Freund’s film, it is less about the “suffering experienced by women, but at a deeper, more sustained level, it is dedicated to the unspeakable terrors endured by men.”

In a similar fashion to Waldo Lydecker’s (Laura) and Hardy Cathcart’s (The Dark Corner) pathology of objectifying Laura and Mari, Gogol worships Yvonne – his Galatea, with a measure of scopophilia that lies within his gaze upon the perfection of female beauty. To control and possess it. The pleasure is aroused by the mere indulgence of looking at her.

Gogol pays 75 francs to purchase the wax statue of Galatea. The seller remarks “There’s queer people on the streets of Montmartre tonight.”

Gogol’s maid Francoise talks to the statue, “Whatever made him bring you here. There’s never been any woman in this house except maybe me… “I prefer live ones to dead ones.”

A Time Magazine review of Mad Love in 1933 notes this queer appeal directly, even comparing Lorre’s acting skills to those of another homosexual coded actor: I find the comment about their faces rude and insulting to both Lorre and Laughton, both of whom I am a tremendous fan.

Mad Love’s insane doctor is feminized throughout the film… In fact, the same reporter who noted Gogol’s sadism argues for his feminine demeanor: “Lorre, perfectly cast, uses the technique popularized by Charles Laughton of suggesting the most unspeakable obsessions by the roll of a protuberant eyeball, an almost feminine mildness of tone, an occasional quiver of thick lips set flat in his cretinous ellipsoidal face. This reviewer came closer than any other to articulate the subtext of mad doctor movies. He seems on the verge of noting that Lorre, Like Laughton is an effeminate madman obsessed by unspeakable homosocial desire. Attack of the Leading Ladies: Gender Sexuality and Spectatorship in Classic Horror Cinema by Rhona Berenstein

Frances Drake’s heroine masquerades as a wife who deludes herself into believing that her husband is more masculine than he really is. Gogol has a curious empathy with Stephen, whom he touches frequently and prolonged. Although Gogol pursues the heroine, Yvonne, at the theater, forcing a kiss on her, his focus is primarily manipulating Stephen’s body, rejoining his hands and massaging them to stimulate life back into them. When he realizes that Stephen’s hands cannot be grafted back successfully to his wrists, he turns to another man, the hands of a knife thrower who was executed as a notorious murderer. Once Stephen recovers from the surgery, he can no longer continue as a concert pianist but does develop the desire to throw sharp knives.

On the surface the plot of Mad Love appears to be a heterosexual obsession, the most unspoken context is the connection between Gogol and Stephen. As is true of Frankenstein’s labor of love in Whale’s first film, Gogol sews men’s body parts together and the result is a monster of sorts. (Berenstein)

In the film’s climax, Yvonne hides in Gogol’s bedroom and pretends to be the wax statue of Galatea. When Gogol touches the statue, she lets out a scream. In a euphoric daze (as in the original story) he believes that he has the power to bring the statue of Galatea to life. Yvonne begs him to let her go as he tries to strangle her.

Stephen then rushes to his wife and holds her in his arms. With his eyes fixed on the offscreen space in which Gogol’s body lies, he croons: “My darling.” The homosocial desire is destroyed when Stephen murders Gogol who intones “Each man kills the thing he loves”— echoing on the soundtrack.

In the film’s closing moments, the secret desire is finally spoken out loud…Has Stephen killed the man he loves? Given that the phrase that Gogol mutters was written originally by Oscar Wilde, whose homosexuality scandalized the British social and legal system in 1895, reading the homosocial desire into Mad Love within the very last moments we are left to decipher the suspended cues. We are left with Stephen’s gazing at Gogol’s face and his knifed body as he lay dying, he speaks the words, ‘My darling” while the camera frames the two men sharing that moment in the closing scene.

The mad doctor narrative is particularly predisposed to homosocial impulses. “intense male homosocial desire as at once the most compulsory and the most prohibited of social bonds” – Epistemology of the Closet (Sedgwick)

Sedgwick investigated early fantasy/horror novels, Shelley’s Frankenstein 1818, Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1886, and Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau 1895. At the beginning of the 1930s, these stories centered around mad doctors who delved into unorthodox, profane explorations and were all adapted to the screen. All of these nefarious or scientific, inquisitive men, cultivated secret experiments, challenging the laws of nature. What Sedgwick found was that the Gothic literary representations of men performing homosocial collaborations were ‘not socially sanctioned and shunned.’

