THE HARVEY KURTZMAN HISTORY OF COMIC ART FROM ARGH TO ZAP
Harvey Kurtzman’s brilliant talent has launched such permanent segments of the American idiom as MAD magazine, HUMBUG, TRUMP, HELP, and LITTLE ANNIE FANNY.
The time has again come for another Kurtzman creation! This time the Kurtzman touch gives birth to the first bible of comic book art…A HISTORY OF COMIC ART “FROM ARGH TO ZAP!”
In this superb 9 x 12 hardcover, Harvey Kurtzman carefully analyzes the classic work of the great comic book artists. His commentary delightfully carries you from the dawn of the Golden Age of comic book art to the current genius of the underground artists,
Over 15 entire stories have been fully reproduced directly from the original drawings. Here you have complete stories by FRANK FRAZETTA, AL. WILLIAMSON. ROY KRENKEL, JACK DAVIS, GRAHAM INGELS, WALLY WOOD, ROBERT CRUMB, HARVEY KURTZMAN, plus many, many others.
CLOTHBOUND 208 pages (16 in full color) $14.95
CAPTAIN AMERICA by JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY
In 1941 two of the greatest superhero teams were born simultaneously…SIMON and KIRBY and CAPTAIN AMERICA and BUCKY! Working together for only 10 issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA, Simon and Kirby’s dynamic artistry soared to instant success. This deluxe 812 x 11 clothbound collector’s edition has reprinted the greatest stories of those first 10 issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA! This 128 page bonanza brings you the ORIGIN of both CAPTAIN AMERICA and the RED SKULL, THE RETURN OF THE RED SKULL, HORROR HOSPITAL, CAPTAIN AMERICA MEETS THE FANG, as well as many other stories from the files of Simon and Kirby’s CAPTAIN AMERICA!
CLOTHBOUND 128 pages $6.95
FLASH GORDON INTO the WATER WORLD of MONGO by Alex Raymond
Now at last the companion volume to our first unforgettable FLASH GORDON edition is available! The full development of Alex Raymond’s illustrative genius is dramatically reproduced in this 9 x 12 hardcover volume. A complete two and a half years of FLASH GORDON have been painstakingly reprinted from the original proofs beginning with FLASH’s entrance into the Water World at April 12, 1936 to his banishment to the Forest Kingdom of Mongo on October 10, 1938. This surprise package of 1971 is ready for immediate shipment.
CLOTHBOUND – 144 pages $12.95
ALEX RAYMOND’S FLASH GORDON
Alex Raymond was an illustrator’s illustrator. His FLASH GORDON from the 1930’s were unique examples of comic art that step beyond Camp and Pop into the realm of Fine Art. See Flash, Dale and Dr. Zarkov battle the tyrant Ming in this handsome 9- 12 hardcover collector’s edition ExtraA biography of Alex Raymond by Al Williamson.
Comic strips have never been the same since that day in 1934 when Terry Lee and Pat Ryan sailed into the China Sea! View the Oricnt as it was and never will be again as TERRY AND THE PIRATES set sail again in Nostalgia Press’ hardcover volume bringing you this strip from its very first day! From Oct. 22, 1934 to Dec. 13, 1935.
CLOTHBOUND – 196 pages $12.50
EC. HORROR LIBRARY OF THE 1950’s
Dim the lights and close the doors as those FETID FOLKTALES of the 1950’s bubble forth in FULL COLOR from the witch’s cauldron. A selection of the greatest scare stories from HAUNT OF FEAR, TALES FROM THE CRYPT, and VAULT OF HOROR…including a rare unpublished TERROR TALE.
CLOTHBOUND – 208 pages $19.95
NOSTALGIA COMICS
An exciting bi-monthly publication dedicated to reprinting the classics of the comic strip from the 1930’s and 1940’s. Already planned for the first issues are Alex Raymond’s RIP KIRBY, vintage POPEYE, the daily FLASH GORDON, MINUTE MOVIES, GASOLINE ALLEY, BRICK BRADFORD, SECRET AGENT X-9. The PHANTOM and many other classics!
Single Copy $3.00 6 Issue Subscription $15.00
LEE FALK’S THE PHANTOM
The sign of the PHANTOM Y has meant excitement for readers all over the world ever since it first appeared! Now on 80 thrill-packed pages follow THE GHOST WHO WALKS through one of his best adventures from the ’30’s!
PAPERBOUND 80 pages $3.00
LEE FALK’S MANDRAKE the MAGICIAN
When these two hats get tossed into the ring, anything can happen and usually does! Lee Falk has been mixing the real and the fantastic for years ever since 1934! Phil Davis added the art that kept MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN filled with excitement! See how it all began…
CLOTHBOUND – 96 pages $5.95
FANTASY FOTOS SET 1: CAPT. MARVEL, MR. SPOCK, FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER
The real thing! Actual Giant-Sized 8″x10″ photographs of the most popular heroes of the century. Capt. Marvel, who thrilled millions during the ’40’s; Mr. Spock, the futuristic folk hero of today; and the immortal creation; Frankenstein’s Monster.
…$3.00
‘2001: A SPACE ODDYSSEY’ POSTCARD SET
4 beautiful extra large postcards from the greatest SF movie of our times. Send them to friends, relatives; they’ll know your ahead of your time. Buy 2 sets – one for your room.
“AS I WAS FLYING THRU THE SLUMS ONE DAY” DEPARTMENT: Let’s say you’re an average red-blooded green American he-hero, and on some stroke of luck for years you’ve been flying about with long green BVD’s and a magic power ring that helps you fight crooks, right? And all this time you think “Hey, I’m a little short of wonderful!” Until one day you discover you’re a little short of brain one. Like, there you go, flying all over the place, beating up alien invaders from other planets (which is kneat, cause so many of your comic book cronies are still fighting Nazis, and winning WWII with their fists). But all along something’s been happening and you don’t know what it is. Something like slums, and poverty, and pollution and city corruption and heroin addiction and all those things which used to be problems long ago. Long ago, and hoped forgotten.
So, like I said, one day you discover they’re still with us. And all this time you went around saying, “NO EVIL SHALL ESCAPE MY SIGHT” as your power ring poofed you powerful.
Then one day you seem some young punk beating up one of those respectable citizens; a slumlord, no less. One who gouges on rent and doesn’t deliver on the improvements. So you swoop down and wallop the street punk kid, right? I mean who’s HE to go pushing a respectable well-dressed slumlord around, right?
And all the neighbors in the slum are thankful you got one more juvenile delinquent menace off their tenement steps. No more crime in the streets. And no evil escaped YOUR sight, right? And the slum tenants show their thanks…
GREEN LANTERN CO-STARRING GREEN ARROW, No. 1, by Denny O’Neil & Neal Adams, edited by Julius Schwartz. Paperback Library, 75 cents.
GREEN LANTERN-GREEN ARROW was one of the greatest comic books of all times. Was, because that action-sci-fi series has been canceled. The artist, Neal Adams, failed to meet his deadlines, and so the book is dead. This is inside scam of the publishing industry, which only THE MONSTER TIMES dares to print about the big comix conglomerates! Remember: you read it here!
Is the folding of GREEN LANTERN-GREEN ARROW news? Yes, it’s heart-breaking news for anyone who followed the series. They were a mature experiment in “involved” comix with characters who get drawn into the real problems of today, instead of corn-ball beat-up-the-jewel-thieves-at-the-wharf sort of stuff. For over one glorious year, author Denny O’Neil and gifted illustrator Neal Adams made history for Comix, and created a landmark for others who deal in comic book work to try to approach. Just try!
The greatest thing about the late, great, GREEN LANTERN-GREEN ARROW (above all the redeeming social importance, controversial causes, the trendsetting art, the incredible hand-to-hand sockemup fighting sequences, and moral lessons about the necessity of people to think individually, and not follow the herd) was the emotion which the characters felt and made you, the reader feel. Particularly when Green Lantern learns to be self-reliant again and fight with his fists, instead of with his power ring. Or when an alien from a superior civilization tries to comfort a frightened child, and the child hugs him, and the alien wonders: “A strange feeling … an emotion … as this tiny Earthling embraces me – is this what it is to be human?
So, poverty and tenements are good for one issue. What’s next? Right away, poor mine-workers slaving in a company town that’s run by the man who owns the mines … and who “elected himself” sheriff. In other words:
He is LAW! This is like the old song, “Sixteen Tons,” where coal-workers “owe their souls to the company store” – something that happens (amazingly!) to this day in the Southern Appalachian coal-mining regions. Yes, today! Not as drastically as in Denny’s story, but close!
The story was called “Journey to Desolation” and when you finished reading, you really feel you’ve “been there.”
That’s because Denny O’Neil is an author, not just a pennies-per-word comix hack. He feels what he writes, and writes about situations which everyone can identify with. Comic book superheroes went through a “relevancy” act a couple of years back, and Marvel led the way, with the frustrations of Peter Parker, alias, the SPIDERMAN. When SPIDERMAN sold, Marvel had ALL its costumed crusaders “have feelings” – but “feelings” are hard to manufacture, and so most of what passed for “emotion” in Marvel Superheroes was self-pity. And so we saw the weird spectacle of the strongest superheroes in the world whimpering and sniveling about the How the World Doesn’t Understand Them. National DC Comix tried that schtick, also, and had their heroes cry to themselves a lot, too. But that didn’t seem to be the solution and comix sales dropped off for both concerns.
Then Denny O’Neil wrote a GREEN LANTERN story, “No Evil Shall Escape My Sight!” – and gave a superhero something to be worried about, for a change. Like what really is Evil? And Good? Is a slumlord who’s legally evicting poor tenants to build a parking lot, a better person than the tenants who want to beat! him up for shoving them, homeless, out on the streets? And O’Neil did research, and artist Neal Adams photographed real tenements in New York’s East Village to get the feeling of realism to his drawings. This was no slap-dash affair. This was a comic that was FOR REAL.
Both “No Evil Shall Escape My Sight” and Journey to Desolation” are included in this paperback book, billed as “two complete novels” although the break in the narrative has been smoothened by re-writing and new art, so it’s one smooth flow. This book is the first of a series the next due out “soon” following the further wanderings of Green Lantern and Green Arrow, as they travel across America, trying to discover “what is wrong” with their country … our country … trying to find out what really is Good, and what Is Bad, and what is (to quote the author) the “hideous moral cancer that is rotting our very souls!”
If you missed the series in comic book form, you can have it now, as the paperbacks are released. Let me spoil your fun, though: they never find that “hideous moral cancer that is, if there is a “hideous moral cancer” to find at all. Times have always been tough, gang. They’ve been worse back in the days when you could have been burned at the stake for reading THE MONSTER TIMES. The great thing about GREEN LANTERN-GREEN ARROW, when it was alive, was that superheroes were finally paying attention to the problems of the real world, and using people of this world who have real emotions, and real feelings, and real exciting storytelling.
Those of our school-aged readers with who are courageous souls are recommended to try something outrageous … do an in-depth book report on G.L. G.A. for your English teacher. Justify this revolutionary action with quotations of the fine-quality writing style which author O’Neil employs, as his description of a company coal-town: “A tiny hamlet nestled between two dun-colored mountains … a place where poverty is the norm, and tears are more plentiful than bread … where women’s voices sound like the keening wind and men seldom speak … and children quickly learn that life is unending and death is merciful …” Writing like this in a COMIC BOOK! – fergoshsakes!
In case your English teacher doesn’t read O’Neil (Denny, rather than Eugene) fill her in. Green Lantern is a human who inherits a power ring and lantern from a dying alien. For years, now, he’s been taking orders from The Guardians … alien super-intellects who send him all across the universe … NOW he’s back on Earth, refusing to “follow orders” of The Guardians … quit being inter-galactic messenger-boy, and instead will use his powers to help those in America who need his super-help; minorities, poor people, drug addicts (in a recent issue of G.L.-G.A., it is discovered that Speedy, kid assistant to Green Arrow, has become a junkie! -). On this Quest, he takes along Green Arrow, and one of the intergalactic Guardians.
Gee, wish we had a real Green Lantern and a real Green Arrow around to help us all. But what I wish even more is that genius illustrator Neal Adams made his deadlines, so that one of the finest comic books of all time would still be in publication. Boo, Neal Adams!
Chuck McNaughton
*NEWS BULLETIN*
Just as we go to press, a bit of startling news comes to our editorial desk … a welcome reprieve for a great series, from the brass at National. Though the GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW comic book is dead, the Series will live on, 12 pages per installment, in the back of the FLASH comic. Good, engrossing science fiction adventure comix still live in America! Hooray!
Yep, you are the Head Monster, around here, as far as we’re concerned. You, the Reader. You, the Subscriber. You, who digs monsters and horror and science fiction and fantasy in movies & comix & TV & records & books; the whole carnival-ful of wonders that is the Mass-Media Renaissance of this century. These modern, imaginative wonders were made for You, and Your Journal, THE MONSTER TIMES, is also made for YOU! We gather news and info about them for You!
We’ve got an overload of material, and don’t know where to begin. We’ve got so much great stuff on hand, and so many SPECIAL ISSUES already in the works (like a FLASH GORDON ISSUE, and a FRANKENSTEIN ISSUE, and a RAY BRADBURY ISSUE, and an EC HORROR COMICS issue or a TARZAN, EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS issue, and … well we don’t want to tell you too much, some of the competition may be reading!), and we’ve got so many special features in the works, too.
We are planning more columns, reviews, news scoops, listings of events of interest to practically every imaginable sort of fan. We’ve got special new sideline publications planned … top secret stuff, and we’ve even planned a special X-mas supplement combination gift-buying guide of monster products and curios and a section we cheerfully call THE MONSTER TIMES REVIEW OF BOOKS, for those who still read, these days. This should make the New York Times turn green with envy!
We’ve got comix and comics and more of same; no matter how you spell ’em, you’ll be getting them. We’ve got so many posters planned that you’ll have to rent a warehouse to hang them all up.
Like we said, we’ve got more stuff than we can get into print right away. And we want to please you! You’re the Head Monster!
So write us NOW! Tell us what you want to see first, and we’ll comply.
Tell us how certain articles strike you, or if you would like to strike them. Rate us from A-Z, and spell out exactly how you like or dislike our presentation of Strange Stuff.
We particularly want to know about balance ….balance isn’t an easy thing. Kong had balance, ’till they shot him down. Frankenstein had balance with those monster shoes of his, but Der Golem had no balance when he lost his star, and flopped right over. A monster newspaper must walk a fine tightrope of avid but varied reader interest. It must present not only what it THINKS the reader wants, but what the reader DOES want.
So help us keep our balance. Tell us by A, B, C order what you want to see most in MT: monsters, comix, sci-fi, TV, reviews, nostalgia, records, fiction, product tests, news, etc. We will tally up your responses as percentages scientifically, using the largest hat any of our editors wears.
So fill out the form below, and send it in, and we guarantee you your opinion will be read.
Dear MT folk. Ok, so I’m now your Head Monster. That’s really swellish. I think THE MONSTER TIMES should have the following topics emphasized in the following order indicated by A, B, C, or 1, 2, 3, or … any way you want!
__ Classic Horror Sci-Fi Films. __ Articles on Comix. __ Original Comix. __ News. __ Film, Book, Record reviews. __ Product Tests. __ Interviews. __ Other (specify)
Name _____ Age _____ Address _____ City _____ State _____ Zip _____
THE MONSTER TIMES P.O. Box 596, Old Chelsea Station, N.Y. 10011
You’ve read the books! Now read the handy reference book! Just to know which of THE PULPS you’ve read, which you haven’t, and which to collect, if pulp collecting’s your thing.
THE HERO-PULP INDEX. Compiled by Robert Weinberg, with Lohr McKinstry. Opar Press 1971, 48 pages. $3.50.
The best feature of the Hero Pulp Index is the idea behind its creation. Two dedicated fans of the old pulp magazines, Robert Weinberg and Lohr McKinstry, are responsible for putting together a fine informative little book which serves the double purpose of being a research tool for those of us who wish to devote our efforts to collecting, reading, and preserving the pulp magazines of the 1920’s and 1930’s, and being a conversation piece for those of us who dig nostalgia and lowest-common-denominator publishing and who want our conversation to be factual enough.
Pulps were produced by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands. When browsing through back-date magazine stores, or a science-fiction dealer’s wares at a convention, we can almost believe there were as many different titles as there were books printed! Every cowboy, sports, or locomotive nut could read his fill each month, and the fantasy field alone fragmented down into dozens of sub-categories. Sword and sorcery, Oriental tales, fantasy, “hard” S-F, horror, ghost stories, mysterious heroes – each of these exotic subjects had its faithful following.
The Hero Pulp Index would be of primary interest only to those who focused their search for enjoyment on the hero-oriented stories, especially those in series. Here you will find for example listings of all the stories written by Walter Gibson about the famous Shadow. And that’s quite a listing! Gibson alone wrote 285 Shadow novels, and other writers added more, creating a total of 325. Each one is listed by book, author, title, and date.
It’s amusing to scan the titles of these novels, not only the Shadow stories, but others. You can drift off on your imagination reading such lovely titles as The Book of Death, The Green Terror, The Crystal Skull, and Ghoul’s Carnival, to name only the tiniest fragment.
Two other features add to the book’s worth. Each of the heroes in the Index has a healthy paragraph of biography in the 13-page “Guide to the Hero Pulps” section in the back, explaining who he was, what his powers were, what his gimmick was, etc. And throughout the book there are 16 well-chosen samples of pulp covers; good reproductions on permanent stick paper. They satisfyingly set the Nostalgia Gland throbbing.
It is a little (18 page) gem, and you’ll get good value from it, especially since it’s not just a one-time pleasure, but a treat to be often repeated.
Pulp magazines, or “penny dreadfuls” or “the Bloody Pulps” have a long, proud blood-and-thunder history. The pulp paper magazines and novels have been the birthplace of countless great adventure, sword & sorcery, mystery and science fiction characters, from Tarzan to Nick Carter to the Shadow to Conan. Back in the mid-1800’s these inexpensively printed magazine novels were available for a penny a piece, and many early horror novels were printed that way; works like “Varney the Vampyr” and “Barnaby Rudge, the Demon-Barber of Fleet Street.” in the 1840’s. Here, then is a review of … THE PULPS. Fifty Years of American Popular Culture, Compiled and edited by TONY GOODSTONE, Chelsea House, $15.00 (being remaindered now in many bookstores for $6.95).
pulps… rotting to the corpse
When he died, they put up old Skip’s property at auction, and my brother-in-law bought the place cheap. The old guy had lived there for twenty-five years, ever since 1932, on a meager pension, and he’d seldom left it except every other Friday, when he’d walked the nine miles down the twisting two-rut road out of the mountains to the little town, with his old hunting hound, to load up on groceries and Mail Pouch chewing tobacco and shotgun shells and new fishlines and magazines. The dog stopped coming with him about 1950 or so, and when old Skip didn’t show up one weekend, they knew he was gone too.
So we got the place, a sturdy little green cabin by Indian Creek, the filthiest, most cluttered-up hermit shack you ever did see. It looked as though old Skip had spent the last ten years of his celibate there totally unable to bend over and pick anything up off the floor. “Tsk,’ my sister kept marveling while she was cleaning up the place, ‘the poor old geezer, living way out here with nobody around for miles. Lord, and he didn’t even have electricity, not even for a radio. I wonder how he kept from going batty. I mean, what did he do by himself all day, all alone here? He sure didn’t keep himself occupied by cleaning up this pig pen!’
But me, lying up in the loft bunk on that evil-smelling old man’s mattress – that’s where they’d found him, lying all peaceful and stiff as a mounted rainbow trout – I had a good idea how he’d whiled away that tobacco-chewing! eternity, out there all alone in the darkest Adirondacks with Indian Creek howling and yipping along by on its everlasting warpath: damned ole Skip had been tripping out of his wrinkled ole head to places lile Pellucidar, and Mobster Chicago, and the bloody skies over war-torn Europe, and all up and down the Wild West, from Tombstone to Tacoma, in the Rush Days. Yessir, that cabin was piled up and falling over with thousands of old pulp magazines, an exotic compost of old crumbling pulps with radiant neon covers and brownish raggedy-edged paper, reaking of tallow grease and mouse-droppings and ageless corruption: Spicy Detective Stories, Dare-Devil Aces, Western Tales, Racketeer Stories, Parisian Life, Dime Mystery Magazine, Terror Tales, Marvel Science Stories, Nick Carter Mysteries … It was the Alexandria Library of old pulp magazines, Skip’s cabin there; and can you imagine having an open-stacks card to the Alexandria Library? Eat your hearts out, gang!
But Old Skip-style recluses are getting rarer all the time, they’re dropping like flies these days, the attrition rate is something awful. Genuine pulp magazines are consequently quite difficult to obtain now, and, the half-life of that pulp-process raggedy-edged paper being what it was, the copies themselves are generally about as crumbly as the actual Alexandria manuscripts would be if they’d survived.
