Blood Drive

 

 

 

This is my entry in the 4th Annual Spooky Classic Movie Blogathon hosted by Hoofers and Honeys.

 

 

 

 

 

The Midnite Drive-In has played host to quite a few movies of varying caliber from the 1950's over it's ten year existence. The '50's. in the opinion of your humble blogger, is they heyday of the essence of what I term as the "drive-in movie".  Elsewhere on this blog I have mentioned that the drive-in was essentially a venue for low quality sci-fi, horror and motorcycle films, the kind of stuff that the average 20-25 year old male drive-in patron would be enticed to see. Below is a typical newspaper ad for films discussed in this entry. Note the draw of "All New! Never anything like them before!" Not entirely true really. Many of the drive-in features had the same recurring plots, but that doesn't mean they didn't each have some entertainment value in their own right.

 

 

 

The year 1958 had lots of movies like the ones previously mentioned in the opening of last week's entry, the 10th Anniversary piece. If you read that piece, you know what you are in for here, because these movies feature the same "high" standards of quality film making that the three movies featured in that post had. Of course, I'm not so isolated that I don't know that some of you probably won't find these two films in your own bailiwick. But they do have their own following, even so. Years ago I gave up the hope of getting my sister to watch these kinds of movies. But some of my friends really get a kick out dancing under the limbo bar required to sit through them, and those are my kind of people...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood of the Vampire (1958):

 

"The most loathsome scourge ever to afflict this earth was that of the Vampire.  Nourishing itself on warm living blood,  the only known method of ending a vampire's reign of terror was to drive a wooden stake through its heart."

 

As the credits roll, the opening features a ritual, circa 1874, as a corpse is being buried. But prior to the burial a stake is driven through it's heart. After everyone else has left the scene, the gravedigger begins the process of competing the burial. But he is stopped by a hunchback (Victor Maddern), who kills him. 

 

 

 

The next scene features a pub in riotous gaiety as the hunchback enters. With every suspicious and wary eye on him he approaches a man and gestures that the man must leave with him. It turns out that the man had been previously hired to do a heart transplant on a body. As if you couldn't guess, it's the body of the grave victim that the hunchback had rescued from being buried. The man, a surgeon, completes his task, but makes the grievous error of demanding more money, with the threat of exposure of the illicit activity, and the hunchback dispatches him, too.

 

The scene shifts to a courtroom, 6 years later, where Dr. John Pierre (Vincent Ball) is convicted of having committed "malpractice leading to manslaughter" of a man, through supposed "incompetency" as a surgeon. His grievous error involved him trying to do an early form of blood transfusion, but the patient died. He claims innocence and requests that the court contact a fellow doctor in Vienna to corroborate his testimony. Unfortunately a letter from said doctor claims he has no knowledge of Pierre, and requests that the courts give him the maximum penalty available. He is sentenced to a penal colony, but someone has used his influence to get Pierre committed, instead, to a prison for the criminally insane.

 

 

 

No, Pierre himself is not insane, but he has a knowledge of certain medical processes, including his experimental work on blood transfusions, a new idea on the frontier of the medical community at the time.  This reason is why the director of the prison has manipulated the system to get Pierre committed to his prison. 

 

 

You see, the director of the prison is, (surprise, surprise), the character that the hunchback rescued from being buried and had the hapless surgeon perform a heart transplant on in the first part of the picture. The prison director, now going by the name of Dr. Callistratus (Donald Wolfit), is being kept alive by blood transfusions. The poor denizens of the prison cells are the unwilling blood donors.

 

 

Pierre is put in a cell with fellow inmate Kurt (William Devlin). (Devlin looks a heck of a lot like The Howling Man from the Twilight Zone episode, but it's not the same guy...) 

 

Kurt tells Pierre that there are some strange things going on in the prison, that he, Pierre, is in "the bottomless pit of Hell itself". Kurt later tells Pierre that many, if not all, of the prisoners are there through the manipulations of forces that the outside world is helpless to combat. For instance, like Pierre, Kurt was also innocent of the crime that got him convicted. Kurt tells him that once Pierre realizes that no help from the outside is going to be of any use, perhaps they can help each other.

 

Meanwhile, on the outside, Pierre's fiancee, Madeleine (Barbara Shelley) tries her best to find a way to prove Pierre is an innocent man.  In doing so she contacts Dr. Meinster (Henry Vidon), who insists that he had never received any contact from the courts or the Prison Commission. He tells the head of the Prison Commission, Auron (Bryan Coleman), that he is going to reopen the investigation into Pierre's trial. But Auron was not the person he should have told this. Because it was Auron who, working with Callistratus, managed to get Pierre convicted and also sentenced to Callistratus' prison. He also sent the forged letter that denied any knowledge of Pierre from Dr. Meinster...