It was considered a necessary narrative element as well as a monstrous possibility that threatened to subvert the status quo. The combination of these two attitudes is expressed in homosocial narratives- male bonding is both horrifying and guaranteed, entailing the simultaneous introjection and expulsion of femininity. (Sedgwick)

“My darling”…

James Whale was a gay auteur who often imbued his work intentionally or with the ‘intentional fallacy’ of a ‘queer’ sense of dark humor. This comical, campy absurdity, was always on the edge of his vision of horror and subtle profanity. His picture The Invisible Man (1933) adapted from H.G. Wells’s story and starring Claude Rains, was classified as a horror film by the Code.

Dr. Jack Griffin (Rains) the antihero, is a frenzied scientist, addicted to his formula as he seeks the ability to make himself invisible. His sanity begins to ‘vanish’ as his hunger for power, delusions of grandeur, and bursts of megalomania grow out of control. He plans on assassinating government officials, and he becomes more belligerent the longer he turns invisible. The idea that he displays radical ideas and runs around in the nude didn’t seem to arouse the censors, In 1933, a letter from James Wingate to Hays states, “highly fantastic and exotic [sic] vein, and presents no particular censorship difficulties.”

What’s interesting about the presentation of the story, is that the coded gay leitmotifs were paraded out, right under the Code’s noses, and didn’t stir any indignation for its ‘queer’ humor.

Gloria Stuart and Claude Rains in James Whale’s The Invisible Man 1933

The Invisible Man perpetrates campy assaults on all the ‘normal’ people in his way. With intervals of sardonic cackles and golden wit, and at the same time, a menacing reflection of light and shadow. Claude Rains is a concealed jester who makes folly of his victims.

“An invisible man can rule the world. Nobody will see him come, nobody will see him go. He can hear every secret. He can rob, and wreck, and kill.” –Dr. Jack Griffin (The Invisible Man)

Claude Rains plays Dr. Jack Griffin an outsider (a favorite of James Whale’s characters) who discovers the secret of invisibility which changes him from a mild yet arrogant scientist into a maniacal killer. The film bares much of Whale’s campy sense of humor, with Griffin’s comic shenanigans abound until things turn dark and he becomes uncontrollably violent. “We’ll begin with a reign of terror, a few murders here and there, Murders of great men, Murders of little men, just to show we make no distinction. I might even wreck a train or two… just these fingers around a signalman’s throat, that’s all.”

According to Gary Morris (Bright Lights Film Journal), ‘The film demands crypto-faggot reading in poignant scenes such as the one where he reassures his ex-girlfriend, who begs him to hide from the authorities: “the whole worlds my hiding place. I can stand out there amongst them in the day or night and laugh at them.”

Though Griffin’s (Claude Rains) character is unseen at times, there are potent moments, when he is animated as he skips to the tune, “Here we go gathering nuts in May” flitting around like a fairy. It is suggested that The Invisible Man is a metaphor for the way homosexuals are seen/not seen by society – as “effeminate, dangerous when naked, seeking a male partner in “crime”, tending to idolize his fiance rather than love her, and becoming ‘visible’ only when shot by the police…monitored by doctors, and heard regretting his sin against God (i.e., made into a statistic by the three primary forces oppressing queers: the law, the medical establishment, and religious orthodoxy” (Sedgwick)

The Invisble Man [undressing] “They’ve asked for it, the country bumpkins. This will give them a bit of a shock, something to write home about. A nice bedtime story for the kids, too, if they want it”

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Continue reading “Chapter 4 – Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:”

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!”

MonsterGirl’s Saturday Morning Some Men Doing Science In Their Laboratories!

Saturday mornings are for MEN WHO DO SCIENCE… BEWARE…!!!!!!!

THE 4D MAN

PETER CUSHING- The Curse of Frankenstein 1957

BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE 1958

DR. PHIBES

DR FRANKENSTEIN

ATOM AGE VAMPIRE


Leo G Carroll playing with the forces of nature

TARANTULA

BEN TURPIN

THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS

IT CONQUERED THE WORLD

THE INVISIBLE RAY

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE

EYES WITHOUT A FACE

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

JOHN CARRADINE

MONSTER ON CAMPUS 1958

ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE 1958

THE DEVIL BAT

THE DEVIL COMMANDS 1941

DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE

DONOVAN’S BRAIN 1953

DR. CYCLOPS 1940

THE FACE OF MARBLE

DR MORBIUS – FORBIDDEN PLANET 1956

CORRIDORS OF BLOOD

HELP ME HELP ME ….THE FLY 1958

METROPOLIS

THE UNEARTHLY

THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN 1956

DR MOREAU THE ISLAND OF LOST SOULS

THE INVISIBLE MAN – CLAUDE RAINS

THE THING -HOWARD HAWKS

THE MAD GHOUL

THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET

THE TINGLER