Hello!

Tom Weaver’s Scripts from the Crypt book series is on a Mummy Roll this year — hot on the heels of his book analyzing Universal’s The Mummy’s Hand comes an all-inclusive tome on the second show in the wartime series, The Mummy’s Tomb.

Weaver is of course the compiler of informed interviews with actors and other creatives responsible for decades of classic horror and sci-fi pictures. Now that most everybody from that era has retired to the pearly gates, his Bear Manor ‘Scripts from the Crypt’ series has extended and improved upon older books that annotated reprints of classic screenplays. Weaver’s notes on Tomb benefit from a close examination of Universal records, Variety announcements and a microscopic comparison of script to finished film.

These books are for fans that can’t learn enough about these legendary pictures. The comprehensive look at Lon Chaney Jr. helps place the actor in Hollywood’s pecking order, striving for good roles. Also covered is the inside story on the creation of Chaney’s mummy — even while wearing a mask (instead of an hours’ long makeup job) Chaney still found the costume a pain. To help him heft the femme victime Elyse Knox, Chaney wore a rig similar to a telephone lineman’s harness sling. The book points out where the sling can be seen in production photos, as well as on the screen.

After reading Laura Wagner’s thorough bio on the appealing Elyse Knox, we’re disappointed that the movie restricted her to such a decorative role. Weaver’s fellow tomb desecrator Fred Olen Ray offers his personal remembrance of the gentlemanly matinee idol Turhan Bey. The actor performed in Ray’s video release Possessed by the Pickle Jar Night.

In addition to general production notes, Tom Weaver covers the unusual career story of George Zucco, delving into the details of a morals charge brought against the actor in New Zealand. Nobody’s perfect. The book’s 250 pages are packed with unusual photos, the full pressbook, arcane details, screwy conjectures, stabs at graveyard humor, fan homages and interesting newspaper articles. If you’re on a tight budget, it’ll set you back less than the cost of a week’s supply of Tana leaves.

And as long as we’re in such a happy ‘Universal Monsters’ mood, David J. Schow has been circulating an impressive montage by Anthony Magnoni entitled Universal Monsters – Fan Made Trailer, that incorporates some stylish graphics.

David offered his compliments:  “it recognizes several simple truths about the staying power of the classics . . . Not a wink or a nudge-nudge or an elbow-jab joke in the whole assembly.”  I think it’s a great montage — the well-timed images make Lugosi’s Dracula look especially dynamic, and those static images from Karloff’s The Mummy carry real impact.

David added a link to an older, different montage celebration of Mighty Universal Monster Magic. ‘Gorizard’s’ Horror is Universal – A Tribute to Universal’s Monsters even works in a little Lon Chaney Sr., Carlo Villiarías and Lou Costello. It uses music by Danny Elfman, from The Wolfman remake.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson