As Halloween approaches, let us pay tribute to the great Boris Karloff, who so chillingly brought to life--
Wait a second! Halloween's come and gone, hasn't it? So where does that leave poor Boris?
No matter the holiday, you just can't keep a good monster down.
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| Karloff, and, standing over him, Jones |
Though we may associate him with an earlier era of pop culture, Boris Karloff still had a fairly busy schedule throughout the 1960s. He started out the decade as the host of the TV anthology series Thriller, kept on acting in horror films (most of which were low-budget drive-in fare) and narrated a series of children's records based on Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. It was the last of these that caught the ear of animator Chuck Jones (best known for the Coyote and Road Runner cartoons.) Jones wanted to make a TV version of Dr. Seuss' The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and was struck by how genuinely tender Karloff came across as he recited Kipling's tales of how the camel got his hump or how the elephant got his trunk or how Great Britian got India (OK, the last one never appeared in Just So Stories, though Kipling DID bring up the subject quite a bit in his works geared toward adults.) Jones thought such a tender approach would work quite nicely for Seuss' story. Not that Jones was oblivious to the fact that Karloff also could do wickedness extremely well. So both the yin and the yang of Boris' vocal talents were brought to the fore as he's the tender narrator as well as the wicked Grinch who disguises himself as St. Nick and robs the town of Whoville of all its presents and decorations and foodstuffs until finally he has a change of conscience and promises to honor Christmas in his heart and Tiny Tim doesn't die--Oops! I'm getting my stories of Yuletide redemption mixed up. Which remind me...
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Don't you think Alastair Sim would have made a scary monster? Just imagine him with a couple of bolts in his neck.
Nice Boris memories. Sim looks to be trying too hard but he could fit the bill as a scary monster.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I think Sim (as Scrooge) is himself supposed to be frightened, but, in a still photograph at least, comes across as more frightening instead. I mean, I think I'd rather take my chances with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come!
DeleteNot every actor gets to have immortality from TWO signature roles!
ReplyDeleteDebra, Karloff was the first actor to play the Mummy as well, though curiously he's not as associated as much in that role, maybe because of a host of different actors (including Lon Chaney Jr) who appeared in the sequels.
DeleteFirst of all Kirk, Halloween is always approaching or here, never gone. But I do agree with you about the multi-talented Boris Karloff. Even in Frankenstein, he makes the monster a complex character with a gentle side (for example, just before he kills the little girl). Also, we can't forget his stint as super-detective Mr. Wong, one of a long series of smart Asian detectives (Sidney Toler, Peter Lorre, etc.).
ReplyDelete--Jim
Jim, I should have qualified it be writing Halloween 2023 instead. Oh, well.
DeleteThe first time I saw Frankenstein, which was shown on Houlihan and Big Chuck when I was in the sixth grade, you saw the Monster smile at the little girl, and that scene immediately cuts away to the father carrying the dead child into the town square. I assumed that was intentional of the director James Whale's part. I found out later on it wasn't. The film originally had a scene of the Monster quite innocently throwing the girl in a lake (in the mistaken belief that she'd float to the top, as did the petals of a flower.) Censorship boards in several states demanded that the scene be cut, and in time it was cut from all existing prints of the movie. Personally, I think by cutting that scene it made the Monster seem MORE monstrous than he actually was, but that's how things stood for some 50 years. In the mid-1980s, the missing footage was found in a vault, and has been included in every print of the film since then. My guess is after such movies as The Exorcist and Nightmare on Elm Street, it was decided that audiences can handle such images a lot better than they used to.
Hi, Kirk!
ReplyDeleteI am returning to the blog world this Thursday, but wanted to stop in and see you today because Boris Karloff was such a familiar face and voice during my childhood years. Beginning at a very early age, I watched his best known classic horror films rerun on TV, in addition to a less well known picture entitled Bedlam (1946). In 1958, my dad took me to the theater see Boris starring in The Haunted Strangler. On the wall of my den, directly behind me, I have a giant lobby card featuring Boris in the 1957 fright flick Voodoo Island aka Silent Death, a movie that gave future Batman star Adam West his first film exposure. I also have framed vintage posters of Boris starring with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre in The Raven (1963), in Black Sabbath (1963) and with Jack Nicholson in The Terror (1963). I was also a regular viewer of Karloff's mystery TV series Thriller. Like Vincent Price and other all-time horror greats and villains, Karloff had the versatility to come across as gentle and benign as a voice actor and narrator of holiday tales for children.
Thanks for remembering the great Boris Karloff, good buddy Kirk. I hope to see you again later this week.
Thursday, Shady? What a coincidence.
DeleteI believe I've seen all the movies you mentioned. Certainly the ones with Price and Lorre. There's also a film from the same period with the three of them titled A Comedy of Terrors, the title of which pretty much describes the movie. I was going to do a Karloff post on his birthday, but it fell on Thanksgiving this year, and I thought that might be deemed inappropriate. So I chose Christmastime instead. Timing is everything.
Oh, by the way, I will drop by your place.
DeleteKarloff was unbeatable in that Grinch animation.
ReplyDeleteMitchell, it almost was like he was inside all that ink.
DeleteThe Raven has to be my favourite Karloff film. I really enjoyed it and Peter Lorre & Vincent Price are super too. He was very good actor I think. I am sure Shady's poster is pretty cool too.
ReplyDeleteHmm now Alastair Sim, he is from my little rainy country! Very famous and yes I am sure he would have!
The magic duel between Karloff and Price in The Raven is classic, Ananka. Incidentally, that was the second time Karloff starred in a movie with that name. The first was in 1936 and co-starred Bela Lugosi (one of several films they made together.) The 1963 movie isn't a remake though. Both are original stories "suggested" by Edgar Allen's Poe famous poem.
DeleteMost Saturday nights if I'm home, I sometimes watch MeTv with the vintage horror host Svengoolie , who features many of Boris Karloff gems. And as far Alastair Sim...he doesn't need any bolts. He has only a face a mother could love.
ReplyDeleteWeekends and horror movies seem to go together, Maddie. Whoever watches one on a Wednesday?
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