Category Archives: movies

Curse of the Demon & The Haunted Palace (Halloween, continued)

This afternoon’s double-feature was Curse of the Demon and The Haunted Palace.

In Curse of the Demon, Dana Andrews must save himself from certain death at the claws of a demon that would have been much scarier if it had been kept off-camera.

Despite the Edgar Allan Poe title, Haunted Palace is actually based on the H.P. Lovecraft story, “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.” It stars some of our old friends: Vincent Price and Elisha Cook (seen together last week in House on Haunted Hill), plus Lon Chaney, Jr.

Neither required any actual thought – the perfect Sunday afternoon double feature after a grueling morning of Meet the Press, poll-watching, and newspaper reading.

Frankenstein, redux (13+ Days of Halloween)

So far, Husband has missed every movie in the Halloween marathon. He was sad to miss the Frankenstein fest so I put on Son of Frankenstein so he could catch up – it’s his favorite of the post Bride-movies and all. (The things we do for love). While he watched, I looked up the annoying kid, Donnie Dunagan, to see if he ever worked again. Would you believe he was the voice of Bambi? After that – a lengthy career in the Marine Corps.

At one hour and 40 minutes, Son is, in Husband’s words, “a bit of a trial.” I wandered off for about 30 minutes and baked pumpkin cupcakes. I’m so tired I didn’t bother to make any frosting. They came out quite well, regardless. I didn’t pay attention to the cupcake liners I bought, I just grabbed the last package on the shelf. They seem to be comedy cupcake liners, they’re twice as tall as normal ones. When I first put them into the pan I thought I’d grabbed an extra-shallow pan from the cabinet. We have a lot of pans, and, like I said, I’m really tired.

After we ate cupcakes, we forged ahead to the mercifully shorter Ghost of Frankenstein. Bela returns as Ygor, who you only thought died at the end of Son. At the end of Son, the Monster had been thrown into the sulfur pits. At the beginning of Ghost, he’s accidentally freed. All that time encased in sulfur was good for the Monster’s wardrobe. In Son he shuffled around in some of sort of nasty fleece vest, but when he’s freed from the sulfur he’s wearing the ill-fitting jacket from the first two films.

Just don’t think too much about these things, they’ll make your brain hurt.

Our – if by “our” you mean “my” – goal tonight is to get through Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, but I suspect we’ll be throwing in the towel after the first two. Besides, Ben Affleck is supposed to be playing Keith Olbermann tonight on Saturday Night Live and I’d like to catch that before I lose consciousness. We’ll see….

Halloween Movie Night!

I had this delusion I was just going to spend most of the day vegetating and alternating between reading Joe Hill’s 20th Century Ghosts and watching movies. Didn’t quite work out, although I did manage to combine a run and The Devil Bat (1941) – one of the few times I was glad the gym has installed individual tv’s on some of the treadmills. I had someone else turn it on, because most people watch CNN at my gym and I didn’t want to take the chance on a random sighting on day 2 of my CNN detox.

Devil Bat is so hilariously bad it was almost dangerous to watch while running. I love the opening sequence, where Mad Scientist Bela works to perfect his species of Giant Devil Bats using electrical manipulation of their glandular processes. He does this when he’s not busy inventing a new aftershave. His conversation with the stock footage bat before he carries the completely unconvincing rubber model into the laboratory is priceless. I mean that literally, it couldn’t have cost anything to produce that scene. And if it did, someone should have been fired. I swear the actual plot of this movie is: Mad Scientist hates his employer, develops a shaving lotion that causes Giant Devil Bats to attack whoever wears it, commits mayhem.

I’d planned to make tonight a triple-feature: The Haunting (1963), Evil Dead and the 1st Halloween, but those best laid plans and all. It’s okay, I’ve already decided that Halloween is going to last through election-day this year so that I have time to get through everything left on the Tivo, finish the Frankenstein marathon, and read the Joe Hill short stories and David J. Skal’s Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween. Both of those books have been sitting on the coffeetable mocking me ever since the start of the 10 day migraine that kept me from reading.

