Rondo Awards : Frankensteinia scores 3 nominations!

March 17, 2014, 8:30 pm

≫ Next: The Rockabilly Bride of Frankenstein

≪ Previous: Boris Karloff in Aunt of Frankenstein

2013 was a great year for Frankensteinia.

Almost exactly a year ago, I traveled to Paris and London where I did some serious research for this blog and I was treated, thanks to my friend David Saunderson of The Spooky Isles, to an unforgettable “Frankensteinia Night” at a London pub with invited genre writers, film historians, editors and publishers and other instant friends, a dozen in all. It was a memorable kick off to the year and, now, to bookend the backend, the 12th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards have been announced and I am delighted and frankly excited that Frankensteinia has generated three nominations!

Here they are, for your kind consideration…

1) Frankensteiniahas been nominated as Best Blog!

Here’s hoping we can get over the hump after coming in First Runner-Up the last two times out! I am very proud of our offerings this past year. Some highlights:

We found some rare Frankenstein appearances, notably Billy De Wolfe’s comic turn in BLUE SKIES (1946) here and here, and a couple of British entries in THURSDAY’S CHILD(1943) here and here, and DANCE HALL (1950) here.

Doing some Frankenstein archeology, we found the site of the bakery that inspired the Windmill scene in the original FRANKENSTEIN of 1931. A great photo of Ed Payson in the makeup chair turned up, halfway through his transformation into the Frankenstein Monster for the 3-D short THIRD DIMENSIONAL MURDER (1941). In a perfect case of Monster Kid prehistory, we discovered what is one of the earliest, if not very first incident of Frankenstein cosplay, so to speak, in a press review entitled Gandhi Hob-Knobs with Frankensteinfrom February 1932. Also (with thanks to our friend George Chastain), we dug up a pre-Famous Monsters Forry Ackerman article entitled Frankenstein’s Bébé — Brigitte Bardot!

A personal favorite from 2013 was my Shock Theater Frankenstein series of articles revealing the early promotional efforts and rubber-mask Frankenstein appearances that helped launch the Monster Boom back in the Fifties.

2) The Peter Cushing Centennial Blogathon is up for Best Fan Event!

Saint Peter’s anniversary was celebrated with the help of 30 bloggers, contributing some 80 fabulous articles, reviews, opinions, revelations and loving appreciations.

3) Richard Harland Smith’s contribution to the Peter Cushing Blogathon, The Peter Cushing Nobody Knows, is up for Best Article!

RHS has been a friend of Frankensteinia from day one and I was knocked out by his brilliant essay on Cushing’s early, non-horror roles, posted over at TCM’s Movie Morlocks. Smith is also nominated for Best Commentary for THE DEVIL BAT.

There you have it. Now it’s your turn: You have until May 5 to vote, but don’t wait: You can vote right now, in as many or as few categories as you are comfortable with, and it’s all done painlessly through email.

Should you wish to support our nominations, vote Frankensteinia in Category 19, Best Blog; Peter Cushing Centennial Blogathon in Category 21, Best Fan Event, and The Peter Cushing Nobody Knows by Richard Harland Smith in Category 13, Best Article.

If you enjoy this blog, you are also welcome to include yours truly, Pierre Fournier, in the write-in Category 28, Best Writer.

Here’s the Rondo Ballot, with tons of great stuff to discover. Congratulations to ALL the nominees!

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The Rockabilly Bride of Frankenstein

March 23, 2014, 11:25 pm

≫ Next: The Monster from Hell Ressurected

≪ Previous: Rondo Awards : Frankensteinia scores 3 nominations!

Though her total time on screen, way back in 1935, was limited to a brisk 12 minutes, the Bride of Frankenstein remains one of the most famous movie characters of all time and is still a reference 79 years on. The Bride, sporting her spectacular hairdo, has appeared in everything from commercials to musical reviews and pop videos.

Here, she is stunned back to life again to the tune of It’s Good to be Alive, the first single off an upcoming album by Imelda May, a roots and rockabilly artist by way of Ireland.

In this revisionist version, The Bride and her Monster fall head over big boots for each other and go on to the ups and downs of marital life. I don’t really think it’s a spoiler for me to say that in the end, love conquers all.

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The Monster from Hell Ressurected

March 31, 2014, 1:00 am

≫ Next: Frankenstein in New York The Frankenstein of 14th Street

≪ Previous: The Rockabilly Bride of Frankenstein

Consistently excellent, Rue Morgue magazine casts a wide net, exploring horror in culture, cutting across all forms of entertainment and perfectly comfortable with everything from classic to contemporary and cutting edge. The current issue, No. 142 for March 2014, has a 40th anniversary cover feature on Hammer’s FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL. The article is enhanced with remembrances by Shane Briant, Madeline Smith and David Prowse, the film’s young Dr. Helder, “Angel”, and the title’s hulking Monster. Hammer expert Denis Meikle provides historical perspective and a critical appreciation.

FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL was one of the last pictures from Hammer, it was the last of their Frankenstein series and the last film for director Terence Fisher who is remembered here, as well as actor Peter Cushing who draws tons of love from all concerned. Briant says, “Peter was the ultimate, consummate professional”. Madeleine Smith calls the film “A funereal poem. A glorious little coda at the end”. A sidebar covers the Blu-Ray release of FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN.

The issue also features an article on Victorian-era horror 3-D cards, and a 20^th anniversary celebration of Mike Mignola’s fabulous Hellboy, complete with an interview and Mignola’s own picks for his five favorite Hellboy stories.

Rue Morgue magazine.

Related:
Twilight of the Goths: Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell

After Frankenstein: Hell Revisited

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Frankenstein in New York The Frankenstein of 14th Street

April 3, 2014, 6:15 pm

≫ Next: Frankenstein in New York Frankenstein on Broadway

≪ Previous: The Monster from Hell Ressurected

By the time James Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN made it to New York, the film had hopscotched across America for two weeks, toppling box-office records along the way. On December 4, 1931, New Yorkers queued outside the Mayfair Theater in freezing rain for a look at the season’s Monster sensation. Extra showings were added to accommodate the endless crowds and by week’s end, over 76,000 patrons had set a new attendance record for the Times Square venue. The film would deploy to other area movie houses as a reliable attraction well into 1932.

This wonderful still of a Frankenstein Monster stand-in perched on an RKO promo truck has been circulating on the net, but without information as to date or location. It’s obviously an early promo stunt. The title of a Cagney film, BLONDE CRAZY —released, like FRANKENSTEIN, in mid-November ‘31 — appears behind the box-office booth. The theater is identified on the truck panel: It’s the RKO Jefferson, at 214 East 14th Street, near 3rd Avenue.

Universal’s Publicity Department suggested the “robot ballyhoo” stunt, having someone in Monster getup patrol the lobby and house front, or going for a spin around the block lugging ads on a sandwich board. Any tall man in a dark suit would do, usually decked-out in a fright wig and some greenish makeup to help the illusion. The player, here, is unidentified — perhaps a slumming vaudevillian or just someone off the street. A job was a job in Depression times. This facsimile Frankenstein wears a long-haired widow’s peak wig, knee-high boots and heavy gloves, like mechanical hands. FRANKENSTEIN posters sometimes gave Karloff what appears to be riveted steel arms.

Built in 1913 in the notorious Gashouse District as a top-notch Vaudeville theater, the Jefferson earned a reputation among show people as “the toughest house in New York”. The Marx Borthers, George Burns and Mae West were among those who braved the turbulent audiences.

Live acts still supported the featured movies when the theater was refurbished in 1947, but attendance had begun a downward trend, not the least because of wholesale evictions as the city enacted a plan to remodel the neighborhood. Competition from television would accelerate the Jefferson’s decline. KING KONG (1933) played the Jefferson on its highly publicized re-release in 1952, and horror host Zacherley brought his live spook show there in the Sixties. In the Seventies, on its last legs, the house switched to Spanish language programming for a while and then, in increasingly depressing disrepair, turned to porno. The once-proud Jefferson was eventually abandoned, an eyesore for twenty years until it was demolished in 1999.

An interesting sidenote: Right next door to the Jefferson is an Otto Altenburg piano store. Back in the day, the Altenburg company made a point of opening piano showrooms on the same block as theaters. The New Jersey-based company, founded in 1855, is still going strong today. The second-floor showroom at 212 East 14th Street closed in the late Thirties and was taken over by Irving Klaw’s legendary Movie Star News store, an exclusive outlet for celebrity photos and Klaw’s famous home-made cheescake and bondage stills. By the Fifties, it would become the go-to shop for Bettie Page fans. Movie Star News moved away in the mid-Eighties, when the area was at its seediest. The neighborhood today is completely transformed but the site of the storied Jefferson remains an empty lot.

Attended by men in hats and caps, including one gentleman in a neat bowler, the Frankenstein of 14th Street recalls a lost era when a couple could see live entertainment and a new movie in a palace settting for change on a dollar and the fun spilled onto the street outside, the house front festooned with eye-popping displays — note the Frankenstein title in dancing 3-D letters — and you might even bump into The Monster himself!

Sources: Cinema Treasures, Altenburgh Pianos.

All Seats 35 Cents

The Selling of Frankenstein

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Frankenstein in New York Frankenstein on Broadway

April 10, 2014, 12:15 am

≫ Next: Robby Hecht's Melancholy Frankenstein

≪ Previous: Frankenstein in New York The Frankenstein of 14th Street

A deadpan Monster floats over Broadway, photographed during a revival run that opened on July 21, 1934. On its original release, late 1931, posters for FRANKENSTEIN carried a line under the title — as close to a subtitle the film ever had — reading, The Man Who Made a Monster. Here, surprisingly, the film’s title clearly reads FRANKENSTEIN THE KILLER, the only such known occurrence.

The Globe, its name evoking Shakespeare, was built as a high-hat, legit theater in 1910, with its vast entrance on 46th Street sporting soaring arches and a second-floor balcony where you could step outside and watch carriages unloading patrons. Inside, the latest innovations included a pipe and vent system bringing steam heat or ice cooling, season depending, to individual seats. The roof was built to slide open on a track system, though there is no record of it ever being used, with street noise, chimney soot and weather conditions likely providing reasons to keep the lid on. For twenty years, the Globe sparkled as one of New York’s leading theaters, home of such celebrated shows as the Ziegfield Follies and George White’s Scandals, Irving Berlin musicals and performances by Sarah Bernhardt and Fanny Brice. In 1929, owner Charles Dillingham was wiped out in the Stock Market Crash and the Globe went into receivership, soon to be one of several New York playhouses bought up by the Brandt chain and turned into movie houses.

The four Brandt brothers had kicked off their exhibitor career operating a hand-cranked projector stand at Coney Island, graduating to Nickelodeons and building up a theater circuit. Even as the Great Depression was hitting, the Brandts sold their holdings to Fox Pictures and used the proceedings to start another chain, snapping up failing theaters at downscale prices, kicking out the live burlesque and vaudeville acts and converting the premises to talkies. By the late Thirties, the Brandts owned 7 of the 11 movie houses on 42nd Street. They would go on to own 150 cinemas in New York and the upper East Coast.

When the Globe switched to movies in 1932, its opulent 46th Street façade was closed and the box-office moved to a small secondary entrance on Broadway. The Brandts hardly ever advertised, using instead the prime, high-visibility frontage on Times Square to announce their picture shows and pull patrons in from right off the street, or from among the thousands who stopped in next door for lunch at the Automat — the legendary diner which appears to have been the focus of our photograph.

The Globe splashed its loud displays clear across its narrow front and all the way up to full building height, like a vertical billboard, framing titles and movie star portraits in neon and dancing lights. FRANKENSTEIN rated a giant headshot of Karloff’s Monster with “The Killer” and “It’s a Sensation” in lightbulbs atop the marquee.

The Globe would run movies until 1957 when the theater changed hands and returned to its theatrical roots. The interior was gutted, its old configuration sacrificed to fine acoustics and modern styling. The narrow Broadway access was shut forever and the lavish 46th Street entrance restored. The Globe reopened in May of 1958 as the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, honoring the famous husband and wife actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. In the years since, top shows have included The Sound of Music and Hello Dolly!, Richard Burton as Hamlet, and the work of Bob Fosse and Marlene Dietrich. Disney’s live Beauty and the Beast premiered here in 1999.

For a century now, legends of stage and film have graced this storied house. For a fast few days in 1934, FRANKENSTEIN THE KILLER — Guaranteed for Gasps — stalked onscreen and stared down New Yorkers from his perch in the heart of Broadway.

The Globe Theater on Jerry’s Brokendown Palacesand Greenbriar Picture Shows.

The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.

Related:

The Frankenstein of 14th Street

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Robby Hecht's Melancholy Frankenstein

April 13, 2014, 5:00 pm

≫ Next: All Girl Frankenstein

≪ Previous: Frankenstein in New York Frankenstein on Broadway

The Monster and his Bride have enjoyed a busy music video career as stand-ins for star-crossed lovers, often to comedic effect. Here, set to Robby Hecht’s plaintive, country-styled “Soon I Was Sleeping”, the tone is downright mournful as our jigsaw couple’s perennially problematic love affair is irrevocably wrecked by alcohol. Brian T. O’Neil plays the beat-up Monster and Kayla McKenzie Moore is the ethereal Bride. Ryan Newman directed in appropriately moody black and white.

Robby Hecht is a Nashville-based singer/songwriter whose insightful compositions have made him an important new voice in contemporary folk. With a talent for surrounding himself with blue-chip talent, he is accompanied on the song at hand by Canadian vocalist Rose Cousins. “Soon I Was Sleeping” appears on Hecht’s new album, released in March.

Robby Hecht’s website.

Reviews on the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy, UK’s The Telegraph, and USA Today.

Related:

The Rockabilly Bride of Frankenstein

The Country Bride of Frankenstein

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All Girl Frankenstein

April 24, 2014, 3:00 am

≫ Next: Jack Pierce and The Bride

≪ Previous: Robby Hecht's Melancholy Frankenstein

The stage has been an essential medium in the cultural life of Frankenstein. When Mary Shelley’s book was published in 1818, its modest run of 500 copies quickly sold out and the title fell out of print. It might have been forgotten or perhaps remembered as a gothic curio if not for playwright Richard Brinsley Peake. His fanciful adaptation of 1823, Presumption, or: The Fate of Frankenstein, was such a sensation that William Godwin, Mary’s father, arranged for a new edition of the novel, reviving its literary career. The play itself spawned countless knock-offs that would keep multiplying through the years, new adaptations generally inspired by other theatrical versions instead of the original book. When James Whale made the classic FRANKENSTEIN in 1931, the film was based on yet another play, Peggy Webling’s Frankenstein: An Adventure into the Macabre.

To this day, some version or another of Frankenstein— pro, amateur, straight, comedic or musical — is being staged somewhere every week, and the story’s exceptionally compelling themes are often explored by experimental ensembles, as with this recent version by Bob Fisher and The Chicago Mammals. All Girl Frankenstein premiered in October 2013. In January this year, the group performed a special version called Three Girl Frankenstein in which three actresses played all the parts.

All Girl Frankenstein is one of a series of plays where Chicago actresses get to play parts traditionally cast with men. The group staged All Girl Moby Dick in 2012 and All Girl Edgar Allen Poe is being prepared for October 2014.

The Chicago Mammals blogcarries bios of all the participants. Pictured in this post, at the top, is Erin Meyers as Victor Frankenstein. Pictured above are Amy E. Harmon as The Creature and Erin Orr as Henry Clerval. Another Mammals regular, Liz Chase, played a creepy lab assistant who sets up the play in a prologue. Completing the circle, the assistant character serving as narrator is a theatrical invention originated by Peake all the way back in 1823.

Reviews of All Girl Frankenstein in The Chicago Tribuneand Chicago Theater Beat.

Related:

Inflatable Frankenstein

500 Clown Frankenstein

Mortal Toys

Clive Barker’s Frankenstein in Love

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Jack Pierce and The Bride

April 30, 2014, 12:00 am

≫ Next: Penny Dreadful's Frankenstein

≪ Previous: All Girl Frankenstein

Here’s a find, I think. There are lots of photos of master makeup man Jack Pierce working on or posing with Boris Karloff for his three outings as Frankenstein’s Monster, but no shots of Pierce with Elsa Lanchester in BRIDE makeup had ever surfaced, to my knowledge, until now.

The photograph here was found in the June 1935 issue of New Movie magazine, just one of 12 small photos of movie stars sharing space with cartoons and copy in a busy spread called Hollywood: Day by Day. Reporter “Nemo” rattles off short items of bubbleheaded scuttlebutt about such matters of import as Bing Crosby’s day at the racetrack, Jean Harlow’s cellophane swimsuit, Clark Gable’s big new car, and Lyle Talbot dropping his favorite fedora into Pat O’Brien’s pool. Ann Dvorak poses with her lucky rabbit’s foot and the Bride picture carries a laconic caption: “Elsa Lanchester wears fantastic make-up for ‘Bride of Frankenstein’.”

New Movie, claiming “the largest circulation of any screen magazine in the world”, first mentioned BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN in January of 1935, when Karloff was said to be preparing for The Return of Frankenstein. That issue also carried a profile of Boris, entitled Karloff The Uncanny. In May, the film was now called BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and “guaranteed to give you bad dreams for three weeks”. A short, smart-alecky review signed Barbara Barry — “New Movies Studio Scout” — outlined the film and blew the punch: “And then, after all their work, the incorporated damsel (Elsa Lanchester) takes one look at her prospective bride-groom and proceeds to shriek herself unconscious! All of which makes Karloff so dern mad that he blows up the whole joint!” In the same issue, Ms Barry, who seemed to relish the art of the spoiler, also blurts out the ending to WEREWOLF OF LONDON, though she is careful not to reveal the denouement of MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, but making a big deal about how she’s holding back on a big surprise.

We’ve seen photos of Lanchester in her Bride costume posing with a hand mirror and a makeup pencil, fixing her lipstick, as if the perfect beestung look painted by Jack Pierce needed a touchup. One wonders if Pierce, standing by, was simply cropped out of those shots. Nevertheless, we now have a shot of Jack Pierce with one of his masterpieces, the weirdly glamorous Bride.

And now the hunt is on for a shot of Pierce with Lugosi as The Monster from FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943). There are shots of Pierce working on Lugosi’s Igor — broken neck, snaggle tooth, fright wig and all — for SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939) and GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942), but no photograph of Pierce with Lugosi’s Frankenstein Monster has surfaced yet.