 

 

Auron informs Callistratus that the Commission has ordered that Pierre be released, but Callistratus tells Pierre a different story: that the Commission found no evidence that would overturn his conviction. Meanwhile Pierre has come across some clue as to what is going on in the prison when a patient is discovered whom Callistratus is draining his blood. The truth of the sinister goings on is that Callistratus is draining blood from his prisoners in order to have the blood injected into himself, to keep him alive.

 

 

 

Eventually Pierre has had enough of this folderol and works with Karl to escape the prison. Unfortunately Callistratus is wise to the escape and Karl ends up supposedly killed.  Pierre comes away from the attempted escape alive, but Callistratus rigs the report of the attempt to read that Pierre had died in the escape attempt, too.  Back at home, fiancee Madeleine is suspicious of this report and manages to get a job at the prison as Callistratus' housekeeper. (Callistratus has as high turnover rate for housekeepers as he does for inmates...) As would be expected, Madeleine runs into Pierre in her duties as housekeeper, which not only is not good for job security, but also not a conducive atmosphere for continuing to exist on the planet. 

  

If you've noticed by now, there is no "vampire" in this film, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. No fangs, no midnight rendezvous with dulcet dames, no avoiding direct sunlight or religious icons, none of the trappings of the vampire trope one comes to expect. This is more of an intense psychological horror, with more emphasis on science than any supernatural horror. The film seems awfully similar to something that might have been produced by the Hammer Studios, although the Hammer name is not associated with it. 

 

In actuality, the scriptwriter, Jimmy Sangster, did have some work with the early Hammer films this movie seems to emulate before this film, and continued to crank out stuff for Hammer afterwards.  The film actually seems to be more of a science-fiction film as opposed to a horror film, what with all the "new" science of blood transfusions, and the added emphasis on discovering why certain victims' blood are more harmful than good. (In case you are one of those people who slept through biology class, you can't mix A+ blood with B- blood... it can be deadly.)  

 

Despite that, the film is intriguing in it's own right.  Donald Wolfit, the sinister Dr. Callistratus. is one of the better actors in the film. Apparently towards the end of his career he had to take on many roles in the motion picture industry, including The Hands of Orlac and Dr. Crippen, a significant step down from his years as the leader of an acting troupe that did touring productions of Shakespeare. Most of the other actors a pretty much run-of-the-mill type. Vincent Ball, who played Dr. Pierre, probably had the more prolific career, although much of his output was in the realm of second or third tier credits.

 

If you like the old Hammer Films horror output, it's not a bad imitation. It drags in some points, especially when Callistratus and Pierre start talking about the difficulties of blood type incompatibilities.  And if you can get over the disappointment that there is no actual "vampire"... 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Monster on the Campus (1958): 

 

You could be forgiven if you thought you were going to see a light hearted family movie with the opening scene. With a lilting happy score, Jimmy (Troy Donahue), drives up in a van marked "Dunsfield University Science Department" to his fraternity house to pick up Samson, a German Shepherd. 

 

 

 

He then drives to the university, where Dr. Donald Blake (Arthur Franz) is creating a mask of one of his assistants, Madeline (Joanna Moore), who is also Blake's fiancee, to be used to represent the "modern woman" display of an exhibit on the evolution of man.

 

 

 

Blake, a bit of a pessimist, expresses his opinion that the human race may be doomed if they can't figure out how to control "the animal-like instincts from our ancestors". (We seem to have survived for thousands of  years, so far, doc, but maybe we ARE just around the corner from self-destruction...)  

 

Jimmy shows up with a coelacanth, a fossil from the bygone prehistoric age. A coelacanth is a prehistoric fish, BTW.  

 

 

 

Some of the water that was in the crate leaks out on the ground and Samson licks at it. Jimmy pulls him off of the puddle, but it is too late for Samson. He transforms from a docile dog to a vicious mutt that tries to attack Madeline and does attack Jimmy.  

 

They take Samson to another doctor, Dr. Oliver Cole (Whit Bissell) who tells Blake to keep him under observation to see if he has developed rabies.  He wants Blake to get a sample of the dog's saliva for further investigation. While having Samson under observation, Blake notices Samson's teeth, which oddly are a throwback to an evolutionary earlier form of what we now call a "dog". 

 

 

When Blake tries to move the coelacanth to the refrigeration to preserve it he accidentally cuts his hand on it's teeth. Then, while moving the crate, his grip on it slips and he ends up dunking his hand into the water (the same water that Samson tried to drink...)

