Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Rick Baker & David J. Skal Encore

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

GGACP celebrates Halloween week by revisiting this conversation from 2021 as Gilbert and Frank celebrate the 90th anniversaries (1931-2021) of Universal Studios’ original “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” with Oscar-winning makeup creator Rick Baker and late author-historian David J. Skal. In this episode, Rick and David talk about sympathetic monsters, mad scientists (real and imagined), the genius of Jack Pierce and the premature deaths of Colin Clive, Dwight Frye and Lon Chaney. Also, David interviews Carla Laemmle, Rick turns Martin Landau into Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange appears in Boris Karloff’s obit and Bram Stoker’s widow tries to kill off “Nosferatu.” PLUS: Ghoulardi! “Man of a Thousand Faces”! The influence of Forrest J. Ackerman! Bette Davis (almost) plays the Bride of Frankenstein! And the boys (once again) try to make sense of “The Black Cat”! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With Amex Platinum, you have access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. Built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights,

and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton cross-training treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santo Padre.

Well, 90 years ago this year, Universal Studios released two motion pictures that starred a pair of virtually unknown actors named Baila Lagozi and Boris Karloff. Those pictures were Dracula, released in February of 1931, and Frankenstein, released in November. Both films would go on to become beloved classics of the genre, terrifying audiences, inspiring horror fans as well as other filmmakers, and paving the way for dozens of imitating. homages, and even parodies. And because we're discussing two unforgettable films, we need two experts to get the job done.

Rick Baker is an occasional actor, a designer, a gorilla expert, a monster maker, an Emmy winner, and a seven-time Academy Award winner, and perhaps the most admired. admired and celebrated makeup and special effects artists in the history of cinema. His contributions to the form take hours to list, but here are some. The Exorcist, It's Alive, King Kong, an American werewolf in London, Harry and the Henderson's, Ed Wood, Men in Black, Grimblins too,

Gorillas in the Mist Planet of the Apes Hellboy and the Wolfman The Man. The man even worked on a movie we love to talk about on this show The Thing with Two Heads.

He's also the author of the 2019 Rick Baker Metamorphosis of full color, two vows volume, 700-page extravaganza, highlighting his 50-year journey through Hollywood. David J. Scholl is a cultural historian, critic, filmmaker, and the author of numerous books that are required reading for fans of this podcast, including Hollywood Gothic, the Tank

web of Dracula from novel to play to screen. The Monster Show, a cultural history of horror. V is for vampire, an A to C guide to everything undead. Dark Carnival, the secret world of Todd Browning, and in association with Turner Classic movies, Fright favorites, 31 movies to haunt your Halloween and beyond. He's also the writer and director of the essential documentaries, The Frankenstein Files. How Hollywood Made a Monster, The Road to Dracula.

She's alive, creating the bride of Frankenstein. and Monster by Moonlight, the Immortal Saga of the Wolfman. Frank and I are excited to welcome to the show two lifelong monster kids who might be more obsessed than we are. Rick Baker and David J. Skull. Gentlemen. Yes. Are some of those things true?

A few of them. I want to start. Now, David, I guess we've never met. No, not in person. Yeah. But David, I think it's you who had this theory of what made people initially fascinated with monsters. Oh, boy. people have always liked to be scared for a variety of reasons.

But in terms of monster movies, they all kind of came out of cultural trauma. They came out of World War I to be very specific about it. And monster movies, horror entertainment, evolved in tandem with other art forms like surrealism and expressionism. and they all dealt with grotesque images and they were trying to make sense out of a world that seemed to have gone crazy and so this is the

the thesis of my book The Monster Show that horror entertainment constitutes a secret history of the 20th century and that every time there's a big cultural trauma a war a depression and epidemic

it just inevitably sets forth identifiable ripples in the entertainment industry. I think we like to process all of these terrible things without looking at them too directly and then we can get on with our lives

for a little bit longer until the next trauma. And you were saying like before, before World War I, you know, medicine had advanced. So before it's like somebody had their leg shot off, they were dead. And then it kept these people alive. And it's like so people were looking at basically monsters. It was, people didn't want to look at them.

World War I was the first completely mechanized war in human history, and the destruction it just brought down upon the human body was terrifying to behold. But the same scientific advances that made all of the death and destruction possible brought forth medical advances that could keep these people alive. Almost everything we know about plastic surgery today came out of that terrible experience. And it's not too hard to see a lot of the classic monster movie faces. In France, the disfigured veterans would always lead the armistice parade. and they called themselves

the union of bashed faces and they were a grim reminder of what and I think part of the reason the public flocked to the Aresat's disfigurements

created by people like Jack Pierce at Universal and later people like Rick Baker was that this information, this terrible trauma had to be processed somehow, had to be looked at, but again, not too directly. So you can line up, you know, pictures of any number of World War I mutilated faces with the creations of Lon Cheney Sr. And you can say, my God, that does look like

the Phantom of the Opera. And my God, that guy does look like Quasimodo. And, but they were the forgotten men. And it's happened too many times in American military history. The people who gave everything get, don't get anything near what they deserve. In fact, they shunned. It's heartbreaking. Yeah. It's still happening.

It's still happening. Rick, talk a little bit about, we want to get into some Monster Kid origins here, but in your book, in your wonderful book, which we plug metamorphosis, which people, our listeners, should get, you recount the story of becoming aware as a kid, aware of a movie called Frankenstein. And if I have the story, right, your dad letting you stay up late because it was a school night?

Yeah, well, my dad saw Frankenstein in the cinema when it came out, and he had told me about it way before I ever saw it. Most of the movies I saw were on television, you know, the shock theater package, you know. Sure. Sure. But for some reason, Frankenstein wasn't showing for, it seemed like forever. And these are back in the days when you'd have to get the TV guide and go through every, you know, thing to try to find a monster movie. But there was, one time I went through a TV guide and there was, Frankenstein was going to be showing on Channel 9, you know, at 10 o'clock at night, which was past my bedtime. But we actually, that night, my parents went out to some friend's house and they took me with them. And when we got back, Frankenstein was already. on, so my dad let me watch a little bit of it. And it was the scene where Dr. Voldemann was about to dissect the monster when he's on the table, and then he kills Dr. Baldwin, and then, you know, goes to the different doors to try to get out, you know. And that was my first introduction. And

from then on, I was hooked, you know. But interestingly, and tell me if I have this story right, it was a transformative moment for you, but not, you didn't, you didn't suddenly realize you wanted to be a makeup artist. You realized you wanted to be. You wanted to make monsters as a mad doctor? Yeah, I was basically going to be a mad scientist. A mad scientist. You know, I mean, for, you know, the beginning, you know, up until age 10, I kept saying to my parents that I wanted to be a doctor, you know.

And you, this still, I can't make sense, Adam. You used to make money, making monsters. So now you were tired so you could make monsters and not. get paid for it that's right and it's so much more fun are you an asshole it's so much more fun because now i can make it's i feel i mean i've been retired now for i think five and a half years and i feel like i'm a kid again i mean i you know i was in love with makeup and doing this stuff as a kid and it was my hobby and it's how i had fun and it became my job and And I realized when it was a job that you have to please other people and there's other people involved with it and they have opinions, which a lot of times they don't agree with, you know, but they're the boss, you have to do that, you know.

And it got to the point now where, you know, I always say this, like, every movie now has 47 producers on it, you know. Yeah. None of them can make up their mind about what they want. Used to be, you know, you'd go into Dino DeLerentis's office and go, Dino, what the hell you're talking about? You can't build a giant robot. It's not going to work. It's going to be me in a suit, you know. And he would say, shut up and go build a suit and leave me.

alone, you know, but at least you'd get an answer. You know, at a little late, the last few films I did, you know, I wouldn't get an answer from anybody. And your time was just, you would have adequate time to build it if someone would tell you what you had to build and make a decision. And they would wait until the very last minute. And then you'd be working day and night to try to make it the best you could possibly make it.

And it just, you know, it got so frustrating. I was starting to hate this thing that I loved. And now I'm so in love with it again. I mean, I'm just having the best. time it's just now you have the time to recreate the frankenstein dr frankenstein's laboratory in your house and in full scale and in miniature both yes which we'll talk about and david getting back to the thing with world war one you you mentioned the film jacques jacques yeah yes it's uh it's an anti-war film made in

france um there were two versions of it actually but the climax of it are all of the dead and disfigured soldiers rising from their graves to march upon the

cities of the world and you know damn it it doesn't look like a monster movie

it's it's really extraordinary did they use the real soldiers yes they did they had the same ones who marched

in the in the armist sprayed I can't look at stuff like that It's funny everybody thinks because I've done I do monsters and I've done gory things That I like that kind of stuff

And the real stuff just it bothers me I mean I've looked at it You know as a researcher They are really disturbing Yeah What can happen to a human face And still survive And there are people like this

And even still But we still don't like to look at them Too much And therein lies a tale. There's horror entertainment's all about, you know, not paying too close attention to things we don't want to see. But the repressed always has to come back. And it does as our favorite monsters. And Cheney, Cheney Sr., it's funny, he never actually played a monster.

