The Extras - Universal Classic Monsters with Tom Weaver

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

Classic horror expert Tom Weaver joins the podcast for a fun-filled look at some of his favorite Universal Classic Monster films.  Rather than detailing all four of the new to 4K films in the Universal Classic Monsters: Icons of Horror Volume 2 release, Tom picks a favorite scene from each movie and a “why’d they do that” moment.  We start with 1931’s classic “The Mummy” starring Boris Karloff and Zita Johann and directed by Karl Freund.  Next, we talk about the 1935 science fiction horror classic “The Bride of Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester Colin Clive, and Ernest Thesiger and directed by James Whale.  This sequel to the 1931 “Frankenstein” broke new ground with a monster that could talk and that ultimately wanted a wife.  Next, we discuss the 1943 romantic horror film “Phantom of the Opera” starring Claude Rains and Susanna Foster and directed by Arthur Rubin.  The fourth film we review is the 1954 3D film “Creature from the Black Lagoon” starring Richard Carlson and Julie Adams and directed by Jack Arnold.  And we wrap up the discussion with a fun-filled rapid-fire segment about all eight of the films in both volumes 1 and 2.Join with other Monster and Sci-fi fans at  the Classic Horror Film BoardPurchase on Amazon:Universal Classic Monsters: Icons of Horror Vol. 2 4KUniversal Classic Monsters: Icons of Horror Vol. 1 4KThe Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv

Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and their release on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Allard, your host. My guest today is Tom Weaver, one of the leading scholars in the horror field.

He's a multiple winner of the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award, and he was inducted into the Rondo's Monster Kid Hall of Fame in March of 2011. His 35 books include Universal Horrors, an examination of the studio's classic chillers of the 1930s and 1940s. And he's been involved in audio commentaries and other extras for literally hundreds of Laserdiscs, DVDs, and Blu-rays over the years. Tom, welcome to The Extras. It's great to be here with you today.

It's a drizzly, gray, cold day in Sleepy Hollow. We're two weeks out of summer and I got the heat on already. So it's good to be inside and talking to you. Well, that's great. It's, uh, it's like a hundred degrees here where I am just, uh, let's split the difference. Yeah. I wouldn't mind getting a little bit of that rain out of here, which we seem to always want, but especially this time of year after a long, hot summer, but people in LA love Halloween and they love horror and they love all these things. And yet a lot of times when I take my daughter out, it'll be, you know, 95 degrees and she's in some costume and we're trick-or-treating. So it's a little bit different than when I used to

live up in the Northwest and it was almost always raining and you would be like, how's that umbrella look with your costume? Because it's going to be a fashion accessory. Exactly. Well, this is ground. Sleepy Hollow is ground zero for Halloween. The town gets absolutely packed Halloween week with the hay rides and an actual headless horseman costumed guy riding around the town on a horse. Wow. It's so traffic-y that it'll take you, you know, a half hour to get from your house to

a store six blocks away. Wow. Wow. Well, I guess it, you know, it's appropriate for this time of year. So, you know, it was Constantine Nassar, who's a mutual friend of ours, who said, hey, you should reach out to Tom to talk about these universal monsters. So I'm really glad to make your acquaintance and to be able to have you on to talk about this stuff.

But you were kind of saying, hey, you know, these are such beloved films and there's been so much film scholarship over the years. Maybe we could do something a little bit more fun. So we're going to take a little bit more of a fun approach, I think, today than scholarship. Though we'll do some of that. But before we dive into that, I was curious, how did you get into monster horror film scholarship? At the time I was born, you had to work hard at not being a monster kid. I was born in 58. By the time I was five, six, seven years old, New York TV, we had like seven channels. There were monster movies or

horror and science fiction themed TV shows on like every channels. There were monster movies or horror and science fiction themed TV shows on like every channel. I remember I used to get the TV guide every week. And in the old days in the TV guide, there was a list of all the movies that would play that week in a special little section up front. And it was like planning out a war game where, oh, the Wolfman is on, but it's an hour into it on a different channel. You know, The Beast and 20,000 Fathoms starts. Oh, but at the same time, it's Frankenstein 1970 on another channel. It was tough to see everything you wanted. I mean, I feel so sorry for people in other parts of the country.

