Well it’s Wednesday... three days ta Halloween. And the Paramount Theater here in Austin was showing a film that just never gets seen on the big screen. ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. Noone I have known has ever seen this film on the big screen, and that include Father Geek, who was alive when wheels were made of stone.
Today was actually quite exciting. I’ll probably tell yall about what happened today, in about 3 weeks, if some other publication doesn’t go and run it first. You’ll know when you read it.
Anyways, Tom Joad, Sister Satan, Father Geek, Quint, Hooper and I all went down to the Paramount to see this classic.
FG and SS had left Joad and I to pay for supper across the street. Joad and I eased ourselves on over to the grand ol theater and parted through the doors. Handing our tickets to the takers. We then walked into the theater good and proper.
The first thing I notice is the screen is cropped to be SQUARE shaped.... Ahhhhh, I remember once talking to Guillermo Del Toro about SQUARE films. Actually it was about 16 mm and he expressed his undying love for the shape. Ya see, for some, the greatest films... the ones with luminous presence’s that seemed to define the screen. The films by directors whom’s names are spoken with pride and awe. The Golden Age of Cinema.
I’m walking down the aisle tripping in my head about how cool it will be to watch those fun as heck animated titles... animated in Black and White. When suddenly I felt a disturbance in my force.... a dark presence was near by... a chilly cold blade was inserted into me as I heard the words....
“Hell... ooooooo... Hair...... Ree...”
I turn and I see... I see... but I can not tell....
You must you must...
A powerful and evil force... a force I will call Circe...
This being was once my girlfriend, I was beguiled by this... Circe. I haven’t seen her in almost a year, and I have not been her boyfriend for over 2 years. She was my only girlfriend that I wish hadn’t happened. I must’ve been blinded by some sort of witch’s brew.
Anyway... SHE was there. Her hair now bluer than Captain America’s uniform. But those eyes... the eyes that paralyze... they were there. Both of em. They saw right through the back of my head. As I turned, I almost had whiplash from turning back away. One does not behold the Gorgon and expect to live.
In the brief glance, I noticed no little guppy childling with her. She used to feed the child.. tranquilizers... It would just lay there. Other people tried to see if it would awaken. But often time the only perception of life was an opening and closing motion of the jaw. Glen named the poor child, GUPPY CHILD. He hated Circe and her Guppy Child. “Spawn of Demons,” he fondly used to say.
Well, I had to wipe her clean from my mind. It’s kinda like Orson Welles in Grandi’s bar in TOUCH OF EVIL... there was a glass of whiskey there... right there... But luckily my will was better than Hank Quinlan’s.
I focused on my AMERICAN MOVIE CLASSIC magazine with Bela Lugosi on the cover and Tim Burton ala Johnny Depp in Don Juan Demarco inside.
I said a couple of prayers. She called me for a year after we broke up, she would be at places I would goto... awaiting me. And even a couple of times I’d see her... standing... across the street.
I’m not afraid of zombies, demons, the NRG... but I am afraid of CIRCE. And like Glen’s SATAN... all must fear them.
Quickly though, things begin to happen on stage. A lady from TIME/WARNER CABLE and a dude from AMERICAN MOVIE CLASSICS come out to do a little promotion thingee. I won’t talk bad about them, but God I wanted to storm the stage and do an introduction for the film. It cried out for a rambling geekboy to at least do Costello’s impressions of DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN.
Then the animated opening titles began.
What a pure joy. As I listen to the gleeful laughs of children and adults alike, I begin to smile. Abbott and Costello... The Universal Monsters... Still 50 years after the film was made... still after all this time, they entertain.
Remember in HEAVY METAL when the Elmer Bernstein music swells and we hear the narrator say something along the lines of, “and a new Tarakian was born...” Those goosebumps, the ones you get thinking about the passing of Anakin’s lightsaber to Luke via Obi-Wan? Well those were the goosebumps I was getting watching Abbott and Costello being passed down to children (3-14) and the high schoolers, the college kids, the adults remembering...
I have never heard a Jim Carrey movie entertain an audience like this movie did. The banter back and forth between Abbott and Costello is delivered with perfect timing.
Just a few weeks ago I saw John Landis explaining what made Belushi magical. What he said was the ‘sweetness’. Belushi had an innate sweetness to him, and because of it, the audience loved him. Lou Costello had gigantic heaping loads of this sweetness.
Just watch him play with the girls, watch him outsmart Abbott’s jibes. Watch him play with the audience like your childhood toys.
Can you imagine how cool it would have been had Boris Karloff come back to play the Monster? It’s not that Glenn Strange didn’t do a good job, it’s that the soul of the monster, Karloff’s eyes were not there. Oh sure the Jack Pierce make-up was in place, but when you get right down to it... the eyes, the lip quiverings, the uplifted palms, the soulful moans... This is what makes the classic Universal Frankenstein Monster soooo powerful that all Frankenstein films fall to the wayside.
Bela Lugosi. I believe, if memory serves, this is the last time he played Dracula. His eyes were so powerful. What I wouldn’t give to see him and Anthony Hopkins in a staring contest. Watch his eyes, they quiver back and forth ever so slightly. Watch the fearful beguiling look in his face, the motion of his hands. Watch the rippling of his forhead and the tones of his voice. Grand... Absolutely perfect.
Lon Chaney Jr. Like his Lawerence Talbot character of the Wolfman... Chaney Jr was trapped in a curse he wished to shed. Having seen his non-monster roles, this man could do anything, but instead was typecast as a monster because of his name. Now usually I don’t feel sorry for people that make it, that begin complaining or aren’t happy with their position in that fame, but... Well Lon is just such a tormented looking man. His face is so sorrowful and pleading that I feel like time traveling and kicking asses for him. For those that have seen his OF MICE AND MEN... well you know this man’s potential. And while I adore his body of fiendish work... one has to wonder what could have been.
But I want to talk now about something kinda important. This 50 year old film played like gangbusters. The audience let loose with THUNDERING applause afterwards. As loud as any I have ever heard. There were no directors in attendance. No actors, screenwriters. There was simply a spontaneous explosion of tribute.
I think in this case it becomes important to look at what Bud and Lou did, what the monsters did, and how this film worked.
First off I don’t believe the film is a spoof. Bud and Lou have their jokes, but the monsters are not played as fools. It is a pure mixing of the characters. It was placing A & C right smack dab with the monsters and watching the results.
Dracula doesn’t go into a standup routine. Frankenstein does no slapstick. The Wolfman doesn’t fetch a bone. This is something that we can’t even do in a horror series today. First off, each character had been in multiple films and they didn’t change.
Dracula is still a power hungry bloodsucker. Frankenstein’s Monster is still his same ol self. Lawerence Talbot is tormented by his very existence and his inability to die. They don’t try to come up with some wacky time traveling gimmick. They don’t need cussing. They don’t need to make fun of themselves. Instead everyone played it as they always did.
Now I know that sounds like “what’s wrong with Hollywood,” but it isn’t. What is it people like about ROAD WARRIOR (aka MAD MAX 2)? They love Max, whereas in Thunderdome he became a lite-version of himself. From LETHAL WEAPON 1 to 4, we continue to see them two become further and further away from their original characters.
In the good ol days Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce stayed note perfect to their characters. What changed was the STORY.
For example do you change your dramatic motivation day to day? Well... I don’t. I am pretty much looney 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for 26 years thus far. Maybe it was watching too many MR MOTOs and SHERLOCK HOLMES and TARZAN flicks. Where stabile characters that existed over a decade or longer existed.
These series existed because the writers understood the characters. They knew exactly how Abbott and Costello should work. They knew exactly how the Universal Monsters acted. What is sad, is you can still see this sort of devotion to characters in an animated show like BATMAN and SUPERMAN. Where writers and directors understand their characters, their audience and their material.
The studios and production companies were not run by idiots like Jon Peters that could suggest that Polar Bears should guard Dracula’s castle, or that Frankenstein needed a new look for the toys, and perhaps a Wolfmanmobile.
Instead sensible level headed types were in charge of the series.
And talking about pair comedians. I’d love to see Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan to go this route. Or hey, how about Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Instead of doing yet another LETHAL WEAPON how about putting (Basically those same characters) in a completely different setting. Go watch RAT PACK films or MARTIN AND LEWIS or BOWERY BOYS or ABBOTT AND COSTELLO or THREE STOOGES or LAUREL AND HARDY.
Watch how it is done. It’s amazingly simple. You put the characters in NEW situations, not the situation we just saw them in. Hell, you move the genre around. From Western to Horror to SciFi to Musical to outright Comedy to Cannibal film to Prison Film to Crime film to Fantasy film and on and on. Stop doing the same thing with the same characters. See what they would do elsewhere.
Well, I guess that’s it for this rant. I just wish that more people could see ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN on the big screen. It really is quite something.
