UPDATE: YOU CAN NOW PURCHASE A WEREWOLF REMEMBERS AT CULT MOVIES PRESS. Here is the link.
Frank J. Dello Stritto has written some great books, essays and articles on classic horror films. I place him with Gary Rhodes and Arthur Lennig as the finest scholars chronicling the career of Bela Lugosi. Like his peers, Dello Stritto has written essays on many genre subjects, including King Kong, Svengali, The Phantom of the Opera, etc.
He's published a book of essays, "A Quaint and Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore," full of genre articles, many of which were published in Cult Movies Magazine. He, along with the best Bela Lugosi blogger Andi Brooks, broke new research ground with "Vampire Over London: Bela Lugosi in Britain," that detailed Lugosi's last major Dracula tour as well as provide strong overviews of his British films. The first edition was superb; a longer second edition even better.
Several years ago Frank published a memoir, "I Saw What I Saw When I Saw It" that recalled his life as a child, a Monster Boomer, becoming familiar with the films children loved in the "shock theater" TV days. As interesting is his account of how these films, particularly "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein," extended their influence into adulthood, prompting him to search for films of that era he missed, leading him into fandom, and eventually scholarship.
Frank's latest book has just been released. It's "A Werewolf Remembers: The Testament of Lawrence Stewart Talbot." It's a fascinating pseudo non-fiction "documentary" account of the "Wolf Man's life," and how it interacts with much of the monster genre of almost two generations of films. "A Werewolf Remembers" also contains the the "journal" of Talbot, detailing the many journeys of his existence. Frank introduced the book at the recent Monster Bash.
This is a work only a scholar could weave together. I plan to review it in a few weeks. I was fortunate enough to help proof a draft of the book six months ago. I'm happy to announce its publication on our blog and interview the author. This is a lengthy interview, but it's well worth your time and will whet your appetite for "A Werewolf Remembers."
Readers will be able to purchase "A Werewolf Remembers" very soon (we'll let you know when). It will be at Amazon, as well as the Cult Movies Press website where his other books are available.
In the meantime, enjoy this interview with Frank Dello Stritto, about "A Werewolf Remembers."
-- Doug Gibson
---
Why was Lawrence Talbot the primary individual to focus on? Is it his ubiquity in the films and his relationship to so many aspects of the genre?
DELLO STRITTO: Talbot certainly gets around. He is always
searching, and thus crosses paths with a lot of people. In my book, he meets
everyone seen in his movies, and he meets a lot more.
When I began the book, I did not plan that
Lawrence’s tale would span so many of the horror and monster movies of the
1930s and 1940s, but that’s what happened. When I needed a character to advance
the plot, or an adventure for him to have, I found them ready and waiting for
me in movies, whether Lawrence appeared in them or not. In his movies, the only
werewolf that Lawrence meets is Bela the Gypsy, who infects him. In my book, he
encounters many characters from The
Undying Monster, Return of the
Vampire, Werewolf of London, The Mad Monster, The Cat People, and so on. He even meets Carl Denham. Lawrence is a
real wanderer, and having so many characters cross his path was not hard.
I hope readers will enjoy the challenge of
identifying the movies from where I plucked each character. Some are easy to spot,
some are really hard.
Lawrence befriends the real-life writer Jack
London. I could not resist bringing him into Talbot’s tale. The real London
took the name of his stepfather. His birth father was (probably) an astrologer
named William Chaney. With London’s tie to Talbot (played in his five films by
Lon Chaney), and his apparent fixation on wolves (Call of the Wild, White Fang,
The Sea Wolf), I had to bring him in.
In my book, Talbot meets a few other real-life figures as well.
I can’t say that I was looking for excuses to
bring other movie monsters into Talbot’s story, but when the chance arose, I
jumped on it.
Talbot’s travels are not why he is the center of
the story. Lawrence is a character whose story begs to be told. We know
something about him from his movies, and my book fills in the gaps. From the
films, we know that he is the son of a Welsh aristocrat, and that he left home
at age 13. We know that young Lawrence went to America where he did a lot of
jobs working with his hands. He worked at Mount Wilson Observatory in Southern
California. At age 31, he is summoned home. His older brother has died, and
Lawrence is now heir to the Talbot estate. The first part of my book fleshes
out the life of young Lawrence.
The theme of his life, before and after becoming
a werewolf, is resolving his issues with his father. The doctors from whom he
seeks help are surrogates for his father. But their real goal is to revive
Frankenstein’s Monster, just as Sir John Talbot would bring back his older son
if he could.
What kind of research was necessary, in both studies of the films and the first half of the 20th century, to create both parts of the book, the diary and the historical narration?
DELLO STRITTO: I had to stay consistent with Talbot’s story as
told in his five movies. When he meets a character from the real world, like
Jack London, or from other movies, like Carl Denham, the narrative has to be
consistent with their lives as well. So, I watched the movies a lot, and
studied up on the real world figures to be sure that I got their stories
straight. And from that I got a lot of ideas for the plot.
The big challenge is that I had to place those
stories on a timeline consistent with the real world. Talbot’s last film
appearance, in Abbott & Costello Meet
Frankenstein, was in 1948. So, I anchored his last (known) day on Earth as
February 25, 1948, and worked backed from there. That involved both World Wars,
the Great Depression, and basically all of early 20th Century
history. Sir John Talbot was an astronomer, and I involved him to the hunt to
prove Einstein’s Relativity Theory. The Talbots live in Wales, so I read up on
Welsh history. In The Wolf Man Sir
John mentions a distant ancestor, “Red Talbot,” and so I made him the founder
of the Talbot line. That was important, because in my book, Lawrence’s family
history weighs heavily on him.
As I developed the narrative, I always knew what
the Moon was doing. Fortunately, the dates of the Full Moons going back
centuries are easy to find online. Also, lunar eclipses figure in Talbot’s
tale, and their dates are also pretty easy to find. In my book, when the Moon
is full, or when an eclipse occurs, it occurred in real life.
Of course, some things in the movies are really
hard to reconcile with reality. In Abbott
& Costello Meet Frankenstein, Talbot takes an airplane from
London—after Full Moon sets—and arrives in La Mirada, Florida before the Moon
rises again. Not easy to do now, and all but impossible in 1948. I managed to
explain that in my book, but I can’t blame any readers who say “I don’t think
so.”
I'm intrigued by your explanation for the immortality of Talbot, the Frankenstein Monster, and Dracula. It helps to explain the many deaths and resurrections of these characters. Explain your reasons for making Dracula the supreme evil and the monster a more sympathetic character?
DELLO STRITTO: The Universal monsters—The Wolf Man,
Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, and—though he’s not in my book, The Mummy—are
immortals. Thanks to super science or the supernatural, they are not bound by
the same laws of life and death that we are. But they do go to apparent “deaths”
for long periods until they return to “life.” For my book, I had to have Talbot
go somewhere—which he calls “The Deep Darkness”—and I got a bit creative with
that. I hope readers will be intrigued by those segments of the story when
Talbot is supposedly “dead.”
It is Talbot who makes Dracula the supreme evil.
One of the unexplained elements of Talbot’s tale as told in the movies is his
drive to hunt down and destroy Dracula in Abbott
& Costello Meet Frankenstein. In my book, I give Talbot a personal motive
for hunting Dracula, and the vampire became more and more evil as the story
developed. Another unexplained feature of Talbot’s movies is his return to
lycanthropy after being cured at the end of House
of Dracula. My story ties those loose ends together, but still leaves some
mysteries for the reader to ponder.
I don’t think that I made The Monster more
sympathetic than he is in the films. Dracula and The Wolf Man hunt for victims,
but The Monster rarely acts for any other reason than self-defense. He is a
tragic figure, an outcast, a victim of mad doctors who create and revive him
with no regard for The Monster himself. Before he meets Talbot, he can be a
murderer, particularly in Ghost of
Frankenstein, but with Talbot he is quite a sympathetic figure.
Besides
Universal, of course, other studios' efforts are included. I particularly enjoy
The
Cat People references and think it's great
that even The Alligator People are
included. What was the research process of tying so many films together? Did
you need a solid outline to write this book?
DELLO STRITTO: I needed an outline for the first part of
Talbot’s life, before the movies pick up his tale with The Wolf Man. And I needed an outline for the gap between the end
of House of Dracula and the beginning
of Abbott & Costello Meet
Frankenstein. The outline between those two segments really came from the
plots of The Wolf Man movies, because I had to stay consistent with them.
Once assembled, think of the outline as a
Christmas tree, and then you start hanging the ornaments. That’s the fun part. Talbot
passes through New York City, on the way home to Wales (which is the start of The Wolf Man). So, I have him meet some
characters from The Cat People (which
takes place in New York). Later, Talbot
searches for a doctor to cure his lycanthropy. In the movies, he goes straight
to Dr. Frankenstein (who dies before Talbot reaches him), but I had him go to a
few others first: Lady Jane Ainsley (from Return
of the Vampire) and Dr. Yogami (from Werewolf
of London).
When I bring in those characters, I have to
create lives for them outside of their movies. Since the actress who played
Lady Jane (Frieda Inescort) also played the doctor in The Alligator People (which also stars Lon Chaney), I brought some
of that movie into my story. I do that throughout the book with a lot of
characters and movies.
Personally, who were some of the characters you enjoyed fleshing out beyond their activities in the actual films?
DELLO STRITTO: Almost every character had to be fleshed out
quite a bit, particularly Lawrence’s father, Sir John. But the character who
almost wrote himself was Vollaz Yogami. I gave him that first name, or maybe he
gave it to me. Once I brought in Dr. Yogami, the writing took on a life of its
own. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. It was as if I were not
writing, but taking dictation. I am not a fast writer, but the chapters with
Yogami wrote themselves very quickly.
As a Monster Boomer, do you have satisfaction in creating a narrative that brings the films together and works to solve so many continuity problems?
DELLO STRITTO: Definitely. When I first watched the movies as a
child, any inconsistencies in the plots—and there are plenty—nagged at me. So
did any plot disconnects between movies, and there are a lot of those, too. Of
course, as I developed the plot for my book in detail, I uncovered more (like
Talbot’s flight from London to La Mirada). A lot of these had to do with the
timeline. Keeping the story consistent with the movies, and with a chronology
that made sense was a challenge.
One of the inconsistencies is geography. The
Frankenstein and Wolf Man movies confuse the villages of Frankenstein, Vasaria
and Visaria. I resolved that, I think.
As a kid, I was always trying to resolve the
discrepancies within the movies and between the movies, and it was fun to do it
again in my book.
Do you think the book provides more than just a tale of Lawrence Talbot and his many interconnected experiences? Is there an intention to comment on any issue beyond the monster genre?
DELLO STRITTO: At face value, the book is, I hope, an exciting
tale and a homage to the horror and monster movies of the 1930s and 1940s. The
book’s dedication is “To Second Sons Everywhere, And Their Older Brothers.”
Talbot’s relationship with his father, and his older brother is at the core of
Talbot’s story, and at the core of my book. I expanded on it when I could, and
I tried not to hammer the reader with it. If the book is any more than the tale
it tells, it is how our closest blood relations, dead or alive, are never far
from us. In the book, those relations are all male because in Talbot’s movies
they are all male. I bring plenty of female characters into the story, including
Talbot’s mother, but the basic tale is fathers, sons and brothers.
How will the book be publicized? Do you have another one in mind?
DELLO STRITTO: A Werewolf
Remembers is my fourth book. Whenever I finish one, I always think: that’s
it, I have no more to say. That’s how I feel now, and have no plans to do
another book. Time will tell. Whether or not I write another one may depend on
another mode of writing. My first book (Vampire
Over London – Bela Lugosi in Britain) is non-fiction history. My second one
(A Quaint & Curious Volume of
Forgotten Lore – The Mythology & History of Classic Horror Films) is
analysis and criticism. My third one (I
Saw What I Saw When I Saw It – Growing Up in the 1950s & 1960s with
Television Reruns and Old Movies) is a memoir. And A Werewolf Remembers – The Testament of Lawrence Stewart Talbot is
fiction.
I did not set out to write on the same topic in
different ways, but that’s what happened. I suppose a new mode is what I need
to get the creativity. But I really don’t know—we will see.
Publicizing the book: well, I will go to movie
conferences where the likely readers congregate. I will be getting my website (cultmoviespress.com) overhauled soon. I
will have to become more active and savvy in social media to get the word out.
Honestly, I am not looking forward to that.
W hat's an issue I
missed, something that you'd like readers to know about your book?
DELLO STRITTO: I would like to make the premise of the book
clear.
Lawrence Talbot was last seen on Feburary 25,
1948 when he went off to confront Count Dracula. A few weeks later a steamer
trunk arrived at the apartment house where he had rented a room. The landlord
put it in storage room, and there it stayed for 30 years.
That landlord was my Uncle Joe. When he died,
the trunk passed to me, and in it I found Lawrence Talbot’s journals. I read
them, and thought them the fantasies of a delusional man. Yet, the deeper I
looked into his story, the more it squared with any facts that I could uncover.
So, the book is both Lawrence Talbot’s story,
and my investigations into his claims. It is a journey for me as well as for
him.
--
ONE MORE THING: Enjoy this recent chat with Frank at Plan9Crunch that deals with Bela Lugosi's "Poverty Row" films.
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