Books (Non-fiction) - From Zombos' Closet

American International Pictures
The Golden Years
Book Review

March 13, 2024 / Books (Non-fiction) / 1 Comment

Mar 13 2024

Zombos Says: An enjoyable, informative read.

Gary A. Smith presents a chronological rundown of the American International Pictures’ offerings from 1954 to 1972. The format of American International Pictures: The Golden Years, takes a little time to get used to as Smith combines various sources of information to paint an interesting production history using articles and reviews from trade publications like Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter and Showman’s Trade Review, excerpts from the movies’ pressbooks, critical reviews from The New York Times, Variety, and other newspapers, and quotes from notable creatives involved with AIP like Roger Corman, actors, and other key players involved with production and distribution (from personal interviews provided by Mark Thomas McGee who wrote Fast and Furious: The Story of American International Pictures).

Smith, in his introduction, states he wanted to trace the history of the company through their continual use of publicity, and that not every movie is covered. What really stands out through all this movie by movie, year by year, rundown is how AIP evolved with the audience’s social tastes, and how they always kept their core audience (teens and drive-in crowd) front and center when bringing movies, either domestic or foreign, onto their yearly release schedule.

Under their initial American Releasing Corporation (ARC), with offices in the Lawyer’s Building “not far from Hollywood and Vine,” James Nicholson and Samuel Arkoff struck a deal with producer Roger Corman to distribute his third movie, The Fast and the Furious. And so it began.

Roger Corman (Producer): “I had offers from Republic and Columbia to distribute The Fast and the Furious, but I saw that I was in a trap. If I had to wait for each picture to pay off, I would be making one movie a year. So I gave the picture to Jim [Nicholson] with the stipulation that I would not have to wait for the picture to be released to get my money and I wanted a commitment for two more pictures.”

…

American International Pictures
The Golden Years
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Horror Dogs:
Man’s Best Friend as Movie Monster
Book Review

November 14, 2023 / Books (Non-fiction) / Leave a Comment

Nov 14 2023

Before I say one word (well, okay, after these few words), if you are a horror fan worth any street cred, you need to read this book, savor it, dog-ear and highlight it. Brian Patrick Duggan is a passionate and experienced author with his subject matter, and McFarland has published a winner with his monumental work, Horror Dogs: Man’s Best Friend as Movie Monster. Even if you only have a significant horror movie hound in your life, then here is the perfect gift to give for the holiday season.

Exhaustively researched and foot-noted, Duggan gives a comprehensive history of canine terror as found in horror cinema. He goes even farther by providing context and historical focus, examining the social, mythological, and literary evolution from man’s best friend to man’s worst nightmare on four legs. For the horror fan, his in-depth commentary on productions (dog-handling and sounds, production issues, breed of dog chosen and why) is illuminating, while also providing a long list of movies, from across the years, that old and new horror fans may find worthwhile to explore.

His chosen structure for the book breaks it all down into two parts. Part 1: Genesis gives a chronologically and detailed outline of the just-a-cute dog’s transformation to the definitely-no-longer-a-pet dogs found in the horror films of the 1970s. Here is where he explains how a forty-cent copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles began his life-long love of dogs and how their innocence and companionship slowly change into one of stalking terror. From the first appearance of a dog in Edison’s Athlete with a Wand (1894), to their use in comedies, to the bestial hound as portrayed in the many cinematic iterations of The Hound of the Baskervilles, which removed the comedy and replaced it with a bestial terror. It is also in this section that he looks back at the ‘Horrible Antecedents’ in myth, art, and literature, from corpse-eating dogs to slave-tracking bloodhounds, to dogs attacking humans. Through Bulls-Eye, the dog to be feared in Oliver Twist, and other examples, he shows how the Western world’s canine perspective shifted from innocuous family pet to vicious predator.

Along the way, he notes how the breed of dog changes in cinema with the perception of how dangerous they can be, and how the animal attack films, “coinciding with the Vietnam War and Watergate,” created the horror subgenre called nature gone wild or eco horror, beginning with Willard (1971). As Duggan states, “it was inevitable that one screenwriter would twist domestic dogs into dangerous predators;” and so the first human-attacking Doberman on screen shows up in The Kennel Murder Case (1933). What follows are a slew of horror-centric dog movies that Duggan goes into the nitty-gritty on.

In Part II: Taxonomy: A Field Guide to Horror Dogs, the supernatural, Frankenstein (cyborg, robotic) , alien, insurrection, and trained to kill dogs are examined with their respective movies, including The Mephisto Waltz (1971), the evil Rottweiler in Daughters of Satan (1972) and The Omen (1976), and the ghost dog in Topper Takes a Trip (1939). Rabid dogs are also covered in the Cujo (1983) chapter, where he makes the case that Cujo supplanted the hound of the Baskervilles as the go to popular culture example of a terrifying dog. The first alien dog is seen in the 1950s alien invasion movies with The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955), a low budget Roger Corman entry that had no beast with a million real eyes (just a poorly designed puppet, which mercifully, for the viewer, was shown briefly). Another movie where an alien controls a dog is one of my guilty-pleasure favorites, The Brain from Planet Arous (1957). Duggan then moves from mind-control to physically altered dogs with Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and The Thing (1982).

From one dog as singular threat to packs of dogs terrifying many people is examined in the Insurrection chapter. Like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (), even dogs can go bestial and pack up to hunt humans, as shown in movies like Dogs (1976) and The Pack (1977). He sums up in his chapter on Trained to Kill that “surprisingly, this chapter…claims the most titles, and provides a listing of world titles, with some already covered in the previous chapters.

A glossary, an appendix of productions by year, country, and breed, and his extensive chapter notes tidy up his references. (Note that the Kindle version, which I used for this review, puts the chapter notes at the end of each chapter instead of at the end of the book.)

As a final note, if you are a Sherlock Holmes fan (like me), the complete coverage on all of The Hound of the Baskervilles films–and yes, there are quite a lot of them–is alone worth the price of admission to his wonderfully insightful and informative reference. But a warning! You will never again look at your dog with the same sense of security and comfort after reading this book.

The Science Fictionary
Book Review

July 7, 2023 / Books (Non-fiction) / Leave a Comment

Jul 7 2023

Zombos Says: Good

This book review first appeared in The Horror Zine.

While writing this review I glanced over to my bookshelves. I am an all-day sucker for reference books, dictionaries of this or that, encyclopedias, guides, and all popular culture compendiums. Right off the bat, I spied The Dictionary of Satanism, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, and Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. Out of sight were the Doctor Who and Star Trek dictionaries, and a dozen or so similar books invaluable to any writer or reader of any fictional universe.

The Science Fictionary by Robert W. Bly is a needed addition to the reference shelf with essential tidbits, descriptions and definitions across its pages, fostering those neat nostalgic flashbacks or wonderful new explorations into the many threads that weave the fabric of our literary and cinematic cultures. The strength of Mr. Bly’s work is that he has the temerity to include horror and fantasy along with the science fiction. Honestly, although horror makes the hard money, it is science fiction that usually brings prestige; and fantasy often splinters between both, creating a pivot that can go either way. Science fiction dictionaries focus mostly on literary sources, too, which can all be very snobbish indeed. Bly goes against such convention and his ambitious undertaking finally brings the whole media family together, creating a more rewarding and enriching experience for the modern, multi-faceted fan, who realizes one does not live by just science fiction or fantasy or horror, but is enriched by all three.

Pulling from rich sources that include movies, books, mythology, and television series, there are entries like my childhood favorite anime, ‘Tobor’, the 8^th Man, a robot who ‘smokes’ cigarette-like power cells to recharge, and ‘Ubik’, an aerosol spray that gives people new vigor and energy. The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction does not mention these. It also does not mention ‘Asphyx’ or ‘Drakulon’, but Bly does. Any knowledgeable comic book fan knows that Drakulon is Vampirella’s home planet. And for anyone into odd, little known horror movies, the Asphyx is the aura that surrounds people just before they die and also refers to the name of the creature ready to snatch it away (as well as the title of the movie). Bly may make some new fans by including such entries.

His entries vary between common inclusions and ones you may not find elsewhere. His writing style is concise and leaves out dates and extensive source citations, making for a more casual reading focused on explanations. At times, those explanations could use a little more depth. For instance, reading the ‘Jefferies Tubes’ entry, while the description notes they are maintenance conduits aboard Starfleet vessels, the origination of the term is missing but important. An extra sentence pinning that unique set design to Matt Jefferies, who designed the original Enterprise, is an important acknowledgement. The same can be said for the ‘Dalek’ entry, where Peter Nation, who thought of the famous cyborg enemy of Doctor Who, along with Raymond Cusick’s stark design, should also be cited. But then Bly goes one better than the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by giving a better description of the Daleks and even mentions Davros, their infamous creator.

If you are thinking that today’s internet, Wikipedia, and various online fan-related dictionaries and resources make books like The Science Fictionary obsolete, you would be wrong. Way wrong. Pick up a copy, either print or digital, page through it, highlight the new and relish the familiar, but explore its pages. You may just hear the words of Carol Marcus in the Wrath of Kahn: “Let me show you something that will make you feel young as when the world was new.”

Having all that science fiction, fantasy, and horror information finally in one book, at your fingertips, may just be that exhilarating for you.

James Warren: Empire of Monsters
Book Review

March 26, 2019 / Books (Non-fiction) / Leave a Comment

Mar 26 2019

Zombos Says: Very Good

Just finished Bill Schelly's James Warren: Empire of Monsters. Let me put it this way. There are books I tend to dawdle over and books I have trouble putting down, once I start reading them, because something about them, maybe it's the style or the content or it's just the nature of the beast, so to speak, keeps my eyes glued to their pages. Schelly's book reached out and glued my eyes to its pages.