 

He starts to feel woozy, so Molly (Helen Westcott), Dr. Cole's assistant who happens to be helping Blake, offers to take him home. When they arrive, Molly finds Blake has passed out in the passenger seat, so she goes in to his house to call for help. But she is attacked by some creature we can't see. Meanwhile Madeline is waiting on Blake to show up for a prearranged date. When he is still a no-show, she firsts checks the lab to see if he lost track of time and is still working, but with no sign of him there, she heads over to his house.  What she finds there is that the house is in a shambles, as if some wild creature had gone berserk in it. Which apparently it has... 

 

 

 

 

She finds Donald out on the back yard lawn, apparently a little groggy. She finds Molly dead, also, hanging from a tree. When the police investigate, naturally Blake's story of being unconscious and not remembering anything after getting in the car with Molly at the lab becomes a little suspicious. Plus the fact that they found a tie clip which Blake admits is his in the grip of dead Molly's hand.  But to cast suspicion on those conclusions are some hand prints and fingerprints that the investigators find which are not only not Blake's but unlike any they have ever seen before.

 

 

 

Back at the lab, Samson appears to have lost the characteristics of a throwback that Blake had observed earlier and has reverted to its former normal self. Even though Blake swears he had pointed the dog's canine teeth out to Molly, since she was the only other person to have seen them, Blake feels inclined to admit to Cole that he probably imagined it, although he doesn't really believe that. 

 

The lieutenant in charge of the murder investigation, Lt. Stevens (Judson Pratt) shows up, inquiring whether Blake had any enemies that could enlighten the investigation, but Blake is like a saint as far as he himself is concerned. Lt. Stevens reveals an interesting fact in the murder investigation; Molly did not die of injuries, she died of fright. 

 

Several strange events happen over the next few hours, including a situation where a dragonfly comes into the lab and is checking out the coelacanth. Later, you guessed it, the dragonfly ends up being reverted to a form of it's ancient biological ancestor, and becomes several times it's normal size, and ends up attacking Blake and Jimmy and his girlfriend. (The two had come to collect Jimmy's dog). Samson had reverted back to his normal self, so is no longer a threat. And, eventually, that dragonfly reverts back to its normal state.

 

 

 

Apparently that coelacanth, or at least the water it was in, has some kind of power to cause whoever comes into contact with it to become a savage ancestor of it's evolutionary past. At one point it is revealed that the coelacanth had been subjected to gamma radiation, ostensibly to help keep it preserved. (Ah! The dangers of the atomic age!  In the 50's, Hollywood's biggest bugaboo was the new and mysterious atomic science...)  As it slowly dawns on Blake that all this regression into primitive state is connected with contact with the blood of the irradiated coelacanth, he decides to performs an experiment to prove his theory.

 

 

 

It all comes to a head when Madeline and his colleagues and the police come to a cabin where Blake has gone to perform an experiment on himself to prove his theory. Then, as with any good man who realizes that he himself is unwittingly responsible for the havoc that has been caused, he arranges it so the police can shoot him while he is still in the regressive state.

 

I saw another movie a few years ago, (one which I am still getting around to reviewing, BTW), called The Monolith Monsters. (And if that title is highlighted at some future point, you'll know I finally did it.) That movie, like this one, has what may seem like a fairly ridiculous plot, but it is in the execution of the plot and in the acting of the cast that makes the whole thing remarkably well done.  

 

One of the reasons this movie turns out so well, in my opinion, is that it was directed by... Jack Arnold.  Many films that Arnold had a hand in became classics of the genre, but if these films had been in the hands of some other director I doubt they would have turned out as well. That's because Arnold was a stickler for making the science in these films plausible. You actually believe there could be a remnant of a prehistoric age living in the jungles of Brazil in The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  The idea that a lab developed nutrient to help the human populace in need could, in it's undeveloped stages, cause a lab spider to grow to enormous size is not entirely unbelievable in Tarantula! And, despite the strangeness of the idea, a strange mist could actually cause a man to shrink in size in The Incredible Shrinking Man becomes fairly realistic.

 

The reviews of the day considered the film "very good". It is only in retrospect of time that the film has gone down in it's  reception. The modern public, as evidenced by another review website, the Popcornmeter, only gives the movie a 27% rating.  A lot of the bad reviews seem to center on the makeup used for the monster, as it is compared to the makeup in The Wolf Man and found wanting. Even it's director was not entirely enamored by his final product. An interview with Arnold. quoted in a Wikipedia article, claims that he "really didn't hate it, but [he] didn't think it was up to the standards of other films" he had done.

 

Other than the somewhat overemphasized philosophical sub context, that man needs to curb his irrational aggressive nature before he becomes no better than his prehistoric ancestors in the emotional state, the movie is well worth checking out, in my opinion.

