FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY
Fifty Years Ago Today was Saturday, March 17, 1973…An angry pilot of the Khmer Air Force killed 43 people and injured 35 in Cambodia after making a dive bomb attack on the presidential palace in Phnom Penh. Most of the dead were inside the barracks of the palace guards, including families of the guards…Born: Caroline Corr, Irish musician and drummer of The Corrs; in Dundalk, County Louth …
Top song in the country was KILLING ME SOFTLY WITH HIS SONG by Roberta Flack. A goodie.
Myself, I was out of college, out of work, and almost out of my marriage. Just had to hang on a few more months. During this coming week I would have been pretty intensively in rehearsal for THREE MEN ON A HORSE. This would be one of my last shows before I joined Actors Equity and went all perfessional. It would also be the only college show I did after graduating. Hey, my old director needed me! He flashed the Rick-Signal and I answered. The show would open on the coming Friday and close the next night. It was a small-college show in a small town. Not enough audience for more than that. But it was a good show with a really primo role for yours truly.
But there would be no rehearsal this Saturday night, so I could stay home and take in the double feature on Channel 41’s FRIGHT NIGHT. We were treated to two chillers every Saturday night. This went on for a few wonderful years and was hosted by local actor Charles Kissinger as The Fearmonger. Basically we saw a closeup of Kissinger with spooky underlighting. He would introduce the movies and sprinkle in too many ancient groaner jokes. I never laughed at one of them. I would have been embarrassed if I had.
The big attraction on this FRIGHT NIGHT was a Karloff classic from the ‘30s. Had it been a Universal production I probably would have seen it already. But this was from Warner Brothers. That night I watched, for the first time…
I had seen photos from this movie in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. As I recall they gave off spooky vibes and, while I’d heard or read very little about the film, what I had picked up in bits and pieces had all sounded positive, so I was very hopeful.
And this time I was not disappointed. The movie was a crackerjack, no doubt about it. Spooky and weird and kind of oddly religious. I thought it was great, just great. For some reason, I think I’ve seen it only once more in the last half century. Seems like I would have sought it out more than that. But, I think not, so I believe this will be only my third look at it. I remember atmosphere more than anything else, so I expect this viewing will appear pretty fresh to me. Let’s find out…
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Movie fans know Michael Curtiz as the director of CASABLANCA, YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, and THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. Monster Kids know the truth. He’s the guy who made DOCTOR X, MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM, and THE WALKING DEAD. He also had a reputation as a taskmaster, driving cast and crew through 15 and 20 hour days. I have to wonder about the working relationship between slavedriver Curtiz and Boris Karloff, one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild and a zealous advocate of actors’ rights. Might have been a tense set.
Phenomenally terrific supporting cast: Edmund Gwenn, Ricardo Cortez, Barton MacLane, Henry O’Neill, Addison Richards, Paul Harvey, Joe Sawyer. Young romantic leads Warren Hull and Marguerite Churchill don’t come off as well, particularly Hull. They also play a couple of frankly reprehensible, cowardly characters.
It’s such a WB movie--dark urban streets, gangsters, reporters, “torn from the headline” elements.
The first people John Ellman should have targeted for his revenge were the young couple who waited till the last possible instant to provide the alibi which could have saved his life.
From my earlier viewings, plus some stuff I’d read, I thought that Karloff had borrowed too much of the Monster for this performance. Now I don’t think so. The movie itself is somewhat guilty of that, but not Boris. I mean, it’s the same actor and he’s playing a reanimated corpse, so there are, of course, similarities. But Karloff’s John Ellman is not the Monster Part II.
I was right before. It’s a great horror movie. First class right down the line. I would say that it’s one of two great horror films Karloff made in the ‘30s for someone other than Universal, the other being Columbia’s THE BLACK ROOM.
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