You talk about growing up, you know, in a part of the country with, like, one TV station or two. And, you know, they showed a monster movie once a month or whatever. And, no, it they showed a monster movie once a month or whatever. And no, it was, it was a battle here. And, you know, on top of the movies, you had the twilight zone and the outer limits and, and everything else, the monsters, the Adams family. So you'd go to school on Monday after a monster filled weekend and all the boys would be talking about, you know, which ones they saw and the best scenes and all that kind of stuff. So stores were full of monster toys. I didn't stand a chance. I got hooked big time and just never lost the, uh, never lost the end to see these pictures over and over and to find more. So that's all great, you know, as a kid or

whatever you watch and all that stuff, but then you, you know, you become an adult and did you move into writing or did you, you know, what, what was kind of the path that got you into, you know, doing all these audio commentaries that you do and all the articles and things of that nature? Around 1980, 82, I don't remember now. I got so tired of the fact I liked reading about these old movies, but nobody ever interviewed the people who made them or very rarely. When a few monster magazines that were out, either they didn't interview people or they didn't interview the same famous people over and over like Roger Corman and Ray Arihausen. And I was just never reading about the movies I wanted to read about. And I said to myself, just for fun, let me do one interview. And I contacted a guy named Richard Kuna, who directed Giant from the Unknown and

Frankenstein's Daughter and She Demons. And he agreed to an interview. He wanted to get the producer involved also. And that created the delay. And I thought to myself, I don't know if this guy's ever going to come through for me. So at the same time, I also contacted somebody named Edward Burns, who directed World Without End and Return of the Fly. And I asked him for an interview. And then they both came through at the same time. I got to go back and mention, this was at a time when you couldn't afford to talk to these people on the phone. You know, here I was with a job that paid, you know, like $2.50 an hour or whatever. I mean, it was the late 70s or early 80s. And you make a call to California and you get the phone bill, and it's like 50 bucks. And that's like, you know, that's like a week's pay. So I couldn't afford to talk

to the people. So I would send them lists of questions and audio cassettes. Burns went back to his diaries and told me everything about his old movies. He had facts and figures and it was just amazing, but fabulous job he did. And Kuna, he threw away my little audio cassette. He set up a video camera and he made a movie of himself and the producer talking about the movies they made. And I'm like, wow, I wonder if all these guys are this nice. So, you know, I was going to do one interview. I ended up with two. Let me do a third and then I'll retire.

The third guy, Herbert Strzok, was just as nice. I was hooked again. And now it's 40 years later and I've done, I don't know how many people I've talked to a thousand, I don't know, but a lot. Wow. Wow. Well, that's awesome. And it just was kind of came out of your own just interest, which is a story I keep hearing from a lot of people who got into the film history right around that same era as you, right? Where in the 70s, there was kind of a need all of a sudden to look back at the films and the stars were getting a little bit older, but they were still alive. So you could talk to them and the people who had done the films and everything.

Yeah. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, it was. It was a lot of fun. And what it feels like is that Halloween continues to gain in popularity every year. People love the modern horror films. People love the classic monsters as well. And they have a huge place in our film history.

And even for young people who maybe don't know these films that we're going to talk about today as well, they still know the names. They still know Dracula. They still know Frankenstein. They still know the mummy, things of that nature. And Hollywood is always going to recycle some of these every decade or every few years. So the volumes that are coming out from Universal, these Universal classic monsters, icons of horror, volume one of that collection came out, I think, last year.

We're going to talk about primarily volume two, just for the sake of time. Yeah, well, and because it's coming out in seven days, seven days from today, October 11th. Yeah. And it's coming out, you know, obviously a lot of people have already purchased the different collections over the years that were in Blu-ray, but what makes this one unique is that they have the 4Ks. And as that becomes more and more popular, I think people are going to want to add that to their collection because these are older films, they're in black and white and when they're restored so that they look pristine, it's great to see them on the modern TVs and to revisit them in the 4k. Well, let's get into it. And as we mentioned a little bit, we're not going to talk about everything in these films. So we'll kind of start off for the

