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Post by james on Sept 17, 2010 10:28:32 GMT -5
No, not Lon Chaney Jr. in The Ghost of Frankenstein. I meant Universal's other other Frankenstein's monster. No, not Bela Lugosi in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man! Sorry. I meant Universal's other, other other Frankenstein's monster - Glenn Strange. I know you grew up watching the House of... movies and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. moviemorlocks.com/2010/09/17/that-strange-fellow/#more-26879James |
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Post by grubl on Sept 17, 2010 20:42:59 GMT -5
It's funny about Glenn Strange. I grew up obsessively watching and studying those films, but Glenn Strange is just a mask in my mind. I don't think I've ever knowingly seen his true visage. I was so familiar with Karloff, Chaney Jr., Lugosi, Carridine, Wales, Browning, Freund, Jack pierce...even Dwight Frye, but I know nothing about Strange, yet, as you pointed out, he was a fairly regular actor thrown into the mix. Any anecdotes?
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Post by james on Sept 18, 2010 9:21:50 GMT -5
Believe it or not, Strange had more to do playing a monster in Master Minds, the Bowery Boys' low-rent imitation of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, than he ever did playing the monster in the Universal films. At one point in this film, a mad scientist (played by Alan Napier, the future Alfred the butler) switches the brains of Huntz Hall and Atlas (Strange); for most of the rest of the film, Strange delivers a knock-out impression of Hall.
The problem with the Universal Frankenstein films, by the time Strange was cast, is that the monster had been reduced to a weapon used by other characters. Karloff's pitiable creature that wanted to connect with other people, that was more human than its tormentors, was long gone by this point, and Strange spends large portions of his three Frankenstein films either lying on a slab, waiting to be revived, or threatening someone.
Most of Strange's career was actually spent in Westerns, including the Gunsmoke show.
James
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Post by tombitd on Sept 18, 2010 12:33:55 GMT -5
It's funny about Glenn Strange. I grew up obsessively watching and studying those films, but Glenn Strange is just a mask in my mind. It's funny...but as you pointed this out, I realized how right you were. Strange was never promoted as a horror actor like other Universal greats... |
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Post by james on Sept 18, 2010 14:30:48 GMT -5
It's funny...but as you pointed this out, I realized how right you were. Strange was never promoted as a horror actor like other Universal greats... I suspect the reason is that, by the time Universal produced the House movies, the cycle was at the very end. Universal were making the horror films for young kids at this point, and rolling them off the assembly line without much thought (try to follow any continuity between the House films and you will slowly be driven into insanity). And Strange isn't given much to do as the monster, either; in House of Dracula he doesn't have much screen time and spends most of it lying motionless on a slab. James |
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Post by grubl on Sept 19, 2010 2:30:39 GMT -5
By contrast, though, there was great continuity leading into the HOUSE films (an example is how the ends of THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE WOLF MAN both lead nicely into FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN), rare for the time.
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