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Basil Rathbone as a cannibal...?

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Ah, it makes sense in context. I'll just go ahead and give you the whole treatment.

Do forgive the digression, BLACK SLEEP fans!



I envision this being made in 1958-ish, after the horror boom hit and names like Lee, Cushing, and Price joined the ranks of Karloff and Co. This would be a BIG Hollywood item. Universal or WB or Columbia see the potential and marketability of horror and decide to sink $1 million into the project. Great production values, top flight cast, no expense spared, all in beautiful Technicolor!

One other thing. In order to realize the scheme properly, we must assume Bela Lugosi living a year or two longer than he did in actuality. In my little fantasy land, this would have been his final film.

Anyhow, such would be the circumstances for...THE PROGENY OF SATAN!

Starring the cast from Hell...

Boris Karloff
Bela Lugosi
Vincent Price
Christopher Lee
Peter Cushing
Peter Lorre
Lon Chaney
Basil Rathbone
John Carradine


In a general sense, the plot entails each of the above-named gathering at the foreboding mansion of Trevor Smedley (KARLOFF) for a sort of conclave. Outwardly, they seem to have little in common, coming from different fields of endeavor and interest. But all are rather influential and powerful in their particular arenas. The mansion itself was, at one time, home to the blighted Waldegrave family. 300 years ago, it is said, the patriarch of this clan offered his son to the Devil in exchange for untold wealth. The curse henceforth extended to all the Waldegrave decedents like a genetic malady, each one having a literal touch of Satan inside them. Strange that Trevor would choose this for his home base...

But Smedley's guests at hand, they share another commonality. Each possesses a deeply ingrained perversity.

Smedley, a celebrated film director, is seemingly kind and grandfatherly -- but this is merely a ruse. Underneath he's a coldly malevolent sadist who derives a sick sexual thrill seeing women tormented and killed. His home is equipped with a torture chamber and voyeuristically shot through with cameras and listening devices. Masks and marionettes are his hobby; these eerie accouterments festoon the sprawling expanses of Smedley's manor. Some of them even look alive. "They are not children of wood but of will." he explains, "I will them to live. And so they do, my dear." (smile)

Hungarian-born Dr. Anton Tedescu (LUGOSI) is a respected elder statesman of the medical society. But his brilliant surgical advances came at a terrifying price -- he was pressed into service by the SS-Totenkopfverbande during World War II. Cajoled into committing horrendous concentration camp atrocities in the name of science. He is a broken man, forever a prisoner to his past. In the film's emotional high point, he breaks down and tearfully recounts his past to the protagonists.

Senator Byron Maxwell (PRICE) of New York wields incredible power as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Tall, austere, and blessed with a deceptively disarming manner, Maxwell is on the White House fast track. But he secretly maintains a ruthless Malthusian principle -- and incredible megalomania. There are simply too many people in the world, and the Senator aims to correct this problem by unleashing a program of biological warfare on American soil. One to utterly decimate the population. This atrocity will then be blamed on a foreign power, ushering in World War III.

Rudolph Lorca (LEE) is leader of the highly exclusive if ill-rumored Brethren of LVX Lodge of London. Something of a think tank-cum-"irregular Masonic" body composed of England's best and brightest. Little is known of the Lodge's activities to the outside world save their very public philanthropic endeavors. But this is merely a mask; behind the Lodge's tightly locked doors, Beelzebub himself is glorified and worshiped...in blood. Lorca himself is tall, imperious, and extremely sinister. He will earmark the heroine to serve as the centerpiece of a special ritual -- one that Smedley will be most interested to behold.

Bishop Francis Tyndale (CUSHING) oversees the diocese of Boston. Meek and mild, timid and weak-willed, he often takes to drink. Not the most celibate of clerics either...he maintains a virtual harem of young ladies in flagrant violation of his ecumenical vows. Some he keeps for personal enjoyment, while others are shipped off to foreign lands as part of a "white slavery" ring. Yet, a Bible verse is forever on his lips.

Carey Danville (CHANEY) is a fabulously wealthy Texas oil man and legendary drinker to boot. The stuff has a less than salubrious effect on him -- usually gregarious, Carey becomes a virtual Mr. Hyde after a few slugs of gin. Years ago, in a drunken rage, he disposed of his wife and two children with an axe.

The strangely off-putting Archibald Minski (RATHBONE), waspy gourmet of great renown, happens to be a cannibal. The meats he serves to unsuspecting society dames are special indeed. In his off hours, Minski enjoys hunting...only "the most dangerous game" of course.

Wan and emaciated Josiah Pick (CARRADINE) is one of America's foremost archeologists. He wears fantastically outdated clothing; suits consisting of tailcoats and large drawstring cravats and is given to verbose quotations from Shakespeare and Milton at the most importune of times. Pick has a mania for mummies, urns, funerary equipment, indeed anything connected with the dead. Unbeknownst to the acedemic world, he carries his post-mortem fixations a bit too far...Josiah's idea of a romantic evening might consist of wine, roses, and a cold, dead lovely. He too would like to get his hands on the heroine whilst in a state of corpus erecti...preferably before she's passed over to Archibald.

Only roly-poly Etienne (LORRE), the sympathetic butler, stands apart from all this and tries his best to guard the hero and heroine. Will he be successful?


And there it is...sadism, Satanism, necrophelia, cannibalism, insanity, blasphemy, sexual obsession all in one convenient package, THE PROGENY OF SATAN. I'm not sure what they'd have thought in 1958 -- but it would have been stimulating to push some buttons and behold the results!

It could do with some considerable polishing, but I hope that little outline gives one a little "theater of the mind" to work with.