Evening star. [volume], May 12, 1946, Page 13, Image 86

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
and at such a time — Mary and her
little lamb?
“But if you are dining at home and
are promised a dish of cabbage and you
lift the cover from the pot and see there
the head of your best friend, to the ele
ment of terror is added the element of
shock. You did not expect it — that is,
unless you put the head there yourself.”
To illustrate this macabre example,
Mr. Karloff, his eyes glittering fiend
ishly, lifted the top of a casserole diBh.
The dish contained — shrimps.
The point settled, Mr. Karloff was
his amiable 9elf. He was not mad, he
insisted, at Universal Pictures or at
anybody. He parted with the company
on the best of terms and may even
make individual pictures under its ban
ner. Meanwhile he is under contract to
RKO for three pictures a year — non
supematural chillers — at an honor
arium reported to be in the neighbor
hood of $100,000.
This is quite an improvement over
his early days in Hollywood when he
cases. Understandably, it has its grue
some aspects, but the action and Mr.
Karloff's part in it have one foot
firmly planted in plausibility. Val Lew
ton. the script-writer for “Isle of the
Dead,” produced it. Mr. Karloff has
great love and respect for Mr. Lewton
as the man who rescued him from the
living dead and restored, so to speak,
his soul.
IcmlMTi*
Mr. Karlokf leads a quiet life between
pictures — spends most of his leisure
compiling anthologies or playing the
piano. He is one of the few intellec
tuals who speak well of Hollywood.
Though even as he praised that center
of culture, he was reminded of a polo
game between producers and writers.
Even with the redoubtable Mr. Zanuck
on the side of the producers, the game
ended in a scoreless tie. "The producers
couldn't; the writers wouldn’t,” re
marked a Hollywood wit.
Mr. Karloff had something like that
worked lor 11 years as
an extra and truck-driver
before Frankenstein lift
ed him to fame and the
top-money brackets.
But there came a
day when he not tired
of clumping around
in gruesome clay feet.
When Frankenstein had
a son and the series
threatened to go on in
definitely, Karloff began
U> be worried. Finally
there was a picture which
Karloff refers to as the
“monster clambake.”
happen to him. someone
next door to him gave a
party to a noted Holly
wood personage. It was
a thorough prewar
affair, with klieg lights,
mobs of people, and rev
elry far into the night.
Mr. Karloff, who had
to get up at dawn to get
into his Frankenstein
make-up — a three-hour
job — tossed and
groaned, finally decided
to call the police. But
with one hand on the re
ceiver, he reconsidered.
with everything thrown in — Franken
stein, Dracula, a hunchback and a
"man-beast” that howled in the night.
It was too much.
Karloff thought it was ridiculous and
said so. His contract was about to ex
pire. To answer him, the man at the
studio wearily hauled out the books and
showed him what the "clambake” had
grossed. The figure was high.
Savari by a Write*
“Don't ask me to feel sorry for you,”
the man said. “You feel sorry for me.
You can quit after your next picture.
I have to keep on making them.”
Karloff admitted the logic. "But
you’ll have to get another monster,”
he said firmly.
His current picture under the new
dispensation is a major product called
“Bedlam,” based on the history of the
famous British institution for mental
What do you want, he asked him
self, “a Hollywood contract or a night's
sleep?” His portrayal of the monster
the next (homing was the most frighten
ing of his career. ,
Mr. Karloff's career as a bogeyman
has been a long one. At the axe of nine
he played a monster in a Cinderella
play given for the benefit of the
l»arish church.
As a young man in “stock" he once
performed at a lunatic asylum in
Canada. The theory was that a the
atrical performance would have thera
peutic value.
But the inmates were not impressed.
They shrieked in the wrong places, -
and one amateur critic sat with his back
turned to the stage and applauded
loudly throughout — also at the wrong
intervals. Mr. Karloff, who has made a
career of frightening people, was scared
to death. The End
“BEDLAM," his new movie, is gruesome but plausible
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