News and party pics from a party pooper

Now that I'm beginning to feel rested from the rigors of Hallowe'en merry-making all month long, I can do some wrap-up and post-season reports.

NEWS FLASH: The ol' DSH was right! On Sept. 5th, I posited in a post (love to pop my 'p's) that the dead "chupacabra" found in Texas was likely a mangy coyote, and that is positively so!

Chupacabra ID'ed as coyote

But as happy as I was to be correct, I was disappointed to see a trend reported on in this news item:

To play Hallowe'en pranks, you must get permission

("May I soap your window, ma'am?" "Why yes, if you make a nice picture of a kitty or flower on the glass." "Thank you, ma'am.")

Being a red-headed drunken severed head, I was also disappointed to learn that I might be related to Neanderthal cavemen:

Science says some Neanderthals had red hair

But a cheerful thing happened today-- I got photos from a friend of a Hallowe'en party she hosted last week. I can't recall it, but Jane says she had a blast at the do! (She's always bringing dynamite caps when we go out.) Here are my friends:

______________________Uh-oh, hat fight!!

One more LASZLO REVIK film found!

Here's a news item from many decades ago sent in by reader Jack Theakston of a forgotten Revik film, THE ISLAND OF DR. GHOUL (click for larger image):


This was forwarded to me by Ted Newsom, who wrote to say, "Max: Be careful. I thought this guy was long dead. I may've started something..."

Finale: A Forgotten Horror Star, Part Ten

Hello there. Hope you had a great Halloween. Jane and I did. We got lots of cards and good wishes, and even some nice gifts from the drunken severed head's parental units. (No, they aren't Hallowe'en geeks like me. It was our anniversary, after all.) And we now have the end to the Laszlo Revik story! (I was sure I was going to have to watch every darkened crook and nanny-- I mean nook and cranny-- for film monsters out to get me!) But Samhain has ceased, and so the grand finale to the tale of Laszlo Revik, the horror star most deserving of typecasting, reaches its end below. I hope you're enjoying this tale from the demented mind of filmmaker Ted Newsom, who has my gratitude for sharing it with The Drunken Severed Head. Considering he was close to being burned to death recently, I am especially grateful-- and amazed.

When we last left off, Sam Lee's gal, Eva, had dumped him, and Lorrette Edleman, who had tried to get the get the Revik films away from Sam, was found dead in her bathtub with no blood in her. And the news reported that cable executive Andy Hensley was murdered. (Just to get you in a good mood for the rest of the story.)

Did you see it, Max? What a Chinese fire-drill, and thank God! The cable company dumped that preppy twerp who had taken Faye's place, to take the heat for it all. No, he had nothing to do with the surreal video switching, the broadcast tower explosion or the fire—but someone had to take the fall, and we all he think he earned it. In my opinion, more smug little 25 year old executives should get fired more often. It cleans the gene pool.

I’ll back up. Sam was sweating bullets. He’s under indictment, the cops have issued a warrant, and he’s a fugitive from justice. His own lawyer thinks he’s nuts and killed three people. Jeff and I tell him our theory—that Laszlo Revik is planning the ultimate comeback—Life Eternal through the alchemy of movies, planting his essence, his”self” directly into the minds of millions—and that in some eldritch fashion, he’s managed to send “unreal” emissaries out into our 3-D world as unwilling proxy assassins: the mummy, the werewolf, the Invisible Man, Dracula. And like everyone who ever tried to outwit Dr. Ghoul, Sam Lee is getting what he asked for—but getting royally screwed in the process. Sam didn’t argue, but he still planned to get the hell out of town. The police would never buy a supernatural/sci-fi load of crap like that and they’d throw the book at him (just the way Revik set up the “cured” Lawrence Talbot in HOUSE OF DR. GHOUL, btw). He wanted to make up with Eva, grab her and get out of the country. That’s when we “found” Eva.

Someone—in retrospect, we can guess who—had left a message for her at the theater rehearsal, saying said Sam needed her right away at the studio. Some secretary saw Eva in a hallway near the green-screen stage, but by the time we got there, zip, gone. No trace. A couple minutes later, after the Revik marathon started, we were in the booth, and on the monitor, there she was in Lugosi’s arms, swooned out like Helen Chandler, being swept into a secret passageway. She was in the maid’s costume from her stage play with the curly wig, but by God we all recognized her. Literally, she was in the movies.

I did tell you I have a passing knowledge of the arcane arts, didn’t I? Just part of my eternal quest for truth and fun. Well, it never came in more handy than right then. Sam came to his senses quickly. Happily, Brinke was with us; li’l ol’ Scream Queen Stevens is no slouch when it comes to this stuff, either. Plus, it balanced out the yin-yang energy a little. Jeff pulled the typed transcripts of the movies’ dialogue tracks and found the words in the ritual used by “Dr. Ghoul” in the original film to “cross into the other world,” as Revik puts it. And we sent Steven off on his little “off-campus” mission. He’s such a sweetheart, so fey, really, he was the last person who should’ve gotten stuck with a commando raid, but nobody else was available.

So the timecodes are clicking away, thirteen different evil movies being beamed to every time zone on the globe, that degenerate’s gaunt image and black thoughts and expressions seeping directly into kids—and adults—everywhere… and all monitored from here. With Jeff commandeering the control booth, me and Brinke invoked the powers “Joseph Elwin” had mastered. Sam stood there on the green-screen stage in costume, Jeff hit the composite switch—and that’s when Sam Lee left. And that very instant, a new character appeared in the prison scene of HOUSE OF DR. GHOUL.

I’m sure no one nowhere noticed what was happening yet. How could they? Nobody’d ever seen the movies. So when the screen showed a guy who looked exactly like Sam Lee face to face with a condemned Larry Talbot from 60 years ago, that was just apparently part of this “cult movie.” Well, Sam stayed in character, but he followed my suggestion to change the script. He told Talbot how he’d been framed—and told him he could still will himself into a werewolf and kill Revik. Sam ran out of that shot—hell, out of that whole movie entirely—as Chaney looked through the bars at the Moon and started to change.

Jeff played with the controls like a silent-movie house organist on amphetamines, cutting to this movie, to that one, to another. He tried to maneuver Sam’s image (moving left to right) to a monitor showing Eva. It wasn’t easy—and that’s when the broadcast became something out of Salvatore Dali or Ed Emshwiller. Shots of black and white gangsters on a heist abutted color shots of innocent kids lured to Paris catacombs—Dwight Frye seemed to be in the same movie as William Hudson—Russian commie generals were electronically intercut with lunatics raving in Eastmancolor and Techniscope. And through it all, like the ringmaster of an insane circus of horrors, was Revik, at age 45, age 75, age 60.

Oh, I didn’t explain Steven’s little job. We sent him to the top of Mt. Holly to the transmission tower. They’re blasting a new road up there by the old Merrye house, but at night, of course, there’s nobody minding the store. All he had to do is steal some dynamite, light it near the tower, and hope he doesn’t go to prison for ten years.

Just before the big power surge, the last thing I saw on the broadcast was the “new” scene from DR. GHOUL MEETS THE VAMPIRE. Sam found Eva—and Lugosi entered. Sam’s now all macho and heroic, but Dracula and Eva put him straight. Revik had killed his daughter Lorette in that hotel tub—but made it appear the work of the vampire—or Sam, take your pick of chumps. After Revik kidnapped Eva and brought her through the portal into the film world, Dracula hid her away. THAT was the footage we had seen earlier. “Now, Mr. Lee,” Lugosi imperiously intoned to Sam, “are you any wiser than you were before?” We – and they—went pale when we heard Laszlo Revik answer, “No, but I am.”

There was Revik in the doorway, brandishing the crossbow stolen from the dead Allen Gordon. He reminds them, “A wooden shaft through the heart is deadly to vampires—and humans.” And he lays it all out, the classic villainous gloating in the final reel. Eva will be his courtesan throughout eternity, doomed to submit to the most debased orders imaginable, her torment repeated unto infinity. And Sam gets to be David Manners forever—a helpless, hapless jerk, forced to watch the woman he loves at the mercy of a soulless fiend. “Behold the price of betrayal!” And with that, Revik fired an arrow—not at Sam, but right into Dracula’s heart. The disintegration scene was choice—outdid even Armand Telsa’s gooey finale in RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE. But Revik looked up and our kids were gone.

Sam and Eva fled through one film, then the other, with Revik’s voice-over following them. Jeff kept hitting switcher buttons, trying to maneuver their scenes away from shots of Revik (not easy—since he was in every one of the films, all running simultaneously).

They took refuge in the Frankenstein movie. Karloff didn’t respond to “Mr. Karloff,” and Eva had to remind Sam they were play-acting, in another universe. In THAT movie, Dr. Ghoul had blackmailed Baron Frankenstein into reviving his Monster as a slave, in exchange for raising the Baron’s wife from the dead (Revik did—but she was a 20-year-dead cadaver. You can’t trust the guy, I’m telling you, you just can’t trust him!) The Baron understood that this was a battle with pure energy, a disembodied force—but that his machinery had helped bring the evil into his world—and ours. One lever thrown—one minute and double-kablooee.

That’s when the broadcast ended. Steven had come through. Ka-blooee. But the movies were still running and creating that malignant energy—which now had no place to go. In the telecine bay, things started to smoke. The control panel went hot under Jeff’s fingers. We got the hell out into the parking lot. And Jeff made an educated guess and patched in a dvd player—and hit the button marked “Eject.”

It worked. Sam and Eva reappeared in the green-screen studio. Zeke—the poor black-T-shirted schlub—tried to stop them from getting into the manufacturing warehouse, but Sam (bless him) kicked his ass, and started to light the nitrate prints. It was too late. Revik—Dr. Ghoul himself-- followed them, with the revived Frankenstein Monster, who eyed Eva with a no-good smile. Yes, Revik told them, his essence HAD been in the films, but now it was transformed into pure electrical energy, and was on its way to the minds of millions. All around him in the warehouse, boxes and boxes filled with the thirteen wicked films of Laszlo Revik.

That’s when the Wolf Man showed up. Talbot had tracked his enemy Revik through the green-screen portal. The Monster and the Wolf Man commenced a battle royale as Sam and Eva tried to escape the warehouse, now filling with smoke. Revik used the crossbow and killed Talbot— then locked the Monster behind in the burning building. The end? Not hardly.

Outside, we watched the whole damned place go up in a blaze of fire, electrical bolts and black smoke. Through the flames we saw the face—looking at us—gloating. Victorious. We then understood the meaning of the title of his last, “posthumous” film: The triumph of evil. Energy cannot be destroyed—only transformed—or transmitted.

And that was what Lorette had tried to tell us, with that strange symbol, finger-painted with her own blood: ground the energy. Transmit it.

The fire engine sirens and police choppers started closing in around the inferno as me, Sam, Jeff and Eva threw together a half-assed, improvised electrical ground, with automobile jumper cables attached to a water pipe on one end—and the satellite broadcast tower on the other. The jets of flames kept whipping out of the building at us, and the firemen and cops kept trying to get us out, all the while with that ghastly, huge face glowering above us, the weird greenish fire enveloping him like a cloak. We did it—clamped one end to the dish.

The fire roared as if it hated us. Multicolored arcs of electricity leaped from the burning building to the huge broadcast antenna, making it glow in the night. The “face” we saw in the fire stretched its mouth like the painting, “Scream” (or the mask in the movie, for that matter.) and our ears hurt from the metallic screech. Almost too fast to comprehend, the giant satellite dish took on a molten-metal glow—and a pencil thin beam of light shot from its center antenna, pointed up at the night sky.

At that point, all we could hear was emergency sirens, and yells, and the crackling roar of a nice, normal three-alarm fire.

You have never heard such a beautiful sound.

Sam actually hugged Eva (I guess I’m out of luck) and she said, “Where did he go?” Sam shrugged. But Jeff and I both heard—swear to God, both of us—the voice of Boris Karloff whispering, “Out—out into the Universe.”

So, like I said, the broadcast screw-up was all blamed on the idiot executive, which is fine. The cops had a semi-easy time pinning the deaths on Andy Hensley (hey, everybody hated him, and he was dead. Makes a GREAT fall guy.) I don’t know that anyone came up with a plausible story about who blew up the transmission tower. I told Steven, “If anybody asks, just say, ‘It was terrorists.’”

That’s it for Laszlo Revik and his thirteen “cult” horror movies. None of the films ever did run in their entirety, the film elements, the master recordings and the dvd copies went up in a neat little inferno. I think our little metaphysical pyromania made the world a better place. Maybe there’s certain films best left unseen, certain cinematic knowledge that movie buffs were not meant to know.

Gee. I hope nobody used Tivo.

For Hallowe'en: A Forgotten Horror Star, Part Nine--The End of Laszlo Revik?

Dear god. Despite my flippant reply to the comment by Sparkle Plenty, I'm more afraid this Halloween than I've been in 30+ years. And it's just because of some news from Ted.

He has sent two e-mails that have left me reeling-- no film pun intended.

First there was the news of the death of the horrible death of "Faye", that cable exec who tried to sink the cable deal for the Revik films. Now I've learned that the details of her death are pretty nasty, even gruesome. From Ted:

Oh, boy, Max, is this the cynical replay of “the show must go on.” No sooner does this female executive get attacked, mauled, raped and—for God’s sake—partially eaten—does her twerpy preppie assistant get boosted into her job. The queen is dead, long live the prince. This 24 year old twerp reversed her decision and the cable company is dumping the Revik films onto the market, fast. The distributor, Andy Hensley (oh, go ahead and use his name. It’s been in all the trades) plans to saturate the media and try to make money quickly, then get out: coordinated dvd release-- they’re already working overtime pressing thousands of discs-- a cable marathon, and simultaneous streaming video. It’s gonna be radio station KRVK, all Revik, all the time, thirteen films, one after the other, in constant rotation. He’s pretty much forced to do it by circumstance. Once he learned they were ALL in PD, that’s giving video pirates a license to steal, clone every one of them a jillion times.

About Faye’s death: Somebody had followed her that night, through the dark park, stalking her. It was foggy that night, and I’m hearing old Hans Salter themes when I imagine it. There were BIG animal tracks leading up to the location of the body (it was found the next morning)—but the tracks didn’t lead anywhere, they just stopped. The local papers followed the police party line, suggesting she was attacked by an escaped animal from Griffith Park Zoo. They had to say something. My cop pal Brian told me they’ve again got conflicting clues, like they’re straddling realities—either that, or somebody’s faking things REALLY well. The forensics guys found human hairs on her body. And canine-family hairs. And yak hairs. Hint: the zoo is not missing an escaped disappearing, flying yak.

[Yak hair's used in film makeup, for those of you who aren't film geeks like me, or film pros like Ted.]

Remember Eva, Sam’s girlfriend? They’ve split, rather acrimoniously. If she’d been venal, she’d stick with him into the “big time” he thinks he’s going to hit, but she’s a sweetie, and he’s become a total dick with this Laszlo Revik fixation. Too bad. She’s got a part in some little Equity-waiver play, an Agatha Christie mystery. She deserves a better guy (I’d volunteer, but I’m busy), or at least a sober Sam Lee in his right mind. Or at least somebody who wasn’t a suspect in three homicides.

