All in the Family Week Part V

Imagine a film where John Carradine plays the father of brothers Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

Then imagine the director spending most of it running time focused on Desi Arnaz Jr.......

All in the Family Week Part IV

Of course, not all family fractures are easily healed, as is evident by encounter between Roderick and Madelaine Usher.

All in the Family Week Part III

I've made no bones about the fact that Son of Frankenstein is my absolute favorite film of the series...

Here is a stunning depiction by comics legend Gary Morrow, originally appearing in Monster World.

All in the Family Week Part II

Few Gothic stories were more family-focused than Dark Shadows. Here ... Barnabas Collins shows his reincarnated love just how moody Westchester can be....

All in the Family Week Part I

We had so much fun with film posters last week, that we decided to do another theme-week.

For now, let's look at films that involve families, a Gothic subject that has always provided a rich vein of material.

It's uncertain whether Lon Chaney Jr. played Dracula or his son in Son of Dracula. Whomever it was, he did an awful job. Fortunately, the art direction made up for the many lapses in its star.

Film Poster Week Part V

Certainly one of the most evocative horror film posters is this subtle piece for Roger Corman's Tomb of Ligeia.

I've never been quite sure if this is my favorite of the Vincent Price Poe films, or House of Usher. What do you think?

Film Poster Week Part IV

Friends know that my absolute favorite Universal horror is 1935's The Raven, with Karloff and Lugosi. It is my favorite Lugosi performance, and my long-suffering better half has to listen to me quote it in shower frequently.  ("You are saying something profound....")

Film Poster Week Part III

This may be the greatest horror film poster of all; it is, at least, a delicious representation of the type of Halloween scares William Castle provided back when horror films were fun.

But ... would you dare visit The House on Haunted Hill?

Film Poster Week Part II

All right -- this isn't a great poster. But how can I not show a half-sheet from the film that bears this blog's name?

It is, of course, The House of Dracula. Certainly better than the previous year's House of Frankenstein, but still fairly weak tea. Once again, John Carradine plays Dracula like Doc Holiday on a European tour.

Film Poster Week Part I

This week, I thought it would be fun to look at my favorite horror film posters. (My absolute favorite, 1932's The Mummy, was  posted some time ago.)

Here is a stunning poster from the very best of the Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi films, The Black Cat. (The best, not my favorite -- that title is reserved for The Raven!)

Bill Nelson Art at The Monster Times

Remember the quite wonderful art by Bill Nelson in The Monster Times? It was often better than the film it depicted. Case in point: Nelson's Christoper Lee from Dracula Has Risen From the Grave.

Peter Cushing's Corruption

Peter Cushing has no greater fan than Your Correspondent, but Corruption was such a squirm-inducing, repellent piece of work that I have only been able to sit through it once.

The Ghost of Frankenstein

Lon Chaney Jr. made an impressive Monster in terms of size, but the rest of his performance was a dud. Imagine the pathos Karloff could have brought to the Monster's relationship with this little child.

The Bride of Frankenstein

One of the many reasons the first round of Universal horror classics are so great is the champion set design. Behold the crypt set from Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

Night of Dark Shadows

My understanding is that the original shooting script for Night of Dark Shadows included Barnabas Collins, and ended with he and Angelique battling one another with their various occult powers.

Has anyone any credible information on whether that is true or not?

Sadly, the final product is pretty awful.

Monster World and The Munsters

In that mad year of 1964, two Gothic comedies came to television: The Addams Family and The Munsters. Both would last only two years, but fifty years later, both continue to cast a long shadow. (One is tempted to say a ... dark shadow.)

As a child, I loved The Munsters. In adulthood, I now see it as a riff on The Life of Reilly or The Honeymooners, and have grown to rather dislike it. If anything, I love The Addams Family more now than ever before.

Always had a weakness for this cover of Monster World, by Vic Prezio.

The Return of Count Yorga

I am constantly amazed how many horror films of the Seventies lift Gothic conventions (capes, castles, decadent and deranged aristocrats) and plump them squarely in the middle of contemporary America. None of this should work for an instant ... but, insanely, it does.

Wonder if Mariette Hartley gets many questions of this Count Yorga these days....

Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot

There is much to like in Tobe Hooper's television adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's Lot. (Starting with James Mason and Lance Kerwin, both of whom are excellent.)

Do wish it were better, though....

Peter Cushing Vs. Barnabas Collins

If only...

This wonderful cover of Monsters of the Movies -- the Marvel magazine competitor to Famous Monsters of Filmland -- presented this sweetheart scenario: Van Helsing vs. Barnabas Collins.

If only. Jonathan Frid was a powerful presence, but not much of an actor. (Very much like Christopher Lee.) Cushing would have to do all the thespic heavy lifting, but that was the situation in most of his Hammer Films.

If you squint, you could almost see this movie....

Vincent Price: Man of Taste

One of the disappointments of starring in horror films is that one is seldom used for product endorsements....

The only major star of Gothic Cinema who managed to escape this fate was Vincent Price, who seemed to be a natural pitchman for everything from bathroom cleaner to books to discount art to cookbooks.

Price was such a beloved figure, it was a natural to use him to sell product. It is perhaps his renown as a chef that led him to make so many food, wine and cooking endorsements.

But then, he always was yummy.

Charlie Chan Vs. Dracula

Soon after Dracula, Bela Lugosi starred with Warner Oland in the Charlie Chan mystery The Black Camel. It was shot in Hawaii (an unusual move in those days of studio shooting), and is the film that solidified Oland's hold on the role.

He would play Chan until his death, to be replaced by Sidney Toler.

The Addams Family

I always envisioned living within the Addams Family manse to be a type of heaven.

Everyone here was ... happy.

One of the most appealing aspects is that here was a group of like-minded people who made their own reality within the confines of a specific place. Yes, the outside world goes on around them, but to the Addams', the outside world is no more than a distant echo. They have created their own paradise, here, within the walls of their Victorian mansion.

Whenever people ask me about my dream home, I usually start my answer with, "Well, first I build a fence..."

Boris Karloff's Mummy ... It Comes To Life!

The poster for Karl Freund's The Mummy, starring Boris Karloff and Zita Johann, is simply my favorite from the Golden Age of Gothic Cinema.

The Invisible Ray

No one considers The Invisible Ray (1936) to be the best of the Bela Lugosi-Boris Karloff teamings.

However, I have a special fondness for this picture. Missing are all the trappings of the Gothic aesthetic, replaced with a streamlined art deco sensibility. It is, in its own odd way, the "cleanest" of the Karloff-Lugosi films.

Dark Shadows Halloween Event

Readers of this blog know of my affection for Dark Shadows. You correspondent will be at the upcoming Halloween Dark Shadows Surprise, set for Saturday, October 20^th, from 6:00-to-9:00 PM at the Westin Los Angeles Airport Hotel, 5400 Century Blvd, Los Angeles, CA.

The event – a special screening presented in conjunction with the Hollywood Celebrity Autograph and Memorabilia Convention – we include a screening, an onstage discussion and audience Q&A.

Guests include David Selby, Lara Parker, Kathryn Leigh Scott, and Roger Davis will be joined by Nancy Barrett, Robert Cobert, Jerry Lacy, James Storm, and Chris Pennock. The screening will be held in the second floor Westin Hotel Theatre. All attendees will receive a complimentary DS souvenir.

Seating is by general admission. The theatre will open at 5:00 PM for early seating. The screening will start at 6:00 PM and will be followed by an onstage discussion/Q&A with the stars. An autograph signing will be held after the screening and discussion, at approximately 8:00 PM, with an end time of 9:00 PM.

Dark Shadows buffs who only wish skip the autograph show and only attend the evening screening/discussion/autograph session may pay $10 by sending advance payment, by check or money order, payable to Dark Shadows, care/of Marcy Robin, P.O. Box 1766, Temple City, CA 91780-7766.

Attendees can also pay $10 per person via PayPal through: Kathleener@aol.com Please include each full name(s) for whoever you are paying, plus your complete email address, in order to receive your receipt by email.

Enjoy and when ordering, tell them The House of Dracula sent you!

The Monster Times

The Monster Times was the horror film (and pop culture) bible of the early 1970s.

They covered not only genre films, but science fiction television, comics, the pulps, reviewed books and toys, and provided a handy convention schedule.

My brain would not be the grab bag of useless trivia it is today without it.

