On the Set With Lon Chaney as the Wolf Man
Photograph courtesy of Professor Kinema
Bela Lugosi Graveside
by Professor Kinema (Jim Knusch)
In one of life's little oddball quirks, it's truly ironic that a man who's most famous alter ego, Count Dracula, repelled by a crucifix or holy cross, would find his final rest in a place named the Holy Cross Cemetery. He was born Béla Ferenc Dezsõ Blaskó on October 20, 1882, Lugos, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania).
In 1931 he became an American citizen, taking the name Béla Lugosi.
On August 16, 1956, at the age of 73 he died, alone, of a heart attack in his home, an apartment on a street named Harold Way, off of Hollywood Blvd. His fifth wife of one year, Hope (more than 30 years his junior), had gone out to buy some groceries. She returned around 7 pm to find him dead.
He had been working with Ed Wood on a loose film project that was supposedly to be called The Ghoul Goes West, or The Phantom Ghoul, or Dr. Acula, or something equally as wacky. Richard Bojarski, in his book The Films of Bela Lugosi, also mentions The Vampire's Tomb and Revenge of the Dead as working titles. Accordingly (some sources say) Lugosi was clutching a copy of the script for yet another wacky Ed Wood project titled The Final Curtain.
The final film he lived to see and benefit from was The Black Sleep. The final film listed in his filmography is, of course, the appropriately wacky Plan 9 From Outer Space. The existing final footage of Lugosi that was ultimately tacked into this film gives no clue as to what project Wood had in mind when he was shooting it. Ironically at least, it does show Béla spreading his Dracula cape onscreen for the last time–possibly the cape he is buried in.
Hope Lininger, a clerk in a film studio editing department and devoted fan, had met Béla while he was in drug rehab and soon after married him. According to some reports, a good portion of his medical treatment was paid for by Frank Sinatra. Consequently, Bela's burial costs were also paid for by Sinatra. Some reports say Sinatra considered Béla a 'pal,' while others state that he had never even met him. Around 60 people attended Béla's funeral, including his son Béla Jr, fourth wife Lillian, Ed Wood, director Zoltan Korda, actress Carol Borland and 'Unkka' Forry Ackerman.
While continually playing Dracula for one theatre group or another throughout his life, he possessed a few appropriate outfits. One, complete with cape, he took with him to his grave. Another made it's way to the vast collection of Forry Ackerman. At one point, during one of my few visits to the Ackermansion, I wore the cape for a few minutes. Tim Burton's film Ed Wood correctly shows him in his coffin decked out in one of his Dracula outfits, but incorrectly shows only a few people attending the funeral.
At Holy Cross Cemetery, in Culver City, LA (not far from LAX) his plot location is Grotto, L120, 1. Nearby are the final resting places of Bing Crosby and Sharon Tate. While visiting the gravesite, I could only wonder, He died alone, he's here alone. Will any family members still alive eventually be buried here with him?
Yet perhaps the biggest irony associated with Béla could be one of his noted quotes – that could almost serve as his epitaph: (on playing the 'undead' Dracula) "It's a living, but it's also a curse. It's Dracula's curse."
Captain Company Curse of the Werewolf Statue
The official Hammer Films' Curse of the Werewolf "Bronze" is a beauty to be sure. Good detail, nice pose, and big enough to say 'Hammer Monsterkid!' Bit pricey back then, though. But coming all the way from England, I could see that.
Book Review: Angel of Vengeance
Zombos Says: Excellent
The music oozing like toxic waste from inside is almost enough to turn me around and head me right back home. I brace myself against the toxicity and move past a line of pasty-looking undead wannabes. Every one of them is dressed in black. Up and down the line both guys and girls wear heavy black eye makeup, black lipstick and black nail polish. The androgynous nature of the look makes it difficult to tell the sexes apart. Maybe that's the point, but it makes me wonder exactly when people got the idea that in order to look like a vampire you had to adopt a transvestite-in-mourning look. (Mick Angel, on his visit to the Tomb Room Club)
"What are you looking at?" asks Zombos.
I find myself standing at one of the library windows. I don't know why. Wait, yes I do.
"Pretorius is having trouble with the snow blower again." I nod Zombos' attention down two-stories as he steps over to where I'm standing. We look out the window together.
"Where is he?" he asks.
I look harder. Pretorius is gone. The snow blower is idling, puffing up oily smoke. I shake my thoughts out one by one, grab onto the last image I remember. Oh, right, now I know. I point to the hand sticking up from the voluminous snow bank, its five fingers curling tightly–death grip, really–onto the snow blower's handle.
"Oh, dear Heaven's!" yells Zombos. He runs out of the library. I think about it, but decide he can handle the situation. I have a more pressing task to finish. I'm reviewing Trevor O. Munson's Angel of Vengeance.
I return to the desk I had meandered away from to continue my review. I check my notes: Mick Angel, vampire, private dick, sleeps in a freezer to slow his decay–check; old fashioned, wears a fedora hat and smokes (he's dead, doesn't care)–check; drives a snappy Mercedes Benz 300 SL Roadster (make a note, I think Zombos has one tucked away in third garage)–check; can see his reflection in a mirror, but it's detestable (that's why vampires don't like mirrors)–check; rumored to be the novel that inspired the more romantic Moonlight television series–check.
I kick my chair back and stretch. What else? What am I missing? A gnawing sense of noir nibbles on the gray matter between my ears. Like in a Philip Marlowe Clue mystery there's the game pieces: the scummy rich guy living in the mansion at Beechwood Canyon; a 14-year old missing girl; a stripper who hires Mick to find said missing girl; and a recalcitrant Leroy–pronounced Leh-roy, a drug dealer with a score to tally. What about Munson? Sure, he's just an author, but he kicks around the vampire legend like a Del Monte tomato can down a long alley, leaving some new wrinkles on its worn label.
That's it. I smile with satisfaction. Those new wrinkles. Sure, there's the Dame from the Past, the love-interest, the one-and-only forever more. She's gone yet always there, isn't she? In flashbacks, Coraline fills Mick's thoughts and ours. Thoughts about his drug addiction leading to her addiction. Thoughts on how he's turned into a creature of the night; one who mainlines his blood–old habits die hard, right?– but only takes it from bad guys he slurps dry, like one of those Go-Gurts.
Is Mick vampire-strong? Yes. But not too strong. Munson makes sure to keep Mick's blood habit a workable annoyance, not a twilight walk in the glen. It makes him vulnerable. Funny, too, how Mick hates using cell phones. When he needs to make a phone call he goes to Canter's Deli; even if the smells now nauseate him because of his heightened nasal sensitivity. Why? Memories of the past?
It's always about the past in these stories, isn't it? Vampire ones and hardboiled ones, I mean. Munson writes Mick's case in present-tense (except for the flashbacks, of course), but Mick's living in the past while he's breathing in the present. He won't let go until he's forced to. He's forced pretty hard in Angel of Vengeance. Even with his hypnotic powers he's in deeper than he expects and bullets still hurt, and sometimes you really do have to hurt the ones you love when the truth is gearing up to hurt you.
You know how some books you hopscotch through the paragraphs and some you read word by word? This is one you won't be hopscotching.
A courtesy copy for this review was provided by Titan Books
Vampire Circus and Countess Dracula
Double Bill Pressbook
Can your heart take the blood-letting? This heart-stopping moment courtesy of Professor Kinema. Don't skip the exploitation page at the end. It's got some nifty publicity gimmicks, especially the midnight menu.
See more movie pressbooks From Zombos' Closet.
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Vampire Circus and Countess Dracula
Double Bill PressbookRead More »
Captain Company 6 Foot Frankenstein Wall Poster
I had this 6 foot, full color Frankenstein wall poster back in the 1960s, when it first appeared. Along with the Dracula one, they stood guard over my precious monsterkid possessions, cleverly displayed all over my bedroom.
With comic books and magazines overflowing from my closet, and my bureau drawers crammed with socks, shorts, and those naughty Vampirella magazines from Warren hidden under them, I'd say I had one of the best boy's bedrooms ever. Toss in that long ago summer's surprise of getting a Sony Trinitron Color TV and, hell yes, it was.
I miss it. Then again, my wife would most certainly say I never left it.
Now, I know you purists will go all Glenn Beckish, crying "it's not Frankenstein but the Monster!" Okay, sure. Who cares? Did House of Frankenstein have a Frankenstein in it? No, technically it didn't; not if you're only counting his sons. But it did have the Frankenstein Monster, so there. I rest my case.
I can't believe they gave two options for ordering this piece of "Famous Monsters history." Silly. For a hundred bucks you better damn well open it and make sure it's in pristene condition, and then send it by batmail, too.