But don’t despair, gang! I wouldn’t build you up and let you down flat! Now, thanks to Chelsea House Publishers they who resurrected The 1929 Johnson Smith Catalogue – you can obtain a marvelous and elaborate volume called, simply, The Pulps. It is a massive pachyderm of a book, the size of a pauper’s tombstone, and it weighs about five pounds. Edited by a New York actor named Tony Goodstone – a handsome Tarzan-like swain, to go by his dust-jacket photo – The Pulps includes stories by the likes of Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Max Brand, Luke Short, Ray Bradbury, Frank Belknap Long, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, and Stanley G. Wienbaum, as one would expect; and also by some unexpected writers such as Tennessee Williams, Dashiell Hammet, Malcolm Jameson, William McGivern and Paul Gallico. Additionally, it is generously-one might say lavishly – embellished with original pulp illustrations, including notably a splendid four-color portfolio of a hundred pulp covers in all their exquisite tasteless garishness.
To look at these covers will break your hearts, gang. There ain’t nothing like them around no more, nowhere. The logos alone were marvels of calligraphy, and colored so as to shriek right off the page at you. And the pictures, lord, the pictures: those immaculately rendered human, superhuman, and non-human figures, realistic in every last detail of anatomy and expression, but bathed, yes, bathed and dripping in that lambent chromatic radiance that was unique to the pulps, and later to the comic books. Nothing like them at all.
Those covers were beautiful, and what’s more, they sold. What miserable Depression kid, picking! his nose in a WPA crabgrass development complex, could have resisted, for instance, a magazine cover depicting a couple spacesuited supermen dancing gracefully. over the Moon’s landscape, loaded down with bizarre futuristic equipment, with the harvest Earth swimming by in the background under the Amazing logo? Or a Wierd Tales cover by Hannes Bok, showing a skeleton perched before a writing table, entering with a quill into a nameless tome the names of the combatants fighting in the background? And to hide under the mattress, a long-legged blond wearing an abbreviated sunsuit, eating an apple, on the cover of Breezy Stories. They were the thirties equivalent of underground and rock-and-roll, these pulp magazines. No matter how improvished and pedestrian things were, you could flip right out of your head on this stuff.
wing out of a nose-dive
Take for example “The Flaming Arrow’, a story by George Bruce, from The Lone Eagle, 1934:
The Nieuport went ahead with a rush. The wires were screeching. The motor moaned and whined. The tight surfacing of the wings drummed. The slipstream that came back into his face was like a hand clamped over his nostrils and mouth.
‘The stacks grew nearer and nearer. He saw the first buildings of the factory rising out of the horizon. He kicked a little rudder to aim his flying projectile at the exact center of the group of buildings.
‘He was intent upon his course.
‘He never heard the Fokker that dropped in behind him until the whiplash crackling of slugs sounded about his head, and until he saw a tracer flick through the top wing on the Nieuport and explode into tiny bits of phosphorescent smoke. He whirled in his in his seat with a violence that twisted his neck.
“He saw the Fokker. It was close – a hundred and fifty feet behind him. At the first glance the Fokker seemed to be a thing of great eyes, and the eyes were squirting an orange-green venom at his Nieu port. The eyes were the muzzles of twin Spandaus, and the man who handled them was an expert. And he was scoring points.’
Now that’s prose! Brief, iridescent, aggressive sentences, mostly beginning with ‘He’! That’s reading prose, prose to be sucked up into the reader’s head like one long strand of spaghetti, devoured quickly and endlessly, sentence and paragraph! It was punched out in truckload lots by the old pulp writers, many of them composing upwards of thirty pages a day, seven days a week! Today, if one of your typical artisy-flatusy writers was asked to compose anything of this sort, he would directly fall into a seething, bubbling, outraged convulsion of writer’s cramp. But these old pulp word jockeys just rammed it right on out, spinning the old prose like flax, and the pulp-reading public wore it straight on down. Sentence by sentence the fiction would thread up off the page into your head and usually by the end of a paragraph you would have forgotten forever the beginning of it; that’s the way Homer sang, the way the old Norse Eddas were chanted, it’s the best kind of literature ever.
a word from CONAN’s creator:
“By Ymir, it was a battle to madden and make drunken with the slaughter and the fury. The Picts were as ferocious as we, but ours was the superior physique, the keener wit, the more highly developed fighting brain. We won because we were a superior race, but it was no easy victory. Corpses littered the blood-soaked earth; but at last they broke and we cut them down as they ran, to the very edge of the trees. I tell of that fight in a few bald words. I cannot paint the madness, the reek of sweat and blood, the panting, muscle-straining effort, the splintering of bones under mighty blows, the rending and hewing of quivering sentient flesh; above all the merciless abysmal savagery of the whole affair, in which there was neither rule nor order, each man fighting as he would or could … So we cut down the fleeing Picts, and our women came out on the field to brain the wounded enemies with stones, or cut their throats with copper knives. We did not torture. We were no more cruel than life demanded.”
-Robert E. Howard, “The Valley Of The Worm”
So the only trouble with The Pulps here, as a volume, is that you don’t get enough of it. To be sure, you get about two hundred pages of spaghetti prose, and what pages! But I have the feeling that any real pulp reader could glom up two hundred pages of prose on the school bus of a winter morning.
Grave-robbing may be out of style, but fan exploitation isn’t. Monster fans deserve a reliable market test to rely upon before sending money to all-too monstrous manufacturers. Therefore, to dull the fangs of some vampires of our industry, we at MT innovate The Monster Market to product test items, and report accurately on them and about the bargains, too!
IMPORTANT! If we are really going to be able to keep the monster magnates in line, we’ll need your help. Please write in and tell us of your experience in the monster market, whether it be good, bad or none of the above. Write to THE MONSTER TIMES, c/o The Monster-Market. P.O. Box 5 Chelsea Station, N.Y. 10011.
Product Tested: 7-foot tall MONSTER Available at: Honor House, Lynnbrook, New York, 11563 Price: $1.00 plus 25 cents postage – or two for $2.00 plus 25 cents postage.
“HERE Is Your Hideous, Spine-Chilling “BIGGER-THAN LIFE” 7 – Foot Tall FRANKENSTEIN Monster In All His Colorful-Frightening Glory. HAPPY HAUNTING!” – so screamed the blurb on the direction sheet we got with our 7-foot tall MONSTER. And boy were we ever disappointed.
Why? Was the advertising false? No, but we were secretly wishing it! would have been. Behold the MONSTER, pictured in the advertisement reproduced here. When you look at the ad, you think, well, some really rotten commercial artist no doubt tried to copy the great-lookin’ monster that must be on the $1.00 poster. You really hope that. You hope it so strongly, you almost believe that that’s what it’ll be!
And then you get your 7-foot tall MONSTER poster (in “AUTHENTIC COLORS”), and by George! It’s that rotten drawing in the advertisement, blown up SEVEN FEET TALL! And the AUTHENTIC COLORS”? – stomach-churning green, and baneful black, with various mottled shades of gray-green grunge and grungy green-gray between.
What’s more, it’s printed on thin plastic… in two pieces. It has to be joined in the belly with scotch tape.
IS IT WORTH A BUCK?
That’s arguable. Judging by how little a way a dollar goes, these days; maybe. The first reaction of everyone who enters THE MONSTER TIMES’ offices is; “Good Grief! NO!” But then we point out those “GLOW in the dark eyes,” which are two little Tuminescent stickem-paper dots which fit over the monster’s pupils, and do “glow in the dark” however, presto! in the darkened room, all you can see are two little white-yellow spots on your wall. The monster has disappeared! He doesn’t glow in the dark. So the item fulfills all that was promised. The ad’s legit.