listeners. We're just going to talk about a favorite scene in the movie and something about the movie that made Tom kind of say, hey, why'd they do that? That way we can kind of focus in on these movies. And again, we're going to talk about the volume two movies, which includes The Mummy, The Bride of Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera, and Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Mummy is a 1932 supernatural horror film directed by Carl Freund and stars Boris Karloff, Zita, Johan, David Manners, Edward Van Sloan, and Arthur Bryan. And in the film, Karloff stars as Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian mummy who was killed for attempting to resurrect his dead lover. After being discovered and accidentally brought to life by a team of archaeologists, he disguises himself as a modern Egyptian named Ardeth Bey and searches for his love, whom he believes to have been reincarnated in the modern world. So, Tom, what's your favorite scene in this

movie? My favorite scene by far is the opening scene in which an archaeologist reads from a scroll of Thoth. He's just reading it aloud and translating it, unaware that it will bring a mummy to life. And behind him in a sarcophagus, very slowly, Karloff's mummy opens its eyes, moves its arms. If you see it under the right conditions, it's still, 90 years later, a very, very creepy and effective scene. I should mention that over the weekend, the mummy and Bride of Frankenstein played theatrically

in a lot of theaters across the United States. And the copy of the movies the theaters got had music where there used to be no music. And in other spots, there was music over the existing music. So you were hearing both at once. And that was like a Hurricane Ida sweeping through a monster kid's hand. Ida sweeping through a monster kid fandom. The shock that these movies, a lot of people looked forward to seeing theatrically

last weekend, had the new music. And I contacted Universal to make sure that these crummy versions weren't what we were going to get on this new 4K set. And I was assured that they are not. Just to give you an example of how much damage the music did to it,

the scene of the mummy coming to life, they put music over it so you can't hear the guy reading the score anymore. But anybody who thought about not buying the 4K because maybe it'll have that terrible music has nothing to worry about. So that is the best scene in the movie. So what do you know about that music and why would they have put that in there for the screening? Monster Kids are still trying to figure that out. Our first thought was that it was new music, newly composed for this last weekend's theatrical screenings of these pictures. But it turns out that this music has been on foreign prints of these movies for a long time now. We still don't know when it was written.

I don't care as long as I never have to hear it, see that version and hear that music. I don't know when it was written. I don't care as long as I never have to hear it, see that version and hear that music. I don't care when it was written. But somehow the theater's got this alternate, foreign version of the movie. And hopefully when theaters show Phantom and Creature later this month, that stuff will all be straightened out and people will hear the original audio.

Well, going back to the scene to the scene that you mentioned, I mean, it starts the film, it's very understated and Boris Karloff's just kind of slowly awakening and everything. It's terrific acting. It really is creepy. And just what I expected in the, you know, in the mummy, when you want to watch the mummy, that's what you expect to see. And yet you don't really see him wrapped up in too much of the mummy that's what you expect to see and yet you don't really see him wrapped up in too much of the mummy garb later after after that scene no no in later years mummy movies meant the guy wrapped from head to toe in bandages going around killing people but no carloff mummy he wakes up as a mummy obviously but then he goes out and gets i guess a shave and

a shower and everything else and dresses up in more modern clothes. And then he plays a very, very elderly looking wrinkled wizard through the rest of the movie and, you know, goes out into society into, you know, modern 1932 Cairo and works his evil ways. So yes, it's a very different kind of movie. Yeah. It's a, it's a lot of fun love that scene so then let's go to the second question we're going to ask today what in the movie made you say uh why'd they do that you know what i put i gave a lot of thought to that and every little thing i could think of just is too nitpicky to mention for the kind of movie it is it's almost a perfect movie and what's funny about that is it has the

same sort of story and some of the same types of events and even some of the same cast members as Dracula made the year before, which is a very flawed movie. And yet the mummy did everything right. Suddenly, suddenly the basic framework of Dracula turned into a really good, effective, I've gotten zero complaints movie. So I did want to ask you about the importance of this film as it came out right after Dracula and Frankenstein, which came out, I believe, in what, 1931. But these three films are often talked about together, aren't they? Absolutely. They were the three forerunners. All three have, there's at

least one cast member who's in all three. Yeah, they are linked in a lot of ways and they are the vanguard of universal monsters. And I was, you know, rewatching these as well. And I agree that while you watch Dracula and as great as the moments are in that film, you know, then you watch the mummy and just the storytelling and everything's much smoother. And the music. Dracula had no music. And The Mummy's got a lot of music and it's very funereal and it's a huge part of the appeal of The Mummy. And again, that's why people who went to see The Mummy over the weekend in theaters were so upset because, you know, they know every note of The Mummy music the same way they do every word of the dialogue in the best scenes. But like I say, my contact at Universal sent me an email

promising me that the 4Ks would have the original audio and all. And he said in his email, I believe with the Fathom screenings, something went wrong. And that was such an understatement that made me laugh. That's like a cavalry soldier surviving Little Bighorn and going back to the fort and saying, you know, I believe that something went wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's good to hear. And so that's reassuring for the fans who are purchasing or preordered this new release. Absolutely. Going back really quick. Boris Karloff stars in The Mummy, but he just the year before it starred in Frankenstein. How do you compare those two performances? I mean, it's amazing how he he really set the standard for two very distinct monsters. Oh, yeah. Well, obviously, the Frankenstein monster was non speaking and he was made a tremendous amount of makeup and non speaking and made to look much taller than he was and more, you know, a brute.

And yet a sympathetic character because, you know, he comes into the world and right away everybody wants to kill him. Everybody's chasing him. So you feel sorry for the monster, which was the part of the key to Universal's success. A lot of their monsters didn't deserve the lives they led and garnered a lot of sympathy. And that separated them from the movies that other studios were making, like Jekyll and Hyde was just simply a fiend. There was King Kong. The Universal monsters, a lot of them had very special qualities. And Frankenstein was a pantomime performance.

And The Mummy, he has a lot of dialogue, Karloff, and delivers it magnificently. Well, let's go to our next film because it really does tie into Frankenstein. And that's The Bride of Frankenstein, which is a 1935 science fiction horror film. And it's the first sequel to the 1931 film Frankenstein. As with that first film, it's directed by James Whale and stars Boris Karloff as the monster. And the sequel features Elsa Lanchester in the dual role of Mary Shelley and the bride. Colin Clive reprises his role as Henry Frankenstein and Ernest Thesiger plays the role of Dr. Septimus Pretorius and this is taking place immediately after the events of the earlier film. The plot follows a chastened Henry Frankenstein as he attempts to abandon his plans to create life

only to be tempted and finally coerced by his old mentor, Dr. Pretorius, along with threats from the monster into constructing a mate for the monster. So what's your favorite scene in this movie? I think the monster is at his most sympathetic in the scene with the hermit. He got burned in the windmill. He's chased by the mob. He's been shot and he ends up in the hut of a blind hermit who obviously doesn't know he's a monster. And the hermit teaches him to speak.

The hermit brings him into the house, feeds him, gives him a place to sleep. They smoke together. They have a lot of laughs together. And it's nice to see the monster finally get a break, to finally put his big feet up and have a haven, even if it is only for a few minutes in this movie. And it's a magnificently done series of scenes and some of the best music in the movie. Again, just like the mummy, the music is a huge part of the appeal of Bride of Frankenstein. It's a score by Franz Waxman and some of the best passages are in that hermit scene. Yeah, because the hermit is playing the violin,

and that's what is kind of attracting Frankenstein to the little cottage, right? Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of The Extras Podcast, and I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner archive and Warner brothers catalog physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. Yeah. Yep.

The music draws the monster to the cottage. And then unfortunately his respite doesn't last long. A couple of hunters show up and they could see that it's the monster and all hell breaks loose. But it was it was nice that the monster got a break for a change. And it's a key area for dialogue as well, because the interchange there. I mean, one of the big things in this movie compared to the first Frankenstein is that he talks. Right. And then a blind man says to him, friend, and the concept of like friend, which then leads into later on when he wants to have a bride, I guess. And he's like friend or a companion, right?

Somebody to be with. Yeah, wife. Yeah, exactly. All right. So then what in this movie made you say, why'd they do that? The same thing that makes me say, why'd they do that in the invisible man, Una O'Connor. She plays Minnie the maid and she screeches and she howls and she makes faces when she's scared. And I guess that was James Whale's idea of comedy relief and he had her do it. And I almost want to hit the fast forward every time Una O'Connor goes into her crazy act in both

invisible man and bride, to be honest with you. Yeah, I agree with you. It really kind of takes you out of the film, right? You just put so much focus on her hysteria rather than just, you know, adding to the story. Yeah, I agree. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 All right, well, let's go to our next film. next film and that is Phantom of the Opera which is a 1943 romantic horror film directed by Arthur Lubin loosely based on Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera and the 1925 film adaptation starring Lon Chaney. The film stars Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster and Claude Rains and the music was composed by Edward Ward. And this film was

filmed in Technicolor. So what's your favorite scene in this movie, Tom? Probably the scene where Claude Rains, he's the phantom, he's the title character. He's a Paris opera house violinist, but he's impoverished and he writes a concerto and he takes it to a music publisher and he thinks the music publisher is going to steal it. He thinks the music publisher is cheating him and he just snaps and he strangles the guy. And that's the point at which the publisher's secretary, to save her boss, picks up a tray full of acid and throws it in Claude Rains' face. And that's why he becomes disfigured and why he becomes the Phantom. And I think that's my favorite scene in the movie. But at the same time, unfortunately,

you lose sympathy for the Claude Rains character at that point because, you know, you did feel for him up to that point. But then he goes to the publisher's place, and the publisher is rude, yes, and he hears his music being played from the next room, and that sets him off. And he kills the publisher publisher and I'm like, I want to go to this guy's trial where he says,

I went to the publishing house to ask about my concerto and, and somebody was playing it on the piano in the next room. So I had to kill him. I mean, that would have to be the shortest trial in French judicial history, I would think. So he deserved his face full of acid. Let me put it that way. Yeah, it is a really good scene and it's a pivotal scene, obviously.

And before I jump in with my comment, I'm curious, what in the movie made you say, why'd they do that? One thing the movie does wrong, well, if you got all the monster kids and the universal monster kids in the world together and said, we have to destroy all prints of one classic horror

monster movie, which one should it be? I think Phantom of the Opera 43 would be the one they would vote off the island because there's so much opera in it that that turns off a lot of fans to be honest with you. But it doesn't bother me. As a matter of fact, I halfway enjoy the opera scenes,

especially when Susanna Foster is singing. But the thing the movie does wrong that annoys me is a lot of times you don't see the Phantom, you see his shadow. And it's slinking along and suddenly it makes a jackrabbit start and starts running and it's almost mischievous. It's almost cartoon-like. And they should make the Phantom ominous. They should make the Phantom threatening. And when you see the shadow just

running around like a kid playing, it ruins it, to be honest with you. Well, the whole living in the sewer thing as well is, I mean, obviously that's where he has to live, but when he jumps in the sewer, he has to get the acid off. But wow, I was thinking about all the stuff that was in there. Yeah, funny. I was too when I rewatched it the other night. Acid face or sewer water? Acid face or sewer water? I think I'd have to flip a coin.

Please, anybody, a bottle of water, please, but not sewer water. Yeah. Another thing the movie does right is it saves the unmasking till the end. In the Lon Chaney Phantom, he gets unmasked maybe halfway through the movie. And, you know, after a little while, I don't know about everybody else, but I get used to him. I get like, you don't look that bad. Come on, put on a false nose and get a life, get a job. You know, you don't look all that bad. no, you don't look all that bad. And Claude Rains had a more horrific makeup and it was saved for the very end and we didn't have to see him with that face for half the movie. So I think that's a change they made

that I approve of. Yeah. Well, let's go to our last film here, and that's Creature from the Black Lagoon, which is a 1954 black and white. And it's is it 3D and 2D? Is that is that how it goes? It was 3D originally in in the movies, although I'm sure some theaters showed it in 2D way back then also. But the upcoming 4K set will have both versions. Okay, great. And this one's directed by Jack Arnold and stars Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, Nestor Pava, and Whit Bissell.

And the film's plot follows a group of scientists who encounter this amphibious humanoid in the waters of the Amazon, the creature which is also known as the Gill Man. And the Gill Man was played by Ben Chapman on land and by Rico Browning for the underwater scenes. So what's your favorite scene in this movie? I used to think as a kid, I used to think it had too much underwater. But now when I watch the movie, I can't get enough of it. They have fights underwater.

They're like cat and mouse encounters underwater. But now when I watch the movie, I can't get enough of it. They have fights underwater. They're like cat and mouse encounters underwater. My favorite scene is everybody's favorite scene where the creature sees the girl for the first time. He's at the bottom of a lagoon. She jumps in off the boat just to take a dip and he falls in love immediately and starts swimming directly underneath her so that she doesn't see and he touches her and she goes diving down to see what's touching her and he hides and the music is terrific in that scene i can just watch that scene over and over partly because of the music and partly because it's such an amazing scene with rico holding his breath he played the creature by holding his breath underwater uh so he wouldn't need tanks or anything

hidden in the costume and it's just a perfect scene in my book I mean a couple thoughts I had about that is a lot of people of course talk about the kind of I don't want to say love scene but it's kind of got that artistry uh is that correct yeah I would say so yeah absolutely I mean it's really romantic but I also I mean personally I had to think about that kind of that shot when you're looking up and she's swimming. Also in Jaws, it's got the menace too in it. Yeah. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Steven Spielberg had Creature in his mind when he was planning some of the scenes in Jaws. It's tremendously well done.

And those scenes were shot in Florida. it's tremendously well done. And those scenes were shot in Florida. One way to, if you were ever curious, well, when is it Ben Chapman and when is it Rico Browning? All you have to do is say, if the camera is underwater, it's Rico Browning. They went to Florida to shoot those scenes because they wanted to find the clearest water

they can find in the whole country. And they found a spring in Florida where it's like the water's not there almost. And so that's where they shot all the underwater scenes for Creature with Rico, who's still with us, by the way. Rico Browning, you know, of all the hundreds of people who made Creature from the Black Lagoon, all the hundreds of people who were involved, I think the only two people left today are the two people in that great scene, Rico Browning and Ginger Stanley. When the camera's underwater, it's not Julie Adams,

it's Ginger Stanley. And they're the only two people left. The two people from the best scene are the only two people left out of hundreds. Yeah. And the 4K collection, I'm sure we'll have those bonus features that were a part of the previous collections. And there was a really good one on there called Back to the black lagoon which has interviews and footage and explanation of that whole scene and really goes into it and that's a you know if you don't own the volumes and you're going to get it on the 4k you can look forward to all these great extras that on are on here for each of the releases i know universal is also releasing the individuals from the volume one this month as well and i'm sure they also have the extras on there.

So that's a great wealth of information for the fans. And of course, one of the bonus features is your audio commentary, which you did a number of years back. What do you remember about doing that audio commentary and some highlights? Well, actually, I'd done so many audio commentaries by the time I'd done Creature that I'm afraid off the top of my head, I can't think of any particularly interesting comment to make about my Creature commentary. I do remember the first commentary I ever did was for the Wolfman. That was back in the 1990s. And nowadays, I record them at home.

Back then, you had to go to a recording studio. So I jackass down to New York City and meet David Scowl at a recording place, and he records me doing my Wolfman audio commentary. And I was so nervous. I don't know if you'd be able to hear it, but I was so nervous I could hear my voice shaking during the opening credits because, you know, people in a recording booth and time is money. And I'm trying to read my script clearly and keep an eye on the screen, which had a time code. And it was scary, like 12 different ways. And my voice was shaking. But David Scowl also did all the Back to the Black Lagoon

and all the documentaries that you just mentioned are also David Scowl's work. And they're terrific. And they're on all four of these movies. I listened to some of that audio commentary on The Wolfman and having been on the other side where people come in to do the audio commentaries, I thought you sounded great and I thought all the information you were giving was fantastic. The only thing maybe now that I think about it, and you've just said that story that kind of triggers that is you were talking fast. I do talk fast. You know, that in and of itself doesn't say that you were

nervous when I was listening to it. I was enjoying it a lot. Walter Winchell was famous for talking fast. And somewhere in an article, I read how many words a minute he spoke. And I went to one of my commentary scripts and I played the commentary and I speak faster than Walter Winchell. scripts and I played the commentary and I speak faster than Walter Winchell. So I should, I should try to slow down. But once you get into, once I get into reading the script and being into the movie and being into the experience of trying to do it, I got faster and faster. And what can I tell you? That's funny. Well, for the sake of an audio commentary, it's not bad because you're really getting packed in a lot of information. And since people have already seen the film, you know, the understanding is that you're listening to the audio commentary

to try to get as much information as you can. So it actually works pretty well. I do get a lot out, but like I said, some people have said, I had to listen to it twice because you talk too fast. So I'll try to talk slower and you try to listen quicker and we'll meet in the middle. That's great. Well, hey, we skipped kind of the why did they do that for Creature? So we should probably go back to that question.

What from that movie made you say that when you're thinking back on it? Again, like the mummy, any complaint I might make about Creature would just be nitpicking for the sake of answering your question. Of its type, it's a perfect movie. Now, in the later movies, I do want to mention in the later movies, they didn't take as much care with the presentation of a Creature. Rico Browning would be underwater breathing through a hose, and then they'd start shooting. When they shot Creature, they'd take a minute, and they'd press his head, and they'd'd press his head and they'd get all the bubbles out of the mask. And that's why the creature swims around and looks like an underwater creature in the first movie. But in the later ones, they didn't do that. So you see him swimming around, but the top of his head is just swarming, teeming with bubbles. Bubbles are

coming out of his head. That is the worst part of the other movies. Gotcha. I just rewatched that movie. And I mean, it'd been a long time since I'd watched some of these movies until I was rewatching them. And I really enjoyed that movie a lot. And probably, you know, it's a little bit newer, of course. So the style of the filming and everything was a little bit more modern. But I really liked that film. And that's also why I've been able to write two books about the creature movies, because

it is that much newer and that much more production paperwork still existed and that many more people who worked on the movie still existed when I started writing back in the 80s. So Creature sort of became a regular stop for me. What do I want to do next? Who do I want to interview next? I would keep going back to Creature since there were so many people left alive. The Extras is a production of Otaku Media, producers of podcasts, behind the scenes extras, and media that connects creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals at www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes.

www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes. Well, last year, I think I mentioned Universal released the volume one of the series on 4K, and that included Dracula, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and The Wolfman, which you mentioned and has your commentary. But since we didn't get a chance to really talk about those films, I thought we'd wrap up our conversation today with some rapid fire questions I'll throw at you that includes the films from both volumes. All right. And kind of like the whole episode, this is not for scholarship.

This is really just for fun and a celebration of these movies. This is question number one. If you could be any of the monsters in these films, which one would it be and why? Well, I guess I'd be the creature only because being Dracula doesn't appeal to me. Being the mummy wrapped in bandages and just wandering around in the woods doesn't appeal to me. The one that appeals to me the least would be the invisible man because you're naked. You can't eat. It's winter. Good Lord.

It's winter. If your feet get dirty, people can follow you. You can't steal anything because everybody still see what you're stealing and they can chase you. Well, what advantage does the invisible man have? I mean, you want to kill somebody. All you can do is like go up to them and start hitting them. Plus you're invisible. I mean, what, when you're a kid, it sounds like fun. You're like, I'm invisible. I can see everything. But, um, but it gets old. You can't even walk down the street because you'd have to keep looking behind you to make sure somebody didn't walking faster. Wasn't going to bump into you. There's nothing good about being invisible. That's hilarious. All right. Well, next question here

of the leading ladies of these films which would you as the monster want as your co-star the lovely julie adams out of the ones you named i would say julie adams and that's partly because i knew her a little in real life and she was just as she was as sweet as in real life as she is beautiful in the movie so make it julie and of course of these films, she probably, you know, with the more modern attire and everything she's wearing, she comes across beautifully. And, and, you know, if you watch these when you're younger, there's a kind of an attraction there as well. Oh, absolutely. And you didn't even mention the bathing suit. So

yeah, that's what I was referencing. Yes. Next question. And again, this is not for scholarship. This is just for fun, but which is the better film Frankenstein or Bride of Frankenstein? Frankenstein. For my taste, Frankenstein, because Bride of Frankenstein is such a seesaw ride between sometimes eerie scenes, sometimes scenes full of pathos like The Hermit, and all that damn comic relief. There's too much comic relief in Bride of Frankenstein for me. And also, it has the reputation of, well, this is the movie where the monster is really at his most sympathetic.