He was always deformed people. Yeah, there were no supernatural monsters in the silent era. Unlike Europe, which embraced the fantastic and the supernatural from the very beginning of the cinema. In America, it was just felt people would just laugh. They wouldn't buy it. And a lot of the movies in the 1920s used a formula that was adapted from the stage. the drawing room mystery melodramas where there would be spooky goings on

and terrifying characters but they'd all be revealed at the end to be part of a criminal conspiracy or a plot to embezzle an inheritance or that sort of thing I always hated that when I'd watch a movie like that because I want to see monsters

I totally agree don't tell me it's some guy with a sheet over his head pretending to be a ghost. It's true. I want a ghost. Well, it took Hollywood a long time to do that because they had that. There's this big stage success called Dracula and all the studios.

Well, maybe we should make a movie out of it. But we can't. This is a real, this isn't a criminal conspiracy. This is a real 500-year-old demon from hell. And they went around and around all the studios. were considering doing it, and it finally came down to Universal N, MGM, and Carl Lemley, senior told his son, Carl Lemley Jr., who he had given over the reins of the studio to, that, okay, you can do it, but you have to get Lon Cheney because he's the only bankable star.

This is too risky a proposition, and so he bought the rights to it, and Lon Cheney promptly dropped dead. It was one of the big, no, it was one of the big, best kept secrets in Hollywood that he was dying with lung cancer in the summer of 1930 when all these negotiations were taking place. And so Dracula had a real bumptuous kind of road to the screen, and it was one of Universal's biggest hits in the worst year of the Great Depression. A lot of people think it saved the studio from bankruptcy, and they followed immediately with Frankenstein. And we have Pearl Jr. to thank for it, because the old man didn't really have a taste for horror films. No, he didn't, but Jr. was – people were divided, in their opinion of him.

In fact, his own family thought he was a spoiled brat. I didn't realize until reading your book, David, that he wasn't even born, Carl Jr. No, he was Julius. Right. Julius Lemley, and he, on his 21st birthday, he got the keys to the kingdom.

He took over the running of Universal Studios, and the gift he gave back to his father was his own name. It's interesting. You know, you said the Cheney Pictures made money. Obviously, Dracula was a big hit on the stage, and yet, the studio still found the material repellent.

Oh, yeah. We're still avoiding it. Even before the production code, they said this is unfilmable. How do you do all this blood drinking and steak pounding? And, you know, this is, yes, the book is famous and it's sold millions of copies around the world. But will people lock to it? And the answer was, yes, they did. And everybody was surprised.

And it wasn't just Universal who decided to rush a lot of these type of films into production. But over at Paramount, they got Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde out just at the very end of 1931. And then the rest of the 1930s, you know, is kind of history. Monsters who were put on the map. Yeah, Golden Age. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Rick, I learned in your book, too, that she used to do a Dracula impression. in front of the mirror.

Do you actually have strong memories, clear memories of seeing these for the first time, of seeing Dracula for the first time as well? Not so much Dracula. I mean, definitely remember Frankenstein. I, what I remember more than anything else is like a weird, like the million-dollar movie, which we used to have,

where it would be the same movie every night, you know, but they would have things like Kaltiki the Immortal Monster and, you know, like atomic submarine. and, you know, once there weren't the classics, you know, so much. But this is upstate New York, right? No, I was actually grew up in California. I was born upstate New York, but I grew up in California. Oh, born upstate, born in Binghamton, right.

My parents, yeah, Binghamton, where Rod Serling was born. Right. There's actually a carousel in Binghamton that had been redone by Cortland Hall. Do you know who Cortland Hall is, the guy that has that museum of monsters? Oh, yes, the witch's dungeon. Which is Dungeoned, yeah. Anyways, he restores carousels, and he did it, Twilight Zone themed, and he did the one where Burgess Meredith, you know, is in the,

wants to read all the time, and he's in the safe in the bank when it blows up. And he painted him up there, and he has a, you know, a stack of books, and one of the books that he put on there because I was born in Binghamton says the art of makeup by Rick Baker. So my name's in Binghamton, even though I haven't been there since I was like, you know, six months old or something you guys both have local monster hosts and and david i know you're from the cleveland area were you watching gulardi uh gulardi ernie anderson himself uh i actually was on the gulardi show wow great i i i went to an event and they were taping it and i held up a picture

i had drawn of him and he pulled called me up on stage and he signed it for me and and then went on with the of the 50-foot woman. They didn't, I fell through this crack with the Universal Monsters because in Cleveland, they showed them like in 1958 and 59, and I was about six years old, and I remember vividly. I think it's the first movie I ever saw or can remember seeing was Frankenstein meets the Wolfman. It's a good one. And it really stuck with me.

And then a blackout for almost 10 years. Cleveland Television did not show the Universal Classics, but there were magazines, famous monsters of Filma and Castle of Frankenstein, and fan clubs, and when there were science fiction conventions, there was always a cohort of monster fans. You could actually meet in person at these things, and that's what the 1960s were like for me. And I somehow got it into my head that Dracula must be the greatest movie ever made only because it was so hard to save. In my imagination, it just took on amazing dimensions.

And I finally saw Dracula and Frankenstein in a movie theater in Cleveland, an old revival house in 1968. And Dracula really kind of, it's like, is that it? I mean, no, no, no. there's got to be more here, and I think that has something to do with my obsessive quest for everything having to do with the backstory of that film. And when I found out there was this alternate Spanish language version that only existed

in a complete print down in Cuba at the Cinematica de Cuba in Havana, I got a publisher interested in my doing a book on it and went down. on a State Department visa, and lo and behold, I viewed the only complete print of the Spanish Dracula in the world. They let me do frame blowups of it. They were very nice. They were very flattered that somebody thought so much of this old film. But Universal did have the original negative,

but one reel was completely gone to nitrate gunk. and they thought the thing could never be restored or brought out again and they were able to now this showprint from the 1940s it was on safety film at least but it was pretty ragged but at least there was a whole film

it was the whole transition from Transylvania to London you really couldn't show the movie without it and somebody at Universal tried to stop it saying no people are going to ask for their money back if we put this thing out there. And a long internal political story at Universal about this, but in the end, it did come out.

At the same time that Francis Coppola's Dracula came out, the same week, and it's sold better for Universal than Spartacus on Home Video. And opened up this whole Hispanic market for the studio. And it's been a favorite ever since. since. I can't tell you how many screenings I've been invited to and I can't resist anymore. You mentioned

Frankenstein meets the Wolfman so whenever I hear that title all I could think is come one come all and sing this song far o love far o' lay for life is short and dead Death is long.

Far o la, far o'la, there is no drinking in the tomb. Okay, stop, stop. You've got the right audience here. Yeah, yeah, it's a song's too long in the movie as it is. It was the festival of the new wine.

That's right. Yes, yes. And I remember it was, it's one of those things where you go, this is really freaky. Where's the monster? Yeah. In the middle of a heart. But then the Frankenstein monster played by Bello Ligosi, who was originally supposed to play it in the 1931.

Yeah, we'll talk about that. He finally got to do it, and he stomped in, and as usual, monsters ruin everything, at least in the movies. They don't ruin everything for the fans. But I remember, the thing that I remember most about that film, watching it, it was a Saturday afternoon. They would show these films, like Cable today, they weren't quite on demand, but they would show them several times in the course of a week, and mostly late at night, but they would do these matinees. And I remember sitting there with my uncles watching Frankenstein meets the Wolfman and watching Bela Lugosi being brought back to life. And as the electricity goes into him, this big grin comes over his face. And that is my first, you know, really strong memory of a moment in a horror film.

Well, speaking, go ahead. Go ahead, Gil. No, the funny thing about it is, I mean, Lagosi really got screwed on that because it was following Ghost of Frankenstein where the monster spoke and the monster was blind. so the way Lagosie is playing it looks stupid because they changed their mind halfway through saying, no, we'll make them able to see and not be able to speak. We keep hoping that that footage shows up somewhere.

I know Joe Dante was saying, you know, we... Are you talking about the test footage, the early test footage? No, not that. Just the footage of Lagosi talking as the monster, you know. And they probably discarded it because these films weren't thought of in terms of ever being revived. They were, you know, programmers that went out there.

Yeah. But the Lagosi, the original Frankenstein's monster test on Lagosi. I mean, I'd love to see that even though everybody talks about. That was something else that turned to nitrate gunk. Yeah, what do we know about that, Rick? And because on the DVD, they're talking about, you know, that it was a kind of a golem-like. That's what I've always heard, yeah. And what are you, any, and other points it's referred to as like some hairy monster?

Was it Lagosie doing his own makeup? Was Pierce in the picture? I think Pierce was in the picture but I think Lagoz was saying I want you to do this and do this I think Lugosi wanted more of his face to be visible I think that's the most reasonable

they originally wanted Lugosi to play Dr. Frankenstein at least he thought that's what he was going to play and there was never a real stable treatment and the script that Lugosi was offered

was not the one the James Whale directed, and the monster had no hint of pathos whatsoever. It was just a killing machine, and it was a thankless part. And Lagosie apparently told people, you know, I'm an actor, not a scarecrow. And that footage was probably destroyed as well. No, it was, it was saved the really Paul Ivano was the cameraman and he kept the reel in his garage and when people finally approached him about it he said oh yeah I've got that and they went out and there it was you know complete completely congealed together like the third reel of the Spanish Dracula oh that's too bad and the and that happened too much and I think one of the reasons

I've written a lot of my books is because people missed the chance to document this stuff. People interviewed Paul Ivano. People interviewed Edward Van Sloan, who was in the screen test with Lagosie, and they just did not ask specific questions. And not long after they were all gone. Carl Lemley, Sr., a lot of people don't know this, he got an awful lot of people out of Germany. Very quietly. He, he very quietly. He, didn't make a big showy thing of it, but he gave people work at Universal. He gave them housing on the lot. And he has, posthumously was recognized in Germany.

There's a little museum now dedicated to... Fascinating man. Fascinating life. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Rick, just talk a bit about the makeup in Dracula. Interestingly, Pierce is not credited. Well, I mean, I've always heard. I mean, he's listed on IMDB, but he's not credited anywhere on the title card.

And was the story about Legosi wanting to do his own makeup because he had done it on stage? That's what I've always heard. Isn't that what you've heard? I've heard that. There's that picture of him sitting in front of a mirror, you know. Well, yes. I mean, because that's, yeah. Of course, they did not.

him getting his real makeup. White zombie, they work together. No, he did have to have the hairpiece with the slight widow's peak put in. He did a fairly good job of that. It doesn't really jump out as a rug. It's no Frankenstein's a monster. No. It's no frame.

I mean, you know, Frankenstein's monster, you know, had such an effect on me. When I saw Dracula, it's like, it's an old guy with a tuxedo on. You know, it's like, you know, it's like, I mean, it's not Frank's name. I mean, mind you, I love Baila in that film and everything else, but, you know, it was, you know, like Gilbert said earlier, you know, one of those movies that you have somebody in a sheet, you know, I can't tell you how many movies I sat through, you know, an hour and a half before they finally show the monster for two seconds, you know, and that's why you went to see the movie, you know, and it's like, you didn't, you know, you didn't go to the kitty mat and they see all the talking, you know, it's a between people. You want to see the monsters. Of course. And getting back to how they changed, Frankenstein meets the wolf man, you know, he's walking. Well, there are scenes where he's moving his mouth because there was dialogue originally there.

They couldn't cut everything out. So there are some snippets of Legosi's mouth flapping. And Legosi is walking, and that created the Frankenstein walk. With the arms out. Yeah, with his arms out. No other actor was doing that. That's the total Lagosi. Logosie was trying to show that the monster was blind with the brain of Igor now stuck in his head.

How disappointing that had to be for him, too, have played it one way and then have all that stuff cut out and you look like an idiot. But the – But it's – And Lagosie was blamed for a lot of that. Yeah. The performance being ridiculous. But he was playing it the way. The original script was.

Well, and so much of it is Eddie Parker anyways, isn't it? It was true. His best part at Universal, Igor, in Son of Frankenstein, it wasn't even scripted. It was half improvised. There is no shooting script that has

that part in it. It was really an inspired thing, and Lagosie probably should have been able to do more improvisation. And he got paid scale or something, and it was only for a couple days originally, right? And then the director decided he loved him so much that he kept adding stuff and keeping him on

so he got more money and stuff. That's Legosi's the best part as far as it. The universe always knew they could find a stour. They could take advantage of Lugosi. I heard they wanted to hire him for a week. Yeah. On that. And then the director said, no, no, he's staying.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. And Lugosi, when he's playing, Playing Igor looks like he's having fun. He does. Oh, my God.

Even though he's working for scale. Well, he's having the time of his life as an actor, for God's sakes. I mean, his range was quite amazing. If you look at the stuff he did on the stage in Hungary and in silent films, he only gradually moved into playing the heavy. but he made such an impression as Dracula without makeup and without and it was his voice, it was his face

and after that, audiences and studio executives saw Lagosi, they saw Dracula and it's just one of the saddest examples of typecasting, just kind of strangling somebody's career. Even though he only played that part, do I have this right, twice? Twice, yeah. Twice on screen, yeah.

Where's Dracula? Yeah, yeah. As Dracula, it wasn't a comedy. Right, oh, and Return of the Vampire, he's basically Dracula, but not called that. Mark of the Vampire, he's a fake. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he wore capes in a lot of other films, too, but it was all always, no, Logosie is that guy with the cape and who sucks next, you know, let's keep up there.

Gilbert, have you seen my, me made up as Igor? Have you seen any of that footage of me as Igor? No. Oh, you'll have to send it to us, Rick. Oh, wow. It's on my Instagram. I did a, because I always loved Igor, so I did a, I actually wrote a song about Igor, and I was, did a make-up on myself and filmed some stuff.

And it's, there's, if you, if you type in Baylor to go see Igor for images, an image of me will come up. And it's been used on DVDs and a whole bunch of stuff. And I think it's because they just type. in Bayla, go see, and it's a high-res image, you know. It's the same thing. There's a CG model of Dracula that I did

years ago, and I was testing the software and it's a very, I did a very detailed rendering, and that shows up. People are selling it as a high-resolution image of Dracula. Yeah, saw that doing my research. I also found your schlitsy. Oh, yeah. Which Gilbert would appreciate being such a fan

of freaks. I thought you said, I thought you could say being such a pinhead. And I remember in Ghost of Frankenstein, I mean, because he was, he was very funny as Igor. And I remember he wants his brain put in the monster's body, and they say, no, we'll put Dr. Bowman's brain in the monster's body. And Igor says, no, then he'll be your friend. Nicely done, Gil. Rick, I saw you in David's doc and the Road to Dracula.

You were terrific doc, by the way, David. Oh, thank you. And my favorite Hope Crosby picture that was never made. That was a joke. Rick, you were saying you were saying you might have. I laugh silently. I know, you laughed inwardly. You were saying you might have, you would have been fascinating.

to see what Cheney had done with the character. How'd he lived? With Dracula. Yeah, it would be really interesting to see. But, you know, I mean, I think is, I mean, Lagosie is Dracula. I mean, you know, I can't imagine a Dracula without Lagosie. You know, I mean, that whole, that time, everything about it, you know. Cheney, I mean, it was great to see Cheney in the Unholy 3, the sound version.

And he seemed like, didn't seem like a period actor. When you see him, he seemed like he could be contemporary actor. He was really great the way, his performance, you know. So I'm sure it'd be a totally different thing. Well, Gilbert and I were on the phone last night, and I asked the question, Cheney was such a star. Had he not died when he did, is it safe to assume that he perhaps would have played both of these parts, that he would have ended up being both the count and the monster?

And then there's a possibility that we wouldn't. know Karloff and Lagosia's icons today. What we don't know is whether he would have come back to Universal. He had such a horrendous experience with the Phantom of the Opera. And they wanted to get him to do Dracula and the return of the Phantom, which was never made. And part of it was his illness and part of it was, go read the history of the Phantom of the Opera, the production of it. It was one of the most embattled productions of the whole silent era, and Cheney ended up directing most of it himself.

I can't believe they tore that stage down. I'd worked on that a number of times. Oh, that was such a crime. Which stage did they tear down? The Phantom of the Opera stage. The Phantom of the Opera stage. The opera house was still there. I shot in there in the Nightpeer Fester.

I shot in there in the Grinch, and I went all through it. I was looking around for somebody's I was hoping I said Lon was here somewhere No I've got my my dear late friend Carla Lemley

who who also took Uncle Carl's first name as her own feminized her first name was Rebecca she speaks the first lines of dialogue in Dracula among the rugged peaks

She narrates your talk too Yes That was so much fun She didn't remember doing it originally. I found her listed in a casting list somewhere, and I said, my God, I wonder if she's still around. And I, Lupita Tovar gave me the name of another Lemley relative, and I called him, and she said, oh yeah, Carla's around. Here's her, here's her phone number. And I called her up, and she answers the phone and the voice. I reckon.

the voice as the girl and the coach in Dracula. Wow. And I tell her about it. I said, my gosh, I'm doing this book about old Hollywood Gothic. And she said, Dracula? No, I'm not sure I remember Dracula. I was in the Phantom of the Opera with Lon Cheney, though. She didn't remember having the first line in Dracula.

Well, she didn't remember because literally, they just kind of grabbed her. somebody from costume came over grabbed her they gave her this little travel booklet with the lines written in it and that was it she doesn't remember meeting Todd Browning but of course once we showed her the film of course that's me and

she did all kinds of small parts at Universal and it's funny it's like in a thousand years from now if you say to someone do a vampire voice they'll go into a Betel Lagosium limitation. And he was absolutely the last person that Universal wanted.

You're totally correct on that. They wanted Cheney, and everything else was a disappointment to Carl Sr. after that. And they looked at all the actors who'd done it on stage. They turned down Logosie Flat, a couple of occasions. I've found copies of the telegrams where, you know, telegram from Carl Lemley Jr. to one of the agents, not interested Bela Legosi present time regards, Carl Lemley Jr. And the, and it was like the stage play. They couldn't find somebody to do it in New York. The play originated in London and the actor Raymond Huntley, who I got to meet, that was,

I've had some wonderful, you know, time machine. moments. That was telling Gilbert, you got to meet David Manners, too. I did. I really became friendly with him. It was just crazy. And then I actually talked more with all these people about other aspects of their lives and life in general than these movies. Because David Manors, and we've discussed it, Frank and I have discussed the movie, The Black Cat, which we both love. And there is a scene in that movie where Lagosie is talking, saying the prison that he went to and how he survived the prison and all this. And it's, you're seeing reaction shots of David Manners. And it always amazed me his acting there. He looks like he's really

listening. It wasn't acting listening. It was he looks like he's paying attention. He, and he was and he told me that was the only film he did at Universal where the actors were treated with respect, were told what was

happening in the scene. He said otherwise they were just telling you to go find your marks and they shot things out of sequence and the actor wasn't in control of anything. He was a stage trained actor and did not

like working in Hollywood at all and he told me the story about the moment he decided to leave Hollywood and it was

the day his agent told him he was going to do a movie with Joan Crawford and he said I told you I never want to work with that woman because of her reputation and he said Well, if you don't want to do it, you take the script back to her.