But is it worth a buck? Even with glowing eyes?
And how authentic are these “authentic” colors, anyway? Boris Karloff’s facial makeup in the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN film was green, to register corpse-like on the black-and-white film. But this 7-foot creep-ture surely ain’t Boris Karloff!
Wellp, gang! Izzit worth a whole DOLLAR? Authentic colors, glowing eyes, and 7-feet? Remember; it’s not too well-drawn. Remember; it’s in two pieces, which YOU have to Scotch-tape together and if you make a mistake in taping … well, the ad offers a postage discount if you order two. Remember; it’s got a ridiculous bolt screwed right in the center of its forehead! Put it on your wall and someone’s sure to say something about having a screw loose.” Remember; they might not be talking about “the MONSTER.”
IS IT WORTH A WHOLE DOLLAR (plus 25 cents postage)?
That’s for you, the rabid-eyed reader to figure out. We’ve given you the info. It might be worth noting that plastic garbage bags of comparable size cost $1.00 apiece. these days. That’s something in mind, Honor House! You could sell reams of seamed FRANKENSTEIN GARBAGE BAGS for $1.00 – and really (ahem!) clean up. Advertise them as “suitable for framing, or throwing away.” Imagine! A garbage bag with GLOW in the dark eyes!
One more item of note. This plastic poster is different than an ordinary paper poster, in the way you can stick it to the wall “Mount him on your with thumbtacks or Scotch tape and you’ll never feel alone again, Or you can simply place him against the wall and rub all over with your hand, and static electricity should hold him there.” Sure glad they said “should hold him there” – cause it surely didn’t hold him to our wall.
The point of Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN novel was that electricity is the spark of life. That means either we or our wall be dead. Something to think about, surely. Is it worth a buck? Yeah. but only if you can’t find something better.
There is no overall unifying theme to this in-betweener issue … and then again there are two noose-like threads of similarity which tie the articles together. One theme is Melodramatic Soap Operatics; and there’s a rather vague theme of Re-doing Things.
For instance, THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN was a sequel, trying to do over the success of FRANKENSTEIN … and yet though it left a lump in throat, it left a lump in the heart, too, what with Boris Karloff’s sensitive, pathetic portrayal of The Monster – and it also resulted in a large lump in the producers’ wallets.
Then there’s the 7-foot tall FRANKENSTEIN poster, which is product-tested … its artist was trying to re-do the FRANKENSTEIN monster but the result, sadly, looks as if the demented Monster was forced to watch 48 hours of continuous soap operas. Check it out on page 6, and see if you don’t agree!
The people who put out the book, THE PULPS, to cash in on the Nostalgia Market, were in a sense trying to re-do something – they wanted to do over the success of stories when they first appeared, in thud-and-blunder pulp magazines. As the book, originally $15.00, is now being remaindered in bookstores for $6.95, we have our doubts if they succeeded.
Then there’s the new GREEN LANTERN-GREEN ARROW paperback book; a slight revision of the original comic book stories was made … re-writing and re-drawing the panels, to make two comic books read smoothly as one comix novel. And anyone who’s ever read the Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams classic-in-the-making, knows that this is about the only series in which people act with human motivations and emotions. The states South of the Mason-Dixon line, incidentally, would not distribute GREEN LANTERN-GREEN ARROW comics – seems they heard comics exposed the subversive, radical or just plain un-Southern sentiments of such Dixie-born and bred radicals as Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, among others. This hurt one-quarter of the sales, and the series (due to financial difficulties) was first canceled. But now, as THE MONSTER TIMES goes to press, we’ve learned that G.L.-G.A. LIVES!… in the back of THE FLASH comix. Not a book of its own, but 12 good G.L., G.A. pages are better’n’nothing.
Now we come to the great Re-Doer of all time, ROGER CORMAN, who made EDGAR ALLEN POE a household name … if you happen to live in the household of a movie theater projectionist. Rollem-out-in-a-day Roger, the corrosive Corman, churned out 3/4 of a dozen near-great and not-so-near-great films based on titles of Poe stories, if nothing else. And good gosh! did the stories ever resemble TV soap operas! – a person who’d never read Poe, on seeing these films, would think that all the Olde Master of Terror ever wrote about was the loathsome sin of adultery. Corman’s Poe audiences must have been in two camps … those who went on to become monster film buffs, and those who went on to watch Peyton Place. Horror of HORRORS!
Chuck
CHUCK R. McNAUGHTON Almighty Editor JOE KANE Managing Editor. ALLAN ASHERMAN. PHIL SEULING STEVE VERTLIEB: Associate Editors BRILL AND WALDSTEIN Art Direction BILL FERET. DENNY O’NEIL. CM RICHARDS Columnists ALLAN ASHERMAN, JESSICA CLERK DAVE IZZO, DEAN ALPREOUS LATIMER, ED NANA, CM RICHARDS STEVE VERTLIEB. JIM WNOROSKI Contributing Writers. JACK JACKSON Contributing Photographer, LARRY WALDSTEIN West Coast Correspondent. JESSICA CLERK European Corresponden RICH BUCKLER. ERNIE COLON, CARLOS GARZON. DAN GREEN, STEVE HICKMAN. JIMMY JANES, JEFF JONES. MIKE KALUTA GRAY MORROW, B.B. SAMS, LARRY TODD. BERNI WRIGHTSON Contributing Artists
1 THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN: The tale of woe of one monster maker’s family.
6 THE MONSTER MARKET: Product test of a testy product. A monster!
7 THE PULPS-A REVIEW: They were grand and glorious where modern writings are bland and boring.
10 THE HERO-PULP INDEX – ANOTHER REVIEW: a book that lists titles of stories and authors that appeared in THE PULPS.
11 GREEN-LANTERN-GREEN ARROW BOOK NO. 1: Yet another book review – of a comix paperback that is more “Literature’than the other two books reviewed
15 ROGER CORMAN MEETS EDGAR ALLEN POE! The battle of the century! Poe lives again, sort of. Roger Corman lives yet – very well, too.
16 GNAWING OBSESSION, PART ONE: A special Corman-esque, Poe-esque color comic strip by Jeff Jones.
20 THE 10 CRUMBIEST HORROR FILMS OF 1971: The awards are dubious achievements, definitely, but everyone seems to be competing for them.
22 MAIL DEPARTMENT: Learn what we did right, as we learn what we did wrong, from the readers’ points of view.
23 DRACULA GOES TO COURT: The world’s greatest and most authoritative version of DRACULA … and we may never see it! Why?
24 MONSTER TIMES TELETYPE: L Who needs Variety anymore, now that you have us to report on Monst-Bix?!
26 TALES FROM THE CRYPT: A shriek preview of the film of the year. to EC comix fans, sure to make gains for Gaines.
THIS ISSUE’S COVER: Elsa Lanchester & Boris Karloff in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Still collectors may not recognize this particular shot, which is a prized result of our art department layout wizards Brill & Waldstein, who also created and Publish THE MONSTER TIMES Yay Bosses! They also concocted the first page, a mini color poster.
