The Silver Screen Oasis

I'm afraid I did dose off briefly during the movie. I saw the first third and the last! This is not one of my favorites. Too much talk. Too much footage from THE MUMMY'S HAND. We've seen it already! I do like the Frankenstein style death scene. Pretty dramatic! The best part of last night's program was the Flash Gordon send-up! An original chapter, dubbed with silly dialogue. Not bad!

Next week?

THE MUMMY'S GHOST is on tomorrow? I'm almost positive they ran that a few months ago. Our friend, Svengoolie may be running out of fuel!

Well...I'm not sure if my information is reliable. But one source says this weekend's feature is FRANCIS IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE. As in The Talking Mule! This will be followed the next week by Don Knotts in THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN. Allright. I can't say I'm not disappointed. But given the silly, cornball attitude of this program, this is not too far out of line. May as well show silly, cornball movies! And let's face it. How many Universal classics are there?

All is not lost. The final Saturday of the month brings HOUSE OF DRACULA. That's what I want from a ridiculous, singing, rubber chicken throwing horror host. I like the "House" movies!

When I was growing up, the local late night horror-and-cornball program ran a lot of Lon Chaney Jr vehicles from the forties when the usual franchise monsters ran out. There was one where he got electrocuted and somehow retained the high voltage (wattage?) in his body. He was in some others in what was called the "Inner-Sanctum Series." For a third string, I'll bet there are a lot of George Zucco pictures. I'd watch any of that stuff today.

The Lon Chaney Jr. electrified man movie is "Man-Made Monster" (1941). He is the victim of Lionel Atwill's experiments. The film was originally written for Karloff and Lugosi back in the mid-Thirties. It is an interesting film, because if you mentally substitute "radiation" for "electricity," you realize this movie is the forerunner of a lot of cheap sci-fi horror.

"Man-Made Monster" isn't one of the "Inner Sanctum" movies, which were made in the mid-Forties. Apparently, they were Universal's attempt to make Val Lewton style horror films. There were six of those, and all but two are pretty dreary. "Weird Woman" actually has Lewton favorite Elizabeth Russell (the "moya sestra" woman from "Cat People") in it. "Weird Woman" is based on Fritz Leiber's "Conjure Wife," which was filmed (more successfully) in the early Sixties as "Burn, Witch, Burn." Chaney is hard to accept as a professor of anthropology in "Weird Woman," but the supporting cast is good, and Russell has an electrifying moment.

The best "Inner Sanctum" film is "Strange Confession," which is more noir than horror. It is a remake of the 1930s Universal film "The Man Who Reclaimed His Head." "Strange Confession" is very stylish and has a good performance by J. Carroll Naish as well.

The Complete Inner Sanctum Mystery Series is available on a 2-disc DVD set at a bargain price of $7.87 at Amazon. I highly recommend it.


Another "good" Chaney film in which he is electrocuted, resurrected and becomes invulnerable is Indestructible Man(1956). A good double-bill with Man-Made Monster for a Saturday afternoon.

"Of course I'm mad. But while you were fooling with the conventions, I have conquered destiny."

Mad Scientist . . . . .Lionel Atwill
Rational Scientist . .Samuel S. Hinds
Guinea Pig . . . . . .Lon Chaney, Jr.

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Call me crazy, call me silly ( but don't call me madam ) I love all these Universal B - horror / sci-fi flicks. ( And a bonus for me...my Sammy. )

Thanks for the elaboration, Mike. You're all over it. Perhaps we were watching the same program on Hoolihan and Big Chuck all those years ago.

THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN is great fun! In fact, reading IntoTheNitrate's post, I assumed he was talking about this cheap, thrilling B Level classic. It's been so long since I saw MAN MADE MONSTER, I don't remember the plot. I'm like The Ravin' Maven. I'd rather watch a silly, but unpretentious programmer than a more ambitious project that's still not very good! When I think of BAD movies, low budget horror is not what comes to mind.

[u][color=#BF0000]Red[/color][/u] [u][color=#800000]River[/color][/u] wrote:...I'm like The Ravin' Maven. I'd rather watch a silly, but unpretentious programmer than a more ambitious project that's still not very good! When I think of BAD movies, low budget horror is not what comes to mind.

Quote the Ravin':

"Ya got that right, Bub!"

So...let's get that popcorn, dim the lights and settle in for...Francis The Talking Mule?

The Drac is back! Svengoolie returns to more traditional territory tonight with HOUSE OF DRACULA. Of course, I've seen it several times. Maybe even recently. But when Dracula is in the house, you can count on me to be an honored guest! Hopefully, my dog will join me. If she's not hiding under the couch to avoid her ear drops! A vampire in the house; she's afraid of ear drops. Dogs!

Oh, good, a vampire in hand is better than a Francis the Talking Mule movie, anytime (even if the animation of John Carradine's metamorphosis is a tad crude). House of Dracula is the one where Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) tries to duck out on his eternal misery permanently, isn't it?

That's the one! It's a good scene. Having dozed off twice during the movie (I should take a nap on Saturdays!), my familiarity with it is no better than it was a few years ago. I do feel confident in saying it's not one of the better HOUSE/CASTLE movies the studio treated us too. But that's OK. As we've all observed, these are sentimental favorites. If they're less than brilliant, that's half the fun!

Lon and John are always fun to watch.

I'm in the same boat, Red. If I don't get some shuteye earlier, I know that I'll be a goner before 11:30pm. I did see enough of House of Dracula to realize that it was a bit of a precursor to David and Lisa, with the inmates not being mixed-up kids, but mixed-up monsters like Larry, Drac, and Frankie, all in dire need of personal counseling, a stake through the heart and nowadays, an infusion of Vitamin D, which apparently we are all short of due to our lack of exposure to the sun. Jeepers, imagine how deficient John Carradine's character must have been?



My personal fave in this movie (what I saw of it) was definitely Jane Adams aka Nurse Nina (above), the hunchbacked beauty who kept hoping that Dr. Franz Edelmann (Onslow Stevens) would finally get around to addressing her problems. I even found an interview with the lady, who seems to have been an awfully good sport.



Too bad Nurse Nina's character couldn't have hooked up with J. Carrol Naish as Daniel in House of Frankenstein (1944) after he was ditched by that mean gypsy vixen, Elena Verdugo. The two poor little lonelyhearts might have been a happy pair. Hmmm....I believe that I am over-thinking the emotional life of these characters...Time for a walk in the sun loading up on my Ds.