“She was very badly raped, you see! We were assaulted by a gang of vicious, young, hoodlums in this house! In this very room, you are sitting in now! I was left a helpless cripple, but for her, the agony was too great! The doctor said it was pneumonia; because it happened some months later! During a flu epidemic! The doctors told me it was pneumonia, but I knew what it was! A VICTIM OF THE MODERN AGE! Poor, poor girl!”-quote from Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Lady in a Cage is a nasty and vicious piece of work.
James Caan- is the violent anti-social ruffian Randall Simpson O’Connell and a good choice for ‘The Great Villain Blogathon’ Since I’ve covered two sympathetic antagonists, I thought it was necessary to write about a true villain in every sense of the word. He’s an *animal* as he calls himself. He is not an anti-hero, he is a sadistic, and violently wired punk, a vicious hoodlum, a product of a modern age.
Randall is a misogynist brute who beats his girlfriend Elaine (we hear the blows from behind the door as she both screams and exults in sexual excitement), and would have probably sexually harassed Mrs. Hilyard but for the fact that he mentions how he hates his grandmother, an older and sexless figure. He is physically rough with her, feeling that she is an ‘old crow’ who is controlling and manipulative and has pushed her son to threaten suicide. Undertones of an Oedipal nature run through the plot line as Randall is raging against the devouring mother, that Hilyard represents in the story, which truly plays like a modern mythic tragedy. Randall traumatizes Hilyard until she is almost insane with fear.
Lady in a Cageis a grimy urban ordeal drenched in taboo and inhabited by drunken derelicts, boozy dames, doped-up delinquents, and menacing cruelty that escalates until it is almost unbearable.Â
de Havilland’s lovely face distorts in the reflected mirrored panel of the elevator as she begins to unravel from the brutality and captivity she confronts, all within the vanilla-white tonality of her quiet house. The interior shots alternate with the outer rat race, the urban grime, and modern desolation.
Randall leers at Hilyard from under the stocking like a vicious hobgoblin.
As Tony Williams writes in his chapter Trying to Survive on the Darker Side in The Dread of Difference-edited by Barry Keith Grant-where he cites Grauman’s film “The monstrous adult child product of a traumatic family situation existed in Earlier Decades, as works such as Curse of the Cat People 1944, Psycho, The Strangler 1963, Lady in a Cage 1964, Marnie 1964, I Dismember Mama 1972, The Killing Kind 1973.” James Caan made an appearance as a soldier with radio in Billy Wilder’s Irma La Douce (1963)
Randall was James Caan’s first credited feature film role after getting his start with small television parts such as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, “Memo from Purgatory” where he plays a writer who goes undercover in a street gang so he can get inspiration for his book. Kraft Suspense Theatre in 1963, Dr. Kildare, Death Valley Days, Combat!, and the ruthless Marty Feketi in ‘Bullets Cost Too Much’ episode of The Naked City 1961 extraordinary social commentary police procedural tv series that ran from 1958-1963. I’m still working through my new DVD box set, and let me tell you, there ain’t nothing like this show with its incredible cast of character actors, dramatic storytelling, and on-location cinematography in New York City in the 60s.
A snippet of the exchange between Hilyard and Randall…
Mrs.Hilyard-“You’re from an asylum?”
Randall-“Asylum? Oh no, you don’t. Reformatory. Work farm. I have been inside every way there is to be inside. I have been some kind of inside since I was nine years old.“
Mrs. Hilyard-“Oh I see. You’re one of the many bits of offal produced by the welfare state. You’re what so much of my tax dollars goes for the care and feeding of.”
Caan, with his very ‘masculine’ hairy chest, was a much more subtle psychopath in Curtis Harrington’s psychological thriller Games 1967 where he gaslights the beautiful but emotionally delicate Katherine Ross with the help of sensual goddess Simone Signoret. BTW, I’ll be doing a special feature on the works of Curtis Harrington hopefully by the summer.
James Caan in Curtis Harrington’s Games 1967 with Katherine Ross
Randall even takes off on Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski from Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire, as he belches, shirtless (most of the film), and leers and smirks in his outre tight jeans.
This evokes “I think I’m going to be sick” from the respectable Mrs. Hilyard who voices her scorn. Randall is in control and enjoys the power struggle, sadistically amused by her indignation and repulsion, “Watch the human being be sick in a cage.” He’s looking for any excuse to lash out.
Randall says [to George Brady the bum] “We’re gonna kill you. First you, then the pig (Sade)… and then, the human being!”
It is suggested that Randall also likes to beat up on his girlfriend Elaine, as she has a black eye. As I stated earlier, off camera while up in the master bathroom behind closed doors, it is implied that she actually vocalizes pleasure when he hits her. Elaine herself is an angry and hyper-sexual oddity, perhaps even a sociopath as well, as she moves her body provocatively, quite aware of her seductive maneuvering. She enjoys watching violent acts and she dances to a small music box in a very sexually inappropriate way. Obviously, she is wired to believe that sexuality and violence go together.
Olivia de Havilland as Mrs. Cornelia Hilyard is terrorized by James Caan as the violent Randall Simpson O’Connell and his gang of sociopathic miscreants.
de Havilland’s Cornelia Hilyard suffers from delusions toward the climax –that Randall is her son Malcolm. First when she faints after she speaks to Randall thinking he is Malcolm and then again when he reads the letter and uses the words ‘release’ – as the screen becomes all wavy, as she self-accuses that she is a ‘monster.’
de Havilland having taken the role after Joan Crawford turned down the part of Cornelia Hilyard, and then ironically stepping in a little later that year to fill Joan’s high heels in Hush Hush… Sweet Charlotte when personalities clashed on the set with Bette Davis and Robert Aldrich.
Walter Grauman(his first film obscure B cult classic- The Disembodied 1957, writing for television Peter Gunn, Matinee Theatre, Perry Mason, The New Breed, The Untouchables, Naked City, Twilight Zone (Miniature) Route 66, Burke’s Law, Kraft Suspense Theatre, Honey West, The Fugitive, The Streets of San Fransisco and Barnaby Jones- Directing tv movie horrors like Daughter of the Mind, The Man Who Cried Wolf, Crowhaven Farm, Paper Man, They Call it Murder and The Golden Gate Murders ’79, a terrific hard to find a film with David Janssen and Susannah York.
I just love Grauman’s realist style– it’s raw and captivating mise en scène and here he directs this very taut thriller, that somehow seems to elude a definitive genre category as it falls into place amongst the transgressive noir-hybrids of the 60s, its been linked with Grande Dame Guignol cinema, and it’s every bit a suspense crime drama but there is little written about it in any of my books on the THRILLER or NOIR film genres. Film historian Kim Newman points out that the sub-genre that was a popular psycho trend of the 1960s where “the aging actress as *monster* was inaugurated” by Aldrich’s Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
It also showcases elements of the horror style rampant in the 60s and yet again, I’ve found it difficult to locate it in any index, and I’ve got a full library on that subject as you can imagine. The idea of home invasion and torture isn’t a subject that’s been missed this side of the 21st Century. It’s been a featured narrative on shows like Law and Order, Dexter, and Criminal Minds comes to mind.
Gregory A Waller writes in the introduction in American Horrors: Essays on the Modern American Horror Film- “The 60’s provided a number of noteworthy horror films -still disturbing oddities like What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Lady in a Cage (1964), and The Haunting (1964) with its restrained ‘adult’ major studio, quasi-Victorian terror.”
The idea of the home being invaded in an era that was coming off of the industrial age of suburban comforts, ice maker refrigerators, frozen dinners, air conditioners, and appliances for an easier way to be a homemaker. the notion of this once safe, comfortable, and innocent lifestyle is thus shattered by the intrusion of a doomed and violent world out of control. Even more stunning is that the action happens in broad daylight.
Martin Rubin sums it up in his book Thrillers-Lady in a Cage“epitomizes modern day social decay through the predicament of a cut-off shut-in Olivia de Havilland terrorized by lowlifes and juvenile delinquents.”
The shots of exteriors, interiors, and certain objects are key to framing a visual atmosphere of entrapment.
The script was written by writer/producer Luther Davis The Hucksters 1047, B.F.’s Daughter 1948, Kismet 1965, Across 110th Street (1972, tv movies Daughter of the Mind 1969 with Ray Milland and Gene Tierney, The Old Man Who Cried Wolf 1970 with Edgar G. Robinson.
co-starring as Caan’s female sidekick is Jennifer Billingsly as Elaine, Rafael Campos is Essie (a very hard-working character actor in the sixties and seventies, I especially loved him as Little Emanuel with one leg shorter than the other in All in the Family), William Swan as Malcolm Hilyard, Scatman Crothers as the junkman’s assistant,
Lady in a Cage also includes Ann Sothern as the weary and wanton Sade, Jeff Corey as the derelict George L Brady/ who decries, “Repent, repent”the two outliers of society, taking advantage of Mrs. Hilyard’s predicament instead of helping her.
With art direction and production design by Hal Pereira who worked on such great Hitchcock thrillers as Rear Window ’54, Vertigo ’58, and Capote’sBreakfast at Tiffany’s ’61
The evocative soundtrack of beat jazz and experimental nuances by composerPaul Glass (Bunny Lake is Missing 1965, Five Desperate Women 1971 tv movie, To the Devil a Daughter 1976)
At times Glass underscores the world gone awry with sounds akin to the mechanism of social order having just snapped a spring, and becoming uncoiled and shorted out!
The opening credits are framed with the use of bar-like graphics symbolic of not only the literal plot entrapment but the atmosphere of being caged in as well. The linear graphics that interplay with the rolling list of credits remind me of the work of title designer Saul Bass.
The titles are reminiscent of Saul Bass.
Leon Barsha takes care of the tense editing. Barsha knows how to create claustrophobic chaos as he did with Joan Crawford in Sudden Fear 1952, Midnight Lace 1960, editing a few of the most outstanding episodes of The Twilight Zone– A Penny For Your Thoughts ’61, The Grave ’61 and Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up ’61.
Rudolph Sternadproduction designer/art director-died a year before the film was released. Just to mention a few of his credits-(Dead Reckoning 1947, Walk a Crooked Mile 1948, The Member of the Wedding 1952, High Noon 1952, The Wild One 1953, The Defiant Ones 1958, Inherit the Wind 1960, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World 1963) Set designers were Sam Comer and Joseph Kish.
Cinematographer Lee Garmes has a list of credits, having started as a painter’s assistant and prop boy. He lensed some of the most beautifully visual films, The Garden of Allah 1927, Lilies of the Field 1930, Scarface 1932, Call Her Savage 1932, Strange Interlude 1932 then later uncredited for Gone With the Wind, Guest in the House 1944, and of course some of my favorite films, Nightmare Alley 1947, The Paradine Case 1947 and Portrait of Jennie 1948 onto noirs, Detective Story and The Captive City.
Garmes sets up certain shots that give the impression of a brutally grotesque modern masquerade fête of social misfits on a rampage in a woman-in-peril film.
With various close-ups on the players’ faces, in particular, de Havilland as she begins to lose it. Often the trio are framed at angles where they look over Mrs. Hilyard who appears like a trapped animal in a cage, as they taunt her from above. She seems smaller and helpless. de Havilland begins to lose her coiffed appearance as she devolves, her hair becomes unkempt and she is drenched in perspiration. It’s quite visually disturbing and graphically unnerving. As these good shockers often are as Grauman and Garmes use extreme close-ups of de Havilland’s mouth when she screams for help. The emphasized shots of the alarm bell ringing to no avail, reminds of the detail that cinematographer Ernest Haller paid toward elements of communication and non-escape (the myriad shots of the phone, the stairs) in Aldrich’sWhat Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
Emphasis on anonymous hands blasting car horns all modern lines of communication that are chaotic and used in an audibly offensive way-dehumanizing noise. To show the indifference and cruelty of the world, a little girl runs her roller skates along a bums leg…
As voyeurs we see Malcolm through window blinds, peering through the bars of his private world- He writes a letter to his mother-“Darling.”
Malcolm is a coded gay character in the film.
Malcolm’s misadventure with the car sets off a chain reaction of horrific events to follow–fate is in the driver’s seat.throughout Lady in a Cage, Lee Garme’s camera focuses on objects of communication or the lack thereof… Modern conveniences and bourgeois trifle.
Twenty-First Century Desolation.
Lady in a Cage –Hal Pereira’s set is more modern, sterile, streamlined, inharmonious, and unwelcoming. There are many disturbing scenes with the subtle distinction of this hostility and inhumanity like the girl who runs her roller skates over the leg of an unconscious man, an evangelist spouting off about the evils of the world on the radio, a dog hit by a car that drivers keep passing by without stopping.
The date is the 4th of July, it is an extremely hot day, and people’s nerves are more sensitive and agitated during these heat waves which usually leads to more crime. There are exploding garbage cans in the street to mark the holiday.
Garmes focuses on Mrs. Hilyard through the bars of her cage and the reflections in the mirrored panel. We begin as voyeurs. Malcolm is writing his letter, addressing his mother as ‘darling.’ Perhaps a little undeveloped sub-text is to be discussed in a different kind of post. Considering that this one is in a series of ‘love notes’ he writes to her. “Darling” Hhmm???
It is made apparent though not explicitly, that Malcolm is in fact gay, and his mother’s domineering personality is at the source of his homosexuality, which is what films of the 60s & 70s would tend to illustrate.
de Havilland has a screen presence that is quite sophisticated and almost imposing with her sense of stylish intellect and decorum. This puts de Havilland’s Mrs. Hilyard in an interesting position on the graph of class struggle, as Randall and his gang aren’t just fighting amongst their own contemporaries, he is challenging an upper-class society lady and mother figure to attack back.
Ironically what sets off the sequence of actions that ensue is Malcolm whose car hits a ladder, that tears out wires that short out the power lines. He causes the accident that creates the electricity to go out leaving his mother stranded in her gilded prison. He is yet another character in the film who is distracted by his own agenda, self-absorbed carelessness, and indifference. Played out like a tragedy, it is at the chance moment when Malcolm causes the power outage that his mother wearing a sheer negligee gets into her elevated cage locking herself inside like a sitting canary. The ‘cage’ has a mirrored panel by the buttons, that allow for de Havilland/Mrs.Hilyard is to be seen from various angles and expressions.
With her in her gilded trap is a transistor radio, which is reporting about the uncovered murder victim, a woman who has been decapitated!
Mrs. Hilyard (Olivia de Havilland) is a poetess and a wealthy widow who lives in a stifling bourgeois mansion with her son Malcolm (William Swan) Cornelia, though she is never actually called by her first name, has had an elevator installed in her mansion after she breaks her hip. We see Malcolm writing a letter to his mother as he is about to go away for a weekend, leaving his mother all alone in the house. Malcolm appears to be stifled by his mother’s overbearing love, even to the point of her insisting that he drink his orange juice. As he leaves in his car, he backs into a ladder that nudges a wire that short circuits.
This subtle set of events triggering a negative chain reaction causing a power outage, only sparks the larger series of violent circumstances that begin to spiral out of control. Of course, Cornelia Hilyard is now trapped in her gilded cage of an elevator. She has an emergency alarm, which she uses while the electricity is out, but only one person is aroused by the alarm. A derelict wino named George L. Brady (Jeff Corey) hearing the alarm in the alley he ignores her cries for help, and instead helps himself to some of her things. Brady feigns muteness while he rummages around her things, as she is helpless to do anything about it. In desperation she tries to bargain with him to help her, “I will build a shrine to you.”
The use of white is so vanilla–like Mrs. Hilyard.
Repent is tattooed on Brady’s hand.
Much like Joan Crawford’s Blanche Hudson whose entrapment was because she was wheelchair-bound, the camera would often focus on the distance between the phone that was always out of reach. The lines of communication had been a constant hurdle to invoking the sense of dread and captivity.
Randall and his little band of riff-raff wonder where the old bum stumbled onto a $40 toaster and packs of cigarettes.
Brady shows up at Sade’s apartment, telling her about the house filled with so much loot!
But Brady is only the first character who will prey on the weakness and vulnerability of Mrs. Hilyard. The ferocious and unsympathetic opportunism is a theme that will carry through the film’s storytelling. And none is likable and no one is safe from harm. While we might feel slightly ambivalent toward the poor souls who are down and out on their luck, or the proper and uptight Mrs Hilyard who is the central sufferer in the piece, the narrative doesn’t allow much time for us to feel compassion which only illustrates that the message of nihilism translates with an authentic sting. Mrs. Hilyard is every bit part of the testimony of elitist apathy and arrogance that comes along with a hypocritical and so-called civilized modern society.
The film begins to escalate with a real sense of urgency and a smothering atmosphere of dread. The derelict Brady fences the goods and then pays a visit to his slovenly dame Sade (Ann Sothern). This sets off yet another ripple in the threatening current that is building in the narrative.
Following Brady from the junk dealer to Sade’s apartment the vicious trio learns about Mrs Hilyard’s house. The savage bunch of hoodlums Randall, Elaine, and Essie hang back and wait for the right time to strike. The three lowlifes follow George and Sade to the mansion wearing stockings to obscure their identities, as they start ravaging the place. Eventually, they kill the old bum George L Brady who is in a way the second catalyst for the crime of invading and tormenting the trapped Mrs. Hilyard. Hypocritical too as he decries, ‘repent’ though he not only ignores her pleadings for help, he engages the mechanism of ill-fate-he must also be the first to be disposed of. And although we do not see any of the gory details when they stab him to death, the murder is still quite gruesome, as the force of violence still permeates the screen with Paul Glass’ use of music box nuance to create contrast between the two experiences.
When the phone rings, it startles both Sade and Brady. As Mrs.Hilyard yells into the phone after it rings she knocks it off the hook, but Sade rips the wire out of the wall. Hilyard starts to lose it, calling out for help, calling out ’emergency’. Sade creeps up the stairs while Hilyard hangs in mid-air in her cage. Hilyard tells her “This is my house, my sons, and mine. I broke my hip and am somewhat incapacitated.”
Sade coldly ignores Mrs Hilyard’s pleas for help “Haven’t you ever needed help?” but Sade stops and only thinks for a split second and continues to walk away. “Perfume, is that perfume? A woman, are you a woman?… Listen, Hello my name is Hilyard. I am Mrs. Hilyard.” The bum Brady creeps around the stairs and cage. As if the house has been invaded by termites come to pick it clean. Hilyard continues to try and make contact with her intruders “What’s your name? Won’t you answer me? Please answer me” She moves around the inside confines of her gilded prison calling out for them to answer her. With no success.
“Please help me get out of this horrible cage. Please, please PLEASE!!!!” Suddenly the moment is broken with a horrifying wail, as the three hoodlums rush the stairs wearing stocking masks. It’s an immobilizing stunner in the film, that breaks the initial inertia of Hilyard’s entrapment and the circular photography that creates a whirlpool effect. At first a mind-numbing monotony and then a blitz of chaos.
Randall makes Sade his pickup truck.Hilyard soaked in sweat and crazed has already been driven half mad. Now she is terrified.Randall appears at the staircase looming down on her. His face was concealed by the stocking mask. Grinning at her he smacks his fists together. A show of brutish force. “Who, what monsters… Do you stink… get out…. steal and get out. What sort of creatures are you? Randall slithers over to her and pounds on the top of the cage. “Oh, even animals would have more civil compassion than you” Randall –“What… what you. You’re something holier than thou? Huh… You’re something ah. You ain’t no animal?” Hilyard- “I am a human being… a thinking feeling creature” He belches in her face. she winces. “Ah well me I”m an animal. Right now I am all animal. Lot of times I can’t even make animal. A lot of times I’m what do ya call, an inmate? But animal’s better.” Hilyard-“What do you mean inmate… asylum… you’re from some asylum?” He says-“Asylum…(tisk) Oh no you don’t. hahaha… reformatory. Work farm. I been inside everywhere there is to be inside. I been some kind of inside since I was a, 9 years old.” Hilyard with contempt in her voice-“Oh I see… you’re one of the many bits of offal produced by the welfare state. You’re what so much of my tax dollars go to the care and feeding of.” Randall answers her-“Well a, I don’t know from offal, but yeah… yeah. And I sure do want to thank you ma’am for all them tax dollars. The food is lousy though… belch, haha” He begins to literally rattle her cage.
This image of the ‘outside world’ gazing at us– the audience while they are confronting Hilyard creates a chilling moment that is truly indicative of a horror film– We too become voyeurs looking in on society as it implodes from violence and apathy The four intruders watch her with their masks on. As the monsters watch their prey lose control she cracks within her captivity. They study her. We study them watching her. The entire plot closes in on itself at that moment. The world turns –inside out from outside in.
She begins an inner monologue “The world must have ended. Someone on one side or the other must have pushed the button. Dropped the bomb.”She puts on her little transistor radio… She hears...”Ladies and gentlemen, here stands before us, the man of tomorrow”the radio spouts its media dogma. Modern experimental music underscores the insanity of the moment. The complete loss of rational thought. Civility and safety. Applause The sounds of haywire, slipped cogs, and shorted fuses. the noise of chaos. She laughs and drops the radio out of the elevator it lands on the floor and smashes. She begins to laugh heartily. She has lost it.
They lock Sade in the closet never to be heard from again–not before they rough her up a bit, pushing her into a mirrored dressing table, where she cuts herself. George Brady’s fate is much worse.
At this point, Randall sets his sights on Mrs.Hilyard who is trapped as the lady in said cage.
Mrs. Hilyard becomes less consequential at the moment the vicious trio arrives, as she is a symbol of the weakened society–the raw meat for the predatory wild animals, the more vulnerable of the modern jungle which will get picked off first. As Shelley so aptly notes, it’s very ‘Darwinian’ and the survival of the fittest. Mrs. Hilyard as much as refers to the city as a jungle.
Mrs. Hilyard-“I am a human being. A feeling, thinking, human being.”
Randall-mocking her- “Okay. I am *all* animal. Sure beats the hell outta being an inmate…”
Mrs. Hilyard ” … inmate?… Asylum?
Randall begins tormenting her, by playing head games. He shows her a note from her son Malcolm telling her he’s about to commit suicide because of her overbearing motherly love. “Release me from your generosity. Release me from your beauty. Release me from your love.”
The entire film’s universe is filled with deviant and transgressive characters. Sade is a self-hating woman who demeans herself because of her weight. Her ability to escape the chaos is hampered by her greed to take part in the looting of Mrs, Hilyard’s house. To add to the queasy touches, Sade wears a jeweled headband giving her an odd-ball air of eccentricity. She would again play a similar type of character as Thelma Lambert in Curtis Harrington’sThe Killing Kind 1973-another mother who loves her son too well, he becomes a lady killer…
The pawnbroker Mr. Paul only has one eye. perhaps this is symbolic of a skewed vision of the world that surrounds him. He is also an opportunistic figure. Brady and Sade are afflicted with alcoholism.Â
As Peter Shelley says in Grande Dame Guignol Cinema the film is “A disturbing indictment of the amorality of 1964 American society, as well as a nightmare for those suffering from claustrophobia and vertigo, this film introduces Olivia de Havilland to the Grande Dame Guignol subgenre.”
Walter Grauman creates an atmosphere of deafening nihilism that is so harsh and brutal it is almost hard to watch it at times. An indictment of modernity, opportunism, and the industrial age, the use of sound with the car horns blaring in clusters of traffic, the sounds from the streets that invade Mrs. Hilyard’s closed-in world is exhausting. The film delivers a sense that all of life is a furious, insensitive rhythm of hostility and discord. There is no empathy toward the individual and people are merely anonymous faces making the strident and shrill noise and disturbing the quietude of civilized life.
What makes this a suspense/noir hybrid is the environment of entrapment and flawed characters, with Lee Garmes’ camera angles and Leon Barsha’s razor-sharp editing that keeps the pacing at an uncomfortable beat. Even the graphics that follow the credits representative of the bars of a cage symbolizing the narrative’s imprisonment. Cinematic bars were deftly used in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? as Aldrich wanted us to feel at every turn the same sense of captivity that Blanche as well as Jane’s state of mind, and the landscape of the old Gothic mansion which felt like it was desolate and decaying.
And much like What Ever Happened to Baby Jane’s use of the outer world excursions Jane would take that would constantly throw light into the closed-in universe of Hudson’s mansion, Grauman and Garmes utilize shots of the ever-turning world outside Mrs. Hilyard’s captivity to emphasize this contrast visually reinforcing the horror that is taking place within the confines of the house that is shut off. We feel that every frame has a sense of intrusion.
The film has so much cruelty in it… it’s an exercise in Nihilism.
Outside the house, the world goes on spinning, the paper boy delivers the news on an ordinary street.
Essie finds the letter. “Darling Mom… “Hey, how bout that it sounds real a …. gay,” Mrs Hilyard asks Essie-“What is that that you’re holding? Where did you get it?” Essie-“What am I holding, a letter that was on the desk upstairs, do you want to hear it?” Randall tells Essie-“Ah, let her die curious.”
Randall asks her-“Is your little boy married?”“I bet you had him at it til he was about twelve didn’t ya?… kept him sucking” She slaps him hard across the face. He grabs her violently, pushing his arm across her throat.
He begins to taunt her with the letter. “Darling Mom,”She tries to grab it away from him. He slams her hard against the wall of the cage. with his forearm pressed against her neck. His hairy sweaty chest is exposed, like he’s a pirate, his white shirt tied at the waist. Randall continues reading the letter from Malcolm -“I’ll be thirty next Wednesday, and I won’t have many more chances in life.”
Mrs Hilyard confused says-“What, what”Randall continues to read– “Every time I try to leave you, you add a room or dress up the house, or charm me…”He looks straight at her. She looks horrified. “No…” Randall says-” I thought you only had him at it til he was twelve. But you still got him at it… How do you charm him baby” He pulls her back by her hair… “I had a holier than thou old crow of a grandmother. She tried to keep me at it too. I’d a killed her if she hadn’t died… Like she was trying to kill me. Like you kill this um what’s his name… uhm Malcolm.” Mrs Hilyard begs, “No, no this is his too you know he decorated it himself. Complete freedom to come and go he wanted to stay here. Why would he write me a letter? We’re as close as…” She pauses and looks into Randall’s eyes. He smiles quietly at her as she begins to have an awareness. Randall asks her again, “He’s not married is he? Does he even have a girl?”“He has many women friends” “Oh yeah yeah yeah, all his friends are from public shower rooms I bet” She struggles but he continues to hold her up by her hair. It’s barbaric. He continues to torment her with her son’s letter. “Uhm, give me my half of what’s in the living room safe. What safe!!!!!!!” He repeats that line again…”Release me from your generosity, release me from your beauty, release me from your love.” Now she has truly begun to confuse reality and fantasy after she hears him say the word love. She says “Oh love” and touches his face as if it is Malcolm’s. “Oh love, love you could have your half any time you wanted. My half too for that matter.” Essie interrupts. “Read her the P.S. It’s got what they call some real buckshot in it… real loaded. Read it to her” Randall finishes the letter-“P.S. Think it over. I’ll call in a little while. Please make it yes or quite simply I’ll kill myself.”
The interplay between Caan and de Havilland is utterly realistic. A volatile and primal confrontation between young and old, civil society and the disillusioned masses, and paternal and maternal law. fear and compassion. She passes out and slides down the wall of the cage. Essie calls up to Randall-“You didn’t kill her?” He tells him-“No…Fainted, lying on the floor like a pile of old clothes.”
Elaine and Essie go to look for the safe. Randall is left alone in the cage with Mrs.Hilyard who has fainted. For a brief moment, it almost appears as if Randall feels sorry for her. He touches her face and neck. He looks the most thoughtful he’s been. He whispers to himself. “Old crow baby.” This is a hint at Randall’s mother’s issues which does not excuse his violent abuse of women.
The film was refused a cinema certificate in the UK by the BBFC and remained unavailable until 2000.
Reviews courtesy of Paul Shelley’s Grande Dame Guignol Cinema- The picture was released on July 8, 1964.
“Lady in a Cage adds Olivia de Havilland to the list of cinema actresses who would apparently rather be freaks than be forgotten … a grande chance to go ape. Attagirl, Ollie“- Time, June 19, 1964
“…{S}ordid, if suspenseful, exercise in aimless brutality… A discerning viewer is left curious and repelled… Olivia de Havilland as the trapped ‘Lady’ does project a sense of fear and self-appraisal … a surface, somewhat obvious portrayal.”-A. H. Weller, The New York Times, July 11, 1964
“…{A} noxious, repulsive, grueling experience… Davis’s sensationalistically vulgar screenplay is haphazardly constructed, full of holes, sometimes pretentious, and in bad taste. {de Havilland} gives one of those ranting, raving wild-eyed performances often thought of as Academy Award oriented. {She} does about as well as possible under the dire circumstances.” Variety May 25, 1964
 Right now I’m all *MonsterGirl* Hope you’ve enjoyed this post for The Great Villain Blogathon!
When the Spider Woman Looks: Two Glorias-“Wicked Love, Close ups & Old Jewels”- The Sympathetically Tragic Villainesses of Sunset Blvd (1950) and Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
Walter Graumen puts Olivia de Havilland in peril as a Lady in a Cage (1964) ” Oh, dear lord… I am… a monster!”
OBSCURE SCREAM GEMS, THE UNKNOWN TERROR (1957)–NIGHT CALLER FROM OUTER SPACE (1965)–THE FLESH EATERS (1964) AND KRONOS (1957)
Based on the novel by William Temple and adapted to the screen and directed by Terence Fisher, this intriguing, thought provoking British sci-fi melodrama invokes the question of creation, playing god, obsession and fate.
Barbara Payton (Bad Blonde 1953) plays both Lena and Helen a beautiful women caught between two friends who have adored her since they were children. The brilliant Bill (Stephen Murray) invents a duplication machine, and has pined for Lena since he and Bill used to vie for her affections playing knights with wooden swords. But Lena has always been in love with Robin (John Van Eyssen) the other friend that make up the love triangle.
After succeeding in duplicating watches and rabbits Bill wants to try a human subject. One in particular! Tinges of Lang’s Metropolis...
When Lena and Robin get married, Bill asks Lena to allow him to reproduce her in his contraption so he can possess her too. And Lena agrees… the results are disastrous. Co-starring James Hayter as the sympathetic Dr. Harvey.
Karloffstill possesses that lyrical majesty and does the best job he can with this slightly meandering 50’s schlocky script, directed by noir, cult, television drama and big box office–producer/directorHoward W. Koch and written byRichard H Landauwho scripted The Quartermass Experiment 1955, The Girl in the Black Stockings 1957
As always Karloff’s presence makes any film a joy to watch. He always took his acting seriously and it shows here, which makes this odd little modernity meets old mad science horror flick with some interesting set design and chilling moments worth watching.
Karloff plays the last of the line of Frankensteins who desperately needs money in order to continue his arcane experiments on the reanimation of the monster, he has hidden beneath the family crypt in the Castle. The monster is kept bandaged through out the film, (saves on make-up) and becomes a lumbering bandaged plaster of Paris block head with two hollow holes for eyes. Is it effective or defective… well, I focused onBoris Karloff most of the time.
Frankenstein is now using atomic energy to resurrect his ancestors creation (the lab is actually very groovy Strickfaden would approve), but needs a few more things, like an atomic reactor, brains, eyeballs etc.
Baron Von Frankenstein whose face is badly scarred from the Nazi’s who tortured when he refused to experiment on their victims, allows a film maker and his crew to shoot their low budget horror picture on the grounds, finds their presence an immortal intrusion but he is broke and must put up with the nuisance.
But– the aggressive and meddlesome bunch uncover Dr. Frankenstein’s secret laboratory and it just gets chaotic from there…
Rudolph Anders plays the Baron’s confidante Wilhelm Gottfried, and Norbert Schiller plays the very simple butler Shuter… poor poor Shuter…
Directed by Charles Brabin and an uncredited Charles Vidortheyoffer this highly stylized horror/sci-fi-/fantasy hybrid from the 30s!
Boris Karloff is the diabolical genius Fu Manchu who only wishes to conquer the world with the help of his beautiful but equally nefarious daughter Fah Lo See played by the exquisite Myrna Loy.
Sir Nayland Smith of the British Secret Service played by Lewis Stone rushes to the Gobi Desert to find the mysterious mask and sword of Genghis Khan. He must get there before Fu Manchu possesses it’s power.
Fu Manchu kidnaps Sir Lionel Barton and tortures him in order to find out where the great treasures of Genghis Khan are buried in his lost tomb, but Barton refuses to tell…
Mean Sir Lionel’s daughter Sheila (Karen Morely) Sir Nayland Smith, Terrence Granville (Charles Starrett) and Von Berg (Jean Hersholt) set out to uncover the whereabouts of the relics before the evil menace can use them in his diabolical plan to conquer the world!
The Mask of Fu Manchu boasts the wonderful Kenneth Strickfaden designs!
“She went to sleep as a secretary… and woke up a madman’s bride!”
“I don’t know what this is all about, but I promise you some very serious trouble unless you stop it immediately. You know perfectly well I’m Julia Ross.”
Directed by Joseph H. Lewis (The Mad Doctor of Market Street 1942, So Dark the Night 1946, Gun Crazy 1950, A Lady Without Passport 1950, The Big Combo 1955) Screenplay by Muriel Roy Bolton from the novel The Woman in Red by Anthony Gilbert. With a fabulous odd-angled, shadow-stricken spin by cinematographerBurnett Guffey, it’s no wonder this suspense thriller has the elements of a stylized psychological noir. Â
Nina Fochis Julia Ross a young English girl seeking employment. She answers an ad at a fake employment agency run by none other thanAnita Sharp-Bolsteras Sparkes who’s even more cantankerous in this role. Julia, saddened by the news that the guy she loves is marrying another girl, thinks she’s found the perfect job working for a wealthy widow Mrs. Hughes (Dame May Witty) whose son, the creepy Ralph lives with her.
George Macreadyis exceptional as a psychotic who is prone to fits of violence. He has already killed his wife, stabbing her to death and throwing her body into the quiet sea.
Ralph Hughes– {Looking out at the ocean] “Beautiful, isn’t it? Would you like to listen to the sea and hear what it says? It doesn’t say anything, does it? That’s what I like about the sea. It never tells its secrets, and it has many – very many secrets.”
Ralph has a thing for knives, and Mommy Hughes has to keep taking sharp objects away from him and locking them away in a drawer. Dame May Witty is superb as his overprotective mother who is willing to concoct an elaborate scheme and even kill in order to cover up her son’s murder.
Ralph Hughes- “It’s all Marion’s fault. She shouldn’t have cried.”
Mrs. Hughes- “Ralph, you never told me – was it an accident, or did you intend to kill her after she made her will?”
Ralph- “I didn’t plan it. I liked her well enough, but when she found out I’d been lying about my income, she accused me of marrying her for her money. I said of course that was what I’d married her for. Then she cried. She was always crying. Then she slapped me. I had my knife in my hand, and I…” [He begins slashing at the sofa cushion with his knife, slicing it over and over]
Mrs. Hughes- “Stop it, stop it!” (she tries to take the knife away)
Ralph- “Don’t do that!”
Mrs. Hughes- “Put that away! Ralph, I’m trying to help you.”
Ralph- “I still say we should have called the police and told them a prowler broke in and killed her.”
Mrs. Hughes- “With the marks of your fingers on her? The scratches on your face?”
Julia goes to live at the house, but once she’s there, Mrs. Hughes, Ralph, and Sparkes drug her tea and spirit her off to the ocean village of Cornwall.
They’ve burned her clothes, stopped any means of communication from getting through, put bars on her windows, and convinced the village that she’s out of her mind, so no one believes her story about Julia Ross being held prisoner by these seemingly well-bred murderous grifters.
There they gaslight Julia, telling her that she is the first Mrs. Marion Hughes who has had a nervous breakdown. They’ve even convinced Alice the maid (Queenie Leonard) that she’s going mad and that she’s suicidal. Alice gossips around town and soon after everyone even the police, the doctors, and the reverend and his wife believe Hughes’ story. It seems like there’s no escape for Julia in sight. Along the path to doom, Ralph torments Julia with his menacing presence, and every attempt Julia makes to escape is thwarted.
They plan on making it look like she’s committed suicide so they can bury her as Mrs. Hughes since the real wife is lost at sea. And take her money
After it looks like Julia has taken an overdose of poison…
Ralph –“Why try to save her? Let her die. That’s what we want.”
Mrs. Hughes- “Don’t be stupid, Ralph. If she’s taken poison, we must act as though we cared!”
This is a very taut little suspense yarn that keeps you on the edge up until the end. With some extraordinary camera work and a very simple tale of murder, mistaken identity, and mayhem!
Co-starring Ottola Nesmithas Mrs. Robinson,Joy Harringtonas the resentfully sullen Bertha, Doris Lloyd is marvelous as Mrs. Mackie, Julia’s landlady, Roland Varnoas Julia’s love interest Dennis Bruce, Olaf Hytten as Reverend Lewis and Leonard Mudie as Peters.
There are thousands of films in my collection, this has been one of them!-MonsterGirl
Aurora has put together two very treasured items, the comedic genius of Abbott & Costello and the guy I wish was my grandfather Boris Karloff – Always witty, and entertaining as can be- read Once Upon A Screen’s take on Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff-Cheers Aurora
Thelma Ritter is always a joy to watch as well as listen to as no one can quite deliver swifter deadpan humor like this lady-“We’ve become a race of peeping toms” from Alfred Hitchcock’s Read Window 1954
Walter Baldwin is the lovable Orvy who might move a little slow in jail but brightens up the place in Robert Siodmak’s darkly powerful Cry of the City starring Richard Conte
Barbara Nichols getting pigeonholed all her career as the lovable blonde bombshell bimbo is just deliciously sympathetic in the hostile & darkly satirical noir masterpiece The Sweet Smell of Success 1957
Michael Dunn adds another layer of insight & exemplary character acting in the intensely dramatic social commentary Ship of Fools directed by Stanley Kramer.
Betty Garde is truly an unsung character actor- here she gives a very compelling performance as Kitty Stark a woman who’s gotten used to life without men in John Cromwell’s prison noir sensation- Caged (1950)
Anita Sharp-Bolster nearly steals the show in the dark suspense thriller The Two Mrs. Carrolls starring Barbara Stanwyck and Humphrey Bogart as a deranged painter. Christina the maid adds much comic relief with her acerbic puss!
Franz Kortner’s Anzelmo also known as Dr. Oracle is a mysterious and conniving villain who tries to run circles around poor John Hodiak who has lost his memory in Joseph L. Mankiewicz Somewhere in the Night 1946.
Jay C. Flippen always seems to be the guy who got a mug only a mother could love. And in Nicholas Ray’s masterpiece They Live By Night, his T-Dub is a pretty intimidating fellow!
Arthur Kennedy lends his acting depth to this powerful drama by Upton Sinclair co-starring Jean Simmons and Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry. Report Jim Lefferts is the clear voice that cuts through the malarkey as the moral compass
This has been a little bit of love to these fabulous character actors who make the cinematic world go round!-Your Ever Lovin’ MonsterGirl
As a treat I thought I’d talk about 4 really interesting films that were released amidst the slew of suspense thrillers of the 1940s. Some Gothic melodrama and a few perhaps conveying an almost hybrid sense of noir with their use of flashback, shadow, odd camera angles and elements of transgressive crime. I’ll just be giving a brief overview of the plot, but no worries there are no spoilers!
I recently had the chance to sit with each film and said to myself… Joey, these would make for a nice collection of obscure thrillers so without further adieu, I offer for your enjoyment, The Suspect, Love From A Stranger 1947, Moss Rose & The Sign of the Ram!
Directed by Robert Siodmak (The Spiral Staircase 1945, The Killers 1946,Criss Cross 1949, The Dark Mirror, Cry of the City, The File on Thelma Jordan 1950) and adapted to the screen by Bertram Millhauser and Arthur T Horman from the novel This Way Out written by James Ronald. Basing this film very loosely on the Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen murder of his wife that was sensationalized at trial in 1910.
The Suspect stars the inimitableCharles Laughton, (Dr. Moreau – Island of Lost Souls 1932, my favorite Quasimodo in William Dieterle’sThe Hunchback of Notre Dame 1939, the most lovable ghost Sir Simon in The Canterville Ghost 1944, The Paradine Case 1947, The Strange Door 1951, Witness for the Prosecution 1957, Spartacus 1960, Advise and Consent 1962 and notably–director of two films–his masterpiece Night of the Hunter and his uncredited The Man on the Eiffel Tower 1949)
The film also stars the underrated Ella Raines (Phantom Lady 1944,Impact 1949) Dean Harens, Stanley Ridges, (Possessed 1949, The File on Thelma Jordan and No Way Out 1950)Henry Daniell , Rosalind Ivan and Molly Lamont (The Dark Corner 1946, Devil Bat’s Daughter 1946) Raymond Severnplays the delicious little urchin Merridew who works for Phillip as he tries to keep the little guy on the straight and narrow. Merridew would make the perfect name for a little tabby cat!
Charles Laughton gives one of his most subtle performances as a kindly man trapped by an abusive wife. Siodmak as usual creates a dynamic framework for this psychological thriller that is lensed in shades of darkly ominous spaces that seems to shape itself around Laugton’s comfortable face and Ella Raines intricate beauty.
from IMDb trivia – Lux Radio Theater broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on April 9, 1945 with Charles Laughton, Ella Rainesand Rosalind Ivan reprising their film roles.
Music byFrank Skinner (Blond Alibi 1946,Johnny Stool Pigeon, The Brute Man, The Spider Woman Strikes back and way more to his credit see IMDb listing) With cinematography by Paul Ivano. Who did the camera work on director Hugo Haas treasures like Strange Fascination 1952, One Girl’s Confession 1953, Hold Back Tomorrow 1955!
And marvelous gowns and hats by Vera West. (The Wolf Man 1941, Shadow of a Doubt 1943,Flesh and Fantasy 1943, Son of Dracula & The Mad Ghoul 1943, Phantom Lady 1944,Strange Confession 1944, Murder in the Blue Room ’44, House of Frankenstein ’44, The Woman in Green 1945, Terror by Night 1946, The Cat Creeps, She-Wolf of London, Dressed to Kill, Danger Woman & Slightly Scandalous 1946.)
In 1902 London, well respected middle class Englishman, but unhappily married shopkeeper Phillip Marshall (Charles Laughton) develops a loving and warm friendship with young and beautiful Mary Gray (Ella Raines) who’s father has recently died, leaving her down on her luck and looking for a job. Phillip Marshall is such a kind and genteel man he stops to say a kind word about his neighbor Mrs Simmon’s garden, loves his son and shows real affection. Is like a father to young Merridew. Is beloved by the community. Even when he approaches Mary, and she hasn’t yet looked up from her tear soaked hanky, thinking she’s being approached by a lecherous man in the park, “I’m not that sort” tells her, only wanting to see if she needs help.
Mary like Phillip is lonely… the first night Phillip begins to walk her home- “A cup of tea, a six penny novel and a good cry.”
Mary- “I’m afraid you’ve been looking in my window.”
Phillip’s dreadful wife Cora (Rosalind Ivan –perfectly suited to play the emasculating harpy-she had a similar role tormenting Edward G Robinson in Scarlet Street 1945) is a reprehensible shrew who humiliates and demeans both her husband and her son (Dean Harens who had more room to act in Siodmak’s terrific noir Christmas Holiday 1944 starring a very different kind of Gene Kelly and the self-persecuting Deanna Durbin.) John is shown moving out of the house, because his horrible mother has burned some important papers of his. She got into one of her rages and before he could stop her she burned a whole weeks work.
Cora Marshall is vicious and cruel, showing no maternal feeling, caring little that her son is leaving home.
Cora-“That’s just what young hopeful did, he’s clearing out bag and baggage that selfish ungrateful good for nothing.” Phillip-“What did you do to him?” Cora- “What did I do to him… that’s right put the blame on me. All I did was bring him into the world, nurse him, make myself a doormat for him to walk on!… Go on, go to him and tell him from me that when he leaves this house needn’t think he can come crawling back. Deserting his own mother!… And what do you think you’re doing now?” Phillip- “I’m moving into John’s room.” Cora- “Of all the indecent…we’re married aren’t we?” Phillip (deep sigh)- “Oh we’re married all right.” Cora –“Then how dare you! I forbid it do you hear me. I forbid you to treat me like this.”
Phillip says,“Now Cora that’s all over now that John’s gone. It’s all over and done with, do you understand me?… I’m moving out of here and there’s nothing you can do about it”
Cora- “Oh yes there is. There’s plenty I can do!”
They wrestle with his clean folded white shirts that he’s busying himself moving out of the bedroom. She tries to grab them and he finally loses his composure and yanks them away.
Cora- “What’s got into you.. I’d like to know what’s going on in your head.”Phillip- “It’s much better that you shouldn’t Cora, it might frighten you…”
Saddened by his John’s departure who he loves and will miss, prompts Phillip to move into his son’s room. Cora, so bent on appearances is driven to tirades of abusiveness toward the meek and genteel Phillip. Harassing him at every turn. I might have thrown her down the stairs myself or given her one of those late night glasses of milk!
The scene with Merridew just tickles me and shows how kind, compassionate and caring Phillip is. He calls Merridew over talking to him in a quite earnest and fatherly tone, all the while you can tell he’s quite fond of the little fellow and visa versa.
Phillip- “Merridew I have to bring a very serious matter to your attention- I regret to say there’s a shortage in your accounts-there’s a penny missing from the stamp box.” Merridew- “It… it was for a sugar bun this morning but I’ll put it back on pay day honest Mr. Marshall” Phillip- “And the tuppence the day before yesterday what was that for?” Merridew- “Acid drops sir.” Phillip- “Acid drops???quizzically… that’s very serious. And the hay penny the day before?” Merridew- “For the monkey with the hurdy gurdy but I’ll put it all back Saturday every last farthing. “ Phillip- “That’s what all embezzlers plan to do.”
tears in Merridew’s voice make it quiver as the camera shows Mary listening in, she smiles and laughs at this whimsical inquisition.
Merridew- “But I’m not an embezzler.”
Phillip- “Yes, but you can get started that way. It’s the first step that counts… after that it all becomes too easy. Six pence tomorrow, half a crown the day after… then a five pound note… I know you’ll always mean to pay it back, but I’m afraid you’ll finish by paying it back in the Portland quarries”
Merridew- “Don’t send me to no quarries please Mr. Marshall(sniffling)”
Phillip- “Well not this time Merridew. Now stop sniffling and wipe your eyes.” he hands him a hanky.
Mary has come into the shop looking for employment. When Phillip tells her there isn’t a position available he later finds her on a park bench crying. He takes her to dinner, gets her a job with a colleague and the two begin a very tender friendship.
Phillip continues his platonic relationship with Mary, but once his wife finds out that he’s been seen supping with the young lady, he breaks it off, as he’s a gentleman who truly thought his wife would want out of a loveless marriage.
Still, Cora threatens him with scandal as well as making trouble for Mary. When Cora refuses to divorce him, worried that gossip will spread that she has failed to hold onto a husband, he is driven to the point of frustration and despair. She tells him the neighbors are all beginning to gossip about him coming in at all hours-
Phillip- “None of that business Cora.”
Cora- “Ha! Married people’s lives is everyone’s business and I’m not going to be made of object of pity in front of my friends do you hear!… I wonder what ever possessed me to tie myself up with a poor stink like you… walked through the forest and picked a crooked tree that’s what I did. A crooked fat ugly tree.”
Even after she’s been so cruel, he tries to reason with her about getting a divorce and face things honestly by admitting that they’ve never been happy together. He asks her to let him go. But she wants to punish him, because she is a bitter and cruel woman calling him immoral and indecent.
Phillip is very decent in fact, even though there’s only been friendship between he and Mary, he breaks it off with her so as to do what’s expected of him telling Mary that he behaved badly but he was afraid that she wouldn’t want to see him again. He was sure Cora would let him go… Phillip tells Mary , “And I couldn’t let you go once I’d met you.”
But Cora won’t be happy til she “drives them both ‘into the gutter where you belong!”
Laughton is adorable and wonderfully believable as a romantic figure because of his gentle nature.
His murderous response is more to protect Mary from Cora’s wrath, who tells him with a face like a Victorian harridan spewing a poisonous vitriol-
“You better be afraid. As sure as the sun rises tomorrow, I’ll give her the Merry Christmas she’ll never forget”Paul Ivano’s brilliant camera angle frames Laughton as somewhat diminished, seemingly trapped or rather oppressed by the space around him.
And so, Phillip murders his wife. We see him grab one of his canes and assume though we don’t see him actually bashing her head in with it, that he has in fact brained her. The next morning she is found dead at the bottom of the stairs, and it is deemed an accident.
Added to the plot’s layering of Sturm & Drang is the always wonderful scoundrel in Henry Daniell’s Gilbert Simmons, Phillip’s neighbor a stumbling drunkard who also beats his wife (Molly Lamont) Mrs Simmons and Phillip also have a very sweet relationship, one that ultimately anchors Phillip to his integrity. But I won’t reveal the outcome of the story. The miserable Gilbert Simmons also has the distinction of turning to blackmail adding to his other earthly vices.
Amidst all these dreary, grim and dark ideas, the film still emerges as a beautiful story, partly due to Siodmak’s ability to guide suspense along it’s way with an appealing cadence. As Foster Hirsch states in his must read Film Noir-The Dark Side of the Screen, “Siodmak films like Christmas Holiday and The Killers have an extremely intricate narrative development…{…} the relative extremeness of Siodmak’s style is reflected in his obsessive characters.”
The Suspect works as a great piece of Melo-Noir mostly due to Laughton’s absolute perfection as the sympathetic, trapped gentle-man. As always he is masterful with his intonations, sharpened wit and ability to induce fellowship with the characters he’s playing… well maybe not so much with Dr. Moreau, Capt. Bligh, Judge Lord Thomas Horfield or Sire Alaine de Maledroit in The Strange Door. But he’s a lovable sort most of the time, one can’t deny.
Charles Laughton and Margaret O’Brien in Jules Dassins’ The Canterville Ghost 1944-based on the story by Oscar Wilde
Ella Raines is just delightful as Mary. She’s such a treat to watch as you start to believe that this beautiful young woman genuinely has fallen for this older, portly yet kind hearted misfit. You find yourself hoping that he gets away with his wife’s murder, and that the two find happiness together.
Scotland Yard Inspector Huxley (Stanley Ridges) stalks Phillip Marshall believing he killed his wife
Phillip is staunchly pursued by a Scotland Yard Inspector Huxley (Stanley Ridges) who has the tenacity of Columbo. Speaking of which, a poster of The Suspect appears in an episode of Columbo– “How to Dial a Murder” in 1978.
On the darker more sinister side of these suspense yarns we find Sylvia Sidneyas Cecily Harrington at the mercy of a very deranged bluebeard in John Hodiakas Manuel Cortez.
the exquisite beauty of Sylvia Sidney
Directed by Richard Whorfwho became more fluent in directing for television. Written for the screen by Philip MacDonald(Rebecca 1940, The Body Snatcher 1945 for Val Lewton, The Dark Past 1948, Boris Karloff’s Thriller episode The Fingers of Fear 1961, The List of Adrian Messenger 1963) based on Agatha Christie’sshort story Philomel Cottage. Hair Stylist Eunice Helene King is responsible for slicking back Hodiak’s swarthy and murderously Lothario hair, he’s almost Draculian. He definitely covets his slickety hair as he shows his first sign of deranged pathology when Cecily tries to stokes his hair and he lashes out at her, telling her not to touch it.
The marvelous costumes equip with capes, sequins and ostrich feathers are byMichael Woulfe(Blood on the Sun 1945, Macao 1952, Beware, My Lovely 1952)
And again a terrific score by Hans J. Salter. This period piece is lavishly framed by Tony Gaudio(The Letter 1940, High Sierra 1941, The Man Who Came to Dinner 1942) Once the protagonist and her murderous husband honeymoon at their hideaway cottage, the lens turns the film into an almost chamber piece, becoming more claustrophobic as Manuel and Cecily begin to awaken into the revelation of his dangerous nature.
Sylvia Sidney  plays Cecily Harrington, an unassuming English girl in Liverpool who has just won £50,000 in the Calcutta Sweepstakes which was a fortune in turn of the century England. Cecily meets Manuel Cortez (John Hodiak) when he sees her name in the newspaper next to the headline of his latest murder. He follows her then arranges to make it appear as if he’s looking to rent her flat. She is taken with this mysterious stranger and suddenly breaks off her engagement to her fiancee Nigel Lawrence (John Howard) rushing into marriage with the mysterious stranger who turns out to be a Bluebeard who is after her money.
The swarthy Manuel Cortez has already alluded the police for the murder of three women, believed to have drowned while trying to escape he has changed his appearance, darker hair no beard. Dr Gribble (Philip Tonge) who is a crime connoisseur collects journals and books, one with a drawing of him showing his beard. It also mentions his earlier crime as being in South America and New York (Hodiak’s character is given several Spanish aliases-Pedro Ferrara and Vasco Carrera)
The newlyweds spend the summer at their secret honeymoon cottage where he’s been planning to kill her and bury her body down in the cellar.
Isobel Elsom plays Auntie Loo Loo with her usual exuberance, Ann Richards is the faithful friend Mavis Wilson.Manuel Cortez pretends to be looking for a flat to rent, showing up at Cecily’s door he has actually followed her from their ‘accidental’ meeting at the post
Cortez begins to work his Bluebeard charms on CecilyThe handsome John Howard as Cecily’s fiancee Nigel Lawrence is crushed to find her love has gone cold, as she is now entranced by the swarthy Manuel CortezNeither Nigel nor Mavis trust this mysterious stranger with the slickety hair and capeEveryone around Cecily knows there’s something not quite right
Auntie Loo Loo is surprised at her nieces impetuous behavior
Ethel and billings the gardener greet the newlyweds at the cottage they’ve spirited off to.There’s a dark cellar with a lock on the door. That never bodes well!
Digging the hole!which poisons to use, decisions decisionsManuel warns Cecily to stay away from his experiments in the cellarAuntie Loo Loo and Mavis manage to find out where the honeymoon cottage is and pay Cecily a visit to make sure she’s alrightThe couple are going away on a long voyage soon, though Manuel hasn’t shown her the tickets
Auntie Loo Loo is worried!Dr Gribble- Walking over to the book shelf- “Ah criminology are you interested in criminology Mr Cortez?” Cortez- “Yes, it’s a sort of hobby of mine doctor.” Dr Gribble- “Well we’re fellow enthusiasts” Cecily “Yes I think it’s a horrid morbid past time.” Dr Gribble “But fascinating Mrs Cortez. Here’s a great favorite of mine. Criminals and their mentality. That’s great psychology… Bless my soul the latest journal of Medical Jurisprudence and the Criminal. I should have thought I was the only person within a hundred miles radius who ever so much as heard of this publication.” Manuel Cortez-“Really I’ve subscribed to it for years” Dr Gribble “Let’s see did I read this issue? Ah yes this is the one with the account of that South American Carrera. It’s a very interesting case.” Manuel Cortez- “I don’t believe I’ve read it.” Dr Gribble- “You should have. This fellow Carrera was a professional wife murderer. They caught him after he completed his third crime. Then he was drowned trying to escape.” Manuel Cortez- “Oh yes I remember. They never found the body did they?” Dr Gribble- “No as a matter of fact they didn’t. I don’t think there’s any real doubt he’s dead!”
Manuel catches Cecily by the cellar door. Look his hair has finally lost control!
Love From A Stranger is perhaps the more melodramatic and Gothic of all these films I’ve talked about in this post, but perhaps the most unrewarding in terms of it’s depth. While there are some truly terrifying scenes, the queer chemistry between Sidney and Hodiak creates a distance from the narrative. It’s still truly worth watching as part of the canon of 40s suspense melodramas.
Sylvia Sidney has a certain edgy sensuality to her, that doesn’t make her performance thoroughly implausible for the story but perhaps a different actress might have brought another style of vulnerability to the role. And Hodiak has an unctuous, gritty sort of sex appeal, that made his part as a psychopath believable. He’s got intensely dark focused eyes, sharply defined features and an iron jawline that slams shut, when he’s internally scheming. Toward the end he brings it a bit over the top, but he’s sort of good at playing a surly mad dog.
Told to read aloud from the journal of criminology- “There is no doubt at all that Vasco Carrera the last name he was known by is a truly remarkable character. He posed as a great world traveler women even those from a cultured background succumbed very quickly to his perculiar charms possessed of a remarkable charm of manner Carrera exerted an extraordinary fascination over women”
YOU AND ME 1938-Sidney, Sylvia and George Raft- Now that’s chemistry!
Perhaps the one issue I have with the casting is the chemistry between Sidney and Hodiak that never truly rings authentic. He’s too internally frenetic to be romantic… mysterious yes, but he’s not convincing in his wooing of Cecily. And the character of Cecily doesn’t seem to have the layers that peel innocence away, unveiling a vulnerable yet eruptive sensuality that would be unconsciously drawn to the scent of a dangerous man. That’s why IngridBergman in Gaslight and Joan Bennett in Fritz Lang’sSecret Beyond the Door1947 work so well.
John Hodiak is a puzzle for me. I’ve been trying to decide whether he’s one of the most intriguingly sexy men I’ve come across in a while or if I find him completely cold and waxen in his delivery as a leading man.
John Hodiak and Tallulah Bankhead in Alfred Hitchcock’s marvelous floating chamber piece Lifeboat 1944
He had me going in Hitchcock’sLifeboat 1944. I would have thrown my diamond Cartier bracelet over the bow to tumble under the tarp for a few hours with that sun kissed, salt sprayed crude adonis, sweaty, brash, unshaven -the whole deal. Just watched him in Somewhere in the Night 1946, once again, found Hodiak’s character of George Taylor compelling in his odd way of conveying vulnerable but faithful to the lure of the noir machismo. I felt sorry for a guy who can’t remember who he is or if he should just stay forgetting- in case he was a rotten human being.
But as the cunning and psychopathic lady killer in Love From A Stranger, he sort of makes my skin crawl which I supposed means he did a fabulous job of inhabiting the role of Manuel Cortez right.. Maybe he would have had better chemistry with someone like Alexis SmithorAudrey Dalton.
Now, I haven’t yet seen Basil Rathbone’s version in director Rowland V Lee’s 1937Â film also known as A Night of Terrorwith Ann Harding -still based on the short story by Agatha Christie but set in contemporary England, Rathbone plays the intrepid type of urbane gentleman who sweeps Ann Harding off her feet and plunges her into a sudden and dangerous marriage. Where he then plots to killer her and take her money. In the earlier version, the heroine too gradually realizes that she’s in danger…
Basil Rathbone and Ann Harding in the 1937 version of Love From a Stranger
Sylvia Sidney looks stunning as the new bride who begins to notice the strange behavior of her husband and realizes once she goes down into the cellar that Manuel is hiding something. He spends hours locked away down there preparing for the moment he will kill Cecily and has forbidden her to go down there, claiming that he’s doing experiments which are dangerous. Well that’s true, since he’s mixing poisons and digging her grave.
This version places it back in Victorian England, perhaps due to the success of the melodramatic thrillers that were proving to be so successful in the 40s like, Rebecca, Gaslight, The Lodger, Hangover Square, The Woman in White, Fritz Lang’s The Secret Beyond the Door 1947, The Two Mrs Carrolls 1947.
I saw"”with shut eyes, but acute mental vision"”I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.
"” Mary Shelley
When I think of Kenneth Strickfaden I visualize the mad scientist grabbing the master switch in his clandestine laboratory. Suddenly the machinery hums and glows, glass tubes boil with liquids, electrical currents charge through the coiled tubes and conductance. Lighting leaps across the sky and finds its way into the diving spot in the lab. The crackle, snapping hiss and sparks of ozone. The well orchestrated machinery of mad science that now act as futuristic hardware. The electrical odor that would still permeate the air for years to come as he shaped the way we perceived the mad scientist labs and mysterious scientific exploration!
early days Strickfaden assembling a mad scientist apparatus
Kenneth Strickfaden was an expert in high voltage electricity, film set designer, and electrical special effects master. Using his skills as a carnival electrician, he created the science fiction apparatus that can be seen in more than 100 films and television programs, showcasing Strickfaden’s technical phantasmagoria of light and sound!
I often wonder how many of these films centered around mad science and the laboratory environment utilized some of Strickfaden’s machines and electrical effects without giving him credit.
Boris Karloff in The Devil Commands.Boris Karloff in The Man They Could Not Hang.Man Made Monster
I can see influences in Edward Dymtryk’s The Devil Commands 1941 with Boris Karloff. With art direction by Lionel Banks and props by Franz, Oscar, and Paul Dallons.The Man They Could Not Hang 1939  & Man Made Monster 1941 Set direction by Russell A Gausman and John P Fulton who had worked with Strickfaden before. I believe Strickfaden did the special effects and used part of his equipment. Doctor X (1932), The Invisible Man 1933,The Man Who Lived Again, and more!
Dr. X (1932).The Man Who Lived Again.The Invisible Man 1933.
Strickfaden’s first contribution was to Just Imagine 1930. Today it has become something of a "lost" film and nearly impossible to see on the big screen. "While the beautiful art deco sets, enormous miniatures, and remarkable projection effects still amaze," says Production Designer John Muto, Founder of the ADG Film Series, "the music, comedy, and love story are derived from vaudeville and must have seemed very dated as cinematic musicals exploded in the 1930s. I suspect that may be why the film faded from view. Our audience will discover a very surprising film!" "Today, most films set in the future portray a bleak, dystopian, even apocalyptic world.” Besides the beautiful art design Just Imagine featured a stunning laboratory filled with electrical equipment by Ken Strickfaden.
Just Imagine 1930.
The Clutching Hand (1936
But it was his work for James Whale’s 1931 masterpiece Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, and Ghost of Frankenstein that struck like lightning! Stock footage of the lightning bolt generated by Strickfaden’s equipment can be seen in so many films and television shows. John P Fulton head of the special effects department at Universal Studios was responsible for the special photographic effects-
Jame’s Whalehad wanted a lab that was reminiscent of the one in Fritz Lang’sMetropolis1927 Lang’sart department/set designers Otto Hunte, Erich Kettlehut, Walter Schulze-Mittendorf & Karl Vollbrecht. Special effects by Ernst Kunstmann, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet and Erich Kettelhut. Visual effects Eugen Schufftan, Willy Muller, Hugo O Schulze, and an uncredited Edgar G. Ulmer.
Metropolis 1927.Fritz Lang’s Metropolis 1927.This orb of Kenneth Strickfaden’s has made it through Fu Manchu’s clutches to the Wicked Witch of the West’s long bony fingers
You can see Strickfaden’s wonderful creations in The Wizard of Oz, The Mask of Fu Manchu to television’s The Munsters, and his final work, Young Frankenstein. Strickfaden recycled a number of the pieces that he kept maintained like his“Cosmic Ray Diffuser”that he used in the original Frankenstein.
Kenneth Strickfaden was born in 1896-by the time he was in high school he was using a camera and setting up shots of amusement parks, and battle scenes, and visualizing and creating his own laboratory apparatus and equipment.
Thesiger and Clive in The Bride of Frankenstein
When I was just a little tiny wide-eyed MonsterGirl I would daydream plenty on rainy days and spend hours down in the basement assembling pieces of metal and plastic doohickeys having taken apart various appliances around the house, trying to create my very own little mad scientist lab. I’d get large pieces of wood and paint the control panels. I could literally spend hours down there pretending to be Dr. Pretorious. I was fascinated by science fiction technology and the secrets of life and death, and the fantastical storytelling Universal Monsters had to offer.
Backstage on the set of Frankenstein
My pop would continually ask me where I put his hammer, though it was true most of the time, I did take his tools to aid in my small-scale construction of a basement laboratory. I was constructing panels with knobs and meters, I didn’t always have his hammer. And by no means did I have the eye or the technical brain to develop such intricate machinery that could spark and crackle streams of white heat, the suggestion of the life force arching in splendor. It just felt so good to be living my own fantasies without being told that I should go play with dolls. That’s also partly how I got to be known as MonsterGirl by the neighborhood bullies. Anyway… back to the genius of Frankenstein’s electrician.
Paul Walter’s assistant holds the switch box that controls Strickfaden’s Magnalux invention for lighting simulating flashes-Image from Goldman’s book.
Strickfaden had the sort of fascination for creating a milieu of scientific realism, working on our sense of wonder and the possibilities of the creations these machines would aid in either creating life or destroying it, which was always a draw for me. His special electrical designs and effects were visually groundbreaking for American film audiences, far-fetched perhaps but divine. He used junkyard electrical parts from the 1930s, fake wiring, and high voltage Jacob’s ladders (An electric current then flows until the path of ionized gas is broken or it, as it rises, will pull the arc apart and so extinguish it.), and spark gaps and the occasional Tesla Coil. “Ribbed ceramic insulators are a must… as are the slate front panels and wooden cabinetry that were standard of scientific and medical devices of the day”
And that’s why I wanted to do this little feature tribute to a man who’s responsible for shaping the look of so many classic horror and sci-fi fantasy film milieus over the years. The sets and laboratory apparatus that contributed to the Gothic science mood of the story, came to life because of the innovation Strickfaden used in creating his fantastical yet plausible designs. As a key to the plot structure as the players themselves.
image of Strickfaden’s “Megavolt Senior” from Goldman’s Book
During the grand days of classic horror between the decades of 1930s and 1940s, the landscape might have looked entirely different if Kenneth Strickfaden hadn’t been so fascinated with creating apparatus and contraptions that flashed and sparked with high voltage, meters keeping track, tubes, and coils and large equipment that paid true homage the science fiction writings he was trying to breathe life into himself a technician like Pretorious and Dr. Frankenstein. The appearance of these industrial gadgets and machines, and the look of the laboratory brought such a sense of realism to an already Gothic stunner, and Mary Shelley’s story, too which was ahead for its day. As Harry Goldman refers to in his book title, Strickfaden was the right electrician for the job.
Colin Clive with Elsa Lanchester as The Bride- notice The Nebularium! Image from Goldman’s Strickfaden-Frankenstein’s Electricianon the set of Frankenstein from Famous Monsters of Filmland #21 1963
Though his fascination started in high school by the early 1920s film makers saw the potential in his inventive apparatus. He was given work at many Hollywood studios, in which he offered them a slew of amazing special electrical effects.
From Goldman’s, Kenneth Strickfaden, Dr. Frankenstein’s Electrician, Strickfaden’s work was not easy, “Apparatus constantly failed due to overheating,” he once revealed to writer Scott MacQueen. “Most effects did not photograph as expected, or they were eliminated due to electrical failures.”