 

Well, folks, that wraps it up for today. Time to crank up the old Plymouth and head home.  Drive safely.

 

Quiggy

 

 

 

Blood on the Rocks

This is my entry in the Gothic Horror Blogathon hosted by Pale Writer.

The original film vampire, predating Bela Lugosi by almost 10 years was the German expressionist version of the classic Stoker novel Dracula titled Nosferatu.

Nosferatu (1922):

The classic first adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic novel Dracula had its problems from the start.  First, Murnau and company were unable to secure the rights to the original novel, so being the obsessive sort of people, they just went with the story, changing the names and locations, but not much else.  Which really pissed off Stoker's widow.  She had all the prints collected up and destroyed.  And thus we would have lost a timeless gem from the silent era.  Except that one or two of the copies were not destroyed.

In Wisborg, Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) is tasked by his boss, Herr Knock (Alexander Granach) with going to Transylvania to secure a deal with Count Orlok (Max Schreck) to buy a house in Wisborg (coincidentally an abandoned castle next door to Hutter). 

Upon arriving in Transylvania most of the residents try to discourage him from continuing on his mission.  They talk of werewolves and monsters, but Hutter dismisses the superstitions.

When he arrives at the Count's castle he is met by Orlok.  And despite several bizarre incidents, including the count trying to suck the blood from a cut on Hutter's finger, Hutter and Orlok are able to seal the deal.  Only after he has completed the deal does Hutter discover some truly bizarre behavior, including discovering Orlok's true nature as a vampire.

Back in Wisborg, the ship carrying Orlok and his coffins arrives.  Orlok has killed off the entire crew, but the authorities blame it on a plague.  There is a panic within the town as people are encouraged to stay inside to avoid contracting the "plague".  Of course, all of Orlok's victims in the town are attributed to this "plague" so no one but Hutter seems to be aware of the imminent danger of the new resident.

Hutter's wife, Ellen (Greta Schroder) discovers a book that Hutter has brought back with him and tries to use it to defeat the vampire.  The story takes a different turn here as, instead of Orlok escaping back to his home after being discovered, he sticks around.  Mainly because he is very intent on seducing Hutter's wife.  Which, of course, proves to be his undoing.

The classic film is now available in various forms, since it is in the public domain.  I highly suggest you look for some recording like Criterion to watch it, however.  Some companies take some liberties with the film.  The most egregious one, my first attempt to find a copy, is put out by November Fire Productions.  Avoid this one at all costs.  Not only do they cut down the film somewhat, but they add (egads) sound, with people actually speaking.  It is not, as the back of the package says "a great way to experience this vampire classic".

Shadow of the Vampire (2000):

Shadow of the Vampire takes a look at the production of the aforementioned Nosferatu.  In 1921 Friedrich (F.W.) Murnau (John Malkovich) endeavored to film what he considered to be his masterpiece, a film somewhat based on the Bram Stoker novel Dracula.  Although the film is entirely fictional, we get some insight into the time period, if not an accurate portrayal of the principal figures.

Murnau is wrapping up production in Berlin, and preparing to transfer everyone on site to film scenes in Czechoslovakia.  Waiting there for them is the actor that Murnau hired to be his vampire, Max Shreck (Willem Dafoe).  Shreck is described to the rest of the crew as what is surely on of the earliest incarnations of a "method actor".  Murnau tells his crew that Shreck will only appear in costume and must be addressed by his character name of "Count Orlok".

None of the crew has ever heard of the guy.  Murnau says he found him in the Russian theater company of Stanislavski ( a well known theater director of the time).  As with any production there are a few dissenters, especially from his producer, Albin Grau (Udo Kier) who objects to an unknown being cast in the title role.  He also gets some flak from his female star, Greta Schroeder (Catherine McCormack) who objects to being taken away from Berlin at the height of the theater season.

On location, the scene takes on some bizarre turns.  Wolfgang Muller (Ronan Vibert) starts to act more and more like he is suffering from exhaustion.  And Schreck/Orlok makes several attempts to actual complete his "transformation" to a vampire by trying to drink the blood of one of his co-stars.  Gradually it is revealed that Count Orlok is not really an actor but someone that Murnau found living in the castle already. (And, although unknown to the rest of the crew, Murnau knows that Orlok is really a vampire, and has lived for centuries in the castle.)

A battle of wills occurs as Orlok and Murnau fight over whether Orlok has any rights to make Murnau's production crew victims for his bloodlust.  Midways into the film a great exchange occurs between Orlok and Murnau over whom may or may not be indispensable to the production.  Murnau threatens Orlok, but Orlok is unimpressed, since he feels that after centuries he is almost indestructible.

The only thing that Murnau can hold over Orlok is his promise that Orlok can have Greta as one of his victims, but only if he, Orlok, plays along and behaves himself until the final scene.  But Orlok is his own man (vampire) and doesn't exactly conform completely.

Obviously the movie is fiction (since no sane person believes vampires exist).  The movie takes a few liberties while covering the history behind the story. Several of the crew die, when in fact  all of them went on to longer careers in film. The movie is entertaining on it's own merits.  The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Makeup (losing to How the Grinch Stole Christmas).  And Willem Dafoe lost an Oscar nom for Best Supporting Actor to Benicio del Toro (in Traffic).  Roger Ebert named it as one of his "Best 10 Movies of 2000".

An anecdote that I thought was interesting.  The original title was going to be Burned to Light, but when Dafoe asked director Merhige "Who's Ed?, he changed it.  Dafoe supposedly thought the title was going to be Burn Ed to Light...  (The anecdote may be apocryphal.  I have trouble believing it.  But it's interesting nonetheless).

Time to head home.  Drive safely folks.  And don't pick up any hitchhikers with really long fingernails and ugly features.

Quiggy

Old West Meets the Monsters

This is my entry in the Costume Drama Blogathon hosted by Moon in Gemini



If Abbott and Costello can be said to have been responsible for ringing the death knell on the Universal monsters (with their comic turns in such movies as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein), then William Beaudine can be said to have dug up the bodies and poked them with a big stick.

William Beaudine was a prolific director, although most of you may have never heard of him before.  He directed a number of the Bowery Boys films, a slew of low-budget westerns and even Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (famous for having been sued by Jerry Lewis for its characters who were deemed a knockoff of the Martin and Lewis pairings).

Beaudine's last two films featured Old West settings with characters in a battle of wits with the classic monsters of Frankenstein and Dracula.  Both films were released in 1966 as a double bill and toured the drive-in circuit.  Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula may not be the top shelf fare that the originals were.  For one thing, Beaudine was not nicknamed "One Shot" for nothing.  (He apparently went to the can with the first shot no matter what happened during the shoot).

But Beaudine is not always as bad as say, Ed Wood or Ray Dennis Steckler.  Some of his output is pretty good.  Not Academy Award material, to be sure, but easily worth the investment of the hour and a half or so to check them out.  Neither of these is super great, and most of the acting is sub-par.  I'd save them for an afternoon when the lawn needs mowed but you just aren't ambitious enough to do it.  (You may decide mowing the lawn is not so bad an idea, afterwards, but be that as it may.)

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966):

The first in our double feature is a mash-up of horror and western.  In some border town there is a mysterious new neighbor, Maria von Frankenstein (Nardia Onyx), the granddaughter of the famous doctor  Frankenstein .  (so why is the title "Daughter" and not "Granddaughter"?  Your guess is as good as mine.  I lean towards budget concerns. It would have cost more money to add those 5 extra letters...)

Maria and her brother Rudolph (Steven Geray) have moved into a mansion on the hill near the town.  (and when you see the mansion from a distance you may be excused if you think of Monty Python and the Holy Grail... "It's only a model".  Actually I think its just a matte painting.)  Rudolph is Maria's brother, but looks like he might be her father.  (The actors were 27 years apart in terms of age).

The two are conducting evil experiments in which Maria is kidnapping local immigrants and replacing their brains with artificial ones in an effort to create slaves.  Which causes the immigrants to become a bit distressed.  Juanita (Estelita Rodriguez) and her parents decide to leave town.

Meanwhile the notorious outlaw Jesse James (John Lupton) and his henchman Hank (Cal Bolder) run into a bit of trouble in town.  They hook up with the remainder of the Curry gang, which includes Butch (Roger Creed) and Lonny (Rayford Barnes).  Jealous of Jesse's intervention in the gang, Lonny arranges with the sheriff (Jim Davis, yes the same actor who played Jock Ewing on "Dallas") to capture and kill Jesse for the reward on his head.

Injured, but not dead, Hank and Jesse end up meeting up with Juanita and her family.  Juanita takes Jesse and Hank to the doctor, although Juanita does have some reservations since she does not entirely trust Maria.

Which is a good thing, since Maria makes plans to use the injured Hank as her next experiment, and arranges to get Jesse out of the way by having him inadvertently turn himself in to the authorities.

You can't keep a good man down, and apparently you can't keep a bad man down either.  Jesse does his best to save the day and his friend and deal with the evil doctors, but he may not be entirely successful.

The second feature of our double feature involves another outlaw trying to hide from the authorities. In this case William "Billy the Kid" Bonney (Chuck Courtney) has gone straight and is trying to live a normal life as a ranch hand.  (Apparently no one knows William Bonney was really "Billy the Kid" as that is the name he uses.)