THE MONSTER TIMES, No. 4, March 15th, 1972 published every two weeks by The Monster Times Publishing Company. P.O. Box 595, Old Chelsea Station, New York, N.Y. 10011. Subscriptions in U.S.A.: $ 6.00 for 13 issues, outside U.S.A.: $10.00 for 26 issues. Second-class mail privileges authorized at New York, N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. Contributions are invited provided return postage is enclosed; however, no responsibility can be accepted for unsolicited material. Entire contents copyrighted (c) 1972, by The Monster Times Publishing company. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Subscriber change of address: give 8 weeks notice. Send an address imprint from recent issue or state exactly how label is addressed.
In 1935, American audiences could not see enough of people constructed of corpses. The public response to the 1931 version of FRANKENSTEIN was so overwhelming, that Hollywood decided to do it again. They made a new FRANKENSTEIN film as carefully as the Baron Frankenstein himself might construct a new human, using parts of the old.
They took Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, and Dwight Frye, and the director of the 1931 film James Whale,
These talents were stitched together like parts of corpses, with other viable parts, and given the spark of life (as Frankenstein might have given them) with Mr. Edison’s Magic Box, the motion picture camera, The result was one of the most chilling, horrifying, and yet sensitive monster masterpiece of all time…
Part One: the pulsating plot of plots
The BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN starts; re-capping the FRANKENSTEIN film just for those who missed it or can’t live without it.
We first see an interesting little early-1800’s scene in which Mary Shelley, her husband (poet Percy Shelley) and a family friend (George Gordon Lord Byron) engage in a pass-time storytelling. Because of bad weather (mainly the Hollywood thunder and lightening so necessary to stories of this horrific nature), Lord Byron asks Mary Shelley to continue her tale of the Frankenstein Monster. Did he really die in the burning mill, or did he somehow escape to wreak additional havoc?
Ah! He did NOT die! Through a series of flashbacks, we see Dr. Frankstein building his monster from corpses, furnishing it with a stolen brain and endowing it with life. It comes into the world a pathetic, mute thing with hideous face and underdeveloped criminal mind, and due to the careful teachings of a sadistic dwarf becomes obsessed with the idea of his own ugliness, and the prospects of finding a friend. Unfortunately the Monster does badly at making friends, managing instead to spread quite a bad reputation ahead of himself. He does not understand why everyone hates him, and he reacts in his own dim way. He does little irritating things like interrupting marriages, frightening decent women, making noise in the middle of the night and accidentally drowning a little girl. The village people don’t think him a “personality kid.” A torchlight procession leads the Monster into the town mill and then sets the building afire. The monster apparently dies a horrible death. Ah, but not so, says dear Mary:
The monster fell through the floor of the burning mill, and was saved by hiding himself in the quiet waters of the river. Unfortunately, his hideous face was scarred in the fire, most of his hair and some of his flesh burned away and his hands injured, fingers fused together by the awsome heat of the blaze, the living-dead corpse-skin scarred. He is now somewhat angry at the world, to the point of killing anyone he sees.
But the first person he meets is Minnie (Una O’Connor), the scream-loving servant of the young Baron Frankenstein.
Minnie is not all there upstairs and has been known to shrilly-shriek blood-curdlingy for fun, when monsters weren’t around to inspire her.
Even an eccentric, kill-crazed monster can recognize someone sicker than himself. When the Monster sees old Minnie screaming her guts out, all he does is look at her through the corner of his mouth, and permit her to speed on her erratic and picturesque way.
But now back to business, and we see Dr. Henry Frankenstein apparently dead, being carried into his house. Minnie runs hysterically in, trying to tell people she saw the Monster. Of course, no one believes her and she simply forgets about the experience making no further attempt to warn anyone. Told you she was sick!
Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) it! turns out, is not dead. There is much merry-making, and his fiance Elizabeth, (Valerie Hobson), who never quite managed to hook Henry in the first film makes a snide comment regarding the fact that this was supposed to be her wedding night.
visit of a morbid mentor
Several bone-healing evenings later; the now-married couple are preparing to settle down to a quiet evening in bed, when a steadfast lunatic of a man, Dr. Praetorius, enters their lives.
Praetorius, once Henry’s biology instructor, is also a doctor of philosophy and has no trouble coping with life despite his one fault … he’s a nut!
Praetorius takes advantage of Henry’s gullibility and shows him his own experiments involving the creation of life. He has successfully created tiny, living people whom he keeps locked in jars. He keeps these jars in a coffin-shaped case (probably stored under his bed). This profound scientific exhibition starts the fires of curiosity burning in Henry again. Fortunately, however, he has married a religious fanatic. Elizabeth has convinced Henry that it was the Devil who prompted his life-experiments. He refuses to work with Praetorius.
Meanwhile, the Monster is enjoying a stroll through the woods, sustaining himself on rotten turnips and snarling at his reflection in a lake. Before he knows it, 2 hunters spot him, shoot him and run to get the rest of the village to do their Monster-chasing thing. The villagers overtake the the Monster, capture him and drag him back to town. Locked securely in a maximum cell, with chains binding him to a huge chair, the Monster takes 2 whole minutes to escape, killing some people and causing some anxiety.
Wandering through the woods, alone and friendless, the Monster, bleeding from his wounds, hears a sound that makes his mind recall beauty. It’s a soft, pulsing and welcoming sound that leads the awkward creature to a small building in the middle of the forest. There, completely cut-off from the rest of the human race, lives a blind hermit. Because of his loneliness he has made his own rules regarding friendship; anyone is a friend, anyone is welcome. There is no prejudice in this man, as he cannot see the ugliness that limps into his home. He senses the need for rest and a kind word. The Monster hears a soft voice for the first time in his life, and begins to feel compassion for the blind man. He eats food offered to him by the blind Hermit and exhibits the most necessary of all human reactions: trust. He cries as the Hermit thanks God for sending him a friend from out of the darkness. The Hermit plays a great but sad violin. The Monster learns to cry a lot.
Time and gentleness make the Monster live a peaceful existence with the hermit. He learns to speak; first words, then clumsy sentences. The hermit has taught him to drink wine, smoke cigars and savor bread. The Monster has taught the hermit! to laugh. Left alone, the peace of these two lost souls would probably have gone on forever. But one day 2 lost hunters enter the cabin. They see the Monster and it dawns on them the hermit is blind, and cannot see the slow horror that is his friend.
Hustling him out of the house, a fire starts as the Monster, for the first time, hears that he is an artificial man.
In one moment the confused creature learns why he is different from other people. The bewildered Monster is too preoccupied with this new knowledge, and the fire, which he fears more than anything else. He is not aware of the hermit being led from cabin muttering “My friend, my poor friend.” Even with the knowledge that his friend is a manufactured, violent creature, the old hermit recalls the Monster’s genuine urge to live in peace. He will be the only human being ever to achieve such a relationship with the Monster … and the Monster will never know that, somewhere, a lonely old man lived out his life worrying about him.
The Monster, running from the burning cabin, meets some children. He tries to approach them in a friendly manner, but they are frightened. Embittered, the Monster remembers something one of the hunters said … “Frankstein made him out of dead bodies.” Dead … DEAD. His one point of identification, of kinship, was with the dead. There was only one logical place for the creature to seek refuge and, escaping from the hunters and their friends, the Monster made his way into a tomb.
Thinking himself alone, the Monster breaks open a coffin, fondles a dead girl’s face, and smilingly whispers “friend.” Suddenly he hears a noise.