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Penny Dreadful's Frankenstein

May 5, 2014, 1:00 pm

≫ Next: Rondo Awards XII Announced

≪ Previous: Jack Pierce and The Bride

A new horror series is launching on the American Showtime network this month under the evocative title of Penny Dreadful. Set in a highly atmospheric Victorian London, the show is described as a psychological thriller weaving together classic horror origin stories into a new adult drama. An impressive cast is headed by Eva Green as the enigmatic Vanessa Ives, Josh Harnett as a “man of action” and Timothy Dalton as the father of Mina Harker, whom we know as one of Dracula’s victims. Iconic horror characters present include Dorian Gray and, of immediate interest to us, Victor Frankenstein and his Monster. Other characters include a spiritualist, an Egyptologist and assorted mysterious types. No doubt parallels will be drawn between this and Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

The series, eight episodes in all, comes with sterling credentials. Penny Dreadful creator and writer is Josh Logan, whose screenwriting credits include such titles as GLADIATOR, THE TIME MACHINE, THE AVIATOR, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, HUGO and SKYFALL. Producer Sam Mendes directed AMERICAN BEAUTY, SKYFALL and he'll helm the next Bond as well. Director Juan Antonio Bayona directed THE IMPOSSIBLE and THE ORPHANAGE.

The series’ first chapter, "Night Work", cablecasting on May 11^th, is available now, free online to North American viewers. Note: The episode includes the surprising, must-see creation scene where the young Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) animates his Creature (Rory Kinnear).

Viewers in the US need to access the show’s official page and click the “view series premiere” link. In Canada, go to TMN: The Movie Network site and follow the link to Penny Dreadful.

Showtime keeps an excellent dedicated website featuring character profiles, trailers, a blog and production videos.

The cast, creators, top-notch production values and the perfectly unnerving premiere episode make for a very promising series.

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Rondo Awards XII Announced

May 14, 2014, 2:10 am

≫ Next: Penny Dreadful: Introducing Frankenstein

≪ Previous: Penny Dreadful's Frankenstein

The Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards for 2014 have been announced. I am grateful to our Frankensteinia friends and supporters for earning us an Honorable Mention in the Blog category. The Best Blog Rondo this year goes to the uniqueand handsome Vincent Price Journal, in which editor Peter Fuller shares and annotates Price’s European travel journal as a young man of 17.

A few other commendations of direct interest to us: An Honorable Mention in the Best Classic DVD/Blu-Ray Collection goes to HAMMER HORROR, which includes FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN, and Richard Raaphorst’s FRANKENSTEIN’S ARMY is a Runner-Up in the Best Independent Film category. Honorable Mentions in the Best Article category go to Greg Mank’s 70th Anniversary article on FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN for Monsters from the Vault #32, and Doc Gangrene’s piece on Jack Pierce’s makeup for the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN, published in Scary Monsters #85.

Inductees in the Monster Kid Hall of Fame include the estimable Gregory William Mank, expert on classic horror and essential chronicler of Frankenstein films, and The Don Post Studio, creators of seminal Frankenstein rubber masks. Also honored were two men who left us this year, contributors to the fabled Castle of Frankenstein magazine: Editor Bhob Stewart and artist Larry Ivie.

We send special congratulations to longtime Frankensteinia friends Mark Redfield, a Best Multi-Media/Podcast Rondo Award winner for the Poe Forevermore Radio Theater, and Ted Newsom, who scored a Best Article Honorable Mention for his piece on Peter Cushing, His Last Bow, published in Famous Monsters #268.

The full list of winners appears on the Rondo website. The Awards will be handed out on May 31 at the Wonderfest Convention in Louisville.

As ever and always, a million thanks go to indefatigable organizer David Colton, without whom there simply wouldn’t be any Rondo Awards!

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Penny Dreadful: Introducing Frankenstein

May 25, 2014, 1:35 am

≫ Next: Ismail Yassin Meets Frankenstein

≪ Previous: Rondo Awards XII Announced

The new Penny DreadfulTV series has been playing to excellent reviews, assisted by an ongoing “viral” campaign that includes a busy, well-done website. Here, first shown to promote the series on the UK’s Sky network, is a beautifully animated introduction to Mary Shelley’s Frankensteindirected by Gergely Wootsch for London-based Beakus studio.

The short piece was written and narrated by historian and broadcaster Matthew Sweet, author of Inventing the Victorians and Shepperton Babylon: The Lost Worlds of British Cinema.

This Frankenstein is the first of three animated shorts promoting the series, with Dracula and Dorian Gray to follow.

The Dracula animation is here.

Beakus Animation Studio.

Penny Dreadfulwebsite.

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Ismail Yassin Meets Frankenstein

May 28, 2014, 2:00 am

≫ Next: Mike Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein Poster Goes On Sale

≪ Previous: Penny Dreadful: Introducing Frankenstein

One of the great curios of the Frankenstein films list is the 1953 Egyptian-made HARAM ALEK, sometimes spelled HRAAM ALEEK and otherwise known as ISMAIL YASSIN MEETS FRANKENSTEIN. The film is notorious as a straight up, nearly scene-for-scene remake of the classic ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948).

The A&C classic was massively influencial — not to mention, box-office gold — inspiring several knock-offs, many of them from Mexico, with local comics stepping in and squaring off with the famous monsters, complete with key gags lifted from the original. The formula had also re-ignited Abbott and Costello’s movie career and spurred them to a series of “Meet the Monsters” films of their own.

Long unseen in the West, copies of HARAM ALEK have popped up on YouTube, mostly as low quality video, sometimes sporting an annoying TV logo. The cleanest, sharpest copy is here, in its original language. Worth a peek, with its devilish, pointy-beard Dracula, a downscale Wolf Man and the curious, Herman Munster-like Frankenstein Monster. It’s required viewing if you’re a serious fan of the Abbott & Costello original.

See HAREM ALAK/HRAAM ALEEK here.

Related:

Frankenstein Gets Knocked-Off

Haram Alek Screencaps

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Mike Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein Poster Goes On Sale

June 5, 2014, 1:50 am

≫ Next: Penny Dreadful's Other Monster

≪ Previous: Ismail Yassin Meets Frankenstein

Heads up! Mondo’s new Bride of Frankenstein poster by Mike Mignola goes on sale today, June 5, 2014. The time of release will be announced on Mondo’s Facebook page and Twitter. Print run is strictly limited to 325 copies, going for $50 apiece. I expect it will sell out in a very few minutes.

Hellboy creator Mignola has drawn several Frankenstein images evoking the Universal classics, as well as original pieces, all perfectly scrumptious. A number of these can be seen through the links below.

Release info from Mondo Posters

Related:

Hellboy Meets Frankenstein

Mike Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein

World Horror Convention Poster

Lobster Johnson Meets Frankenstein

The Art of Frankenstein: Mike Mignola

Covers: The Frankenstein Dracula War

The Bride and the Betrothed

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Penny Dreadful's Other Monster

June 7, 2014, 1:10 am

≫ Next: Eustace Frankenstein

≪ Previous: Mike Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein Poster Goes On Sale

Season’s halfway done and the new Victorian horror TV series Penny Dreadful is shaping up as a cult favorite. Earlier this week, the Showtime Network greenlighted a second season.

It’s all beautifully done and drenched in atmosphere. Monsters are multiplying, with hints of lycanthropy, perhaps Dracula himself to come and — possible spoiler if you mean to watch it later — two Frankenstein monsters. The docile, innocent Creature, Proteus, conjured in the first episode, has been brutally superceeded by Frankenstein’s originalMonster, Caliban, turning up to demand a custom-made mate for himself.

Nice twist: The Monster holds down a job as stagehand for a London Grand Guignol theater. Episode 4 featured a splendid recreation of 19th Century stagecraft with Rory Kinnear’s Monster rushing about, moving scenery and backdrops, rattling tin for thunder and operating trapdoors.

The series’ viral promo campaign makes a big deal of Kinnear’s very intense Monster — pardon me, “Creature” — being exactingly faithful to the book’s original but, of course, it isn’t. With a smooth round face, porcelain complexion and straggly hair, sporting a heavy overcoat, this Monster would look at home in a post-punk gothic alt-rock band. This version of The Monster is as different and new and, ultimately, “of its time” as any of those that preceded on film or onstage, and that’s fine. I welcome the originality of this interpretation.

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Eustace Frankenstein

June 20, 2014, 2:15 am

≫ Next: Fearless Frankenstein

≪ Previous: Penny Dreadful's Other Monster

Not an actual cover, Peter Emmerich’s illustration is a witty variation on The New Yorker’s colorfully named cover mascot, Eustace Tilley.

Originally painted by art director Rea Irvin in 1925, adorning the magazine’s first issue, Eustace appeared as a glorified dandy, a high-hat in a high hat, with a high collar and a large coat with vast lapels. He peers blithely through a monocle at a butterfly, begging the question: Which of us is more ephemeral?

Through the years, Eustace has returned to the magazine’s cover, usually to celebrate its February anniversary. From the mid 90’s on, various artists have been commissioned to interpret the character in new and often wildly original ways. More recently, readers were invited to contribute their own takes in an annual “Your Eustace” contest.

Cartoonist and character designer Peter Emmerich submitted this Frankenstein variation in 2008, landing a spot as a Top Twenty finalist. The Monster’s expression is properly conceited as he gazes upon a flower, his high forehead a perfect substitute for Eustace’s stovepipe.

Peter Emmerich’s blog.

The New Yorker’s Flickr page for the 2008 Eustace Tilley Contest.

Mystery Man, a New Yorker article about Eustace Tilley, by Louis Menand.

Related:

New Yorker Cover: Edward Sorel’s Frankenstein
Tim Foley: The Bride's Spring Wedding

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Fearless Frankenstein

June 23, 2014, 2:15 am

≫ Next: Frankenstein Cannot Be Stopped!

≪ Previous: Eustace Frankenstein

Korkum yok!... I Have No Fear!

Thus reads the title of the cover story for the Turkish magazine, 46. The subject is rock/pop musician and composer, and film/TV actor Özkan Uğur, posing in an elaborate classic Frankenstein Monster makeup.

There’s a bit of a Glenn Strange vibe to Uğur’s Monster, don’t you think?

Instantly recognizable, truly iconic, the image speaks to the classic movie Frankenstein Monster’s universality.

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Frankenstein Cannot Be Stopped!

July 24, 2014, 2:45 am

≫ Next: Dick Smith, 1922-2014

≪ Previous: Fearless Frankenstein

Art/Horror filmmaker Larry Fessenden, Spirit Award winner and Fangoria Hall of Famer, knows his Frankensteins. We previously posted his Frankenstein Mashup, a glorious edit of 27 different Frankenstein films — Be sure to follow the link if you haven’t seen it yet! Now, Fessenden revisits The Monster with FRANKENSTEIN CANNOT BE STOPPED, a music video for the New York-based band Life in a Blender.

The classic Monster is evoked with a rigid, kabuki-like mask, with lighting, shooting angles and context bringing it to life. Fessenden also uses an animated puppet to introduce The Monster, and again at the end for its fiery demise in the requisite burning windmill.

“I have always loved the design of the classic flat-top Frankenstein Monster,” Fessenden says, “and as I patched these images together I was amused to see how subtle differences in the performance of the puppet and of Mike Vincent in the mask would evoke specific cinematic incarnations of the monster.”

The filmmaker had Frankensteinia readers in mind! “I thought of your readers...” he writes. “Who else could distinguish between Karloff, Glenn Strange, Herman Munster and the Aurora model kit!”

The clip is a loving homage to the James Whale original, and the song is a tragic ballad of The Monster’s disastrous flower game with the little girl.

With thanks to Larry Fessenden.

Larry Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix Productions

Life in a Blender website

Related:

Frankenstein Mashup by Larry Fessenden

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Dick Smith, 1922-2014

July 31, 2014, 3:55 am

≫ Next: The Shock! Treatment

≪ Previous: Frankenstein Cannot Be Stopped!

With great sadness we learn that special effect makeup master Dick Smith has passed away, July 30, 2016. He was 92 years old.

Dick Smith was a giant in his field, an innovator, and massively influential, though he might be best remembered for his generosity as a teacher and a mentor to aspiring makeup artists. He was even willing to share his knowledge with the very youngest monster movie fans as he did in 1965 with the magazine-format Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-Up Handbook published by James Warren’s Famous Monsters.

Here, reposted, is an article I wrote back in 2010 about Smith and the Handbook.

Dick Smith's Frankenstein

For first generation Monster Kids in 1965, Dick Smith’s Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-up Handbook was the holy grail. There had never been anything like it before. Here, incredibly, was a step-by-step guide on how to turn yourself into a monster, written in simple language, easily understood, and published in an inexpensive magazine format by Famous Monsters!

I sent away for the book and would spend the next year or two experimenting with monster makeup. I hunted down the suggested ingredients, esoteric stuff like spirit gum, collodion and thick, smelly liquid latex.

Soon, I could lace my arms with disturbingly realistic scars and give myself a bubbly burned face using corn syrup and breadcrumbs, adding red and blue strings for veins. I could arthritically deform my knuckles using glue and cotton matted down and shaped with acrylic paint. I even made a bald-head skullcap, painting liquid latex on a balloon, and worn to hilarious effect.

Smith’s book described a number of makeups, from an easy Weird-Ohcharacter and a painted on split-skull face to more elaborate jobs, stepping up the difficulty level as he went on.

I never attempted the complex werewolf or the book’s pièce de résistance, Smith’s New Frankenstein Monster, which took its cue from Mary Shelley’s description, “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath.”

I can’t imagine how any kid could achieve this one without infinite patience, helping hands, and uncommon talent. The full-head job required hammering out a metal skullcap, carefully building up facial muscles with cotton and mortician’s wax (an anatomical diagram of facial muscles and arteries was provided), and covering everything with a transparent gelatin skin. The finished effect must have been stunning. Smith admitted that it did not photograph well, writing “the weird transparency of the skin is more apparent to the eyes than to the camera, but it was most effective.” The whole thing would theoretically peel away easily, though Smith suggested using baby shampoo to clean the red stains off your face!

Dick Smith’s book is symbolic of his generosity and his eagerness to share his knowledge, an avowed reaction to the wall of silence he encountered as a fledgling makeup artist in the late Forties. Hollywood makeup men wouldn’t share their secrets. “None of them would give you the time of day,” Smith said. Throughout his life, Smith was kind to fellow artists, most notably in his mentorship of Rick Baker, who was guided and encouraged by Smith when still a teenager.

Amazingly, when Dick Smith wrote his Handbookin 1965, his best work was still ahead. Smith would go on to create the latex appliance methods still in use today. He introduced the use of bladders for breathing effects, spurting blood, and the crawling skin transformations seen in Altered States (1980). He created the ultimate “old man” makeup, still a reference, for Dustin Hoffman’s Big Little Man, a design also used on vampire Barnabas Collins in House of Dark Shadows, both made in 1966. Smith designed the gruesomely realistic effects of violence in Coppola’s Godfather pictures, Scorcese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and, in what is perhaps his masterpiece, he created the astounding makeup effects on display in The Exorcist (1973).

Dick Smith’s Do-It-Yourself Monster Makeup Handbook, in both its original Warren magazine format and an updated book edition from 1985, is an expensive collector’s item today. Still available is a 40-minute demonstration video, Monster Makeup Hosted by Dick Smith, directed by John Russo.

Scans from the original Warren edition are on view over at the Magic Carpet Burn blog archives. Here’s The New Frankenstein Monster. Click and scroll around to see the rest of the mag.

Dick Smith’s website.

Still online, an abandoned blog, Max and Courtney Make Monsters, attempted to recreate every makeup described in Smith’s Do-It-Yourself book.

Related:
Dick Smith’s makeup for TV’s Arsenic and Old Lace.

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The Shock! Treatment

August 6, 2014, 1:30 am

≫ Next: Son of Shock!

≪ Previous: Dick Smith, 1922-2014

October 1957, a trade ad in Broadcasting magazine features Glenn Strange’s floating head as Screen Gems celebrates the blockbusting launch of Shock!, the TV package that brought the classic monster movies to a whole new generation of fans.

Just look at the boom, zoom and bloom numbers! Ratings at San Francisco’s KRON-TV went up 807%! It was the same story all over: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Philadelphia and points between recorded similarly stratospheric performances, and all those boggling, industry-shaking returns were generated by just one film, Shock’s inaugural offering, FRANKENSTEIN.

The James Whale film had been a box-office phenomenon upon its initial release in 1931 and it was still drawing ‘round-the-block crowds when it was sent out again in 1938. FRANKENSTEIN would continue to pop up in second-run houses through the years as a perennially reliable ticket.

When it made its TV debut as the linchpin of the Shock collection, Colin Clive threw the switch that ignited a Monster Boom and Boris Karloff stomped into living rooms across America, ushering in the Monster Kid era. Soon, Famous Monsters magazine and Aurora figure kits appeared, and monster merchandizing multiplied. Within a decade, The Frankenstein was a sitcom star on The Munsters.

Next up: The SON of SHOCK!

Shock Theater Frankenstein

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Son of Shock!

August 10, 2014, 3:00 am

≫ Next: Frankenstein, MD Goes Online

≪ Previous: The Shock! Treatment

Launched in October of 1957, the original Shock! package of Universal horror films was a TV phenomenon that sent national ratings through the roof and, according to the industry’s Sponsor magazine, “May be the key to opening the advertising door in the late evening”. Fifty-two films were offered, led by the classic James Whale FRANKENSTEIN, a full year’s worth of weekly shockers yet, barely six months on, syndicator Screen Gems announced the Son of Shock package, adding 20 more titles to the collection, notably giving the 1935 BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN its television debut.

Published in Broadcasting magazine, this May 1958 ad for “TV’s Most Sensational Feature Film Success” has a monster group dominated by Glenn Strange’s Frankenstein Monster in a nail-drying pose. The same photo is repeated, swapping in a different shot of Strange’s head, to create the image of Frankenstein and its Monster Son. Note, also, the bat-cupid carrying the baby.

Here is a complete listof all the movies in the Shock!and Son of Shock series.

With thanks to George Chastain.

Related:

The Shock! Treatment

Shock Theater Frankenstein

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