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Monsters

A new book shows how one 21-year-old’s obsession with scary creatures brought the iconic images of Dracula, The Mummy and the Frankenstein monster to moviegoers.

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Universal Pictures / Photofest
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“That’s a studio shot of her in make-up for Bride of Frankenstein. Possibly, it’s a make-up test, because I don’t see the scars on her chin. The make-up man put a very elaborate series of scars around her neck and chin. That’s not a wig, it’s her real hair. She had very thick, very kinky hair. They put a wire cage, like chicken wire, on her head, and then combed her hair up, so it covered this cage. Then they put the artificial, white stripes on it. It’s supposed to look monstrous and beautiful at the same time.”

Universal Pictures / Photofest
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“That is the monster scene, where you see the monster’s human side. It’s also a legendary example of film censorship. The scene is the one where he’s escaped from the castle, and he stumbles through the woods and comes upon this little girl who’s not afraid of him. She pulls the head off a daisy and throws it into the lake. This delights the monster—no one has ever been nice to him. So he pulls the head off of a flower and throws it in. [The game continues until] she says, ‘Oh no, we’re out of flowers, what should we do?’ So the monster throws her in, she drowns and dies.”

Universal thought the scene was too horrible and cut it out. “So now what happens is you see, when the girl says, ‘We’re out of flowers,’ the monster smiles and reaches for her, and then it cuts back to one of those Tyrolean celebrations, where everyone is singing and dancing and drinking. In the middle comes the girl’s father carrying her drenched, dead body. The studio was not thinking, because it makes you think something worse happened to her.” The scene has since been restored to the film.

Universal Pictures / Photofest
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“Boris Karloff was an inveterate Englishman. They broke for tea every day on the Karloff set. [Director] James Whale was English, and most of the cast was English, and so all the Brits would break for 4 o’clock tea, then go back to shooting.”

Universal Pictures / Photofest
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“That’s a very iconic photograph, the best shot of the character, one where you can really see the make-up, and the highlights and shadowing that [the make-up artist] did. And what’s very subtle, if you look closely, you see all these very fine lines he drew all over his face, which you couldn’t really pick up on film, but it gave it a texturing effect. When [Universal] did Phantom of the Opera <, they forbade any photos of [Lon Chaney] in make-up to be released to the press before the film came out. They wanted that shock effect. Even today, it’s still a shock when Mary Philbin rips that mask off. You still get a jolt no matter how many times you’ve seen it.”

Universal Pictures / Photofest
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“This is from the set of Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It’s another backstage shot, a meeting with Norman Abbot, the dialogue director, and the nephew of Bud Abbot. They’re going over lines, and the reason I like this so much is that Lugosi, in private life, was never ever seen without a cigar. But you never saw it on film. I love the image of this very elegant man in a tux, while he’s chomping on a stogie.”

Universal Pictures / Photofest
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“This is a gag shot. The fellow he’s applying make-up to is Jack Pierce’s make-up assistant. I could not get the guy’s name, it seems to be lost in time, though he shows up in many pictures. The funny thing here is that Karloff is getting his revenge by making up the make-up man.”

Universal Pictures / Photofest
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“This is the werewolf and the gypsy girl. It’s a great make-up shot, and a great set, but there’s also this strange ballet going on. It’s a posed shot, but that one is pretty iconic.”

Universal Pictures / Photofest
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“That’s probably the best make-up shot. Jack Pierce, the guy who did all the make-up, never took the short, easy way out. Most people would make a series of toupés and tie them in place. But he started from scratch, put it on tuft by tuft and glued it directly to his face. He used yak hair, which came from South America, but came through Europe, where the supplier was. During the war, they had to make Wolf Man less and less hairy, because they started running out, and they couldn’t get any more from Europe… He was more nose, less hair, by the last film.”

Universal Pictures / Photofest
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“This is an iconic Mummy shot. Every Mummy movie has the guy in the fez. He controls the Mummy, tells him what to do. He’s basically a henchman, so you always had this fellow, a different actor, always in a fez, and he always had an exotic name.”

Universal Pictures / Photofest
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“Lon Chaney hated playing the Mummy with a passion, and he was not afraid to show it to photographers. He made three Mummy movies. It was easier than when it had been Boris Karloff—they just slipped a rubber mask on him, rather than [him having to spend] five to six hours in make-up. But he didn’t like being wrapped up, having no dialogue, no scenes outside of the mummy suit. He just had to schlump along, dragging his leg, and kill people.”

Universal Pictures / Photofest
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“This is a tinted shot, because the movie was filmed in black and white. But it’s a wonderful shot of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, or the Gill Man. This was the last, really great, iconic Universal monster movie.”

Universal Pictures / Photofest
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“This is the original lobby card, it’s hand-tinted. The film was not in color. What’s interesting is that the leading lady, Gloria Stuart, was a very popular actress in the early ‘30s. Then she went away for a very long period of time, and came back to play Old Rose in ‘Titanic.’ It’s one of the more spectacular comebacks. Here, she’s begging him to get help. One of the themes of the Invisible Man series is that you take this formula that makes you invisible, but it also slowly drives you insane. Slowly, the Invisible Man becomes very megalomaniacal and wants to take over the world. A lot of the guys making these films had fled Germany because of a small, megalomaniacal man who wanted to take over the world.”

Universal Pictures / Photofest
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Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror
By Michael Mallory, with a Foreword by Stephen Sommers
$40.00
Universe Publishing
252 pages