Despite these unusual, and expected, setbacks, the onscreen results were phenomenal, and far more convincing than any simulations. Strickfaden made much use of the inventions of Nikola Tesla, which had been perfected more than thirty years before the first Universal Studios “Frankenstein” movie. But, unlike Tesla, he was also concerned with the theatrical “look” of his fanciful contraptions, which had to appear to be futuristic and capable of untold wonders. The names he gave the machines were often equally marvelous, such as: “the retrogressive wave charger,” “DXLAccumulator,”and “High Amperage Pyrogeyser.”
When, in the late 1940s, real-life scientific marvels turned out to be subtler than Strickfaden’s machines, his work apparently went out of fashion and was little seen in Hollywood until the ’60s, when it was used extensively in The MunstersTV show and in commercials.
Before his death in 1984, he spent much time touring with his “Kenstric Space Age Science Show,” educationally demonstrating spectacular electrical phenomena.
Standing fearlessly before a high voltage arc.His reliable switchboard can be seen in the foreground while the famous “Meg Senoir” Tesla coil appears in the background.
The Cosmic Ray Diffuser-Image from Goldman’s Book
A few highlights of Strickfaden’s career include:
Frankenstein (1931) The equipment brought Mary Shelley’s monster to life.
In The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), Strickfaden created a dazzling electrical death ray even doubling for Boris Karloff, who played Fu Manchu when the evil mastermind spreads his hands and the powerful lightning dances between his long sinister fingernails.
Murders in the Rue Morgue 1932 Bela Lugosi is Dr. Mirakle- Ken Strickfaden lends his electrical gadgets to Mirakle’s laboratory.
Chandu the Magician -Strickfaden’s machines came from FRANKENSTEIN now they equip (Bela Lugosi) Roxor’s lab- His death ray, a giant ray gun that sends pulsating death beams aimed at the major cities of the world!
In The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Strickfaden configured the electrical displays for the Bride creation sequence.
The Wizard of Oz (1939) He created the effect of the Wicked Witch of the West trying to remove Dorothy’s ruby slippers and receiving an electrical shock. The orb she uses to scry was a Strickfaden design.
The giant crystal ball that Margaret Hamilton uses as the Wicked Witch was actually uncovered in a junkyard found amidst the remnants of other discarded Hollywood memorabilia from a now defunct prop house. The enormous hand-blown glass, with high voltage Tesla coils, had a new owner who spotted it in Goldman’s book Dr. Frankenstein’s Electrician. It had been used by Bela as Roxor in Chandu the Magician. It was a great prop for Boris Karloff in Mask of Fu Manchu, but once he placed it up for auction the new owner learned that it had actually been the crystal ball used in The Wizard of OZ.
Fighting Devil Dogs (circa 1941)“Manifested projectiles of something like ball lightning.”
Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943) “He simulated an unusually realistic lightning strike.”
Young Frankenstein (1974) Strickfaden recreated some of his best work from the original Frankenstein.
Bela in Chandu the Magician with the death ray.Boris as the absent-minded scientist in The Boogeyman Will Get You.
Ernest Thesiger and Colin Clive in The Bride of Frankenstein.
He was born in Montana in 1896, Kenneth Strickfaden was an imaginative and adventurous guy who worked at amusement parks, taking myriads of photos. He traveled overseas serving in World War One. He was also an airplane mechanic so he was very handy technically, having built and tuned Tesla coils and X-Ray machines. A Tesla coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit invented by Nikola Tesla around 1891. It is used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency …Eventually, he found himself in Hollywood working as a studio electrician in the late twenties.
Image of Strickfaden holding the Melodyne musical disc and large lens that appears in Son of Frankenstein from Goldman’s book Dr. Frankenstein’s Electrician
In 1931, Kenneth Strickfaden was hired to set up the equipment for Frankenstein’s tower laboratory. He was to furnish it with a ‘powerful engine.‘ Strickfaden assembled various machines. One which was used for the lightening powered scene that would help resurrect Boris Karloff’s monster back from the dead to life on the slab. He combined his knowledge of electrical science engineering and part of his love of creating side show electrical pageantry in order to transform Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory into a place of unorthodox alchemy within a modern science dominion.
Kenneth Strickfaden Bride of Frankenstein control panel-Image from Goldman’s book
At first, the designs were to be more streamlined and modern in their look, but Strickfaden had managed to construct a place of Gothic dread within the medieval structure of the setting and seamlessly adapt the apparatus of modern science with the stone walls. The juxtaposition of the two worlds adds to the feeling of Dr Frankenstein’s heretical, rebellious, and clandestine primacy as his secrets lay hidden away.
Strickfaden's apparatus quivered, sparked, crackled, and shrieked. The imposing levers were pulled in harmony with the dialogue, like an orchestrated scientific waltz. White hot arcs of electrical tendrils reached out and thrust wildly like serpent’s tongues. Beautifully glistening glass vials and tubes sat amidst copper spheres that wound themselves around like industrial jewels. Needles indicated where the force of energy was heading on the dials, and disks whirled like fun-house wheels. It was all so mesmerizing in Frankenstein’s laboratory with its arcane machinery that sang the songs of the universe, and the secrets of immortality and life from death, the sounds of voltage that pushed the machinery to its limits.
The Nebularium device from The Bride of Frankenstein 1935Image from Goldman’s bookStrickfaden created a Nebularium for House of Dracula ’45. Image from Goldman’s book Dr.Frankenstein’s Electrician
From then on 1931 James Whale’s Frankenstein with its elaborately detailed laboratory up on the mountain tops set the tone for all mad scientist laboratories to follow. Kenneth Strickfaden would utilize and reconfigure his glorious apparatus over and over again in the Frankenstein films that followed, like Bride of Frankenstein.
You can see his fantastical machines like his“Megavolt Tesla Coil”& the “Nebularium”in Flash Gordon serials and so many other horror and sci-fi features over the decades. Even in one of the most memorable episodes of The Munsters in the 60s, where Grandpa transfigures Herman into Fred Gwynn, losing his square-headed, neck-bolted Frankensteinian charm! The episode is called “Just Another Pretty Face.”
And Mel Brooks truly paid homage to the Universal cycle of Frankenstein pictures with his Young Frankenstein in 1974. Co-starring with Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn doing her Mae Clarke bit as Elizabeth, and Marty Feldman as Igor to Dwight Frye’s Fritz.
Strickfaden’s machines and apparatus were re-used in Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein
The Gothic laboratory where Gene Wilder plays Doctor, waxes campy and raises Peter Boyle back to life using a lighting storm and complex equipment that sparks and radiates arcs of light was the very same set of scientific apparatus used in Whale’s masterpiece in the 1931 film when Kenneth Strickfaden first configured it all for the set of Frankenstein with Boris Karloff.
Strickfaden died in 1984, and up until that time, he traveled the country with all machines and apparatus, and gave lectures in schools and auditoriums, also creating music with electrical instruments that he designed. He would demonstrate his lighting effects with ultraviolet light on radioactive materials, and shock and amaze students with something he called his “gravity nuetralizer” He did these programs from 1933 til his death.
Son of Frankenstein Basil Rathbone, Bela and once again Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster.Bela Lugosi in The Phantom Creeps
Strickfaden would step in at times as a stunt double in the films, for instance, he played Karloff’s monster for a scene that didn’t make it into the film. When Karloff didn’t want to use the “QUCH” machine fearing it was too dangerous as Fu Manchu, Strickfaden stood in for him. He held a large wand that generated a streaming arc of lightning which called for a million-volt spark to dance over his body. in Mask of Fu Manchu, Strickfaden was thrown across the set when he wasn’t grounded properly and received a jolt of electricity.
Kenneth Strickfaden’s QUCH machine-up for auction
He became the most trusted man around high-voltage trickery, yet Strickfaden admits very plainly that there’s no mystery to what he is able to do and that producing high voltage or amperage is rather simple.
One of the key apparatus that Strickfaden uses is his million-volt generator, which produces large sparks, and fat blue flames that can actually reach a height of 6 feet into the air. It’s his most intricately designed piece of equipment. The multi-distributor consists of a motor-driven set of whirling electrodes that can throw sparks. Strickfaden does say that a shock from the circuits could actually prove fatal.
Another device Strickfaden used was called a ‘lightening screen’This is another high-voltage generator that throws sparks across a large disk with a radioactive backing. Used with a darkened stage, the radioactive material continues to glow along the path of each spark even once the current has been shut off.
A note about Nikola Tesla-THE GENIUS WHO LIT THE WORLD- “ Young Nikola Tesla came to the United States in 1884 with an introduction letter from Charles Batchelor to Thomas Edison:Â Â Nikola Tesla developed polyphase alternating current system of generators, motors and transformers and held 40 basic U.S. patents on the system, which George Westinghouse bought, determined to supply America with the Tesla system.
In February 1882, Tesla discovered the rotating magnetic field, a fundamental principle in physics and the basis of nearly all devices that use alternating current. Tesla brilliantly adapted the principle of rotating magnetic field for the construction of alternating current induction motor and the polyphase system for the generation, transmission, distribution and use of electrical power. Tesla’s A.C.induction motor is widely used throughout the world in industry and household appliances. It started the industrial revolution at the turn of the century. Electricity today is generated transmitted and converted to mechanical power by means of his inventions. Tesla’s greatest achievement is his polyphase alternating current system which lights is used throughout the world
Modern Mechanix scan of a Popular Mechanics article from September 1949-by Eugene M Hanson.
1. Scott MacQueen, “Kenneth Strickfaden: Strange Revelations of the Man Who Lives in the House that Frankenstein Built,” Gore Creatures, no. 24, October 1975, pp. 24-26.
2. William Ludington, “Mister Electricity: The Multi-Volted Career of Kenneth Strickfaden,” American Classic Screen, vol. 7, no. 1, Jan./Feb. 1983, pp. 26-29.
This has been electrifying -your ever lovin’ MonsterGirl
