Hello!

The wise and merciful Joe Dante circulated a terrific article this week, that cuts through the PC flak about David O. Selznick’s Gone With the Wind. Written by David Vincent Kimel for The Ankler, it’s Gone With the Wind: The Explosive Lost Scenes.

True, the show that for fifty years was considered the pinnacle of Hollywood filmmaking now has a lot to answer for. Instead of uninformed rhetoric, Kimel’s article presents documentation covering GWTW scenes and dialogue dropped both before and after filming. The actual memos are startling in their candor — some are between producer Selznick and his creative consultant Val Lewton. The text reveals ‘A never-revealed war over slavery’s depiction,’ and ‘Rhett Butler’s suicidal intentions.’

Advisor and sage Gary Teetzel sent along an item about a Kickstarter campaign for a monster-related graphic novel. It’s at the link Frankenstein and Dracula Double Bill by Legendary Comics. Gary explains in his own words:

A little while back Legendary Comics did a graphic novel adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, faithful to the book and using Bela Lugosi’s likeness, duly licensed. The same folks have now apparently done a faithful adaptation of Frankenstein using Boris Karloff’s inimitable likeness.

The interesting thing about the Frankenstein comic adaptation is that Universal’s classic 1931 movie is, of course, very different from Shelly’s novel, including the monster’s appearance. So artist Kerry Gammill had to draw Karloff’s face in what was essentially a new ‘monster makeup’ closer to Mary Shelley’s description.

Their Kickstarter page features an elaborate 80-second promotional video featuring sample artwork.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson