Up in Smoke

I've always found the candid photos of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi very curious.

Karloff always seems so relaxed ... one might say disengaged. Lugosi, on the other hand, always looks so concentrated and intense.

Karloff, a heavy smoker, succumbed to emphysema, while Lugosi to heart failure.

Though I never knew either, I miss them both.

The Tomb of Dracula

We were just looking at Marvel's black and white magazine, Dracula Lives!, but we would be remiss if we did not also remember its excellent full-color comic, The Tomb of Dracula.

Dracula Lives!

Does he ever!

Dracula Lives! was Marvel's black and white magazine companion to its color comic book, The Tomb of Dracula.

It's magazine status allowed for more adult fare, though both Dracula publications were of a very high caliber. I certainly wish I could find similar fare on today's magazine stands...

Dracula A.D. 1972

We mentioned Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee yesterday and that got me thinking about their two "modern era" Dracula films.

I would never pretend that Dracula A.D. 1972, or its sequel, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, were "good" films in any objective sense. But I certainly enjoyed Cushing's role as a modern day occult investigator. Both movies have a real Sax Rohmer vibe, and I would've loved it Hammer had jettisoned Dracula and made a series about Cushing's occult investigator.

Yet another missed opportunity...

All Aboard the Horror Express

The kind of film Hammer should have been making...

Horror Express is a cracker-jack science fiction-cum-gothic horror film. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are rival scientists trapped aboard a speeding train with a homicidal alien inhabiting the body of a prehistoric man. (Trust me ... it's much better than it sounds!)

Cushing and Lee hardly ever played better against one another, and the movie zips along at breakneck speed. There are multiple public domain copies out there, but if you can find a good copy, grab it and enjoy.

When Monsters Are Mad

Here is some delicious advertising art by Frank Frazetta for Mad Monster Party.

I love this movie immoderately.

But You Can't Hyde...

Yesterday we looked at the Airmont Classics cover for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, featuring an illustration influenced by the Frederic March makeup.

Here is an atmospheric photo from the later Spenser Tracy version, lavishly produced by MGM. I've always been of two minds on this -- it always seemed too reserved for its own good. However, when it works (e.g., everything with Ingrid Bergman and some of Tracy's performance as Hyde), it's quite wonderful. I just wish there was a touch more ... sizzle.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Growing up, I read many great novels in Airmont Classics editions.

Airmont was a small imprint that specialized in public domain titles, presented in uniform editions with sometimes wonderful covers. I well recall that the cover for Dracula, rather inexplicably, had artwork depicting a mustached Peter Cushing, as if he been cast in the title role.

I've always had a fondness for their Jekyll and Hyde cover, clearly influenced by the Frederic March makeup.

Sherlock Holmes is Dracula

After My Fair Lady but long before his celebrated Sherlock Holmes, actor Jeremy Brett played Dracula in the roadshow company of the Edward Gorey production.

I had seen Frank Langella on Broadway, but would've given my eye-teeth to see Brett. A fine actor with more than a generous touch of ham, I'm sure Dracula was catnip to him.

Build Your Own Girlfriend

I had many of the Aurora monster model kits as a boy, but somehow The Bride of Frankenstein always eluded me...

I was endless intrigued by the box art (by the invaluable James Bama), but only actually saw one of the kits, this one, built and painted and on the bookshelf of a boy's bedroom in a home my parents were thinking of buying. I wish we had bought the model kit...

I have not seen a model kit in a boy's room for ages... do young people still build them? I would think, sadly not.

David Peel in The Brides of Dracula

We've said elsewhere that Brides of Dracula is Hammer's finest vampire film. But it was only today that I realized how much David Peel (as the vampire Baron Meinster) resembles Ronan Farrow...