Yeah, three: a cleaning lady found Lorette dead in her hotel bathtub, naked and “completely ex-sanguinated.” ["Drained of blood", to spare some of you a Google search.] The hotel (Beverly Hills) is big enough to pressure the papers to keep quiet about this, but again, my pal Brian is giving me the inside scoop. She was naked (well, sure, it’s a bathtub), drained nearly dry, with two little marks on her—you know. So that’s one more obstacle out of the way of showing these movies. The old, obvious investigator’s question: Who benefits? The cops haven’t arrested anyone yet, but there are “persons of interest.” Sam, because the deal goes through; ditto his distributor, Andy Hensley; maybe the upwardly mobile ladder-climber at the cable company. And of course Laszlo Revik, because his creepy face and form become part of world-wide consciousness forever. Problem with him is, he’s been certifiably dead for 27 years and he only exists on films no one’s ever seen. I don’t think the cops consider him a serious suspect.

Given what they found in the hotel bathroom, off the top of my head, I’d put out an all-points-bulletin for Count Dracula, but that’s the romantic in me. And here’s one for Sherlock Holmes. Know anything about electric blueprint symbols? Lorette apparently drew a symbol on the tile in her own blood:
My Shop classes in eighth grade were a LONG time ago. I had to poke around the ‘net for an hour before I found it. It’s the symbol for grounding a circuit.

I’ve got to make this one short. Jeff Richards just called. He’s edited a video together, and says there’s more bad news. Should be an interesting Halloween. * * * * *

After reading this, I wasn't sure I wanted to open anymore e-mails from Ted. Seriously! As I feared, this morning the forthcoming news got worse. MUCH worse. Well, it gives me an excellent excuse to drink...

More pictures of Laszlo Revik below-- why I share the face of this bastard here, I don't know, but I feel compelled to-- followed by Ted's second message...

Sorry. I think you can use the distributor’s proper name now, Max. Andy Hensley’s a dead-un, along with a priest named McFarren. They’re probably both too obscure to make splash headlines, but tabloid TV might pick it up for surreal weirdness.

They found Hensley in his home/office, slumped on the floor, strangled, with a face like Barbara Leigh-Hunt in FRENZY. The priest was outside in his car, throttled with his own rosary, no less. Laszlo Revik sell-sheets were scattered around—the 8x10 color handouts with the cover art: THE KIND OF EVIL with Price, TRIUMPH OF EVIL, and the original 1943 ALIAS DR. GHOUL. There’d clearly been a scuffle. In the fireplace were the ashen remains of a cashier’s check, made out to cash, in the amount of one million frigging dollars. AND in the priest’s briefcase out in the car, there were three OTHER checks, one for a quarter million, one for half, and one for two million.

Jeeze Louise! Lets Hensley off the hook for the murders, I’d say. Not looking good for Sam.

Now, what kind of fight? That’s another dose of bizarre world. Hey, Hensley was a film distributor, so there’s any one of a thousand people who wouldn’t mind seeing him croak. But the culprit left something behind. His clothes. A herringbone jacket, shirt and tie, pants, shoes… this must’ve been an interesting business meeting!— plus a pair of dark sunglasses and a length of Ace bandage. The one “normal” clue the cops found was a small .22, but even that was outré. It’s been fired (they dig the bullets out of the wall), but there was a near-transparent length of mono-filament fishing line attached to it—as if someone had been puppeteering it to make it appear to “float.”

The cops finally issued and arrest warrant for Sam Lee, and he’s skated. Jeff Richards tells me “I don’t know where he went,” but I’d probably say the same thing for a friend. Jeff also brought over a little montage he’d edited from the Revik films—bits and pieces of all of them, like a cinematic acrostic puzzle. I watched it and saw what he was getting at. It goes into “what if--?” territory, and neither of us could prove anything. The cops and any sane person would laugh us out of the room. But it fits the stuff that’s happened.

What if you’re a brilliant attorney but on a mystical quest through life-- and you discover the secret of true immortality in some long-forgotten medieval grimoire stored in the Vatican archives? On the surface it would be an obliquely-worded thing, an illuminated manuscript like a thousand others. It would be an arcane, coded explanation that probably meant nothing in 1374, seemed like Latin gibberish in 1750, but by 1937, with a little imagination and insight as to what technology could do—or might do-- some day, the ideas and the method to achieve them started to make sense—but were impossible to achieve at that time? Stealing such a book would get you booted from the Church; offering the secret to Nazi occultists has certain drawbacks, like the threat of death once they found the secret. But Hollywood would have possibilities. Lots of high-profile people have gotten away with murder there. And that’s Laszlo Revik’s life up to the time he made his first film—about a devious alchemist seeking eternal life.

What was alchemy, anyway? Magically turning lead to gold? No, that’s the comic book version, the fairy tale view. It was about transmutation, changing one thing into the other. All “things” are energy (E=mc2, y’know). Energy can never be destroyed; it can only be transformed, or transmitted. And the human mind is incapable of differentiating between the “real” and the vividly imaginary. Our memory makes a thing real. Or, in this case, a person.

And say you could capture some of your energy, your essence, your personality, in a fixed medium— such as a coating of silver nitrate on 35mm film, silver being an excellent conductor of energy. When that “essence” was enhanced by energy (the light from a projector), the “personality” becomes alive.

But to what end? Showing a crummy monster movie to a dozen drunks in a Times Square flea-pit or a backwoods Thai movie house or some adobe shell in the plains of Madrid? You’d dribble it all away. But if you made sure no one would see these things until the proper time— until Goddard’s experimental rockets grew up to spawn broadcast satellites, until Vladimir Zworkin’s funny little picture-radio became ubiquitous TV screens, until a digital technology could give a viewer the exact image that was captured on the film…

There’s a line in Jeff’s video from ATOM-AGE ZOMBIES that made the hairs on my neck curl. Dr. Ghoul looks directly into camera and says, “My essence shall exist forever in the minds of men. I shall walk the earth in a thousand forms.” Through a combination of 21st century “alchemy,” manipulation of consciousness, and the power of instant worldwide transmission, that’s the plan—existing, eternally, in the real world via the implanted memories in a million minds.

And if you could go one way—coming “out” of a movie into the “real” world-- could you go another? Sending 2 dimensional “people” from our minds out into our three dimensional world? The string of killings—the characters from the Revik films, doing his bidding. Jeff and I think it was intentional, that the “accidental” public domain status of the 13 Revik films was exactly what he intended. The “unexplained” vault fires, studio bankrupcies, “lost” negatives. And like a character in any given Revik movie who thinks he’s going to get the edge on Joseph Elwin, Sam Lee is the fall guy. It’s crazy. It’s happening.

I don’t know what the hell any of us can do about it.

# # # #

For god's sake-- be careful, readers. The only advice I have to give is-- well, I'm not sure what to say. But I know what I'll do. You should do it, too.

Watch the shadows.

For Hallowe'en: A Forgotten Horror Star, Part Eight

Above: Proposed poster art for Laszlo Revik's THE BLACK PIT OF DR. G.

Last night, I received more rumors and revelations regarding the releasing of reels of Revik's movies (gawd, I love alliteration!) and the strange things going on with getting these lost films distributed. Ted's seen enough to make me feel weirded out about them. But here's Ted's entire letter to me:

Hey, Max.

