HORROR AND FANTASY FILM POSTERS OF THE 80'S

This week I found another stack of clippings, these from VARIETY, in my unsorted box of monster ephemera. During the 80's film companies were heavily promoting their films, many of which were European imports. This is a mix of fantasy, science-fiction, sword & sorcery, horror and one for adults only thrown in for good measure.

NOSFEREVIEW, "AN ENIGMATIC WEIRDNESS"

The Christmas Day 1929 issue of Variety includes a review of the German silent film, NOSFERATU THE VAMPIRE (a title not included in IMDBs list of titles used in U.S. releases), which had been released in the U.S. on 3 June of that year. Called "skillfully mounted and directed", the review goes on to explain the origins of the film and how it was inspired from "Bram Stokes" (sic) novel, Dracula and Liveright's play from 1927 (which was produced 5 years after NOSFERATU was filmed!).

Lauded for its "extremely effective symbolism", the review also extols, "One shot of the sun cracking at dawn is an eye filler. Among others of extremely imaginative beauty is one which takes in a schooner sailing in a rippling stream photographed in such a manner that it has the illusion of color and an enigmatic weirdness that's more perplexing than the ghost action of the players."

Overall, though, the picture is called, "a depressive piece of art made even more incompatible for bourgeois theater fare misspotted and poor titling." Ironically, audiences had no idea how lucky they were to view a film where all copies had nearly been destroyed through legal channels by an over-protective widow Stoker.

THE EVOLUTION OF A MUMMY

A puff piece in the 19 November 1932 issue of UNIVERSAL WEEKLY extols the studio's one name star, "Karloff", for his accomplishments as an actor, including his mastery in the art of makeup (!).

Hollywood was still reeling (no pun intended) from the passing of Lon Chaney, one of its most popular and top-grossing stars, and it was desperate to fill his rather large shoes. The list of candidates was endless, and every Tom, Dick and Harry that wore greasepaint in a horror film was a potential to bear the moniker -- not the least of two named Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.

What they seemed to be collectively overlooking was that the stars that were named as Chaney's successor all sat while a makeup artist behind the scenes applied the goop that would make them famous. No one would argue that Karloff's wordless role as the Frankenstein monster was nothing short of brilliant, but it was the head of Universal's makeup department, a little Greek immigrant by the name of Jack Pierce, that created the look of the monster with his skillful hands.

Syndicated columnist, Robert Grandon, glossed over this fact in his feature on Karloff that was selected by the editors of the Weekly. In it he states, "Since 'Frankenstein' there is no player on the screen who can hold a candle to his popularity as a horror artist or as a makeup artist [sic]. The mantle of Lon Chaney seems to have landed squarely on his shoulders."

More importantly, the one-page promotional piece provided readers with a short bio on Karloff and how he evolved from a construction laborer to one of Universal's biggest stars of the 1930s.

BONUS! Included here is a page from the Tuesday, May 17 1932 issue of the Hollywood trade paper, VARIETY. The article on the far right column discusses a rating of newspaper syndicates that covered Hollywood news by Tinseltown's own press agents. The ratings were based on importance. Coming in first was the Associated Press. The celebrated insider maven, Louella Parsons was seventh. Last on the list was Robert Grandon, representing Publisher's Syndicate.

SEASON'S GREETINGS FROM THE CAST OF 'DRACULA'

In the Wednesday, January 8, 1930 issue of VARIETY appeared this "adver-card" from Horace Liveright Productions of 61 West 48th Street, New York City. Liveright was, of course, the producer of the highly successful stage play, DRACULA, starring Bela Lugosi as the vampire Count. The card's greeting is from the entire cast of DRACULA and signed by  his theatrical general manager, Louis Cline. Another Monsterologist's moment in horror history!

MONSTEROLOGY: RARE LIVE PROLOGUE TO CHANEY'S PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

In a rare event, even in the day, Universal Pictures hired "Thurston", the world-famous magician, to create an illusion to use for a prologue to a screening of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. The event was publicized in the Wednesday, August 18 issue of VARIETY.

Born in 1869, Howard Thurston was the epitome of the "unhappy boy who ran away to the circus", because he was and he did. A real-life rags-to-riches story, he was also possessed of a criminal past that he spent much of his adult life on trying to erase. As a magician, his fame was second only to his contemporary, the great escape artist Harry Houdini. Thurston, on the other (sleight of) hand, was well-known for his illusions, and especially his card tricks.

Universal hired Thurston to come up with something spectacular as a prologue for the New York opening night on 06 SEPTEMBER 1925 of the highly anticipated film, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, starring the "man of a thousand faces", Lon Chaney, Sr. To make it worth his while, the studios paid him $1,000, which was a huge sum in those days.

MONSTEROLOGY has thus far, found no record as to what exactly the illusion was that Thurston performed that night.