THE MONSTER TIMES FAN FAIR is another reader service of MT. Care to buy, sell or trade movie stills, old comics or tapes of old radio programs? Or maybe buy or advertise a fan-produced magazine? An ad costs only 10 cents per word (minimum, 25 words).
Make all checks and money orders payable to THE MONSTER TIMES, and mail your clearly printed or typewritten ad on the coupon below, to: THE MONSTER TIMES, Box 595, Old Chelsea Station, New York, N.Y. 10011. We reserve the right to refuse ads which would not be deemed appropriate to our publication.
POSTERS, TRIVIA – Send 8¢ stamp for my free list of posters (things like Conan by F. Frazetta) and other trivia (Spock Nickels, Paperbacks like Black mark, etc.) to Emanuel Mavis/316 W. 88th St./New York, N.Y. 10024
Selling Comic Books, Pulps, Big Little Books, Playboys, Magazines, Movie Merchandise, Radio Premiums, Toys, Etc. 1900-1972. Catalogue 35 cents: Rogofsky, Box 1102, Flushing, N.Y. 11354.
WRITERS, ARTISTS, CARTOONISTS! THE MONSTER TIMES are worth your time and talent. We’re always peeling our eyes for new contributors. Send us a letter, specifying your creative bent, a resume of your writing, a few samples of your art (include stamped, addressed envelope) to THE MONSTER TIMES, P.O.Box 595 Old Chelsea Station, New York City, N.Y. 10011
INTERESTED IN THE CREATION OF IMAGINATION FROM PROP AND MODEL MAKING TO FILM MAKING? So Am I. Write: Richard Van Treuren, VA-176 AQ Shop, F.P.O. New York 09501.
ALGOL, journal about science fiction, features columns and articles by Luposs, White, Benford, Bloch, Anthony, Spinrad, McCaffrey, others. Next issue: Alfred Bester writes about “The Demolished Man,” plus Richard Wilson, Greg Benford, etc. Art by Jones, Bode, Gilbert. Four issues for $3.00 from Andrew Porter, Box 4175, New York, N.Y. 10017
Back Issues of THE MONSTER TIMES cost $1.00 per. Send order to: THE MONSTER TIMES, BACK ISSUES, P.O. Box 595, Old Chelsea Station, New York, N.Y., 10011. Please allow one month for processing.
Limited edition posters. Original artwork of Krogar, Targor, The Omega Men, Morina the Beautiful, the Blue Archer, The Gargoyle PLUS advance notice of “Beyond Valuria”, the most spectacular comic epic yet. Send $3.00 for complete poster set to CMA, P.O. Box 435, Smithtown, N.Y. 11735.
Comic books, fanzines, stills, posters, Big Little books, dealers, collectors: and The Monster Times folk! Every “SECOND SUNDAY!” at the Statler-Hilton, 33rd St. & 7th Ave. N.Y.C. 10AM to 4PM. Admission, $1.00
“Hi. Remember the super-heroes of yesteryear? And how about the old E.C. science fiction & horror stories? Well, I got um all on tape! If you’d like to trade your 25 year old comics for them, write to “Adventure Unlimited”, c/o Jimmy Thornton, Apt. 11-E, 225 East 99th St., N.Y., N.Y. 10029
Selling original Star Trek painting by Bama. (From Network Promotion: first Star Trek paperback) Best Offer. Bruce Graham, Road 2, Upper Black Eddy, Pa. 18972
For Sale: Many diff. D.C.’s, Marvel’s, etc. Send 25 cents for price list. Bernard Zlochowor, 120-16 Darrow Place, Bronx, N.Y. 10475
Wanted: Old Mad magazines or books! in good condition reasonable prices … Send your own list to Jonathan Seiger 711 Amsterdam Avenue, N.Y.. N.Y. 10025
We will copy your old photographs or stills for you at $2.50 for 5×7 and $2.75 for 8×10. Extra prints are $.75 for 5×7 and $1.00 for 8×10. We can also copy from film and slides. Other Quality Services at Equally Reasonable Prices. Ask about our Quantity Prices. PHOTOGRAPHICS UNLIMITED, 1149 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10001. Tel: 212-689-7380
WE’LL THANK YOU IN PRINT! – for allowing us to run some of your rare stills in THE MONSTER TIMES. COLLECTORS, we are on the lookout for rare monster, horror, Sci-fi and fantasy stills, press books, lobby cards, posters, and other visual goodies with which to exotically embellish our articles. We’ll credit your photos and you’ll BECOME FAMOUS! Send checklists of your collections to us, P.O. Box 595 Old Chelsea Station, New York City, N.Y. 10011 Include your Address and Phone Number … Thanx.
FANDOM’S FANZINE – fandom’s only combination Newszine/Contribution publication. Send subs (4 for $1.)/& articles to Emanuel Maris 316 W. 88th St., N.Y. 10024
WANTED: Old Monster Magazines such as “Monster Mania”. Bob Duncan; CO 3603 Indian Road; Toledo, Ohio 43606
WANTED FOR REVIEW!!! TMT is about to begin it Fan-Ad-Art-Zine reviews … start sending them in c/o Zines, The Monster Times, Box 595, Old Chealsa Station, N.Y. 10011
For mood and tone and anatomy and stark portraits of wonder, Frazetta is the master! Each poster awakens your sense of awe and fascination. The colors and details are reproduced magnificently. Breathtaking to see and own!
Silhouetted against an orange moon is the ravening beast of our nightmares, about to pounce on the victim who has unfortunately discovered him! ….. $2.50
There is the treasure chest, spilling its riches into the ocean depth in which the awed skin-diver has discovered it. But what is that fearful, monstrous thing rearing up behind it? ….. $2.50
C. BREAK THE BARBARIAN VS. THE SORCERESS (cover painting for Paperback Library paperback).
Brak, with sword and on horseback, looks up into murky skies to see is it a vision of a woman? Is that evil she seems to convey? Or menace $2.50
Toe to toe, Conan fights with brute savagery, death in every axe stroke, against two frost giants. The scene is a blazingly white mountain top under an ice-blue sky! Thorough drama! ….. $2.50
Bursting like a firestorm into the midst of a hellish battle, Conan comes, astride his maddened charger, cleaving his bloody way! The background is fire and death and savagery ….. $2.50
Where did the Black Hood appear before comic books? When did the long and incredibly successful Shadow series begin? How long did Doc Savage run? The pulp magazines with continued adventure hero features are listed in this compact and efficient reference book. Note: This book is mainly a listing of old pulp mag. characters and titles, of interest to completists and zealous fans, but not of much value to a person looking for samples of the actual surprises. We say this, hoping to avoid confusion or ill feelings.
The world’s favorite Dracula is seen in a bookful of photos of Bela Lugosi in his weirdest roles. Softcover twin volume to the Karloff book. Excellent stills from the great Lugosi horror films, and plenty of them. 52-pages.
Beautiful hardcover book, limited memorial edition, including a magnificent sampling of the art of this great science-fiction illustrator. Mostly black-and-white and some outstanding color plates. Also contains a full listing of Finlay’s work and where to find it, and his bio.
A frank and nostalgic backward look at a childhood of comic book reading. And then adventure after (original) comic book adventure showing us the complete origin of stories of Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern, and episodes in the careers of the Spirit, Flash, Hawkman, and more! All in beautiful color! Dynamite!
Boris Karloff was the magnificent master of disguise and menace. You can see dozens and dozens of photographs of his various roles in this 52page all-photograph softcover book. Each photo is full-page size (81/2 x 11) and is clear and vivid. A horror-film fan’s prize.
This deadly magazine comic book was the cooperative effort of Jeff Jones, Mike Kaluta, Bruce Jones, and Bernie Wrightson. They experiment with stories of the odd and the macabre, in spidery, Gothic style! Moody and dramatic and high quality.
The first actor ever to play the part of Superman has written this memoir. It is filled with film-making stories (how he caught fire while flying), good humor, and many, many photographs. Fun reading, even for non-film fans.
This softcover, thin book is an amazing look at the art nouveau “psychedelic” comic strip artwork of Winsor McCay. Nemo appeared in the early 1900s, and is still the best visual fantasy ever to appear on a comic page:
A sketchbook of a comic art master featuring fantasy, science-fiction illustrations and visual delights such as girls, monsters, swordsmen, and girls! This volume is recommended for serious students of art, illustration, science fiction, fantasy, swordsmen monsters and of girls–but over age 18.
Here is one of the greatest adventure strips ever drawn, by the finest artist the comic art world has ever produced! Even before beginning his 33. year Prince Valiant career, Hal Foster did the Sunday pages of Tarzan, and this book (softcover, Life Magazine-sized) reprints 55 pages of Tarzan’s story. Where else can this “lost” work be seen?
There is a series involved here, and this is volume one. You can find few better descriptions of how comic books evolved (from newspaper strips and pulp adventure magazines), and there are hundreds of photos and illustrations. Nifty reading, great art – poster-sized full-color cover by the author.
A slim sketchbook which covers some of the finest black and white linework by this super-artist, Frank Frazetta. Each figure shows detail, mass, strength, and drama. For collectors of the best. … You must be 18 to buy this volume. State age when placing order.
The first Tarzan ever to appear in comics form was a daily strip drawn by Hal Foster with the text of the book printed beneath each panel. Designed to run for a few weeks, Tarzan has now been going for forty years. But this book contains the first strips ever drawn, reprinted in clear lines in a wrap-around softcover book. Good value.
THE OLD ABANDONED WAREHOUSE
P.O. Box 595, Old Chelsea Station, New York, N.Y. 10011
The proverbial Old Abandoned Warehouse which you’ve heard about in so many comics, movies and pulp adventure and detective novels is open for business. Abandoned Warehouse Enterprises presents the most AWEful, AWE-inspiring AWEsome AWEtifacts AWEvailable at AWE-striking AWE-right prices! Indicate which items you want
NOTE: Add 20¢ postage and handling per item for orders totaling less than $20.00. Make checks and money orders payable to: ABANDONED WAREHOUSE
From out of the pulsating pages of the late, great EC horror comix comes a horrific new movie.
“TALES FROM THE CRYPT”
Yep, gang! You remember all those great EC comix of the early 1950’s that have been reprinted as paperbacks and even now in hard-cover book form (HORROR COMICS OF THE 1950’S)! Well, now five of those great old tales of murder and mutilation and corpses rising from the grave and demon-haunted catacombs and obstacle courses of walls covered with sharp, new, glistening razor blades, and-all-like-that-there! .. have been turned into a feature-length film, starring some biggies in both the horror and the “respectable” acting fields.
Sir Ralph Richardson, of all the “respectable” people you’d least expect to see, plays the Crypt-keeper. Not so much the pungently-punning black-humorist Crypt-keeper who obnoxiously enhanced the pages of the EC comix, but a somber, moody, satanic figure in a monk’s robe, broodingly holding inquisition of souls as he sits before a huge skull-shaped altar. But Sir Ralph isn’t really so “respectable” – the first film he appeared in was a 1932 shocker, THE GHOUL.
The Crypt-keeper introduces the tales, by questioning each of the main participants in the stories. Then we flash back to each character’s particular doings (mainly evil), and we see how “the evil that men do not only “lives after them” but often even chases after them from the other side of the grave (or Crypt). And among the horrified living and vengeful undead hunters are “respectable” newcomers to horror Joan Collins (Mrs. Anthony Newley), Patrick Magee (currently making waves in CLOCKWORK ORANGE and KING LEAR), who puts in a remarkable performance as a blind man (one wonders if Mr. Magee could do a bad acting job if he TRIED) and Richard Greene, who used to only buckle swashes in TV’s ROBIN HOOD.
But even great old horror veteran Peter Cushing does a turn-around in roles. Instead of either the classic monster, leering mad doctor, or the stuffy vampire-stalking police inspector, he plays instead a sympathetic, aging and kind-hearted garbage collector who repairs thrown-away toys and gives them to young children. Bet you weren’t ready for that! But rest assured, before his segment is over, he takes on a more horrifying demeanor, as his photo reveals.
TALES FROM THE CRYPT is due for a “World Screamiere” on March 7th in New York City (the theater hasn’t been announced at press time), but the producers heartily advise all potential audiences to put themselves into a fine mood for the occasion by “Shrieking their way into the theater,” and that “A scream will get them passes into the house”.
By the way, if you’re really interested in seeing what the original EC comix stories that are adapted were, getteth thyself to the Society of Illustrators Building at 128 East 63rd Street in Manhattan, and drag your eyeballs across the exhibit which begins there on March 6th; they’re showing the original comic book art (monster-sized stuff, each page the better part of a yard high!) of the five stories adapted in TALES FROM THE CRYPT.
But more news for old EC comix fans, the stories from TALES FROM THE CRYPT, which have already seen comic, and paperback-reprint form, have come to book form; a novelization treatment of the stories! So comix have evolved to prose. It’s been shown in various studies (studies which weren’t publicized until long after Senator Estes Kefauver and Frederick Wertham and the hypocritical Comics Code Authority had successfully ram-rodded the EC horror and science fiction comics out of business) that the ghouls and murderers and undead and bug-eyed-monsters in the EC stories actually encouraged kids back in the 1950’s to develop their reading skills, and to discover the many fantastic universes of wonder and horror to be found in prose stories. It’s really ironic that the very comix which certain government officials and rival publishing companies conspired against to put out of business, should have this double tribute, yea, honor! of both film and prose adaptation. Those who learned to appreciate prose, reading EC comix, can come full circle, reading EC prose.
The EC comix frequently ran stories of the dead having their final justice, a horrifying vengeance, often a return from the crypt or tomb or burial plot to have the last Ghastly laugh. And Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein (who now put out MAD) can revel in the final gloating glory … giggling all the way to the bank. For it seems that TALES FROM THE CRYPT will be a horrific hit.
Let’s face it; no one’s ever going to make a successful movie about the Comics Code Authority – let alone about the late Senator Estes Kefauver (who him?)
The CON-CALENDAR is a special exclusive feature of THE MONSTER TIMES. Across this great land of ours are quaint and curious gatherings of quaintly curious zealots. The gatherings called “conventions,” and the zealots, called “fans,” deserve the attention of fans and non-fans alike, hence this trail-blazing reader-service.
To those readers who’ve never been to one of these hair-brained affairs, we recommend it.
Detractors of such events put them down by saying that they’re just a bunch of cartoonists and science fiction writers and comic book publishers talking, and signing autographs for fans who, like maniacs, spend sums on out-of-date comics, science fiction pulps, and monster movie stills. But that’s just the reason for going. If you want a couple of glossy pictures of Dracula or King Kong, or a 1943 copy of Airboy Comics (God alone knows why) or if you wish to see classic horror and science fiction films, or meet the stars of old time! movie serials, or today’s top comic book artist and writers–or if you just want to meet other monster or comics science fiction freaks, like yourself, and learn you’re not alone in the world, OR if you want to meet the affable demented lunatics who bring out THE MONSTER TIMES, go ahead and visit one of those conventions. We dare ya!
MARCH 12, APRIL 9, MAY 14 THE SECOND SUNDAY – PHIL SEULING – 2833 W. 12 – B’KLYN, N.Y. 11224 STATLER-HILTON – 33rd ST & 7th AVE. – NEW YORK CITY $1.00 (10 A.M. to 4 P.M.) COMIC BOOK DEALERS & COLLECTORS – No Special Guests
MARCH 3-5 – FRI., SAT., SUN. CANADA CON – TOM ROBE – V.W.O. – 594 MARKHAM ST. – TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA INFO. NOT AVAILABLE – WRITE CONVENTION Infor Not Available Write Con. Comic Books, S.F. – Pulps, Nostalgia-oriented.
MARCH 25-27 FRI., SAT., SUN L.A. CON – JERRY O’HARA – 14722 LEMOLI AVE. – CARDENIA, CALIF. 92249 L.A. HILTON, LOS ANGELES. Infor Not Available Write Con. Comic convention; comic books, strips, Guest speakers, Cartoonists.
MARCH 31, APRIL 1, 2 FRI., SAT., SUN LUNA-CON – DEVRA LANGSAM – 250 CROWN ST. – BKLYN, N.Y. 11225 STATLER-HILTON – 33rd ST & 7th AVE. – NEW YORK CITY Infor Not Available Write Con. New York’s Biggest Annual Sci-Fi Convention – Big-Time Writers Galore!
… is our way of getting the latest hot-off-the-wire info to you; reviews, previews, scoops on horror films in production, newsworthy monster curiosities, bulletins, and other grues-flashes. There are several contributors to our hodge-podge Teletype page … BILL FERET, our man in Show Biz (he’s a professional actor, singer, dancer with the impressive resume list of stage, film and TV credits to his name), makes use of his vast professional experiences and leads to Feret-out items of interest to monster fans, and duly report on them in his flashing Walter-Wind-chill manner.
For you old Star-Trekkies, William Shatner is soon to turn up on an episode of ABC-TV’S THE SIXTH SENSE, entitled original-ishly DEATH AT THE TOP OF THE STARS, it concerns a man who plays piano masterfully in a trancelike state, sort of a sonambuliberace. It’s such a pity that this series, which has vast potential, is nowhere up to the par it should be. With all that ESP flying around, you’d think they could see all their failings in advance.
T-V, by the way, is due for a fantastic influx of horror and suspense films, ABC’S NIGHT-STALKER, had the highest rating of any made-for-T-V movie yet, in fact they’re going to release it as a theatrical movie. THE SCREAMING WOMAN, also on ABC, as well as CBS’s SHE WAITS, also had unusually high ratings.
Not to be outdone, NBC is readying a pilot for a prospective series, starring Hugh O’Brian, called PROBE. Something akin to a space-age MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, only with missions more impossible.
The old faithfuls are at it again. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are winding up shooting on HORROR EXPRESS in Madrid, and are going in, together again, THE CREEPING FLESH, back home again at Shepperton Studios.
Marlon Brando is starring in a new theatrical film, THE NIGHTCOMERS, and with a title like that, you might think it was about beachcombers who work the evening (graveyard) shift … it’s not. Do you remember that all-time super-duper stalker-shocker called THE INNOCENTS, based on Henry James’ TURN OF THE SCREW? If you do, then perhaps you recall those dear, dread, awful apparitions, ‘Miss Jessel’ and ‘Peter Quint’. THAT’S what THE NIGHTCOMERS is about!!!
The Incredible Shrinking Man is returning, only this time it’s a different fellow, and he’s a ‘mite’ smaller. Tigon British Films, is readying for release COLD WAR IN A COUNTRY GARDEN, (the titles mislead more and more), dealing with a hero who is of an inch tall.
Also from Tigon comes DEATHWATCH, starring lan Bannen, Judy Geeson, and in a guest star role, George Sanders.
With all these GUNKY titles around, perhaps you shied away from BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW, because it looked … gunky? Anyway, hurry to see it, before the blood clawts.
After much hassle, and reported negotiations time and time again, AIP is! truly going to film H.G. Wells’ WHEN THE SLEEPER WAKES. James H. Nicholson will produce it independently himself. Hooray!
Shirley Jackson’s marvelously malignant WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN A CASTLE, will finally be before the cameras soon. It’s about time, too. 1 happened to catch the theatrical version of it in Washington, D.C. in preview a few years ago, starring Shirley Knight. It was a remarkable piece of macabre, but it never did see broadway, because perhaps it resembled THE BAD SEED too much. Much more could have been done with it, and I think the film medium will capture all the nuances a live production couldn’t. It could easily possess all the fright and terror that Miss Jackson’s THE HAUNTING did.
OBITUARY
Died: EDWIN M. APRILL JR., February 6, 1972, in an automobile accident. He is survived by a wife and two daughters. Those who are involved in comics, science fiction or just plain nostalgia, on either pro or fan level are grateful to the many contributions to the whole popular arts community for which Ed Aprill was responsible. He was one of the first great fan-publishers, printing giant collections of sturdy paper and slick permanent paper covers of THE SPIRIT, BUCK ROGERS, JOHNNY COMET (Frazetta’s comic strip), as well as his special regular publication, CARTOONISTS’ SHOWCASE, which reprinted in huge size, old EC horror-sci-fi artist Al Williamson’s current comic strip, SECRET AGENT X-9/CORRIGAN, as well as MODESTY BLAISE, and TARZAN, among others. His passing is mourned by all who knew him.
With the incredible success of “Willard” there seems to be a boom on malicious mammals. I’ve already told you about the sequel “Ben.” but soon to be multiplying the malice will be RABBITS. It stars Stuart Whitman, Rory Calhoun, and Psycho-delectable Janet Leigh. ‘Twould be nice if it had an Eastertime release, don’t you think? PETER RABID? PETER COTTONTAIL GOES APE?’ INVASION OF THE BUNNY BEAST? What with the current money-making degenerate hippy “Jeezus-Freek” fad, we wouldn’t be surprised if the producers of RABBITS try to pick up on that fundamentalist of markets by having a crucified Easter Bunny. Anything for the old green kale stuff. Lettuce pray!
I’m sure all of my friends (fiends?) in the New York area, are going to run to see the play SYDNEY AND THE WEREWOLF’S WIDOW, as soon as it opens. It stars Telly Savalas and Geraldine Page. It’s about … the widow of a werewolf!. Really! And the man who wants to marry her, but is a little worried about her two not-so-darling little children by her … er … previous … husband (?) who … was a … werewolf! The kids are, shall we say, a Little Strange. The girl is into Voodoo and things, while the boy bays at the moon.
Independent International will be releasing FRANKENSTEIN’S BLOODY TERROR, in 3-D, BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR, and DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN. I am horribly, and bloodily aghast-ly. Isn’t everyone?!
A New York-based firm, Kirt Films, will release CARNIVAL OF BLOOD, and CURSE OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN shortly.
The creators of JESUS CHRIST, SUPERSTAR, Tim Rice (lyrics) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (music) are going to pen a new filmusicalization of PETER PAN. Lionel Jeffries, whom you’ve seen dozens of times in sci-fi and horror films, is directing. The “second star to the right” may never be the same, but I trust Mr. Jeffries.
Master musician Richard Rodgers is! collaborating on a musical version of ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. The two geniuses who brought you WEST SIDE STORY, Jerry Robbins and Leonard Bernstein, are planning a musical version of “The Dybbuk,” which deals with demon possession.
As you have seen, both Television and Films are surging with gruesomeness, and don’t think it hasn’t crept into the theatre world as well. Gwen Verdon, in her first straight play, 5 the star of a suspense shocker called CHILDREN, CHILDREN in which she plays a baby-sitter to some “rather nasty” wards.
The creator of the musical hit OLIVER, Lionel Bart, has a musical version of THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME in the offing. The score of QUASIMODO will be released as a two-record album prior to the Broadway production, ala the success of J.C. Superduper. I can just hear Quasi humming … “If I were a bell…” or “..The bells are ringing for me and. and Esmerelda’s little ditty to him … “There’s the kinda walk you walk …” Maybe they could call it … “The Sound of Mumbling?” (Would someone investing in the show be called an … “Hunch” backker?)
We’re going back to the PLANET OF THE APES for another sequel – CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Roddy McDowell again stars along with Don Murray and Natalie Trundy. Stay away from this one in droves! Yecch!
Scheduled for a Broadway opening on April is a new “Supernatural drama” titled A GHOST STORY. Starring in it are Julie Harris (of the “Haunting” fame) and Richard Kiley. It concerns a couple who take refuge in an old, decaying Victorian home in New England during a snowstorm. Miss Harris is truly an adept “Screamer” and should be really super.
Don’t expect the film version of CABARET to be a soft shoe – song and dance type of musical. It’ll be more like a song-and-dance macabre. Word has it that Liza Minelli’s ‘Sally Bowles’ won’t be quite as goody-two-shoes as depicted on Broadway and Joel Grey’s characterization of the Emcee will be more towards the Satanic figure originally intended. The atmosphere of the CABARET, The Kit Kat Club, will be one of gothic foreboding and dark malignancy, with all of its bizarre tenants contributing to what I hope will be a truly sinister film.
Broadway Producer, David Merrick, has finally turned to films and is filming his successful, spine-tingling drama CHILD’S PLAY. The action takes play in an English boys school, with mucho mysterious happenings, malevolent! atmosphere reeking, and youthful sadism. With the impressive presence of Robert Preston, Beau Bridges and James Mason, you can expect a winner.
The musical version of “LOST HORIZON” entitled SHANGRI-LA, didn’t take on Broadway a few years ago, but Ross Hunter is readying an altogether new multi-million dollar film version, with music by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. This could be a blockbuster, and you know Mr. Hunter’s films are usually Shangri-la-vish!
Denise Nicholas, of ROOM 222 is the heroine in the all-black modern-day version of BLACULA. William Marshall, noted Shakespearean actor, essays the title role.
And if it isn’t a horror film, it should be, with a title like RARE BLUE APES OF CANNIBAL ISLE. IT AIN’T A MUSICAL COMEDY!
NECROMANCY will star Orson Welles and Pamela Franklin. Its original title was THE TOY FACTORY, and I can see the reason for the title change. I happen to adore Pam Franklin, too. I wish they’d give her lotsa meaty roles, because I really feel she’ll be a superstar someday. Her previous roles as wicked children were all masterpieces, but she’s quite the luscious lady now!
And from a new firm called Universal Entertainment Corporation (No relation to Universal) comes a flood of evil epics … TARZANA, THE WILD GIRL, .. THE MAD BUTCHER, starring Victor Buono the baneful babes … THE WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN (a gory LOVE STORY?) … THE SPECTRE OF EDGAR ALLEN POE … LEGACY OF BLOOD … BIG FOOT … CURSE OF BIGFOOT. THE DEVIL, YOU SAY … and DEATHTRAP. That’s a heap of horror! Will there! be THE TOE OF BIGFOOT. Sounds like a TV series potential: STUB THE STARS.
And finally, sci-fi author Karel Capek! (WAR OF THE NEWTS) had one of his works turned into an opera entitled THE MAKROPOULOS AFFAIR, which concerns a woman who is 342 years old. Wagnerian soprano, Maralin Niska, a sort of Raquel Welch Valkyrie, gave a stunning performance in the Los Angeles production, which utilized colored films, and elaborate sets all of a fantasy dream-like nature. Hopefully, the New York City Opera will be bringing it here too. Write them and demand it. Dig – a horror-science-fiction opera set in the future with way-out (and occasional) costumes … and sung in ENGLISH fer a change!
Enough is enough, that’s plenty to keep you busy for 2 weeks. Get those postcards and letters rolling into the Metropolitan Opera Company … and be sure to mention THE MONSTER TIMES to ’em! Imagine a monster opera: GORGO & BESS, or THE MAD BARBER OF TRAN-SEVILLE-ANIA!
The last place you’d expect to see anemic nemesis of all red-blooded Americans, would be a court of law, yet, that’s just where you’ll find the old Count lying around, these days. Instead of Transylvanian sod, it’s bureaucratic red tape which hides him from the light of day, as the most authentic and horrifying version of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” ever filmed is kept there, hidden from the eyes of the American monster-loving public. Let’s let MONSTER TIMES contributing editor, Jim Wnoroski shovel all the graveyard dirt about what’s been happening as…
Bureaucracy coupled with legal ineptness and red tape has hit almost everything these days – from paying your taxes, to bringing that pair of red flannel underwear you got for Christmas back to Macy’s return counter.
And now after a long time without any of this bumbling or harassment, bureaucracy has come to monster filmdom, in the form of a lawsuit – a legal matter that may prevent moviegoers from seeing what could be the horror classic of the decade.
It all started about two years ago when England’s Tigon Studios producer Harry Allan Towers (THE CRIMSON CULT) commissioned Italian director Jess Franco to film the definitive version of Bram Stoker’s famous novel DRACULA, to be issued by the now-defunct Commonwealth United Releasing Company.
Franco and Towers brought together such international stars as Herbert Lom, Soledad Miranda, Klaus Kinsky, and the inimitable Christopher Lee to portray Dracula. Using original Balkan settings and locations, the film company set many of their interiors in the original castles and courtyards that still stand today – places that like certain courts of law – still yet may be haunted by ghosts and demons from the past.
I was lucky enough to see this film, entitled THE NIGHTS OF DRACULA (LA NUITS DE DRACULA), over the past summer while on vacation in Paris, where it played to packed houses along the Champs-Elysees; the French capitol’s equivalent to our own 42nd Street.
The picture could aptly be Tabeled a masterpiece of atmospheric horror. Director Franco sticks closely to the Stoker novel for the first half of the film, bringing to life on the screen all the livid and almost indescribably feelings of terror – right down to the servant wolves baying to the blue lights of the shrouded Transylvanian forest.
Although the film bogs down somewhat in the later scenes, it is hard to shake the unnerving emotions one gets from seeing actual living bats swarming around a misty fog-enshrouded castle that you know is NOT the product of some Hollywood set designer. The sky that’s always gray, the buildings lifeless and lacking luster, and the damp and dripping darkness all seem to encompass and possess every act; making the motion picture’s dreary yet strangely fascinating subject matter come to total life in the dark theater.
But NIGHTS OF DRACULA (or simply COUNT DRACULA as it is called in Italy) will remain for a long time within the bounds of those two countries where it was co-produced.
Why? you may be asking yourself.
The answer is not all that simple, but the crux of the matter lies in American-International buying out Commonwealth United after it folded. Under the contract arrangements, all negatives in Commonwealth’s possession were to be turned over to AIP for release in the Continental United States; but Commonwealth did not come through with everything in their vaults – and among the films withheld for some unexplained reason was (you guessed it) NIGHTS OF DRACULA, along with several other foreign-made horror films with Christopher Lee, such as THE BLOODY JUDGE.
And so as the courtroom battles rage on ad infinitum and the red tape builds up to the Nth degree, horror enthusiasts sit around deprived of what is already considered to be a classic by most European fantasy film aficionados.
The question we raise here is simply this: “Why must the public continually suffer the torrent of grade “Z” cinema fare, when such fine films as THE NIGHTS OF DRACULA are just waiting impatiently in the wings – waiting for the tedious American court procedures to reach a final conclusion? The answer we hope will be forthcoming! As should be NIGHTS OF DRACULA.
To the Editor… MONSTER TIMES Box 595 Old Chelsea Sta. New York 10011
SESAME SCREECH
Dear Monster Times,
I would like to read more about: Attack of the Crab Monsters, Bride of Frankenstein, Castle of Terror, Doctor Jekyll as Mr. Hide, Fire Maidens of Outer Space, Godzilla, House on Haunted Hill, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Journey To The Center Of The Earth, King Kong, Lost Continent, Murders in the Rue Morge, Night of the Living Dead – Night Gallery, Phantom of the Opera, Return of Count Yorga, Slaughter of the Vampires, Thirteen Ghosts, Unknown Island, Vampire Lovers, War of the Colossal Beast, Doctor “X”, and Black Zoo.