The fires have died down, but the other stuff heats up—bubbling to a boil, it seems. I’ve seen some of the posts other people have made, mostly skeptical about this whole Lazslo Revik thing, and you know me—I’m the biggest skeptic this side of the Amazing Randi. Original latex Creature head mask for $30,000? Nonsense, a Don Post pull. Original 1948 Glenn Strange head from A & C MEET FRANKENSTEIN, $15,000? Bull hockey, another Don Post pull. Original Hammer Dracula cape, $50,000? Yeah, we shall see. If somebody came to me with this story, I’d be WAY dubious. But I’ve seen the films—well, clips in some cases, and trailers—and there’s something icky here. Part of it is the subject matter, a really twisted take on all of this, with these reoccurring elements neither I nor Jeff can put together.

(Sam Lee seems oblivious to it all. All he seems to care about is the dough he thinks he’s going to get. His relationship with Eva is falling apart, plus he’s starting to drink again, which doesn’t help. We think he’s had some sort of fling with Lorette, the sultry brunette babe who says (hmmm) she represents the Revik estate and owns the films. Sam’s a dork for cheating-- and it’s pretty clear he is cheating.)

So here’s the jigsaw pieces that we’ve put together so far. There’s a central character in all of these – Revik, usually playing Elwin /Dr. Ghoul, though he’s often incognito— an alchemist of indeterminate age, seeking eternal life. (In ATOM-AGE ZOMBIES he’s creating a world-wide mind-control plan, in the noir CONDEMNED, he’s a gangster planning a complex heist of silver bullion, but the MacGuffins pretty much follow the pattern.) He lets no one stand in his way, and invariably double crosses the people who’ve trusted him. There’s some odd metaphysical theme going on about light and eternal life. A couple of them, particularly DEMONS OF SODOM and THE BLACK PIT OF DR. G. (1962—betcha somebody in Mexico saw that title and liked it), use hypnosis as a gimmick. The pre-credits scene has Revik playing “Moonlight Sonata,” and explaining that the mind cannot differentiate between the “real” and the vividly imaginary. As this oily-voiced European narrates, we see this still photo of clouds. He keeps talking—clearly this guy knew hypnosis—and the screen shows a spiral image, repeated, over and over, as Revik keeps up his mesmeric lilt. Then there’s a hard cut back to the photo of the clouds, and they CHURN. It’s amazing, and unsettling. They roil, they billow, they twist into themselves—and then settle down. But it’s not a special effect, it’s the viewer’s mind being led in the direction the operator wants. I looked at the sequence several times—the second shot of the clouds really IS a still photograph, but by gum, it moved. So much for reality. THIS works in the way the HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM intro should have done. (Somebody clearly noticed the similarity, because the poster for BLACK PIT seems cobbled together from HORRORS, the way Jack Harris swiped FORBIDDEN PLANET for “Vampire and the Robot” in THE BLOB.)

And there’s a “cult” idea that crops up a couple of times, particularly in the 70s thing FRIGHTMARE FREAK OUT, and his last film, the Mondo Cane type thing, TRIUMPH OF EVIL, which was finished posthumously. He died in Paris in ’75, the film was cut together, scored, ready for release—the usual story--then got vaulted.

Above: Revik during the shooting of FRIGHTMARE FREAKOUT.

Jeff sneaked me into the telecine place to let me watch some of the stuff (Sam is growing increasingly nervous, understandable when there’s a murder rap hanging over you) and I saw the original trailer for KING OF EVIL, which was made in either ’58 or ’59, with Vincent Price. Revik is a two-faced scientist who tricks Price into allowing himself to be made invisible again—clearly designed as a follow-up to INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS, although the name “Griffin” is never referenced, probably to skirt Universal. That this was made during the William Castle era and just before the Poe films should’ve made it a slam dunk. You’d think Allied Artists or AIP or somebody would’ve sent it out—or that Lucy Chase Williams or Victoria Price would’ve found a reference to it in their books. The invisibility effects are nifty, and there’s a transformation from Joseph Elwin to Dr. Ghoul that’s the best I’ve seen. It doesn’t appear to be a John Fulton style lap-dissolve, or an on-set lighting effect. Creepy, anyway. Jeff scored an old video interview with Price where he actually mentions Revik. He just says, “I had heard about him and looked forward to meeting him. But we didn’t talk much during filming. He was sick.” Indeed. Looks like Price may’ve worked two days and a bunch of voice-over, unless he really did all the effects shots.

At least DR. GHOUL MEETS THE VAMPIRE (1951) has more of the star, which is Lugosi, black cape and all (and Revik/Dr. Ghoul in a pine-green dress suit. Must’ve like the color). It’s Super Cinecolor, like SCARED TO DEATH, and he’s obviously playing Dracula in all but name. At least Dracula (a rose by any other name) is no chump. It’s clear he and Dr. Ghoul have butted heads before, and neither trusts the other any further than they could throw a Buick. As “Dr. Elwin,” Revik makes a deal with the vampire for sanctuary from the police, if in exchange Dracula uses his hypnotic powers on an apprehensive sanitarium patient. “She has delusions I am trying to steal her soul,” coos Revik. And Lugosi smiles, “What an odd hallucination. Something to think about.” Makes you wish he did do a color 3D remake of Dracula.

There’s an uneasy stink at the telecine place, too. Sam’s running a tab transferring all this material, fending them off while his “big cable deal” comes together (The slimeball distributor made sure the fees came from Sam’s end). I helped shoot some video intros were we put Sam “into” the movie with green screen effects. Looks great—you can’t tell the difference between the “real” movie and the “new” movie with a “real” element put into it. Forrest Gump, eat your heart out.

This just in from the Never Rains But It Pours Department: the “big cable deal” may be off. The exec, “Faye,” watched one of the Revik films with her teenage kids and was utterly appalled. She not only doesn’t want the films on her network, she said she’d do everything she could to make sure they’d never be seen anywhere. Whew. (Her preppy assistant still thinks real horror movies with a real black magician (albeit in a green cape) would be a hit with geeks in black T-shirts.) So there’e that.

And Sam’s attorney --working overtime to keep the unlucky dork out of custody-- checked into the status of the movies themselves. There’s not only no record of the “Vienna lawyer” who supposedly called Sam about them, there’s no record of the films being registered for copyright anywhere in the world. The blessed things are in the Public Domain, all 13 of them.

That went over with Sam’s distributor like a steaming dog log. Now they’re on the outs, big time. It means the moment these things hit the airwaves or are on the dvd racks, they belong to the world, and there’s nothing the distributor can do to stop it. The only chance to salvage this is to dump everything quickly, mass produce dvds fast enough and cheap enough to flood the market simultaneously with broadcasting them. And that’s assuming ANY cable company will deal with them. As if that wasn’t enough (and, boy, Sam’s earned all this bad karma), Jeff tells me some priest offered an unspecified wad of dough to Sam for the films. Sam turned the offer down, of course (the priest would probably have an easier time with ["AH"], the distributor), asking why the Church wanted to go into the video market. They don’t. They want them to be permanently “lost.” Turns out Lorette had dropped a dime on the Revik affair. I’m getting this third-hand from Jeff, but: Sam confronted her at her hotel, the lies about owning the films, not saying she was Revik’s daughter, the tip-off to the Church. She shined him on and said she was leaving the country. Right in the middle of their spat, the TV had that little Entertainment Tonight blurb about the Revik movies with clips, including a shot of Lugosi as Dracula, walking toward camera and saying, “Lorette, Lorette, I’ll make a bet: the Man in Green will get you yet.” And she just freaked! Screamed at Sam, ordered him out and locked the door.

PS: Jeff just called. It’s a low-priority news item, all things considered, but it’s one more bit of weirdness. The executive, “Faye,” who put the kibosh on the cable deal—attacked and ravished while jogging. Really horrible. They’re assuming it was an animal from nearby Griffith Park Zoo. The cops aren’t saying squat. I’ll let you know more if I hear about it. This is awfully damned convenient—for Sam.

For Hallowe'en: A Forgotten Horror Star, Part Seven

Above: A still from Revik's CONDEMNED, never before shared with the public!

Ted Newsom wrote to me again to tell me about Allen Gordon's death this week. He has some details, being in "da biz", that I have not read about in the news. He again gave me express permission to share his e-mail to me with the readers of this blog. So...

I suppose the cops are right in looking for some old wounded begger swathed in old clothes, but I did a double-take when I read the neighbor’s description of the “alleged intruder.” Sure, I’m monster-obsessed in general, maybe it’s because Kharis was actually in HOUSE OF DR. GHOUL (played by Tom Tyler, no less) and he’s on my mind—but that unnamed neighbor’s description sounded to me like he was describing the Mummy. Think about it: the cops say tall & strong and another guy sees somebody wrapped in “bandages and rags.” And what’s with breaking in and only stealing a prop crossbow? (Jeff said he and Sam saw it in their brief meeting with Gordon that afternoon.) And guess who the cops are looking at as the obvious suspect? Your pal and mine, Sam Lee.

My friend Brian (former NYPD, now out here; we worked back when I did that brief spate as investigator in ‘89) just called me with one of those “Hey, lemme ask you sumthin’" freebie favors. The cops had found a crossbow arrow embedded in the wooden gate by Gordon’s pool; they initially thought Gordon shot wild and missed whomever (or whatever?) was coming at him. Then forensics found microscopic debris on the arrow shaft. Mold (maybe Gordon’s housekeeper wasn’t tidy?)—and something else. Brian asked me what I knew about Fuller’s Earth. I told him (well, we all know this, don’t we?) that it’s a cosmetic ingredient, a fine powder—and that this was the stuff Pierce used to coat Lon Chaney when he played you-know-what. From Brian’s reaction, I don’t think that mummy movie minutia helped Sam Lee one bit. Besides, everybody who ever met Gordon hated him, so there’s a pretty clear field.

I suppose they're thinking the obvious here, that Sam's doing the FADE TO BLACK schtick (or HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER, anyway), playing dress-up to kill people. I won’t believe that, and besides. it's too pat, too cliched. He’s a jerk (and getting jerkier as this goes on) but I don’t think he’s nuts. And the thing is, Sam’s not huge. I’m not sure he’s strong enough to lift a grown man by the throat and crack his head open against a wall like a raw egg.

Over at the film transfer place I got to see more Laszlo Revik clips, but Sam Lee is acting like the most anal-retentive collector I ever knew. Mine-Mine-Mine!

And Sam Lee appears to be getting that worldwide cable & dvd deal. Sheesh.

Hey, you know that sleazepot distributor ["AH"] whose name you keep deleting? [Gotta be careful of the libel statutes, Ted!] The one who got the deal for Sam Lee? He's probably as good a suspect in the Allen Gordon thing as Sam anyway. Him I WOULD believe as a sociopath. Or the Euro-babe, Lorette "Edleman," who tried to get the films from Sam. OK, she's petite, too, but there's something hinky about her. Turns out she doesn't "represent" the Revik estate-- she IS the estate. She's his daughter-- she's actually IN his last film.

Jeff and I screened Revik's nasty cinema verite thing, THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL, and recognized her immediately. It's this disjointed pseudo-documentary with Revik inrroducing a bunch of college kids into the "occult underground world of Paris." Never heard of any of the younger cast, and -- who knows-- maybe Hell swallowed them up afterward. But after all the film's Mondo Cane weirdness, the narrator announces that Laszlo Revik died during production (this is as every bit as tasteful as THE WILD WORLD OF JAYNE MANSFIELD). Then there's actual footage of his funeral pyre. Unless it's the best dummy I've ever seen, it's really Revik's body going up in flames-- and there's a teen version of Lorette reading an exorcism eulogy that hit me like a replay of Gloria Holden in DRACULA'S DAUGHTER.

So, yeah, there's plenty of other people to suspect other than Sam. Hey, on the other hand, maybe it's Revik making a big comeback.

I'm sorry for this lurid turn the posts on all this has taken. But to be able to share little-known film history with rarely-seen poster art is a privilege for the old DSH! And that reminds me-- more Revik posters and a film still have come to light thanks to a certain movie historian who's known for his love of old monster movies and for his big hair. But I don't have his permission to name him!

News: Revik film producer is killed

A DSH reader named Steve left a comment informing me that Allen Gordon, a film and TV producer who worked with Laszlo Revik, has been murdered. I looked into it. Here's a link to a printer-ready view of the CNN webpage with this horrible tragedy:

Allen Gordon, film/TV producer, dead at 73

I feel terrible about this, after sharing Ted's comments on the guy. Like I'm watching something awful unfold. Don't mean to sound superstitious, but somehow I feel guilty. Of what I don't know.

My thanks to Steve for informing me.

Sorry, folks. Happy Halloween!

For Hallowe'en: A Forgotten Horror Star, Part Six

Above: a recently found poster for a later Revik movie, THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL.

Good news: Ted Newsom is safe in fiery L.A. Says he: "Relax if you’re worried about me being consumed in the fires here in CA. So far, the nearest is 10 miles away. Monday, at mid-afternoon the sky was as dark as the moment before sunset."

More good news: I'm getting e-mail about Laszlo Revik from several readers AND I've gotten sent a transcript of part of a Laszlo Revik film script! (More on that below.) First, some comments from a friend of the DSH, Gary D. in Canada.

He sent me an e-mail asking about this odd case of Laszlo Revik. Here's some of what he had to say:

"I gotta say fascinating, but something seems so VERY wrong here. OK A Czech horror actor doing foreign horror films who was lost and forgotten I can certainly believe, in fact it's quite plausible, especially with the way out there horror that a lot of the European countries produced. Very much a la Mojica Marins. ...IF it's true it's a miracle."

I admit it sounds miraculous.

"Not only that, they RENT the rights for the title character whom has never appeared before on any released film, despite the fact they OWN the rights to horrors most recognized movie monsters, names that the public knew unquestioningly and would be drawn to. Why do you thing the house movies used Frankenstein and Dracula? This doesn't sound like the Universal International I know."

I forwarded to Ted Newsom Gary's comments. His response to the above paragraph:

Mix n match, I suppose. The Edleman character in HOUSE OF D seems pretty much like a riff on Jekyll & Hyde, which would put them in a huffing contest with MGM (like the to-do over Lugosi in RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE); Daniel in HOUSE OF F clearly is cut from the same cloth as Quasimodo, which might've p.o.'d RKO. Maybe, like Samuel Goldwyn & the [intention to use Karloff as the Monster] in WALTER MITTY, there was some sort of sidebar agreement. More likely, if Revik held the rights to his own creation, he simply signed off for the film.

Gary D.: "And how bizzare that he worked with all these horror genre greats, and yet NONE of these pictures made it to the big screen, nor produced a mysterious still or even passing mention, and not one dedicated horror fan ever knew these pictures existed. Gee what are the odds."

Ted's response:

It is becoming more bizarre as I learn more about it. Jeff Richards and I are starting to think it was all intentional, planned, or co-opted along the way-- that they weren't meant to be seen at the time they were made. It doesn't make much sense to me-- yet. More about that later. We've tried to explain this to Sam Lee, and he won't return my calls and keeps avoiding Jeff.

ALSO-- TDSH reader Pierre, curator of the site Frankensteinia, wrote me to say that he saw a cut-down Revik film (apparently) re-titled "“La maison des goules” (The House of Ghouls), and stated "I never forgot Revik’s assistant, Valeri Votosh as “Strega”, the vampire girl. I always thought of her as the template for Vampira."

Forwarding this Ted, he responded

Could be, I dunno. OK, this might be like people "remembering" a gorier HORROR OF DRACULA in Canada (which I've always suspected was memory being playful). But since Revik played essentially the same character in a number of films and looked similar from movie to movie, I guess it's possible they did a number like Richard Gordon planned to do with Lugosi's MOTHER RILEY footage, or like Al Adamson later did with almost everything, construct the shows around the existing footage. And who knew about 13 DEMON STREET at the time it was made? These things show up at the damnedest times-- when the world is ready for them, maybe.

More of Ted's e-mail to me:

Maxie, I got to see a bit of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN the other day when they were doing the transfer and color correction-- I'll write more later, because I actually met the babe who says she represents the estate, Lorette Edleman. She was there to insist to Sam she owned everything. I was reminded of the line in M*A*S*H*, "Bring me the sultry bitch, the one with the fire in her eye." Wow. She looks a bit like Brinke Stevens, which I appreciated. Anyway, she had a copy of the shooting script, pretty much shot for shot, line for line. I managed to Xerox a couple pages and scan it to give you an idea. It's Mary Shelley-- sorta. But like all of Revik's stuff, there's a sexual angle that's discomforting. And the Joseph Elwin character offers Karloff (the old baron) a deal he can't refuse... in exchange for one little favor. (Boy, some people never learn!) Lorette seemed fascinated by Revik while she was watching the clip, which looked as crisp as one of the early Corman Poe's; Spanish production, probably shot about the time Karloff was doing the I SPY episode. She was staring at the screen as this scene (attached) was playing, and I heard her say, "I've never even heard his voice." Odd thing to say.

BTW, the colorist at the lab—the guy who tweaks the correction controls to make everything pretty—is Zeke the Geek, who worked for me when I re-transferred the old Hammer trailers. I always want to use the line, “Mm, what is that unusual cologne you’re wearing? Roadkill?” but he’s OK. He says there’s an internet buzz about the Revik stuff. His fellow geeks in black T-shirts are frothing for a glimpse at an honest-to-Shai-Tahn devil-worshipping alchemist. Great role model. Revik makes Marilyn Manson look like a choirboy. Call me old-fashioned, but when “kids” think Manson (Marilyn or Charlie, pick one) is cool, my hackles raise. Something rotten in Denmark, or Burbank. Actually, if the cable & dvd deal comes through for Sam Lee, all over the world. Eeeuuuw. And it does look like it’s happening. That sleazepot distributor, [name deleted], got into a major company and they’re talking serious dough. I’d be astounded if Jeff or Sam see anything out of it. I’ve dealt with the cable exec myself, who’s a dish. I’ll call her Faye (in deference to NETWORK—though she’s younger and nicer than Dunaway) She used to be at Nickelodeon and always struck me as pretty conservative and responsible. I don’t know what she’d see in these movies. Her little aide de camp, though, is a smarmy sycophant straight out of THE PLAYER. He and Hensley probably see eye to eye. On the 70s poster you found—FRIGHTMARE FREAK-OUT—that may seem like a riff on Manson, but to me it’s more of that weird autobiographical Revik stuff, dredging up the rumors that surrounded him in the 50s when he split the country. He’s usually in this green robe (the Dr. Ghoul character apparently always wore green, even in the b/w films), and surrounded by wide-eyed young babes (and guys. Hmm.) who are mesmerized by him. Looks like it was shot on 16mm and blown up. It’s got this one creepy intimate scene where “Father Elwin” is caressing this nubile chick (gross, since he’s 60 or older), promising eternal life, with her lying topless under the light of the Moon—some metaphysical dialogue about the light transforming the silver of his dagger. She acts turned-on and scared, as if she’s about to give up her virginity. There is this wicked close-up as gentle old Father Revik slides his thin silver blade into her throat and blood spurts out—and he slowly just keeps pushing it further and further in until the hilt is right against the flesh of her neck. The worst part—or best—is that she STILL has that look of sexual anticipation as she’s dying. A really subtle lighting effect and surprisingly good acting pays the scene off as the life gradually leaves her face and eyes, and Revik’s face seems to glow and absorb it. Gawd. This is not the sort of stuff I’d want kids to see.

This Revik makes Lionel Atwill (a horror star of the 30s and 40s who was busted for throwing sex parties) sound like a Boy Scout!

Here are links to Ted's scans of pages 17 and 18 from the script of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN (click again when you reach the link to enlarge the text):

For Hallowe'en: A Forgotten Horror Star, Part Five

DSH readers, I know that I'm taking you for a long ride sharing the e-mail I've been getting about the Laszlo Revik films discovered in Europe, but this news of former lost horror movies fascinates me. I've gotten mail and attached photos faster than I can post, but am almost all caught up with what filmmaker Ted Newsom tells me about what he has seen and what he's discovered. Here's Ted:

Hey, Maxie,

I watched a couple minutes of HOUSE OF DR. GHOUL, and there’s a darkness to it that I don’t understand. Almost like if SON OF DRACULA was about a child molester instead of a vampire. I dunno. It’s got all the elements, and monsters galore, but there really is a nasty feeling to it. Revik is his same character, Joseph Elwin, who’s basically the Niemann/Edleman pivot of the plot. Dovetailing with HOUSE OF DRACULA, he brings Talbot back and wills him to become the werewolf again. Joseph Elwin (Alias Dr. Ghoul, of course) promises that he’ll lift the curse if Talbot does a couple of itty-biddy favors (He’s got his fingers crossed, natch.) The werewolf murders are REALLY strong stuff this time out, brutal. You know the scene in PEARL OF DEATH where the Creeper confronts Sherlock Holmes? THAT kind of scary. Universal was nuts to drop this. There’s a trial scene in which Laszlo Revik is “defending” Lon Chaney, and just sells the old boy down the river. Talbot’s cured of his lycanthropy—Elwin kept that part of his promise—but now Talbot’s going to be executed for the murders, because, of course, no one believes the “werewolf nonsense.” There’s an edge to Chaney in this, too, not just whining—he’s mean. Hey, what’s odd is, Lazslo Revik was a lawyer in real life. I don’t know whether Revik had input into the scripts or not, but there’s this funky autobiographical thing that keeps cropping up.

I gotta tell ya this—I had a sexy dream about Martine Beswick last night. I saw her at an autograph show last week and we chatted (had not seen her since she moved to England, and she reminded me that was like 8 years ago.) So we’re cuddling in the dream, and she looked off at some schmoe and said, “He was hitting on me,” and laughed. Dreams are fun things sometimes (!) and weird, other times. Who knows where this stuff comes from. I shared this with Sam Lee—who’s becoming a little more than monomaniacal about the Revik films.

He said Revik appeared to him in a dream. Well, sure, what do you expect when you go to sleep with the dvd player on? Sam said Revik promised him anything and everything he wanted – all he had to do was obey.

He arranged to start transferring all the negatives and the nitrate prints to tape, and mostly they look fantastic. Like I said, there’s thirteen, all genre stuff one way or the other, with one semi-exception, a noir thriller called CONDEMNED where Revik is a genius criminal who’s been locked away for years. He gets out and plans this gigantic heist of silver bullion, determined to make his mark and get back at the guys who sent him up. The insane thing is, this never got released either. It’s a later film, 1954, I think, in the mold of Phil Karlson. Good cast: Edmund O’Brian as the cop, Elisha Cook, etc. Even in a 50s suit and tie, Revik makes a believable psychopath.

Sam and Jeff started shooting their video interviews, and the director of a sci-fi thing called ATOM-AGE ZOMBIES told them Revik had written the original story, though he declined credit (I figured this might be the case with his movies). Didn’t have much to say about Revik himself (not much to remember in a two week shoot). Revik is a Vornoff-type renegade scientist who develops a microwave thought-control satellite, planning to blanket the world. The Ruskies have backed him on the deal (hey, it was the 50’s, they were behind everything bad back then) but true to form, Revik screws them—kills the commie general by will power as Revik conjures some Lovecraftian powers—and transforms into his evil alter-ego. The Dr. Ghoul make-up’s a little different from the earlier films, even better, I think.

In his video interview, the old director got a kick out of the prescient use of stuff that didn’t exist when they made the film—satellites, microwaves, thought control. It’s almost like Revik saw these things coming and was waiting for the world to catch up with him. And the old luck hit again—the film sat on a shelf for a year until RKO picked it up in 1956, and they went bust in ’57, and poof again, down the film vault rabbit hole.

Jeff told me Sam’s got good news and bad news. There’s a cable deal pending for the batch of movies, which is good (for Jeff, anyway, because he might actually get paid for all this research he’s doing), but the bad news is, some Euro-babe, Lorette, showed up at Sam’s place with some paperwork—all in German—saying she represented the estate of Laszlo Revik and she owned the films. That, and she doesn’t want them shown. Ever. Anywhere. Sam tried to sweet-talk her, and while he was preoccupied, she apparently tried to light one of the films on fire. Well, nitrate film would’ve go up like a Roman candle. Again, some stuff makes sense, and other things don’t add up at all-- yet.

They did find some key art on the films, from your old friend Steven, the collector. The poster with Revik and Lugosi didn’t have a copyright date on it. That was DR. GHOUL MEETS THE VAMPIRE, the kind of film nobody could even give away in 1950. (Had this been made ten years early, a Cinecolor horror film with a mad doctor and a vampire—or five or six years later-- well, maybe things would’ve been different.)

The lack of proper notice on the poster struck me as very peculiar. It’s standard operating procedure to put “©1950 Whatever Productions” on anything. Otherwise, you’re basically just giving it to the world, with no exclusivity “Take me, duplicate me into infinity, show me anywhere.”. You’d think Revik—a lawyer—would have had some sense about that. Curiouser and curiouser.

Sam Lee’s oblivious to it all. He’s just got his eyes on the money he’s planning to make. I ran into him in a telecine bay in Burbank where he was transferring some stuff. His faded Levis have been replaced with khaki Dockers, and he traded up from a clunker Toyota to a Lexus convertible. Even if his ship hasn’t come in yet, he’s behaving like it has.

Jeff came up with some other stuff, too—not revelatory, but another layer of weridness. Remember I told you Laszlo Revik left Germany in the 40s? Well, he split the US in 1957 just as abruptly, but in neither case does it appear to be a political thing. He did this snarky color horror movie for that little creep Allen Gordon, DEMONS OF SODOM, which Gordon always swore never really existed, just a press agent’s brain-fart. Gordon always claimed INSECT INVADERS was his official “first” (like anyone with any sense would be proud of back-projected caterpillars and cockroaches. Well, if you read that Tom Weaver interview with Gordon, he also claimed STAR TREK stole all his ideas from that awful VOYAGE TO THE LOST PLANETS. Yeah, right, and Leonard Nimoy copied Hans Conreid’s performance in it, too. Sheesh.)

There appears to have been mucho bad blood between the vile little Gordon and the equally vile Lazslo Revik. The producer apparently thought Revik was a perv of the first order. There were stories of nasty things in Revik’s house, rumors of young would-be stars showing up in Hollywood and never being heard from again. Fill in the blanks—orgies? Satanic rituals? Who knows! Nobody ever proved anything, but people knew. In any case, Gordon believed the stories, and he loathed Revik like you hate a toothache.

Jeff found a bunch of seemingly unrelated news items and he and Sam talked to the producer yesterday. Gordon started repeating the usual b.s. “I was youngest producer in Hollywood” story, and Jeff laid the facts on him: that there had been a lawsuit, that Revik skipped the country, Gordon won by default and confiscated Revik’s house in the Hollywood hills—and the house burned down a couple weeks later. And that DEMONS OF SODOM was a real movie.

Gordon told them—quite proudly—that, yes, he finked to HUAC and named Revik as a Commie. It wasn’t true, but it was enough to put some heat on Revik—AND intentionally throw the movie into limbo. Gordon actually burnt the negative. The working title was HORROR OF THE BEAST, an ugly pun on the word “horror,” since the story involved a gorilla under Revik’s mind-control which he planned to use to create a race of monsters the old-fashioned way (think about the sexual ickyness in the 1932 MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE—that sort of stuff, only in glorious EastmanColor.) And the title was Revik’s idea. This guy is seeming more twisted all the time.

When Sam told Gordon he had the only surviving print, Gordon went pale, then flew into a goddamn fit. He threatened to sue Sam and ram him into the ground like he did Revik. Needless to say, the boys didn’t get around to making a videotaped interview. He booted their asses out.

Jeff told me something odd. He said Allen Gordon’s reaction wasn’t just anger or rich-guy pissiness. Jeff said the old [expletive deleted] looked scared. Really scared.

So our pal Sam Lee has visions of a rich future and money to burn—except that there’s one old crabby bastard who wants to sue his butt, AND some sultry chick from Europe who says she owns everything Sam is trying to sell. I’m not sure how this will all shake down, but I’m taking notes. This Revik was the Charles Foster Kane of obscure horror actors—and apparently the one of the bunch who was actually worse off-screen than in the movies.

For Hallowe'en: A Forgotten Horror Star, Part Four

Filmmaker Ted Newsom may wind up with an award given in the "classic horror" community, the Rondo, for his part in helping this forgotten horror star Laszlo Revik, come to light! I certainly hope so. I'm excited to be part of this!

I can't believe he's making time for this, but I don't think the man sleeps. He wrote me this past weekend, "I thought I’d drop you a line and let you know what’s going on. Work progresses on the scripts Brinke Stevens and I are writing, first the thriller set in Canada, then we’ll move on to either the Sinbad project or her weird experience with Federico Fellini in the 1980s. Happy Halloween, btw." But to get back to what he's been telling me about the Laszlo Revik films, here is another part of the news I was sent:

Oh, and Max, you really gotta see the trailer for HOUSE OF DR. GHOUL. I’d burn a copy for you if I could, but Sam won’t let any material out, and burning discs is beyond my superpowers anyway. This was Universal’s ’46 follow-up to HOUSE OF DRACULA, which personally I’ve always seen as a sputter, but based on the trailer, THIS would’ve been the way to wrap it up big-time. Dr. Ghoul, Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy. The old Hans Salter music is used in the trailer, and it’s like the sensation of watching home movies shot on a set of a film you know by heart, like you’re seeing something special and secret experienced only those who were actually there.

Stop the presses! What about the rights? After this message, I asked Ted how the hell a character and an actor move upward together from lowly PRC studios to bigger, more prestigious Universal during the 1940s? Was the whole thing an elaborate scam being played on "Sam Lee", or did Ted get the order of Revik's studio move wrong? But no, Revik did move from PRC to Universal, and Ted has this hypothesis:

Funny you should ask about the rights issue, Max. The way I figure on the basis of what is known, Revik himself created the Joseph Elwin/Dr. Ghoul character and was sensible enough to personally hold onto the rights. He was a lawyer, remember, and no dummy. Since the character appears in over films between 1943 and 1970, all for different companies, I'd guess it's something like Paul Naschy's hold on the Waldemar Daninski role. Clearly, he had some long-term plan in mind.

Getting back to what Ted had seen at this point:

The trailer opens with Joseph Elwin and this ‘40s babe, tied to a tree, nighttime. He tells her she “shall be the bride of blood, the mother of a race of monsters”—and points to the fiends that are all approaching out of the night, the Monster, the Mummy, the werewolf, Dracula (Lugosi! Who’da thunk it in 1946?). It’s clear what he has in mind for the girl, and it ain’t wholesome. There’s this quick shadowy transformation on him—one of those red-filter things like March in DR. JEKYLL or Barbara Steele in BLACK SUNDAY, creepy—and his face becomes this skull-like visage of Dr. Ghoul (It’s slightly different from the PRC version). He touches her bare shoulder, there’s this repulsive HISS and the girl screams—I mean, really SCREAMS—and he leaves a hand-shaped burn mark. And pow, into the splash titles.

“Unwholesome” is my impression, based on what little I’ve seen. I mean, heck, the Univeral stuff is all kind of cuddly and familiar, know what I mean? But the first movie and this trailer—there’s a mean streak here, whatever it is. Something in the dialogue, something about Laszlo Revik himself, maybe a little hint of watching something “forbidden” and hidden all these years. I’m not at all sure I “like” this stuff.

And then there’s the expected payoff—Universal sold off the movie to PRC when they dumped THE BRUTE MAN and got out of horror and B-pictures—but they never transferred the rights to the monster characters. End game on HOUSE OF DR. GHOUL: stuck in a film vault for 60 years, like the previous film. It would be funny if the films themselves weren’t so appealingly nasty. Like I said—unwholesome.

So, Sam Lee and Jeff are shooting a video documentary to explain who Laszlo Revik was—since there’s about 12 people in the entire world who know. Interviews, etc. I’ll fill in more tomorrow. Like I said, there’s a script in all of this, somewhere.

Best,

Ted.

For Halloween: A Forgotten Horror Star, Part Three

Ted finally did see some of the Lazslo Revik films. The first one, ALIAS DR. GHOUL, he says "is a pip". I asked him to please let me run more of his e-mails to me. But I hafta be up front for genteel readers: if you see his posts at The Classic Horror Film Board (it's in the link section), you know he kinda tends to let it all hang out and doesn't always spare the piss and vinegar. (That's why I like him so. )

Here's excerpts of what he wrote me, here by permission of the author:

My writing partner’s out of town doing a convention back east, so I’m prepping to finish the sound editing on the updated Hammer documentary. It looks SO much better now, and SOUNDS so much better. Don’t know if you’ve seen the recent dvd of SPIDER BABY. Great print, and a nice little doc’ extra on Ronald Stein, with yours truly featured in interviews along with Jack Hill, Harlene Stein, Joe Dante. Young guy named Elijah Drenner made it, great job. You’d think with all this, I might come to mind if someone had a horror documentary to make, right? Well, I THOUGHT I had a paying gig lined up with "Sam Lee"—I mentioned him last time. And naturally, with no experience in doing clip shows, he decided to produce the project himself. "Sam"’s running true to form.

The deal he’s got has me scratching my head. Either he’s the luckiest sumbitch in the western world or—I don’t know. He got those unseen Laszlo Revik monster movies for a dollar apiece?? Thirteen blinking dollars, and he’s got all the rights—dvd, cable, everything. It wasn’t that Sam’s such a canny negotiator (frankly, he’s a putz). This lawyer called from Vienna or someplace and offered them. It's time for them to be seen, the guy told Sam. Unbelievable. And just on the basis of the clips this foreign guy had sent, Sam’s in the chips already, at least on paper. He partnered up with some sleazebag distributor named [name deleted] who promised him the Moon and all the Selenites who live inside it [and he's] going to rep’ the pictures. That’s a marriage made in heaven. Sam’s like a horse with blinders...

I got to take a look at the screener, though, and the Revik stuff is fascinating. It’s all over the map, genre-wise, a little bit of almost everything, in a really unsettling way. And apparently we’re going to have to do some re-writing of the film history books. We ALL seemed to have missed a few things.

Laszlo Revik came out of nowhere in about 1942 or ’43, at least regarding the movies we appreciate. Well, not nowhere, but Europe. Jeff Richards keeps finding conflicting information on the guy’s year of birth, but at least everybody agrees he died in 1975. He was presumably a Czech, relocated in the late ‘20s, in the BLUE ANGEL /CABARET era, licentiousness, wide-open Berlin, the whole shebang. Hotcha. Jeff cross-referenced some things and guesses it may’ve been a political thing, fleeing from the Nazis, or even further back (c. 1937 or so), when Revik worked in the Vatican archives. He was a priest and a lawyer (best, or worst, of two worlds, I’d say). Jeff found an obscure news article from the Mussolini era about missing books from the Church archives, which was—you guessed it—1937. The article is cagey, but the missing books may’ve been medieval grimoires, books about alchemy. Anyway, he plunked down in Germany until he came to the States in ’43.

Sam Lee got the films—cans and cans full of stuff—and again, the blessed bastard is leading a charmed life: the mystery lawyer in Europe paid for shipping. (I wish I had a rich relative who was as generous as that.) Sam’s apartment is starting to smell a little like vinegar. A couple of the prints are decomposing, getting “vinegar syndrome,” which happens over time. It means the film itself will rot, shrink. Bizarre little thing: they’re all on nitrate stock, even movies shot much later, like the 1950s and ‘60s. Most everyone in the world converted to safety film in the early fifties. Nitrate is highly combustible, as you know. There’s so many odd little things in this affair.

So anyway, the first movie introduces this character that Revik would do again and again, Joseph Elwin, alias "Dr. Ghoul". (The title is ALIAS DR. GHOUL-- what else?) It’s a contemporary story (for 1943), semi-cheaply done—think THE MAD MONSTER, KING OF THE ZOMBIES—but it’s got George Zucco as the Van Helsing professor type-- and Dwight Frye as the henchman. (So much for the reference books.)

[Score one for the drunken severed head! When I saw the name "Elwin" and the names Zucco and Frye, I realized the studio probably made it back-to-back with DEAD MEN WALK, another PRC film with Zucco and Frye, and one where Zucco played a "Dr. Elwyn Clayton". Ted didn't see the connection, but the DSH did!]

Joseph Elwin is a sinister alchemist of indeterminate age, in league with the bad guys—Cthulu, Satan, Set, whatever you want to call it. He’s hot for the girl, of course (Louise Currie, in this case) and double-crosses everybody, after promising them their heart’s desire. It’s like an old Stan Lee horror comic I read when I was a kid, where malignant genie grants one wish to the “lucky” guy—but twists it around so the guy gets screwed. Jeff tells me that’s a theme throughout these films. Maybe it’s coincidence, maybe not.

It’s black and white, of course, surprisingly moody. Revik—eew. Kinda like a tall, gaunt Martin Kosleck. He uses hypnosis, and there’s one shot where he’s staring directly into camera, this giant close-up of his eyes, and Max, I promise you, I started feeling like I was being sucked into the film. This oily, dead-calm voice and a cold reptilian stare. The only person I can compare him to is Henry Daniell as Moriarty in WOMAN IN GREEN. I actually dreamt about him last night. That’ll teach me not to stay up late.

It was made by the usual PRC gang, but the screenplay was credited to someone I’d never heard of, and naturally not on IMDb. Jeff and I think it was probably Revik himself. And in the end, what happens? Some sort of legal trouble, and PRC shelved the film, poof. Apparently when they went belly-up in the late 40s, somebody forgot entirely about it and it vanished into never-never land. Until now.

Ted's goin' nuts lookin' for Revik memorabilia/images, and I score again! Here's a rare photo of the poster for first Revik film, ALIAS DR. GHOUL.

It was found by Pierre of the "Frankensteinia" blog, and sent to me TODAY. Thanks, Pierre!