I'm not talking to her again. And so he went over to Metro and asked where her bungalow was and went for it and saw her. And she saw him just briefly. And then she disappears inside. And he comes to the door and knocks. She opens it. and he said it was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. This beautiful woman just broken to some of the most,

the filthiest tirade. And are we not safe for work on this podcast? No, no, you can say anything. Gilbert encourages, he encourages profanity. Yes. Well, I... Please say fuck. I'm impatient.

Who do you think you are, you faggot, cock? sucker you know that and he just went on and on and on until until she was spent and he was just kind of stunned and he said he just knelt down put the script at her feet and got up and went back to his car and then the anger hit him and he sped off of the lot I mean to the point where they called the cheese the studio police and we were following him and he just sped and sped and sped and he went way out into the desert and he stopped and he decided I'm moving out here where there aren't any people and he and his partner did start a guest house in the desert a very secluded place and they would have people like Greta Garbo or Albert

Einstein I mean it was really wild and and Dracula was just such a little blip in his life Like I said, we talked about all kinds of stuff that was a lot more interesting to him and frankly to me. You said in the commentary that he didn't care for Legosi much that he found him unapproachable and aloof. He said he was just being the very odd man that he was. I see.

And, you know, it could have been a language thing too. You know, I mean, you know, and also he could have been in character. But, you know, what David Manners should have told Joan Crawford that, you know, in a number of years, you're going to be in trog. now how much how much english did legosi know he didn't start taking formal lessons in new york until just before the time he was doing dracula on stage and his english was really rough fact he got into trouble with actors equity for claiming he could act and direct in english in the early 20s and he really couldn't and got called up on equity charges. But the, can you

write a horse? Yeah, of course. Yeah, right. And he, but he learned a lot of his, it was a crutch. He learned a lot of his roles phonetically, especially early on. And on stage, it really created some problems. If somebody threw him the wrong line, he was just off. The whole thing was was off, and that happened a few times in Dracula. But his son told me that he said, my dad never learned to think in English. There was always

it was always being translated. And that happens to, when you you're nearly 50 years old and you're taking a foreign language lessons for the first time, your brain just can't handle it. You've really got to learn foreign languages when you're a kid to become

completely fluent. But so what we have isn't exactly a Hungarian accent, but it's a Hungarian actor speaking English phonetically in some of those early films. That very deliberate manner of speaking. Rick David says on the commentary that when television, when these films came to television, that he thought, he believes that Lagosi would have had a career resurgence had he not died in 56. You agree with that? Yeah, probably so. I mean, all the monster kids, you know, I mean, you know,

How old are you, David? I'm 69. Sixty-nine. Okay, so I'm actually 70 and a half today. It's my half-birthday. Oh, happy half-birthth. Half-birthday. But, yeah, I mean, all of us who grew up in that time, you know, in the 60s, the monster craze was so much a part of our life. I do know that he was approached, even before Vampira made her debut, he was approached to host some horror pictures on,

on television. I think he actually did something that has not survived in any form. But in a way, he would have been a wonderful horror host. It would be like Glenn or Glenda. Him sitting there.

That's exactly how he could have done it. I remember talking to Forrest Ackerman, and he met, he was a kid and he met Legosi, and he spent the day with him, helping him, you know, travel around and holding the door. And he said,

Legosi said to him at one point, very confused, he said, why are you young people so nice to me? And so he would have had a career. It's nice to think of that. Oh, it's nice to believe that. Absolutely. Oh, here's something, here's something I, with the Munsters. Lugosi, was already gone by then, but how come they never had Karloff or Cheney on the Munsters for a guest appearance? I don't know. I think Karl. Karloff had probably... He was pretty old at that point. He had probably gone back to England by that time, and he wasn't really a Hollywood player. Carloff died in 69, right? And the Monsters was what? 64, 64, 65. So it's about five years earlier. But like his daughter told me, it didn't matter how sick he was, how much oxygen tank he needed on the set.

He would do it. Yeah. He just wanted to – he didn't want to – he did not want to retire. He didn't want to say he couldn't do it. And it was just a matter of personal pride or personal terror to him. That is a good question. I mean, if Cheney was around and – And Carl off was around.

I would have been great to see them on the monsters. Yeah. Yeah, that would have been wonderful. Didn't John Carradine? Yeah, he was doing the boss. Mr. Gaetman. Right. And he's in the movie, too.

He's in the movie as the funeral director. Yeah, yeah. Here's another thing. A friend of mine sent me a photo of a Frankenstein head mask and the face looked like John Caradine. So was he ever up for either that or Herman? Munster maybe? Not that I know of.

Well, given the chance, he would claim he was up for everything. He claimed... I don't think any human being had more IMDB credits than John Kerry. No, I... Something like 700 films. And, you know, I don't know why he felt

the need to pad his... But he did... He did claim that he had been considered for the monster in Frankenstein. There's no documentation of that anywhere that I've been able to find. He does show up in the black cat, and he shows up in Bride of Frankenstein. Yes, yes. But he was...

What do you guys think of the black cat? I mean, as long as we're on the subject, and otherwise, we'll forget to add it at the end. I'm sure we asked you last time, Rick, but it's a kinky favorite of Gilberts and mine. No, I know you guys like it. I, you know, I mean, I love the fact that Bela and Boris are in it, but there's no monster. interesting too. The art direction is great and all that, you know, art deco kind of stuff, you know, but there's no

monster. No. I mean, for me... It also doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I was like... That's what's so funny. Usually when I watch a movie and something doesn't make sense, I get angry, but with the black cat, I love that nothing

at all in it makes sense. It's, you know, for me, if it's visually interesting, I don't care if it makes sense or not. You know, I mean, There you go. I'm not an intellectual, like, my friend here. I respond more to visual stuff. For what it is, it's very, you know, it's very stylish.

Yes. Elmer treated his actors like actual creative people in their own right. So Manners did have a good time for at least the few weeks that film was made. And, of course, the whole theme of it about these, these two. monstrous men who became that way because of World War I, you know, are not we the ones whose bodies were torn asunder? Are not we the living dead? You know, it just underscored all of those points that I was trying to, you know, making my, in my books. I do have, I, I, it's not all sociology for me, though, you know, I really, I, I, I, um, I, I, um, I, I, um, I, I, um, I, I, um, I,

I'm a monster kid. I think they are just fun. In my old age, I'm having a lot of fun. This being the 90... I remember in Black Cat, Legosi says, many men went there. Few have returned. I alone have returned,

not to kill you, to kill your soul. kill your soul slowly that was the line yeah it there are great lines in it they're just moments there are just attitudes that's the stuff you remember I remember there's no monster

there's no monster so it doesn't float your boat there's one part too where you could see Lagosi you know fucked up one line and because I'm sure they either had like both, they tried both tear the skin off your body or fray the skin off your body. So Lagosi says, I will frayer the skin.

That's the worst thing you can do to somebody's skin. Rick, I've heard you say that you always found Karloff to be a more fascinating performer than Lagosie. Do you think he would have made an interesting count? You know, I don't think he, I don't think it would have been the same as Legosi for sure. I mean, Bela was Dracula. He almost did it. Karloff? Karloff agreed to play Dracula for Richard Gordon around the same time he did The Haunted Strangler,

and it was going to be filmed in England, and it was derailed by the Hammer film. Well, he did that Bava film, that uh oh yeah yeah yeah where he played a vampire wordlock yeah that was great yeah but he said he he said well I guess I'll do it you know but only if I don't have to imitate bail and and the producer

told that to me directly so I believe it okay here's something I want to know too because I'm a big Cheney Jr. fan I get the impression Cheney Sr. was a horrible father. That's kind of what I got, too. That's what I couldn't get him to open up too much about it, but I asked Kurt Siehmack about Cheney and his father, and he said that Cheney Jr. was a tortured person

and that his father was a sadistic man. And I've heard other... stories that aren't safe for work, and I'm not going to go into them here. Wow. But there was no love loss between them. He certainly didn't want his son to become an actor. Or Cheney Jr. That was universal insisted on that.

I remember reading a quote of Lanchini Jr. where he said, if I could, I would adopt every child in the world because there's nothing worse than growing up unloved and it really shows well he certainly loved Janet Ann Gallo yes who we had here on this show by the way

Rick here's a question a little off the subject but I also heard you talking about Nosferatu the 22 Nosferatu and saying that the makeup and the design should not work well and yet it does

it does I mean it's and it's a classic image, but, I mean, when you look at it, he's got this ridiculous, big, you know, hooked nose. And, you know, it's a, it's a Comedia d'Alarte, it's Punchinello from the profile. That and Shylock kind of mixed together in this really, yeah, I mean, it's, it shouldn't work, but it does. And, I mean, I think also it's the fact that the film itself is just so well made and that the design of it and everything is, it just all works, you know.

I remember, that's a film I do remember seeing on television for the first time. Oh, you do? Yeah, and it was like, I hadn't really, I'd seen pictures and famous monsters, but I didn't know that it was Dracula, you know, and I'm watching it, and I'm going, this movie's Dracula, you know. It's exactly Dracula, you know. And Bram Stoker's Widow figured that out real quick. Yeah.

That story is well told in your book. Oh, thank you. In Hollywood Gothic and how she got a lot of prints destroyed. She got them ordered destroyed. It didn't fortunately happen, but my gosh, she wouldn't, even when she had captured a print in London, she refused to look at it. It was something beneath her contempt. No prints were destroyed at all?

I thought the ones that had shipped to the states were the ones that were safe. No, Universal bought the one print that was floating around. the States, and they bought it, quote, for purposes of destruction. I see. I stand corrected. Because they bought the copyright to Dracula. But they didn't. And actually, they used a couple of snippets in a short subject called Boo. It's on some of the universal discs, and it's one, and you look at it and say, my God, that's the most pristine clip from Nosferatu I've ever seen, and it was from the original

negative. And, but that with all the other universal holdings, you know, in the 1940s, probably did go, go into the fire. It's funny, we were talking about how Karloff would have been as Dracula, but the mummy always struck me as a remake of Dracula. Oh, yeah. John Balderson, who wrote the stage play of Dracula, knew exactly what he was doing. You know, he was working with a formula that worked. If it's not broke, don't fix it. And it's remarkable. You know, you've got this undead creature come back from the grave to possess the soul of a young woman

and who is being guarded by Edward Van Sloan and David Manners. That one delivers the creeps, the mummy. It does. It's really nice. It still works so well. directed by Freud, who some people think may have directed Dracula. And Mad Love. Mad Love is great.

I love me. Mad Love is wonderful. And Peter Lorry is amazing in that. It's such a great film, yeah. And it's a creepy moment in Mad Love where he shows up with, he's pretending to be like a guy. Rollo, the knife thrower. Yes, and he's wearing a neck brace and met him. hands that's very creepy welders goggles and the stuff yeah it's very cool yeah it's a that that's one

of my favorite uh picture 1935 was 1931 and 1935 and i guess 1939 uh beginning middle and end they were there were really some spectacular films in the 30s mad love is great and it's funny that dracula although so so much of it is just the camera pointed at the stage play every now and then there's a scene and it where you go, wow, that was really good. Oh, yeah, yeah, and it's... Maybe the scenes Freud was in charge of. Yeah, I think so.

The camera was moving. Well, what David Manners told me is that... And people said, oh, he must have been senile. He was 92 when you talk to him. Well, I've got a recording of an interview he did in 1972 where he made the same point. He said, somebody asked me who... directed Dracula, and I had to tell them, I don't know.

It wasn't Todd Browning. He didn't direct anything that I... Really? Any of my scenes. It was Carl Freund who did anything I could call directing in that movie, and that it was very, very disorganized shoot, and he and Helen Chandler both felt it was ridiculous, and they loved snickering about it. Well, it's called movie making.

It's like, I mean, I'm always amazing. that any movie ever gets finished, let alone turns out to be good. It's a miracle when a movie's good. They're always train wrecks. When you saw the monster as a kid, and I've heard you say that you didn't find him scary. You found him sympathetic. Well, I think most

monster kids did. I mean, I think that's the appeal to, and those are the kind of monsters I like. You know, I mean, I'm not a, I'm not a splatter movie kind of guy, you know, and I like those sympathetic monsters. You know, the Frankenstein's monster, Charles Lotton Quasimoto, I mean, it brings me to tears, you know.

It's such a great performance from by Lotton and a great makeup, you know. And those are the kind of monsters I like that. I mean, you feel for him. And, you know, he wasn't, he didn't ask to be put in this situation. And I think, you know, as a kid, you know, and you relate to that. Yeah, kids, you know, they tend to gravitate teenage boys especially. they very often like the more obvious things about the Wolfman and the Frankenstein monster

the hair sprouting, the uncontrollable urges, the rejection by women. But then there's Dracula, who's not any of those things. And he was the one I gravitated toward, and I think it was because he was in control. And I discovered monsters in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis. Yeah, I heard you're talking about

how the monster mash was the big hit at that time. It was. It was the number one during those 12 days or whatever. It was number one on the charts. A dance of death. It's still number one of my charts. Yeah, mine too. A dance of death read by a mad scientist. It was funny like Frankenstein when Karloff, it was a complete character that Karloff was in Frankenstein. And then Frankenstein became like, you know, by the time Glenn Strange was doing it, it was like the stupid monster who comes to life at the end

and fucks everything up. You're dumb brute. It was, and it's really awful that so many of the stock photography companies have Glenn Strange photos identified as Karloff that when Karloff died, I think even the New York Times

But it ran a picture of Glenn Strange as the monster. I remember when I was a kid, I saw that in the paper, and I said, that's Glenn Strange. That's not Karloff. You know, the people who pick these pictures, you know, you would think they would have, they would know this stuff. I mean, it's funny, like, even the people today, you know, who are doing stills that they release, there's, when I did the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes, they had a lunch. box image that was an unfinished makeup of Tim Roth. He didn't have his hair on. And that's what they chose to put on the lunchbox. You know, it's like, what the hell? But yeah, when people who are supposed to supposedly experts saying, you know, Boris Karloff's dead, here's, you know, here's a

picture of them, you know. Unforgivable. You have a, you have a kind of an indirect connection to Bayla, Rick, but a big one in pop culture, and that's turning Martin Landau into Baylor. And we talked about it a little bit last time, but tell us something. Tell us what was most memorable? What stands out to you about that challenge? You know, when I heard that that film was being made and that Martin Landau was going to play Bela, I said I have to do this. You know, I have to do this. And I talked to Tim, because I'd known Tim and I said, you know, I'll do this for free if I have.

to. You know, my stock answer is he pretty much took me up on that. You know, I didn't, he got a, he got a good deal on it, you know, but it was just such a pleasure. Unfortunately, I was doing another job at the time, and I couldn't apply the makeup on a daily basis. So my friend V. Neal applied it. But I did the initial test in the design and sculpted the pieces and stuff like that. But it was the first time I made up, Martin was just such a pleasure, you know, because, you know, he, he was the, he was the, you know, he was the first time. the makeup guy on Mission Impossible, you know, and he's in, you know, in the outer limits, you know, and all this stuff, you know, and Space 1999, you know, and he loves to talk about all that stuff, you know, so we had a great time, you know, Chad. Here's a question. We tried to get him on the podcast. Yeah, yeah. We would have loved to have Carla, too.

She passed away the year we started this in 2014. Oh, God, she was, her stories were just fantastic. What a gem she would have been. Oh, and I think, I think, I always remember Martin Landau said that he picked up the award that was meant for Baylor Legosi. Yeah, I don't remember him saying that. And they cut him short. He was saying something very complimentary about Lagosie, and the music came up, and he was whisked off. You know, I always hated when he did that music thing, but this last year's Oscars, when people went on and on and on and on and on.

Oh, God, they need Iden. Are you missing the orchestra? Yeah, I was like, where the hell it's a music cue? You know, because, you know, they tell you, you got 30 seconds. You know, when you get up there, there's a big clock that starts counting down from the time they do your name. So you get up there with your 30-second speech that you're memorized and you look, and it's on 25, you know, and counting down. It's horrified, you know, but it's a necessity, apparently. Rick, here's a question you can answer.

I worked on the film Gods and Monsters, which... Love that picture. Oh, I'll come back and talk to you about that, too. Oh, we love it. We like, what's the one, Shadow of the Vampire? The one about Shrek is good, too. Yes. That followed it.

And Ian McEllen told us that he had been approached at some point about playing Legosi and Ed Wood. I never heard that. You never heard that? No, I never heard that. And obviously it didn't go very far, but he said he just, he read the script and said he said he, he couldn't didn't know how to get into a Hungarian mind or something

that. If you read the script, I'm surprised he didn't do, because I thought the script was brilliant. You know, Scott and Larry, who wrote that script, I thought did a great job. There's a music video in which Ian plays a Nosferatu like vampire, and it's really quite I only saw it for the first time this year. It's quite wonderful. You must have felt a lot of gratification, personal satisfaction

when Landau won the Oscar, Rick. I did, yeah. And it It was just, I just wish that I wanted to be on the bright of the monster set, you know. Don't all of us. You know, and I was doing Wolf and Megan of Jack Nicholson at the time, and I couldn't do it, you know. And it was like, damn, I mean, that's one of the whole reasons I wanted to do this movie, just to be on that crappy set, you know, with the painted blocks on the wall and the refrigerator and, you know, and stove or whatever else.

