Swithin

That's it, Lavender.

What a great week, I'm particularly looking forward to the very strange Vampyr and the Thursday films. Why do you think they listed Vampyr by that alternate title? It's so well known as Vampyr.

I don't mind photos in threads that are pretty much photos only, like Top Billed's Character Actors Thread. But in conversation threads, I would try to be the same way I'd be in an in-person conversation. To get back to horror, I guess we need The Brainiac to figure this out. Maybe not the best performance in a horror film, but certainly the best tongue!

Of course there are no rules against photos! It's just my personal thing to kvetch about. Like very, very, long posts. They push the conversation to other pages, I find it a kind of distraction, no matter how nice the photos are. Re: ignore, I don't even understand how it works, or what it's for. It's sort of like blocking out reality, I assume!

Don't Stop Now! There are so many posters, photos, window cards out there on the Internet, waiting for you! (Actually, I have to admit that your response was amusing). In the 8th century Byzantium period, you would have been called an "iconodule."

Actually, Meingast, I mentioned the Donald thing first. It's not that I need credit, but I made of point of doing it discreetly, at the end of my first post on the subject, since I don't take pleasure in correcting people, but I thought, for the record... But now it's on another page, because somebody had to put a PHOTO up! I have to say, photos are my least favorite thing on this board, unless they are in threads that are pretty much photo-only threads. (But I know I'm in the minority in this).

Keep quiet, the cephalopod approaches.

I think I agree with you about the singing number relative to Universal Classics. But I also like "Hey You" from The Mummy's Curse, and, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I have a fondness for Tante Berthe in that movie.

Great list, Prince! And I'm particularly glad that you -- to paraphrase a line from the last movie you mention -- "brought out Elizabeth Selwyn!" I think Valentine Dyall as Jethrow Keane from that film also deserves a mention.

When the new wine singer sings to Chaney and Massey, "...And may they live eternally..." Chaney goes berserk, the song ends, Chaney grabs the singer and shouts: "Eternally, why did you say that, I don't want to live eternally!" It's a very powerful, disconcerting scene, and Chaney is brilliant in it.

I'm rather fond of *Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman*, and the whole cast therein; Ilona Massey is quite good as Baroness Elsa Frankenstein, a very positive character. The Festival of the New Wine musical sequence in the film is priceless -- pure operetta, and so well integrated into the plot.

Yes -- thanks, I mentioned that in my post. Possibly Sutherland's second greatest performance, after The Day of the Locust, which is also not without horror elements at the end. And a film which positively SHRIEKS to be shown on TCM, what with the obvious classic Hollywood subject, great cast, story, etc.

The director, Michael Reeves, allegedly committed suicide a week after filming was completed. I first saw the film at MOMA in NYC. By the end, even the audience was corrupted. Young hero Ian Ogilvy's line: "You took him from me..." is what the audience felt. We want villain Price to continue to be axed to bits. It is the total victory of evil over sanity. Yet the film has moments of incredible beauty -- when Trooper Marshall is riding to see his girlfriend, to that haunting tune (cut from the US version), amidst all the beauty of East Anglia. What a contrast. Don't Look Now (with Donald Sutherland btw) is another film so terrifying, that it sent a friend of mine into labor.

RM, it's not supposed to be historically accurate, although it uses the character of a historical figure. The UK version is much better, not because the US version uses Poe's poem, which is relevant, but because they changed the amazing music score for the US. This movie portrays, better than any other, the pervasiveness of evil in the midst of beauty.

I think Price's greatest horror role -- in one of the great horror movies of all time -- is as Matthew Hopkins in Witchfinder General. A brilliant, utterly depressing movie about the victory of evil, it is called The Conquerer Worm in the U.S. Price is not quite so campy in this film. It's truly a great performance. Edited by: Swithin on Oct 6, 2012 10:20 AM

The thing is, Princess A., those big male names of the past played the monsters or mad scientists, etc. The names you give today are mostly for heroic women. The male heroes of old were not the stars of the films, but rather actors like David Manners, etc., who also tended to be romantic leads. An exception of old would be *Gloria Holden's* brilliant performance in *Dracula's Daughter*. Regarding the ladies of the modern age, let's not forget those who aren't superstars. Two great ladies of modern horror: *Lynda Day George* and *Mary Woronov*. Today's monsters -- whether the Mummy or the Alien creature -- are often mechanical.

If I had to pick one, it would be *Madame Sul-Te-Wan* in *King of the Zombies* (1941). Madame, who plays Tahama, the cook and high priestess, gives a brilliant, memorable performance and has some of the great lines of cinema, e.g. "Tahama cooks for the living, not the dead!" She worked with D.W. Griffith and is generally regarded as the first African-American to have signed a contract with a major studio. I could mention many others, but they are probably pretty obvious -- Karloff, Lugosi, Lorre, Rains, Zucco, two Chaneys, Atwill, etc., but it's people like Madame who helped make the films great and whose names are not well known. http://www.aveleyman.com/ActorCredit.aspx?ActorID=88787

Please don't eat worms, Miss W.! In another thread, I've already referred to the Canadian chef who wanted to introduce horse meat to NYC, if you eat worms, you'll reinforce the idea of strange Canadian culinary habits!

*Outward Bound* is another. Here's a list: http://www.imdb.com/search/title?year=1930,1930&title_type=feature&sort=moviemeter,asc

Horemheb -- Victor Mature in *The Egyptian* (1954)

*Naked Prey* ?

You got it Miles, one of Hugh Grant's two great movies.

Caucasian bait residence

The Mummy and The Black Cat are two great, perfect films, in every way. But I love the follow-up Mummy movies as well. However I've always felt that the death of *Tante Berthe* in *The Mummy's Curse* is one of the great disappointments of cinema. Such an endearing character, played to perfection by Ann Codee: she sings a great song, is sympathetic and helpful to Princess Ananka, then BAM: killed by Kharis. It's just not fair.

Lady for a Day ?