Month: April 2019

The brainchild of Gene Wilder who then collaborated with Mel Brooks on writing the script, the film is greater than the sum of its parts; its parts being near perfect. The cast was the strong suit: Wilder as Frederick Frankenstein, Peter Boyle as the Monster, Marty Feldman as Igor, Teri Garr as Inga, Cloris Leachman as Frau Blucher, and Madeline Kahn as Frederick’s wife, Elizabeth. There was also an inspired unbilled cameo by Gene Hackman (Hackman was not credited in the original theatrical release) as the blind hermit that has become one of the best known bits from the film. The Hermit’s last line, “I was going to make espresso.” was not in the script and the scene immediately fades to black due to the burst of laughter from the crew during the shot. They tried reshooting but Gene Hackman couldn’t get through it without laughing, so they used the initial take, adding the quick blackout. Also ad-libbed in the film to great success were Cloris Leachman’s (Frau Blücher) lines, “Varm milk” and “Ovaltine?” to Dr. Frankenstein.

It is my favorite of her films along with After Hours (1985). In addition to the exceptional cast, the beautiful production and exquisite black and white photography by Gerald Hirschfeld also deserve attention. Mel Brooks was able to get the original electronic equipment of the laboratory through Ken Strickfaden. Strickfaden had made the equipment for the original Universal Frankenstein films and still had it stored in his garage. He was never credited in the original film, but was finally credited in Young Frankenstein. The original components complimented the overall production design by Dale Hennesy (Logan’s Run). The score composed by John Morris was both dramatic and playful and avoided triteness. From the opening credits, the plaintive violin portends the grave parody of the tale about to be told.

Cloris Leachman was seriously sinister and slyly slapstick as Frau Blucher who was modeled on Mrs. Danvers from Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940), and yet fit in perfectly portraying a new character she made memorably her own. This was not the only element not from a Frankenstein film. The climax where Fredrick and the Monster are on stage singing Putting on the Ritz is a parody of the famous scene in King Kong where Kong was displayed on a stage in front of a live audience. Wilder imagined this song and dance and got resistance from Brooks who fortunately gave in, because it is one of the funniest scenes in the film.

Madeline Kahn’s portrayal as Elizabeth, the fiancé of Frederick and mistress of the Monster was a high point in the film. From the moment she arrives at the castle, she is aware that something is going on between Frederick and Inga, his lab assistant. She asks just what assistance Inga provides in the lab, but Inga is quickly cut of by Fredrick before she can reply.

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Mel Brooks claimed that the film was based on the first five Universal Frankenstein films, but I found there are more similarities in Son of Frankenstein (1939). In fact, Young Frankenstein could have been called Grandson of Frankenstein because of the genealogy. First, there is an uncanny resemblance of Terri Garr to the actress Josephine Hutchinson who played Baron Frankenstein’s wife in Son of Frankenstein.

The last film in the Universal Frankenstein series was the comedy, Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein. It seems appropriate that following the Hammer series of Frankenstein films the most popular retelling of the story is also a comedy.

NEXT: Rocky Horror Picture Show, Gothic, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Hammer brought new life to the gothic horror that had produced some of Universal’s most successful films. Along with the many changes that came with the Hammer films which included colour and gore was a focus on sexuality that spawned the term Hammer Glamour. In 1957 Hammer released The Curse of Frankenstein and it was an international success. Not in small part due to the cast members, Hazel Court and Valerie Gaunt. In that film, the two became the first of the Hammer Scream Queens as cousin and betrothed to the Baron and the Baron’s maid and lover respectively. By shifting the focus away from the monster and onto Baron Frankenstein, Hammer created it’s own take on the Shelley story which was an immediate hit with audiences if not with the critics. The hint of a triangle between the maid and the Baron’s betrothed along with the Baron’s insistence on continuing his experiments against his mentor’s wishes took the Frankenstein saga in a different direction altogether. There was no mistaking this Dr. Frankenstein for the one that appeared in the 1931 film version.

Hazel Court (1926-2008)

After the exposure gained through The Curse of Frankenstein, Hazel Court appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1958-59 as well as a number of films including Breakout, The Man Who Could Cheat Death, and The Shakedown all in 1959. In 1960 Model for Murder was released and in 1961 she again appeared on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and other TV shows as well as the British horror film, Doctor Blood’s Coffin. In 1959 Court also appeared in the last Twilight Zone episode written by Rod Serling titled, Fear.

Not just a beauty (she was a well known pin-up model in England), but an award winning actress as well, Court had received the British Critics Award for her performance in Carnival (1946) at the age of twenty. She was know in England for films including Champagne Charlie (1944), Dreaming (1944), Dear Murderer (1947), and The Root of All Evil (1947) among others. She was the only Scream Queen that has appeared with all of horror’s most well know leading men in the films of the 50’s & 60’s: Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, and Christopher Lee appearing as she did in both Hammer Films and Roger Corman Productions.

Valerie Gaunt (1932 – 2016)

Unfortunatly, Valerie Gaunt only appeared in two horror films, both for Hammer. After appearing in The Revenge of Frankenstein, she was featured in the 1958 Hammer Production of Horror of Dracula (aka Dracula) as a vampire who tries to take Jonathan Harper for her own hunger much to Count Dracula’s disapproval, which gave her the honor of being in both the first of the Hammer Frankenstein & Dracula films! She was cast in The Revenge of Frankenstein after the director Terrance Fisher saw her in the BBC TV production of Dixon of Dock Green. She retired from acting in 1958.

Eunice Gayson (1928 – 2018)

Eunice Gayson appeared in films and TV from 1948 to 1972. She was both a Hammer and Bond Girl appearing in The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), Dr. No (1962), and From Russia with Love (1963). In the Bond films, Gayson was Sylvia Trench. Originally slated to be a recurring role, sadly the character was cut after the second film. Gayson was first cast to play Miss Moneypenny but ultimately that role went to Lois Maxwell (Lolita 1962). Gayson is considered the first ‘Bond Girl’ because she is the first woman to be seen with Bond in Dr. No.

Gayson went on to show up on TV shows like Secret Agent, The Saint, and The Avengers. Her daughter (Kate Gayson) appeared in 1995’s GoldenEye and was billed as ‘Casino Girl’

Yvonne Furneaux (1928)

Yvonne Furneaux appeared in only one Hammer film, 1959’s The Mummy. Playing the dual role of Isobel Banning/Princess Ananka proved to be a challenge that she was more than prepared to take on opposite Peter Cushing.

In spite of the bad reviews received on release, The Mummy is one of Hammer’s most entertaining films, and each cast member brings something special to the film. Furneaux is mesmerizing as Ananka and a strong heroine as Isobel. Cushing gives his usual careful performance bringing his professionalism to every scene. Although the story itself lacks the originality Hammer brought to the Frankenstein and Dracula films, the cast and the production bring it to colorful life. The weak point is the mummy itself played with heart by Christopher Lee who was let down by the make-up department. The make-up done on Boris Karloff for the Universal production far surpassed what was provided to Lee. The 1932 version of The Mummy still stands as the unsurpassed classic of the genre.

Yvonne Furneaux is perhaps the most fascinating of all the Hammer Scream Queens. Having begun her acting career in the early 1950’s she had already appeared in many British TV shows and films including 1956’s Lisbon with Ray Milland and Claude Raines.

Her talent and classic beauty did not go unnoticed and the following year she appeared in Federico Fellini’s, La Dolce Vita (1960) giving a wonderful performance opposite Marcello Mastroianni.

She would also appear in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion in 1965. Polanski’s film was somewhat ahead of its time, and is a horror classic that rivals and was undoubtedly influenced by Hitchcock’s Psycho. It is a submerged study of insanity that offers little in way of apology.

In 1967 Furneaux appeared in Claude Chabrol’s, Le scandale (The Champagne Murders) starring opposite Anthony Perkins, Maurice Ronet, and Stephane Audran.

NEXT:
Ingrid Pitt & Madeline Smith

Psycho (1960 Paramount Pictures) Continued

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Written by Joseph Stefano based on the Novel by Robert Bloch

Cast: Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates), Janet Leigh (Marion Crane), John Gavin (Sam Loomis), Vera Miles (Lila Crane), Martin Balsam (Detective Milton Arbogast), Vaughn Taylor (George Lowery), Frank Albertson (Tom Cassidy), Patricia Hitchcock (Caroline), John Anderson (California Charlie), Mort Mills (Highway Patrol Officer).

The impetus behind Psycho was Hitchcock’s own divided psyche, and it is important here to define the relationship between the two distinct parts of his personality. The frightened schoolboy and the exhibitionist showman were constantly at odds with each other. The question was, how far would the schoolboy allow the showman to go? Hitchcock loved telling the tale of his fear of policemen (in almost every interview he recounted how his father had sent him with a sealed note to the police station where he was put in a cell and the officer said, “This is what we do to bad little boys.”). In this, both of his personalities were in accord. This was the schoolboy speaking through the showman as a way of explaining the stories he chose. They were all about guilt and retribution, but not always for real crimes. Mistaken identity and confusion reigned in many of his films. The best of both the early British films as well as the later Hollywood films dealt with mistaken identity and misdirection.

The 39 Steps and North by Northwest are two of Hitchcock’s most popular films that exemplify this paradigm. Both deal with a man pulled into an intrigue he knows nothing about as he is implicated in a crime. He is then forced to flee and at the same time try to figure out what is happening. Both run into a woman who to varying degrees aid and abet and threaten and hinder. Both of the women are of a type, blonde and beautiful and smart.

The year before North by Northwest, Vertigo was released (more about all three of these films later) and it exemplified Hitchcock’s obsession in no uncertain terms. Though mixed reviews undoubtedly hurt the box office (the film just about broke even on it’s initial release), but that didn’t didn’t keep the film from gaining momentum and finally on reevaluation, critical acclaim. In making North by Northwest it could be said that Hitchcock went back to what he knew best. Returning to the light hearted and dramatic heart of The 39 Steps and hiring Ernst Lehman (Sabrina) to concoct the screenplay proved to be a sure formula for success. It also proved to be a sound business decision and produced one of his best films to date, but was there more to it than that? Could it be that the master of suspense realized that he had given too much away in Vertigo? Was the audience aware that Scotty’s obsession was Hitchcock’s obsession? Had the schoolboy allowed the showman too much freedom? If we assume that was a subliminal part of his decision making process, Psycho then becomes an inevitability; a merging of both personalities.

Marian Crane is beautiful and smart and of course, blonde. She steals the money from her bosses’ client and immediately goes on the run. Her conscience begins to gnaw at her before she even gets out of Phoenix when her boss crosses the street in front of her car at a light. He looks puzzled for a moment and then moves on thinking, “but she went home sick!” It haunts her for the entire ride. Guilt. She cannot shake it. When she pulls over on the roadside to rest and falls asleep a police officer wakes her and his ominous dark glasses and uniform of authority (Hitchcock also claimed that the reason he never drove was his fear of getting a ticket) send her into a panic. She starts the car and the officer demands she shut it off.

She is so fearful after he lets her go and even after she watches the police car take an exit off of the highway that she stops at a used car dealer to trade in her car. While waiting for the salesman, she buys a newspaper to see if there’s any mention of her theft in the paper.
It is then that she notices that the police officer that woke her on the highway has parked across the street from the car dealership. The officer is standing and staring at her as he leans against his parked squad car. She is now in a controlled panic that makes the salesman suspicious, but since she has all the necessary papers he takes the trade and the cash.

Then the police car pulls into the lot and the officer gets out of the car. Marion is near hysteria and almost drives off in her new car without her suit case. One of the shop men runs out and puts it on her back seat as she leans over the front seat to open the back door of her car. As she finally drives off, her imagination takes over as she obsesses over what the officer is saying to the salesman. She imagines what her boss is saying to Carolyn and to her sister. The guilt runs rampant as night falls, and then it begins to rain so hard she can barely see out of the windshield. Then she sees the sign.

Hitchcock has been playing the audience: in the way that we hope she gets away with it and can be with her lover, in the way we smile with her when she thinks of Tom Cassidy taking the money out of her ‘soft white skin.’ He is in full control of our thoughts.

She pulls off the highway and up the drive to the Bates Motel.

NEXT: Norman Bates