Tag Archives: Lon Chaney Jr

Dracula Does Not Suffer Fools

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I enjoy joining a group of online groupies, most of whom I’ve never actually met, on Saturday nights when I can to watch, ridicule, and gush about the usually dreadful films screened by Svengoolie on MeTV. It’s a fun, irreverent group of tolerant enthusiasts, mostly younger than yours truly, but then what in the world isn’t.

Many of the participants, if you believe their protestations of innocence, are seeing these dubious gems for the first time. While it’s daunting for a grizzled cinematic dumpster-diver like me to find any comfort in the thought that voting-age folks will be casting those first votes sans (that means “without”…sorry, Groucho Marx joke) the seasoning of multiple viewings of THE RETURN OF THE INVISIBLE MAN, PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES, and KILLER KLOWNS OF OUTER SPACE, I do find solace when I see their delight in discovering;

  •  The power of random flames serving as a modern, purging deux-et-machina when troubles (aka monsters) become insurmountable, yet still flammable (dozens and dozens of European horror flicks).
  • Or that interplanetary, mutant children can be thwarted by imagining a brick wall (Village of the Damned).
  • Or that alien attackers who have just blinded 99%+ of the human race can be driven back by spraying them with sea water (Day of the Triffids).
  • Or that body-less flying brains can be shriveled by a Kenneth Tobey-type guy blowing up an atomic radio station in Canada (Fiend Without a Face).
  • Or that the potential lycanthrope menace can be nipped in the bud when his dad smacks him with a cane (The Werewolf, with Lon Chaney Jr).

It’s comforting to sneer and giggle at these masterpieces, and about as practical as my generation’s intense training in “duck and cover.”

And it’s a pretty nice clambake with no clams being hurt.

Last Saturday though, I couldn’t make it and I kinda wanted to. It was a flick I hadn’t seen (there are still one or two ‘em out there). I thought I’d be experiencing it for the first time like many of the other participants. Might be fun. Hell, I might turn into a twenty-something again.

Old fools…dream foolishly……

I recorded the flick instead and watched it this afternoon. I’m glad I did.

The film was BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA. This is not the 1992 film with Gary Oldman: it’s the British 1974 made-for-TV flick with Jack Palance playing the sanguinary Count.

There are no more menacing actors on the screen than Mr. Palance. This is unrelenting mean-ness. He can’t be reasoned with…or shamed…or redeemed…he is a vector of evil. Sounds like Ol’ Drac to me.

There’s scene where a tuxedo-clad gent who looks like Dudley Moore tries to stop Dracula with a pistol. Our vampire dismisses the impediment and the bullets with a disdainful backhand…just as you’d expect Jack Palance to handle a threat from Dudley Moore. That’s artistic integrity for you.

Disdainful backhand…

That’s what I had when I played at tennis in my 20’s. However, it was my opponents who did the disdaining.

In my 20’s…

…sigh…

Old fools……

Lon Squared

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Movie Night!

What, oh what could be more painful than watching Lon Chaney Jr. attempt to play a role in a movie? Undoubtedly, it’s watching him play two roles in the same movie, as painfully demonstrated in the 1935 oddity; A Scream in the Night.

Ol’ Junior’s not the only problem;

  • The film is dingy.
  • It features the slowest-moving police inspector on the planet. You could be charitable and say he’s “inexorable” but no, he’s glacier-like. I can relate: t’s my personal default pace, but as entertainment?
  • It features a parakeet who gives better line readings than any human actor in the flick. A parakeet.
  • It features Mr. Chaney playing a scene with himself – badly on both sides. At least, when he played the Larry Talbot/Wolfman combo (over and over), one of his characters simply slobbered, slaughtered, and neglected personal hygiene.

Peter Sellers did this better; Dr. Strangelove (1964). George Zucco did it better; Dead Men Walk (1943). Hell, Hayley Mills did it better; The Parent Trap (1961).

Curious and dreadful.

I of course loved it.

She Chose Poorly and Often

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Movie Night!

Tonight’s delight is a perennial favorite from Spain and West Germany; THE WEREWOLF VS THE VAMPIRE WOMAN (1971). Maybe “perennial” is a bit strong. Maybe “favorite” is a bit strong.

What’s that? The title’s not familiar to you?

Perhaps you know it as SHADOW OF THE WEREWOLF, or LA NOCHE DE WALPURGIS, or SATAN VS THE WOLF MAN…….or BLOOD MOON?

Could it possibly be you’ve never seen this epic?

Lucky you.

This is a jolly little lycanthropic tale featuring Paul Naschy (aka Jacinto Molina), an ex-circus strongman who fashioned a career by playing a werewolf in about a dozen films. I guess you could think of Mr. Naschy as the Lon Chaney Jr. of Spain…I guess. But I think he just ran away from the circus to meet girls.

In this flick, he met Gaby Fuchs.

Gaby Fuchs plays a young vampire researcher with a mass of red hair and a mass of poor judgement as demonstrated;

  • She falls in love with the werewolf within 24 hours of meeting him.
  • She allows her girlfriend into her bedroom though she knows she’s a vampire with less than sisterly leanings.
  • She accepts a ride to the town’s post office with a truly creepy guy who explains; “I’m afraid the post office is closed, but I’d like to show you our butcher shop.” Can I buy a ticket for that tour?
  • Her outfits.

The titular vampire is veiled, impervious to bullets, adroit with chains and manacles, laughs a lot, and moves in slow-motion; an unusual skill set for 1971, but could perhaps qualify her to run for president today.

I loved it.