I was so tired tonight that I decided to postpone the movies and watch Halloween episodes from Buffy. I haven’t seen any of them in ages, they’re funny, and they don’t require much attention span. I picked season 2 (where everyone becomes their Halloween costume) after realizing I was too tired to even watch more than one tonight. I never mentioned it here, but I kicked off the 13 Days of Halloween fest with the Halloween episode from the final season of Angel, “Life of the Party.”

Frankenstein Fest (13 Days of Halloween)

First up, was Barack Obama. Then, Bride of Frankenstein. I’d forgotten how wooden the preamble is. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron gather on the proverbial dark and stormy night to babble about Mary’s unpublished novel. Mary is certain it’ll be published one day. Lord Byron rapturously summarizes the major beats of the story while the viewer sees a montage of these very same events. They suspiciously resemble the arc of the film, not the novel. Fortunately, it’s over in mercifully short order and Mary begins to tell a new tale, the story of the creation of the Bride of the Monster. Elsa Lanchester, who had a lengthy and varied career (all those Disney movies!), plays both Mary Shelley and the Bride.

Bride of the Frankenstein features the creepy scene where mad Dr. Pretorious shows Dr. Frankenstein his success growing tiny, Barbie-sized people who he keeps in Bell Jars. What makes the scene particularly disturbing is the whimsical music, it underscores the complete of Pretorius and his complete disconnection with that funny little thing called sanity.

It’s a fine film, once you get through that preamble (it’s only a few minutes long, use it to open a bottle of wine), Director James Whale was truly an artist. The fictionalized film about Whale’s death, Gods and Monsters, takes it’s name from a line in Bride of Frankenstein. Boris Karloff is terrific as the Monster. The pop culture image of the Monster is that of a lumbering, emotionless creature. The Monster of the book, and the first two films, is anything but. The scene with the blind man in the cabin, where the Monster cautiously makes his first friend, is quite moving.

Next up, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, which was on at 10 instead of 8 because of the Obama-thon.

I watched Son of Frankenstein and have already posted about it and about the epic decline in quality the franchise suffered after Bride, so I pushed ahead to 1942’s Ghost of Frankenstein. In Son of Frankenstein, the Doctor’s son, Wolf, inherited the castle, the crazy hunchback, Ygor, and, of course, the monster. (Who is now played by Lon Chaney, Jr).

In Ghost, Wolf’s brother, Ludwig, takes up dear old dad’s work after the villagers capture the monster, who it turns out escaped with Ygor at the end of Son. Wackiness ensues. Or maybe that’s the wine talking.

After an intermission to watch Obama on the Daily Show, I planned to move on to House of Dracula, except I realized it hadn’t arrived yet. I also realized that I don’t really care so I skipped on to House of Frankenstein. I should note that House of Dracula marks the debut of Glenn Strange as the Monster. Lon Chaney, jr remains, but now plays Lawrence Talbet/the Wolf Man. John Carradine plays Dracula. Bela is nowhere to be seen. This cast remains the same for House of Frankenstein, and I should mention that Lionel Atwill gamely continues to play the Inspector.

Three Frankensteins were enough for one night. Plus, I was out of wine, so I watched Rachel Maddow and went to bed.

drag race

When I moved to Washington, DC in 1988 (holy shit, that was 20 years ago) my real introductions to the town were Adams Morgan Day and the Drag Race. I missed the Drag Race this year, but I think the Washington Post article sums it up beautifully:

If you haven’t spent a frigid evening watching a sparkly herd of men stampede as if on a life-or-death escape from a Bedazzler that already attacked them once, then, honey, you simply haven’t lived.

I’m deeply sorry I missed the polygamists.

Theory: It is impossible to witness the drag race and not utter the word “Fabulous.”

The Cher/Gwen Stefani/Princess Di-and-bodyguards? Fabulous. Judy Garland making eyes at Liza Minnelli? Creepy and fabulous.

Those nine middle-age guys dressed up as polygamist-sect members in matching pink gingham? Fundamentally Fabulous.

Tonight I forge ahead with the Frankenstein film fest. I have to admit I put on Bride of Frankenstein last night and then immediately became so occupied undoing the screwed-up sleeve on my dress that I was startled when the closing credits started running. I’d completely tuned out the whole movie, so tonight will have to be a do-over. Bride is the best of the batch, after all – if it was one of the crappy later monster flicks I might have let it slide.