At 300-plus of those pages (though I wish there were more pictures), it flew by in a good way, a wonderful way. Schelly is not the kind of author who's better to read a Kindle edition of his book because you spend a lot of time looking up ten dollar words when a buck's worth would have sufficed–which I find very annoying (but enlightening, of course)–and his sentence structures aren't the academic jargonese, dog-eat-tail variety that takes turns scratching your head for you as you try to understand what the author is saying. Empire of Monsters leaves those complications for its subject matter: James Warren and the creative people he alternated between loving and hating and loving again, and the influential magazines they created.

James Warren is a very complicated guy, and the numerous quotes from those who worked with him (sometimes against him) to produce the monsterkid's wet dreams of Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, Blazing Combat, Captain Company merchandise, and the icing on the cake, Famous Monsters of Filmland, are captured here in a way that presents a fascinating, perplexing, and, when all summed up, more than a snapshot's worth of the publishing versus creation versus mixed-bag personalities that came and went to nurture and sustain a growing fandom. And all this while still trying to make a buck and act like Hugh Hefner, a man whose larger than life appetites Warren wanted desperately to emulate. Hell, wouldn't we all!

This is where James Warren appears his most scrutiny-resistant. Aviation buff (complete with a yellow–his favorite color–Sopwith Camel replica in his front yard), purveyor of the excessive and quirky life (complete with Long Island party-hardy getaway and unabashed skinning dipping among his peers), and a personality that shifted between yelling not telling or nice guy to work with or not so nice guy to work with. Schelly keeps the level of narrative balanced and pretty neutral, presenting Warren's lovers and haters in equal measure through their quotes and interactions with him as he struggled to keep his publishing mini-empire running during both the gravy times and the threadbare ones, fighting for rack space against the likes of Marvel and Skywald. What you won't find here is a lot of attention paid to Forrest J Ackerman and the Warren relationship. Some juicy tidbits you will find, but this is a book about Warren and his needs and dreams.

Depending on where you are coming from, whether you're a monsterkid who grew up with Warren's magazines on the racks or someone who's curiosity was piqued after reading a Creepy or Eerie archive edition, this book is for you. It's funny, but after watching Netflix's Love, Death & Robots, I couldn't help but think of these magazines. That illustrated short story format with a kicker ending was the hallmark of Warren Publishing's storytellers and illustrators. And don't get me started on Captain Company. That's one for us monsterkids to memory-drool over. You wouldn't think selling merchandise would be such a big deal, but as Schelly illuminates, it was a key player for Warren. Captain Company's merchandise profits kept underperforming magazines on the racks and paid for a lot of that wild life-style.

There's triumph and tragedy here, a lot of history and personalities too, that all came together to create the monsters we still embrace today. Victor Frankenstein had an easier time of it but Warren Publishing did it best.

The Art of Horror Movies:
An Illustrated History

January 23, 2018 / Books (Non-fiction) / Leave a Comment

Jan 23 2018

Zombos says: Very Good

A natural follow up to his book, The Art of Horror, Stephen Jones once again provides eye-candy galore in The Art of Horror Movies. As an illustrated history, it is geared to the neophyte, although older horror fans will love the poster art as it claws at their nostalgia-clogged heart strings, and the highlight articles, such as The Man of a Thousand Faces (who else but Lon Chaney), that remind us of how this grotesque and arabesque cinema evolved through its stars and subject matter.

This time around, Jones slices up his art according to the decades, using descriptive words like thrilling thirties, frightening forties, and fearsome fifties. Each decade is handled by a different contributor: for instance, Lisa Morton handles the Evil Eighties, Tom Weaver takes on the Thrilling Thirties, and Ramsey Campbell goes crazy over the 2000s Maniacs to name a few.

More importantly, especially to those new to all this colorfully naughty movie-making, each decade identifies key stakeholders that drove home the decade's most notable movies. For instance, in the stylish sixties, names like AIP, Hammer, Amicus, and Tigon stand out as much as their garish movie poster art examples from Spain, France, Britain, and other countries. If Lon Chaney helped define the sinister silents of the 1920s, it was actors like Barbara Steele and Vincent Price (both highlighted) who helped define the memorable horrors of the 1960s and 70s.

Laying out this predator and perpetrator landscape across the decades provides a unique view of how it (and its promotional artwork) had changed over time. One can sense the earnest exuberance of the early horrors (1920s to 1930s) and how that gave way to the more homogenized terrors of the 1940s (with some exceptions, of course). The 1950s followed with their more rational and scientific monsters, but then a complete u-turn takes place in the 1960s as George Romero and Alfred Hitchcock bring the horror closer and make it more real.

Of course there was that sweet spot, from the late 50s and running through much of the 60s, when monster kids were born and gleefully frolicked among the flippant tombstones, but it didn't last long enough, sadly. It did see a rekindling when those monster kids sprouted into eager monster young adults in the 1970s, ready to devour anything related to horror, science fiction, fantastic cinema, and comic books. Those Satanic Seventies came in and screamed bloody terror with a vengeance, all the way into the 1980s, when that decade exploded into a manic expression of old and new bogies and maniacs. The 90s and 2000s just upped the ante on the angst, the gore, and the philosophy.

Ironically, it is during the last two decades or so that we can see the decline of the opulent and more imaginative promotional art of the earlier movies, to give way to the sterile photographically-inclined look in favor today. The Art of Horror Movies illustrates that idiom, "they don't make them like they used to," all too well.

Book Review: The Art of Horror
An Illustrated History

September 1, 2015 / Books (Non-fiction) / Leave a Comment

Sep 1 2015

Zombos Says: Very Good

A fine addition to your coffee table or coffin lid, The Art of Horror: An Illustrated History, edited by Stephen Jones, is a horror connoisseur’s choice of movie posters, comic books, paperback and dust jacket art, pulp magazine covers, and ancient and contemporary art that gleefully dwells on the morbid predilections of the frightening genre so many fans clamor for yet know little about.

Similar in jugular vein to Robert Weinberg’s Horror of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History, Jones goes one better by upping the wealth of illustrations throughout and skillfully choosing the artists and writers for each chapter, bringing both older and newer visual imaginations together to exalt its subject matter.

The chapter topics include vampires (David J. Skal), the ambulatory dead (Jamie Russell) , man-made monsters (Gregory William Mank), werewolves (Kim Newman), the ghostly (Richard Dalby), maniacal killers (Barry Forshaw), Halloween bedevilment (Lisa Morton), ye olde alien gods (S. T. Joshi), big beasties (Bob Eggleton), and malevolent alien invaders (Robert Weinberg).

Each chapter provides a concise overview to its topic and ends with a reflection on a key aspect within that topic, and is profusely illustrated with captioned literary and cinematic examples, both foreign and domestic, of the terrors by day and night in all their lavish colors and dread. Full page art, double-page art, and smaller illustrations filling pages, do their best to overwhelm your visual cortex. The mix between movies, books, comics, and contemporary artists is so good, it may leave you wishing the book had been twice or three times its size. Unfortunately, the format chosen is a pedestrian 10 by 11 inches, unlike the more exhilarating 10.5 by 14 inches of Weinberg’s Horror in the 20th Century or Art of Imagination’s 700 plus page count.

But there’s so much horror, isn’t there? While a few more volumes on The Art of Horror would be wonderful to see in the future, this one is quite an informative and visually exciting read all by itself and shouldn’t be missed.

A digital copy of this book was provided for this review.

Book Review: Michael Ripper Unmasked

November 24, 2014 / Books (Non-fiction) / Leave a Comment

Nov 24 2014

Zombos Says: Very Good

This review first appeared in We Belong Dead, issue 15, a stellar issue celebrating 15 years of Hammer Horror.

You’ve seen him. You know his face. You’ve come to expect seeing him in every Hammer Horror you love. Derek Pykett in Michael Ripper Unmasked reveals the man behind that face, and the unforgettable character actor behind the horror. After reading about his career you will wish he had appeared more often. That’s the greatest strength Pykett brings to this straightforward, uncomplicated biography of Ripper’s career on stage, in movies, and, most importantly for us Hammer Horror fans, his involvement with those horrors. In 224 pages, which includes filmography, theatrical and television appearances, and letters from fans, Pykett briskly moves us through Ripper’s entire career. Of course you probably want to know most about his work with Hammer so let’s cut to the chase, shall we?

In Quatermass II, it was “bloody freezing” during filming and Ripper relates the adventure with Brian Donlevy—who did enjoy his whiskey—and Donlevy’s toupee as it squared off against the wind machines. Brief comedic turns followed in other Hammer films such as Up the Creek and Further Up the Creek but the beefier parts in Camp on Blood Island and Secret of Blood Island are singled out. Ripper recalls Bernard Robinson’s attention to set design and detail as being the real stars of the movies, and notes some incredulity at being cast as a Japanese officer with, as Bill Owen, who appeared alongside him in Secret of Blood Island, puts it, “a suitable North Finchley Japanese accent.” Owen goes on to relate a funny observation made by Ripper to the director on the first day of shooting. While the extras playing the “other” POWs looked the part, the principal actors didn’t. “Turning to the director he [Ripper] inquired, ‘Please, what is my attitude towards these fat prisoners of war?’”

Such cheeky playfulness springs up again and again in Ripper’s career, in his performances, and in his attitude to it all. Given his physical stature, his facial features—that roundish head and those expressive, roundish eyes—and his acting style honed through theatrical performances, this attitude proved immensely useful across his greater and lesser roles. Ripper recalls how Jimmy Sangster had him in mind and “was responsible for that lovely little part I played in The Mummy.” The Mummy is the first movie to have Ripper appear with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. It’s interesting that Ripper says of Lee “He always makes me laugh,” and Lee says of Ripper, in the foreword, “He is the only actor who consistently made me laugh uncontrollably.”

Given Ripper’s unhappy childhood, due to his oddly belligerent but still supportive father, who alternated between thrashing him for reasons Ripper never understood while pushing him toward an acting career, one wonders how such a testy family dynamic shaped Ripper’s talent, which was vetted through repertory, the Gate Theater, his hope then reluctance to test the Hollywood waters, and the conversations that Ripper would listen in on between his father and Alastair Sim, who visited often, helping to diffuse the tension between father and son if only for a brief time. There seems much more to be written here, and Pykett, being a close friend, may not have delved as deeply or asked more pointedly for explanations as he could or should have.

The wealth of Ripper’s reminiscences and the coverage of his acting career easily make up for that. From his good reason for looking absolutely horrified when locked in the cell with Ollie Reed in The Curse of the Werewolf (“He was a very gutsy actor, and you were never quite sure what he would do next.”), to a God awful scene in The Pirates of Blood River (“It was a swamp scene we were filming. Hell it was dreadful.”), not once do you ever feel Ripper was not having a hell of a good time, or looking for any opportunity to cut up the production tedium through his humorous eye.

The most fascinating revelation for me comes when Ripper remembers Sammy Davis Jr’s visit to The Pirates of Blood River set. You don’t often hear about Sammy Davis Jr’s monsterkid passion for Hammer Horror, or that he was a close friend of both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Sadly, he died before he could realize his dream of playing Erik in the broadway production of Phantom of the Opera. Brook Williams, who played opposite Ripper in Plague of the Zombies recalls meeting Sammy Davis Jr on another set and how he could recite, line for line, everyone’s dialog from Plague.

There’s more of course, much more, about his movies and a lot more about his television roles when studios didn’t seem all that interested and Hollywood was not all that appealing; but you can read it for yourself. Pykett and Ripper share a knack for making it seem all so practical and inevitable, but we know that, through it all, it takes more than just talent to be the face people remember, but just can’t place the name. And while we may forget the name, we’ll never forget his characters and the face of Michael Ripper, the man unmasked to the delight of the generations of horror fans to come.

Book Review: Three Stooges FAQ

September 10, 2014 / Books (Non-fiction) / Leave a Comment

Sep 10 2014

Zombos Says: Very Good

I looked forward to watching the antics of the Three Stooges every weekday afternoon, after school, on WPIX Channel 11's Three Stooges Funhouse show hosted by Officer Joe Bolton. Of course Joseph Reeves Bolton wasn't really a police officer (though he did have me fooled back then), but a children's TV host. He provided ample warning during every show to not do what the Three Stooges did; they were trained professionals using rubber wrenches, precise timing, and fakery for all those eye-pokes and bitch slaps.

Maybe it was the obvious impossibility of never being hurt by all those hand saws, crowbars, and planks of wood assaulting their heads and limbs, or maybe I was just smarter than the average bear as a kid, but I knew they weren't really hurting each other no matter how hard they worked at making it look real. But boy was it (and still is) so damn funny watching them go at it.

Their unique brand of situation-deconstruction and catastrophic action, perpetrated in homes, businesses, and in the streets, created a platform for havoc anyone could understand. Their visual interplay of physical timing and incongruous behavior, honed by repeated performances on vaudeville stages, and a total disregard for any sophistication whatsoever, is, simply put, sublime. Elements of farce, slapstick, and poke-in-the-eye punnery were served up buffet style, with a touch of social comment and topicality, as a nonsensical bricolage cemented with mirthful torment. Their comedy, even today, creates a contradictory raison d'etre of outrageousness that still bewilders non-fans while leaving new and life-long fans of the Three Stooges' knuckeheadedness in stitches: the more they engage in their nonsense and bodily assaults, the more we laugh (most of us, anyway).

Not many critics will dare derive sub-textual meaning from such nonsense (and body blows), but what makes the Three Stooges timeless is an everyone-yet-no-one duality they project as they struggle with themselves, the situation they find themselves in, and the unfortunate people they involve in their endless reaching for the good-living markers we all strive to attain. They dupe others, are duped by others, and they never catch a break (actually once or twice they did), or a clue, no matter how hard they try; and the harder they try, the worse it gets.

Dave Hogan's Three Stooges FAQ: Everything Left to Know About the Eye-Poking, Face-Slapping, Head-Thumping Geniuses hopefully isn't everything left to know about the Three Stooges, but it will soitenly keep you busy reading about every Columbia Pictures two-reeler (around 20 minutes each, they made 190 of them), the full-length movies (they appeared in 25 of them), and the notable victims the Three Stooges plied their unique style of comedy to.

Hogan wisely doesn't waste time trying to explain the Three Stooges or apologize for them. Instead he gets into the heart of it, first with a brief timeline of events leading to their formation as the team we recognize today, and then through a themed arrangement of all 190 Columbia Shorts into chapters such as The Stooges on the Job, The Stooges Go to War, and The Stooges Puncture High Society. There are thirteen themed chapters in all, with each short within its theme chronologically arranged and described.

He also explains the context of the times each short originally appeared in, providing information that is vitally important for understanding whatever subtexts an analysis, going beyond their simple zaniness, would reveal. He also points out the better usage of camera movement, editing, lighting, and locale in those shorts these elements are notable in. In general, the earlier shorts are better produced and better budgeted than the later ones, but some later ones do shine with brilliance.

Another basis for appraising each short is who directed it and wrote it, and Hogan supplies the information and the critical analysis, which almost always boiled down to how much money and time Columbia was willing to spend (much less as the years moved on) on any given short, and how creatively inventive the production team could be given the circumstances.

Which brings us to the Curly versus Shemp argument. After reading Hogan's book you will easily realize there is no argument to be made. Both Curly and Shemp were geniuses in their respective comedic personas, and both gave the Three Stooges a particularly effective zing to the trio's combined insanity by their presence. Rather, one should wonder, as Hogan points out, how Columbia strung Moe, Larry, and Curly along, year after year, never telling them how popular they really were. Never offering the Three Stooges a contract longer than one year, Columbia never gave the Three Stooges a raise, arguing the shorts were at death's door any minute because of changing times and audience preferences.

Throughout the book are sidebars highlighting the performers who appeared with the Three Stooges: there's Harold Brauer (Big Mike in Fright Night); Lynton Brent (the con man in A Ducking They Will Go); tall Dick Curtis (Badlands Blackie in Three Troubledoers); Phyllis Crane, who appeared in the Stooges shorts during the 1930s (wait, does that sound right?); and James C. Morton, who worked with the Little Rascals and Laurel and Hardy. He appears as the beleaguered court clerk in Disorder in the Court. Although you may recognize the faces, their sidebars provide the career information you probably don't know.

Here's an interesting tidbit to ponder: Hogan, in his timeline, notes that both Larry Fine and Moe Howard were pursuing studio contract negotiations in 1934; Larry (on behalf of Moe) was in negotiation with Universal Studios, and Moe (on behalf of Larry) was in negotiation with Columbia. Both Universal and Columbia signed on the dotted line, but since Columbia signed first, the Three Stooges wound up at Columbia. To any monsterkid worth his salt, and seeing how popular the Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein movie turned out, the question would be what might have been?

It took a long time for the shorts to die. Year after year, the Three Stooges did their best for Columbia and received no royalties as the sole rights for their shorts rested with Columbia. Columbia even had the foresight to claim sole rights across any and all media formats, then and in the future. By 1957, Columbia killed its shorts division and the Three Stooges were shown the front gate. After 24 years of money-making for Columbia,they were fired immediately, with no party, no thank you, and no royalties to bank on.

And yet the Three Stooges are more popular today and their Columbia shorts haven't been off the air since they were sold to television. So, it looks like Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, and the rest, got the last nyuck! nyuck! nyuck! after all. Good work, boys!

Note: My favorite short is Three Little Pirates. I dare anyone to say this naughtical bromance isn't the funniest, weirdest, and most outrageous episode in the Three Stooges canon. It's surreal, funny, and it's the last time Curly was at the height of his game, even though it was during his illness.

Book Review: Amicus Horrors
Tales from the Filmmaker’s Crypt

September 5, 2014 / Books (Non-fiction) / Leave a Comment

Sep 5 2014

Zombos Says: Fair to Good

This review first appeared in We Belong Dead magazine, issue 14, published by Eric McNaughton. I highly recommend you pick up WBD, any issue. No. 14, in particular, is 100 pages, packed with articles, not commercial fluff, written by passionate fans of classic horror movies. Remember when Diabolique was actually good? Or when Fangoria wasn’t trying to sell you their DVD junk? Don’t sulk, start reading We Belong Dead.

Disappointed is the feeling that comes into play after reading journalist Brian McFadden’s Amicus Horrors. For someone who visited the British studio owned by two Americans, conducted interviews with Peter Cushing (arguably the best chapter in the book) and Vincent Price (the most threadbare chapter), there is an expectation of a more rewarding read to be found here. McFadden, however, writes as if he is churning out newspaper articles, leaving his book’s chapters disconnected from each other, causing noticeable repetition across them, and the inclusion of much material not related to Amicus padding their length and blurring his title’s focus. Like me, by the time you finish his book you may also be a tad annoyed at having read, again and again, why The Deadly Bees turned out so badly.

The Vincent Price at Amicus chapter, for instance, goes well beyond his movie efforts at Amicus. Redeeming its unnecessary movie career rundown are McFadden’s few interview notes: among them Price gives credit to Daniel Haller, the art director for Roger Corman’s Poe-inspired movies, as the man who gave them their expensive look, and an explanation for how Price spent his sizable expense account from AIP when he was on loan to Amicus—buying artwork, lots of artwork.

McFadden gives the history of Amicus, detailing how Milton Subotsky, who would come to handle the day to day production in Britain, joined with Max Rosenberg, who stayed in America to handle the financing. More or less, just blaming-the-teen-musicals seems to be the chief instigator. McFadden draws parallels between Subotsky’s script-writing experience with the multi-segment storylines supplying the musical numbers, threaded together by a simple plot, and Amicus’s notable portmanteau movies that followed, beginning with Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors. In this chapter can also be found extensive background on Amicus’s first movie, The City of the Dead, where McFadden hints at Subotsky—a voracious reader—possibly being influenced by Richard Matheson’s Psycho, and how budget constraints helped the movie achieve its creepiness factor instead of hindering it.

Again and again, McFadden notes the key facets to the strategy Amicus used for keeping costs down and production values high. Aside from “renting a small bungalow at Shepperton Studios,” shooting scenes using the same set back to back to eliminate relighting and repositioning the cameras saved time and money, and hiring star actors for specific shoots that lasted only 2 or 3 days instead of having them wait around and getting paid for the wait kept budgets low. Subotsky also reasoned that paying for one or two stars for a segment in a portmanteau movie would attract an audience to sit through the entire movie, even if those stars appeared briefly.

Mentioned, but not fully explored, is why Amicus strayed from their successful horror portmanteau movies, coming at a time when Hammer’s success was waning, to do less successful movies that didn’t follow the omnibus format; or as McFadden wonders “why Amicus started trying to serve martinis when their stock and trade was beer and ale.” McFadden should have wondered more on this for our benefit.

After his promising and interesting second chapter, McFadden spreads the rest of his chapters thinly across the notable stars and supporting actors appearing in Amicus movies, an Amicus Filmography and Commentary, exploration on Amicus-Related Films and Amicus Imitators, two chapters best left to another book, and chapters on the music scoring and the Shepperton and Twickenham studio locations. His penchant for rattling off movies ad nauseam and straying from his Amicus focus becomes distracting, although you may find some of the straying rather interesting, like Peter Cushing’s adventures trying to attract studio attention in America and his brush with the Canadian Mounties.

Unnecessary is his chapter, A Brief Side Trip to Hammer, especially after McFadden’s premise that Hammer receives most of the attention and Amicus so little. He adds nothing new here, and leaves the reader wondering if he had a lot of notes and thoughts and decided to uncork them to flow in this book without seriously considering their relevance or discussion integrity as a whole. There’s one production note I did find surprising: I, Monster was supposed to be “3-D without classes” (the Pulfrich Effect) but wound up 2-D instead, leaving a lot of unnecessary camera movement to confound its audiences and annoy Christopher Lee.

While there is much to read here and there, more coverage on Amicus-related material is left wanting, leaving the reader wanting more than the pint he offers.

Book Review: Vintage Tomorrows
The Cult of Neverwas But Shouldbe

May 9, 2013 / Books (Non-fiction) / Leave a Comment

May 9 2013

Zombos Says: Good show, old chaps!

The authors of Vintage Tomorrows: A Historian And A Futurist Journey Through Steampunk Into The Future of Technology undertake a daunting adventure: define what steampunk is and figure out what its future and its impact on technology and popular culture will be.

Along the way are lots of interviews and dinner dates with notable people. Even Timothy Leary and William Gibson are brought into this discussion as to what steampunk is all about and why it is all about these days as this question is repeatedly asked of the makers, shakers, and major scene-players.

I can rattle off the many names of the people interviewed espousing this cultish passion over steam powered technology retro-fitting, this alternative lifestyle, this role playing extravagance, this myth-making and reality-nullifying–and quickly becoming commercially viable industry–but if you're into steampunk, you already know them; if not, you'll be looking these people up anyway as you read, so go at it.

Lots of counterculture history is referenced to fortify the instigations and permutations to be found in the punkier aspects of steampunk, and numerous–almost too many–explorations into this plucky yearning for yesterdays that never were are enumerated. What drives all this coloring of techmorror into more witty and creative landscapes over the color by numbers arrangements handed to us by corporate commercialism and mass production consumerism is plumbed for all its worth. Of course, if more and more steampunk products wind up on Etsy, you could argue for those brass balance scales tipping steampunk into commercialistic imbroglio, too.

Is there a definitive what is steampunk answer to be found at the end of these pages? Not really. But once you get past the glued on goggles, the fetishistic passion for accouterments of a bygone era that itch like crazy, and the intentional and problematic lapses of historical accuracy where the evils of empire are concerned and why Victorian England isn't all it was cracked up to be, but still is imagined to be, there's a cultural chestnut here sprouting into a great oak that's mesmerizing in its read.

It's not an easy task, but some historian and futurist have got to do it. And after a few cold ones downed in the Pike Pub & Brewery, Carrott and Johnson are off and running. Be prepared to pick this book up, put it down, do a little research, than pick it up again. Maybe you know about the Beats, and the Hippies, certainly the Yuppies, and maybe what Burning Man is all about, or even what the peach fuzz whack of the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and a social movement that reached Further to an horizon that Neverwas. But if not, you will need to take a little time to identify these sights along the way of this mental expedition the authors do their best Lewis and Clark on.

And therein lies the secret of steampunk's allure: anyone can make the trip.

A courtesy copy of this book was provided for this review.

Book Review: Zombie Movies, The Ultimate Guide

November 26, 2012 / Books (Non-fiction) / Leave a Comment

Nov 26 2012

Zombos Says: Excellent

I worry about Glenn Kay. Putting together a guide like this can be pretty exhausting, let alone having to watch so many good, bad, and stunningly ugly movies about the walking dead. Unless he's got his own television to hog, you can imagine the frays he gets into with the family. "What, isn't there anything else we can watch?" "Watching all this tripe will rot your brain. Are you listening to me?" "Daddy, I don't want to see more people being eaten. It's too yucky!"

You have to wonder what it's like to meet him at parties, or when he's going out to dinner with friends, and those times he needs to while away the dead hours in-between updates to his Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide.

Most horror fans would understand, though, and there but for the grace of God (or George Romero) goes Kay, summarizing, bashing, or praising the legion of celluloid undead that have eaten up our viewing time since Bela Lugosi's White Zombie. What's truly frightening is that given all the movies he covers within his guide's 400-plus pages, there's hundreds more he doesn't, either because they're too esoteric or out of reach or so godawful to watch even he's not that crazy.

The dead are laid out by decade, giving a bird's eye view of how zombie movies rotted out our sensibilities by taking ever more liberties with their nastiness–the more evocatively eerie voodoo zombies slowly evolving into our generation's screamingly terrifying, but beloved, flesh-eating variety. Not sure why the 1990s zombies took a nose-dive at the box office? This may shed some light on the subject for you. Did the social media boom of the 2000s speed up zombie locomotion? Kay has some thoughts on the subject (although decaying, fast-moving zombies are nonsensical to my mind).

Are you a Naschy or Jess Franco fan? Their zombie movies are here. Kay is not that keen on them (but neither am I). Are you a fan of hopping zombies, like those in Return of the Chinese Boxer (1975), or so bad it's funny zombie fare like Garden of the Dead (1974)? They are in here, too, either alluded to with a nod or a longer musing that takes into account the camera movements, effective effects (or not so much), and the exemplary or shoddy or giddily, stupidly, funny scripts. If you're a zombie fan you will be alternately pleased, annoyed, and maybe not so sure with your prized movies' standing as rated by Kay. He and I seem to jive on most accounts, although he's a bit enthusiastic on titles I'd rate a single thumb's up. This is an informative reference work to dog-ear and crimple often.

What makes this an entertaining and necessary volume for any horror fan's bookshelf is the mix of television and theatrical movies and series episodes that contain outright zombie elements–or close enough–to warrant their inclusion (although you may feel Kay stretching in some instances if you're a diehard zombie purist). And if realizing there are movies you haven't seen yet like Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town (1991) isn't satisfying for you, Kay's interviews with Greg Nicotero, Tom Savini, Stuart Conran (who gives the scoop on the blood mix used for Dead Alive, 1992) and others will seal the deal. Colin Geddes even explains why those Chinese vampires hop!

The only downside is it's only 400 or so pages.

Book Review: Everything You Ever Wanted
to Know About Zombies
(But Were Running Too Fast to Ask)

January 26, 2012 / Books (Non-fiction) / Leave a Comment

Jan 26 2012

Zombos Says: Very Good
(but is it really everything?)

Like zombies, books about zombies are unstoppable and indefatigable. Matt Mogk's Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies joins the horde with an informative–although we've read much of this information before–and concise rundown of the zombie-scene in chapters like Zombie Basics, Zombie Science, Zombie Survival, and Popular Culture. The tone is light and the handling movie-centric, with a welcomed focus on George A. Romero's influence on the genre.

Zombie science bores me to tears. I realize serious work is being done here, with practical applications, by imaginative professionals in the sciences, but I can't force myself to get through all that neuro-science and biological what-if and suppositional analysis. But the Popular Culture chapter is one I devoured with relish. Mogk mentions video games, those wacky zombie walks, zombie organizations, movie zombies, and even asks why the undead are so popular. At this point in time, I'd be asking instead why we aren't all dead tired of hearing, reading, and seeing zombies in everything from publishing to commercials, but hey, I don't want to be a killjoy or derail the gravy train; although Mogk does question hopping onto that train ride in regard to The Writer magazine's article Dawn of the Undead, which encouraged amateurs and pros alike to bask in the zombie apocalyptic glory, no experience needed, to make an easy buck or two.

More meet and greet (ironic, isn't it?) with Zombie LARP (live action role playing) sounds like it would be fun and that tag game called Humans vs. Zombies would seem likely to put a little kick into an old pastime. Given the popularity of zombie walks these days, Mogk pinpoints the necessary blame to Thea Munster's instigation in starting the first one for her Toronto neighborhood. Very appropos last name, don't you think? Beyond the cultural nerdy-byproducts, mention of the fast versus slow zombie conundrum and the realization that in some movies, like 28 Days Later, the zombies aren't dead, helps to fortify the book's title and shows Mogk's versatility.

As an introduction to the modern zombie phenomenon, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies is hearty in its coverage, from Romero's take on zombies being heavily influenced by Richard Matheson's I am Legend (and the movie version, The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price), to beer-goggle zombies, Mogk's term for characters, like the Frankenstein Monster and mummies, often mistakenly referred to as zombies.

Arguably the strongest chapter is Zombie Survival, which has nothing to do with zombies surviving, but does concern potential ambulatory food-stuffs–that would be you and me–staying alive when the undead hordes arrive. Mogk reveals the single most important item you must have in your survival kit and he nails it; most would-be survivalists toting their M14s would be surprised. I was because it's so obvious, so essential, and yet so overlooked. This chapter will help keep you going during any disaster, not only end-of-days, so read it well.

A courtesy copy was provided for this review by the Zombie Research Society.