(By the way -- that's Robert Quarry in The Return of Count Yorga. I had the pleasure of drinking copious amounts with him at a Fanex convention years ago. He was a hoot.)

The Phantom of the Opera (1943)

There are few Gothic films that look better than the 1943 Phantom of the Opera. The technicolor is so lush, every time I look at it I feel my eyeballs growing fat.

If only it was a better movie....

The Brides of Dracula

The love afforded Hammer Films has always been a mystery to me.

They have no "great" films in their library, and only a handful would rank as very good.

The small list would include The Mummy, Dracula, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed and this, the best film they made ... The Brides of Dracula.

Never was the character of Van Helsing put to better use onscreen.

House of the Long Shadows

Is everyone else as disappointed with this film as I am? What a cast .... squandered. And the cinematography is so dark and grainy, even upon first release it looked terrible.

I had a long talk with Vincent Price about this and he told me he hated the final product -- they made a comedy and it was recut as a horror film.

Don Post Monster Masks

I so desperately wanted a Don Post Phantom of the Opera mask -- in fact, I nearly ruined Christmas for the entire family one year by weeping the day away when I didn't get it.

Oddly enough, I never knew anyone who had one of these things. Did you?

The Famous Monsters Convention 1975

The 1975 Famous Monsters Convention at the Hotel Commodore.

Where you there? Your 13 year old correspondent was. And I met Peter Cushing!

The Famous Monsters Convention 1974

The Famous Monsters Convention in the Hotel Commodore in New York, 1974. I was there ... were you?

Seems like another world now, doesn't it?

A Pictorial History of Horror Movies

How many young people had their lives changed by this book, A Pictorial History of Horror Movies by Dennis Gifford.

I had whole portions of it memorized....

The Art of Usher

No one loves the pictures in the 1960 version of The House of Usher better than I ... but in no way were works like this possible in the 1840s....

They do have a certain lurid beauty, though....

Usher at the Door

Roderick Usher is not only the patron saint of all aesthetes with a taste for the Gothic, but for all aesthetes of any stripe.

Who better to bring him to life than Vincent Price -- art collector and the finest actor to portray Oscar Wilde?

Would You Buy a Dissertation From This Man?

This drawing of Bela Lugosi was presented to him by artist Jim Logan in 1939. Lugosi loved it so much, he used his himself in a variety of different venues, including as the "author's picture" of Professor Armand Tesla in The Return of the Vampire.

Let's hope he already had tenure.

I Think You're a Worst Fiend Than Your Father

Heresy, I know, but Son of Frankenstein is simply the greatest Frankenstein film ever made, thanks in no small portion to the contribution of these two gentlemen.

It's not that we've forgotten how to make films like Son of Frankenstein, it's that we've forgotten how to make men like Basil Rathbone and Lionel Atwill.

Peter Cushing in The Skull

Have you seen this bizarre little gem?

In it, Peter Cushing plays a collector of supernatural relics. He comes into possession of the skull of the Marquis de Sade, which rapidly comes into possession of Cushing.

I have seldom seen a better cinematic representation of the cut-throat mania for collecting, and the film has a wonderfully creepy vibe. And Cushing was never better.

Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places ... but what fascinated me most about this film is the almost clubland atmosphere. Cushing is not some basement-dwelling mama's boy, but an accomplished scholar with taste, refinement and deep pockets.

If only the Gothic community was a little more like Cushing (barring the homicidal possession, of course).

A New World of Gods and Monsters

Is Dr. Pretorious the first cinematic character defined by his love for the Gothic and the bizarre...?

Probably not, as the case must be made for Erik, the Phantom, and Count Dracula. But Dr. Pretorious is certainly more fun than either of them.

Edward Scissorhands

Have you never noticed the underlying gentility of so much Gothic material? And wouldn't we all be better for having etiquette lessons from Vincent Price?

Dracula Premiered Today in 1931

Eighty-seven years ago today, Tod Browning’s Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, was released on an unsuspecting world. Billed as The Strangest Love a Man Has Ever Known, it is perhaps the most culturally significant horror film ever made. It has been imitated, parodied and dismissed, but it created a classic series of films and an entire genre that shows no sign of stopping.

While sipping your (red) wine on this Valentine’s Day, spare of thought for Bela Lugosi, whose contribution to Gothic Cinema is incalculable.