Review: Warner Bros. 100 Years of Storytelling

 

Readers of the Plan9Crunch blog may have realized that TCM has of late been showing a lot of Warner Bros. films. It's because the iconic film studio is realizing its centennial.

On May 30, 2023, the volume Warner Bros. 100 Years of Storytelling (2023, Running Press, NYC), will be for sale. Written by Mark A. Viera, it's mostly a compendium of photos and awards Warner Bros. appropriately boasts of each year of the century. Although a Kindle version is available for reading on the go, this 360-page, exhaustively researched tome is at its heart a "coffee-table" book. It's best suited for interested parties to glance at the many illustrations, or for a film buff to sit in his or her easy chair and read a chapter on the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and so on. 

Viera does a good, pithy job recapping the changes and evolving styles of the decades and how the studio reacted to the mores. I particularly liked his essay on the '70s, described as "The Era of the Auteur,." It talks of the young directors, inspired and emboldened to explore through film sexuality, race relations, politics and other controversial issues.

Although it's brief, TCM's Ben Mankiewicz provides an interesting forward in which he discusses being regarded as part of "Hollywood royalty" by virtue of his name. He notes that long ago, beginning in the pre-code era, Warner Bros, explored controversial topics, such as the plight of veterans in the film "Gold Diggers of 1933," and prison conditions in the film "I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang." 

The book is moderately pricey but worth a buy, particularly for film buffs. You can leaf through it for hours, enjoying Viera's recaps, the photos of the films produced, and the Oscars tally sheets for each year.

-- Doug Gibson

Spooks Run Wild -- how the newspapers saw it in 1941

 At Plan9Crunch we've been interested in searching out old newspaper clippings for some of the cult films we love to discuss. The Bela Lugosi Monogram films are a subject of study. We'll be clipping from all the films periodically and we are starting with "Spooks Run Wild." The above clipping is a movie review of the film (favorable) from the Oct. 6, 1941 Los Angeles Times.

Below is an ad for "Spooks Run Wild" as being part of a midnight spook show. It's the film paired with the Asylum of Horrors show, with an in-person Frankenstein monster. It's from the Harvey, Illinois Tribune, of Nov. 27, 1941. Wouldn't it have been cool to see that spook show. 

Below is a previously published review we did of "Spooks Run Wild" by co-blogger Steve D. Stones.

A bus transporting the East Side Kids to a summer camp for the needy arrives in a small town known as Hillside. A radio announcer heard on the bus radio warns of a killer monster on the loose in the town. The bus driver stops to check the tires of the bus. A local magician named Nardo, played by Bela Lugosi, is seen in the Hillside cemetery with his midget side kick, played by Angelo Rossitto. Rossitto also played Lugosi's assistant in The Corpse Vanishes (1942), also a Monogram release.

The East Side Kids find their way to the Hillside cemetery. A local grave digger warns them to leave, shooting Peewee, played by David Gorcey, in the back. The group leaves the cemetery to look for medical aide for Peewee. They soon come across the Billings House, a rundown mansion thought to be haunted, according to Hillside locals.

Nardo The Magician greets the East Side Kids at the entrance of the house and allows them to stay the night, but mentions that the house has no telephone to contact a doctor for Peewee. Scruno, played by Sammy Morrison, and Peewee are assigned to a room together. Peewee awakes in a sleep walker state after sleeping for hours, and roams the halls of the Billings House. Scruno is trapped in the room, but is later rescued by the rest of the group as he refers to Peewee as a Zombie.

It's interesting to note that Lugosi dresses in a cape and wears a suit in this film similar to his 1931 Dracula character. This gives the film great appeal to me. Lugosi's appearance greatly adds to this film, but he does not take himself nearly as seriously in this role as he does playing the evil Nazi henchman in the follow up film of Ghosts On The Loose. Lugosi and Rossitto make for a great pairing, as they did in The Corpse Vanishes (1942).

Above is a newspaper blurb in the Oct. 18, 1941 Bakersfield Californian of "Spooks Run Wild" that includes a photo of East Sides Kids star Leo Gorcey, who was in the film. It was set to play at the Kern theater with "Top Sergeant Mulligan," that included Nat Pendleton, who would later star with Bela in "Scared to Death."

Below that blurb, in the Oct. 21 Californian, is an ad for the above-mentioned double feature, I love noting the start time for the features was 8:30 p.m., the address was 2024 Chester and the phone number was 7-7084.

But look, above. As late as April 3, 1942, Bela and "Spooks Run Wild" was still headlining -- at The Strand theater -- as this blurb from the Sheboygan, Wisc., Press noted. The co-feature to "Spooks Run Wild" was a film called "Mail Train," with Gordon Harker and Phyllis Calvert. 

But the next newspaper ad above is even more interesting. It's from May 7, 1952, in the Axtell, Kan., Standard. It advertises "Spooks Run Wild" as paired with the earlier, bigger-budgeted Lugosi film, "The Invisible Ray," from 1936, that also starred Boris Karloff. It was at the Seneca Theater on Saturday beginning at 11:30 p.m. I that would have been so much fun. It's great to know that 10-plus years later these films were circulating. It's a pity Bela didn't receive a cent from the re-issues.

Just a couple of more newspaper memories. Above is from the Moberly, Mo., Monitor Index edition of July 28, 1942, and it shows a double-Bela night-time horror show with "Spooks Run Wild" and "Black Dragons." Included at the 4th Street theater was the latest newsreel. Finally, below, again from the Bakersfield Californian, May 22, 1942 edition, is a tiny review blurb (probably cribbed from a press packet), for "Spooks Run Wild," which was playing at The Rialto. The co-feature was "The Feminine Touch," that included Rosalind Russell and Don Ameche in the cast. Besides the films, there were cartoons and Chapter 10 of "The Adventures of Captain Marvel" serial.

(Thanks always to my friend David Grudt who helped track down these newspaper clippings)

Frank Dello Stritto talks about Carl Denham's Giant Monsters

Happy end of Halloween Plan9Crunch readers. We have a November treat for you. I interviewed film scholar Frank Dello Stritto on his recently published book, "Carl Denham's Giant Monsters," Cult Movies Press, 2019. It's another of Frank's historical fiction novels in which he guides us through the 20th century, blending with dozens of films, to provide the until-now untold complete life history of Carl Denham, the man who brought King Kong to New York City. Our review is here. It's in the same spirit as Frank's "A Werewolf Remembers," also at Cult Movies Press) in which much more was revealed about Lawrence Talbot and those who passed through his times.

I really enjoyed speaking with Frank, and I appreciate him giving us the time. At the end, he reveals via our blog what his next literary topic will be. Cult Movies Press website is here. Other books by Frank from Cult Movies Press include a collection of essays, "A Quaint and Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore," his memoir, "I Saw What I Saw When I Saw It ...," and "Vampire Over London: Bela Lugosi in Britain," which he co-authored with Andi Brooks, who runs the valuable Bela Lugosi blog.

-- Doug Gibson

You obviously have great affection for the 1933 film, King Kong. How did that film impact your decision to write the book?

Dello Stritto: I first saw King Kong on television in March 1956. I was just short of my sixth birthday. My family (parents and my brother) and I sat around our little television (in 1956, all televisions were small), and watched it on Million Dollar Movie. A magical night that I still remember. Since then King Kong has ranked among my favorite movies.

In my fiction built around old horror and monster movies, I look for a central character who has appeared in more than one film. I can construct a saga around them, which becomes the focus of the book. For my first fiction book (A Werewolf Remembers), I chose Lawrence Talbot (i.e., The Wolf Man), who appears in five Universal movies.

Carl Denham only appeared in two movies (King Kong and Son of Kong), but those gave me plenty to work with.

Incidentally, I think of my two novels as historical fiction—completely consistent with the world in the movies and the real world we live in. Not easy to reconcile the two worlds, but I am able to pull that off well enough.

How did you go about selecting films, their characters, and news events that Carl Denham would play a role in the book?

Dello Stritto: The one-word answer is “Apes.” Of course, King Kong and Son of Kong had to be the core of the story since they are the only two films in which Carl Denham appears. Before and after Kong, I wanted him to meet every famous ape or ape man in the movies. So, I had to work into Denham’s adventures Tarzan (Denham meets Jane, but only sees Tarzan from a distance), Mighty Joe Young (1949, whose protagonist, Max O’Hara is a caricature of Denham), and Africa Screams, which could have been titled “Abbott & Costello Meet King Kong.” Konga (1961) also figures in the story, but Denham only hears about that when one of its characters visits him.

Denham, in the time frame of my book, is a grumpy old man, and having him tell of his adventure Abbott & Costello brings in a little comic relief. I hope that works.

I also wanted to have Denham involved in the Kong-inspired movies—quests to unknown places that uncover monsters. So, I managed to work him into The Lost World (1925, which inspired Kong), Unknown Island (1948), and Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). I have always been a big fan of Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas (1957), and I put Denham on that expedition.

I must point out, that except for Denham’s presence on these expeditions—and he is always somewhat in the background—the narrative of the book is completely consistent with the plots of the movies.

With all that, I had some gaps to fill in the narrative. So, Denham crosses paths with a procession of monster makers, from Dr. Moreau (from 1932’s Island of Lost Souls) to John Hammond (from Jurassic Park, 1993). One of the secret pleasures in my approach to my novels is that whenever I need characters, I don’t have to invent them. I pluck them from movies. For example, Denham is on a few different ships in my book, and I use sea captains in films.

As for the historical events, I was stuck with World War II, which could not be ignored. I don’t spend too many pages on that. Having Denham on Teddy Roosevelt’s 1914 expedition to the Amazon was a good entry to South America (which Denham visits later for his Lost World and Black Lagoon adventures). Of course, in America, dealing with apes and ape men sooner or later brings in the Scopes Monkey Trials. So, I sent Denham to Dayton, Tennessee for July 1925.

You are very familiar with the setting of the book, where Denham relates his life adventures. Is it as remote as it seems in the book? Would a man running away from the consequences of his past still find an escape hatch there?

Dello Stritto: The setting of the book is Indonesia in the early 1970s, when Carl Denham would have been about 80 years old. My wife and I lived in Jakarta for three years, 2007 to 2010. I do not know exactly how it was in the 1970s, but Indonesia is a great place to escape from the rest of the world. We saw plenty of westerners—Europeans and Americans—who had done just that. As far as I know, they were not escaping the law, like Denham (after Kong’s rampage through New York, Denham was buried in lawsuits and indictments, and that was the springboard for Son of Kong), but westerners who for whatever reason were far happier there than in their home countries.

Because we lived in Jakarta, I could put a lot of detail in the book about day-to-day life there. To get away from bustling Jakarta, we would go to a small island resort when we could. The bungalows there are pretty modest, and getting there was not easy. Depending on the traffic on a particular day, we had to take two or three water taxis to different islands, with waits in between, to reach it. Well, on the north end of the small island was a really fine, large house. I never found out who lived there. I thought it might be the type of place Denham would settle in after he escaped Skull Island (at the end of Son of Kong) with his pockets full of diamonds. So that’s where I put him in my book.

The parts of South American explorations, the plateau with lost creatures, make fascinating reading. Besides the 1925 and 1960 movies, there’s even a bad David Hewitt film from the 1960s, The Mighty Gorga, that explores it. Since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about it, so many films have been made about the topic. What is it about a plateau full of prehistoric creatures preserved today that captures imaginations of readers or viewers?

Dello Stritto: Think back on some of the stories that first fascinated you as a child. I would bet that a lot of them take you to mythical lands—Oz, Wonderland, Toyland, Krypton. Those places where “the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true” have a lasting allure. Their dark sides are places like Skull Island or the Lost Plateau—or Transylvania—where monsters rule. Add to that the lore of a hidden, foreboding past, and a quest of some kind, and the story is irresistible.

I mentioned how much my first viewing of King Kong meant to me. Of course, I remember from that night all the iconic scenes of Kong battling monsters, and rampaging through the village and then Manhattan. But one less-fantastic scene sticks with me. I still remember the chill that it sent through me. Early in the film is a foggy night as the S. S. Venture first nears Skull Island. Denham and company can’t see a thing. They only know that the water is becoming shallower. Then they hear waves breaking on a shore, and know that they must be near land. Suddenly, Driscoll (the first mate) says “Those aren’t breakers. They’re drums!”

