BLACK SLEEP monster rally in '50s Horror and Sci-Fi Forum

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BLACK SLEEP monster rally

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Return of the Ape Man	Re: But Seriously...	#41	[-]
Oct 20 06 9:57 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	TCM will air THE BLACK SLEEP on January 12th. www.tcm.com/schedule/month/?cid=&oid=1/1/2007
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Ted Newsom	Re: But Seriously...	#42	[-]
Oct 20 06 11:40 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Lost in time, I'd say... between two worlds. There's a thread hereabouts called 1950s films that feel like 1940s films, and this is certainly one of them.
telegonus	Re: It Feels	#43	[-]
Oct 20 06 12:28 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yeah, BS feels like a late Universal monster fest, a "House Of" something,--Dr. Cadman? I wonder if they tried to get Karloff for it, most likely for the Rathbone role. He was so busy with stage and television work at that time he would probably have passed on it, eh?
TomWeaver999	Re: It Feels	#44	[-]
Oct 20 06 12:32 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Karloff worked for Koch-Schenck twice not long after BLACK SLEEP so I bet he would have done it if they'd asked and could have afforded him. Once he did A&C MEET JEKYLL & HYDE, I think the writing was on the wall that BK would do ANYthing.
telegonus	Re: It Feels	#45	[-]
Oct 20 06 12:46 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	True, Karloff wouldn't have come cheap, and given the prominent cast BS was probably on the pricey side,--for the kind of film it was. Is it Voodoo Island you're referring to? Karloff was the star of that one; also the only star in it. VI's another movie that seems out of time, out space somewhere. It fits snugly into the zombie-voodoo cycle of the late fifties, but stylistically it's weird, like Bomba Meets the Killer Plants or something. The movie seems like it could just as easily been made a decade earlier. Kind of fun, though, if you're in an undemanding mood.
TomWeaver999	Re: It Feels	#46	[-]
Oct 20 06 1:03 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	FRANKENSTEIN 1970 was another Koch-Schenck movie where Karloff was, again, the only name (unless Don "Red" Barry meant something to kids with long memories). They got their money's worth out of him on that one: It was shot in eight days and BK was the only actor to work every day.
Sanguinaire E	Re: It Feels	#47	[-]
Oct 20 06 1:19 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yep...they really, really needed to forsake Basil in favor of Boris here. The former acts as if a stick has been carefully inserted into his fundament. I suppose BLACK SLEEP is something of a polyglot admixture of this and that genre styling...but as a bridge betwixt the Universalian and Hammer/AIP worlds, it's about the only (admittedly imperfect) touchstone we have. All in all, I think HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS probably served its purpose more successfully, as it at least allowed its four bogeymen the chance to indulge their respective specialties...theatrical flamboyance for Price, sonorous stentorian-ism for Carradine, sinister archness for Lee and genteel sympathy for Cushing. One gets the feeling that BLACK SLEEP could've done a better job of tailoring its roles for its iconic stars. I've always been curious about that unmade Karloff companion piece to FRANKENSTEIN 1970 and VOODOO ISLAND...KING OF THE MONSTERS. Koch said in his Fangoria interview that Boris was quite upset at the producers for reneging on their three-film promise. Any word on this, Tom? .'. Earl Roesel .'.
TomWeaver999	Re: It Feels	#48	[-]
Oct 20 06 1:48 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	No, just that it WAS announced in the Hollywood trade papers and never made -- and when I mentioned it to Koch 25 years later, he still remembered how disgruntled Karloff was.
Sanguinaire E	Re: It Feels	#49	[-]
Oct 20 06 2:47 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Ah, KING OF THE MONSTERS is forever destined to be another of those temptingly mysterious denizens in the Realm of Unwrought Things, I suppose. Koch really should've made the extra effort to ensnare Karloff for THE BLACK SLEEP. The sense of "an end of an era" would have resonated even stronger. .'. Earl Roesel .'.
Ted Newsom	Re: Silent Bela performance	#50	[-]
Oct 20 06 5:37 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	We've visited this racetrack before, and there's this odd little idea I had... Howard Koch became Frank Sinatra's partner not long after the Bel-Air films, circa 1961 or '62; my guess, they probably knew each other before that. And Sinatra had always been a horror movie fan. He gave Lugosi a check for a grand (or two) when Bela was in the hospital in '55, just because he was a fan (and knew what a cruel world Show Biz was). And I'd read somewhere that Boris Karloff was technical advisor, or dialogue coach, or SOMEthing on NEVER SO FEW, which was made in '59 (though I've seen this reported elsewhere about the earlier film Sinatra did, with Tony Curtis. Be that as it may...) I wondered WTF anyone would need a technical advisor for on NEVER SO FEW, a WW2 drama/shoot'em'up set in Burma...and what on earth Karloff would've known about the area... or the way WW2 Brit and US soldiers would've talked or behaved. That cast was filled with utter pros and well-written. (Same goes for the Curtis film, set in Italy after the war, for that matter). So my big hot-air theory-- Sinatra wanted to make nice nice between his hero Boris and his pal Koch, and put Boris on the payroll to make up for the inadvertent screwing Boris got from Bel-Air reneging on their contract. Any takers on this one?
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TomWeaver999	Re: Silent Bela performance	#51	[-]
Oct 20 06 5:55 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Didn't Karloff go to some forsaken place like Burma, during the war, to entertain the troops? Or did I dream that?
Bill Warren	Re: Silent Bela performance	#52	[-]
Oct 20 06 6:36 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	*Quote:* Didn't Karloff go to some forsaken place like Burma, during the war, to entertain the troops? Or did I dream that? He took a small troupe and performed "Arsenic and Old Lace" here and there, including up in Alaska and out on Midway Island. (I'm told a picture of him hangs on the wall of the only building on Midway--which is actually one of the Hawaiian islands--which could be considered a hotel.) I'm not sure how far south he got. But he must have had some kind of family connections in, at least, India, what with all his brothers in the diplomatic service.
Borgo	Re: Silent Bela performance	#53	[-]
Oct 20 06 7:37 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	*Quote:* He took a small troupe and performed "Arsenic and Old Lace" here and there The USO tour also took Boris to Oahu, the Marshall Islands, Canton Island, Christmas Island, Johnson Island and even the tiny atoll of Kwajalein in 1945. I don't believe Karloff was ever in India. His paternal grandmother was Indian, but Boris' father (who was Assistant Collector for the Salt Revenue Service in Bombay) retired and left India to take up residence in England in 1878...nine years before Boris' birth! Boris' older brother, Sir John Pratt sat on the Legislative Council in Bombay from 1915-1925, but Boris' only adult-hood visit with him was in 1933 in London. The photo is of Karloff's visit to Kwajalein in 1945. Burma?!! (Shave?)
telegonus	Re: It Feels	#54	[-]
Oct 21 06 12:04 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Good grief, I saw Frankenstein 1970 decades ago, just once, and was quite disappointed. It was not Karloff's final hour, didn't live up to its premise and was overall unexciting. Voodoo Island had a bit more meat on the bone. Elisha Cook, Jr. is of course a welcome addition to any film and lifts it up in quality just by his being in it (which isn't to say that Cook didn't make lousy movies now and again,--he most certainly did--but they weren't as lousy as they would have been without him).
atwillrules	Re:Rathbone	#55	[-]
Oct 21 06 3:11 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	It Does seem like Rathbone didnt want be in this film,but I think he does a very good job.For one thing he plows through some of that incredibly bad dialogue with a straight face.I also think he truly conveys a genuine love for his wife.Its not Shakespeare but that scene where he tells Herbert Rudley how much he loves her is fairly affecting. As for Lugosi,Ive never undertood why people say he just"Walks through his part".There are at least two scenes where hes communicating with Rathbone via pantomime gestures.That takes SOME kind of skill.I also love the scene where Bela lurks in the background while Rathbone and Tamiroff have a talk.Bela fidgets with his tie,rubs his chin,even smiles to Tamiroff when he exits the scene.Sure he doing some good old-fashioned scene stealing,but he'd have to be aware of whats being said-in short ,be involved.I just dont think Bela was as "out of it"during that productoin as has been suggested.
Sanguinaire E	Re: It Feels	#56	[-]
Oct 21 06 4:42 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've heard some people say they wish Bela would never have participated in THE BLACK SLEEP, this on account of his emaciated appearance. But I'm happy to have him, and don't buy into the idea that the film exploits him in any way. Under-uses perhaps...but exploits, no. Shocking as he may appear, the filmmakers can hardly be blamed for giving him a job; one is seeing the aftereffects of depression and drug dependence on an elderly man. That he soldiered onward even at the eleventh hour should be cause enough for us to sit back and admire his efforts...and irrepressible will to work. We've also heard tell that Lugosi pined for Rathbone's role in BLACK SLEEP. Maybe, just maybe now, Bela would've brought some vital theatricality to Cadman, lending the part a measure of distinction that Basil fails to provide. But it's hard to say what kind of shape he was in; one suspects that Koch's (or Le Borg's or whomever's) trepidation over Bela's general health might've had some bearing on Cashmir's lack of dialog and relatively brief screen time. VOODOO ISLAND? I recently reviewed the MGM DVD for Scarlet Street; here are some scattershot extracts from that column (along with a little FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE thrown in for good measure)... The island itself (actual Hawaiian locations were used, adding tremendously to the atmosphere) is an impressively doom-laden place. A Sadean garden of deadly delights recalling the similarly blighted playground Ian Fleming gave to his evil Ernst Blofeld in You Only Live Twice. ..... The discs flipside offers up even more deliriously macabre thrills. Here, the diabolical Dr. Zurich (veteran cad Henry Daniell) and his disquieting zombie aide (Paul Wexler) attempt to fulfill a singularly outré ancient curse - to decapitate every member of the Drake family in the interest of shrinking their heads. ...... A surprisingly gory affair for its era, the ***** rather engagingly piles one grim anecdote upon another; tombs, skulls, dismembered bodies, the mechanics of head shrinking. .'. Earl Roesel .'.
atwillrules	Re: It Feels	#57	[-]
Oct 21 06 6:10 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Agreed on all accounts but one.OF COURSE Bela looks terrible!Hes 70-some years old,just got out of rehab,still inlove with wife no.4 while being unhappily married to no 5,still an alchoholic,but hes IN THERE as always,involved and on the mark. I think that he would have made a great Dr.Cadman(Carradine too),but I still feel Rathbone does a good job.He might not have liked making this film,but I feel he brings his own brand of involvement or "distinction"to the role. As for VOODOO ISLAND,despite Boris' presence,I just cant warm up to this one.FOUR SKULLS on the other hand is one of my favorite"bad" movies of all time.
Butcher Benton	Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake	#58	[-]
Oct 22 06 12:00 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	This is another 'bad' good movie by the ever-prolific Edward Cahn who directed a bushel of films in 1960. I believe it was the final screen appearance for old pro Paul Cavanaugh who gets killed five minutes into the film and went on to retirement in the U.K.
telegonus	Re: Technical Advisor	#59	[-]
Oct 22 06 12:18 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Karloff as technical advisor for Never So Few makes about as much sense as hiring Sterling Holloway as dialogue coach for The Dirty Dozen. It's nice that Frankie was a horror fan, a pity that he never appeared in a horror. Another horror fan surprise: the late TV newsman John Chancellor. Maybe Sinatra just wanted to pal around with his hero, Karloff. It may be as simple as that.
Count Gamula	Re: Technical Advisor	#60	[-]
Oct 22 06 11:22 AM Burgomaster Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	This might have been brought up already but didn't Peter Lorre turn down the role played by Akim Tamaroff? Tamaroff is good but the addition of Lorre would have made the monster rally a little more special.
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