And shout out to Scott and Larry, friends of this show. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast, but first a word from our sponsor. Here's a question from a listener, Wallace Matthews. David, I know you've written that horror for his, back to World War I again, I know you've written that many of the horror films of the 30s were symbolic of the horrors of World War I. Do you think in any way that Henry Frankenstein's obsession with creating not only life but a race of living dead men in some way foreshadows the horrors of Nazi Germany? Well, World War I foreshadowed Nazi Germany. I mean, in a way, it was, war was this endless process. And what was interesting, I thought about a lot of the American horror films in the late 30s and early 40s,

is these mad scientists who were conducting on screen the same kinds of experiments that Yosef Mengelah was doing in the camps. I mean, here it was, again, American evasion, American not wanting to get too down and dirty, but still having to face these ugly realities and then kind of laugh it off as escapist entertainment. But, yeah, you see the... well Kurt Siemach we talked about before

when he wrote the Wolfman he had Nazi Germany in mind when he had if you become a werewolf you were marked with the star in the parliament and he did that very intentionally and it's quite

it makes that film I think that those touches really make the Wolfman into a film Here is this Europe, this modern Europe, in which there are no Nazis at all, but there's a werewolf behind every tree. You know, Larry Talbot must have had a really big mother because his father wasn't very big, you know. And why did he turn out to be so large? And see, Kurtziedmach, when he was talking about that, said, it's very much his own life. He was, I mean, he said his prayers by night and through no fault of his own.

he became this hunted person but in his case it was because he was a Jew and and it was through nothing that he did and that's what Lawrence Talbot was he didn't do anything wrong and this was thrust on him yeah it's it's one of the earliest examples of a really conscious historical parable being inserted into one of of these monster movies. I don't think we saw it again, really, until Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which, again, was, knew exactly what it was doing.

Oh, and you said in one, I think in Monster Party, I think you said that the original script for the cat people was going to be Nazis invading this village Yes, that was one of one of the original concepts that was discarded. But I was thought cat people and the Wolfman ought to be on a double bill.

I don't think they've ever been... Oh, that's interesting. And I heard you said that the cat people, it's supposed to be the Nazis invade this village and they're all killed by cat people. Yes, and that is I think typical of... The kinds of treatments that, you know, it's really, you think it's going to be the treasure trove of all time to get into the universal vaults and start looking at these old treatments and all the discarded concepts for these films. And there was a lot of just terrible writing. I'd like to see the cat people attack and kill Nazis. I think that sounds like a good thing.

See, when I read that, I thought the same thing. It's like, I wish someone would remake Cat People with that script. I mean, you know, cat people and, I mean, all the Val Luton fans are going to not like me for this, but, you know, it's like, where's the fucking cat people? You know, I was like, I mean, it's like, you know, I'm sitting through this movie and there's like, you know, the scariest thing is like the sound that the bus makes when it stops, you know, in that point. And it's like, where's the cat people? You know, I wanted to see cat people. That's why, you know, when I did Michael Jackson's thriller, I made him a cat person instead of a werewolf. It was more of a cat because I wanted to see the cat.

Oh, you were scratching an old bitch there. Yeah, that's right. And when Kurt Zedmock wrote The Wolfman, it was originally a psychological horror that we never know if he really was the Wolfman or not. Again, I didn't want to see that movie. No. No, and Universal said to him, out and out, no, we want to. a monster, and that showed it became. Thank goodness. Here's one for you, Rick, from a listener, John Leary, a big monster kid. What would, this is a difficult question maybe, but what would

Rick's Frankenstein makeup have looked like if he was assigned to do it way back in the day? Oh. And you would have been dealing with the materials of the day, the collodian that you speak about and the cotton and the everything that poor Jack Pierce had to rely upon. I have, you know, I've I always wondered what a Frankenstein would be if I did it, you know, without having the Karloff image in my head. You know, the problem is, is the Karloff image is burned into my brain, and I can't conceive of the Frankenstein's monster without the Karloff and Jack Pierce makeup, you know.

So, yeah, I really don't know. You know, I, it's funny. I mean, I, the original film, the 1931, makeup is my favorite and Carlup is my favorite Frankenstein. I mean, I think he looks the best in that because I think he's the most cadaverous, you know, and, but I mean, I also like

the way he looks in the bright of Frankenstein. I like how he looks in the sun or Frankenstein. You know, I was not a big Glenn Strange fan when Glenn came along as the monster. First of all, I mean, the monster had evolved into the big brute that doesn't, you know, have the sympathy and stuff. Yeah, he lost his personality.

I just didn't think The makeup worked as well on him until Abin Castellamy, Frankenstein, when the Bud Mess, Westmore regime. And it's funny, I got in a big discussion with, I mean, first of all, Benicia de Toro and I got in a big fight about, you know, who's the best Frankenstein when I was doing The Wolfman, because, you know, Benny's a big monster kid. And he would come in with all these monster magazines and quiz me on stuff, which I got every answer right. When he started saying that Glenn Strange was the best Frankenstein ever, I was like, oh, you know, I left the makeup trailer. And when Glenn Strange, by that time, Glenn Strange would go crazy at the very end because that's when the way you're waiting for it.

And then you'd see Lanchini Jr. destroying the laboratory from Ghost to Frankenstein. And him being hit by a girder, knocked to the ground. in Frankenstein. Yeah. No, they were all interchangeable as far as the studio was concerned. Originally. And the angry crowd from Phantom and the Hopper would be chasing him.

Getting back to Frankenstein meets the Wolfman, originally Cheney was supposed to play both monsters. Yeah. And they figured out that was going to be a logistical nightmare and a very long shoot. And so Lagosie, finally got to play the part he yeah he finally got it

and it was going to be a speaking part and he just got totally screwed halfway through what I heard you talk about you know what I like in when the Cheney when Lawrence Talbot finds the monster frozen in ice in its

Eddie Parker and he's breaking the ice there's a scene where he's breaking that piece and there's a huge chunk of ice it hits him right on the head. Have you ever noticed that? No,

it's like he's there and he's like, you know, trying to be like unconscious. Space eyes go, bam, oh.

Yeah, you have to watch it again. You'll see that. And the other thing that, you know, I used to love the castle films, you know, before, you know,

there were video recorders and stuff. We had a little eight millimeter 50 foot rolls at castle films. And Atman Castellameet Frankenstein, you know, it was the scene at the end where Luz on the table and all that stuff. And even in the little eight millimeter thing,

I could see when there was a lens laying on the table and he gets up and he lifts his head up and turns to look at something, and you see the electrode get ripped off his neck because it's got a clamp, it's clamped into wire on it, you know, and he goes like this, and you can see the foam rubber ripping, and then he moves back row fast, you know. I love it. What is that thing?

I saw an interview with you, Rick, talking about the flat head that you were always confused by Pierce's choice, and you were saying something about how Pierce himself was studying burial techniques and surgical techniques. You know, again, it's probably all, you know, made up by the publicity department, you know. I see. You know, yeah, I mean, there's the whole thing about, you know, hanged men in the blood going down to the lower extremities. And that's one reason he's got the black fingernails and stuff, which makes sense.

But he said, you know, Frankenstein, not being a trained surgeon, would take the easiest way to cut, to get the brain out of the head, which is just cut the top of the head off. So he takes the top of the head off and then puts it back on. So it's like a box. So he's flat like a box. It's like, well, no, if you, you would, it would maybe be an eighth of an inch flatterer than it, well, you know, less high than it was, but it wouldn't be flat unless you just totally left that part off. And then you'd have a flat head that was like here, you know, but it makes no sense whatsoever, but it's, it's the, it's the iconic image, you know, that it's going to outlive all of us, you know. I think in the case, the monster was really likely a true collaboration between Pierce and with a lot of, input from whale. I'm sure too. Because whale, the monster has too much, there's too much going on there, too much of the artistic zeitgeist of the time. The art modern, Art Deco, stylization. I saw a portrait somebody had done of Mussolini that ran in papers in early 1931. And my God, it's the monster. It's all this, it's this cubistic thing there.

And it looks like Russian constructivism, which was a very big movement on the stage. Whale was a stage designer. He was a painter. He knew about stuff that Pierce probably didn't. And I don't know, and Pierce apparently didn't like to work with other people. I would love to know what that collaboration was like. And it seems like I heard, like, James Whale hired Colin Clive because Frankenstein was, Dr. Frankenstein was a tortured soul, and so was Colin Clive. So what do you know about Colin Clive?

They wanted Leslie Howard, didn't they, David? Leslie Howard and Betty Davis were considered for Frankenstein and Elizabeth. Wow. How different that would be, huh? Yeah. Yeah. And Carl Lemley Jr. said that Betty Davis has all the sex appeal of Slim Somerville. Oh, my God. And so that didn't happen.

There are so many near misses. Like Eric was saying, it's impossible that movies get finished or made or that are really iconic films like The Wizard of Oz. the stuff that was considered and discarded that would have just ruined it. Or that Casablanca casting that they had in mind. Oh, yeah, Ronald Reagan. Another great example. And but how, what, I heard that Colin Clive went a little wacky toward the end of his career. Well, he was in a, he was a long-time alcoholic.

Yeah. And he died very young, right? he did. He was in his 30s. A forest Ackerman went to see him at the funeral home and they had him on a funeral bed and he said it looked just like he had in a bride of Frankenstein

in that bedroom scene at the beginning. And I don't know a lot about him. He was tormented. He may have been sexually tormented. He was married to a French lesbian for some reason. but the drinking is what really

did him in and was the cause of his death or alcohol-related And yet it's a wonderful performance Oh no he's great And he's great in Mad Love too Great in Mad Love Yeah

I've for a long time been saying I'd love to see a remake of Man of A Thousand Faces with Brian Cranston as playing Lonchaney Oh how interesting Because I think I think he'd make a great great Cheney. Mind you, he's a lot older than Cheney was when he died even, but facially, you know, the structure is very similar. When I first saw him, I went, I could, I could make him up like Cheney and that would be great. They, they, say, a Cheney Jr. said

they interviewed him before making the movie and he told him all the facts of the story and he said they changed absolutely everything. Well, it's the Hollywood version of his life. Yeah. I'm sure, yeah, he didn't write Jr. on the makeup kit on his deathbed, you know? No. That's the most ridiculous. You know, I actually I enjoy that movie. I'm not crazy about the makeup.

So, you know, I mean, the original chainy makeups were so much better, you know, than what they ended up with. Although they did one. They did one of Cagney in London after midnight. Yeah. And it only survives as still photo.

Yeah. Apparently there was no footage, but it was it. It really Really? Caught it. Well, unfortunately, I mean, a lot had to do with the fact that Cagney had the wrong face. You know, I mean, you couldn't do the family opera. We like the idea of Cranston. Oh, no, I think it'd be great.

Actually, I had dinner with him and talked about it to him. Oh, you told him. He was actually, he and, what's his name, Vince Gilligan, the, yeah, Breaking Bad guy. Yeah. They both thought it was an interesting idea, and he was kind of intrigued, you know, I can't get it out of my mind now that you mentioned it. No, I think he's the only actor who could do it today. Because he's a good actor. Yeah, he's a great actor.

He made a great actor. But who would go see it is the problem? You know, I can't see his studio being interested in it because a kid doesn't know who launching he is. And they just made a movie about Herman Mankowitz. Yeah, well, that's true. And I remember, too, in, also, I enjoy Man of a Thousand Faces as a movie. I know it's a total fairy tale.

And his makeup as the Phantom of the Opera is ridiculous. The nose is too big, the forehead's too high up. Yeah, no, it's, again, it's, you know, I think the makeups work so well, partly, I mean, the Cheney makeup's, the original one, partly because of the limitations that he had. He couldn't do the things that you could do with foam rubber. But because of that, it has a reality. It's based in more of a reality. There's a lot more of a real face going on there. And it comes through it, and it's so much better.

Porturing his own flesh. Yeah, well, that's it. I mean, you know, I doubt that Cagney would, like, his nose pulled up like Cheney had and all that. But, yeah, it's, again, unfortunately, you know, it's the new improved, you know, material and makeup, which isn't as good as the old version. Rick, we alluded to it at the top. We have to ask about Kenneth Strick Fatton. what you've done in your own home. Okay.

The way you are using your time in retirement, and it's on YouTube. It's absolutely fascinating what you've done. Well, I don't know what's on YouTube, but my original Frankenstein room wasn't done in my retirement. It was done probably 30 years ago. And again, this all came out of my, you know, being a monster kid. You know, I remember going to Movie Land Wax Museum and... Boyne Park, they had a Frankenstein's a monster that didn't look anything like Boris Karloff,

but it had a flat head, you know, they had one you could pose with, you know, that's like in an electric chair, you could take a Polaroid with, you know. But it was like, why don't they make the monster look like the monster? You know, and I go, I'm going to, someday I'm going to make a Frankenstein that looks like Boris Karloff in the makeup. And I'm going to, it's basically a life-size Aurora model kit, you know. I mean, it was like, and I, you know, I copied, you know, Well, I mean, at this point, I had a crew of a lot of amazing people that were good at electronics and machinery and stuff who made the machines for me, you know, under my art direction.

But I basically copied the StrickFadden stuff. And I, when you're talking about, you know, missed opportunities, I had met Strick Fadden. I went to Strick Fadden's house. And he, in his garage, he still had a whole bunch of his stuff. And he turned him on and, you know, made all the noises and did all those stuff. And I told him, you know, I've always been fascinated by these machines. This is before I built the Frankenstein room. And I said, I want to build, you know, a Frankenstein laboratory someday, and I want to copy your machines, you know.

And he said, I have a whole bunch of spare stuff here. You got to, you should come over some weekend and we can put some machines together, you know. And I never took him up on it. And shortly after that, he died, you know. And I went, damn it, Rick, you should, you got to follow up on this stuff, you know. And there's been so many occasions like that. I had friends, old friends in the business that had great stories about, you know, a filmmaking. in the days and go, I got to record this and get it down before it's gone, you know,

and then it goes, you know, and I mean, we did a photo shoot for an Empire magazine about Gremlins, and, you know, Dick Miller and Chris Wales were there, and, and Zach was there, and I said to Dick Miller, I go, I want to take some photos of you because he kind of, he looked a lot like my dad looked, and I said, I want to get some, take some cool photos of you. Dick lives, well, lived, I should say, a few blocks from my house. I didn't do it, you know. And it's like, damn it, you got to, when you say you got to do these things, you've got to do them, you know. That's why we do this show is to preserve this stuff.

Yeah, no, it's great. And we had Dick here, you know, and we had Sarah Karloff, we had, we had Donnie Done again a couple of months ago. And Janet Ann Gallo. I mean, we try to, we try to hang on to this stuff and get some kind of record of it. Yeah, so many great stories get lost, you know. They do get lost. The stuff that Kenneth Strickfadden created, It was just new wave art.

Mm, yeah. And because when you watch the movie, when you think about it, you think they got that much electricity out of a thunderstorm? Well, yeah, again, and they have all these electric machines, but they don't have a telephone or anything else. And like, where the hell is it, and what time period is it? You know, but who cares? You know, it doesn't matter.

And I think in Bride of Frankenstein, Dwight Fried takes out of walkie-talkie. And so there's no light bulbs. Oh, when he's, uh, when she's in the cave and it was like, yes, no light bulbs, nothing, but he has to walk. This electrical device, yes, that, yes. So none of this wireless phone, yeah. None of it was borrowed from Strickfad and you just basically found people who, oh, yeah, reproduce a Tesla coil and these transistors.

And we, and, you know, I, I had a guy who was like my wood shop guy in, in, you know, who had built the tables and stuff. And I had him building, you know, I would go, and now I want this wall like this, and I would put two by fours up in the angles that I wanted them. And then I'd come in after coming home from work, and it was like, oh, I straighten this out for you. And I go, no, you know, it's not supposed to be straight.

So it's like, you know, I made him watch the movie, you know, and see this, you know. But, you know, it's funny. I mean, the strict fad machines show up in so many things, you know. And I actually, you know, was offered, you know, after he died and this guy, I think his name was Ed Angel. inherited the machines and they were numerous times they were being sold they wanted a million dollars for the Frankenstein machines and I went and looked at him and there was nothing original

from Frankenstein all of them had been cannibalized and redone you know he was see you know it's it's like ray harry hasn't would cannibalized armatured you know and and I one auction house I went you know you're claiming this stuff is all from Frankenstein none of these things were in Frankenstein I'm telling you because I know and somebody's going to buy this and they're going to watch the film and they're not going to find any of this stuff and they kick me out you know they go oh wow and the funny thing is getting back to like the mad scientist plot you realize like Jurassic Park was meddling in things man should leave alone and that was that plot the old mad scientist thing and playing god yes yes and in one of them what the hell's his

name um that actor who was in like law and order who was in one of them uh what he was he he was in a full metal jacket oh vince anofrio vince yes he is in one as an army sergeant and it is directly out of the old movies where he says imagine like an army of these things and that used to do in the movies a lot. They create, they talk about an army of these monsters. Well, it goes back to all that war stuff, I guess, too.

Yes, well, one of the original treatments for the Invisible Man at Universal, nobody was actually going back and reading H.G. Wells. They forgot that he was going to get approval of the script, but one of the treatments had an army of invisible

rats that would spread bubonic plague in Manhattan I told you they're not all masterpieces speaking of rats David what's the deal with the

the armadillos and the possums in dragon as Rick wants the monsters where are the rats the well there was I did see one studio memo that objected to rats

because they they call the rats are not quote unquote good theater and But Browning had used armadilloes in London after midnight. They're described in some reviews of the film. No, there aren't any photographs. But Balfour Manor was, you know, scuttling with armadillos.

And Browning loved to just use things over and over. It was almost like a fetishy thing. And he did it so many times. it's not an accident, but he recycled them for Dracula. Well, it was his pet, and he charged him for it. He rented the armadillo. That's how he made money. And I heard Donald Trump might do that, but I really freaks you out to see those

armadillo. They shipped him the animals. They shipped armadillos and snakes and all in the same box. So a lot of times they'd receive it, and the armadillos were all dead, having been bitten by poisonous snakes. I thought you were going to say the armadillos were fat and there were no snakes in the box. Last question for you, Rick, from a listener,

Gary Gerani, our friend Gary Gerani, a big monster kid too. I want to ask Rick about various remakes of creature from the Black Lagoon that had been planned in the 80s. I believe Rick was asked to create a prototype Gilman suit for the proposed remake, but updated.

Can he provide any thoughts here? I was approached probably four or five times about creature remakes. One was John Landis and Joe Dante version.

The one was Ivan Reitman who was involved. I forget who was going to direct it. The one that actually I got a little money and did some designs for it was the John Carpenter version. John Carpenter was going to do a remake. And I did some designs. There's pictures in

my book of the creature that I design. And I, I, I, it was very true to the original creature. I think the original creature's a great, you know, the concept is fantastic and the suit's great. And, and I didn't want to vary too far from that. You know, I still wanted to keep, you know, an attractive male physique kind of a thing to it, but it very much looks like the creature just slightly updated, you know. I, I, I remember in the Ivan Reitman version when they were talking to me about it, I had lunch with the director. a local restaurant, and he was saying, no, we want the creature to be, you know, part dinosaur, part, you know, and he just was naming off all these animals, you know, and I go, it's the gill man. It's like a fish man, you know, has nothing to do with a dinosaur and, you know, and all these different creatures that, you know, well, we want a little bit of all that stuff. We just think it'll make it better. It's like, you know, I'm not interested, you know.

And not to bring you down, Rick, but Octoman just turned 50. Is that true? Yeah, 71. Oh, my God. I mean, people can check back on the previous time you were here to know what I'm talking about. And I always remember as a kid watching the monsters and the creature of the Black Lagoon shows up, and his name is Uncle Gilbert. There you go. Let's get some plugs in here.

David, your books, The Monsters Show, Hollywood Gothic, the definitive book on Dracula. I learned so much the whole Lord Byron connection to Dracula I didn't know with his former protege very wonderful stuff in there and the documentaries the Frankenstein files and Road to Dracula both of which Rick is in the TCM book

Rick you're incredible two-volume coffee table book it's heavier than an actual coffee table by the way that that is a book that may take me a lifetime to get through that book that is the densest books They sent that to me. It's an incredible piece of work.

I thought it was like a refrigerator. Well, you know, it's a book about me and I'm pretty dense too, so it's like that makes sense. These are wonderful reads and we can't recommend these labors of love enough. And thank you fellow monster kids for coming and being a part of this and celebrating these iconic movies. You know, what's going to happen when all these old monster kids pass away? Are there still going to be monster kids, do you think? God, I hope so. I hope so, too.

We all owe a debt to Fari Ackerman, don't we? That's for sure. Because it wasn't just the movies. It was also the magazine. Oh, yeah, and he's the one that he, because in that magazine it told me that Jack Pierce got paid to make monsters. I have it on good authority that there are a good number of monster kids who are actively indoctrinating. Oh, good. And if there are monster kids who I know who, um,

And it's funny. Whenever they'll meet like a work with a famous actor, they'll say to me, oh, he's one of us. Yeah. Meaning like he's a fan of the old monsters. Do you guys know Kirk Hammett from Metallica? Oh, yeah.

Oh, boy. He puts us to shame. Oh, no. He gave me a white zombie guitar, one of his guitars. Oh, what a nice gift. Yeah. It's funny because there's so many rock and roll guys

that are big monster fans. You know, John Fogger, who's a friend of mine we became friends over the fact that he's a monster kid. I heard Max Weinberg was too from the Springsteen band. Oh yeah? Yeah, oh yeah, he is. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, the drummer, yes, definitely.

I met him too. And we bonded right away over of famous monsters and all those things. It's amazing. And there's a belief. There's a belief for rumor that as much as the Westmore's got credit for the creature of the Black Lagoon,

it was this woman make a bar. Yes, it was not, she's an, not a makeup artist, she's a designer, sketch artist, Melissa Patrick, who designed it. Yeah, she also designed the Melania Mutants and, and most of the stuff that they did out of there. Yeah, I mean, you know, the whole Westmore regime, you know, Bud wasn't necessarily the person really, the artist behind it. He was the department head who got the credit, you know, but you had people like Chris Mueller who sculpted the creature. from the Black Loon head anyways and parts of it, you know, and Millicent Patrick, and a lot of creative people, Jack Keevan, who was the lab man, but it's the Westmore name that they got the credit, yeah. We're glad she got her due. How's our friend Bob Burns doing? Anybody in touch with him?

He's struggling. He's still around. He's old, you know? It's tough getting old. We love that guy. Yeah, everybody does. Bob has a lot of people. Wonderful, man.

That's a monster kid. Frank and I were talking about how I think John Houston used to be a writer on some of the hard films. He wrote something. He wrote one of the... Didn't you write the speech? Didn't you write the speech? Unused curtain speeches for Frankenstein. And Sloan speech.

And I've seen the original. There it is, and his name is on it. They didn't use it. So it wasn't him, his, that they used. No. And I heard there, somebody told me there was a scene meant for the wolf man where he sticks his finger into the holy water and it starts bubbling like it's boiling. And then later on that got used in a devil's advocate where Al Pacino puts his finger in water. I worked in that movie.

I hadn't heard that. It's a nice bit though. So did that come in when he goes to see the Baylis funeral? That's the only place it could have. Gilbert, we could go on for hours. Oh, my God. If it's about old monsters. When you're talking to a couple old monsters.

We want to thank you guys for Schlepp under Burbank, and we want to thank our friends, Land, Romo, and Aristotle Acevedo and our pals at Starburn's audio for making this episode possible. I hope you guys come back, would you come back every year and talk to us about this stuff? Yes, yes, yes, yes, of course. Come back every week. There's a lot of stuff we didn't cover, I'll tell you. There's a lot of stuff we didn't cover.

Oh, my God. We didn't talk about my miniature Frankenstein version either, so that's next time. Come back. I'll bring pictures. The YouTube footage of your lab, is that, you're saying that's old footage, that's not up to date? Well, I don't know what's on the, I don't know what it is. You gave me a tour of the, of the, you know, and maybe, actually, Jonathan, who was the actual author of my book, who wrote, wrote the words, videoed me, and I think he put something on YouTube, but it's been used, there was a, I got wind of it. It was, Kevin Bronlow, did, Kevin Brownlow in his Universal Horror documentary.

There was some, yes, he came to your place. Yeah, and that was the best version of it, yeah, when everything was working and it was newer, yeah, so. But, yeah, there's, there's stuff. out there. But my miniature ones on my Instagram account. There's a lot of stuff of that. Yeah. So you can check that on. So we'll plug the Instagram, the Twitter. Also, David's website, monster show.net

Is a lot of fun. And get these books. And thank you guys for all the entertainment. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thanks for being people after our own heart. Yeah. Thanks for having this podcast. Oh, well. It's our honor. We'll do this every year. Right. Gil? We'll have them back.

Yes. Absolutely. We didn't even talk about Dwight Fry, damn it. I know. We hardly talked about Frankenstein. Okay. Okay. We hardly, yeah. And didn't Dwight Frye when he died, he was listed as toolmaker.

He was a tool maker. Yeah. That is absolutely true. Yeah. This could be a seven-part episode, but we'll cut it down a two of a mute two hours. And how did he get fucked up so quick, Dwight, fry where it's like he fell from those two great movies or three great movies because he was also in bride to like doing like bit parts just like a random villager that has one line or something yeah

yeah it uh you know there's there aren't that many monsters like he david it sounds like he died of overwork yeah no he died be he actually died of uh heart disease he was a christian scientist pre-exist He was Christian scientist, and he refused medical treatment. Oh. Should have been a mad scientist. Gilbert, do you have a... Go ahead. I'm sorry, David.

No, I thought we were done. I got to pee. Okay, David. Saved Dwight Fry. Gilbert, you got to sign off. I know the feeling. Even Oscar winners pee. So this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santo Padre.

And we've been talking to two of the kings of monster kids everywhere, Rick Baker and David J. Skull. And Rick Baker has to pee. Thank you, gentlemen. We'll do it again. Thank you. Thank you so much. And bye. I was working in the lab late one night when my eyes beheld an eerie sight,

for my monster from his slab began to rise, and suddenly, to my surprise, He did the match. He did the monster mash. The monster match. It was a graveyard smash. He did the match. It caught on in a flash. He did the match.

He did the monster mash. From my laboratory in the car. in the castle east to the master bedroom where the vampire's peace. The girls all came from their humble abode to get a jolt from my electrode. They did the match. They did the monster man. It was a graveyard span. They did the match.

It caught on in a flag. They did the match. They did the monster man. The zombies were having fun. The party had just begun. The guests included Wolfman, Dracula, and his son. The scene was rocking or were digging the sounds. Igor on chains back by his baying hounds.

The coffin bangers were about to arrive with their vocal group, the crypt kicker five. They played the match. They played the monster man. The monster match. It was a graveyard smash. They played the mash. It caught on in a flash.

They played the match. They played the monster mash. Out from his coffin rack's voice did ring. Seems he was troubled by just one thing. Open the lid and shook his fist and said, Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist. It's now the mash. It's now the monster match.

The monster mash. And it's a graveyard smash. It's now the match. It's cut on in a flash. It's now the monster mash. Now everything's cool, racks are part of the band, and my monster mash is the hit of the land. A youth living, this mash was meant to,

when you get to my door, tell them Boris said. Then you can mash. Then you can monster match. And do my graveyard smash. When you can match. You'll catch on. or fly Then you can mash

Then you can Monster Match Manchin'clock Mm-hmm Mass Cool Is he gone You impetuous a noise Mm-mash good

Monster Magic God Mm-hmm Monster Magic God Monster Magic Club Monster Magic Go Monster Magic Go

Monster Magic God Monster Magic God Thank you.