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Wich2 wrote:

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Oh, just to be clear, Ted:

As I said, I 'preciate your legwork, and DO think "a connection" between the two filmmakers makes sense.

I just think that's a fur piece from us locking in Paviot's Monster as being a carbon copy of Bela's in '31 - and that's the kind of leap some folks like to make!

Todmichel wrote:
About the Lugosi screen test, the most surprising is that not a single still seems to have survived. After all, for other Universal movies of the same era, for instance "Frankenstein" and "The Old Dark House", we have stills of the alternate makeups on Boris Karloff, not kept in the final films. Same thing for Lugosi, with his first (and, I think, better) make-up for "Island of Lost Souls" for Paramount. It seems curious that nobody was (apparently) on the set for some still photographs... Especially in these times before video, when it was necessary to project a movie on a screen in order to watch the result of a test!

Ted Newsom wrote:

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Phantom, your dismissal of Paul Ivano as a DP is remarkable. You toss him away as a hack because he shot sitcoms in the 60s? Fiddle-de-dee. Karl Freund shot I Love Lucy, which (technical innovation aside), looks as cheap as I Married Joan, and as dreary. Was Stanley Cortez equally miserable because he shot MADMEN OF MANDORAS and DINOSAURUS? Was John Fulton an old poseur because he ends up making THE BAMBOO SAUCER? And because you don't like PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES, you figure Cortez for an old liar?

Likewise your dismissal of Florey as reliable. Unless you actually met him and have some sort of personal insight, assuming he was a bitter, lying old coot is a bit much.

The argument for Lugosi creating his own make-up for FRANKENSTEIN is empty. The one interview which even goes anywhere near the subject is a terse Jack Pierce interview from Modern Monsters. He's asked directly about it and he gives a vague answer: "Lugosi thought his ideas were better than anyone else's." Pierce didn't say "He did it himself," or "I didn't like his version." Come on-- Pierce was HIRED because of his ability with make-ups. He was the guy who did THE MONKEY TALKS, and THE MAN WHO LAUGHS. And Universal is going to let an actor design his own character? Nope. There are contemporary newspaper descriptions of something rather elaborate on Lugosi, but no mention that he was applying it himself ala Lon Chaney-- which would be an obvious publicity hook. And even Karloff did not know. I paraphrase, but this is very close: "I was told he did a great hairy thing, nothing like our monster." Well, clearly, Karloff was told something after the fact; when, who knows? 1931? 1958? 1967? And if the latter, it might well be that someone saw the Van Sloan piece in FM and Karloff was recalling hearing someone tell him the story.

And even the Edw. van Sloan piece is problematic. Bear in mind, there was no tape recorder, no one took notes. Sixteen year-old G. John Edwards cobbled van Sloan's words together after the fact, from what he could remember. Forry Ackerman then polished the whole thing and who knows what errors crept in along the way. Maybe van Sloan actually said, "H was made up to look like Gollum." A reference which would, of course, be over their heads in 1964. I think it's probably mostly accurate, but by now, even Edwards can't remember the details.

UPDATE:

Ted Newsom wrote:

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The penultimate sentence of this quote from 1962 implies that Pierce's work on Karloff won him the role.  Hmmmm.

Its date also shows that I was wrong in one way, that Karloff's later reference to Lugosi -- "I was told he was a great hairy thing, not at all like out Monster" -- wasn't something picked up after the Van Sloan interview (which was c. 1965).

So, did Lugosi actually do his own make-up?  I think I have been interpreting this statement to mean that Lugosi was insistent that Pierce should do his make-up his way.  But, if Lugosi actually did his own make-up himself, that casts a different light on things.  It's not really too far-fetched in one respect because Bela did have artistic ability and dabbled in sculpting - so, devising a monstrous appearance in three dimensions would not have been beyond his capablities.  But, if that was the case, then , I'm going to have to revise my viewpoint to embracing the idea that Lugosi's test make-up was NOTHING like Pierce's iconic monster.  Apparently, from Ted's article above, it was THAT ICONIC DESIGN devised between Pierce and Karloff's collaboration that did the trick!

- GJS

   
  
Now, just to clarify my position on this a bit, I did say that the KEY word here is "IF".   And, as Ted and Craig have both pointed out, a lot of things have been said that could be interpreted various ways.  But, at least we can rule out Boris' quotation concerning Bela's "hairy creature, not at all like our Monster" as having been influenced by the Edward Van Sloan interview.

- GJS

Bobtheman wrote:

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", a lot of things have been said that could be interpreted various ways."   Like this one...


As Boris Karloff would remember of the Hungarian's Frankenstein test days, "I was once told that he insisted on doing his make-up himself- and did this awful, hairy creature, not at all like our monster." 13

We can "interpret" this that the makeups were similar.