Monsters, Earthquakes and Good Scary Things

Random noun: Vampire.

Two words are forever associated with vampire: Bela Lugosi.

The Hungarian-born actor became a horror movie immortal in 1931, starring in Tod Browning’s film based on Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula. Lugosi’s heavy accent and penetrating eyes were just the right amount of creepy mixed with European charm. Those features, unfortunately, typecast Lugosi ever after, and he ended up in B and C movies the rest of his life.

B movies were those cheap productions that filled a bill with A pictures.

C movies were made by Ed Wood, reputed to be the worst director of all time.

Lugosi’s best post-Dracula performance was his self-parody in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. He played the role like a trouper, which he was, having been a stage actor before getting into the movies. “The show must go on” and all that.

When the charming Count he meets Wilbur (Lou Costello), who unbeknownst to him has been selected for his pliable brain, he smiles at him longingly. When Wilbur and the others are leaving for a Halloween costume party, Lugosi says, “Ah, you young people. You are right to make the most of life…” And looking at Wilbur he adds, “…while it lasts.” Those last three words were delivered with perfect timing in signature Lugosi style.

Lugosi as Dracula is woven through popular culture. Even Mad magazine paid tribute to him when Frank Jacobs, the poet laureate of Mad, wrote “The Bat Poem,” which begins:

Bats are creepy.
Bats are scary.
Bats do not seem
Sanitary.

Bats in dismal caves
Keep cozy.
Bats remind us
Of Lugosi.

The “Big Four” monsters of Universal Studios in the golden age of cinema were Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, and Frankenstein’s Monster (usually dubbed simply Frankenstein, even though that was the doctor’s name in the Mary Shelley novel). 

In the 1960s the Aurora Plastics company introduced model kits of the Big Four, all of which I had in my room as a kid, plus a bonus Universal monster, The Creature From the Black Lagoon. That movie was about a prehistoric fish-man living in the Brazilian Amazon, where he carried out his amphibious terror.

The now-famous fish costume was designed by a sometime actress and freelance makeup artist named Milicent Patrick. So successful was her work that Universal sent her on a press tour to tout the movie. This made her boss at the studio, Bud Westmore, jealous. When she got back to town he let her go and deep-sixed her involvement in the film. She is not listed in the credits.

Ah, Hollywood, where the knives sticking out of people’s backs could be housed their own museum.

Sadly, Milicent Patrick never worked in film design again. 

But the truth will out, even in Tinseltown. A young visual effects man, Robert Skotak, dug up the truth and wrote an article about Miss Patrick. Skotak would go on to win two Oscars for his work with James Cameron, on Aliens and Terminator 2. The whole story is told in a book by Mallory O’Meara titled The Lady from the Black Lagoon.

What was good about all those classic horror movies was the defeat of darkness. That’s why it was good that theaters were packed with kids. It’s like what Chesterton said: "Fairy tales do not give a child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon." 

Getting scared by a movie is something you never forget. 

But there is good scary and bad scary. Good scary makes you feel relieved when it’s over, when the monster is destroyed. Bad scary has gore that kids aren’t wired to process.

Like in the movie Red Dragon, which I saw at a matinee. And was shocked to see a young couple come in with their five-year-old daughter. They sat in front of me. I wondered what could possibly possess the parents to subject their child to this. I vividly recall the girl being chatty and happy before the movie began, a tub of popcorn on her lap.

Then the movie started. Creepy from the start, it turned to outright gory, especially one scene featuring serial killer Ralph Fiennes. Wait. I mean the serial killer played by Ralph Fiennes. Let’s not get lawyers involved here.

When the movie was over I raced out to the lobby so I could see the young family when they came out. The man was carrying the little girl, her head resting on his shoulder. Her face was drained of color, her eyes unmoving, staring into space. She wasn’t chatty now.

Oh, how I wanted to have a word with that father. But public civility held me back. I wrote a letter to the L.A. Times instead. They printed it. 

Speaking of shock, the earth often shakes in California. We’ve had some big ones. The 1906 San Francisco quake, and two I experienced, in ’71 and ’94.

Lots of little ones. I was teaching a screenwriting class in a tall building to a group of students from all over, when we had a temblor. You could tell who the longtime residents of L.A. were, as opposed to the out-of-towners. The latter group screamed like we were living out The Poseidon Adventure, and scattered for cover. 

The rest of us steadied our laptops and waited it out.

Later that day I got an email from a friend in New York, asking if I was okay. I wrote back, “It was just a 4.0. In L.A. we don’t call that an earthquake. We call it a foot massage.”

Quote of the Week: “Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill

Quote of the Week #2: “I don't care if my pictures never make a dime, so long as everyone keeps coming to see them.” – Samuel Goldwyn