Mexican Lobby Card: The Terror of the Tongs
The Terror of the Tongs (El Terror De La Mafia China) lobby cards from Professor Kinema. That big bald guy looks mean, doesn't he? Note the use of different photographs within the repeating graphics to provide variety. Click each lobby card to view the Yellow Peril in all its lurid detail.
Lon Chaney as the Frankenstein Monster
Lon Chaney Jr. as the Frankenstein Monster in Ghost of Frankenstein. Courtesy of Professor Kinema.
Captain Company Hollywood Masks!
Sure, these masks were cool to wear on Halloween–for about an hour. Then the stifling heat and discomfort would make the novelty a fading memory. But we really didn't buy these super deluxe, heavy rubber masks to wear once a year, did we? Nah. We bought them to display in our rooms. And play dress-up monster in front of the mirror.
That Mole Guy was the damn hardest to dress up half-way decently for. At least for me.
Book Review: Autumn, The City
Zombos Says: Good (but formulaic)
"We've got to kill it."
"How do we do that, then?" yelled Donna, shoving it back down with her foot. "F**king thing's been dead since Tuesday."
The walking dead in David Moody's Autumn: The City don't bite. He even avoids calling them zombies, using cadavers instead. That's what the few survivors call them when a mysterious virus, or toxin, or some biological event kills everyone else in the city. In this second book in the Autumn trilogy, the city becomes ground zero for thousands of inhabitants who violently die, then slowly reanimate–even as they continue to physically deteriorate–into predators.
Moody's undead predators do not crave brains or test the intestinal fortitude of the living by craving human flesh. They are so rotted away as to make them easy to knock over and avoid. One at a time. It's when they gather in groups they become a problem. Noise, fire, bickering living people, and just about any lively activity attracts them; and when the undead see a large group of undead they meander over to see what's so interesting. That's the problem faced by the survivors, with some holed up in the university, others holed up in an office building, and the 300 hundred or so soldiers holed up in their bunker. How they deal with the problem is the gist of Moody's story.
With his cadavers not exhibiting the usually more culturally popular and expected characteristics of gruesome dining, Moody deals with the post-apocalyptic angst his survivors are going through instead. His people aren't unusually resourceful or altruistic or despicable; they just want to survive with whatever semblance of their past lives they can keep together. Something not easy to do when food is scarce, the stench of decay is eye-watering, and thousands-going-on millions of undead want to beat the living daylights out of you, if only to pass their mordant time away.
With so many undead stumbling in the way, it wouldn't be possible for the survivors to reach each other, or find a way to escape, unless some leeway is given. Moody's cadavers are harmless initially, but begin to grow in to their new reality in stages: listless and clueless at first, then becoming faster, more aggressive, and more aware of those different from them. This transition from no problem, but they stink, to oh, crap, we better get out of here isn't played up for all it could be worth. It generates a modicum of tension as the living argue over staying put or leaving, and how to get from point a to point b, without being noticed if and when they decide to go, but more of the novel's time is spent on primary actions without much character description or depth: the basics of arguing, despairing, avoiding, and finding transportation are here, and not much else. Unlike his Hater's first-person, roller-coastering now point of view, The City is written in third-person, past-tense, and, while breezily paced, doesn't hold the emotional clout of that novel.
One character stands out. Nathan. He's selfish, frightened–though he talks tough–and wants so badly for his normal life to come back that he's frozen to the spot. His goal is to find a club or bar and drink himself into a stupor; then find another club or bar and keep pouring into a deeper stupor. His single-minded, ultimately pointless, and altogether sad outlook, provides a fulcrum for emotional depth Moody tips at, but never loads heavy.
Like his cadavers, Autumn: The City is lightweight zombie fare and, while easy to read through, page by page, should be more threatening and oppressively dire in its possibilities.
A print copy of Autumn: The City was provided for this review by St. Martin's Press.
On the Set: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Photographs courtesy of Professor Kinema: Lon Chaney as Quasimodo and Patsy Ruth Miller as Esmeralda.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Movie Program
My eyes popped out when I saw this 1923 souvenir program for The Hunchback of Notre Dame in Professor Kinema’s archives. After I put them back in so I could see better, I knew I had to share these fantastic 18 pages of movie history. And you don’t even need to pay the 25¢ cover charge!
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