My great-granddaughter Grizelda came over the other night for a sleepover. We had fun making sugar cookies and then icing them to look like pumpkins, skeletons, witches and scarecrows. Afterwards, we entertained each other by telling ghost stories while roasting marshmallows in front of the fireplace.
“Granny,” she said, “That last story you told gave me the willies. It scared me so badly that I could feel my whole body tensing up. It felt like my spine was about to break!”
“Ah, child,” I said. “What you felt was the Tingler grabbing hold of you. All you had to do was scream!”
She looked at me oddly, so I began to tell her all about The Tingler. She giggled gleefully and asked, “Can we watch it?” I whipped out the old DVD and hit ‘play’. We screamed and screamed and had a great time.
Of course, The Tingler was William Castle’s third excursion into terror. Vincent Price was the star and brought his usual smooth demeanor and satiny voice to the goings on. His work isolating the Tingler in the human body proved successful and he was able to capture a specimen to prove his theory. As to be expected, it escapes – into a full movie theater – before he is able to capture it and return it to its host body.
Escaping into a theater gave the proper setting for the application of Castle’s latest invention, Percepto, where the audience watching the actual movie could identify with the on-screen audience when the Tingler escapes.
Percepto required the wiring of various theater seats with buzzers or vibrators which vibrated when the projectionist pushed a button. Those selected seats vibrated, giving patrons a surprise tingle on their seated parts. It was timed to match the action on the theater screen and Vincent Price’s frantic pleas to, “Scream, scream for your lives!”
A special crew was dispatched to the theater (usually for larger city theaters) ahead of the opening engagement to wire what seats they could, hoping to choose the ones most likely to be taken. A special Percepto How To Manual for Theaters was created, but it was still a major undertaking (no pun intended). According to the manual, ten pairs of motors could be put in any given row for a total of five rows or 100 motors overall. A special timer energized one row at a time, usually going from front to back. The motors were powered by batteries so there was no danger from electric shock.
Needless to say, when it worked, it worked well. Feeling the Tingler loose in the actual theater made for a most convincing experience. However, due to the sheer logistics of the endeavor, not every seat could be wired and many went without a seat in the seat!
According to daughter Terry Castle and others in the excellent DVD “Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story”, the gimmick was augmented by “plants” in the audience. At a certain time in the movie, when the Tingler attacks the leg of a woman in the theater, a woman in the real theater would scream and faint. Ushers or other personnel would run down and carry her out on a stretcher. All this right before the movie resumes and the Tingler is seen on the screen, invading the projection booth. The theater goes dark and Vincent Prices says, “Scream! Scream for your lives! The Tingler is loose in this theater!” At this point, the vibrators go off, and the real theater-goers get the surprise of their life!
After the movie, everyone would talk. “Did you feel it?” “No, I didn’t.” “Let’s see it again!” Kids, especially, loved it. People would go to see The Tingler a second time, searching under the seats for the vibrators so they would know which seat to sit in. It was fun and it was a hit.
William Castle went all out in hyping this movie to the public. Other things he used included insurance policy vending machines and a caged Tingler in a chained metal cage in the lobby, and the usual nurses on standby. One thing that is very rarely discussed is the fact that patrons in some theaters were given a special glow-in-the-dark Tingler button, or amulet, which was about the size of a nickel, and which was supposed to keep the Tingler away. Crazy Gary was given one by his dad when he went to see the movie back in 1959. The pressbook for The Tingler doesn’t even mention this giveaway.
The radio spots included here are very effective, exciting patrons to come and experience the terror of The Tingler. Vincent Price narrates some and William Castle narrates too. So…have a listen…and scream for your life! (There’s also a special spine-tingling treat from Granny: A lobby spot for The Tingler featuring Vincent Price and the special Colpix 45rpm record “The Tingler”, sung by The Tinglers vocal group. You’ll recognize Thurl Ravenscroft as the bass lead, but I do not know if the other songsters are The Mellomen or not. WARNING: Listening to this catchy tune could lead to your developing an earworm you may not be able to get rid of. Use caution when listening!)
10, 20, 30, and 60 second radio spots
Theater lobby radio spot!
Do you have any radio spots you would like to share? Contact Granny Creech (aka Gary Fox) at [email protected].