From Zombos' Closet

Professor Kinema's Favorite Movie Toss Off Lines

A Fool There Was (1915)

The Vampire (Theda Bara) to one of her victims: "Kiss me, my Fool!"

Hold Your Man (1933)

Eddy (Clark Gable): “Listen, Sweet Meat, how about you and me getting together tonight, huh?”

Ruby (Jean Harlow): “I like your nerve!”

Eddy: “That ain’t all you’re gonna like. Wait’ll you see how I grow on you.”

Ruby: “Yea, I can imagine, just like a carbuncle.”

A Night at the Opera (1935)

 

At the beginning of the Stateroom scene, Ravelli (Chico) to Tomasso (Harpo): "Hey Tomasso, wake up, they're gonna fix-a the bed."

Room Service (1938)

Miller (Groucho Marx) to Davis (Frank Albertson) introducing Faker (Harpo Marx), who is standing with his mouth agape: “This is Mr England, the brains of the organization. That’ll give you an idea of the organization.”

The Thing From Another World (1951)

Scotty (Douglas Spencer) to Captain Hendry (Kenneth Toby): "Let me get a picture, before someone makes a salad out of him (the Thing)."

La Strada (1954)

The Fool's (Richard Basehart) final words after a fight with Zampano (Anthony Quinn), while clutching his head: "Hey, you broke my watch!"

Dr Strangelove, or, How I Learned to Stopped Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

General Ripper (Sterling Hayden): "Mandrake, were you ever a prisoner of war?"

Mandrake (Peter Sellers): "Yes, Jack, I was."

General Ripper: "Were you tortured, and did you talk?"

Mandrake: "I don't think they wanted me to talk, really. It was just their way of having a bit of fun, the swine. It's just that they make such bloody good cameras."

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Clyde (Warren Beatty) to CW (Michael J Pollard): "Go get your pants on, boy. We're gonna take some pictures."

Point Blank (1967)

Brewster (Carrol O'Conner) to Walker (Lee Marvin): "This is a corporation, we deal in figures, we never see cash! I've got about $11 in my pocket."

The Flim-Flam Man (1967)

Curley (Michael Sarrazin) to Sheriff Slade (Henry Morgan) about Mordecai Jones' (George C Scott) release: "Give him his suitcase. He needs it to keep his balance."

 

 

Horror Movie Lobby Cards

Here are more examples of the subdued layout employed by English language lobby cards: a picture framed by text and illustration. In contrast, Mexican lobby cards usually go heavier on the illustration and shrink the picture.

 (cards courtesy of Professor Kinema)

 
 
 
 

Horror Movie Lobby Cards

Here are examples of English language horror movie lobby cards that minimize illustration and text in favor of a larger picture highlighting action or actors. World Without End is still a guilty pleasure of mine. (These cards come from the Professor Kinema archives.)

Glen or Glenda's Dolores Fuller

From Professor Kinema:

I had a very brief encounter with Dolores Fuller. On camera, during the lensing of a Professor Kinema show, I felt one of the angora sweaters she's worn and passed it around for all to touch. I snapped these two photos of her at a Chiller Convention (shown here and below).

On the table in front of her is a print of a nude photo that Ed Wood himself snapped of her. Conrad Brooks gave me a copy of the photo.

 ZC Note: PK was kind enough to send the photo to me, but it's too risque to show here. 

Bride of the Monster group shot is inscribed by Paul Marco (standing on her right).

 

 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The following Invasion of the Body Snatchers' photographs are from Professor Kinema's archive...

Attack of the 50-Foot Woman's Yvette Vickers

From Professor Kinema..."I dug deep into my cave and unearthed these photos I took of her a few years ago at a Monster Bash. The first is her signing autographs, the second is the cake they prepared for her, and the third is of her displaying the Playboy centerfold she autographed to me.

"Quel dommage! In the very brief moments I had with her we had a very pleasant talk. She was a sweet person."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Examination of Fahrmann Maria (1936) and Strangler of the Swamp (1946)

by Professor Kinema

For all practical purposes a cycle of German films dealing with supernatural themes, beginning with Der Student Von Prag in 1914, ended with Fahrmann Maria (Ferryboat Maria) in 1936. Reaching into folk legends, superstitions, and popular beliefs German filmmakers were fascinated by tales of alchemy, deals with the devil, battles with mythical beings, and, especially, appearances of the personification of Death.

In 1921 Fritz Lang’s film Der Mude Tod (Destiny) featured a character with ashen features dressed in a dark robe: Death itself. The figure of the stranger who appears out of the fog shrouded shadows and is ferried across the river late at night in Fahrmann Maria is a direct descendant of Lang’s Death character.

An occasional twist to these old tales was the concept of Death being defeated (usually through the power of love) and one’s ultimate fate being postponed. Historically, variations on this element carried over a few decades later into Cocteau’s Orpheus and Bergman’s The Seventh Seal.

Frank Wisbar (born Franz Wysbar) was born in Tilsit in 1899. He acquired technical training from Carl Boese and Carl Froelich, and in 1932 directed his first film, Im Banne des Eulenspiegels, (Spell of the Looking Glass). Before directing what is considered his masterpiece, Fharmann Maria, his most noted film was Anna and Elisabeth (1934). The year of this film’s release was the peak year in the history of the German sound film up to the end of World War II, and totaled 147 releases. By this time the National Socialists were in power with Joseph Goebbels appointed as Minister For Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, and filmmakers were suddenly losing their artistic freedoms.

The loss in entertainment value was noted in a New York Times review of the cinema in Berlin (July 2, 1933, IX, 2:2). The reviewer praises Anna and Elisabeth, making special note that it was made before NS control. The reviewer states "...And maybe by next season the cultural politicians (not mentioning Goebbels by name) of the Third Reich will have come to the realization that the public pays money to the box office to be entertained, not to have party publicity crammed down it’s throat."

By the second most proficient year, 1936, with 143 releases, the quality of the German cinema predictably had fallen. Only two features of this batch approached any merit: Die Klugen Fraue, directed by Arthur Maria Rabenalt, and Fahrmann Maria. By 1945 the only other true fantasy film to be produced was Munchausen (1943). This film was presented as a lighthearted, overproduced, purely escapist color extravaganza. No other films of this era explored the darker side of undying love, sacrifice, and death defeated.

Wisbar and several of his associates, described as a group of first-rate Teuton film players, formed a cooperative. It functioned under the banner Pallas-Film GambH. Having interest in folk legend and the supernatural, Wisbar initially planned to make a film titled Der Werewolf, but was halted during production. Had this film completed it would have been one of sound film’s earliest forays into the world of cinematic lycanthropy, predating Universal’s The Werewolf of London (1935). The locale that was to be used, a favorite setting of the director’s, was Luneberger Heath near Hamburg. This heath was appropriately eerie with its watery bogs and foreboding looking poplar trees. Although an ideal setting for a werewolf story, the location would be subsequently used as a setting for a confrontation and resultant struggle with the personification of Death. Traveling far from the studio, Wisbar moved cast and crew here to lens Fahrmann Maria.

Diabolical Professor Kinema Reflections On Diabolique (1955)

by Professor Kinema

Underneath the opening credits is an image of something dark and murky. It is revealed to be a mud puddle in the courtyard of a seedy boarding school for boys just outside of Paris. The dark and murkiness establishes a motif and sets the tone for the story to follow, a tale of mental as well as physical abuse, a plot of murder gone wrong, and all the diabolical intrigue that follows. Much of the cinematic imagery mirroring these elements consist of dimly lit interiors, long shadows and grey exteriors.

Reaching into international film history, one can see the influences for les Diaboliques. A true autéur, director/screenwriter Henri-Georges Clouzot exercises a masterful control of the extreme darks and lights which hark back to the German Expressionism (with surrealism touches) of works like Cabinet of Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922) and Warning Shadows (vt, Schatten - Eine nächtliche Halluzination, 1923). The movie’s key shock scenes are the drowning of the abusive husband, his ’dead’ body being transported from the apartment to the swimming pool and his eventual rise from the dead - with totally blank eyes. This is all accomplished in the truest sense of film noir intermingled with heavy doses of le Grande Guinol. The title is translated as either ‘The Devils’ or ‘The Fiends.’ All involved in the diabolical plot can be defined as devils or fiends, for sure. With the retitling for the US release, Diabolique, there is an emphasis on an intangible plot element; something diabolical is going on here. In either interpretation, the title works.

The thematic element of placing the setting at a boy’s boarding school, that has definitely seen better days, is reminiscent of Jean Vigo’s Zero de Condiute (Zero For Conduct, 1933). As pre-teen and teenaged schoolboys do, they laugh, joke around, complain, and yet are reluctantly obedient to their adult supervisors. This is played out among these same adults who are experiencing emotional turmoil. While plotting the intrigue that would go with a murder and it’s sinister aftermath, they must function in their every day routines as educators and administrators.

This play between what we, the audience, are shown, what we are told, and, consequently, what we are led to believe is the essence of the suspense of the story. Along with the fragile Christine and stoic Nicole, all present are also victims of the abusive and insulting headmaster Michel. If ever a character in a story was being groomed for elimination, it’s this slick, chain-smoking lothario: students and staff are compelled to dine on bad fish; Christina is humiliated by being forced to swallow this very same bad fish with everyone looking on. Yet, being adolescents, the students rebel by ending up not eating their meal, instead using it for an impromptu food fight. Rebellion is definitely in the works, but it’s not only the students who rebel.

Because of her weak heart, Christina’s physical state is established early on as a ‘petite ruin.’ The question as to whether or not she and Nicole truly managed to murder Michel, or if he’s ‘risen from the dead,’ causes much on-screen tension. Two interesting exchanges containing ‘death’ lines occur in les Diaboliques.

Christina to Nicole: “If only I could die and not see him any more.”

Michel: “Why don’t you dear? Go and die. We‘ll bury you, and good riddance”

Christina and Nicole arguing whether their victim Michael is truly dead:

Nicole: “There’s an explanation for everything, there are no miracles”

Christina: “Each time I shut my eyes - I think I see him come in.

Nicole: “Will you be quiet! He must be in a pretty state by now.”

Christina: “If he’s dead!”

Nicole: “I’ve seen dead people before. Michel is very dead.”

Faces of Boris KarloffLe Monstre Sacre...Behind the Mask...

Boris Karloff: Le Monstre Sacre, Behind the Mask...Collection Horror Pictures from Gerard Noel faneditions, copyrighted 1989.  I found this digest-sized book in Professor Kinema's Boris Karloff file. Picture comments are in French, by Jean-Claude Michel. (click to enlarge)

1984 Dark Shadows Festival Program

Professor Kinema (Jim Knusch) attended the Dark Shadows Festival of 1984, with Jonathan Frid in attendance. The professor was a guest speaker, delivering a presentation on 'The Cinema of the Vampire." He was an 11th hour replacement for author Leonard Wolf. The convention and Jim are mentioned  in the Dark Shadows chapter (#20) of True Tales of the Unknown, the Uninvited.

Here's the Festival Program (pdf), and Jim's mementos from the event.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's 5 Movie Gimmicks Time!

Five movie gimmicks to pack the seats, for your edification pleasure. Lobby cards from Professor Kinema's files.

Percepto and The Tingler

"Percepto! was a gimmick where William Castle attached electrical "buzzers" to the underside of several seats in movie theaters where The Tingler was scheduled to be screened. The buzzers were small surplus vibrators left over from World War II. The cost of this equipment added $250,000 to the film's budget. It was predominantly used in the larger theaters. During the climax of the film, The Tingler was depicted escaping into a generic movie theater. On screen the projected film appeared to break as the silhouette of the tingler moved across the projection beam. The film went black, all lights in the auditorium (except fire exit signs) were turned off, and Vincent Price's voice warned the audience "The Tingler is loose in THIS theater! Scream! Scream for your lives!" This cued the theatre projectionist to activate the buzzers and give several audience members an unexpected jolt."  (from Wikipedia)

Psychorama and My World Dies Screaming 

"In 1958, a film called My World Dies Screaming (later retitled Terror in the Haunted House) marked Hollywood's first attempt to make use of this technique. At different points in this film, a skull is flashed to inspire terror, a snake to inspire hate, two hearts to inspire love, and large letters spelling out "blood" to create fear. The following year, 1959, saw another film produced using this same format, titled A Date with Death. Both movies starred Gerald Mohr. " (from Wikipedia)

The Screaming Skull and Free Burial Services

"The Screaming Skull begins with a voiceover explaining that the film is so frightening it may kill members of the audience, and that American International Pictures is prepared to pay for any burial services and funeral costs. During the voiceover, the camera pans inside an empty casket containing a note that reads "Reserved for you" ". (from Wikipedia)

Hynovista and Horrors of the Black Museum

"In the opening prologue [of Horrors of the Black Museum], a "real hypnotist" actually hypnotizes the audience, giving them "hypnovision", so that they will fully experience every thrilling moment of the film: see the vat of death!; feel the icy hands!; see the binocular murder!; and feel the tightening noose! Hypnovista was used only once - apparently not enough qualified hypnotists to go around for future film releases." (from the Script Lab)

Cannibal Girls and the Warning Bell

"It is about three young women being led by a Reverend who preaches cannibalism. The story gives off an urban legend feel, and was made as a spoof of traditional horror films. This cult movie is known for the 'warning bell' gimmick, which rang in theatres to warn the more squeamish members of the audience for impending gory scenes." (from Wikipedia)

On the Set of House of Frankenstein

Photographs courtesy of Professor Kinema.