To this same tomb has come Dr. Praetorius looking for a set of firm bones to serve as the framework of the artificial woman which he hopes to build with the aid of Baron Frankenstein
Examining the skeleton he has chosen. Praetorius is unaware of the Monster sneaking toward him in the tomb. Relishing a meal of cold chicken and wine, Praetorius, smiling, toasts the memory of The Monster. The Monster figures he has a friend in Praetorius, and anxiously emerges from the shadows gesturing for a smoke and pathetically saying “Friend?”
THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN
Any sane man would, of course, have been scared to death at such a sight in such surroundings. Praetorius merely turns quickly around, eyes the Monster, and observes: “Oh… I thought I was alone!”
Praetorius has “a long talk” with the Monster, a conversation the audience is nou privileged to hear. But it must have been a lulu, for by the time it’s over the Monster is backing Praetorius to the hilt. “He had no great love for Henry Frankenstein anyway. And he desperately! wanted a friend. Praetorius offered him a mate… sort of a “friend-and-a-half!”
Praetorius now pays a visit to Henry, who again announces he will have nothing to do with the scheme to create a synthetic woman (Those were “simpler times”). At this point the Monster makes his entrance, and poor Henry almost dies of shock right there. He is not moved, however, and after the novel experience of conversing with a Monster he created, Henry is left alone with the (relatively) human Praetorius.
Unknown to Henry, the Monster is now implementing the famous “Plan B”: the old “kidnap the Baroness to force the Baron to make a Bride for the Monster” ploy.
It works.
Henry develops a sudden renewed interest in life-creating experiments when he learns the Monster has his wife as a hostage. Actually, one gets the impression that old Henry would eventually have given in to Praetorius’ wishes anyway, for he gets right back into the swing of things, and seems to be having some fun pooling knowledge with his former instructor.
The brain has been grown in a glass bottle from a biological culture, by Praetorius. Now all that’s missing is the heart. Unkown to Henry, the “accident victim” who supplies the needed organ is actually a murdered flower-girl, killed by one of the old doctor’s assistants. Henry is overjoyed with the condition of the new heart, and at the appropriate time he turns to Praetorius and asks: “Shall we put the heart in Now?”
The mad doctors lab becomes a beehive of activity, imaginative goings-ons in an incredible laboratory setting, and the ultimate resolution of the film.
Machines flash, lightening crackles and the shapely young body that has never lived twitches and moves and becomes “The Bride of Frankenstein.” The facial bandages are removed, and the Bride walks spastically around the room, her head moving suddenly and quickly, much! like some human bird.
Then she sees the Monster. The poor creature, unable to wait, has ambled into the room. Tongue hanging to his six-inch shoes, he tries to make the Bride. Alas! The poor woman, having been brought into the world only a few minutes previously, has already grown attached to “papa” Henry, and finds the Monster a horror-faced beats!
All is not working out well at all for the Monster.
He pleads.
She SCREAMS … the most bloodcurdling scream ever heard on film!
Even the Monster, for all his dull-wittedness, gets the idea.
“She hate me,” he mutters,”… like others.” Absent-mindedly he starts wrecking the place. As his hand accidentally comes near a certain switch, Praetorius yells “The lever! … He’ll blow! us all to atoms!” The Monster gets an idea. Since the dead are the only ones who seem to bear him no ill will, he will join their ranks. His hands grips the lever.
Before he pulls the lever, he looks at his creator and lovingly says “You go… you live!” As Praetorius starts to sneak! out along with Henry, the Monster raises an angry hand and shouts “You stay .. we belong dead!” After one last tear-filled glance toward the Bride, who is still snarling like a cat at the Monster, the poor creature pulls the lever.
Elizabeth, who has escaped from wherever she was being held prisoner, runs to join Henry, and the two of them flee the laboratory immediately before it is destroyed by a series of explosions. It is the end of all experiments for Henry. He assures his religious-fanatic wife “There, there … it’s all over!” We hear church music swell as they embrace in the light of the setting sun.
One presumes Henry became a missionary in his later life, though we shall never know, as the film ends with the two young people walking off into the evening terrain.
Examining the Parts of Frankenstein’s BRIDE
That is the story of the finished film. But your author has in his vault of cinemalore the actual shooting script of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and reading it he discovered that there are certain scenes in the film that were originally planned to happen differently. The most noteworthy of these is the last scene, in which Henry and Elizabeth Frankenstein escape from the exploding laboratory.
There is one scene showing the lab exploding. It is a distance-shot, in which we can see the entire set … and in a corner of the setting, pressed against a wall, is Henry Frankenstein. Before Universal planned to make a sequel to THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN using Henry again, there was no need for the young doctor to escape unharmed. It was originally planned that he would be caught in the exploding lab and that Elizabeth, trying to get into the building to see her husband, would also be killed in the explosion.
[If you look closely, the next time you see BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, you will see old Henry Frankenstein barely escaping, only to die in the lab … and then standing outside the lab, watching it (and himself) perish. This is one of the film’s two ACCIDENTAL funny moments. The other is Boris Karloff’s walk, which always reminds some of Fred Gwynne’s comic-monster MUNSTER gait – Editor.]
the cast-making Cast
Colin Clive, the young performer who played “Henry Frankenstein,” was descended of the famous British Clive family of India. He started acting in unimpressive roles finally working his way into the company of James Whale’s play “Journey’s End.” He was there noticed by director Whale who took him under his professional bat-wing. Whale knew him to be a sensitive, sometimes brooding fellow, and when James Whale was chosen to produce Frankenstein, he called Clive to Hollywood to play Henry in the 1931 “Frankenstein,” Whale kept him in the cast of the second film. No one else could have played the character in the manner that Clive accomplished, for the character and the performer were one and the same. In fact, it is possible that the character of Henry was written around Clive.
Ernest Thesiger started his career as a Shakespearean performer in Great Britain. He, too, worked with Whale in one of the director’s plays, and Whale, having a tremendous liking for eccentric geniuses, started using him in his films. In 1932 Thesiger appeared in THE OLD DARK HOUSE as the weird “Horace Femme.” Like “Dr. Praetorius” Femme also liked gin.
Thesiger also appeared in Sci-Fi Master H.G.Wells’ 2nd great film, THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES, as the alcohol-imbibing Reverend Maydig, who was also a bit of a nut. He would have played the nutty artist Theotocopulous in H.G.Wells’ THINGS TO COME, had he not accepted the role of “Dr. Praetorius” in BRIDE. (See MONSTER TIMES No. 1 and our magnificent article on THINGS TO COME.-Editor]
As for Boris Karloff, nothing need be said about the career of a genius. Karloff came from nowhere (the almost total obscurity of Hollywood bit-player) to play the title role of the Monster in Whale’s 1931 FRANKENSTEIN. Again, no one but Karloff could have played his role, and so he continued the characterization in “The Bride of Frankenstein.”
There were other actors who portrayed the Monster after Karloff left the series in 1939, but they did not attempt to inject any humanity into the role. They were simply walking colossus-figures, completely devoid of character, sympathy, or meaning.
Already thoroughly established as a performer when “Bride” was being produced, Karloff had filled the vacant spot left by the untimely passing of Lon Chaney, Sr. in 1930. But, as with all his roles, Karloff essayed his second portrayal of the Monstrous figure as if his career depended upon it. He added an element of sensitivity, penetrating sincerity and general class to every film he ever appeared in … especially THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.
Piercingly good make up
Karloff’s makeup was made by the make-up genius of all time, Jack P. Pierce, who also designed “The Mummy” and “The Wolfman” among others. Having done the initial job of designing for FRANKENSTEIN, Pierce altered the makeup more than slightly for the equal, to fit into the changes that the Monster had undergone.
Because of the damage to the creature in the opening scenes of the film, most of the hair was made to seem burned-off the Monster’s head. Only short, frizzled ends were left in patches, with the SKULL of the creatures protruding in most spots. There were additional facial scars, and the original ones were more pronounced.
There was additional makeup to indicate that the hands of the Monster had been burned, and that some of the fingers were fused together by the heat of the blaze. The Monster walked with a limp to heighten the effect.
Because he was supposed to appear more human, the makeup on the lower half of Karloff’s face was diminished so as to provide for more facial expression on the part of the performer.
It is unfortunate there were no color stills taken at the time, for the makeup used on Karloff in BRIDE, as was done with his makeup in the original FRANKENSTEIN, which was colored a pale green. The color of Boris’ makeup in the sequel is now lost.
One of the weirdest makeups ever seen on screen transformed the beautifully delicate features of Elsa Lanchester (Mrs. Charles Laughton) into the thrusting, spastic face of “The Bride.” Scars were added beneath her chin, around her neck and by her ears. Her complexion was lightened to appear death-like, and was offset by deep ruby-red lips. Her own hair was tied in a bun, a latex “bald-wig” fitted over it, and the grandmother of all fright-wigs was applied. Fitted with grey streaks on either side, the wig did much to further the illusion that The Bride was a child of electricity, synthetically endowed with life. Pierce prophetically made her resemble a cross between Phyllis Diller and an East Village medusa-like hippy.
The music of the film added monstrously to its effect. It was practically a symphony of evil, composed by Franz Waxman. The Monster had a number of different themes, depending upon the mood of his character in various scenes. A smooth, gliding piece of music accompanies the creature as he strolls through the woods in momentary peace. This changes to a confused melody as the Monster sees his ugly reflection. Desperate music is played as he tries to save a peasant girl who has fallen into the lake. The desperation of the Monster changes to a stirring march as the villagers band together for their chase.
The march used in “The Bride of Frankenstein” was re-recorded and used as a secondary theme for the serial “Buck! Rogers,” and makes appearances throughout “Flash Gordon” and “Flash
Gordon’s Trip to Mars.” The music Waxman wrote to depict the dank, dead atmosphere of the tomb was used as the theme that accompanied the appearance of the Clay People in “Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars.” An eerie, slow tune played on an organ, it also served to convey some of the madness that composed the character of Dr. Praetorius. Unfortunately, the musical score for “The Bride of Frankenstein” was written too early to be recorded as a commercially-sold soundtrack. No known recordings exist of the complete score without the sound effects and speech soundtracks added to it. It’s a great loss to fans of the film, fans of the Universal cycle of monster films and to the music world in general.
where was the BRIDE really made?
The massive, Gothic settings seen throughout “The Bride of Frankenstein” did much to further the final image. There were old castles, small huts, musty tombs and dungeon cells, a beautiful country lake and waterfall, and a timeless graveyard that smelled from decay even through the movie screen. And all those sets were designed specially for the film, and built by one-man set designer/art director Charles D. Hall.
And, because of Hall’s genius at creating ancient things instantly, the settings did not look as if they had been designed and built for the film … they all appeared as if they had been out there for centuries, standing in the country decaying in the elements before camera crews decided to use them for locations! in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.
The man who designed them, Kenneth Strickfaden, more than once escaped electrocution by the grounding of his shoes during the course of production. The machines, incidentally, were actually electrical, giving off very high voltages.
Settings cannot be illogical, but they can be anachronistic. And in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN they are just that. No year is given during the course of the film, except for Praetorius’s observation that a century before his time, he would most assuredly have been burned at the stake for sorcery. This puts the action of the film at approx. 1800, or 1850 the latest. This goes perfectly with the concept of a Barony, the geographical location of Germany (or one of its smaller now-defunct neighbors such as, say, Transylvania?).
The superstitions of the time, regarding experimentation upon human bodies for the purpose of prolonging (or producing) life also fits into this time scheme. However, we do have medical schools. This again would seem to indicate 1850 or thereabouts.
Now we come to the fun part; the anachronism. At one point during the film, Praetorius wishes to prove that Mrs. Frankenstein, who has been kidnapped is still alive. Producing a walkie-talkie-telephone combination, Praetorius says to Henry: “In a few moments she will speak to you through this electrical machine.” Okay, so he didn’t refer to it as a telephone. Using! this as a base, we encounter other references to scientific details that just were not discovered at that time. Heart transplants, instruments for drawing the cosmic rays out of space (the “cosmic diffuser,” as Henry refers to it) are all in evidence.
We are given these preposterous things, and, put together, they form a merry jumble that is composed of jagged edges. But the jagged edges fit together perfectly, to make. THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN gel into a firm, finished essay on humanism, inhumanism, reality, fantasy and everything else in-between. THE BRIDE OF! FRANKENSTEIN is filled with eternal characters and eternal things, and will probably outlive all of us transient! mortals.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon spills the beans about his exotic life in Hollywood in MEMOIRS OF A LAGOON-CREATURE.
THE RETURN OF DR. X. Humphrey Bogart’s ONLY horror film will be spot-lighted. We can just hear old Bogey. now, muttering: “Slay it again, Sam!”
MUSHROOM MONSTERS pop up on our pages, once agoon. More forgettable films fondly remembered by Jeering Joe, the Korrosive Kane.
And a super-special full-color CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON POSTER!
THE STAR TREK CON REVISITED, is a special page of memories and ‘musing incidents at the largest fan event of all time.
And round two of the battle of the centuries (19th and 20th); ROGER CORMAN VS. EDGAR ALLEN POE! will be recounted by raucous refereeing spit-fire sports critic, Young Mighty Joe.
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C. Drackuleski
Brooklyn, New York
With every sub of a year or more, the subscriber gets a free 25-word classified ad, to be run on our Fan-Fair page. You can advertise comics or stills or pulps, etc. or for anything else, provided it’s in good taste!
I think THE MONSTER TIMES is just what I’ve been looking for! Enclosed is $ …..
Make check or money order payable to:
THE MONSTER TIMES, P.O. Box 595, Old Chelsea Station, New York City, N.Y. 10011
As a new subscriber (for a sub of one year or more), here is my 25-word ad, to appear FREE of charge in Fan-Fair as soon as possible.
Subscription Rates:
$6.00 for 13 issues (6 months) $10.00 for 26 issues (1 year) $18.00 for 52 issues (2 years) $12.00 for 26 issues CANADA $18.00 for 26 issues FOREIGN
PS: I pledge by the light of the next full moon to bother my local newsdealer until he (a) shakes in his boots at the sight of me, and (b) regularly and prominently displays THE MONSTER TIMES.
Please allow a few weeks for your subscription to be processed.
