Frankenstein in Stitches

Several comments posted here, on Facebook and points between have noted how Primo Carnera’s Frankenstein makeup from 1957, revealed here last week, was very similar to that worn by Robert De Niro in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein of 1994.

True enough. Bald and stitched cranium, sutured cheeks, upper lip and chin, and a damaged left eye. Very similar indeed, but Primo and Bobby were neither the first nor last of their monstrous kind.

Lon Chaney’s Monster for TV’s Tales of Tomorrow in 1952 heralded Carnera’s version with a baldhead and face-splitting stitch work. Springing 60 years ahead, the effect was revisited and worn by Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch, sharing the part, in the celebrated British National Theater version of 2011. Call it same-school monster makeup.

Somewhat related, without facial distress, chrome-dome Monsters are known to sport ‘round the head, dotted line stitching indicating radical brain surgery. The two finest examples are — going from the ridiculous to the sublime — Cal Bolder in Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966) and Freddie Jones’s heart wrenching Creature in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969).

These Frankenstein Monsters are of a family. When opting for a baldhead look, similarities are perhaps inevitable. There are only so many ways to stitch a baseball.

Related:
Exclusive! The Monster: Primo Carnera
Exclusive! 1957 Frankenstein Makeup Session
Revealed!
TV’s Lost Frankenstein of 1957
Tales of Tomorrow: Frankenstein’s Notorious TV Adventure.

The Posters of Frankenstein : Constantin Belinsky

The Monster and attending Mad Scientists are blinded by the light of a glorious, luminescent Bride on this pastel poster by Constantin Belinsky (1904-1999) marking the release of Bride of Frankenstein in France, in 1935.

Belinsky arrived in Paris from his native Ukraine in 1925. He would come to share his time between commercial work as a movie poster artist and fine arts as an award-winning sculptor. His first poster was a vivid one-sheet for Scarface with a prominent credit for Boris Karloff. Though many of his posters were done in traditional oils, he was also known for his unique, modernistic posters with angular drawings and flat, vibrant colors.

After a wartime lull when his poster work fell way off — he managed to produce two elaborate posters for the 1943 Phantom of the Opera — Belinsky picked up again in the late Forties and became, through the next three decades, one of the most prolific movie poster artists in Europe. He would create art for the French release of such genre titles as The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Mole People, Creature from the Black Lagoon (and sequels), The Deadly Mantis, The Monolith Monsters, Monster on the Campus, Dinosaurus and Destroy All Monsters.

Belinsky also produced numerous posters for Sword and Sandal epics, Spaghetti Westerns and B-grade gangster movies, culminating in a series of Seventies Kung Fu action posters until his retirement in 1983. Along the way, he painted a number of Hammer Films posters, notably Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, and classic exploitation work including Ricardo Freda’s The Specter of Dr. Hichcock (aka The Ghost) and Jean Rollin’s The Lake of the Living Dead/Zombie Lake.

Constantin Belinsky’s fabulous Fiancée poster is signed “C Belin”, a form he abandoned early in favor of “C Belinsky” or, more often, simple initials: “CB”. Film historian Christophe Blier published a book, Constantin Belinsky: 60 ans d’affiches de cinéma in 2000. Long out of print, it deserves to be reissued.

Related:
The Posters of Frankenstein

A FRANKENSTEINIA EXCLUSIVE! The Monster : Primo Carnera

Always formidable looking to an opponent, former heavyweight champion Primo Carnera, 6 feet, 1 inch and 280 pounds, will scare the cold cream and curlers off the average housewife with his portrayal of Frankenstein.

Thus read the caption to this United Press Telephoto sent out to newspapers on February 2nd, 1957, promoting the February 5 broadcast of the NBC Matinee Theatre adaptation of Frankenstein. The presentation, the network insisted, “will not follow the movie as done by Boris Karloff but does follow the novel”.

The stunning image of Primo Carnera in full makeup was accompanied by a comparison photo of the smiling actor and suggested for use in tandem with a short news item by UP’s Aline Mosby. As an interesting side note, Mosby was the Los Angeles-based United Press reporter who famously revealed that Marilyn Monroe had posed for a nude calendar. She would become the first American female correspondent in Moscow where, in 1959, writing about American defectors, she interviewed one Lee Harvey Oswald. After the JFK assassination, Mosby’s recollections became part of the Warren Report. In Moscow, Mosby also interviewed the notorious Doctor Demikhov, the “real life Frankenstein” whose grafting experiments led to the creation of a two-headed dog. Mosby’s would go on to serve in Paris, London, Vienna and New York. In 1979, she opened the UPI’s first bureau in Beijing, China.

Primo Carnera’s acting career would remain a sideline to his athletic endeavors. A mere ten days after the Frankenstein broadcast, Carnera was in Sydney, Australia, where he drew a record crowd of 20,000 at the White City tennis stadium for a bout against Emile Czaja, nicknamed King Kong. The Vancouver Sun reported, “The match was declared no contest when both wrestlers fell out of the ring and Carnera began punching King Kong.”

Carnera’s crazily stitched Frankenstein Monster stares dead-eyed back at us across 55 years, long gone but no longer forgotten, thanks to film archeologist George Chastain.

Related:
Exclusive! 1957 Frankenstein Makeup Session
Revealed! TV’s Lost Frankenstein of 1957

A FRANKENSTEINIA EXCLUSIVE!1957 Frankenstein Makeup Session

Collector George Chastain does it again! Back in November, we posted a fabulous photo he’d uncovered of Primo Carnera’s wardrobe and makeup test for the February 1957 Frankenstein episode of NBC’s Matinee Theater. Now, new photos have surfaced and, again, Mr. Chastain is generously sharing them here with Frankensteinia readers.

The two AP wirepotos show boxer/wrestler turned actor Carnera submitting to makeup men for a January 30th dress rehearsal. The broadcast went out live from Burbank, California on February 5.

The photos show two stages of the application. First, Carnera is fitted with a skullcap and, later on, the full-face makeup is completed with textured skin and a network of crude stitches. Five artists were required to transform Carnera into The Monster, three of them seen in the photos. Walter Schenck and Edwin Butterworth would work together again, twenty years later, on the 1977 film version of The Island of Dr. Moreau. William “Bill” Morley was makeup man on the AIP TV special, The Wild Weird World of Dr. Goldfoot in 1965.

Matinee Theatre’s Frankenstein of 1957 is one of many lost programs from the early days of TV. These images, unseen for 55 years, are possibly the only remaining record of this historical broadcast.

But wait… There’s one more! Check this post for the most stunning portrait you are ever likely to see of Primo Carnera as Frankenstein’s Monster!

With thanks to George Chastain.

Related:
Revealed! TV’s Lost Frankenstein of 1957

The Great War Frankenstein

This editorial cartoon appeared on the front page of the original Washington Times — no relation to the current newspaper of that name — on May 12, 1918. The Kaiser figure in ceremonial uniform — “Afraid that the monster of his own creation will destroy him” — cowers from a looming giant wearing an eerie-looking gasmask, wielding a bomb, poison gas and “liquid fire”, a term describing gasoline or naphtha-spitting flamethrowers, sometimes mounted on airplanes.

The Frankenstein comment refers to Germany’s own attack strategies being used against it, The Monster effectively turning on its creator. “Germany is suggesting mutual cessation of air raids and gas attacks now that we have secured the ascendancy in both”. There would be six more months of horrific warfare until Armistice, in November.

The original Washington Times, first published in 1884, went through a succession of owners including, for a time, William Randolph Hearst. Eventually called The Washington-Times Herald, it was absorbed by The Washington Post in the 1950s.

The striking pen and ink drawing is signed, but I can’t make out the name. Can anybody ID the artist?

Nurses will be in attendance

Real live nurses and a real ambulance from nearby St.Joseph’s Hospital are ready to handle panicked patrons as Frankenstein comes to Parkersburg, West Virginia. It’s early 1932, with Holiday decorations still in evidence.

The nurse gag was a ballyhoo staple, arching back to the silent era and still in use as late as 1973 to promote The Exorcist. Stretchers, a waiting ambulance and girls in starched white costume patrolling the lobby with smelling salts were sure signs that the current feature was meant to wrack nerves.

Note the banner stretched under the marquee, spelling out the title in die-cut letters. It was offered through Universal’s Campaign Book to exhibitors as “A giant streamer to give your front and lobby that ‘Frankenstein’ flash!” It could be stretched “to fit any desired space… around the edge of the marquee, across the top of the main entrance, along lobby walls… Put them up wherever you need extra life in the lobby.”

The streamer, made of extra-ply cardboard and printed in two colors, came strung with two wires and ready for hanging, all for $2.50. None of these wonderful banners appear to have survived.

The Smoot Theater was originally built for vaudeville in 1926 by the Smoot Amusement Company. Just four years on, it was bought by Warners and transformed into a Vitaphone/Movietone movie house, “comfortably cooled”. A simple brick building with terra cotta decorations on its façade, the typically lavish movie palace trappings were reserved for its interiors, notably some Tiffanesque hand-cut Austrian chandeliers, mahogany and brass doors, and gold gilding throughout. For a time, the Smoot was Parkersburg’s finest theatre. Movie stars and famous performers stopped over when swinging through the region. Guests included Rudolph Valentino, Guy Lombardo, Miss West Virginia and, in 1939, an visiting army of Munchkins, and two elephants.

Time and urban renewal caught up with the Smoot in 1986 when it was shuttered and marked for demolition, despite being listed on the American National Register of Historic Places. In 1989, literally two days before its scheduled extreme transformation into a parking lot, the theater was saved through community effort. Today, the grand old Smoot Theater is a vital showplace again.

The Smoot Theatre website, and page on Cinema Treasures.

Read about the remarkable Felice Jorgeson and her work keeping the Smoot Theater going.

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Learn about the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act and how this legislation, if passed, would affect all of us, all over the world.

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The Frankenstein Clock

Released in November 1931, James Whale’s Frankenstein stepped across America and the world through the Holidays and into the New Year.

The Frankenstein Lobby Clock was a do-it-yourself promotional gag proposed by Universal’s publicity department. Exhibitors were told to paint a clock on a standup display, replace the twelve numbers with the twelve letters of "Frankenstein", add The Monster’s silhouetted head and fill in the number of days until the playdate. Copy should read, your choice, “Now is the time to think about Frankenstein coming here…” or “The Hour of Doom Approaches!”

We’ll look at more Frankenstein ballyhoo in days and weeks to come as we continue to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of Frankenstein.

With thanks to John McElwee for this image. John runs the ever-fabulous Greenbriar Picture Shows movie blog.

The Posters of Frankenstein : Il Mostro di Frankenstein

There’s precious little material left attending the release of Il Mostro di Frankenstein, the lost Italian Frankenstein film of 1920. Here, recently surfaced, and predating a similar ad from 1926, is what becomes the earliest known poster of the film, for two showings in August 1922. Cheaply printed in two colors, these typographical posters were produced in low numbers for neighborhood distribution.

The “Frankenstein” name is misspelled, as it was, differently, on the 1926 poster. Producer/actor Luciano Albertini, an early Italian movie star known for his role as “Samson”, gets top billing.

“An extraordinary film of sensational adventures”, the copy reads, “superbly interpreted by Albertini and his troupe”. The troupe in question included fellow strongman Umberto Guarracino, who played The Monster to Albertini’s Frankenstein. “A Masterpiece without precedent… An enormous success”.

The accompanying film, La Caniglia — literally “the rabble”, and usually translated as “the gangster” — was another film from 1920, directed by and starring Enzo Longhi.

The long-lived Cinema Teatro Aurora opened in 1908 on the narrow Via Paolo Scarpi in downtown Milan. For a time, patrons could gather in an inner courtyard on warm days to be serenaded by the house orchestra. The Cinema switched to sound film in 1931 and underwent periodic upgrades through the years. After a season’s shutdown in 1980, the Teatro was revived as an adult movie house, operating briefly as the Aurora Pussycat. It closed definitely in 2003, after a remarkable 95-year run. The building is still standing, its façade intact, with the insides remodeled for commercial and cultural use.

Source: Wonderful research by film historian Giuseppe Rausa, notably a detailed account of the Cinema Teatro Aurora (in Italian), with links to numerous placard-type posters.

Related:
A placard from 1926 and a Belgian ad for Il Mostro di Frankenstein
The Silent Frankensteins

The Art of Frankenstein : Ben Templesmith

A nasty-looking, zippered, patched, stapled and stitched Monster created by Ben Templesmith.

The artist is best known for 30 Days of Night, penned by Steve Niles and turned into a 2007 movie. Templesmith’s other titles include Wormwood and Fell, all exclusively for IDW Publishing.

Ben Templesmith’s blog

The Art of Frankenstein : Tyler Crook

The Monster is a gentleman, never mind the ominous stare and the alarming forehead, in Tyler Crook’s handsome watercolor portrait.

Crook recently took over art chores on B.P.R.D., the superlative horror comic overseen by creator Mike Mignola and written by John Arcudi. Crook keeps a terrific blog where the image above was found. Go look, other Universal Monsters get the suit and tie treatment.

Tyler Crooke’s blog

Previews of Tyler Crook’s art for Dark Horse Comics

The Art of Frankenstein : Jill Thompson

Exceptional art by an exceptional artist, here’s a beautiful wash study of Boris Karloff from Son of Frankenstein by Jill Thompson.

The multiple-award-winning artist has worked for all the major comics companies, notably on titles such as Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman at DC, and X-Men and Spiderman for Marvel. As a storyteller, Thompson’s Halloween-flavored Scary Godmother series has appeared in comics, children’s books and two animated films for television.

Jill Thompson’s Tumblr.

A 3-page sample of Scary Godmother.

The Art of Frankenstein : Mike Mignola

Let’s kick off the New Year with a handful of images, appearing daily this week, of the Frankenstein Monster as drawn by top comic book talent. First up, the master, Mike Mignola, whose simple, raw sketch captures Karloff’s soulful Monster with a bold black shape and a few essential lines. Typical of Mignola’s work, it is a beautifully designed piece, at once elegant and austere.

Visit Mike Mignola’s website, and explore Dark Horse Comics’ Hellboy Zone.

Related:
Monster and Bride, by Mike Mignola
Hellboy Meets Frankenstein
Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein
Cover: The Frankenstein/Dracula War