You really feel sorry for him. I don't. I mean, I feel sorry for him in the scene with The Hermit and when the bride rejects him at the end and he looks all sad. Yeah, I feel for him there. He probably kills more people in bride of frankenstein than in any other frankenstein movie including a little girl including one of pretorius's own assistants who's trying to send up the kites to catch the lightning to bring the bride to life he's just he's just killing people left and right to me the monster is his most monstrous in bride of

frankenstein so put frankenstein at the top of my list. And I think a lot of people really speak highly of Bride of Frankenstein, but I'm with you. I just prefer that first one as well. Yeah. And as good as Franz Waxman's Bride of Frankenstein score is, silence enhances Frankenstein as much as Franz Waxman enhanced Bride of Frankenstein. I think silence is perfect for a lot of the scenes in the original Frankenstein. Well, it's fun. Of course, everybody has their opinion on these things, but it's kind of fun to hear your take on these. Now, I know all of these films are important in film history, but of the eight films in volumes one and two here that have been released, which do you think is the best film or stands the test of time the best? I can't speak for 2022 moviegoers because I haven't, I've probably gone to the movies four times in the last 20 years. For me, the ones that I love the best and that have stood the test of

time for me, the best are Frankenstein, Mummy, and Invisible Man. And if you're going to ask me to choose between those three, it would be awful tough because when I'm in the middle of watching any one of them, it's the best, if you know what I mean. Right. So with a gun to my head, I'm going to say either Mummy or Invisible Man. Wow. Because you just kind of were talking about how there are things in Invisible Man you

didn't like in terms of the comic relief and things. But there's a whimsical tone to a lot of scenes in the movie. So it's not as disruptive there for me as it is in Bride of Frankenstein. And you got the special effects, which are amazing. And yeah, Invisible Man and Mummy. Those are my two. Next, what film of these eight have you watched the most oh because i've written about it so much and done audio commentary it would be creature i i don't even like to think about how

many times i've seen some of my favorite movies i mean i'm 64 now and i've been watching them since i was a kid and um once video came along via beta and vhs each of these movies, I got up into double digits real quick. And that was 40 years ago. So when I'm on my deathbed and somebody says to me, did you really need to see house on haunted Hill 56 times? I might regret it then, but, but, but not yet. All right. And finally, this is a little bit out of left field here, but which of these monsters have you dressed up like for Halloween over the years?

Oh God, what a question. I've got to disappoint you. I don't know that I've ever, I've ever dressed as any one of them. What? But all the brain cells devoted to my, my own life and my own childhood have been crowded out by trivia about

monster movies. I don't remember my own childhood particularly clearly. But all I can tell you is I don't remember ever dressing as a universal monster. Well, I thought maybe we might get, you know, like Dracula or something, because that one is a little bit easier. Well, that certainly is. You don't even need a mask. You need a cape and some teeth. Barnabas plastic fangs in your mouth. Exactly. I mean, some of the others are a little bit like Wolfman.

OK, that's going to be a little bit of work. Mummy, I guess you could wrap yourself and that one would be OK. But I think the easiest one is either Phantom or Dracula for the reasons we just talked about. Now, there's still time. Halloween is in a few weeks. When I was a kid, there was a Dark Shadows game. And if you won, you got to put the fangs in your mouth. That was the, you know, quote unquote prize or goal. And I'm like, how many people have played this game?

And how many times have these fangs been washed? And anytime I played it with friends, I so didn't want to win. That's so funny. Yeah, that's not that great of a real well hey tom uh this this was hopefully fairly painless for you um you know this was a lot of fun thanks for uh for coming on the the podcast it was a real treat to uh to talk uh these universal monsters of horror again with you my laugh lines are hurting. I had a great time. Thank you so much. As mentioned previously, the Universal Classic Monsters Icons of Horror Collection Volume 2

will release on October 11th, 2022. This is a bundle with the 4K UHD, Blu-ray with legacy extras, and a digital code. And on the same date, there will be individual releases of the Volume 1 films with the same bundle of 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and digital code. Those films are the classics Dracula, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and The Wolfman. There are links to all of these releases in the podcast show notes and on our website at www.theextras.tv. So be sure and check those out. If this is the first episode of The Extras you listened to and you enjoyed it,

please think about following the show at your favorite podcast provider. And if you're a fan of classic horror, be sure and check out our recent podcast on two Warner Archive releases, 1935's The Mark of the Vampire starring Lionel Barrymore and Bela Lugosi and the 1931 classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring Frederick March and some upcoming episodes you may enjoy include

our look back at Harry Potter after 20 years The Usual Suspects releasing on 4K and in November Casablanca releasing on 4K if you're on social media be sure and follow the show

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or your favorite podcast provider. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed. podcasts, behind the scenes extras, and media that connects creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals at www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes.