The Sign of the Cross gorilla by Gemora? in Golden Age Horror Forum

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The Sign of the Cross gorilla by Gemora?

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Gemorafan	The Sign of the Cross gorilla by Gemora?	Lead	[-]
Aug 12 11 1:59 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The Sign of the Cross (1932) gorilla must be Charlie Gemora, riiiiight?
TomWeaver999		#1	[-]
Aug 12 11 2:29 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	It sure looks like his suit, yes. Have you seen BLONDE VENUS from the same year?
HalLane		#2	[-]
Aug 12 11 4:23 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	It's Claudette Colbert Day on TCM, and no sign of SIGN OF THE CROSS? What the precode hey?
Scoundrel		#3	[-]
Aug 12 11 9:35 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I would guess that it's Gemora as well. Isn't the woman in that still Sally Rand...? SIGN OF THE CROSS is a GEM of a precode film. Among all the thrills in the final reels are the sight of Angelo Rossito getting impaled on a sword, and the booming voice of John Carradine among the martyrs as they ascend to the colluseum and their fate from the lions. A real DeMille classic.
The Mighty Bongo		#4	[-]
Aug 13 11 1:19 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	It is Charlie. Tom is correct (as usual) about it being the same suit used in Blonde Venus. By the way Tom, when are you going to finish the movie gorilla book you're writing with Bob Burns ? Chris Want to hang out with the ultimate party animals ? Come see us at; http://www.hollywoodgorillamen.com/
TomWeaver999		#5	[-]
Aug 13 11 3:46 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	As soon as Bob's "up" to it. Fingers crossed!
jplibby		#6	[-]
Aug 13 11 3:49 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Is that also the same suit Charles wore in THE CHIMP with Laurel and Hardy? Looks like it.
Babetician		#7	[-]
Aug 13 11 4:36 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts
The Mighty Bongo		#8	[-]
Aug 13 11 5:38 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	jplibby wrote: Is that also the same suit Charles wore in THE CHIMP with Laurel and Hardy? Looks like it. Here's the suit from The Chimp. It looks like an earlier suit, less refined than the one in SOTC. Chris Want to hang out with the ultimate party animals ? Come see us at; http://www.hollywoodgorillamen.com/
Scoundrel		#9	[-]
Aug 13 11 7:41 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The suit from THE CHIMP looks like the same suit from MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE.
The Mighty Bongo		#10	[-]
Aug 13 11 7:56 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	That was my thought as well Scoundrel. Chris Want to hang out with the ultimate party animals ? Come see us at; http://www.hollywoodgorillamen.com/
jplibby		#11	[-]
Aug 13 11 9:50 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The Mighty Bongo wrote: jplibby wrote: Is that also the same suit Charles wore in THE CHIMP with Laurel and Hardy? Looks like it. Here's the suit from The Chimp. It looks like an earlier suit, less refined than the one in SOTC. Thank you! I think you're right. Similar look, but different suits. Of course, I kept getting distracted by Sally Rand while comparing the gorilla suits.
TomWeaver999		#12	[-]
Aug 13 11 9:56 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	From an old interview I did with Bob Burns about Gemora: << Charlie built at least seven gorilla suits; he could have made more than that, but no less. He did four in the silent-early sound days (the one he wore in a Tarzan picture; the one he wore in the 1930 The Unholy Three and Murders in the Rue Morgue, the white one he wore in Ingagi, which I believe is now a lost film; and the one he wore in the Laurel and Hardy short The Chimp). Then he did one for The Monster and the Girl which was the best gorilla suit he ever built; one that appears in Africa Screams and some other films; and the last one he made, the Phantom of the Rue Morgue suit. He might have built more suits that I’m not familiar with, but I know he did at least those seven. <
HalLane		#13	[-]
Aug 14 11 6:19 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Amazing gorill-info. I think TCM needs a Charlie Gemora Day sometime soon.
doctor kiss		#14	[-]
Aug 14 11 8:35 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	While I hate to throw a monkey wrench into the works amid all this Gemora-certainty, a question which has puzzled me for some time now is: who on Earth was Clarence Moorehouse?? Here's why I'm throwing his name into the ring... (below left) is the SIGN OF THE CROSS gorilla from 1932, as posted above by Babetician; and (below right) is the gorilla in the Wheeler & Woolsey comedy SO THIS IS AFRICA (1933). Can there be any doubt it's the identical suit? And here's the problem... every single scrap of paperwork relating to SO THIS IS AFRICA from the 1930s onwards makes it clear that the gorilla was played by one 'Clarence Moorehouse': I can tell you nothing about Clarence Moorehouse whatsoever, other than that I agree with the IMDb entry on him [link] that he has five identifiable movie credits, spanning the period from 1928 to 1941, with three (and maybe four) of them for playing gorillas. None of those three gorillas is played using the same suit, as the photos at the bottom of this post show clearly enough. Intriguingly, Moorehouse's earliest identified credit is for playing an unknown minor role in FBO's Frankie Darro vehicle THE CIRCUS KID (1928) --- a film in which Charlie Gemora plays ZoZo the Gorilla. Both Gemora's and Moorehouse's names appear in published credit lists for the movie dating from 1928/29, so this isn't some later attribution of their names to the film. There's no second gorilla in the movie, so could it be that Moorehouse may have been Gemora's double for retakes, or something along those lines?? I have no answer to this or any other part of the Moorehouse mystery... but he does seem to be a name that's somehow relevant to the whole issue of identifying Gemora suits and Gemora performances. Gemora as ZoZo in THE CIRCUS KID (1928), in which Clarence Moorehouse is also credited: Clarence Moorehouse as the gorilla in PURE AND SIMPLE (1930): Clarence Moorehouse as the gorilla in SO THIS IS AFRICA (1933): Clarence Moorehouse as the gorilla in MR. WASHINGTON GOES TO TOWN (1941): Clarence Moorehouse has only one identified credit for playing something other than a gorilla... as one of the jurors in the Charley Chase short SOUTHERN EXPOSURE (1935)... which must mean he's one of the 12 men below!! Last Edited By: doctor kiss Aug 14 11 8:38 AM. Edited 1 times.
TomWeaver999		#15	[-]
Aug 14 11 10:10 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've always been good about never saying who was inside a gorilla suit, just because that gorilla suit shows up in a movie. It was a popular Squirrelly Early Fandom trait to see (say) Ray Corrigan's gorilla suit in a movie and happily write in their books and articles that Corrigan played it in the movie -- but, as usual, they were just ass-uming and making stuff up. That's why Corrigan's name turns up on so many castlists from movies made after he sold his suit to Steve Calvert and Calvert was playing the gorillas ... unless someone else was sometimes playing the parts in the old Corrigan-made, Calvert-owned suits. We'll probably never get all of Squirrelly Early Fandom's messes cleaned up. Thank you for the Clarence Moorehouse information, Doc -- I'll e-mail daughter Diana Gemora and ask if she ever heard of him.
The Mighty Bongo		#16	[-]
Aug 14 11 11:09 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Thanks for the info and photos Doctor Kiss ! I've seen a similar credit issue in another film as well ( which for the life of me I can't find at the moment )in which Charlie was billed as Gorilla and a second guy was billed as Ape, with only one gorilla in the film ! As Tom stated, picking out the guy "in" the suit, can be a nearly impossible task at times. Since the begining of Charlies career as a gorilla man, he'd had others step into his suits as doubles for scenes he couldn't physicaly handle. His most famous double was Joe Bonomo, who Charlie used regularly for bits requiring great strength, starting with MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. Charlie was also doubled by an acrobat in Tarzan the Tiger, for vine swinging and climbing. Charlie looked like he was nearly squished trying to carry Natalie Kingston as Jane in the same film. Here is a photo comp that came from Diana Gemora by way of Bob Burns It shows 7 of Charlies suits, which kept evolving into even more different variations through changes in hair work and paint and suit padding. The ape in SIGN OF THE CROSS, is the one in the top center on the comp. It is the same suit in SO THIS IS AFRICA. The suit in PURE AND SIMPLE is pictured in the upper left photo. It is the same suit Charlie wore in in Tarzan the Tiger, Murders in the Rue Morgue,( with Joe Bonomo), the Chimp, Seven Footprints to Satan, etc. As to the suit in MR.WASHINGTON GOES TO TOWN ? It's not one of Charlies. It looks like one of the suits that the studios themselves either owned , or rented and threw them into whatever production. If I had to hazard a guess as to which of the jurors is Clarence Moorehouse, I'd have to go with the Gentleman in the first row, second from the left. Why ? Because he looks to be a lot smaller than all the other guys. And to fit into 5'4" Charlies suits, you would have to be pretty small. Chris Want to hang out with the ultimate party animals ? Come see us at; http://www.hollywoodgorillamen.com/ Last Edited By: The Mighty Bongo Aug 14 11 11:22 AM. Edited 1 times.
TomWeaver999		#17	[-]
Aug 14 11 12:28 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	<< I've seen a similar credit issue in another film as well in which Charlie was billed as Gorilla and a second guy was billed as Ape, with only one gorilla in the film ! << I betcha a quarter you're thinking of PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE where Gemora and Nick Cravat both played the gorilla, and both got credit on some published castlists.
jplibby		#18	[-]
Aug 14 11 12:33 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The info on Clarence Moorehouse is intriguing and appreciated. One thing that struck me is that the name almost seems like a corruption of Charles Gemora. That's probably too much of a stretch, though.
The Mighty Bongo		#19	[-]
Aug 14 11 1:59 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	TomWeaver999 wrote: << I've seen a similar credit issue in another film as well in which Charlie was billed as Gorilla and a second guy was billed as Ape, with only one gorilla in the film ! << I betcha a quarter you're thinking of PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE where Gemora and Nick Cravat both played the gorilla, and both got credit on some published castlists. On the nosey Tom ! Thats exactly where I saw it ! It's hard to keep track of all this cross referencing we've been doing on Charlie both here and on the hollywoodgorillamen.com site. GorillaMan, (my co-author on the site)and I have been putting up a lot of info on Charlie lately, with some really nice stills. We have also called upon Bob Burns ( my big gorilla brother) to work with us solving some mystery stills that we collectively got from Diana Gemora, that we couldn't place. Drop by and have a look , if you'd like. We always welcome any input and insights you folks would like to contribute, and will give you full credit for the info. And doctor kiss, thank you again for the info on Clarence Moorehouse ! I'm thinking a post about all of Charlies doubles might be a good topic in the future. Chris Want to hang out with the ultimate party animals ? Come see us at; http://www.hollywoodgorillamen.com/
TomWeaver999		#20	[-]
Aug 14 11 3:15 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Could you post the mystery stills here? I went to the site and the only one I found right away -- a Chinese fire drill of men and gorillas -- looks like it's probably from the Jungle Jim MARK OF THE GORILLA, which had a gorillas-attack scene.

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The Sign of the Cross gorilla by Gemora?

The Sign of the Cross gorilla by Gemora?