I can not find movies for the letters E, O, Q, & Y. But I found the rest of the letters. The first issue was good but I am not that interested in STAR TREK. But I still liked it. I hope you can make something out of some of my requests. They are pretty good.
Sincerely, Michael Thompson
We’ll see what can do, Mike. Also we’ll see if we can unearth something on “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers”, “The Outer Limits”, “Queen of Outer Space”, and maybe even, “Yog, Monster from Space”. Well, maybe we’ll skip Yog, which was a real Yecch!
WORDS FROM WEIRD, WOEBEGONE W. VA.
Dear Sir,
The first issue of THE MONSTER TIMES was a very pleasant surprise. The cover was nice but I liked the centerfold quite a bit more. The articles I liked best were “The Men Who Saved KING KONG”, the illustrated version of NOSFERATU, The Monster Market (great idea!), Books, “The Monster Times Teletype”, and The Old Abandoned Warehouse. The articles I enjoyed least were “The Collected Works of BUCK ROGERS” (I know it was a review but I just don’t like BUCK ROGERS), and “THINGS TO COME”.
I wish very much that you have lots of photos and articles on Hammer Films, Peter Cushing and especially on Christopher Lee. These are my favorite subjects in the monster and terror business.
I also want to see some reviews on some fanzines (has something happened to George?, I haven’t been getting my issues as of lately) and more work from your contributing artists. Try to print as much info as you can on the upcoming films because that is something that really interests me. Best of luck on upcoming issues. Many thanks!
Respectively yours, Mike Phillips Tornado, WV
“George” may possibly be doing some fanzine reviews for THE MONSTER TIMES. As to their circulation problems, that’s not yet our department. If you want an answer to your question, let GEORGE do it!
MT: FRIEND OF FANDOM
Dear Peoples,
I want to wish you all the luck in the world with your innovative, new publication. It’s about time someone came out with a national magazine that recognizes fandom (In my case, it’s comics.) and the ideas and ideals of its members.
Pax, Duffy Vohland Clarksburg, Indiana
Well, Duffy, it seems these days that every new talent in writing and comic art grew from fan-dom. Perhaps you, too, may contribute to THE MONSTER TIMES.
MONSTERS, NO! MT YES!
Dear Sirs:
I’m not really a monster fan but your new paper sounds like it would be interesting even to a non-monster fan.
Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Prince Valiant, Tarzan, Doc Savage
Monsters? Yeah, I realize they each met their monsters! Sounds very good and since I am especially a Tarzan fan, I’m interested in what happens at National with the new Tarzan comic line. And I hear Doc Savage will be out from Marvel. Now if someone would get Flash Gordon back on the market…
John Rose La Crosse, Texas
We’ve got an interview with George (the time machine) Pal coming up soon. He talks about his new plans to film the “Doc Savage” books. Watch for it!
SO YOU DIG GODZILLA … ?
Dear Sirs,
I’ve been asking many magazine companies to print reports, photos and posters of “GODZILLA” and some of his great movies. I’d like to see “GODZILLA” destroy AND wreck and demolish KONG! So please print it in, I think you will, because you asked us to encourage you. I hope to see some reports and scenes and posters in your next issue.
Sincerely, Bruno De Bueris
OK, Bruno, GODZILLA ya wants, GODZILLA ya gets … in a couple of more issues. We’re planning a gigantic Japanese Monster Film issue very soon, anyway, and have access to the original GODZILLA lobby cards. Sooo…
A BLESSING IN GRAVE DISGUISE
Dear Sirs:
The Monster Times really promises to be a high-quality publication. The issue you devoted to STAR TREK was really done well. It showed the thing that many fantasy and Sci-fi publications leave out. What I mean is it showed some love for the subject. Are you going to do an article on the STAR TREK convention?
The convention was one of the greatest I’ve ever been to. Also in this letter is included some artwork I did. Maybe there’s room somewhere. In closing “LIVE LONG AND PROSPER”.
MARC BILGREY New York, N.Y.
Don’t ever say that to a Zombie! An article on the STAR-TREK-CON is in issue No. 5.
MT AND THE COMPETITION
Dear Sirs,
Good Luck with “The Monster Times”. It looks best pro-monster mag in years. “Famous Monsters” is all reprints and “Castle of Frankenstein” has dropped in quality sharply after No. 13 issue and gone downhill ever since. I hope to see “The Monster Times” (hope, hope) continue for many years.
Best, Bob Martin
We hope so, too, Bob (hope! hope!).
A HASTINGS MISJUDGEMENT
Dear Sirs:
In regard to your issue “Volume 1 No. 2”, the feature on page 12, “TV Spacemen of the 50’s”, your research is sloppy.
Video Ranger is Don Hastings, not Hayes, and at the present time he is a permanent character named “Dr. Bob” on the soap opera “As The World Turns”. His brother, Bob Hastings, is the sidekick! to E. Borgnine. Also, although the special effects in Capt. Video could have an unintentionally comic aspect, neither character was so deliberately conceived Enjoyed your issue about Star Trek – Is your “Dean Alphesus Latimer” the D.A. Latimer of “X” fame?
Also, the strip on page 10, is whoever drew that the same guy who used to do a comic called “Bobly Benson and the B-Bar B Boys” and assorted others in the late 40’s or early 50’s?
C. Blomquist
Yes, we goofed. Yes, it is “The Latimer.” Sorry, we don’t know if there even WAS a comic called “Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Boys.” You say there was. Guess there was.
WHERE BE THE FAN CLUB?
Dear Monster Times:
I am quite pleased with your newspaper. Except that I think you should make it a bit longer.
In your first issue you mentioned about “Fan Club Info” where you mentioned the idea of Buttons. Well I would like to know where I can get them.
Good luck with your newspaper.
Sincerely, Steven Reichman Merrick, Long Island
Just keep reading THE MONSTER TIMES, Steve, and you’ll learn more about our fan club, soon enough.
HE WAITS IMPATIENTLY
Dear MONSTER TIMES,
I think THE MONSTER TIMES is great! The special STAR TREK issue was fascinating. William Shatner has a good many of the characteristics of the series Captain Kirk. Your first issue was great! also. I can’t wait to find out some more about the production of KING KONG!
In the STAR TREK issue you asked. for opinions from your readers. Well, I wish you would dedicate an issue to vampires and werewolves alone. Maybe you could, in detail, follow along a plot for a movie. THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA for instance. Then maybe you could do an issue all about dinosaur movies. Well anyway, loved your first two issues and I’m waiting impatiently for the third on Giant Insects!
Ron Dionne L.I., N.Y.
We’ve got a Prehistoric Issue and a Hammer Issue in the works, Ron. Just hold your breath!
Send us so many letters, postcards, boosts, detractions, bomb_threats, etc., that the Post Office will have to deliver our mail with a bulldozer. Address all correspondence to: THE MONSTER TIMES, Box 595, Old Chelsea Station, N.Y., 10011.
Wellp, gang! We’ve all seen those “10 Best” film lists, Every film, it seems, gets on one of them. There’s always some moron who’ll like just about anything, and praise a film in a printed review (for a price). But what about films on the reverse/end of the spectrum? What about opuses which are so bad that no one will even admit that he’s ever heard of them? Don’t they deserve a dishonorable mention? Or an honorable belch? Yes! They DO deserve an honorable belch! (We’re Democratic, here at THE MONSTER TIMES!) Where other films get Promo, we get Bromo; as we proudly present
10 CRUMBIEST OF ’71
(1) MOON ZERO TWO. Billed as the first space-western, this Hammer film was literally selling in 8mm home versions before it played theatrically in most major cities. Perhaps Warner Brothers, its distributor, wanted to check audience reaction to such ideas as “showdown in moon crater seven”, “heading ’em off at the comet”, and “riding off into a supernova.” Obviously, with cardboard settings and 3rd rate special effects, things didn’t go over too well, not even for the film’s hero James Olson who had to wait for his role in Robert Wise’s ANDROMEDA STRAIN to really appreciate the meaning of the word star. MOON ZERO TWO today still remains unviewed by most fans, perhaps this is most fortunate. Thank your lucky “stars”, fans!
(2) FROM EAR TO EAR. Filmmaker Jerry Gross certainly lives up! to his last name in his picture releases, and is here represented by one of his distinctly grosser outings. FROM EAR TO EAR was, we hear, quite a sensational and provocative picture when released in France under its original title of THE COUSINS. But when Gross’ Cinemation Industries were finally finished re-editing, re-scoring, re-titling, and re-dubbing – the end product could have been more tastefully served up by the mad butcher of Market Street.
It’s plain to even the most rank film viewer that FROM EAR TO EAR is nothing but a pastiche of this and that put together by a madman on some dank and rainy inebriated afternoon. We can just sit back and pray that Gross never acquires rights to something like THE WIZARD OF OZ; the publicity campaign for that flick! would no doubt boggle the mind.
(3) GAS-S-S-S-S. Luckily Roger Corman’s film GAS failed to play extensively in the New York metropolitan area, but reports from other correspondents say that most of the nation wasn’t so lucky, with some areas having to sit through this film on a truly horrifying first-run basis.
Producer Corman certainly must have beaten his three-day record for shooting a film (i.e. THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS) when he churned out this ridiculous Teenage Take-over film which supposedly deals with the search for peace in a war-torn land. You see, a mysterious vapor is set loose killing all people over twenty-five years of age, with the teenyboppers then running around in their new world with every trait they hated about the departed adults.
Not even the cameo appearance | by God could save this trite piece from being anything but tasteless drivel. Corman, creator of the great Poe masterpieces, must have really been GASSSSSSED!
(4) LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH. would have been more aptly titled LET’S BORE PEOPLE TO DEATH by its producers, since that’s exactly what happened to audiences everywhere who were conned into seeing this picture through an effective but grossly misleading ad campaign. Expired audiences’ carcasses were carted from theatres surreptitiously by moving men in dead of night & sold Vio medical schools. If anyone you know disappeared during this Imovie’s run in your neighborhood, notify the Missing Person’s Bureau immediately!
Hoping to latch onto the crest of the low budget cult films like CARNIVAL OF SOULS or NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, the men behind Jessica’s skirts just intertwined the plot lines of the two aforementioned pictures, hired a host of unknown actors, and placed them in the standard locales and situation. Result: an unredeemable bomb with the utter lack of any talent or imagination sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb.
(5) NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS. What happened when MGM found out their lowest budgeted film of 1970, HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, became their biggest money-making hit in drive-ins across the nation? Well the cry came shrieking down from the top brass, “Let’s do it again, but this time let’s cut corners and see how much more bread we can put in our pockets.” And that’s just the way this second Dan Curtiss cinema outing appear: cheap and unconvincing in every aspect. Gone is Jonathan Frid, gone is any hint at the vampire legend, gone is any horror and suspense, and, thusly, gone is the audience.
Dark Shadows’ alumni David Selby and Lara Parker came across on the big screen much as they did on the small one – with all the hammy histrionics you might expect on amateur night at the graveyard. This, coupled with poor settings, hackneyed script, and abominable sound and lighting made NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS one of the most literal “horror” films of ’71.
(6) WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH. The preceding year, 1970, was certainly the season for pre-historic fantasies, and England’s Hammer Films was no doubt the chief purveyor of such seemingly meager motion picture fare. Their first effort, WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH, basically followed the same pattern as their ’65 “classic” ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. – although they deleted the two main ingredients of the first: the writhing of Raquel Welch and the workmanship of special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen.
DINOSAURS star Victoria Vetri was delightful to look at, yet she just couldn’t reach the heights attained by Miss Welch – even with her beautifully wired push-up halter.
And although DINOSAURS animators Jim Danforth and David Allen are competent in their animated model work, they still have yet to achieve the masterwork of artist Ray Harryhausen, who ability to bring humanized life to his creations is as unequaled as it is uncanny.
WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH became so much of nothing after a short time, even though they obviously tried for at least a half-hearted imitation.
(7) But if you thought DINOSAURS was bad, its follow-up, CREATURES THE WORLD FORGOT, quickly pales in comparison.
It’s obvious these cave-man outings are one of the best studio investments around for Continental production companies. They’re inexpensive to shoot, with no sets. no costumes, and not even dialogue to worry about. But does Hammer really sincerely believe that American audiences are going to sit still much longer for these sandstone soap operas. From the box-office receipts, it would seem the only people seeing these films are the sex fiends among us who enjoy the abundances of flesh usually offered up by the latest new budding Hammer starlet that these flicks endeavor to showcase.
In this case, it is Swedish bombshell Julie Ege, who does a goodly share of bouncing and writhing – but this time without any form of stop motion animation monster-izing to back it up. If you must see it, make sure you see the R-rated version; there’s a milder GP cut version going around which is completely worthless.
(8) THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA. Ye Gods, Christopher Lee imitator Robert Quary is back again without any explanation for his death in the first film; and once more he’s saying almost the same lines and killing off the same victims he put the bite on first time around.
Now I realize COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE was American-International’s biggest success of 1970, and don’t blame them a bit for setting up a quick sequel; but I do take arms when they just re-shoot the same script with the same actors – and then have the utter nerve to release the two on a double bill. The first one was bad enough, and then to have to sit through the same mediocrity once again is almost too much for anyone reviewer to take sitting down.
Actually, they were going to call it THE REPLAY OF COUNT YORGA, but felt this just might strain audience reaction to the final limit.
(9) THE MEPHISTO WALTZ. No doubt one of the slickest and most lavishly produced horror films of 1971, this picture had all the originality of a xerox machine, coupled with the tantamount suspense of a toothpaste commercial.
Everybody else is following some leader’s trend, and in this case it was 20th Century Fox hoping for a quick victory and coup over the success of William Castle’s earlier ROSEMARY’S BABY for Paramount. The former was successful because of three main reasons: the acting talent, the fine plotting, and Roman Polanski’s direction. MEPHISTO WALTZ failed because it just lacked any of the fine attributes of the Polanski effort.
Of course we get the weird music, maniacal settings, and even the devil himself in WALTZ, but even Satan, with all his power, had to falter when confronted with such bumbling direction and editing. Only Peyton Place beauty Barbara Parkins served as eye-ball relief for bored and angered viewers.
(10) Last and least among the ten worst could be a film that even sounds bad when you say the title, GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO COUNT DRACULA.
Made on what seems like a twenty-dollar budget, the film in actuality was made over three times on the same set – once with the actors wearing clothes under the original title, then again in the buff as DOES DRACULA REALLY SUCK?, and once more as a really degenerate romp entitled DOES DRACULA REALLY …?
And no matter what way you see it, it still lacks any sort of taste or talent – although the clothed version is said to be the most boring of the three versions, even with its scant eighty-minute running time.
DISHONORABLE NEAR MISSES!
And that sort of wraps up the ten worst of ’71, although there are 10 others that could have easily made the list – pictures such as HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN CAT O’NINE TAILS, THE INCREDIBLE TWO-HEADED TRANSPLANT, THE VELVET VAMPIRE, BRAIN OF BLOOD, BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT, CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND, FRANKENSTEIN ON CAMPUS, THE BEGUILED, and the ever-popular epic adventure seriocomedy SIMON, KING OF THE WITCHES! Simon, the Witch-King made his home in a Los Angeles sewer. Supposedly, this was to make him a pitiable, sympathetic character. We agree, living in a L.A. sewer must have been a plight, with no one to talk to but the producers and writers of the afore-mentioned films!
We were first thinking of naming this article. EDGAR ALLAN POE MEETS ROGER CORMAN!, but figured at the last minute that Corman should get top billing, as he’s yet alive. Roger Corman is the semi-brilliant producer who started the cycle of Edgar Allan Poe-based films that came out in the 1960’s, films starring Vincent Price, mainly, but also featuring Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney, Jr., and even current sneering young superstar, Jack Nicholson. Roger Corman is best described as “The Monster Who Devoured Good Taste.” The Late Boris Karloff is said to have once remarked about Roger Corman’s “Poe films” which bear little or nothing at all in common with Poe’s stories; “Poor Poe! – the things they did to him when he wasn’t around to defend himself!”
Authentic or not, the Corman-Poe films were highly successful, and considered by many to be the charming best, produced by the controversial Corman, and inspired a rash of imitations, by such “high-brow” European film directors as Federico Fellini and Roger Vadim, who paid the sincerest form of flattery to Corman & (incidentally) Poe, by following religiously the formulas Cantankerous Corman developed with his warp-minded scriptwriter, Richard (“I Am Legend”) Matheson.
Here, then, is what inevitably happens when …
ROGER CORMAN meets EDGAR ALAN POE
There’s been a lot of talk over the past few years about Roger Corman, the aging boy wonder of the Grade-B film. Some critics hail him as a horror genre genius. Others blast him as an overrated hack. Most maintain an in-between position. With all the reams of Corman-copy rolling off the presses of late, Corman has at the very least secured for himself the title of Hollywood’s most overpublicized unsung producer.
It seems to me that Roger Corman is somewhat like his hero, old Edgar Allan Poe himself, in more ways than one – although admittedly on a considerably smaller scale. Poe was capable of mixing genius with mediocrity, tension with melodrama, originality with cliche; his worlds could flow or collide, often within the pages of the same short story or even in the same paragraph.
The same holds true with Corman in the film medium.
Roger (I can afford to be familiar with him since I’ve never met the man) can turn out an occasional film of brilliant quality, of haunting beauty, of honest tension, of chilling terror… but where you find pearls you might also find swine, and Corman’s churned out more than his share of sausage. Again, like Poe, he often mixes both, unintentionally I trust, within the same film.
Corman’s first effort was an independently produced and fortunately forgotten bomb entitled Monster From the Ocean Floor, starring a then-unknown actor (who managed to retain the status) named Stuart Wade and it was released in 1954. Shortly after this Corman went to work for the $ – oriented American – International Pictures which had just begun its initial operation and with whom he is still affiliated. Here Corman turned, and sometimes churned out! a vast number of features in different genres, including westerns (The Gunslinger, Apache Woman), crime capers ( Machine Gun Kelly. Thunder Over Hawaii). ancient spectacles (Atlas – one of his better films by the way), pulp adventure (The She Gods of Shark Reef and The Saga of The Viking Women And Their Journey To the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent – which is not even worth saying, no less seeing), and juvenile delinquent thriller efforts (Rock All Night, Sorority Girl But the horror film seemed to be Corman’s first love, and strongpoint, even from the beginning.
Between 1955 and 1959 Corman unleashed such fetching titles as Teenage Caveman, War of the Satellites, Bucket of Blood, The Wasp Woman, The Beast From Haunted Cave, Day the World Ended. It Conquered the World, The Beast With a Million Eyes, and many, many others. The quality of these early quickies varied greatly from film to film. It Conquered the World (1956) worked on a cheap and absurd premise and featured a monster from Venus that looked like a vegetable dealer’s nightmare – a giant carrot with a hideous face and telepathic powers. Yet the cutting on It Conquered the World was great–fast-paced and tense and at times little short of brilliant.
The Day the World Ended (1955) was a little nuclear parable about the last people on Earth (and a particularly obnoxious! bunch at that) that was entirely forgettable with the notable exception of one scene in which a contaminated character (Paul Dubov) is slowly changing from man to mutant. Spending his days foraging through the polluted wasteland outside the shelter, he returns to his human companions each night to sleep. One night he comes in and the hero (Richard Denning) asks him what he does out there. In the dark stillness of the bedroom, the semi-mutant, his face scarred by radiation, turns to our hero and sighs: “Wonderful things happen out there.” The cryptic reference to the primeval world outside the shelter achieves a truly chilling effect, and Cor. man carries it off remarkably well. Such moments, however, were all too rare in the early Corman productions.
More interesting were Corman’s Filmgroup Co. productions. Filmgroup was a spin-off from American – International and turned out three films – two horror-comedies (The Little Shop of Horrors and Creature From the Haunted Sea) and one end-of-the-world affair called The Last Woman On Earth.
With those minor successes under his belt. Roger Corman introduced himself (and vast audiences of thrilled monster fans) to Edgar Allan Poe…
ROGER CORMAN MEETS EDGAR ALLAN POE
Corman’s first attempt at capturing the world of Edgar Allan Poe on the screen was The House of Usher, a shortening of Poe’s original title The Fall of … etc. Most critics agree that The House of Usher was a pretty successful screen grafting of the original Poe material, being fairly faithful to the original and featuring some fine atmospheric sets with, of course, the perennial fog machines pumping madly away throughout the proceedings- as they would throughout most of Corman’s Poe adaptations (in fact I wonder if Vincent Price could find his way if he didn’t have an eerie fog to stealth through).
Price is well cast as Roderick Usher, a man tormented by the agonizing sensitivity of his own senses, – a theme explored in a variety of ways in a number of Poe’s works. “Have I not told you that what you call madness is but an over acuteness of the senses?” asks Poe in another story, The Tell-Tale Heart. and it is a question he must have asked himself more than once during his own tortured life. It was Poe’s over acuteness of the imagination, in fact, that drove him to alcohol, drugs, and despair, eventually stranding him in a personal hell haunted by terrifying demons of his own design. In his portrait of Roderick Usher, who suffers from fits of extreme catatonia resembling the death state, Poe describes a man perched at the outer edges of agonizing pleasure and unspeakable pain, the helpless victim of the assaults of both.
Price as Usher looks the ultimate portrait of self-contained suffering as he exhibits the pale but striking elegance of the damned. Sights and sounds and smells continuously attack his defenseless senses. Sights too vivid, too bright sear his sensitive eyes, burn his retina, blind the raw exposed nerves of his brain; sounds knife their way through the delicate membrane of his ears, smells choke his nostrils and bully his imagination; everything he perceives can turn on him in an instant! to strangle his shaky and dwindling! sanity.
THE HOUSE OF USHER (the story)
Philip Winthrop (MARK DAMON) arrives unannounced at the House of Usher to see his fiancée, Madeline (MYRNA FAHEY). That night at dinner, Roderick (VINCENT PRICE), last male in the long line of Ushers, makes it clear that Philip is to leave. Philip’s plan to marry Madeline is violently opposed by her brother who says that Madeline is dying and that they both suffer from the strange madness of the Usher family which he is determined shall die with them. Philip is aware of weird crackling noises each time the House shudders. Bristol (HARRY ELLERBE), the butler, explains it away as a fissure that has been in the wall of the House for years.
During the next few days mysterious attempts on Philip’s life animate the horror of the House, and when Madeline takes him to the family crypt, a coffin unexplainably crashes at their feet. Madeline faints and is carried to her room. Later, Philip finds her lying fully dressed across her bed. Apparently dead, she is placed in her coffin and moved to the chapel where Roderick insists on immediate burial.
The next morning Philip learns from Bristol that Madeline was subject to cataleptic fits and instantly realizes she has been buried alive. He confronts Roderick with this truth and Roderick accepts the accusation but explains that it was done for love of his sister and the compelling need to prevent the tainted, evil Usher blood from spreading to other generations. He assures Philip that Madeline is now dead.
That night Philip awakens, grief-stricken, and seeks Madeline’s coffin. In the crypt he finds bloodstains leading across the floor to a hidden passageway. Madeline, who has escaped from her coffin, is now completely insane and, possessed of superhuman strength, attacks Philip. He breaks her grasp but she eludes him and seeks her tormentor, Roderick.
A violent storm shakes the House, causing the fissure to split open. Philip helplessly watches the beamed ceiling fall upon the struggling Madeline and Roderick. Bristol drags Philip to safety and dashes back into the inferno to perish with the last of the Ushers. In seconds the house disappears in flames as its last remnants sink into the tarn.
The House of Usher is no more … and the place whereon it stood is as if … it had never been.
For Roderick Usher, life is a permanent bad trip, with death and worse – the catatonic state and the possibility of being buried alive – trailing him like a demon on a deadly assignment. Price plays the part of Usher with an admirable restraint so often missing from his later roles, when he began to caricature his own acting style. Elegantly tall and gaunt, with a shock of prematurely white hair, he looks like a man waging constant war against an agonizing migraine headache. Floyd Crosby’s incredibly rich and beautiful color photography emphasizes Price’s pale, phantom-like character, and visually the film is nothing short of a masterpiece, capturing the almost too intense vision of Usher himself, for this is the way we imagine that he must have seen the world – colors ultra-bright, shadows unbearably dark through his oversensitive eyes, through the enemy senses that seek, unwittingly, to destroy him. These elements make Corman’s first furtive entry into the strange world of Edgar Allan Poe a haunting one indeed.
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, there are a large number of defects evident in this film. Foremost is the low budget Corman had to work with (he was employed by American International remember) and this studio-dictated poverty shows its lean face on a number of occasions.
The special effects, particularly during the climactic scene in which the House of Usher not only falls but burns into the bargain, leave much to be desired. The House itself and the surrounding scenery contain no suggestion of a larger world existing around it: in other words, it looks like a movie set, one fairly faithful to the period being depicted, but the artifice shines through to negative effect. A sense of an outer, “saner” world is important in establishing a contrast between the bizarre deathwish House of Usher and its haunted inhabitants and the overwhelming! Mundanity of the daylight planet in a dark corner of which the House is situated. The acting too (aside, of course, from the inimitable Vincent Price) is very awkward and “stagey” and often sounds more like an early rehearsal rather than a final take (though I don’t know if American-International is into making such subtle distinctions). Mark Damon, an innocuous Hollywood pretty boy, is woefully miscast as the suitor of Usher’s younger sister (played by Myrna Fahey, who is no great shakes as an actress herself). Damon was never dynamic enough to be either interesting or entertainingly terrible and he served as a blandly handsome presence in a number of films more minor than this one (an apprenticeship, by the way, which turned out to be his entire career). Jack Nicholson was doing occasional work for American International at the time and would have been a far better choice for the role. But despite these and other shortcomings, I still think that the House of Usher was a basically honest and at least partially successful attempt to translate the word images of Poe to the screen.
PIT AND THE PENDULUM (the story)
Francis Barnard (JOHN KERR) journeys to Spain to learn more of the death of his only sister, Elizabeth (BARBARA STEELE). He is met at the door of the Castle Medina by Catherine (LAURA ANDERS), sister of Nicholas Medina (VINCENT PRICE).
Nicholas appears and tells Francis that his sister died from a blood disease and leads him to the burial room where the casket is bricked in behind the wall. Francis senses something wrong despite Nicholas’ story of devotion to his sister, while Nicholas seems haunted by strange proceedings in Elizabeth’s room.
When Dr. Leon (ANTHONY CARBONE) a family friend and Elizabeth’s physician arrives, Francis questions him, learning that Elizabeth died of fright. Nicholas protests that he only wanted to spare Francis the details, then shows him the torture chamber where Nicholas’ father, Sebastian, practiced the cruelties of the Inquisition. Nicholas tells how Elizabeth seemed fascinated by the place, her mind gradually deteriorating until one night she was found inside the iron box in the chamber, frozen with terror and whispering “Sebastian” as she died.
Later, Catherine tells Francis of Nicholas’ childhood. He had been forbidden to enter the torture chamber, but had crept inside and secretly witnessed the death of his mother and uncle, for adultery, at the hands of his father.
That night, the household is awakened by the sound of the harpsichord, which only Elizabeth could play. Nicholas is found in the music room, numb with terror, clutching a ring supposedly buried with Elizabeth. Dr. Leon gives him a sedative and puts him to bed, then explains to Catherine and Francis that Nicholas is obsessed with the idea that Elizabeth has been buried alive, suffering the same fate that befell his mother.
At breakfast, Dr. Leon, Francis and Catherine hear sounds of destruction coming from Elizabeth’s room. They hurry upstairs and Nicholas, coming out of his room unlocks the door and collapses in the shambles they find. Francis finds a passage leading from Nicholas’ room to Elizabeth’s and accuses Nicholas of creating the mysterious occurrences himself. Nicholas is terrified at the idea of having unconsciously done these things, and Leon suggests that the only way to settle the matter is to exhume Elizabeth’s body. The casket reveals a tortured corpse-but not that of Elizabeth. Nicholas’ mind, at this point, is beginning to snap and he attempts suicide.
That night, Nicholas is awakened by a woman’s voice calling his name, and he follows the sound through the secret passage. The voice draws him to the burial room where the real Elizabeth rises from the casket and chases him to the torture chamber. Dr. Leon enters and chides her for not waiting for him. She merely laughs and gloats over what is revealed to be a joint plot with her lover, Dr. Leon, to drive Nicholas mad and get his money.
Nicholas, now completely insane, assumes his father’s identity and proceeds to dispose of his faithless wife and her lover as his father did. In the struggle, Dr. Leon falls to his death in the pendulum pit. Francis enters the chamber and Nicholas lashes him to the table and sets the razor-sharp pendulum in motion. Catherine and the butler, Maximillian (PATRICK WESTWOOD), set Francis free just in time, and in a struggle, Nicholas is pushed into the pit and dies. The evil Elizabeth is left to die, locked in an iron box, unbeknownst to the others.
Oddly enough, Corman’s second effort was a lot less successful and if the word is appropriate here, a lot less sincere. The Pit And the Pendulum suffered from a severe, even terminal case of the Schlocks. a common disease afflicting all too many of A-I’s projects and the film did a great disservice to Poe. Some of its symptoms included a less restrained performance by Price, an excessive and obsessive devotion to the great God Cliche, poor production values, and a script by Richard Matheson (normally a competent enough writer but really on the skids here) that elaborated Poe’s idea into almost total oblivion, substituting in its place a melodramatic melange of horror movie cliches. Yes, there is a pit and a pendulum in the film (they don’t let you forget it for more than five frames at a stretch) but beyond that any resemblance to Edgar Allan Poe is purely coincidental.
The pit and the pendulum device is endlessly exploited in a heavy. handed attempt to build up bogus suspense and the whole film is as plodding as the footsteps of the Frankenstein monster himself, Corman’s own limits and Grade-B tendencies, backed by A-I’s usual niggardly budget, worked together to turn this one into a real hack job. Performances are uninspired, with the notable and unforgettable exception of Barbara Steele (a dark-eyed beauty whose gloomy eroticism continues to haunt this minor madman’s dreams, but we won’t go into that here). Miss Steele is incapable. I believe (her eyes, her moody smile, her certain way of walking, of talking… I luff zo much za beauties from za crypt!) of giving anything but a great performance. Price does a lusty (if that’s the euphemism I’m groping for) performance, and while John Kerr is not quite as bad as Mark Damon, he can be as boring as the next guy (and you know how boring he can be). All in all, The Pit And the Pendulum can best be described as a mistake and I, for one, don’t want to pay it any more mind if that, indeed, is what I’ve been paying it thus far).
But stay tuned for the next installment in this thoroughly absorbing series of articles when we will take a closer look at Premature Burial, Tales of Terror, and The Raven, a trio of more Corman-Poe thrillers…