The only one who is aware of Billy's true identity is his fiancee' Betty (Melinda Plowman).  Betty is the daughter of the ranch owner.  Betty's uncle is on his way to take over the ranch until Betty becomes of age, but the stagecoach is attacked by Indians before it ever arrives.

As to why the stagecoach is attacked?  A vampire (he is never actually identified as "Dracula" within the movie)  killed one of the Indian maidens and they exact revenge on the riders of the stagecoach.  But the vampire was not among those killed.  Posing as Betty's uncle, the vampire becomes Mr. Underhill (John Carradine). 

Underhill has ulterior motives.  He doesn't really want the ranch.  What he wants is to ultimately make Betty his undead bride.

He is hampered in this endeavor by a pair of German immigrants Eva and Franz Oster (Virginia Christie, Walter Janovitz), both of which are suspicious of Underhill and quite sure he is a vampire.  Eva tries several times to expose him, as well as provide Betty with the accoutrements for warding off vampires (wolf's bane, crucifixes, mirrors) .

But she runs into a block by the fact that Betty doesn't believe in the foreign superstition.  And Billy is also skeptical.  Will they realize their error before it's too late?

With the monsters safely returned to heir graves (until next time) it's time to head home.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

The Legend of Matheson

This is my entry in the Richard Matheson Blogathon hosted by Wide Screen World and Moon in Gemini

"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room.  There was a knock at the door..."  (The shortest horror story ever written).


This is the story of a man and his (arguably) masterpiece of speculative fiction.

Richard Matheson (1926-2013) was one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century.  He was a favorite of Rod Serling who used Matheson's stories or original teleplays for no less than 16 episodes of the classic TV series The Twilight Zone, beginning with  the 11th episode of the first season ("And the Sky Was Opened", based on Matheson's short story, Disappearing Act.)  An incomplete list of Matheson's output for TZ would also include what eventually became the fan favorites of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "The Invaders". "Nick of Time", "Third from the Sun" and my personal favorite "Once Upon a Time".

Not only are his short stories fodder for film adaptation, several of his novels have made it to the big and small screen.  The Incredible Shrinking Man?  That was Matheson.  The Legend of Hell House?  Matheson.  What Dreams May Come?  Also by Matheson.  And for you romantic ladies (and men), Somewhere in Time, the Christopher Reeve / Jane Seymour movie was based on a Matheson book.  Plus such TV series as Rod Serling's follow up to The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery went to the Matheson well, as well did The Outer Limits, the Showtime series Masters of Horror and even a British TV series, Journey to the Unknown.

Matheson's third novel (the first two are largely unknown and probably forgotten by most people except real Matheson completists) was a book called I am Legend, the story of one man left alone in a world that is full of vampires.  (That was the original novel premise.  More on the movie adaptations and what they changed later.)  The novel, as indicated in the heading of the first chapter of the book takes place about a half a year after some catastrophe has drastically changed the human race.  It is never really explained, but sometime late in 1974 some disease started to kill off the human population of Earth.  (The events of the novel start 5 months after the events in January of 1976).

In the book, Robert Neville, a former factory worker (although that is pure speculation based on some bits of text, we never really know what Neville did before), is holed up in his house where he manages  to survive.  He goes out at daytime looking for surviving victims of the plague or whatever it is, the survivors having been turned into vampires.  For most of the novel he is alone, except for the vampires who continually show up outside his door each night shouting for him to "come out, Neville!"

Eventually Neville does try to learn a bit about the nature of the beast, such as it is.  For instance what makes the vampires detest garlic?  Why do they avoid mirrors?  Why are some of them afraid of the Christian cross, but others are not?  (He discovers that particular thing is only true of Christian vampires, but also discovers that Jewish vampires, while not deterred by a cross are deterred by a Torah, and Islamic vampires shy away from a Koran.)  He spends much of the novel trying to investigate what the origin of the plague that killed off most of the population and turned the rest into vampires.  Fortunately for him he has a whole library of book nearby to aid in his quest, but the reality is at the end he doesn't understand it any better than he did when he started. (Note: Unlike the movies, in the novel Neville was NOT formerly connected to anything in the science field).

When Hollywood came to call, they were interested in the one man against the rest of the world concept.  Unfortunately, as will be seen, they really didn't care about the vampires as much as they did about the idea of plague victims.  Throughout all three versions that hit the theaters, the "vampires" morphed into something else entirely.  For instance, in the Heston movie "The Omega Man", the enemy pretty much is just a radical religious sect of people who suffered deformities caused by the plague.  You really even couldn't call them zombies.  Sure, they are seeking the blood of Heston's Neville, but only for retribution from the harm he and the scientists have caused which made the world as desolate as it is, not as an element of survival.

The Last Man On Earth (1964):

The problem I have with The Last Man on Earth, aside from the subpar acting on nearly everybody's part, including, unfortunately, Vincent Price, is the fact that the plague victims are supposed to be vampires (witness the garlic, mirrors and stakes through the heart), but they act more like zombies.  (In fact this movie was one of the noted inspirations for George Romero's classic zombie flick, Night of the Living Dead, so that should tell you something.)

The movie changed the main character's name from Neville to Morgan.  THe original script was written by Matheson himself from his novel.  When casting came around, Matheson saw the Morgan/Neville character as a virile, macho he-man.  He was leaning towards Jack Palance as his odds on favorite to play his novel's hero, but casting decided to go with Vincent Price.  Although Matheson agreed that Price was a good actor, he was not what Matheson viewed his character as being.

That in itself would have been discouraging, but the producers added insult to injury by bringing in another scriptwriter, William F. Leicester, to make changes in the script.  The result was that Matheson asked that his name be removed from the credits, opting to use the pseudonym of "Logan Swanson".

Of the three "official" versions of the book, The Last Man on Earth is the least interesting.  It's not entirely bad, however.  Just the quality suffers a little.  (and it doesn't help that Rome, the setting for this version,  doesn't look a bit like the Los Angeles of the following two movies or the setting of the novel).

The Omega Man (1971):

Charlton Heston is Neville, the star of the movie.  He plays a military scientist who, through a series of unfortunate events, becomes immune to the virus that has turned the rest of the world into albino religious nuts.  He goes out by day, hunting the plague victims and holes up in his penthouse at night while the plague victims, led by Anthony Zerbe, assail his fortress.  The basic premise of the novel of them being vampires was rejected in favor of them being just creatures who can't see in the daylight.  And instead of them seeking the blood of Heston for survival, they are only out to take out the last remaining member of a society that caused the plague to befall the Earth in the first place.

One of the added features is that Zerbe has formed a "Family", a pseudo-religious cult that seeks to eradicate all remaining evidences of advanced technology, which they see as evil.  As such, when at one point Neville is captured by the Family, they sentence him to be burned at the stake, much like the witches of Salem.  He is rescued by what turns out to be a crew of remaining members of the former world who, although not immune to the plague, have managed to stay free from it for the past year or two.  They are holed up in the outskirts of the town, and one member of the group, Lisa (Rosalind Cash), has a brother  Ritchie whom she thinks can be saved from the plague by Neville.

In this part we also see a change from the original novel.  In the novel, Neville never actually finds any survivors (although he briefly does hook up with a woman who may or may not be what she seems.)  The movie has to have a happier ending, so indeed there is some hope for the future at the end.  This is Hollywood sticking its fingers in the pie, because at the end of the novel it appears that there is no hope for a return to a society that Neville would call normal.

(For a more in-depth insight into this movie, see my review of The Omega Man that I wrote a few years ago.)

I Am Legend (2007):

Once again, Neville is cast as a true scientist.  Will Smith garnered the role, and he searches for a cure to the plague. The original plague was started by an altruistic scientist who had morphed a virus into a supposed 100% cure for cancer.  Once again altruistic science goes awry, as it often does in apocalyptic fiction, and the cure takes on a life of it's own, turning it's people into pseudo vampires.  (Vampires whose bite transfers the virus to it's victims.)  This particular version comes as close as it gets to transferring the book's vampires to film, although in this film the "vampires" are barely sentient, more like animals.

This version benefits from a bigger budget in many ways.  First the CGI vampires are much more menacing than actors in make-up could do.  It was also a pretty good choice when Will Smith came on board as Neville.  (A far cry from the original expected star;  rumors circulated that when the idea of a remake came about 10 years earlier, Arnold Schwarzenegger was going to be cast in the lead.  This rumor was accepted about as reluctantly by Matheson's fan base as the decision to cast Michael Keaton as Batman was prior to that movie's premiere.)

In all three movies, there is a happy ending of sorts in that the main character manages to pass on a cure to the plague before his own untimely death.  As stated before this is Hollywood's finger in the pie.  The novel was not so optimistic.

As a footnote, there was also a made for direct to video movie I Am Omega, which was released basically to cash in on the then current release of I Am Legend, but since I never found a copy of it prior to press time I can't tell you much about it.

Drive home safely, folks.  And be careful of whom you see on the road.

Quiggy

Skid Row Monsters

Frankenstein was the first in line

And the Wolfman came up next.

Dracula was a-doing his stuff,

Breathing down my neck.

Jump back, make tracks, here comes the Hunchback

Better get outta his way.

Fee fee fi fi fo fo fum

It was a Monster's Holiday!

Buck Owens Monster's Holiday"

In the 30's, even at the height of the Depression, monsters like Dracula and Frankenstein and the Wolf Man could find work.  Sometimes they even got to team together to scare the living daylights out of the theater crowd.  The 30's through the mid-40's were halcyon days for the fright masters.

But then came the late 40's.  By this time the fickle horror fans had moved on and the classic monsters were passe, out of work.  It must have been devastating to see the Wolf Man on the unemployment line, Frankenstein picking up day labor work as a gofer on a construction site, and Dracula sitting under a bridge with a cardboard placard that read "Will work for blood."

Then came the most embarrassing moments of their lives.  Their agents called and said they had work for them.  But it turned out that work was as comic foils in a series of movies with a comedy duo, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.  It was work, they were going to be headliners again, but not in the classic scare movies they had made their bread and butter in the years previous.  This time they would only be scaring Abbott and Costello, while their audiences would be howling with laughter.

The preface above is written tongue-in cheek, of course.  I thoroughly enjoy the twist on the old Universal Monsters being paired up with Abbott and Costello.  The run of the Abbott and Costello versus classic horror monsters numbered 5 theatrical releases (Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbot and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.)  There was also a meeting of the Creature from the Black Lagoon on their syndicated TV show.

Universal Studios went full bull goose loony with the first outing however, pitting the comedy duo not only against the titular Frankenstein monster, but also had the addition of Dracula and the Wolf Man (and a brief cameo by another Universal monster headliner, the Invisible Man).  Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is considered by many to be one of the top comedy horror films of all time.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948):

The film opens with a worried Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) trying to get a phone call through from London to Florida.  He is desperate to deliver a message to the customs office there that under no circumstances should a couple of crates bound for McDougal's House of Horrors be delivered.

Unfortunately, not only is Talbot under duress because he is about to be turned into his arch-nemesis/alter ego, the Wolf Man, the customs office is being run by a couple of dimwits; Chick (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur (Lou Costello).

Wilbur tries to carry on a conversation with Talbot, but unfortunately Talbot is a dollar short and a full moon late.  He turns into the Wolf Man during the telephone conversation and Wilbur dismisses him as a kook.  Meanwhile, Mr. McDougal (Frank Ferguson) shows up, a blustery windbag, demanding that the two customs agents deliver his packages personally.

While delivering the packages, the two dolts manage to exasperate McDougal in many ways, not the least of which is mishandling his prized packages.  It turns out that the two packages contain the coffin of the legendary Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and the Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange), which Mc Dougal plans to make showcases in his wax museum.

Wilbur has attracted the attention of Dr. Sandra Mornay (Lenore Aubert).  She coos and frets over Wilbur, which only serves to make Chick jealous.  Chick being the ladies man of the pair.

And when MacDougal has the pair arrested for damaging his packages, they are bailed out by a woman, but it turns out that it is not Wilbur's admirer.  It is Joan (Jane Randolph).  And she too coos over Wilbur to the consternation of Chick.

It turns out that both of the women have ulterior motives for flirting with Wilbur, however.  Joan is really a private investigator for the insurance company that insured McDougal's packages and thinks she can get the information on what happened by getting in with Wilbur.  And Sandra?  Well she is working in cahoots with Dracula.  She and Dracula want Wilbur's brain to transplant into the Frankenstein monster.  (Not that much of an improvement...)  And Talbot (remember Larry Talbot?) knows of the nefarious plans.  So he tries to work in conjunction with Chick and Wilbur to thwart them.  But then he has a hairy problem that makes that a tough go.

If you are familiar with any of the horror/comedy output of Abbott and Costello you can probably guess all of the vaudeville acts that are incorporated into the film.  And of course Wilbur is usually the only one who encounters all the monsters (at first), while Chick berates him for being idiotic for even thinking the monsters are real.




This one has one of the classic funny lines that most people will have heard, even if they never saw the movie:

Talbot (Wolf Man): "I know you'll think I'm crazy, but in a half an hour the moon will rise, and I'll turn into a wolf."

Wilbur: "Yeah, you and about 20 million other guys."



Believe it or not, this was only the second time that Lugosi ever played Dracula.  Yes he had been vampires in other movies, but none of them had been the original horror master himself.  And of course there had always been only one Wolf Man, Lon Chaney Jr.  As to why Boris Karloff did not appear as the monster, well there are several stories behind it.  But the most believable one, to me, is that Karloff objected to his iconic role being played for laughs.  But apparently money talks, because he not only appeared in the next A &C output, Abbott and Costello Meet Boris Karloff, The Killer, but he was also the titular character in Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.


Well folks, time to fire up the old Plymouth and head home.  Drive safely.

Quiggy