JM Cozzoli

“The Creature is back! He needs a doctor! A plastic surgeon. He’s been touched to the quick…slowly. It’s a sad tale, the creature who walks among us sings. He is the last of the strolling troubadours…the very end. Listen as he sings, ‘Who is the fairest one of all?’”

Most monsterkids will recognize that little intro from the album Themes From Horror Movies by Dick Jacobs and his Orchestra. The intro, written by Mort Goode and narrated by Bob McFadden, sets the scene for the theme “Stalking the Creature” from Universal’s 1956 entry The Creature Walks Among Us (1956). I was listening to this worn-out album this past week, reliving in my old mind the scenes these themes accompanied. What visuals they conjure up!

I had an idea: I went over to the Witchwood Cemetery to visit my old friend, The Radio Reaper. I found him in his tomb, doing some much-needed housekeeping.

“Reaper,” I said, “I’m looking for some old spots to a certain movie. Do you have The Creature Walks Among Us?”

A gleam lit up his old sunken eyes and a smile came across his withered lips.

“I believe I do. Let’s see.” he said.

He grabbed his old reliquary and blew off the dust. He opened it, thumbed through some things, and pulled out a red, 12” record.

“Here you go,” he said and handed it to me.

“Wow!” I exclaimed. “Only four spots?”

“Yep,” he replied. “I guess they figured the public knew who the Creature was and what they could expect.”

I thanked him and went on my way.

The movie is the third installment of the Creature franchise, the first two being Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) and Revenge of the Creature (1955). This time around scientists, led by Jeff Morrow and Rex Reason, attempt to capture the Gill-man again, this time in the Florida Everglades, in an effort to study him up close. After they examine a sample of his blood, Morrow goes off the deep end and decides to try and develop a new species through blood and genetic manipulation. While hunting the creature, they soon become the hunted, and the creature jumps into their small boat, gets shot by two spears containing the anesthetic rotonone, and accidently douses himself with gasoline. Gregg Palmer’s character throws a gasoline lamp at him which ignites him. Falling into the water, they soon rescue him, his body now covered in third-degree burns and having trouble breathing. They take him back to their science yacht where they discover that his scales and gills have been burned away but that he possesses human-type skin underneath and a rudimentary set of lungs. His eyes mutate into human-like eyes and his body shape changes, due to his inflated lungs (and to match the drawing we see of him early in the movie showing a much bulkier creature than we have previously known). The creature is provided clothing to cover his sensitive skin and is eventually locked in an electrified enclosure where he observes man’s inhumanity to man – and woman. Out of fear he escapes, and the last we see of him he is staring remorsefully at the ocean before slowly making his way to it.

Don Megowan gives a heartfelt, emotional portrayal of the creature, mostly through eye movement and body language. We feel sorry for him as he tries to adjust to a new land environment and to learn the good and evil ways of his captors. The movie uses a lot of underwater footage from the two previous movies and some new underwater scenes with Ricou Browning, this time in the old suit and in the new suit.

Here now are the four spots as Creature fans heard them in 1956. So, dive in…and enjoy.

Hello, My Children,

Your old Granny is back after attending to my ailing mother. She is better and is now able to function on her own, bless her heart.

Many thanks go out to my nephew, Crazy Gary, for keeping The Crypt functioning in my absence. I hear he did a pretty good job, and the spots he highlighted were well received. He’s a good nephew, even though he is crazy at times. I will forgive him for snooping on my computer because last week’s installment was pretty good. I had never heard many of those spots and they were pretty good! He did good….and yes, after much screaming, pleading, begging and stomping around, I promised him he could do more columns in the near future.

I had a lot of free time while Mother napped and recovered, so I was able to catch up on my reading and movie watching. The Late, Late, Late, Early Show on Channel 13 featured some oldies I hadn’t seen for awhile and one in particular stood out. When I got back to my humble abode I searched through The Crypt and, again, thanks to The Radio Reaper, I found the spots to that movie. So, this week I’m featuring the original radio spots to Universal’s The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Based on Richard Matheson’s story idea/novel The Shrinking Man, it is considered one of Universal’s best, and is a special effects bonanza and a treat to watch. Clifford Stein and crew used every trick in the book for this one including forced perspective shots, high and low camera angles, rear projection process shots, split screens, sets with oversized props, and traveling mattes. Rotoscope artist Millie Winebrenner had her hands full combining split screen and forced perspective shots and having Grant Williams walk from one into the other, and having the shrinking man fight and eventually walk behind the dead spider. I’m sure fans back then wondered, “How did they do that?” many times. The special effects team put in an admirable effort with much pre-planning involved to make sure eye line-ups matched and that when the traveling mattes of Scott stepped up to a higher plane they matched the live action plate.

Even though I love spiders…I have two tarantulas, Charlotte and Arachne, I must say I was more on the edge of my seat during the cat scene. It was very well done, and Butch the cat (performed by Orangey) put in a great performance. His trainer put him through his actions and Grant Williams’ reactions were filmed later to match.

This is the one movie that didn’t have a happy ending as such. At the end, The Incredible Shrinking Man resigns himself to his fate and realizes that, in the great scheme of things, to God, there is no zero and that he still matters.
The great Orson Welles narrates the radio spots. They are good, although different than what we are used to hearing. Give a listen and, if you can, catch this movie. It is a feast for the eyes.

Here are the various radio spots for The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Crazy Gary here with part two of our Sword and Sandal extravaganza…(see part one).

Summer, 1959, was a turning point for a lot of monsterkids. A movie opened which fired our imaginations and introduced us to a new type of movie. I’m talking about the movie Hercules which got a lot of us interested in weight training and classical literature, especially Greek mythology.

Starring an unknown –at least to us–actor named Steve Reeves, the movie was complete with heroes, beautiful scantily-clad women, fighting, adventures at sea, ape men, a dinosaur that roared like Godzilla, and many feats of strength. The music was awe-inspiring. And Steve Reeves…wow, was he built. Every guy wanted to look like him. Turns out he was a former Mr. America, Mr. World, and Mr. Universe.

I was only nine when I first saw it, and by the time it had finished its run in the second-run theaters, I had seen it twelve times. I even received the Hercules soundtrack record for Christmas that year.

In the summer of 1960, Hercules Unchained was released and I saw it many times, too. By then, Steve Reeves was a worldwide star and both movies were box office hits. Articles on Steve Reeves and his training methods regularly appeared in the muscle magazines of the time.

Reeves went on to star in several more “Sword and Sandal” type films and his last one, A Long Ride From Hell, was a western. By the end of his career, the term “sword and sandal” referred to any movie set in antiquity, primarily Rome or Greece. Within that genre there were two types of movies: one where the hero possessed great strength and went about righting wrongs. He could be Hercules, Samson, Ursus, Maciste, Goliath (see last week’s article about the two “Goliath” movies), or one of the Sons of Hercules. The other type was where the hero was a regular guy, often a great warrior or Roman soldier, but possessing no exceptional strength. Two of Reeves’ movies stand out in the latter category: Duel of the Titans, with Gordon Scott, and The Slave. …

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