CineSavant Column
Hello!
It’s Book Review time again at CineSavant, only because we can’t resist the classic Universal movie lore found in BearManor’s book series Scripts from the Crypt. I’m not exactly sure how long the series has been around, but I’ve reviewed a stack of them, with coverage of Bride of the Gorilla (scroll to May 18), Dracula’s Daughter, Boris Karloff’s The Veil (scroll down to June 9), Son of Dracula, The Brute Man, Mr. Sardonicus, The Mummy’s Hand, The Mummy’s Tomb and The Mummy’s Ghost. They must be doing something right — I’m still curious to see more.
The last year or so brought us several 1940s Mummy sequels; this time around they’ve chosen one of the better ’40s pictures, The Ghost of Frankenstein from 1942. If you recall, it’s the fourth movie in Uni’s Frankenstein franchise, following the classic Son of from three years before; this one reunites The Monster with Bela Lugosi’s Ygor. It’s Lon Chaney Jr. underneath the Jack Pierce monster makeup — we’re told that this was the show that confirmed Chaney as a successful monster star. He also dropped the ‘Jr.’ from his billing.
We also meet the other Frankenstein brother Ludwig, played by actor Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Seeing a knighted Brit thesp in a Universal horror outing always seemed a little odd, as if Greta Garbo had come out of retirement to appear on TV’s Celebrity Bowling.
Tom Weaver still ramrods the book series. He provides the seemingly limitless research notes, trade mentions, interview gems and general throw-the-net-wide info grab over every aspect of the picture, from minor players to exhibitor reactions, and later fan and revival rumblings. Top-billed writer Gregory W. Mank wrote the leadoff historical essay, condensing the preparation for and filming of the show into about 90 dense pages. Images to illustrate the text are brought in from everywhere, from official stills, frame blowups, and photos from newspaper morgues. Contributing writers Frank Dello Stritto, Bill Cooke, Roger Hurlburt, Michael A. Hoey and Scott Gallinghouse dish up a wide variey of bio pieces and analysis of character development in the franchise: You say Ygor, I say Igor.
One big theme here is Lon Chaney’s erratic rise to stardom. At times he seems an alcoholic loose cannon, playing cruel pranks on Evelyn Ankers; then he’s the darling of publicity, a swell guy described as kind to dogs and children. If the clippings and witness statements are to be believed, Chaney practically adopted the moppet playing ‘The Monster’s friend’ in this installment, four-year-old Janet Ann Gallow. Weaver is his usual wary self, scrutinizing pub feeds and interviews for the Baloney Factor. He leads the way with the debunking of a casting myth about kid actor William Smith.
The other concentration of analysis is Ghost of Frankenstein’s somewhat goofy but genuinely interesting ‘Musical Brains’ brain-transplant theme … this is the one where Ygor’s brain gets slotted into The Monster’s head, in place of the brain of a benign scientist. The Monster apparently wanted the little kid’s brain, for some reason. We 1960s kids in front of our 19″ TVs were weirded-out by the spectacle of Chaney’s Monster speaking with Lugosi’s voice. Weaver and Mank tell us about unused script pages that gave Ygor a ‘conquer the world’ motivation; they also talk about scenes shot for the next movie in the series, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, in which Ygor comes back, somehow, even though The Monster speaks with Ygor’s voice … I don’t think I paid close enough attention to these derailed movie ideas. The upshot of it is that, after speaking only in Bride, The Monster would remain a mute automaton until he met Lou Costello: “Yes, Master.”
The Scripts from the Crypt series still entertains — the original screenplay is present plus the formal essay plus reams of semi-organized research gleanings and images of every piece of promotional artwork generated for the movie. It all comes with Tom Weaver’s commitment to veracity … if something isn’t a nailed-down fact, Tom makes sure to say so loud and clear. How well might Tom perform on a debate broadcast?
The book comes in both soft and hardcover editions.
As long as we’re on the subject of BRAINS, correspondent Michael McQuarrie links us to another fascinating film listing by Periscope Film. It’s a public information film about ‘passive brainwashing’ in Korean POW camps. Hosted by Ronald Reagan, it is sometimes labeled as propaganda: The Ultimate Weapon.
Archive.org’s somewhat agenda’ed description says that it “was produced by Film Consultants of California in an effort to back an anti-Communist campaign that was part of the Red Scare.” The dramatic scenes are fairly corny, but not much more than other Hollywood war films of the day. It is a bit like The Manchurian Candidate, except that the Red Chinese use only psychology to break down the POWS. Even thought they do nothing overtly violent, the American prisoners fail to organize against their captors, or even to prevent the spread of disease.
Forget the camaraderie of The Great Escape. Ronald Reagan’s voiceover reports that some men die just from ‘give up-itis’: “If only the boy’s family, and school and church had helped him grasp and develop the idea of personal responsibility and obligation.” Oh, now we get it — the American POWS are falling apart because liberal values have sapped their rugged pioneer spirit. They’re waiting for ‘the government’ to do something instead of doing it themselves.
The shocker is Reagan’s summing-up speech, which changes gears to tell the audience that we are all stoops being suckered by Commie traitors in our midst. It’s a quick diatribe against the social safety net and American ‘softness’ that will make it easy for Communists to conquer us. “So-called broadmindedness, tolerance and sophistication can destroy as as surely as any nuclear advice.” It’s scare tactics 101, and the country ate it up.
What kind of stealth production is this? The movie is very cagey with its abbreviated titles. A Google search for the ‘Film Consultants of California’ turned up nothing. The movie is a polished Hollywood production, but neither it nor the director (Robert Cashy?) or the screenwriter (Charles W. Cromer?) appear in the IMDB, that I can see. [Nothing necessarily sinister about that, as the IMDB does have its info gaps here and there.] Editor Hugo Grimaldi is a real name, and so is cameraman Arthur Feindel; The Ultimate Weapon doesn’t show in their IMDB filmographies.
Several actors are very familiar … but I was only able to identify one, Del Monroe. → His face is familiar from old TV episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. I’m less certain about Robert Dowdell, also from the same TV show. Can anybody help me with some of the others?
I still have an altered print of this movie in 16mm. It must have been a junked print because the titles have been hacked off. My copy was altered for later use — in public meetings? The final anti-Communist speech is replaced with an even cruder ‘feel good’ speech in which Reagan tells us to reject Communism because it will take away our consumer paradise — a montage of images of new cars and a well-stocked grocery meat meat counter is added! In my re-edited copy, Reagan begins his wrap-up with the words, “Now I know you hate Communism … !”
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson