The Flickr Jameswhale Image Generatr

British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P. 11. Mae Clarke and Kent Douglass a.k.a. Douglass Montgomery in Waterloo Bridge (James Whale, 1931).

Vivacious, blonde Mae Clarke (1910-1992) scored a big hit as the prostitute with a heart of gold who meets an inglorious end in The Front Page (1931). She made three films with director James Whale for Universal, Waterloo Bridge (1931), the Horror classic Frankenstein (1931), in which she played Colin Clive's terrified bride, and Impatient Maiden (1932). On a loan out to Warner Brothers, she was put in a scene that would make her immortal when James Cagney smashed a half grapefruit in her face in Public Enemy (1931). Only a few years later, she was increasingly cast in productions with lower budgets that lacked the status of her earlier films.

Mae Clarke was born Violet Mary Klotz in 1910 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She was exposed to cinema from an early age. Her father was an organist in a cinema. Growing up in Atlantic City, New Jersey, she learned how to dance. At the tender age of 13, she was already performing in nightclubs and amateur theatricals. In 1924, she was one of ‘May Dawson's Dancing Girls’, a New York cabaret act. There producer Earl Lindsay discovered her. He promptly cast her in a minor part at the Strand Theatre on Times Square. She then performed as a dancer and burlesque artist at the Strand Roof nightclub, situated above the theatre which was managed by Lindsay and at the Everglades Club, earning $40 a week. While there she struck up a lifelong friendship with fellow actress Ruby Stevens, who would later change her name to Barbara Stanwyck. In 1926, Clarke got her first chance in ‘legitimate’ theatre, appearing in the drama ‘The Noose’ with Stanwyck and Ed Wynn. This was followed by the musical comedy ‘Manhattan Mary’ (1927). In 1928, at age 17, she married her first husband, Lew Brice, brother of Fanny Brice. They divorced in 1930. After further Vaudeville experience, Clarke was screen-tested by Fox and landed her first film role in the drama Big Time (Kenneth Hawks, 1929) opposite Lee Tracy. While she was top-billed in films like Nix on Dames (Donald Gallaher, 1929), she was headed for B-movie status and left Fox just over a year later. This resulted in better roles for her, though she was generally cast in ‘hard-luck’ roles.

1931 would be a banner year for Mae Clarke. She played prostitute Molly Malloy in the hugely successful The Front Page (Lewis Milestone, 1931) starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O’Brien. On the strength of this performance, she was signed by Carl Laemmle Jr. at Universal. She starred in Waterloo Bridge (James Whale, 1931) as a young American dancer who is forced by circumstance into a life of prostitution in World War I London. Both the film and Clarke's performance were well-received by the critics. Reviewer Mordaunt Hall described Clarke's complex performance in The New York Times as "capital". Years later, the film sadly disappeared in the vaults of MGM when Vivien Leigh starred in the sanitized MGM remake, Waterloo Bridge (Mervyn Le Roy, 1940). She was third-billed in James Whale's classic horror film Frankenstein (1931). Mae played the role of Henry Frankenstein's fiancée, Elizabeth, who was abducted by the Monster (Boris Karloff) on her wedding day. Her best moment in the film - one of sheer terror - comes when she is confronted by the Monster in her bedroom. Also in 1931, she had the brief but iconic role for which she will always be known as the gangster’s girlfriend in The Public Enemy (William A. Wellman, 1931). James Cagney pushes a half grapefruit into Mae's face, then goes out to pick up Jean Harlow. She later appeared with Cagney (a close friend in real life) in still more adversarial scenes, in Lady Killer (Roy Del Ruth, 1933) and Great Guy (John G. Blystone, 1936). She also had some feisty comedy roles in Three Wise Girls (William Beaudine, 1931) with Jean Harlow, and Parole Girl (Edward F. Cline, 1933).

Sadly, Mae Clarke's career suffered several major setbacks, beginning in 1932, from which it never fully recovered. She had a nervous breakdown in June of that year and a horrifying stay at a mental institute for a few months. In March of 1933, she and actor Phillips Holmes were in a serious car accident that left Clarke with a broken jaw and facial scarring. In 1934, she had another nervous breakdown, most likely caused by overwork and marital problems. In addition to that, her sexy screen personae became restricted by the new, strict Hollywood Production Code. When she returned to the screen it was to be in B-pictures. She had some rewarding parts in some films for Republic, notably The House of a Thousand Candles (Arthur Lubin, 1936) alongside Pillips Holmes, and the Civil War romance Hearts in Bondage (Lew Ayres, 1936), with Lew Ayres. Despite an image change from frizzy blonde to brunette, she had few opportunities to shine after 1938, except, perhaps, as the heroine of the Republic serial King of the Rocket Men (Fred C. Brannon, 1949). By the beginning of the 1950s, she was largely reduced to doing cameos and walk-on roles. At best, she played minor parts in Westerns and the classic melodrama Magnificent Obsession (Douglas Sirk, 1954) with Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson. She did make notable appearances on television, including General Hospital, Perry Mason and Batman. Her last film appearance was in Watermelon Man (Melvin Van Peebles, 1970). Clarke fell on hard financial times towards the end of her life. In her 70s she worked in the ‘Court of Miracles’ show at the Universal Studios Tour in Hollywood. Clarke retired to the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles. She devoted her remaining years to her favourite hobby: painting in the style of Swiss abstract artist Paul Klee. Clarke was married and divorced three times: to Lew Brice, Stevens Bancroft, and Herbert Langdon. All of the unions ended in a divorce and were childless. Mae Clarke died in the Motion Picture & Television Hospital of cancer in 1992, aged 81. She is interred at Pierce Brothers Valhalla Memorial Park, North Hollywood, California. Very rye and very honest, Clarke gave lengthy interviews in her last years to biographer James Curtis that resulted in the autobiography ‘Featured Player,’ which came out shortly after her death.

Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Danny (Pre-code.com), Find A Grave, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

"Our mad dream is only half realized. Alone, you have created the man. Now, together, we will create - his mate."
"You mean?"
"Yes, a woman. That should be really interesting."

('Bride of Frankenstein' by NECA)

Diorama by RK

German postcard by Edition Tushita, Cinemania, no. B806. Repro of German poster for the Universal International film Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Frankenstein (1931) is an iconic American Horror film directed by James Whale and produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal. Whale based the story on the 1927 play written by Peggy Webling based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'. For Boris Karloff, his role as the monster was a breakthrough. The film became a huge success and received several sequels. In 1991, it was listed on the National Film Registry.

Vintage postcard by Edition Hugo, Movie Collection, no. 810. American poster by Universal for Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Frankenstein (1931) is an iconic American Horror film directed by James Whale and produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal. Whale based the story on the 1927 play written by Peggy Webling based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'. For Boris Karloff, his role as the monster was a breakthrough. The film became a huge success and received several sequels. In 1991, it was listed on the National Film Registry.

For Frankenstein (1931), the Peggy Webling play was adapted by John L. Balderston and the screenplay was written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort, with uncredited contributions from Robert Florey and John Russell. In a village in the Bavarian Alps, Dr Henry Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein in the novel) (played by Colin Clive) is a brilliant scientist possessed by the idea of reviving dead tissue. To carry out his experiments, he goes out at night to dig up corpses along with his hunchback servant Fritz (Dwight Frye). But instead of providing him with a healthy brain, Fritz gives him the brain of a murderer. Henry is about to marry his fiancée Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) to inherit his father's estate, but he increasingly loses sight of reality and becomes completely absorbed by his experiments. One stormy night, his greatest life wish is fulfilled when he uses lightning to revive his creation, a man made entirely of parts from corpses. The creature (Boris Karloff), often known as Frankenstein's monster, seems simple and harmless at first, meekly doing whatever Frankenstein commands, but soon Henry and Fritz begin to suspect that the creature could be dangerous and lock him in the cellar. Their fears prove well-founded when the monster breaks out and kills Fritz. Henry realises his mistake and, helped by his old teacher Dr Waldman, sets out to eliminate the monster with a lethal injection. They manage to administer the monster the injection, but it only renders the monster unconscious. As Henry goes to his wedding, the monster reawakens and kills Waldman. It then escapes from the castle. After some wandering, it meets a farmer's daughter who is not afraid of it, but in his ignorance, he throws her into the water and she drowns.

In 1930, Universal Studios had lost $2.2 million in revenues. Within 48 hours of its opening at New York's Roxy Theatre on 12 February 1931, Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) starring Béla Lugosi had sold 50,000 tickets, building a momentum that culminated in a $700,000 profit, the largest of Universal's 1931 releases. As a result, the head of production, Carl Laemmle Jr., announced immediate plans for more horror films. Frankenstein (1931) was initially to be directed by Robert Florey. Following his acclaimed role as Count Dracula, Béla Lugosi was Florey's first choice for the role of Dr Frankenstein. However, when he proved unsuitable for the role, he was offered to play the monster instead so that Universal could at least include his name on the film poster. Robert Florey shot two test reels with Lugosi in the role of the monster. Reportedly, these reels were disappointing. Universal then took Florey and Lugosi off the project. They were given the Murders in the Rue Morgue film, as a consolation. Lugosi would still play the monster years later in the film Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill, 1943). After Florey's departure, the newly arrived British director James Whale took over and later cast Colin Clive and Boris Karloff. He had the screenplay rewritten to give the monster more character. Jack Pierce came up with the familiar look for the monster. Pierce was inspired by brain operations when surgeons cut off the top of the skull. He flattened the top of the skull and added staples. Pierce covered Karloff's hair with a skullcap. He drew a square skull and forehead using cotton soaked in collodion. The actor felt that his eyes were still too bright and Pierce made wax eyelids. Kenneth Strickfaden was responsible for the special effects surrounding the monster's creation, especially the electricity. Boris Karloff reportedly feared being burnt by the electricity in the scene. The effects were so successful that they became an essential part of every subsequent Universal film involving Frankenstein's Monster. Accordingly, the equipment used to produce them has come to be referred to in fan circles as "Strickfadens". It appears that Strickfaden managed to secure the use of at least one Tesla Coil (transformer) built by inventor Nikola Tesla himself.

Frankenstein (1931) was produced with an estimated budget of $291,000. The film was a sensation. A scene in which the monster throws a girl into the water, accidentally drowning her, was long considered too controversial. In the states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, among others, the second part of this scene was cut. Cinemas in the state of Kansas wanted a total of 32 scenes removed from the film before they were willing to show it. If they had been removed, would have cut half of the film. Frankenstein (1931) introduced several elements not found in the original book, but today closely associated with Frankenstein and his monster: Frankenstein's laboratory, the idea that Frankenstein steals the body parts for his creation from graves at night, the idea that Frankenstein uses lightning to bring his creation to life, the idea that Frankenstein would have an assistant, still called Fritz in this film but named Igor in many later films and series, Frankenstein's cry of joy "It's alive!" when the monster is successfully brought to life and the idea of an angry mob eventually armed with torches hunt down the monster. Frankenstein was well-received by critics. The New York Times film critic Mordaunt Hall said that the film "aroused so much excitement at the Mayfair yesterday that many in the audience laughed to cover their true feelings. [T]here is no denying that it is far and away the most effective thing of its kind. Beside it Dracula is tame and, incidentally, Dracula was produced by the same firm". People flocked to the cinema and the box office receipts amounted to $5,000,000. It was one of the biggest box office hits of the 1931-1932 period, proving to Universal Pictures executives that there was an audience for Horror films. The film had a significant impact on popular culture. The imagery of a maniacal "mad" scientist with a subservient hunchbacked assistant and the film's depiction of Frankenstein's monster has since become iconic. In 1991, the United States Library of Congress selected Frankenstein (1931) for preservation in the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, French and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Vintage postcard by Edition Hugo, Movie Collection, no. 801. Spanish poster for Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Frankenstein (1931) is an iconic American Horror film directed by James Whale and produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal. Whale based the story on the 1927 play written by Peggy Webling based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'. For Boris Karloff, his role as the monster was a breakthrough. The film became a huge success and received several sequels. In 1991, it was listed on the National Film Registry.

For Frankenstein (1931), the Peggy Webling play was adapted by John L. Balderston and the screenplay was written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort, with uncredited contributions from Robert Florey and John Russell. In a village in the Bavarian Alps, Dr Henry Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein in the novel) (played by Colin Clive) is a brilliant scientist possessed by the idea of reviving dead tissue. To carry out his experiments, he goes out at night to dig up corpses along with his hunchback servant Fritz (Dwight Frye). But instead of providing him with a healthy brain, Fritz gives him the brain of a murderer. Henry is about to marry his fiancée Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) to inherit his father's estate, but he increasingly loses sight of reality and becomes completely absorbed by his experiments. One stormy night, his greatest life wish is fulfilled when he uses lightning to revive his creation, a man made entirely of parts from corpses. The creature (Boris Karloff), often known as Frankenstein's monster, seems simple and harmless at first, meekly doing whatever Frankenstein commands, but soon Henry and Fritz begin to suspect that the creature could be dangerous and lock him in the cellar. Their fears prove well-founded when the monster breaks out and kills Fritz. Henry realises his mistake and, helped by his old teacher Dr Waldman, sets out to eliminate the monster with a lethal injection. They manage to administer the monster the injection, but it only renders the monster unconscious. As Henry goes to his wedding, the monster reawakens and kills Waldman. It then escapes from the castle. After some wandering, it meets a farmer's daughter who is not afraid of it, but in his ignorance, he throws her into the water and she drowns.

In 1930, Universal Studios had lost $2.2 million in revenues. Within 48 hours of its opening at New York's Roxy Theatre on 12 February 1931, Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) starring Béla Lugosi had sold 50,000 tickets, building a momentum that culminated in a $700,000 profit, the largest of Universal's 1931 releases. As a result, the head of production, Carl Laemmle Jr., announced immediate plans for more horror films. Frankenstein (1931) was initially to be directed by Robert Florey. Following his acclaimed role as Count Dracula, Béla Lugosi was Florey's first choice for the role of Dr Frankenstein. However, when he proved unsuitable for the role, he was offered to play the monster instead so that Universal could at least include his name on the film poster. Robert Florey shot two test reels with Lugosi in the role of the monster. Reportedly, these reels were disappointing. Universal then took Florey and Lugosi off the project. They were given the Murders in the Rue Morgue film, as a consolation. Lugosi would still play the monster years later in the film Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill, 1943). After Florey's departure, the newly arrived British director James Whale took over and later cast Colin Clive and Boris Karloff. He had the screenplay rewritten to give the monster more character. Jack Pierce came up with the familiar look for the monster. Pierce was inspired by brain operations when surgeons cut off the top of the skull. He flattened the top of the skull and added staples. Pierce covered Karloff's hair with a skullcap. He drew a square skull and forehead using cotton soaked in collodion. The actor felt that his eyes were still too bright and Pierce made wax eyelids. Kenneth Strickfaden was responsible for the special effects surrounding the monster's creation, especially the electricity. Boris Karloff reportedly feared being burnt by the electricity in the scene. The effects were so successful that they became an essential part of every subsequent Universal film involving Frankenstein's Monster. Accordingly, the equipment used to produce them has come to be referred to in fan circles as "Strickfadens". It appears that Strickfaden managed to secure the use of at least one Tesla Coil (transformer) built by inventor Nikola Tesla himself.

Frankenstein (1931) was produced with an estimated budget of $291,000. The film was a sensation. A scene in which the monster throws a girl into the water, accidentally drowning her, was long considered too controversial. In the states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, among others, the second part of this scene was cut. Cinemas in the state of Kansas wanted a total of 32 scenes removed from the film before they were willing to show it. If they had been removed, would have cut half of the film. Frankenstein (1931) introduced several elements not found in the original book, but today closely associated with Frankenstein and his monster: Frankenstein's laboratory, the idea that Frankenstein steals the body parts for his creation from graves at night, the idea that Frankenstein uses lightning to bring his creation to life, the idea that Frankenstein would have an assistant, still called Fritz in this film but named Igor in many later films and series, Frankenstein's cry of joy "It's alive!" when the monster is successfully brought to life and the idea of an angry mob eventually armed with torches hunt down the monster. Frankenstein was well-received by critics. The New York Times film critic Mordaunt Hall said that the film "aroused so much excitement at the Mayfair yesterday that many in the audience laughed to cover their true feelings. [T]here is no denying that it is far and away the most effective thing of its kind. Beside it Dracula is tame and, incidentally, Dracula was produced by the same firm". People flocked to the cinema and the box office receipts amounted to $5,000,000. It was one of the biggest box office hits of the 1931-1932 period, proving to Universal Pictures executives that there was an audience for Horror films. The film had a significant impact on popular culture. The imagery of a maniacal "mad" scientist with a subservient hunchbacked assistant and the film's depiction of Frankenstein's monster has since become iconic. In 1991, the United States Library of Congress selected Frankenstein (1931) for preservation in the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, French and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by ZigZagPosters, no. B. 016. Original artwork: Kurt Degen. German poster for Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Frankenstein (1931) is an iconic American Horror film directed by James Whale and produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal. Whale based the story on the 1927 play written by Peggy Webling based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'. For Boris Karloff, his role as the monster was a breakthrough. The film became a huge success and received several sequels. In 1991, it was listed on the National Film Registry.

For Frankenstein (1931), the Peggy Webling play was adapted by John L. Balderston and the screenplay was written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort, with uncredited contributions from Robert Florey and John Russell. In a village in the Bavarian Alps, Dr Henry Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein in the novel) (played by Colin Clive) is a brilliant scientist possessed by the idea of reviving dead tissue. To carry out his experiments, he goes out at night to dig up corpses along with his hunchback servant Fritz (Dwight Frye). But instead of providing him with a healthy brain, Fritz gives him the brain of a murderer. Henry is about to marry his fiancée Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) to inherit his father's estate, but he increasingly loses sight of reality and becomes completely absorbed by his experiments. One stormy night, his greatest life wish is fulfilled when he uses lightning to revive his creation, a man made entirely of parts from corpses. The creature (Boris Karloff), often known as Frankenstein's monster, seems simple and harmless at first, meekly doing whatever Frankenstein commands, but soon Henry and Fritz begin to suspect that the creature could be dangerous and lock him in the cellar. Their fears prove well-founded when the monster breaks out and kills Fritz. Henry realises his mistake and, helped by his old teacher Dr Waldman, sets out to eliminate the monster with a lethal injection. They manage to administer the monster the injection, but it only renders the monster unconscious. As Henry goes to his wedding, the monster reawakens and kills Waldman. It then escapes from the castle. After some wandering, it meets a farmer's daughter who is not afraid of it, but in his ignorance, he throws her into the water and she drowns.

In 1930, Universal Studios had lost $2.2 million in revenues. Within 48 hours of its opening at New York's Roxy Theatre on 12 February 1931, Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) starring Béla Lugosi had sold 50,000 tickets, building a momentum that culminated in a $700,000 profit, the largest of Universal's 1931 releases. As a result, the head of production, Carl Laemmle Jr., announced immediate plans for more horror films. Frankenstein (1931) was initially to be directed by Robert Florey. Following his acclaimed role as Count Dracula, Béla Lugosi was Florey's first choice for the role of Dr Frankenstein. However, when he proved unsuitable for the role, he was offered to play the monster instead so that Universal could at least include his name on the film poster. Robert Florey shot two test reels with Lugosi in the role of the monster. Reportedly, these reels were disappointing. Universal then took Florey and Lugosi off the project. They were given the Murders in the Rue Morgue film, as a consolation. Lugosi would still play the monster years later in the film Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill, 1943). After Florey's departure, the newly arrived British director James Whale took over and later cast Colin Clive and Boris Karloff. He had the screenplay rewritten to give the monster more character. Jack Pierce came up with the familiar look for the monster. Pierce was inspired by brain operations when surgeons cut off the top of the skull. He flattened the top of the skull and added staples. Pierce covered Karloff's hair with a skullcap. He drew a square skull and forehead using cotton soaked in collodion. The actor felt that his eyes were still too bright and Pierce made wax eyelids. Kenneth Strickfaden was responsible for the special effects surrounding the monster's creation, especially the electricity. Boris Karloff reportedly feared being burnt by the electricity in the scene. The effects were so successful that they became an essential part of every subsequent Universal film involving Frankenstein's Monster. Accordingly, the equipment used to produce them has come to be referred to in fan circles as "Strickfadens". It appears that Strickfaden managed to secure the use of at least one Tesla Coil (transformer) built by inventor Nikola Tesla himself.

Frankenstein (1931) was produced with an estimated budget of $291,000. The film was a sensation. A scene in which the monster throws a girl into the water, accidentally drowning her, was long considered too controversial. In the states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, among others, the second part of this scene was cut. Cinemas in the state of Kansas wanted a total of 32 scenes removed from the film before they were willing to show it. If they had been removed, would have cut half of the film. Frankenstein (1931) introduced several elements not found in the original book, but today closely associated with Frankenstein and his monster: Frankenstein's laboratory, the idea that Frankenstein steals the body parts for his creation from graves at night, the idea that Frankenstein uses lightning to bring his creation to life, the idea that Frankenstein would have an assistant, still called Fritz in this film but named Igor in many later films and series, Frankenstein's cry of joy "It's alive!" when the monster is successfully brought to life and the idea of an angry mob eventually armed with torches hunt down the monster. Frankenstein was well-received by critics. The New York Times film critic Mordaunt Hall said that the film "aroused so much excitement at the Mayfair yesterday that many in the audience laughed to cover their true feelings. [T]here is no denying that it is far and away the most effective thing of its kind. Beside it Dracula is tame and, incidentally, Dracula was produced by the same firm". People flocked to the cinema and the box office receipts amounted to $5,000,000. It was one of the biggest box office hits of the 1931-1932 period, proving to Universal Pictures executives that there was an audience for Horror films. The film had a significant impact on popular culture. The imagery of a maniacal "mad" scientist with a subservient hunchbacked assistant and the film's depiction of Frankenstein's monster has since become iconic. In 1991, the United States Library of Congress selected Frankenstein (1931) for preservation in the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, French and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

American postcard by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, N.Y., 2001. American poster by Universal for The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932).

French postcard by Editions Zreik, Paris, no. 24. Original artwork: Bos. Vintage poster for Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Frankenstein (1931) is an iconic American Horror film directed by James Whale and produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal. Whale based the story on the 1927 play written by Peggy Webling based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'. For Boris Karloff, his role as the monster was a breakthrough. The film became a huge success and received several sequels. In 1991, it was listed on the National Film Registry.

For Frankenstein (1931), the Peggy Webling play was adapted by John L. Balderston and the screenplay was written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort, with uncredited contributions from Robert Florey and John Russell. In a village in the Bavarian Alps, Dr Henry Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein in the novel) (played by Colin Clive) is a brilliant scientist possessed by the idea of reviving dead tissue. To carry out his experiments, he goes out at night to dig up corpses along with his hunchback servant Fritz (Dwight Frye). But instead of providing him with a healthy brain, Fritz gives him the brain of a murderer. Henry is about to marry his fiancée Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) to inherit his father's estate, but he increasingly loses sight of reality and becomes completely absorbed by his experiments. One stormy night, his greatest life wish is fulfilled when he uses lightning to revive his creation, a man made entirely of parts from corpses. The creature (Boris Karloff), often known as Frankenstein's monster, seems simple and harmless at first, meekly doing whatever Frankenstein commands, but soon Henry and Fritz begin to suspect that the creature could be dangerous and lock him in the cellar. Their fears prove well-founded when the monster breaks out and kills Fritz. Henry realises his mistake and, helped by his old teacher Dr Waldman, sets out to eliminate the monster with a lethal injection. They manage to administer the monster the injection, but it only renders the monster unconscious. As Henry goes to his wedding, the monster reawakens and kills Waldman. It then escapes from the castle. After some wandering, it meets a farmer's daughter who is not afraid of it, but in his ignorance, he throws her into the water and she drowns.

In 1930, Universal Studios had lost $2.2 million in revenues. Within 48 hours of its opening at New York's Roxy Theatre on 12 February 1931, Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) starring Béla Lugosi had sold 50,000 tickets, building a momentum that culminated in a $700,000 profit, the largest of Universal's 1931 releases. As a result, the head of production, Carl Laemmle Jr., announced immediate plans for more horror films. Frankenstein (1931) was initially to be directed by Robert Florey. Following his acclaimed role as Count Dracula, Béla Lugosi was Florey's first choice for the role of Dr Frankenstein. However, when he proved unsuitable for the role, he was offered to play the monster instead so that Universal could at least include his name on the film poster. Robert Florey shot two test reels with Lugosi in the role of the monster. Reportedly, these reels were disappointing. Universal then took Florey and Lugosi off the project. They were given the Murders in the Rue Morgue film, as a consolation. Lugosi would still play the monster years later in the film Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill, 1943). After Florey's departure, the newly arrived British director James Whale took over and later cast Colin Clive and Boris Karloff. He had the screenplay rewritten to give the monster more character. Jack Pierce came up with the familiar look for the monster. Pierce was inspired by brain operations when surgeons cut off the top of the skull. He flattened the top of the skull and added staples. Pierce covered Karloff's hair with a skullcap. He drew a square skull and forehead using cotton soaked in collodion. The actor felt that his eyes were still too bright and Pierce made wax eyelids. Kenneth Strickfaden was responsible for the special effects surrounding the monster's creation, especially the electricity. Boris Karloff reportedly feared being burnt by the electricity in the scene. The effects were so successful that they became an essential part of every subsequent Universal film involving Frankenstein's Monster. Accordingly, the equipment used to produce them has come to be referred to in fan circles as "Strickfadens". It appears that Strickfaden managed to secure the use of at least one Tesla Coil (transformer) built by inventor Nikola Tesla himself.

Frankenstein (1931) was produced with an estimated budget of $291,000. The film was a sensation. A scene in which the monster throws a girl into the water, accidentally drowning her, was long considered too controversial. In the states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, among others, the second part of this scene was cut. Cinemas in the state of Kansas wanted a total of 32 scenes removed from the film before they were willing to show it. If they had been removed, would have cut half of the film. Frankenstein (1931) introduced several elements not found in the original book, but today closely associated with Frankenstein and his monster: Frankenstein's laboratory, the idea that Frankenstein steals the body parts for his creation from graves at night, the idea that Frankenstein uses lightning to bring his creation to life, the idea that Frankenstein would have an assistant, still called Fritz in this film but named Igor in many later films and series, Frankenstein's cry of joy "It's alive!" when the monster is successfully brought to life and the idea of an angry mob eventually armed with torches hunt down the monster. Frankenstein was well-received by critics. The New York Times film critic Mordaunt Hall said that the film "aroused so much excitement at the Mayfair yesterday that many in the audience laughed to cover their true feelings. [T]here is no denying that it is far and away the most effective thing of its kind. Beside it Dracula is tame and, incidentally, Dracula was produced by the same firm". People flocked to the cinema and the box office receipts amounted to $5,000,000. It was one of the biggest box office hits of the 1931-1932 period, proving to Universal Pictures executives that there was an audience for Horror films. The film had a significant impact on popular culture. The imagery of a maniacal "mad" scientist with a subservient hunchbacked assistant and the film's depiction of Frankenstein's monster has since become iconic. In 1991, the United States Library of Congress selected Frankenstein (1931) for preservation in the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, French and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Vintage press photo. Boris Karloff and Marilyn Harris in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Frankenstein (1931) is an iconic American Horror film directed by James Whale and produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal. Whale based the story on the 1927 play written by Peggy Webling based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'. For Boris Karloff, his role as the monster was a breakthrough. The film became a huge success and received several sequels. In 1991, it was listed on the National Film Registry.

For Frankenstein (1931), the Peggy Webling play was adapted by John L. Balderston and the screenplay was written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort, with uncredited contributions from Robert Florey and John Russell. In a village in the Bavarian Alps, Dr Henry Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein in the novel) (played by Colin Clive) is a brilliant scientist possessed by the idea of reviving dead tissue. To carry out his experiments, he goes out at night to dig up corpses along with his hunchback servant Fritz (Dwight Frye). But instead of providing him with a healthy brain, Fritz gives him the brain of a murderer. Henry is about to marry his fiancée Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) to inherit his father's estate, but he increasingly loses sight of reality and becomes completely absorbed by his experiments. One stormy night, his greatest life wish is fulfilled when he uses lightning to revive his creation, a man made entirely of parts from corpses. The creature (Boris Karloff), often known as Frankenstein's monster, seems simple and harmless at first, meekly doing whatever Frankenstein commands, but soon Henry and Fritz begin to suspect that the creature could be dangerous and lock him in the cellar. Their fears prove well-founded when the monster breaks out and kills Fritz. Henry realises his mistake and, helped by his old teacher Dr Waldman, sets out to eliminate the monster with a lethal injection. They manage to administer the monster the injection, but it only renders the monster unconscious. As Henry goes to his wedding, the monster reawakens and kills Waldman. It then escapes from the castle. After some wandering, it meets a farmer's daughter who is not afraid of it, but in his ignorance, he throws her into the water and she drowns.

In 1930, Universal Studios had lost $2.2 million in revenues. Within 48 hours of its opening at New York's Roxy Theatre on 12 February 1931, Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) starring Béla Lugosi had sold 50,000 tickets, building a momentum that culminated in a $700,000 profit, the largest of Universal's 1931 releases. As a result, the head of production, Carl Laemmle Jr., announced immediate plans for more horror films. Frankenstein (1931) was initially to be directed by Robert Florey. Following his acclaimed role as Count Dracula, Béla Lugosi was Florey's first choice for the role of Dr Frankenstein. However, when he proved unsuitable for the role, he was offered to play the monster instead so that Universal could at least include his name on the film poster. Robert Florey shot two test reels with Lugosi in the role of the monster. Reportedly, these reels were disappointing. Universal then took Florey and Lugosi off the project. They were given the Murders in the Rue Morgue film, as a consolation. Lugosi would still play the monster years later in the film Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill, 1943). After Florey's departure, the newly arrived British director James Whale took over and later cast Colin Clive and Boris Karloff. He had the screenplay rewritten to give the monster more character. Jack Pierce came up with the familiar look for the monster. Pierce was inspired by brain operations when surgeons cut off the top of the skull. He flattened the top of the skull and added staples. Pierce covered Karloff's hair with a skullcap. He drew a square skull and forehead using cotton soaked in collodion. The actor felt that his eyes were still too bright and Pierce made wax eyelids. Kenneth Strickfaden was responsible for the special effects surrounding the monster's creation, especially the electricity. Boris Karloff reportedly feared being burnt by the electricity in the scene. The effects were so successful that they became an essential part of every subsequent Universal film involving Frankenstein's Monster. Accordingly, the equipment used to produce them has come to be referred to in fan circles as "Strickfadens". It appears that Strickfaden managed to secure the use of at least one Tesla Coil (transformer) built by inventor Nikola Tesla himself.

Frankenstein (1931) was produced with an estimated budget of $291,000. The film was a sensation. A scene in which the monster throws a girl into the water, accidentally drowning her, was long considered too controversial. In the states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, among others, the second part of this scene was cut. Cinemas in the state of Kansas wanted a total of 32 scenes removed from the film before they were willing to show it. If they had been removed, would have cut half of the film. Frankenstein (1931) introduced several elements not found in the original book, but today closely associated with Frankenstein and his monster: Frankenstein's laboratory, the idea that Frankenstein steals the body parts for his creation from graves at night, the idea that Frankenstein uses lightning to bring his creation to life, the idea that Frankenstein would have an assistant, still called Fritz in this film but named Igor in many later films and series, Frankenstein's cry of joy "It's alive!" when the monster is successfully brought to life and the idea of an angry mob eventually armed with torches hunt down the monster. Frankenstein was well-received by critics. The New York Times film critic Mordaunt Hall said that the film "aroused so much excitement at the Mayfair yesterday that many in the audience laughed to cover their true feelings. [T]here is no denying that it is far and away the most effective thing of its kind. Beside it Dracula is tame and, incidentally, Dracula was produced by the same firm". People flocked to the cinema and the box office receipts amounted to $5,000,000. It was one of the biggest box office hits of the 1931-1932 period, proving to Universal Pictures executives that there was an audience for Horror films. The film had a significant impact on popular culture. The imagery of a maniacal "mad" scientist with a subservient hunchbacked assistant and the film's depiction of Frankenstein's monster has since become iconic. In 1991, the United States Library of Congress selected Frankenstein (1931) for preservation in the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, French and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German flyer by Illustrierte Film-Bühne, no. 3656. Photo: Universal. Boris Karloff, Colin Clive and Dwight Frye in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Frankenstein (1931) is an iconic American Horror film directed by James Whale and produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal. Whale based the story on the 1927 play written by Peggy Webling based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'. For Boris Karloff, his role as the monster was a breakthrough. The film became a huge success and received several sequels. In 1991, it was listed on the National Film Registry.

For Frankenstein (1931), the Peggy Webling play was adapted by John L. Balderston and the screenplay was written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort, with uncredited contributions from Robert Florey and John Russell. In a village in the Bavarian Alps, Dr Henry Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein in the novel) (played by Colin Clive) is a brilliant scientist possessed by the idea of reviving dead tissue. To carry out his experiments, he goes out at night to dig up corpses along with his hunchback servant Fritz (Dwight Frye). But instead of providing him with a healthy brain, Fritz gives him the brain of a murderer. Henry is about to marry his fiancée Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) to inherit his father's estate, but he increasingly loses sight of reality and becomes completely absorbed by his experiments. One stormy night, his greatest life wish is fulfilled when he uses lightning to revive his creation, a man made entirely of parts from corpses. The creature (Boris Karloff), often known as Frankenstein's monster, seems simple and harmless at first, meekly doing whatever Frankenstein commands, but soon Henry and Fritz begin to suspect that the creature could be dangerous and lock him in the cellar. Their fears prove well-founded when the monster breaks out and kills Fritz. Henry realises his mistake and, helped by his old teacher Dr Waldman, sets out to eliminate the monster with a lethal injection. They manage to administer the monster the injection, but it only renders the monster unconscious. As Henry goes to his wedding, the monster reawakens and kills Waldman. It then escapes from the castle. After some wandering, it meets a farmer's daughter who is not afraid of it, but in his ignorance, he throws her into the water and she drowns.

In 1930, Universal Studios had lost $2.2 million in revenues. Within 48 hours of its opening at New York's Roxy Theatre on 12 February 1931, Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) starring Béla Lugosi had sold 50,000 tickets, building a momentum that culminated in a $700,000 profit, the largest of Universal's 1931 releases. As a result, the head of production, Carl Laemmle Jr., announced immediate plans for more horror films. Frankenstein (1931) was initially to be directed by Robert Florey. Following his acclaimed role as Count Dracula, Béla Lugosi was Florey's first choice for the role of Dr Frankenstein. However, when he proved unsuitable for the role, he was offered to play the monster instead so that Universal could at least include his name on the film poster. Robert Florey shot two test reels with Lugosi in the role of the monster. Reportedly, these reels were disappointing. Universal then took Florey and Lugosi off the project. They were given the Murders in the Rue Morgue film, as a consolation. Lugosi would still play the monster years later in the film Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill, 1943). After Florey's departure, the newly arrived British director James Whale took over and later cast Colin Clive and Boris Karloff. He had the screenplay rewritten to give the monster more character. Jack Pierce came up with the familiar look for the monster. Pierce was inspired by brain operations when surgeons cut off the top of the skull. He flattened the top of the skull and added staples. Pierce covered Karloff's hair with a skullcap. He drew a square skull and forehead using cotton soaked in collodion. The actor felt that his eyes were still too bright and Pierce made wax eyelids. Kenneth Strickfaden was responsible for the special effects surrounding the monster's creation, especially the electricity. Boris Karloff reportedly feared being burnt by the electricity in the scene. The effects were so successful that they became an essential part of every subsequent Universal film involving Frankenstein's Monster. Accordingly, the equipment used to produce them has come to be referred to in fan circles as "Strickfadens". It appears that Strickfaden managed to secure the use of at least one Tesla Coil (transformer) built by inventor Nikola Tesla himself.

Frankenstein (1931) was produced with an estimated budget of $291,000. The film was a sensation. A scene in which the monster throws a girl into the water, accidentally drowning her, was long considered too controversial. In the states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, among others, the second part of this scene was cut. Cinemas in the state of Kansas wanted a total of 32 scenes removed from the film before they were willing to show it. If they had been removed, would have cut half of the film. Frankenstein (1931) introduced several elements not found in the original book, but today closely associated with Frankenstein and his monster: Frankenstein's laboratory, the idea that Frankenstein steals the body parts for his creation from graves at night, the idea that Frankenstein uses lightning to bring his creation to life, the idea that Frankenstein would have an assistant, still called Fritz in this film but named Igor in many later films and series, Frankenstein's cry of joy "It's alive!" when the monster is successfully brought to life and the idea of an angry mob eventually armed with torches hunt down the monster. Frankenstein was well-received by critics. The New York Times film critic Mordaunt Hall said that the film "aroused so much excitement at the Mayfair yesterday that many in the audience laughed to cover their true feelings. [T]here is no denying that it is far and away the most effective thing of its kind. Beside it Dracula is tame and, incidentally, Dracula was produced by the same firm". People flocked to the cinema and the box office receipts amounted to $5,000,000. It was one of the biggest box office hits of the 1931-1932 period, proving to Universal Pictures executives that there was an audience for Horror films. The film had a significant impact on popular culture. The imagery of a maniacal "mad" scientist with a subservient hunchbacked assistant and the film's depiction of Frankenstein's monster has since become iconic. In 1991, the United States Library of Congress selected Frankenstein (1931) for preservation in the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, French and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

American postcard by American Postcard, no. 37. Boris Karloff and Mae Clarke in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Frankenstein (1931) is an iconic American Horror film directed by James Whale and produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal. Whale based the story on the 1927 play written by Peggy Webling based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'. For Boris Karloff, his role as the monster was a breakthrough. The film became a huge success and received several sequels. In 1991, it was listed on the National Film Registry.

For Frankenstein (1931), the Peggy Webling play was adapted by John L. Balderston and the screenplay was written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort, with uncredited contributions from Robert Florey and John Russell. In a village in the Bavarian Alps, Dr Henry Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein in the novel) (played by Colin Clive) is a brilliant scientist possessed by the idea of reviving dead tissue. To carry out his experiments, he goes out at night to dig up corpses along with his hunchback servant Fritz (Dwight Frye). But instead of providing him with a healthy brain, Fritz gives him the brain of a murderer. Henry is about to marry his fiancée Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) to inherit his father's estate, but he increasingly loses sight of reality and becomes completely absorbed by his experiments. One stormy night, his greatest life wish is fulfilled when he uses lightning to revive his creation, a man made entirely of parts from corpses. The creature (Boris Karloff), often known as Frankenstein's monster, seems simple and harmless at first, meekly doing whatever Frankenstein commands, but soon Henry and Fritz begin to suspect that the creature could be dangerous and lock him in the cellar. Their fears prove well-founded when the monster breaks out and kills Fritz. Henry realises his mistake and, helped by his old teacher Dr Waldman, sets out to eliminate the monster with a lethal injection. They manage to administer the monster the injection, but it only renders the monster unconscious. As Henry goes to his wedding, the monster reawakens and kills Waldman. It then escapes from the castle. After some wandering, it meets a farmer's daughter who is not afraid of it, but in his ignorance, he throws her into the water and she drowns.

In 1930, Universal Studios had lost $2.2 million in revenues. Within 48 hours of its opening at New York's Roxy Theatre on 12 February 1931, Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) starring Béla Lugosi had sold 50,000 tickets, building a momentum that culminated in a $700,000 profit, the largest of Universal's 1931 releases. As a result, the head of production, Carl Laemmle Jr., announced immediate plans for more horror films. Frankenstein (1931) was initially to be directed by Robert Florey. Following his acclaimed role as Count Dracula, Béla Lugosi was Florey's first choice for the role of Dr Frankenstein. However, when he proved unsuitable for the role, he was offered to play the monster instead so that Universal could at least include his name on the film poster. Robert Florey shot two test reels with Lugosi in the role of the monster. Reportedly, these reels were disappointing. Universal then took Florey and Lugosi off the project. They were given the Murders in the Rue Morgue film, as a consolation. Lugosi would still play the monster years later in the film Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill, 1943). After Florey's departure, the newly arrived British director James Whale took over and later cast Colin Clive and Boris Karloff. He had the screenplay rewritten to give the monster more character. Jack Pierce came up with the familiar look for the monster. Pierce was inspired by brain operations when surgeons cut off the top of the skull. He flattened the top of the skull and added staples. Pierce covered Karloff's hair with a skullcap. He drew a square skull and forehead using cotton soaked in collodion. The actor felt that his eyes were still too bright and Pierce made wax eyelids. Kenneth Strickfaden was responsible for the special effects surrounding the monster's creation, especially the electricity. Boris Karloff reportedly feared being burnt by the electricity in the scene. The effects were so successful that they became an essential part of every subsequent Universal film involving Frankenstein's Monster. Accordingly, the equipment used to produce them has come to be referred to in fan circles as "Strickfadens". It appears that Strickfaden managed to secure the use of at least one Tesla Coil (transformer) built by inventor Nikola Tesla himself.

Frankenstein (1931) was produced with an estimated budget of $291,000. The film was a sensation. A scene in which the monster throws a girl into the water, accidentally drowning her, was long considered too controversial. In the states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, among others, the second part of this scene was cut. Cinemas in the state of Kansas wanted a total of 32 scenes removed from the film before they were willing to show it. If they had been removed, would have cut half of the film. Frankenstein (1931) introduced several elements not found in the original book, but today closely associated with Frankenstein and his monster: Frankenstein's laboratory, the idea that Frankenstein steals the body parts for his creation from graves at night, the idea that Frankenstein uses lightning to bring his creation to life, the idea that Frankenstein would have an assistant, still called Fritz in this film but named Igor in many later films and series, Frankenstein's cry of joy "It's alive!" when the monster is successfully brought to life and the idea of an angry mob eventually armed with torches hunt down the monster. Frankenstein was well-received by critics. The New York Times film critic Mordaunt Hall said that the film "aroused so much excitement at the Mayfair yesterday that many in the audience laughed to cover their true feelings. [T]here is no denying that it is far and away the most effective thing of its kind. Beside it Dracula is tame and, incidentally, Dracula was produced by the same firm". People flocked to the cinema and the box office receipts amounted to $5,000,000. It was one of the biggest box office hits of the 1931-1932 period, proving to Universal Pictures executives that there was an audience for Horror films. The film had a significant impact on popular culture. The imagery of a maniacal "mad" scientist with a subservient hunchbacked assistant and the film's depiction of Frankenstein's monster has since become iconic. In 1991, the United States Library of Congress selected Frankenstein (1931) for preservation in the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, French and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

British postcard in the Film Weekly series. Photo: Universal. Nancy Carroll, Jean Dixon and Frank Morgan in The Kiss Before the Mirror (James Whale, 1933).

The American mystery thriller The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933) was adapted from the 1932 play by Ladislas Fodor and directed by James Whale. The four stars of the film were Nancy Carroll, Frank Morgan, Paul Lukas, and Gloria Stuart.

Noted attorney Paul Held (Frank Morgan) is defending his friend, Walter Bernsdorf (Paul Lukas), who has been charged with the murder of his wife Lucy (Gloria Stuart) in Vienna. By Walter's account, Lucy was unfaithful to him during their marriage. After a court hearing, Paul returns home to his wife, Maria (Nancy Carroll), and watches her as she applies makeup in front of her vanity mirror. Paul recognizes a similarity to the events Walter had described in court and notices that his wife appears to pay special attention to her make-up for reasons unconnected with her love for him. Paul kisses Maria, and she angrily repulses him, claiming he has ruined her make-up; then she casually goes out. Like Walter before him, Paul follows his wife through the streets of Vienna and observes her meeting with a male lover (Donald Cook). This enrages Paul, and he fantasizes about murdering Maria. He also becomes obsessed with vindicating Walter by proving that his love for his wife made him crazed with jealousy when he saw her with another man. Maria becomes uneasy because the trial hits too close to home, but she continues to visit her lover. On the final day of deliberations in Walter's trial, Paul insists that Maria be present. He makes an impassioned closing appeal in which he claims that "the more a man loves and the more he is deceived, the greater his desire for revenge" and which he concludes by revealing a gun and pointing it at Maria in the audience. She screams in horror and loses consciousness, after which Paul finishes his speech. While the jury deliberates, Paul meets Maria in his office, where she reacts in terror. She insists she still loves him despite her affair. Walter is ultimately acquitted and warns Paul against killing Maria, which he says he will regret. Paul heeds his advice and asks Maria to leave the courthouse. Upon returning home, Paul angrily smashes Maria's vanity mirror. Maria appears behind him, and the two embrace.

English film director James Whale is best remembered for his four classic horror films: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He also directed interesting films in other genres, including screwball comedies and musicals. The The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933) is a superior mystery thriller. In 1933, Pare Lorentz wrote in Vanity Fair: "Director Whale was fortunate in having Frank Morgan and Paul Lukas as his leading men, and Karl Freund, the best man in the business, as cameraman for A Kiss Before the Mirror. I don't know how they happened to slip Nancy Carroll into the show, but we'll dismiss that. There is a pictorial quality about the opening scenes, and a maturity in the dialogue which makes a better part of the picture seem true and important." "The film is chock full of surprises for the viewer, almost as much in the twenty-first century as it was in 1933", writes Bruce Eder at AllMovie. "The opening minutes seem to be shaping up as a horror film, complete with the image of a stalker moving toward a house where an illicit couple (Walter Pidgeon, Gloria Stuart) are having a rendezvous - but it also almost threatens to become a musical, as the couple are each heard humming and vamping to tango as they prepare to meet, in what is just short of an erotic pre-coital ballet. And then, just as it reaches a new height of implied eroticism, it becomes something entirely different, as murderous rage explodes before the camera and the audience. Director James Whale carries us across this rapidly shifting cinematic landscape - much of it decorated in a beautifully understated art deco style (courtesy of art director Charles D. Hall) - in seemingly effortless fashion in just the first few minutes of The Kiss Before The Mirror, and then it gets really interesting - we're introduced to an array of deceptively complex characters, of whom the most interesting, other than the pairing of Frank Morgan and Nancy Carroll as the husband-and-wife headed into dangerous straits, is the lawyer played by Jean Dixon. Amid some amazing acting and character flourishes by the two leads, and quietly flamboyant support from Charles Grapewin as a dipsomaniac law clerk, Dixon's lady lawyer must constantly differentiate between her perceptions as a lawyer and a woman; when asked which she is, she remarks that by day she is a lawyer, and by night . . . "you'd be surprised." " The film was the subject of a remake by director James Whale himself. Five years later, he directed the same story under the title Wives Under Suspicion (James Whale, 1938), with a different cast including Warren William and Gail Patrick and on a much smaller budget. He made a few noticeable concessions for the more militant censors of 1938. However, Hal Erickson at AllMovie liked the result: "Indeed, Wives is a "B" picture, but one wouldn't know it from the care and attention that Whale gives it. An expressionistic opening lets the viewer know that Whale is going to do his best with the budget at hand, and he keeps the film visually interesting throughout. "

Sources: Pare Lorentz (Vanity Fair), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Mark Deming (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), AFI Catalog, Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

American postcard by American Postcard, no. 38. Boris Karloff and Mae Clarke in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Frankenstein (1931) is an iconic American Horror film directed by James Whale and produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal. Whale based the story on the 1927 play written by Peggy Webling based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'. For Boris Karloff, his role as the monster was a breakthrough. The film became a huge success and received several sequels. In 1991, it was listed on the National Film Registry.

For Frankenstein (1931), the Peggy Webling play was adapted by John L. Balderston and the screenplay was written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort, with uncredited contributions from Robert Florey and John Russell. In a village in the Bavarian Alps, Dr Henry Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein in the novel) (played by Colin Clive) is a brilliant scientist possessed by the idea of reviving dead tissue. To carry out his experiments, he goes out at night to dig up corpses along with his hunchback servant Fritz (Dwight Frye). But instead of providing him with a healthy brain, Fritz gives him the brain of a murderer. Henry is about to marry his fiancée Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) to inherit his father's estate, but he increasingly loses sight of reality and becomes completely absorbed by his experiments. One stormy night, his greatest life wish is fulfilled when he uses lightning to revive his creation, a man made entirely of parts from corpses. The creature (Boris Karloff), often known as Frankenstein's monster, seems simple and harmless at first, meekly doing whatever Frankenstein commands, but soon Henry and Fritz begin to suspect that the creature could be dangerous and lock him in the cellar. Their fears prove well-founded when the monster breaks out and kills Fritz. Henry realises his mistake and, helped by his old teacher Dr Waldman, sets out to eliminate the monster with a lethal injection. They manage to administer the monster the injection, but it only renders the monster unconscious. As Henry goes to his wedding, the monster reawakens and kills Waldman. It then escapes from the castle. After some wandering, it meets a farmer's daughter who is not afraid of it, but in his ignorance, he throws her into the water and she drowns.

In 1930, Universal Studios had lost $2.2 million in revenues. Within 48 hours of its opening at New York's Roxy Theatre on 12 February 1931, Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) starring Béla Lugosi had sold 50,000 tickets, building a momentum that culminated in a $700,000 profit, the largest of Universal's 1931 releases. As a result, the head of production, Carl Laemmle Jr., announced immediate plans for more horror films. Frankenstein (1931) was initially to be directed by Robert Florey. Following his acclaimed role as Count Dracula, Béla Lugosi was Florey's first choice for the role of Dr Frankenstein. However, when he proved unsuitable for the role, he was offered to play the monster instead so that Universal could at least include his name on the film poster. Robert Florey shot two test reels with Lugosi in the role of the monster. Reportedly, these reels were disappointing. Universal then took Florey and Lugosi off the project. They were given the Murders in the Rue Morgue film, as a consolation. Lugosi would still play the monster years later in the film Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill, 1943). After Florey's departure, the newly arrived British director James Whale took over and later cast Colin Clive and Boris Karloff. He had the screenplay rewritten to give the monster more character. Jack Pierce came up with the familiar look for the monster. Pierce was inspired by brain operations when surgeons cut off the top of the skull. He flattened the top of the skull and added staples. Pierce covered Karloff's hair with a skullcap. He drew a square skull and forehead using cotton soaked in collodion. The actor felt that his eyes were still too bright and Pierce made wax eyelids. Kenneth Strickfaden was responsible for the special effects surrounding the monster's creation, especially the electricity. Boris Karloff reportedly feared being burnt by the electricity in the scene. The effects were so successful that they became an essential part of every subsequent Universal film involving Frankenstein's Monster. Accordingly, the equipment used to produce them has come to be referred to in fan circles as "Strickfadens". It appears that Strickfaden managed to secure the use of at least one Tesla Coil (transformer) built by inventor Nikola Tesla himself.

Frankenstein (1931) was produced with an estimated budget of $291,000. The film was a sensation. A scene in which the monster throws a girl into the water, accidentally drowning her, was long considered too controversial. In the states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, among others, the second part of this scene was cut. Cinemas in the state of Kansas wanted a total of 32 scenes removed from the film before they were willing to show it. If they had been removed, would have cut half of the film. Frankenstein (1931) introduced several elements not found in the original book, but today closely associated with Frankenstein and his monster: Frankenstein's laboratory, the idea that Frankenstein steals the body parts for his creation from graves at night, the idea that Frankenstein uses lightning to bring his creation to life, the idea that Frankenstein would have an assistant, still called Fritz in this film but named Igor in many later films and series, Frankenstein's cry of joy "It's alive!" when the monster is successfully brought to life and the idea of an angry mob eventually armed with torches hunt down the monster. Frankenstein was well-received by critics. The New York Times film critic Mordaunt Hall said that the film "aroused so much excitement at the Mayfair yesterday that many in the audience laughed to cover their true feelings. [T]here is no denying that it is far and away the most effective thing of its kind. Beside it Dracula is tame and, incidentally, Dracula was produced by the same firm". People flocked to the cinema and the box office receipts amounted to $5,000,000. It was one of the biggest box office hits of the 1931-1932 period, proving to Universal Pictures executives that there was an audience for Horror films. The film had a significant impact on popular culture. The imagery of a maniacal "mad" scientist with a subservient hunchbacked assistant and the film's depiction of Frankenstein's monster has since become iconic. In 1991, the United States Library of Congress selected Frankenstein (1931) for preservation in the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, French and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

British postcard in the Film Weekly series. Photo: Universal. Frank Morgan, Paul Lukas and Nancy Carroll in The Kiss Before the Mirror (James Whale, 1933).

The American mystery thriller The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933) was adapted from the 1932 play by Ladislas Fodor and directed by James Whale. The four stars of the film were Nancy Carroll, Frank Morgan, Paul Lukas, and Gloria Stuart.

Noted attorney Paul Held (Frank Morgan) is defending his friend, Walter Bernsdorf (Paul Lukas), who has been charged with the murder of his wife Lucy (Gloria Stuart) in Vienna. By Walter's account, Lucy was unfaithful to him during their marriage. After a court hearing, Paul returns home to his wife, Maria (Nancy Carroll), and watches her as she applies makeup in front of her vanity mirror. Paul recognizes a similarity to the events Walter had described in court and notices that his wife appears to pay special attention to her make-up for reasons unconnected with her love for him. Paul kisses Maria, and she angrily repulses him, claiming he has ruined her make-up; then she casually goes out. Like Walter before him, Paul follows his wife through the streets of Vienna and observes her meeting with a male lover (Donald Cook). This enrages Paul, and he fantasizes about murdering Maria. He also becomes obsessed with vindicating Walter by proving that his love for his wife made him crazed with jealousy when he saw her with another man. Maria becomes uneasy because the trial hits too close to home, but she continues to visit her lover. On the final day of deliberations in Walter's trial, Paul insists that Maria be present. He makes an impassioned closing appeal in which he claims that "the more a man loves and the more he is deceived, the greater his desire for revenge" and which he concludes by revealing a gun and pointing it at Maria in the audience. She screams in horror and loses consciousness, after which Paul finishes his speech. While the jury deliberates, Paul meets Maria in his office, where she reacts in terror. She insists she still loves him despite her affair. Walter is ultimately acquitted and warns Paul against killing Maria, which he says he will regret. Paul heeds his advice and asks Maria to leave the courthouse. Upon returning home, Paul angrily smashes Maria's vanity mirror. Maria appears behind him, and the two embrace.

English film director James Whale is best remembered for his four classic horror films: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He also directed interesting films in other genres, including screwball comedies and musicals. The The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933) is a superior mystery thriller. In 1933, Pare Lorentz wrote in Vanity Fair: "Director Whale was fortunate in having Frank Morgan and Paul Lukas as his leading men, and Karl Freund, the best man in the business, as cameraman for A Kiss Before the Mirror. I don't know how they happened to slip Nancy Carroll into the show, but we'll dismiss that. There is a pictorial quality about the opening scenes, and a maturity in the dialogue which makes a better part of the picture seem true and important." "The film is chock full of surprises for the viewer, almost as much in the twenty-first century as it was in 1933", writes Bruce Eder at AllMovie. "The opening minutes seem to be shaping up as a horror film, complete with the image of a stalker moving toward a house where an illicit couple (Walter Pidgeon, Gloria Stuart) are having a rendezvous - but it also almost threatens to become a musical, as the couple are each heard humming and vamping to tango as they prepare to meet, in what is just short of an erotic pre-coital ballet. And then, just as it reaches a new height of implied eroticism, it becomes something entirely different, as murderous rage explodes before the camera and the audience. Director James Whale carries us across this rapidly shifting cinematic landscape - much of it decorated in a beautifully understated art deco style (courtesy of art director Charles D. Hall) - in seemingly effortless fashion in just the first few minutes of The Kiss Before The Mirror, and then it gets really interesting - we're introduced to an array of deceptively complex characters, of whom the most interesting, other than the pairing of Frank Morgan and Nancy Carroll as the husband-and-wife headed into dangerous straits, is the lawyer played by Jean Dixon. Amid some amazing acting and character flourishes by the two leads, and quietly flamboyant support from Charles Grapewin as a dipsomaniac law clerk, Dixon's lady lawyer must constantly differentiate between her perceptions as a lawyer and a woman; when asked which she is, she remarks that by day she is a lawyer, and by night . . . "you'd be surprised." " The film was the subject of a remake by director James Whale himself. Five years later, he directed the same story under the title Wives Under Suspicion (James Whale, 1938), with a different cast including Warren William and Gail Patrick and on a much smaller budget. He made a few noticeable concessions for the more militant censors of 1938. However, Hal Erickson at AllMovie liked the result: "Indeed, Wives is a "B" picture, but one wouldn't know it from the care and attention that Whale gives it. An expressionistic opening lets the viewer know that Whale is going to do his best with the budget at hand, and he keeps the film visually interesting throughout. "

Sources: Pare Lorentz (Vanity Fair), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Mark Deming (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), AFI Catalog, Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Vintage press photo. Ian McKellen and Rosalind Ayres in Gods and Monsters (Bill Condon, 1998).

The career of English actor Ian McKellen (1939) spans genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and Science Fiction. He became a stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Great Britain. He achieved worldwide fame for his film roles, including the titular King in Richard III (1995), James Whale in Gods and Monsters (1998), Magneto in the X-Men films, and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. For his work, Mckellen received six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, five Primetime Emmy Awards, four BAFTAs, and many other awards. He has been openly gay since 1988 and continues to be a champion for the LGBT movement.

Ian Murray McKellen was born in 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire. He was the son of Margery Lois (née Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen. He had a sister, Jean, five years his senior. McKellen's father was a civil engineer and lay preacher. His home environment was strongly Christian, but non-orthodox. When he was 12, his mother died of breast cancer; his father died when he was 24. McKellen's acting career started at Bolton Little Theatre, of which he is now the patron. An early fascination with the theatre was encouraged by his parents, who took him on a family outing to Peter Pan at the Opera House in Manchester when he was three. When he was nine, his main Christmas present was a fold-away wood and bakelite Victorian theatre from Pollock's Toy Theatres, with cardboard scenery and wires to push on the cut-outs of Cinderella and of Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. His sister took him to his first Shakespeare play, 'Twelfth Night', by the amateurs of Wigan's Little Theatre. In 1958, McKellen, at the age of 18, won a scholarship to St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he read English literature. While at Cambridge, McKellen was a member of the Marlowe Society, where he appeared in 23 plays over 3 years. He already gave performances that have since become legendary such as his Justice Shallow in Henry IV alongside Trevor Nunn and Derek Jacobi in 1959. During this period McKellen was directed by Peter Hall, John Barton and Dadie Rylands, who had a huge impact on McKellen's future career. He made his first professional appearance in 1961 as Roper in A Man for All Seasons. After four years in regional repertory theatres, he made his first West End appearance, in A Scent of Flowers. It was a success. In 1965 he was a member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company at the Old Vic. With the Prospect Theatre Company, McKellen made his breakthrough performances of Richard II and Marlowe's Edward II. In the 1970s and 1980s McKellen became a well-known figure in British theatre, performing frequently at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, where he played several leading Shakespearean roles, including the title role in Macbeth, and Iago in Othello, in award-winning productions directed by Trevor Nunn. Both productions were adapted into television films, also directed by Nunn. In 2007 he returned to the Royal Shakespeare Company, in productions of King Lear and The Seagull, both directed by Trevor Nunn. In 2009 he appeared in a very popular revival of Waiting for Godot, directed by Sean Mathias, and playing opposite Patrick Stewart. In late August 2012, he took part in the opening ceremony of the London Paralympics, portraying Prospero from The Tempest. In October 2017, McKellen played King Lear at Chichester Festival Theatre, a role which he said was likely to be his "last big Shakespearean part". He performed the play at the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End during the summer of 2018.

Ian McKellen has taken film roles throughout his career—beginning with his role as George Matthews in A Touch of Love (Waris Hussein, 1969) starring Sandy Dennis, and his first leading role was as D. H. Lawrence in Priest of Love (Christopher Miles, 1980). He played war minister John Profumo involved in a scandalous affair with an exotic dancer in Scandal ( Michael Caton-Jones, 1989). In the 1990s he became more widely recognised after several roles in Hollywood films. In 1993, he had a supporting role as a South African tycoon in the critically acclaimed Six Degrees of Separation (Fred Schepisi, 1993), with Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland, and Will Smith. In the same year, he appeared in the TV miniseries Tales of the City (Alastair Reid, 1993), based on the novel by his friend Armistead Maupin, and the film Last Action Hero (John McTiernan, 1993), in which he briefly played Death opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. McKellen also appeared in the TV film And the Band Played On (Roger Spottiswoode, 1993) about the discovery of the AIDS virus for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award. He played the title role in Richard III (Richard Loncraine, 1995) with Annette Bening and Robert Downey Jr., which transported the setting into an alternative 1930s in which England is ruled by fascists. The film which McKellen co-produced and co-wrote, was a critical success. His performance in the title role garnered BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor and won the European Film Award for Best Actor. His screenplay was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also appeared in the modestly acclaimed film Apt Pupil (1998), which was directed by Bryan Singer and based on a story by Stephen King. McKellen portrayed a fugitive Nazi officer living under a false name in the US who is befriended by a curious teenager (Brad Renfro) who threatens to expose him unless he tells his story in detail. He was subsequently nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in Gods and Monsters (Bill Condon, 1998), wherein he played the director of Frankenstein (1931), James Whale.

Ian McKellen was cast, again under the direction of Bryan Singer, to play the comic book supervillain Magneto in X-Men (2000) and its sequels X2: X-Men United (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). He later made a short appearance as an older Magneto in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), sharing the role with Michael Fassbender, who played a younger version of the character in X-Men: First Class (2011). While filming the first X-Men film in 1999, McKellen was cast as the wizard Gandalf in Peter Jackson's three-film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role. He provided the voice of Gandalf for several video game adaptations of the Lord of the Rings films, then reprised the role on screen in Jackson's film adaptation of The Hobbit, which was released in three parts from 2012 to 2014. He also appeared as Sir Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code (Ron Howard, 2006) opposite Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou. McKellen portrayed Sherlock Holmes in Holmes (Bill Condon, 2017), and Cogsworth in the live-action adaptation of Disney's Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon, 2017), starring Emma Watson. Also in 2017, McKellen appeared in the documentary McKellen: Playing the Part, (Joe Stephenson, 2017), which explores McKellen's life and career as an actor. McKellen's first partner was Brian Taylor, a history teacher from Bolton. Their relationship lasted from 1964 till 1972. In 1978 he met his second partner, actor-director Sean Mathias. This relationship lasted until 1988, and the couple worked later together on the film Bent (Sean Mathias, 1997) as well as in several stage productions. In 1988, McKellen came out to the general public on BBC Radio. The controversial Section 28 of the Local Government Bill was then under consideration in the British Parliament. McKellen became active in fighting the proposed law, and, during a BBC Radio 3 programme where he debated Section 28 with the conservative journalist Peregrine Worsthorne, declared himself gay. Section 28 was, however, enacted and remained on the statute books until 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England and Wales. McKellen has continued to be very active in LGBT rights efforts. Ian McKellen was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for his efforts in the arts. Ian Mc Kellen stays active for the cameras. He acted in Bill Condon's The Good Liar (2019) opposite Helen Mirren, as Gus, the theatre cat in the ridiculous adaptation of Cats (Tom Hooper, 2019), and as feared theatre critic Jimmy Erskine in The Critic (Anand Tucker, 2023).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Vintage press photo. Colin Clive and Dwight Frye in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

British actor Colin Clive (1900-1937) was the original Dr. Frankenstein. He made film history with his scream "It's Alive! It's Alive!" after his success at animating the Monster in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

Colin Clive was born in Saint-Malo, Ille-et-Vilaine, in 1900. He was the son of an English colonel on assignment in France at the time of Colin's birth. Clive was a direct descendant of Baron Robert Clive, founder of the British Indian Empire. In 1935 he would appear in a featured role in Clive of India, a film biography of his relative. He attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. A knee injury disqualified him from military service and contributed to his becoming a stage actor. One of his stage roles was Steve Baker, the white husband of racially mixed Julie LaVerne, in the first London production of 'Show Boat'. This production also featured Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Paul Robeson. He then replaced Laurence Olivier as the lead in the R.C. Sherriff play 'Journey's End' (1928). The success of 'Journey's End' gave its director, James Whale, the break to move to Broadway and to direct what would be the first British-American co-produced sound film, the film version of Journey's End (James Whale, 1930). Whale got Colin Clive back in the film as the laconic, alcoholic Captain Stanhope and Clive showed a measured intensity to his character, bolstered by his unique cracked baritone voice - seemingly always on the edge of irritation. This led to opportunities and he spent the rest of his career hopscotching between England and America, his most significant films emanating from Hollywood.

James Whale was contracted by Universal for a follow-up of the huge hit Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931), an adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He wanted Colin Clive as Dr. Henry Frankenstein, and it all came together. As Hal Erickson states at AllMovie: "Clive has earned a niche in cinematic Valhalla for his feverish, driven performance as Dr. Frankenstein". Although Clive would make only three horror films - the others were Mad Love (Karl Freund, 1935) and Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) - he is now widely regarded as one of the essential stars of the genre. In the following few years Clive played both B leading and A supporting roles such as the married title character in Christopher Strong (Dorothy Arzner, 1933) who falls for aviator Katherine Hepburn, the brutal husband of Diana Wynyard in One More River (James Whale, 1934), Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre (Christy Cabanne, 1934), and a British officer in Clive of India (Richard Boleslawski, 1935) in which Ronald Colman played his illustrious ancestor. Then Clive returned to Universal for Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) with Valerie Hobson in which his Dr. Henry was somewhat more subdued. This was mostly to do with a broken leg suffered from a horseback riding accident. He followed Bride with Mad Love (Karl Freund, 1935), a chilling reinterpretation of The Hands of Orlac. In the remainder of his films, he played disturbed supporting characters. Privately, Clive suffered from tuberculosis, which was furthered along by severe alcoholism. His last film was The Woman I Love (Anatole Litvak, 1937) starring Miriam Hopkins. In 1937, he died from complications of tuberculosis in Los Angeles, at age 37. From 1929 until his death, Colin Clive was married to actress Jeanne de Casalis. There has been speculation that de Casalis was a lesbian and Clive either gay or bisexual, and their marriage was one of convenience. However, producer David Lewis, the long-time companion of James Whale, flatly stated that Clive was not gay.

Source: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), William McPeak (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

British postcard in the Film Weekly series. Photo: Universal. Nancy Carroll and Frank Morgan in The Kiss Before the Mirror (James Whale, 1933).

The American mystery thriller The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933) was adapted from the 1932 play by Ladislas Fodor and directed by James Whale. The four stars of the film were Nancy Carroll, Frank Morgan, Paul Lukas, and Gloria Stuart.

Noted attorney Paul Held (Frank Morgan) is defending his friend, Walter Bernsdorf (Paul Lukas), who has been charged with the murder of his wife Lucy (Gloria Stuart) in Vienna. By Walter's account, Lucy was unfaithful to him during their marriage. After a court hearing, Paul returns home to his wife, Maria (Nancy Carroll), and watches her as she applies makeup in front of her vanity mirror. Paul recognizes a similarity to the events Walter had described in court and notices that his wife appears to pay special attention to her make-up for reasons unconnected with her love for him. Paul kisses Maria, and she angrily repulses him, claiming he has ruined her makeup; then she casually goes out. Like Walter before him, Paul follows his wife through the streets of Vienna and observes her meeting with a male lover (Donald Cook). This enrages Paul, and he fantasizes about murdering Maria. He also becomes obsessed with vindicating Walter by proving that his love for his wife made him crazed with jealousy when he saw her with another man. Maria becomes uneasy because the trial hits too close to home, but she continues to visit her lover. On the final day of deliberations in Walter's trial, Paul insists that Maria be present. He makes an impassioned closing appeal in which he claims that "the more a man loves and the more he is deceived, the greater his desire for revenge" and which he concludes by revealing a gun and pointing it at Maria in the audience. She screams in horror and loses consciousness, after which Paul finishes his speech. While the jury deliberates, Paul meets Maria in his office, where she reacts in terror. She insists she still loves him despite her affair. Walter is ultimately acquitted and warns Paul against killing Maria, which he says he will regret. Paul heeds his advice and asks Maria to leave the courthouse. Upon returning home, Paul angrily smashes Maria's vanity mirror. Maria appears behind him, and the two embrace.

English film director James Whale is best remembered for his four classic horror films: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He also directed interesting films in other genres, including screwball comedies and musicals. The The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933) is a superior mystery thriller. In 1933, Pare Lorentz wrote in Vanity Fair: "Director Whale was fortunate in having Frank Morgan and Paul Lukas as his leading men, and Karl Freund, the best man in the business, as cameraman for A Kiss Before the Mirror. I don't know how they happened to slip Nancy Carroll into the show, but we'll dismiss that. There is a pictorial quality about the opening scenes, and a maturity in the dialogue which makes a better part of the picture seem true and important." "The film is chock full of surprises for the viewer, almost as much in the twenty-first century as it was in 1933", writes Bruce Eder at AllMovie. "The opening minutes seem to be shaping up as a horror film, complete with the image of a stalker moving toward a house where an illicit couple (Walter Pidgeon, Gloria Stuart) are having a rendezvous - but it also almost threatens to become a musical, as the couple are each heard humming and vamping to tango as they prepare to meet, in what is just short of an erotic pre-coital ballet. And then, just as it reaches a new height of implied eroticism, it becomes something entirely different, as murderous rage explodes before the camera and the audience. Director James Whale carries us across this rapidly shifting cinematic landscape - much of it decorated in a beautifully understated art deco style (courtesy of art director Charles D. Hall) - in seemingly effortless fashion in just the first few minutes of The Kiss Before The Mirror, and then it gets really interesting - we're introduced to an array of deceptively complex characters, of whom the most interesting, other than the pairing of Frank Morgan and Nancy Carroll as the husband-and-wife headed into dangerous straits, is the lawyer played by Jean Dixon. Amid some amazing acting and character flourishes by the two leads, and quietly flamboyant support from Charles Grapewin as a dipsomaniac law clerk, Dixon's lady lawyer must constantly differentiate between her perceptions as a lawyer and a woman; when asked which she is, she remarks that by day she is a lawyer, and by night . . . "you'd be surprised." " The film was the subject of a remake by director James Whale himself. Five years later, he directed the same story under the title Wives Under Suspicion (James Whale, 1938), with a different cast including Warren William and Gail Patrick and on a much smaller budget. He made a few noticeable concessions for the more militant censors of 1938. However, Hal Erickson at AllMovie liked the result: "Indeed, Wives is a "B" picture, but one wouldn't know it from the care and attention that Whale gives it. An expressionistic opening lets the viewer know that Whale is going to do his best with the budget at hand, and he keeps the film visually interesting throughout. "

Sources: Pare Lorentz (Vanity Fair), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Mark Deming (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), AFI Catalog, Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

American postcard by American Postcard, no. 36. Boris Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935).

British actor Boris Karloff (1887-1969) is one of the true icons of the Horror cinema. He portrayed Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939), which resulted in his immense popularity. In the following decades, he worked in countless Horror films, but also in other genres, both in Europe and Hollywood.

Boris Karloff was born William Henry Pratt in 1887 in London, England. Pratt himself stated that he was born in Dulwich, which is nearby in London. His parents were Edward John Pratt, Jr. and his third wife Eliza Sarah Millard. ‘Billy’ never knew his father. Edward Pratt had worked for the Indian Salt Revenue Service and had virtually abandoned his family in far-off England. Edward died when his son was still an infant and so Billy was raised by his mother. He was the youngest of nine children, and following his mother's death was brought up by his elder brothers and sisters. As a child, Billy performed each Christmas in plays staged by St. Mary Magdalene's Church. His first role was that of The Demon King in the pantomime Cinderella. Billy was bow-legged, had a lisp, and stuttered. He conquered his stutter, but not his lisp, which was noticeable throughout his career in the film industry. After his education at private schools, he attended King's College London where he took studies aimed at a career with the British Government's Consular Service. However, in 1909, the 22-year-old left university without graduating and sailed from Liverpool to Canada, where he worked as a farm labourer and did various odd itinerant jobs. In Canada, he began appearing in theatrical performances and chose the stage name Boris Karloff. Later, he claimed he chose ‘Boris’ because it sounded foreign and exotic, and that ‘Karloff’ was a family name. However, his daughter Sara Karloff publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears, Karloff or otherwise. One reason for the name change was to prevent embarrassment to his family. He did not reunite with his family until he returned to Britain to make The Ghoul (T. Hayes Hunter, 1933), opposite Cedric Hardwicke. Karloff was distraught that his family would disapprove of his new, macabre claim to world fame. Instead, his brothers jostled for position around him and happily posed for publicity photographs. In 1911, Karloff joined the Jeanne Russell Company and later joined the Harry St. Clair Co. that performed in Minot, North Dakota, for a year in an opera house above a hardware store. Whilst he was trying to establish his acting career, Karloff had to perform years of difficult manual labour in Canada and the U.S. to make ends meet. He was left with back problems from which he suffered for the rest of his life. In 1917, he arrived in Hollywood, where he went on to make dozens of silent films. Some of his first roles were in film serials, such as The Masked Rider (Aubrey M. Kennedy, 1919), in Chapter 2 of which he can be glimpsed onscreen for the first time, and The Hope Diamond Mystery (Stuart Paton, 1920). In these early roles, he was often cast as an exotic Arabian or Indian villain. Other silent films were The Deadlier Sex (Robert Thornby, 1920) with Blanche Sweet, Omar the Tentmaker (James Young, 1922), Dynamite Dan (Bruce Mitchell, 1924) and Tarzan and the Golden Lion (J.P. McGowan, 1927) in which James Pierce played Tarzan. In 1926 Karloff found a provocative role in The Bells (James Young, 1926), in which he played a sinister hypnotist opposite Lionel Barrymore. He worked with Barrymore again in his first sound film, the thriller The Unholy Night (Lionel Barrymore, 1929).

A key film which brought Boris Karloff recognition was The Criminal Code (Howard Hawks, 1931), a prison drama in which he reprised a dramatic part he had played on stage. With his characteristic short-cropped hair and menacing features, Karloff was a frightening sight to behold. Opposite Edward G. Robinson, Karloff played a key supporting part as an unethical newspaper reporter in Five Star Final (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931), a film about tabloid journalism which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture. Karloff's role as Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931), based on the classic Mary Shelley book, propelled him to stardom. Wikipedia: “The bulky costume with four-inch platform boots made it an arduous role but the costume and extensive makeup produced the classic image. The costume was a job for Karloff with the shoes weighing 11 pounds (5 kg) each.” The aura of mystery surrounding Karloff was highlighted in the opening credits, as he was listed as simply "?." The film was a commercial and critical success for Universal, and Karloff was instantly established as a hot property in Hollywood. Universal Studios was quick to acquire ownership of the copyright to the makeup format for the Frankenstein monster that Jack P. Pierce had designed. A year later, Karloff played another iconic character, Imhotep in The Mummy (Karl Freund, 1932). The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932) with Charles Laughton, and the starring role in MGM’s The Mask of Fu Manchu (Charles Brabin, 1932) quickly followed. Steve Vertlieb at The Thunder Child: “Wonderfully kinky, the film co-starred young Myrna Loy as the intoxicating, yet sadistic Fah Lo See, Fu Manchu's sexually perverse daughter. Filmed before Hollywood's infamous production code, the film joyously escaped the later scrutiny of The Hayes Office, and remains a fascinating example of pre-code extravagance.” These films all confirmed Karloff's new-found stardom. Horror had become his primary genre, and he gave a string of lauded performances in 1930s Universal Horror films. Karloff reprised the role of Frankenstein's monster in two other films, the sensational Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) and the less thrilling Son of Frankenstein (Rowland V. Lee, 1939), the latter also featuring Bela Lugosi. Steve Vertlieb about Bride of Frankenstein: “Whale delivered perhaps the greatest horror film of the decade and easily the most critically acclaimed rendition of Mary Shelley's novel ever released. The Bride of Frankenstein remains a work of sheer genius, a brilliantly conceived and realized take on loneliness, vanity, and madness. The cast of British character actors is simply superb.” While the long, creative partnership between Karloff and Lugosi never led to a close friendship, it produced some of the actors' most revered and enduring productions, beginning with The Black Cat (Edgar G. Ullmer, 1934). Follow-ups included The Raven (Lew Landers, 1935), the rarely seen, imaginative science fiction melodrama The Invisible Ray (Lambert Hillyer, 1936), and The Body Snatcher (Robert Wise, 1945). Karloff played a wide variety of roles in other genres besides Horror. He was memorably gunned down in a bowling alley in Howard Hawks' classic Scarface (1932) starring Paul Muni. He played a religious First World War soldier in John Ford’s epic The Lost Patrol (1934) opposite Victor McLaglen. Between 1938 and 1940, Karloff starred in five films for Monogram Pictures, including Mr. Wong, Detective (William Nigh, 1938). During this period, he also starred with Basil Rathbone in Tower of London (Rowland V. Lee, 1939) as the murderous henchman of King Richard III, and with Margaret Lindsay in British Intelligence (Terry O. Morse, 1940). In 1944, he underwent a spinal operation to relieve his chronic arthritic condition.

Boris Karloff revisited the Frankenstein mythos in several later films, taking the starring role of the villainous Dr. Niemann in House of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1944), in which the monster was played by Glenn Strange. He reprised the role of the ‘mad scientist’ in Frankenstein 1970 (Howard W. Koch, 1958) as Baron Victor von Frankenstein II, the grandson of the original creator. The finale reveals that the crippled Baron has given his face (i.e., Karloff's) to the monster. From 1945 to 1946, Boris Karloff appeared in three films for RKO produced by Val Lewton: Isle of the Dead (Mark Robson, 1945), The Body Snatcher (Robert Wise, 1945), and Bedlam (Mark Robson, 1946). Karloff had left Universal because he thought the Frankenstein franchise had run its course. Karloff was a frequent guest on radio programs. In 1949, he was the host and star of the radio and television anthology series Starring Boris Karloff. In 1950, he had his own weekly children's radio show in New York. He played children's music, told stories and riddles, and attracted many adult listeners as well. An enthusiastic performer, he returned to the Broadway stage in the original production of Arsenic and Old Lace (1941), in which he played a homicidal gangster enraged to be frequently mistaken for Karloff. In 1962, he reprised the role on television with Tony Randall and Tom Bosley. He also appeared as Captain Hook in the play Peter Pan with Jean Arthur. In 1955, he returned to the Broadway stage to portray the sympathetic Bishop Cauchon in Jean Anouilh's The Lark. Karloff regarded the production as the highlight of his long career. Julie Harris was his co-star as Joan of Arc in the celebrated play, recreated for live television in 1957 with Karloff, Harris and much of the original New York company intact. For his role, Karloff was nominated for a Tony Award. Karloff donned the monster make-up for the last time for a Halloween episode of the TV series Route 66 (1962), which also featured Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney, Jr. In the 1960s, Karloff appeared in several films for American International Pictures, including The Comedy of Terrors (Jacques Tourneur, 1963) with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, The Raven (Roger Corman, 1963), The Terror (Roger Corman, 1963) with Jack Nicholson, and Die, Monster, Die! (Daniel Haller, 1965). Another project for American International release was the frightening Italian horror classic, I tre volti della paura/Black Sabbath (Mario Bava, 1963), in which Karloff played a vampire with bone-chilling intensity. He also starred in British cult director Michael Reeves's second feature film, The Sorcerers (1966). He gained new popularity among the young generation when he narrated the animated TV film Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Chuck Jones, Ben Washam. 1966), and provided the voice of the Grinch. Karloff later received a Grammy Award for Best Recording For Children after the story was released as a record. Then he starred as a retired horror film actor in Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968), Steve Vertlieb: “Targets was a profoundly disturbing study of a young sniper holding a small Midwestern community, deep in the bible belt, terrifyingly at bay. The celebrated subplot concerned the philosophical dilemma of creating fanciful horrors on the screen, while the graphic, troubling reality was eclipsing the superficiality so tiredly repeated by Hollywood. Karloff co-starred, essentially as himself, an aged horror star named Byron Orlok, who wants simply to retire from the imagined horrors of a faded genre, only to come shockingly to grips with the depravity and genuine terror found on America's streets. Bogdanovich's first film as a director won praise from critics and audiences throughout the world community, and won its elder star the best, most respectful notices of his later career.”. In 1968, he played occult expert Professor Marsh in the British production Curse of the Crimson Altar (Vernon Sewell, 1968), which was the last Karloff film to be released during his lifetime. He ended his career by appearing in four low-budget Mexican horror films, which were released posthumously. While shooting his final films, Karloff suffered from emphysema. Only half of one lung was still functioning and he required oxygen between takes. he contracted bronchitis in 1968 and was hospitalized. In early 1969, he died of pneumonia at the King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst, in Sussex, at the age of 81. Boris Karloff married five times and had one child, daughter Sara Karloff, by his fourth wife.

Sources: Steve Vertlieb (The Thunder Child), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch press photo by Nederlands Film Museum, Amsterdam. Boris Karloff in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

British actor Boris Karloff (1887-1969) is one of the true icons of the Horror cinema. He portrayed Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939), which resulted in his immense popularity. In the following decades, he worked in countless Horror films, but also in other genres, both in Europe and Hollywood.

Boris Karloff was born William Henry Pratt in 1887 in London, England. Pratt himself stated that he was born in Dulwich, which is nearby in London. His parents were Edward John Pratt, Jr. and his third wife Eliza Sarah Millard. ‘Billy’ never knew his father. Edward Pratt had worked for the Indian Salt Revenue Service and had virtually abandoned his family in far-off England. Edward died when his son was still an infant and so Billy was raised by his mother. He was the youngest of nine children, and following his mother's death was brought up by his elder brothers and sisters. As a child, Billy performed each Christmas in plays staged by St. Mary Magdalene's Church. His first role was that of The Demon King in the pantomime Cinderella. Billy was bow-legged, had a lisp, and stuttered. He conquered his stutter, but not his lisp, which was noticeable throughout his career in the film industry. After his education at private schools, he attended King's College London where he took studies aimed at a career with the British Government's Consular Service. However, in 1909, the 22-year-old left university without graduating and sailed from Liverpool to Canada, where he worked as a farm labourer and did various odd itinerant jobs. In Canada, he began appearing in theatrical performances and chose the stage name Boris Karloff. Later, he claimed he chose ‘Boris’ because it sounded foreign and exotic, and that ‘Karloff’ was a family name. However, his daughter Sara Karloff publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears, Karloff or otherwise. One reason for the name change was to prevent embarrassment to his family. He did not reunite with his family until he returned to Britain to make The Ghoul (T. Hayes Hunter, 1933), opposite Cedric Hardwicke. Karloff was distraught that his family would disapprove of his new, macabre claim to world fame. Instead, his brothers jostled for position around him and happily posed for publicity photographs. In 1911, Karloff joined the Jeanne Russell Company and later joined the Harry St. Clair Co. which performed in Minot, North Dakota, for a year in an opera house above a hardware store. While trying to establish his acting career, Karloff had to perform years of difficult manual labour in Canada and the U.S. to make ends meet. He was left with back problems from which he suffered for the rest of his life. In 1917, he arrived in Hollywood, where he went on to make dozens of silent films. Some of his first roles were in film serials, such as The Masked Rider (Aubrey M. Kennedy, 1919), in Chapter 2 of which he can be glimpsed onscreen for the first time, and The Hope Diamond Mystery (Stuart Paton, 1920). In these early roles, he was often cast as an exotic Arabian or Indian villain. Other silent films were The Deadlier Sex (Robert Thornby, 1920) with Blanche Sweet, Omar the Tentmaker (James Young, 1922), Dynamite Dan (Bruce Mitchell, 1924) and Tarzan and the Golden Lion (J.P. McGowan, 1927) in which James Pierce played Tarzan. In 1926 Karloff found a provocative role in The Bells (James Young, 1926), in which he played a sinister hypnotist opposite Lionel Barrymore. He worked with Barrymore again in his first sound film, the thriller The Unholy Night (Lionel Barrymore, 1929).

A key film which brought Boris Karloff recognition was The Criminal Code (Howard Hawks, 1931), a prison drama in which he reprised a dramatic part he had played on stage. With his characteristic short-cropped hair and menacing features, Karloff was a frightening sight to behold. Opposite Edward G. Robinson, Karloff played a key supporting part as an unethical newspaper reporter in Five Star Final (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931), a film about tabloid journalism which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture. Karloff's role as Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931), based on the classic Mary Shelley book, propelled him to stardom. Wikipedia: “The bulky costume with four-inch platform boots made it an arduous role but the costume and extensive makeup produced the classic image. The costume was a job for Karloff with the shoes weighing 11 pounds (5 kg) each.” The aura of mystery surrounding Karloff was highlighted in the opening credits, as he was listed as simply "?." The film was a commercial and critical success for Universal, and Karloff was instantly established as a hot property in Hollywood. Universal Studios was quick to acquire ownership of the copyright to the makeup format for the Frankenstein monster that Jack P. Pierce had designed. A year later, Karloff played another iconic character, Imhotep in The Mummy (Karl Freund, 1932). The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932) with Charles Laughton, and the starring role in MGM’s The Mask of Fu Manchu (Charles Brabin, 1932) quickly followed. Steve Vertlieb at The Thunder Child: “Wonderfully kinky, the film co-starred young Myrna Loy as the intoxicating, yet sadistic Fah Lo See, Fu Manchu's sexually perverse daughter. Filmed before Hollywood's infamous production code, the film joyously escaped the later scrutiny of The Hayes Office, and remains a fascinating example of pre-code extravagance.” These films all confirmed Karloff's new-found stardom. Horror had become his primary genre, and he gave a string of lauded performances in 1930s Universal Horror films. Karloff reprised the role of Frankenstein's monster in two other films, the sensational Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) and the less thrilling Son of Frankenstein (Rowland V. Lee, 1939), the latter also featuring Bela Lugosi. Steve Vertlieb about Bride of Frankenstein: “Whale delivered perhaps the greatest horror film of the decade and easily the most critically acclaimed rendition of Mary Shelley's novel ever released. The Bride of Frankenstein remains a work of sheer genius, a brilliantly conceived and realized take on loneliness, vanity, and madness. The cast of British character actors is simply superb.” While the long, creative partnership between Karloff and Lugosi never led to a close friendship, it produced some of the actors' most revered and enduring productions, beginning with The Black Cat (Edgar G. Ullmer, 1934). Follow-ups included The Raven (Lew Landers, 1935), the rarely seen, imaginative science fiction melodrama The Invisible Ray (Lambert Hillyer, 1936), and The Body Snatcher (Robert Wise, 1945). Karloff played a wide variety of roles in other genres besides Horror. He was memorably gunned down in a bowling alley in Howard Hawks' classic Scarface (1932) starring Paul Muni. He played a religious First World War soldier in John Ford’s epic The Lost Patrol (1934) opposite Victor McLaglen. Between 1938 and 1940, Karloff starred in five films for Monogram Pictures, including Mr. Wong, Detective (William Nigh, 1938). During this period, he also starred with Basil Rathbone in Tower of London (Rowland V. Lee, 1939) as the murderous henchman of King Richard III, and with Margaret Lindsay in British Intelligence (Terry O. Morse, 1940). In 1944, he underwent a spinal operation to relieve his chronic arthritic condition.

Boris Karloff revisited the Frankenstein mythos in several later films, taking the starring role of the villainous Dr. Niemann in House of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1944), in which the monster was played by Glenn Strange. He reprised the role of the ‘mad scientist’ in Frankenstein 1970 (Howard W. Koch, 1958) as Baron Victor von Frankenstein II, the grandson of the original creator. The finale reveals that the crippled Baron has given his face (i.e., Karloff's) to the monster. From 1945 to 1946, Boris Karloff appeared in three films for RKO produced by Val Lewton: Isle of the Dead (Mark Robson, 1945), The Body Snatcher (Robert Wise, 1945), and Bedlam (Mark Robson, 1946). Karloff had left Universal because he thought the Frankenstein franchise had run its course. Karloff was a frequent guest on radio programs. In 1949, he was the host and star of the radio and television anthology series Starring Boris Karloff. In 1950, he had his own weekly children's radio show in New York. He played children's music, told stories and riddles, and attracted many adult listeners. An enthusiastic performer, he returned to the Broadway stage in the original production of Arsenic and Old Lace (1941), in which he played a homicidal gangster enraged to be frequently mistaken for Karloff. In 1962, he reprised the role on television with Tony Randall and Tom Bosley. He also appeared as Captain Hook in the play Peter Pan with Jean Arthur. In 1955, he returned to the Broadway stage to portray the sympathetic Bishop Cauchon in Jean Anouilh's The Lark. Karloff regarded the production as the highlight of his long career. Julie Harris was his co-star as Joan of Arc in the celebrated play, recreated for live television in 1957 with Karloff, Harris and much of the original New York company intact. For his role, Karloff was nominated for a Tony Award. Karloff donned the monster make-up for the last time for a Halloween episode of the TV series Route 66 (1962), which also featured Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney, Jr. In the 1960s, Karloff appeared in several films for American International Pictures, including The Comedy of Terrors (Jacques Tourneur, 1963) with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, The Raven (Roger Corman, 1963), The Terror (Roger Corman, 1963) with Jack Nicholson, and Die, Monster, Die! (Daniel Haller, 1965). Another project for American International release was the frightening Italian horror classic, I tre volti della paura/Black Sabbath (Mario Bava, 1963), in which Karloff played a vampire with bone-chilling intensity. He also starred in British cult director Michael Reeves's second feature film, The Sorcerers (1966). He gained new popularity among the young generation when he narrated the animated TV film Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Chuck Jones, Ben Washam. 1966), and provided the voice of the Grinch. Karloff later received a Grammy Award for Best Recording For Children after the story was released as a record. Then he starred as a retired horror film actor in Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968), Steve Vertlieb: “Targets was a profoundly disturbing study of a young sniper holding a small Midwestern community, deep in the bible belt, terrifyingly at bay. The celebrated subplot concerned the philosophical dilemma of creating fanciful horrors on the screen, while the graphic, troubling reality was eclipsing the superficiality so tiredly repeated by Hollywood. Karloff co-starred, essentially as himself, an aged horror star named Byron Orlok, who wants simply to retire from the imagined horrors of a faded genre, only to come shockingly to grips with the depravity and genuine terror found on America's streets. Bogdanovich's first film as a director won praise from critics and audiences throughout the world community, and won its elder star the best, most respectful notices of his later career.”. In 1968, he played occult expert Professor Marsh in the British production Curse of the Crimson Altar (Vernon Sewell, 1968), which was the last Karloff film to be released during his lifetime. He ended his career by appearing in four low-budget Mexican horror films, which were released posthumously. While shooting his final films, Karloff suffered from emphysema. Only half of one lung was still functioning and he required oxygen between takes. he contracted bronchitis in 1968 and was hospitalized. In early 1969, he died of pneumonia at the King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst, in Sussex, at the age of 81. Boris Karloff married five times and had one child, daughter Sara Karloff, by his fourth wife.

Sources: Steve Vertlieb (The Thunder Child), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Vintage press photo. Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser in Gods and Monsters (Bill Condon, 1998).

The career of English actor Ian McKellen (1939) spans genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and Science Fiction. He became a stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Great Britain. He achieved worldwide fame for his film roles, including the titular King in Richard III (1995), James Whale in Gods and Monsters (1998), Magneto in the X-Men films, and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. For his work, Mckellen received six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, five Primetime Emmy Awards, four BAFTAs, and many other awards. He has been openly gay since 1988 and continues to be a champion for the LGBT movement.

Ian Murray McKellen was born in 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire. He was the son of Margery Lois (née Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen. He had a sister, Jean, five years his senior. McKellen's father was a civil engineer and lay preacher. His home environment was strongly Christian, but non-orthodox. When he was 12, his mother died of breast cancer; his father died when he was 24. McKellen's acting career started at Bolton Little Theatre, of which he is now the patron. An early fascination with the theatre was encouraged by his parents, who took him on a family outing to Peter Pan at the Opera House in Manchester when he was three. When he was nine, his main Christmas present was a fold-away wood and bakelite Victorian theatre from Pollock's Toy Theatres, with cardboard scenery and wires to push on the cut-outs of Cinderella and of Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. His sister took him to his first Shakespeare play, 'Twelfth Night', by the amateurs of Wigan's Little Theatre. In 1958, McKellen, at the age of 18, won a scholarship to St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he read English literature. While at Cambridge, McKellen was a member of the Marlowe Society, where he appeared in 23 plays over 3 years. He already gave performances that have since become legendary such as his Justice Shallow in Henry IV alongside Trevor Nunn and Derek Jacobi in 1959. During this period McKellen was directed by Peter Hall, John Barton and Dadie Rylands, who had a huge impact on McKellen's future career. He made his first professional appearance in 1961 as Roper in A Man for All Seasons. After four years in regional repertory theatres, he made his first West End appearance, in A Scent of Flowers. It was a success. In 1965 he was a member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company at the Old Vic. With the Prospect Theatre Company, McKellen made his breakthrough performances of Richard II and Marlowe's Edward II. In the 1970s and 1980s McKellen became a well-known figure in British theatre, performing frequently at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, where he played several leading Shakespearean roles, including the title role in Macbeth, and Iago in Othello, in award-winning productions directed by Trevor Nunn. Both productions were adapted into television films, also directed by Nunn. In 2007 he returned to the Royal Shakespeare Company, in productions of King Lear and The Seagull, both directed by Trevor Nunn. In 2009 he appeared in a very popular revival of Waiting for Godot, directed by Sean Mathias, and playing opposite Patrick Stewart. In late August 2012, he took part in the opening ceremony of the London Paralympics, portraying Prospero from The Tempest. In October 2017, McKellen played King Lear at Chichester Festival Theatre, a role which he said was likely to be his "last big Shakespearean part". He performed the play at the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End during the summer of 2018.

Ian McKellen has taken film roles throughout his career—beginning with his role as George Matthews in A Touch of Love (Waris Hussein, 1969) starring Sandy Dennis, and his first leading role was as D. H. Lawrence in Priest of Love (Christopher Miles, 1980). He played war minister John Profumo involved in a scandalous affair with an exotic dancer in Scandal ( Michael Caton-Jones, 1989). In the 1990s he became more widely recognised after several roles in Hollywood films. In 1993, he had a supporting role as a South African tycoon in the critically acclaimed Six Degrees of Separation (Fred Schepisi, 1993), with Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland, and Will Smith. In the same year, he appeared in the TV miniseries Tales of the City (Alastair Reid, 1993), based on the novel by his friend Armistead Maupin, and the film Last Action Hero (John McTiernan, 1993), in which he briefly played Death opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. McKellen also appeared in the TV film And the Band Played On (Roger Spottiswoode, 1993) about the discovery of the AIDS virus for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award. He played the title role in Richard III (Richard Loncraine, 1995) with Annette Bening and Robert Downey Jr., which transported the setting into an alternative 1930s in which England is ruled by fascists. The film which McKellen co-produced and co-wrote, was a critical success. His performance in the title role garnered BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor and won the European Film Award for Best Actor. His screenplay was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also appeared in the modestly acclaimed film Apt Pupil (1998), which was directed by Bryan Singer and based on a story by Stephen King. McKellen portrayed a fugitive Nazi officer living under a false name in the US who is befriended by a curious teenager (Brad Renfro) who threatens to expose him unless he tells his story in detail. He was subsequently nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in Gods and Monsters (Bill Condon, 1998), wherein he played the director of Frankenstein (1931), James Whale.

Ian McKellen was cast, again under the direction of Bryan Singer, to play the comic book supervillain Magneto in X-Men (2000) and its sequels X2: X-Men United (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). He later made a short appearance as an older Magneto in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), sharing the role with Michael Fassbender, who played a younger version of the character in X-Men: First Class (2011). While filming the first X-Men film in 1999, McKellen was cast as the wizard Gandalf in Peter Jackson's three-film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role. He provided the voice of Gandalf for several video game adaptations of the Lord of the Rings films, then reprised the role on screen in Jackson's film adaptation of The Hobbit, which was released in three parts from 2012 to 2014. He also appeared as Sir Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code (Ron Howard, 2006) opposite Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou. McKellen portrayed Sherlock Holmes in Holmes (Bill Condon, 2017), and Cogsworth in the live-action adaptation of Disney's Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon, 2017), starring Emma Watson. Also in 2017, McKellen appeared in the documentary McKellen: Playing the Part, (Joe Stephenson, 2017), which explores McKellen's life and career as an actor. McKellen's first partner was Brian Taylor, a history teacher from Bolton. Their relationship lasted from 1964 till 1972. In 1978 he met his second partner, actor-director Sean Mathias. This relationship lasted until 1988, and the couple worked later together on the film Bent (Sean Mathias, 1997) as well as in several stage productions. In 1988, McKellen came out to the general public on BBC Radio. The controversial Section 28 of the Local Government Bill was then under consideration in the British Parliament. McKellen became active in fighting the proposed law, and, during a BBC Radio 3 programme where he debated Section 28 with the conservative journalist Peregrine Worsthorne, declared himself gay. Section 28 was, however, enacted and remained on the statute books until 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England and Wales. McKellen has continued to be very active in LGBT rights efforts. Ian McKellen was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for his efforts in the arts. Ian Mc Kellen stays active for the cameras. He acted in Bill Condon's The Good Liar (2019) opposite Helen Mirren, as Gus, the theatre cat in the ridiculous adaptation of Cats (Tom Hooper, 2019), and as feared theatre critic Jimmy Erskine in The Critic (Anand Tucker, 2023).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.