Wow—it hit me that somewhere, in the middle of nowhere, was an unknown world. That’s when I first got hooked on the movie.

As a retired journalist, I particularly enjoy the portion about the Scopes Trial and the sections where persistent reporters stalk sources to get the stories they need, ethics be damned. Did you research journalism in the 1920s and 1930s, or did you rely a lot on film portrayals that included great actors such as Lee Tracy?

Dello Stritto: Well, I am flattered that you wonder if I did research on journalism. No—other than my high school newspaper, I have no experience in journalism. For my book, I didn’t need it. Plenty of newspapermen from old movies to import into my story. The two reporters who become Denham’s sidekicks at the Scopes Trial are characters played by Lee Tracy (in Dr.X, 1932), and Ted Healey (in Mad Love, 1935). All their antics in uncovering stories are adopted in my book, and even some of their dialogue. One of the delights of 1930s movies is the many portrayals of overbearing, ruthless reporters. And I didn’t forget the women reporters. Glenda Farrell played an aggressive reporter in Mystery of the Wax Museum, and then did a series of movies as brassy, sassy Torchy Blane, “the bloodhound with a nose for news.” After Kong’s night on the town, Denham is stormed by the press, and Glenda Farrell characters lead the charge.

What inspired you to create a bonding friendship between Denham and Steve Martin?

Dello Stritto: Who are the most famous giant monsters in the movies? King Kong and Godzilla. Steve Martin is as close as Godzilla comes to having a Denham. Plus, I really admire Raymond Burr’s portrayal. I think it is largely overlooked, and sometimes even criticized—because, supposedly, the Americanized Godzilla, King of the Monsters! corrupts the Japanese original, Gojira. That’s a discussion for another time (though I wrote an article on that for Monster Bash magazine).

So, I always intended to have Godzilla come into Denham’s story, but sending Denham to Tokyo to see the monster didn’t work. I am speaking here of the original Godzilla in the 1954 (Japan) and 1956 (Americanized) movies. I do not have much regard for the later ones.

And I needed an ending for my book. I won’t spoil it here, but Steve Martin figures in that, and I was glad to be able to use him. Like I said, I really admire Raymond Burr’s performance.  

My favorite parts of this and A Werewolf Remembers are moving the plot through so many movies. My son and I tagged some of the films involved and watched them. It’s great to see a minor film such as Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla be included. Does your personal affection for actors, such as Lugosi, and say, Lou Costello, impact the films you choose?

Dello Stritto: Well, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla is certainly a minor film, but Dr. Zabor (Lugosi) really fit what I needed well. But my personal affectation for Lugosi certainly came into play, and I probably would have brought him into it anyway. Not hard to do, since a few of Lugosi’s mad doctors dabble in changing apes to man and vice versa. George Zucco’s and John’s Carradine’s mad doctors do, too. They are in the story as well. Not so for Boris Karloff, but he did have an adventure on a remote Pacific Island (Voodoo Island), so I used him as well.

Lugosi and Lou Costello (for whom I also have great affection) had to be in A Werewolf Remembers since their characters not only meet Lawrence Talbot, but are key to his story.  And Costello did meet a giant gorilla in Africa Screams, so he had to be in Carl Denham’s Giant Monsters.

Are you thinking of another book along these lines?

Dello Stritto: Yes, and I will “spill” it here. The book is tentatively titled The Passion of the Mummy, and that mummy is Kharis. He meets the criteria—he appears in four movies, and has a saga. I have mentioned it to a few people, and most assume that I am telling of his life in ancient Egypt. Not so. Ancient Egypt figures in the story, but it all takes place in the 20^th Century. As you know, in some sense I am in my earlier novels. In A Werewolf Remembers, I find the lost diaries of Lawrence Talbot. In Carl Denham’s Giant Monsters, I stumble on an aged Denham on an Indonesia island. I will be in the mummy book, too, but in a different way. I hope my approach works well. I am targeting a premiere at the June 2021 Monster Bash.

Lugosi is already in the story. Will Lou Costello get in via Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy? Too soon to tell.

'Carl Denham's Giant Monsters' a superb account of genre 'history'

A couple of years ago, author and scholar Frank Dello Stritto penned the "history" of the ill-fated "wolfman." It was titled "A Werewolf Remembers: The Testament of Lawrence Stewart Talbot." It weaved Talbot's life through half a century of history, connecting him through several scores of films and film characters. It was a unique, scholarly page-turner capable of seducing readers through the darkest hours of the night.

Dello Stritto has written a new, also fascinating and engrossing book along the same structure, taking an iconic character of film and weaving his life throughout the history of his times and the genre films that populated his "life." "Carl Denham's Giant Monsters" (Cult Movies Press, 2019), shares with readers the full "life" that Denham enjoyed and endured, long before his adventures with King Kong and Son of Kong left him an elusive target of bounty hunters and vengeful friends and family of Kong's victims. (Note: I helped edit this book pre-publication).

The book is set in Indonesia, early 1970s, where author Dello Stritto and his wife Linda, live. Frank works there.  On a visit to one of the smaller islands, Kotok, the couple encounter a white, elderly man who lives in a home with faithful servants. It turns out to be the reclusive Carl Denham, whiling away his life, now bereft of visits from former colleagues save one, and eager to relate the adventures of his life to appreciative listeners.

Every couple of weeks or so, Frank and Linda, or Frank by himself, spend hours listening to Denham relate the many adventures of his long life. The book combines, history, film, and a cascade of cinema and historical figures. They all orbit at some time around the man Carl Denham and it's a lot of fun to read the adventures of Denham and his film genre contemporaries.

As he relates to Frank and Linda, Denham was part of Teddy Roosevelt's expeditions to South America. Later he's among the explorers who finally conquer the plateau of the Lost World and later take "Gertie" for an ill-fated trip to London. For a while, Denham becomes a journalist, and covers the Scopes trial. Another adventure: he even gets close enough to Tarzan to witness his decibel-shattering yell.

King Kong is described in vivid detail, from the casting of Ann Darrow, the voyage, Skull Island, the return to New York City and the deadly chaos and tragedy. It sets Denham on a lifetime of exile, trying to stay the adventurer, but now also the hunted, always on the watch to keep his freedom.

So many films provide background and interaction with characters. Just a few are Island of Lost Souls, Son of Kong, Mighty Joe Young, Africa Screams, Return of the Ape Man, Godzilla, Creature From the Black Lagoon. ... Either Denham is involved in the actual explorations or the characters run into him across the world, or visit him on his small island.

Dello Stritto is a well-known scholar/fan of Bela Lugosi and readers will appreciate the respect he provides some of Lugosi's poverty-row outings. Examples include scientists Lorenz Dexter of Return of the Ape Man, and Alexi Zabor, of Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla.

There is a poignancy in the tales Denham relates. He regrets the lust for publicity and money that drove him to take Kong to civilization, and the creature's death. Forty years later, he still assails himself.. He's had a hard life. He spends time in a  Japanese prisoner of war camp on the island for years. He had love, and lost it, with the young lady, Hilda Peterson, whom he took to Skull Island to meet Kong's son.

This book is an essential for genre fans. But more casual fans will enjoy it too, as well as history buffs. Dello Stritto pens a confident, detailed tale. The friendship between the couple and Denham is believable, the passages where they interact on the island well described. The author knows his subjects, films and history.

At the end of the tale, Denham, along with one of his few remaining contemporaries, embarks on a final adventure. I'll leave it to the reader to discover the identity of his companion.

'John Carradine: The Films' captures the diversity of the poverty row 'bard'

By Doug Gibson

There is a anecdote, in "John Carradine, The Films," that perfectly sums up the helter-skelter career -- and life -- of the late actor John Carradine, a man who would take virtually any role, so long as the check would cash. As producer-actor Tony Cardoza relates to author Tom Weaver, he and his associate, Coleman Francis, were traveling down the Hollywood Freeway when they noticed Carradine, in a convertible sports car. Coleman, spotting an opportunity, yelled for Carradine's attention, asking him if he'd discuss acting in a movie they were going to shoot.

Carradine suggested they pull over and go to a diner. At the restaurant, a deal -- for $600 advance money -- was hatched and Carradine subsequently had a small part in "Night Train to Mundo Fine," a hideously bad film that bored the few who saw it then, and later was played for laughs on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Incredibly, for what I'm sure was a few hundred dollars more, Carradine warbled the film's title song. That placed him in the same schlock legendary status as fellow horror actor, Lon Chaney Jr., who sang the theme song to "Spider Baby." (a much better film)

The year "Night Train ...." was released, Carradine also acted in "Munster Go Home," for big studio Universal, "Billy the Kid Versus Dracula," for a tiny studio, and in "The Emperor's New Clothes," an early Bob Clark film shot in Florida that appears to be lost.

But that was a typical year for Carradine, always short of money, grabbing a few thousand wherever he could but still popular enough to to get cast in the occasional big-studio film. "John Carradine, The Films," from McFarland Press, was published more than a decade ago but it remains the definitive work on the melodramatic hard-drinking thespian who traversed through Hollywood, and many other shooting locations, for almost 60 years. Weaver's book is fantastic, a true labor of love, since the odds are probably slim he's made a lot of money off this extensive research. He provides magazine-quality features and recaps of Carradine's hundreds of films. And he's enough of a sleuth to ferret out information on Carradine's most obscure films, the cheapo westerns ("Cain's Cutthroats," "Five Bloody Graves" ...) that are poor imitations of "The Wild Bunch", the south-of-the-border Mexican thrillers --  including a yet-to-be-marked cult classic with Basil Rathbone -- that have yet to be dubbed into English, and not-released, or plain lost crap, such as "... Emperor's New Clothes."

Carradine merits this attention from Weaver, as well as tribute essays from contributors Joe Dante and Fred Olen Ray, both directors who worked with Carradine, who never retiring, died in 1988 at age 82. Despite the poor quality of many of his films, Carradine's participation, however slight, marks them as films worthy of note. Virtually every director, or other film crew member, that Weaver managed to contact offers only praise for Carradine, his work ethic, as well as his candor, and even bluntness. The elderly actor, battling crippling arthritis and trying to keep a fee of $1,000 a day from the cheap-set independents that always sought him out, would carefully learn his lines, deliver them well, and then leave the film, unaware of the entire plot and likely never seeing the completed film.

As many interviewees relate, while on the set, Carradine would regale actors and crew members with anecdotes and tales of his half-century of experiences as a prominent actor. "Great stories told by a master raconteur," is how Dante put it. Dante, by the way, directed one of the better late films that Carradine acted in, "The Howling." Another great story collected in Weaver's book is how Carradine, spending a few days on the set of "Shock Waves," a slightly above-average 1970s horror tale about zombie Nazis, put himself in danger by allowing five shots of his "dead body" in the ocean to be filmed in a pool. On the fifth take, as Fred Olen Ray relates, Carradine's head collided with a wooden dinghy strategically placed over his body. He was quickly rescued, and Carradine, about 70 at the time, collected his $8,000 check and was off to a new film. One can only repeat -- what a trouper. Years later, Olen Ray noted that Carradine claimed no remembrance of the film.

As the reader may have guessed by now, I find Carradine's later acting years more fascinating. There were fewer big-budget films -- two exceptions were "The Shootist" and "Peggy Sue Got Married" -- but the countless films, with titles such as "Horror of the Blood Monsters" or "Vampire Hookers" or Hillbillys in a Haunted House" or "Crowhaven Farm," or "Doctor Dracula" ... and so on, the recaps and memories paint a fascinating portrait of a hard-driven old actor, alone despite his several marriages and well-known actor sons, indefatigably pressing forward, knowing he alone had the power to earn the money needed to pay alimony, feed his body, quench his alcoholic thirst, and find warm places to sleep.

Carradine's acting career began in earnest in 1930, when he lodged a small part in the sound remake of the silent classic "Tolable David." He claims he was tested by Universal for the Frankenstein monster role. Carradine's salad days in Hollywwod were the late 1930s and early 1940s, when he was a contract player for 20th Century Fox. He was in "Stagecoach," "Cleopatra," several well-regarded films about the James boys, played Mormon enforcer Porter Rockwell in the big-budget "Brigham Young," and is perhaps best known for his role as the radical, irascible preacher in the classic "The Grapes of Wrath."

One gets the impression that Carradine would have shucked his career in films on a moment's notice if he could have made it big on the stage. He tried, particularly with his second wife, actress Sonia Sorel, to start acting companies. The legends of Carradine, usually in his cups, quoting Shakespeare on Hollywood streets are true. However, there never was enough money to leave films, and money became more scarce after he was dropped as a contract player. One of his best films, however, "Bluebeard," was filmed at ultra-cheap PRC studios in the mid-1940s. It helped that the director was the great Edgar Ulmer, a friend who was also on the outs with the big studios.

Factor in an ugly divorce, an unwise second marriage, constant carousing with the bottle, and alimony and support problems that led to infrequent jail stays, and Carradine's final 40-plus years were basically a sprint of frequent films that were the means to stay ahead, however precariously, of the many bills he was faced with. In the mid-1940s, Universal flirted with Carradine, using him as Dracula in two monster-fests, but the horror craze died at that time. As mentioned, Carradine would take just about any role offered. In two films, "Voodoo Man" and "The Black Sleep," he's almost hilariously cast against type, playing a moron in the first and a mutated, insane theologian in the latter. No role was too offbeat for this character actor.

As Weaver relates, Carradine's career was so significant because some of his performances are iconic. He can be the eccentric preacher, later mixing this persona with a western bounty hunter role. He was Dracula, with an interpretation that is still debated against Bela Lugosi's. He was a mad scientist in several productions -- usually with Jerry Warren and other cheapo producers -- with the fill-in movie role of narrator/scientist, usually spouting scientific babble to pad up chopped-up older films.

Film historian Gregory Mank provides a 50-plus page small biography of Carradine. It's fascinating, with much of its focus on the actor's dysfunctional personal life, his wives and his relationship with his children. The biography, as well as Weaver's research, leaves many questions about Carradine's relationships with his wives, his sons, as well as his agents. In fact, as good as Weaver's book is, and it is a must-read for film fans, it underscores the need for a serious, in-depth scholarly biography of John Carradine. He needs what Bela Lugosi has -- a biographer with the writing talents of an Arthur Lennig, Robert Cremer, Gary Rhodes, or Frank Dello Stritto, to probe his interesting life.

End Notes: According to Weaver, Carradine liked to call "Billy the Kid Versus Dracula" his worst film. It wasn't. My guess is he was struck by the ridiculous title, and plot. In later years, Carradine was fond of telling people that he had long forgot about some of the films he had been in. No doubt most of those were of the level of his Al Adamson, Jerry Warren films. Late in his career/life, director Olen Ray took advantage of a day shooting Carradine to film scenes that were intended for several films. As a result, some of Carradine's "films" were released after his death. Some of my favorite Carradine films, besides "Grapes of Wrath" and "Bluebird," are "The Unearthly," for his mad scientist role, "Billy the Kid Versus Dracula," for his sheer hamminess, "The Wizard of Mars,' for its sheer lunacy and Carradine as the "Wizard," and "Cain's Cutthroats," an otherwise nasty low-budget revenge western where Carradine tears up the scenery as a Bible-quoting preacher/bounty hunter who collects his criminals heads as evidence he got them. I respect Weaver a lot and appreciate his work in film history and criticism. If I have one minor quibble with him, it's that Weaver often looks at cult films and/or low-budget films with a conventional critic's eye. As my co-blogger Steve D. Stones says, many of these films are malformed little puppies with a curious charm that one needs to watch often enough to love. The harsh criticism of a good Universal film, "House of Dracula," is a tad disconcerting, and even the grime heaped on a films such as "The Wizard of Mars" seems unfair. After all, Carradine is dealing with American General Films here, one step below even PRC and Banner Films of the 1940s. I recall something I once read in the now-defunct Cult Movies magazine, where Lugosi's Monogram efforts were compared to "Michelangelo working with a crayon." With that mindset, the films can become very rewarding and the same applies to Carradine, even if he's Dracula battling Billy the Kid.