Louis Edmonds in "The Choice is Murder," 1964

Louis Edmonds would have been 94 years old today. At this point, I'm willing to accept that the well has been pumped dry in regards to his complex tenure on DARK SHADOWS. When I went spelunking for obscure media about the actor, it was with little anticipation of finding anything new related to the series. My goal was to find something interesting about his work on ALL MY CHILDREN, but the best piece -- a newspaper editorial slamming the show's producers for its failure to recognize Edmonds' death in 2001 -- seemed a bit dark for the occasion.

Instead, let's look back on something so ephemeral that its very existence is even dubious: 1964's "The Choice is Murder." The play had a two-week run in July that year at Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania, with hopes that it would make the leap to Broadway later that year (though I could find no evidence this actually happened.)

"I had an idea for the perfect murder and originally planned to build the whole play around it," author Denis Heber told The Philadelphia Inquirer shortly before the play's debut. (Note: Copyright information on the play credits the author as Denis Heber Caslon.) "But the script has undergone such radical revisions since then that now my idea only occupies the first act."

The story suggests that Edmonds was already in danger of being typecast. The play's principals are once-wealthy married couple brought low by the husband's many gambling debts. "The wife wants to get rid of him before all the money runs out," Heber explained in 1964.

The play is set in Surrey, England, and had at least one honest-to-god British actor in the cast: Paddi Edwards played the sinister spouse. While the name might not sound familiar, you've absolutely heard her voice: She provided the voices of Flotsam and Jetsam in Disney's THE LITTLE MERMAID and Gozer in GHOSTBUSTERS. The play's third lead, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, was among the stars of William Blinn's THE ROOKIES from 1972-1976, and had a wildly varied theatrical career that includes IN COLD BLOOD, ENSIGN PULVER and THE VALACHI PAPERS.

Located in New Hope, Pennsylvania, Bucks County Playhouse opened its doors in 1939 and eventually became a jumping-off point for both actors and entire productions. Bela Lugosi starred in a production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" there in 1947 .Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park" had its premiere at the theater in 1963, starring Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley. In 1964, Rob Reiner completed an apprenticeship at the Bucks County Playhouse, not only working on "The Choice is Murder," but also "Sunday In New York" (starring Alan Alda), and "Broadway" (with Merv Griffin). At the moment, George Wendt is appearing there as J. Edgar Hoover in ROCK AND ROLL MAN: THE ALAN FREED STORY.

TCM is preparing a double dose of DRACULA for Halloween

Turner Classic Movies is giving you two chances to see the original 1931 DRACULA on the big screen in October. Even better, each screening is being packaged with 1931 Spanish-language version of the film, creating a monster-sized double feature.

I've been pretty vocal about my love of the Tod Browning/Bela Lugosi feature. But, if you haven't seen the Spanish-language version — shot after hours using the same sets as Browning's film — you're missing out. It's actually a better film than the Lugosi version, save for one critical casting decision: Carlos Villarías as the Count. As my grandmother used to say, "He'd have to stand on a step ladder just to kiss Bela Lugosi's ass."

The first screening is set for Sunday, Oct. 25, with an encore taking place Wednesday, Oct. 28. The package runs a little more than three hours and is rated PG-13 for some reason. Find a screening in your area by visiting Fandango's event page HERE.

Via: Fandango

Monster Serial: THE BLACK CAT (1934)

By PATRICK McCRAY

Feast your eyes on the Art Deco inferno of Weimar angst and fury!  The scars of the Great War will never heal!  Satanism runs amok, with potential necrophilia skipping not far behind!  Look there, on the screen; it’s THE BLACK CAT!  Boris and Bela at last match wits and share the screen for the first time!

It can reduce/elevate any horror fan to express the passion of a Sam Kinison.

Plot is not the essential element to THE BLACK CAT, but so what?  There’s no plot to a piece of music by J.S. Bach, but that doesn’t stop it from being a compelling and hypnotic narrative journey. So, it’s much the same for Edgar G. Ulmer’s classic, black and white tone poem, THE BLACK CAT. This is a 66 minute feast of strange and wondrous details from a world of secrets too dark for us to completely know.

At least, that’s what it feels like.

Let me get some things out of the way right now, before the Mikes and Joels of the world make hay. (I feel the need to do this since I once had to halt a screening for a group of MST3K-trained adults who thought they were cleverer than the movie. Spoiler Alert: they were not.)

Okay, so here’s the disclaimer.  As horror movies go, it is neither traditionally scary nor impishly charming, although there are bickering police officials who get solid laughs while debating about tourism.  And, come to think of it, David Manners and Julie Bishop seem to have a lot of fun as the American couple who find themselves in the midst of the war on morals and memory that exists between the protagonists.  The writing is sometimes stiff.  Although only sixty-six minutes, there are moments when it drags. (Perhaps because of the reported interference by Universal.)  But none of those things are the point.

The film still remains one of the most compulsively watchable symphonies of amazing details in all of cinema.  It does what movies are supposed to do; it shows you things you never imagined or possible, with people you never dreamed could have existed, in conflicts beyond the reckoning of anything average or mundane.  Although I would not call it “scary,” it is seeped in dread and mystery and sadness and repressed rage.  That’s a trade I’ll take.

The plot concerns Bela Lugosi as Vitus Werdegast, a brilliant psychiatrist and survivor of a POW camp where he encountered his greatest nemesis, Hjalmar Poelzig, played by Boris Karloff. Poelzig is a visionary architect and Satanic leader, somewhere between Gropius and Crowley. He had stolen Vitus’ wife and child, and then married the latter as the former seems to be held in suspended animation.  Yes, in a 1934 movie.  Vitus has “accidentally” arrived at Poelzig’s home with two American tourists in tow, and the film becomes a sometimes quiet, sometimes furious, always intense test of wills between Vitus and Hjalmar, often with human lives at stake.

By the end, a Satanic ceremony has broken out (with worshippers wearing tuxes and gowns beneath the robes in a touch of class that would have made Dok LaVey proud.)  Guns are brandished.  Bela skins Boris alive.  Manners and Adams escape.  And, in a motif that would be echoed in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, Vitus concludes that they belong dead, too.  The house is demolished in an explosion he detonates, taking the prison camp upon which it was built, with it.

It’s a grim movie, so what makes it work?

I remember when I first saw it on the late movie when I was thirteen (a good year for me to see old films.)  There were Boris and Bela, dressed to the nines and showing class, panache, and restraint as they went about their war of wits.  (And let this be another nail in the coffin of the argument that Lugosi was incapable of subtlety.  Both he and Karloff show a kind of quietly meditative intensity worthy of a Pinter play.)  The set, though, seemed to be from the future.  I asked my all-knowing mother about this, and she explained that it was Art Deco.  I had seen the style before, but usually in recreations or as small, architectural elements.

I had never witnessed an entire world sliced by its severity.  While it should have been a clean, calming, fear-free setting, Ulmer presents it as a Kryptonian Hell.  It is as icily merciless and nakedly decadent as Poelzig, whose makeup and hair seem equally angular and severe.  The architecture is the story.  It is the mechanized and perfected new world, mercilessly ready to highlight>copy>replace the pomp, ceremony, and style of Vitus’ old world charm. You know, basically the Borg Cometh.  The angst of a Europe desolated by one war and then rebuilt for another is made excruciatingly clear… and nauseatingly seductive at the same time.  What a duality with which Germany was faced. Seductive, simple solutions for living, indeed.

It all seems so clear after World War II. What’s amazing is that the film was sending such a resonant warning and, perhaps, plea for action prior to the war. Of course, Hollywood inherited so many refugees from Germany that it’s also not surprising.

Ironic.  The horror genre is so often marginalized, and yet, had it not been a horror film, would we be looking at it, today?

And was I the one talking about the film being more style than substance?

I take it back.

---

Patrick McCray is a comic book author residing in Knoxville, Tenn., where he's been a drama coach and general nuisance since 1997. He has a MFA in Directing and worked at Revolutionary Comics and on the early days of BABYLON 5, and is a frequent contributor to The Collinsport Historical Society. You can find him at The Collins Foundation.

Amazing collection of vintage movie posters set for auction

I picked the wrong week to be a broke-ass journalist.

Invaluable has a huge assortment of vintage movie posters scheduled for auction in June, almost all of which are out of my price range. It's certainly amazing collection, though. It's an auction guaranteed to quicken the pulse of even the most hardened film buff.

It's all part of Morris Everett, Jr. The Auction Part I, which takes place June 29 and June 30, 2015. The auction is made up of more than 1,400 lots from the collection of Morris Everett Jr., who began selling his treasure trove of movie memorabilia late last year. The first phase of this auction features posters and lobby cards from such movies as THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, the John Barymore version of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE and many, many more.

Below are a few highlights of the collection. You can browse the entire auction through these links: DAY 1 and DAY 2.

Lot 394: Dracula lobby card. Estimated Price: $8,000 - $12,000

Apart from nearly invisible pinhole repair at left corners, the card is entirely original and unrestored. In very fine condition.

Lot 416: Frankenstein lobby card. Estimated Price: $10,000 - $15,000

Boris Karloff lobby card for Frankenstein. (Universal, 1931) Color lobby card for Boris Karloff in Frankenstein. Professionally cleaned with marginal repairs. Now presents as fine condition.

Lot 464: A rare color lobby card for King Kong. Estimated Price: $6,000 - $8,000

King Kong Empire State Building lobby card. (RKO, 1933) Color lobby card for King Kong. In very fine unrestored condition.

Lot 425: The Bride of Frankestein lobby card. Estimated Price: $10,000 - $15,000

Color lobby card for Boris Karloff in The Bride of Frankenstein. Professionally cleaned with corner pinhole repair. Generally in fine condition.

Bela Lugosi: "They won’t all be children scarers," 1939

(Editor's note: THE MORGUE is a feature that usually runs on Sundays here at The Collinsport Historical Society. But this interview with Bela Lugosi from 1939 was just too good to sit on until the weekend. The text is presented here exactly how it was printed, complete with archaic punctuation, the incorrectly spelled "Igor," etc. There's also a bit of unintentional sadness in the conversation because of the dark turns his later life would take. But let's not dwell on that, 'kay?)

Broadway Newsreel by Hy Gardner
April 5, 1939

(In which Columnist Bela Lugosi outscares Bogey Man Gardner)

Bela Lugosi and Hy Gardner

LUGOSI: You know, you remind me an awful lot of Eddie Cantor …

GARDNER:  Except for s slight difference.

LUGOSI: What’s the difference?

GARDNER: About $260,000 a year and five daughters.

LUGOSI:  Have a cigar, Mr. Gardner. My cigars have no nicotine in them. The doctor says nicotine makes you nervous …

GARDNER:  Fine thing. You worried about getting nervous … And after the shivers you’ve give 130,000,000 Americans, too. Tell me, if you don’t mind my asking the questions, when you were a little boy were you afraid to sleep alone in the dark?

LUGOSI: That’s the first time anybody ever asked me that question. I never had a chance to be scared when I went to sleep because I came from a poor Hungarian family and there were too many of us in the house to be alone or to be frightened. BUT I found out that I was afraid to be alone when I first went to Hollywood.

GARDNER:  In other words, you didn’t agree with Greta Garbo’s policy of being alone?

LUGOSI:  I don’t know about Greta, but I do know that I moved into a very large house all by myself and thought I have a couple working for me they lived in a different wing of the home. And when I went to bed at night I never could fall asleep — It was so dreary and never-wracking. I’d read and read and read until the coming of the dawn. That seemed a little friendlier. 

GARDNER:  Well, when did you finally get over it?

LUGOSI:  I got over it when I married my first wife.

GARDNER:  What do you mean your “first wife?”

LUGOSI: I’ve been married four times.

GARDNER:  Don’t tell me that Tommy Manville’s been making those Dracula pictures!

LUGOSI: No, the name is still Lugosi. I got married the first time because I was lonesome and I needed companionship and I got it for two years.

Bela Lugosi concocts a Dracula' Cocktail for actress Majorie Weaver in New York City, 1940.

GARDNER: What about your second wife?

LUGOSI:  I was married to her for 14 days, and before you go any further let me tell you that that was a long time compared to the duration of my third marriage.

GARDNER:  Well, how long — or how  short a time did that last?

LUGOSI:  Exactly three days …

GARDNER:  In other words, you’ll almost be a Broadway columnist as long as you were married to your third wife. Would you call her a guest wife?

LUGOSI: I don’t know what you’d call her, but I think that marriage is like everything else. It’s a matter of a good break, and I finally found a woman six years ago who is a mother, a goddess, a watchdog, a secretary and a wife all combined. She was Lillian Arch before she became Mrs. Lugosi, and we’re now on our seventh year together.

GARDNER:  That would seem to indicate that “4” is par on your matrimonial course, huh?

LUGOSI: “Pa” is right … I became a daddy 14 months ago and I’ve never been happier.

GARDNER:  I understand that Boris Karloff had a baby girl about the same time.

LUGOSI: Yes, he did. We often get together and talk about when our children grow up and how nice it would be if they fell in love with each other.

GARDNER:  That would be a fine romance … The son and daughter of two bogey men.

Lugosi as "Ygor" in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, 1939.

LUGOSI:  Talking about my son — If you saw the picture “Son of Frankenstein” you will remember I was Igor, the fellow who was hung for murder but who lived with a broken neck. The part was difficult and I had to keep my neck and shoulder in a vice for so long that for six weeks after the picture was finished I still walked around with my head and shoulders bent to the left. Lillian made me stay away from our little boy for a while because he began walking round-shouldered too — she thought he might think that was the proper way to walk.

GARDNER: What do most people say to you when they meet you?

LUGOSI:  Most people are very nice and I think that just as many of them that say “hello” also say “Come now, Bela, scare us.” Nevertheless, they look upon my parts of Dracula and Igor just as characters and don’t confuse it with my own personality.

GARDNER:  What clubs do you visit when you are in New York?

LUGOSI:  I don’t go to clubs very often. My favorite place is Zimmerman’s Budapest … I love to sit and eat Hungarian food and I could listen to Hungarian music all night.

L. Zimmerman Budapest Restaurant was located at 117 W. 48th St. in New York City.

GARDNER: Can you play any instrument?

LUGOSI: I can play the piano a little.

GARDNER: Do you think you’ll ever get a chance to play the piano in a picture?

LUGOSI: I don’t know. That’s up to Universal. I just signed a contract to make eight pictures for them and they promised they won’t all be children scarers.

GARDNER:  I understand you’re going to England. What are you doing there?

LUGOSI: I’m just going there for a trip — to make a picture out of Edgar Wallace’s story, “The Dark Eyes of London” … I should be back here on April 21.
 

THE DARK EYES OF LONDON, aka THE HUMAN MONSTER.

GARDNER: You came from Hungary. Are you a citizen of the United States.

LUGOSI: Yes, thank God … I’ve lived here for 20 years and I have been a citizen for 10 years. I hope I am a good one. I know I don’t take it for granted. I feel I am an awfully lucky person to be an American and I think that every naturalized American and every person born in this land should kneel on his knees every morning and utter a prayer for being an American.

GARDNER:  That’s one of the most potent punch lines any column ever had — so thanks, Dracula, for a happy ending …

Inside the PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE presskit

I've been vocal about my love for the so-called "worst movie ever made." PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is the everything bagel of cinema, combining zombies, leftover Robin Hood costumes, a "real psychic," UFOs, crime films, stock footage of Bela Lugosi and an anti-war message to create one goddamn delicious fiasco.

Still, it's hard to believe anyone thought the movie needed a press kit. PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE was designed to be filler, scheduled to play after legitimate movies as a means to give theaters a few more hours to unload stale popcorn.

Which might explain why the movie's press kit is a modest four pages long. If you do the math, you'll note  that "four pages" actually means "one page." (It's a single sheet with printing on both sides, then folded in half.)  The flyer press kit also claims that Bela Lugosi died "shortly after production ended" on the movie. Lugosi actually died about three years before the film's release, and almost certainly before production on PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE even began.

Below are some highlights (and lowlights) from the film's 1958 presskit.

Monster Serial: ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN

By PATRICK McCRAY

Bela Lugosi only played Dracula twice on the screen. One of those two films is substantially more watchable, exciting, logical, suspenseful and intense. Of course, I speak of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN.

His first Dracula film contains a beautiful series of visual poems and quotables. And, of course, the hypnotic Bela Lugosi. As such, it was the perfect template for Philip Glass to apply his music, decades later. (Should we be calling it DRACULAQATSI?) While that creates a haunting and unique cinematic experience, it does not necessarily make it the stuff of rip roaring entertainment. Call me impertinent, but when I go to see a movie about the greatest vampire of all time, I expect, well… rip roaring entertainment. DRACULA is a classic example of a movie where everyone talks endlessly about the titular character, but that character is actually on screen for very little time. At least, it feels that way.

After years of Marvel’s TOMB OF DRACULA, as well as decades of other, more dynamic takes, I expect a lot from the King of the Vampires. It feels like he should be the Blofeld of the Universal Monsterverse. He’s wealthy, brilliant, calculating, socially seductive, megalomaniacal, and a master strategist. But we really don’t see that in Tod Browning’s original film. As the Universal films went on, Dracula — or Dracula-like figures — became much more catalytic and interesting. Unfortunately, Bela missed out on these reindeer games.

Almost.

1948’s ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN was the last of the Universal monster rallies, and it arguably surpasses the ones that came prior, madcap though they were. Best of all, though, it features Bela Lugosi’s return as the Count. At age 65, Lugosi puts in a marvelous performance, and I think we can thank a combination of life wisdom and a great script. Dracula revels in his power… as well as his charm. After years of playing the Count on stage in the identical script, show after show, Lugosi looks like he’s having a blast in this film. There are only so many choices an actor can make with the same script time and again.   This movie finally allows Bela to take all of Dracula’s potential and actually do something fresh and exciting with it.

In a comedy? Absolutely, and it’s because of the mechanics of a good parody. It’s a parody of the Universal Monster mashes, yes. (That’s a tall order, since they’re almost parodies of themselves, already.) The best parodies not only lampoon their genre; they also work as strong examples of what’s being sent up. A prime example is AIRPLANE!, which may be the best spoof of all time. It’s a side-splitting film, and it also works as a disaster drama. When I watch it, I’m laughing while being invested in the fate of Ted, Elaine, and the passengers of the food-poisoned flight.

Similarly, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN works as a pulpy horror adventure. If described, the film’s plot — and many of its details — sounds like the stuff of pure, comic book excitement. Dracula seeks to replace the brain of Frankenstein’s monster with one more pliable to his will. His target becomes well aware of the threat he’s in, but is unable to find support from his skeptical friend, leaving him alone… except for the Wolfman, whose human avatar is aware of Dracula’s plan, and wants to stop it. Between them? Two women with hidden agendas and vast powers of seduction. Trapped in Dracula’s castle, the medieval meets mad science. Victims are hurled from cruel dungeons to perverse laboratories. Creatures escape and engage in savage combat, going far beyond the brief tussle meted out to us in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN. Lawrence Talbot, the tortured human cursed to be the Wolfman, finds the release of death at last — we assume. Despite the feral animal he has become, Talbot’s humanity remains. At the film’s climax, he makes the ultimate sacrifice to rid the world of Dracula once and for all.

You could make that movie. It’s a straight, horror adventure. Except that the brain donor is Lou Costello, and his skeptical friend is Bud Abbott. And they do wacky stuff. And lo, it was good.
It’s Lugosi who steals the movie. He plays it straight, delighting as a Dracula with, you know, a substantial plan beyond trying to land some babe. He’s an active part of the story, and because it’s not the ritual that is DRACULA, where we know he’s fated to be destroyed, there’s actual suspense. His enemies are flawed human beings, and not brave Van Helsings. This increases the stakes and suspense in the film. It contains a legitimate sense of, “What will happen next?”

As the film goes on, Lugosi plays it straight, but not so straight that his character is unable to have fun. The fun, however, is a legitimate, honest fun; it’s the kind that someone in the catbird seat would actually have with his unsuspecting marks. Not only is Dracula at the zenith of his powers, but he’s old enough to savor that, at last. It’s a mature Dracula… one who embraces science as well as his own abilities, and who has a relaxed confidence in both.

This 1948 classic is the final time we would see the monsters together like this. Glenn Strange is a wonderfully intimidating Frankenstein’s Monster, and Lon Chaney, Jr. is just as engaging as the desperate and tragic Lawrence Talbot, Wolfman-at-large. Even Vincent Price “appears,” somewhat, as the Invisible Man. Looking at the film, we know that Lugosi’s life and career were on the cusp of total implosion. That makes his turn in the film bittersweet. The sweet, however, is magic for monster kids. Lugosi’s Dracula is an active villain who has lost none of his grace. If anything, there is a wistful and gentle joy woven into Lugosi’s performance. Did he know that this was his last turn as cinema’s Dracula? Who can say? It was only his second, and he seems determined to make the most of it.

Mr. Lugosi? You did.

PATRICK McCRAY is a comic book author who resides in Knoxville, Tenn., where he's been a drama coach and general nuisance since 1997. He has a MFA in Directing and worked at Revolutionary Comics and on the early days of BABYLON 5, and is a frequent contributor to The Collinsport Historical Society. You can find him at The Collins Foundation.

THE MORGUE: "Unnatural occurrences" plague DRACULA, 1929

America's relationship to horror has always been, in the words of Laura Ingalls Wilder, "profoundly fucked up.*" While we'll never know the identity of the person that told the first ghost story, it's likely they found themselves tossed into a bog for their efforts. Superstitious people have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality, and there was little difference to our primitive ancestors between telling a ghost story and conjuring an actual ghost.

By design, horror stories should be a little bit dangerous, but that status means creators will always be at odds with those in their audience with a less-than-confident grasp on reality. Which is why urban legends attached to horror movies so easily thrive. Was the death of Max Von Sydow's brother during the filming of THE EXORCIST punishment for making light of demons for entertainment purposes? Was Sharon Tate's murder occult retribution for ROSEMARY'S BABY? Were all of the tragedies attached to the POLTERGEIST films a curse?

Don't be daft.

These kinds of urban legends are hardly new, and they're not restricted only to movies. MACBETH has some of the best known superstitions in theatre, but the Hamilton Deane and John Balderston stage adaption of DRACULA had a few of its own. Above is a story from the July 15, 1929, issue of The Bakersfield Californian about problems that plagued the production. While the play was a financial success, the cast and crew were known to be "unlucky in private affairs."


There aren't a lot of names included in the story, which is interesting in itself. Here are a few highlights of The Dracula Curse:

• In New Haven, Connecticut., the stage manager, "a man noted for his coolness under fire," fell victim to asphasia ... a language disorder caused by brain damage.
• The play's leading lady lost her voice "for no accountable reason."
• A photographer fell into the orchestra pit while taking pictures of the play in Asbury Park, New Jersey. The focusing screen of his camera was smashed "without apparently being touched by human hands."
• Light signals from the stage manager to the electrician "went dead" without explanation.

Clearly the handiwork Satan.

(* She didn't actually say that.)

Monster Serial: DRACULA, 1931

(Note: A few years ago, I wrote a piece on DRACULA that was later revised and published in our first MONSTER SERIAL book. With the arrival of the third book in that series expected later this week, if felt like a good time to finally share this piece.)

By WALLACE McBRIDE

It’s fair to say that nobody has much interest in adapting Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, DRACULA.
The character has been making dramatic rounds since that first, hastily organized reading was staged at the Lyceum Theatre just a few months after the novel was published. The reading was a cynical affair, designed to secure the theatrical rights to the book, paving the way for a series of slipshod adaptations for more than a century.

Sure, a few directors have paid lip service to Stoker’s work, most famously Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 adaption that spackled over the original source material to make room for backstory and subplots not even hinted at in the original novel. The book has more in common with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT than in any of the films produced by Hammer, and therein lies the problem: Dracula is mostly absent in his own novel. It’s difficult to create a compelling villain who spends most of his time as the topic of others’ conversations.

Arguably the most important movie to spring from Stoker’s book is the 1931 Tod Browning film, the connective tissue between earlier stage productions written by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, with Universal’s cinematic (frequently operatic) sensibilities.

Few of Stoker’s ideas made it into the final film, which bears little resemblance to the epistolary novel. A solicitor named Renfield (no first name is given) falls under the thrall of a mysterious Count Dracula while visiting his home in Transylvania to discuss leasing an English abbey. The legal consultation soon turns violent as the Count and his wives attack Renfield in the night. When next we see the doomed solicitor, he’s the only warm body on a ship of corpses that’s sailed into an English harbor.

Driven mad by his experiences, Renfield is arrested and institutionalized in a London asylum. Dracula soon turns his violent attentions to the daughter of the asylum’s administrator, but meets his match in Prof. Abraham Van Helsing, an unorthodox scientist with a fascination for the occult.

There are few scenes in the movie that aren’t overtly about sex — particularly oral sex — beginning with the moment poor Renfield sucks at a wound on his own finger. By the end of the picture, Dracula has put his mouth on half the movie’s cast members, pun intended, and his behavior suggests he has no sexual preference.

Contrary to popular belief, though, it takes more than sex to hold people’s attention, especially during the many decades since DRACULA was first released. If it was just some creaky old film about outdated sexual mores, who would care? But there’s something else going on in the film that continues to speak to audiences, even if we have to listen a little harder these days to hear the message. DRACULA is more than just a movie about sexual confusion. It’s a movie about fear of the future.

The many subtexts of DRACULA are well established. So much of what people take away from the story depends on when and where they first experience it. It’s been called a story about repressive homo- and heterosexuality, xenophobia, a Biblical parable, class warfare and just about anything else you want to read into it. Complicating matters are the great many unanswered questions, the most pressing being “Why did Dracula travel to England?” The 1931 movie makes no effort to answer this question (or any of the other riddles of the novel), deciding instead to hang its entire narrative on a conflict of belief systems.

DRACULA is a movie about the fear of change, a warning for us not to abandon superstition without first putting it to the rigors of the scientific method. It’s a concept that gives the film an unusual perspective, to say the least. Dracula’s nemesis in the film, Abraham Van Helsing, has the unpleasant task of informing the cast that adherence to logic and reason have left them open to attack from a mythical being. This is Van Helsing’s traditional role in just about every variation of the Dracula story: He’s always the learned academic who has as much faith in superstition as science. In one scene, Van Helsing paraphrases Charles Baudelaire while advising that the vampire’s greatest weapon is convincing the world he doesn’t exist. You won’t find many scientists, then or now, with the balls to say something like that out loud.

While the character of Dracula challenges the beliefs of the movie’s characters, the movie stands as a (not entirely well-reasoned) defense of faith. The story demands the cast and audience believe in something that can’t be scientifically proven, and invents a monster as “evidence” of the importance of faith. DRACULA is a fun film, but has a prominent anti-intellectual bias. But that’s true for most horror films, which tend to devolve into a game of “Kill the Freak” during the final reels.

Probably the real reasons we’re still talking about this film is because of the performances delivered by Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye. Lugosi’s screen presence, especially in DRACULA, can’t be overstated. He’s amazing in the film, and brings theatricality to the role that immediately puts him at odds with the younger, mostly American cast. I can’t really call what he does in DRACULA “acting” —  his performance is raw charisma — but I can’t think of another actor of his time who could have pulled off this role. If you think it’s easy, watch George Melford’s Spanish-language version of DRACULA released by Universal the same year. It manages to do just about everything better than the Tod Browning film except in the casting of its leading man, and it’s a fatal flaw.

I can’t say enough good things about Dwight Frye, either. His work in DRACULA is a legitimate performance, presenting Renfield as both a foppish sophisticate and an unhinged maniac. Renfield is hugely sympathetic in the film. He’s not only the movie’s heart, but the story’s ironic voice of reason, as well. In one scene he interrupts a conversation about vampires by asking “Isn’t this a strange conversation for men who aren’t crazy?” It’s a simultaneously witty and tragic moment.

Edward Van Sloan is also impressive as Van Helsing. There’s an unspoken respect between Van Helsing and Dracula in this film, which makes their conflict especially interesting.

Outside of these three actors, though, the cast is terrible. Helen Chandler’s life was fucked up enough without heaping posthumous scorn upon her, but she’s got crazy eyes and comes across in the film like a condescending bitch. David Manners does what he can with the role of Jonathan Harker, a role that’s defeated better actors, but he mostly just stands around and adds perspective to the photography. There were a few other actors in the movie, but you’ll have forgotten about them before the story’s over.

Speaking of the movie’s end, I’m not sure what was taking place behind the scenes of DRACULA, but there was clearly some kind of trouble. DRACULA doesn’t end as much as it just stops. We get a two-second music cue to tell us the ending is a happy one and THE END. Had I seen this movie in the theater in 1931, I would have been sure the projectionist had dropped a reel somewhere.

I love Tod Browning. I don’t think you get movies like FREAKS, DRACULA and WHITE ZOMBIE on your résumé unless you know what you’re doing. But DRACULA is a jumble of unfocused ideas, ranging from the weird (the vampire beetle with his tiny beetle coffin) to the offensive (the asylum orderly who’s constantly badgering Renfield and calling him “fly eater” and “crazy.”) Some of the movie’s problems come from adapting the stage play, which has been popular among casual audiences despite being less-than-loved by fans of the original novel. The play makes numerous concessions to consolidate the story for the stage, concessions that were unnecessary for a movie. DRACULA has an epic feel at the start, but becomes stagebound during its second half. Not even the stellar camerawork of Karl Freund could make the climax of DRACULA look anything other than stage-y.

Ultimately, the elements trimmed from the story to make it fit onto a Broadway stage undermine many of the movie’s messages about faith and the misguided devotion to reason. Dracula, a creature of superstition, tries to adapt to metropolitan life and fails spectacularly. It’s not faith or righteousness that triumphs, but Dracula’s own inability to conform that brings him to his doom. I don’t know how long he survived in Transylvania (a century? more?) but he lasted only a few weeks in London before someone caught wise and stuck a piece of timber through his heart. If it hadn’t been Van Helsing it would have been someone else. The guy was running around the woods at night in a tuxedo ... how did he expect that wouldn't draw attention? (This failure to adapt is directly addressed in the novel. Dracula escapes England in the book’s final act and flees to the relative safety of his castle in Transylvania.)

Despite all of this, DRACULA is a certified classic and I have no intention of disputing its standing. I love its every weird, malformed frame of film, even if I can’t always endorse its failings.

Wallace McBride is the editor of THE COLLINSPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

Monster Serial: PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959)

By WALLACE McBRIDE

Yeah, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. I know, I know … it’s a wretched piece of film by anyone’s standards, and this is supposed to be a book dedicated to beloved horror and science fiction movies. I’m not here to sway you into believing it’s a better movie than it is, and I’ve got no authoritative insight into the movie’s troubled history, either.

Instead, this is a confession.

Despite my better instincts, I love PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. There are few films I’ve seen more than Edward D. Wood’s magnum opus, even though logic demands the hours I’ve wasted with this movie were probably better spent doing anything else. My love for PLAN 9 is my least malignant character flaw, so there’s been no sense of urgency to be rid of it. If we were talking about a methamphetamine addiction, there would be physical and social pressures on me to change my ways. A meth habit might even be preferable, because junkies are sometimes forced into social interaction with people of similar interests. For better or worse, a drug habit is a very real, very physical experience, while my love for PLAN 9 usually leaves me naval gazing in a darkened room.

But that’s not to discount the transcendental nature of watching a terrible movie. And by “terrible movie,” I don’t mean the slick, expensive commercial products made by guys like Michael Bay. Those kinds of films get put through so many corporate filters that it’s impossible for them to hit theaters without some semblance of competent storytelling, and it’s hard to think of them as “film” as much as feature-length commercials for tie-in products. They might suck, but the competence and craftsmanship on display are undeniably impressive.

The same can’t be said for an Ed Wood film. As much as I love the Tim Burton’s film about “the world’s worst filmmaker,” it’s almost entirely a work of fiction. Wood might have wanted to make movies, but he wasn’t some wide-eyed “Andy Hardy” character innocently pursuing his dream. Wood was a hustler that naturally gravitated to a level of filmmaking that tolerated his misguided sense of aesthetics. His distributors didn’t care about the quality of his films as long as they came in on budget and were edited to a manageable running time. They were B-movie filler and existed only to fool ticket buyers into thinking they were getting more for their money.

Because he was left more-or-less unattended, Wood’s movies feel like Id run wild (at least, as wild as budgets and prudish standards of the times would allow.) Wood’s movies are the children of his juvenile imagination, but this imagination charges his stories with the kind of energy that makes up for the nonsense he tried to pass off as “scripts.” Say what you want about Wood’s movies, but they’re not boring.

More to the point, his movies are terrible in a way that’s impossible to replicate. Any filmmaker is capable of making a great movie. The people who directed POINT BREAK, NATURAL BORN KILLERS and EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE have all made legitimately great movies at some point in their careers, and have even won Academy awards for their work. Making movies is hard, but talent will occasionally prevail.

But nobody can fake the kind of anti-genius of Ed Wood, though.  It’s a natural gift that is probably inversely aggravated by how much talent and money you throw at it. Give Ed Wood $100 million budget and you’ll still get something that feels like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. The on-set chemistry that produces gloriously bad movies simply can’t be faked. When filmmakers have tried (DEATH PROOF, THE LOST SKELETON OF CADABRA, etc.) the final products have had a saccharine flavor to them.
All of this would be harmless fun if not for PLAN 9’s disgraceful pedigree. I think most of us would laugh comfortably at the film if not for the presence of Bela Lugosi.  Wood’s decision to exploit Lugosi’s corpse one final time is a cautionary tale of Hollywood’s unforgiving nature. Lugosi began his film career with DRACULA, a movie so popular that it’s still being discussed almost a century later. His career ended, though, with a 79-minute bit of celluloid filler with all the artistic merit of bubble wrap.

This column is among those featured in
 BRIDE OF MONSTER SERIAL, a collection of 
horror essays written by contributors to 
THE COLLINSPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
Buy it today on Amazon!

Even though Wood’s films were made for no other reason than to pad out a double bill, there’s still something innocent about them. Bubbling under the surface of Wood’s movies is a very distinct imagination that tries to pair horror and science fiction in a way reminiscent of James Whale, but the ideas are half baked (to be generous.) The actors seem like they give a shit, and the whole product feels more like an actual movie to me than something like TRANSFORMERS 2 or Burton’s own DARK SHADOWS.

That’s why I frequently return to PLAN 9. For better or worse, it’s a genuine movie experience.


(Wallace McBride is the editor of THE COLLINSPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY.)

THANK GOD IT'S FRID-DAY: "The Lid’s Off Barnabas Collins," 1971

The Lid’s Off Barnabas Collins
By Chris Cushing, Startime, May, 1971

Jonathan Frid, who as super-star vampire Barnabas Collins on ABC’s “Dark Shadows,” may give us some of his victims a sharp pain in the next. Yet to his millions of disciples he’s the answer to their wild bat-tle cry. Off screen and on tour with his wolf’s head cane, black cape, fangs and weird ring, Frid draws bigger crowds that politicians making similar appearances. Teenagers rush up to kiss his ring, while others carry signs promoting him for the White House. He has already been there as a guest of the Nixons.

All over the country, fan clubs sprout up for him by and hundreds of letters a week flood his offices. Despite all of this adulation, Frid eschews things monstrous and macabre. Strange doings for an actor who so realistically delineates a toothsome terror whose malevolent magnetism attracts followers from ghost to ghost.

“I’m not putting the bite on Barnabas,” Jonathan hastens to explain. “I enjoy the role, but I’ve been afraid of starting a cycle which would type me as a horror actor. I don’t want to be put in the same casting registers with Lugosi or Christopher Lee who succeeded him as Dracula. My Barnabas is a being with human emotions, not a monster.”

“Some reporters ask if I began ‘Dark Shadows’ as a copy of Dracula,” Frid shows signs of a smile spreading over his good-matured, ruggedly handsome face. “Nothing could be further from the truth. You see, I’d never seen Lugosi’s characterization until the serial was well under way. I’ll admit I was fascinated by Bela’s performance. It was like a ballet. Yet his vampire was a bloodless,e vil, passionless monster. Death marked his white face and full, red lips.”

Warming up to his subject, Frid pointed out that his writers have given full life to Barnabas.

“He was a human being more like Mr. Hyde with a lust for blood,” he explained. “Lugosi played his character in a monotone, without range, just a cold-blooded neck biter.”
Some psychologist analyze women’s romantic Barnabas fixation with the thought that he is portrayed as a solitary, bedeviled man who seeks the next of young ladies only when his uncontrollable urge for blood drives him to it.

“Barnabas feels remorseful about it later,” Frid explains. “He has a wicked dilemma. He needs blood. Afterward, like an addict he’s ashamed but simply can’t help himself.

“Remember Lugosi’s Dracula wasn’t particular about where the blood came from. Barnabas leans toward women which makes him a romantic character.”

A character actor, not a horror actor, is the way Jonathan sees his portrayal.

“I don’t think of myself as the mad scientist type,” he says, peering over his spectacles.

Though the actor recently scored in the  movie version of “Dark Shadows” recreating his television role, he adds, “Please, oh please, don’t suggest me for ‘The Mummy’ of “Phantom of the Opera’ or not another ‘Frankenstein.’”

Frid in CORIOLANUS.

Playing villains is not altogether a new experience for the performer.

“Shakespearean theatre was my bag before television,” Frid explains. “I’ve been the heavy in so many Shakespeare supper festivals that even today I own my allegiance to the House of York.”

Jonathan’s anti-hero of all time is Richard the Third.

“He’s a study in hate,” Frid explains. “And I can exude all villainy required by this monster part in this monster-of-sorts role whose direction and thinking motivates hate.”

The ABC star, who shows great concern about being horror-cast, was heartened to learn that Boris Karloff had also appeared in other than weird movies.

“My only experience in viewing Karloff was the grotesque make-up or lunatic professor parts,” Frid recalled. “I was greatly encouraged that he also appear in such films as ‘House of Rothschild,’ ‘The Unconquered,’ ‘Tap Roots,’ ‘Devil’s Island’ and a variety of westerns, crime melodramas and oriental settings. He was also Capt. Hook in ‘Peter Pan’ on Broadway.

“I also think Lon Chaney’s best performance was not in any monster role, but in ‘Of Mice and Men.’”

Frid’s reading tastes are directed more to current news stories rather than fiction.

“I used to read Poe and the classics when I had more time,” he admits, “but now I stick to newspapers. Maybe I’m too much of a realist, but if you want to show me a ghost make it at noon on Times Square.”

Jonathan takes great pride at being an actor when such luminaries as Sir Laurence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn and Charles Laughton have all shared the same profession.

Frid and  Katharine Hepburn in Much Ado About Nothing.

“My favorites. Katharine Hepburn was the star and I had a featured rolein Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and ‘The Merchant of Venice.’ She’s bright, dynamic and conscientious.”

Jonathan cites Charles Laughton as the greatest interpreter of George Bernard Shaw.

“Laughton was a giant in such epics as ‘Major Barbara’ and ‘Cesar and Cleopatra,’” he says. “Laughton was unbeatable when he came to grips with Shaw’s climactic dialogue, playing cute in the beginning, then thundering with his lines at the end. Superb! He was also great in ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame.’”

Sir Laurence Olivier is another of Frid’s favorites. A fine actor in memorable roles such as “Richard II,” “Henry V” and “The Entertainer.”

Unlike his cinematic confreres in celluloid scariness, Jonathan’s likeness on trading cards, game boards and comic and paperback books as well as recordings have not be limited to sales in a specific market. Sales reports indicate that it’s more than just the horror fan who is buying the merchandise.

The wide attention Frid gets sometimes awes him. During one personal appearance out of town, people grabbed at him when he was handing out photos. He was embarrassed recently when on the show he inadvertently places his ring on a different finger and received a stack of mail asking why.

“I do wish that the viewers would distinguish between my on-screen and off-screen personalities.”

His private live seems unruffled next to his hectic life with the Collins’ family.

“I go home at night and work two or three hours on the script, and get up at six-thirty or seven and work for an hour over breakfast before going to the studio. At the studio I work on the script all day long when I’m not rehearsing. I’m so busy I barely have time to pick up my laundry.”

In almost four years, Jonathan Frid has established himself as one of the stalwart actors on the dramatic scene today.

And he has earned the reputation as the only actor who put so much new blood into daytime television.

(NOTE: These clippings are courtesy of Elena Nacanther, who is part of an effort to get Jonathan Frid nominated to Canada's Walk of Fame, a non-profit, volunteer-driven organization that recognizes Canadians who have excelled in music, sports, film, television, and other artistic endeavors. You can find the NOMINATE JONATHAN FRID TO CANADA'S WALK OF FAME Facebook page by clicking here. Please pay them a visit. You can see more selections from Elena's scrapbook each Friday here at the Collinsport Historical Society.)