Boris Karloff

He keeps coming up recently– during Spooky Week as Frankenstein's monster and The Mummy or in his three Val Lewton movies, as a fellow Anglo-Indian on the downlow with TCM Star of the Month Merle Oberon– and now it's Grinch Time! What a career!

Also intrigued by his performance in the Peter Pan production with Jean Arthur, music by Leonard Bernstein, which has mostly been superceded by the later one starring Jean's friend Mary Martin, but might still be of interest.

He also looks cool in the clips for Howard Hawks's The Criminal Code, which I have yet to get around to watching. #pvmic

Also have never seen Targets.

Maybe good use of a Hoopla credit.

Also I just reread a really cool remembrance of him in a self-published memoir that I really love which I think I am the only owner of. Will try to summarize at some point.

There was an amusing account in Roger Corman's autobiography of when they were filming The Raven. Apparently Karloff was a stickler for sticking to the script but Peter Lorre preferred to improvise, and the whole thing was a nightmare.

Didn't realise he was Anglo-Indian! Makes sense though.

Peter Lorre apparently was always doing silly stuff to upstage the other actors. For instance there's that weird Slavic dance he does while suspended between two chairs in Silk Stockings.

I recently watched a very late Karloff appearance in Curse of the Crimson Altar, not a very notable film aside from a remarkable performance from Boris's eyebrows.

Heh, Peter Lorre was the original choice for the Basil Rathbone role in Son of Frankenstein, but he turned it down because he wanted to get away from horror, which he felt was infra dig, and at the time he was too busy riding the Mr. Moto gravy train.

Vincent Price apparently didn't like the improv either

I have never seen The Raven but I assume it is better than The Comedy of Terrors, which I haven't seen either but am avoiding like the plague.

There is also The Boogie Man Will Get You.

The Raven is pretty much OK for a horror-comedy, far better than the other Karloff/Jack Nicholson Corman effort The Terror which has one of the most ludicrous production histories I've ever heard of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_(1963_film)#Boris_Karloff_segment

Even the most die-hard Jacques Tourneur fans completely dismiss the two AIP films he directed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw0x5nBFwKA
He had a dual role, as Mr. Darling and Captain Hook.

Think that and Arsenic and Old Lace were his two biggest Broadway smashes.

Ah, he was also in the stage version of The Criminal Code.

Had no idea about his television work apart from The Grinch.

But will reiterate what I said (or thought) on the Val Lewton thread, that all three of those films are well worth seeing. He apparently loved working with Lewton.

Targets interpolates footage from The Criminal Code.

One way you can usually tell Old Hollywood versus New Hollywood is how many names in the credits you can recognize. For studio films from the old days it could be 30/40/50 percent. With this I only recognized four names: Boris Karloff, Laszlo Kovacs, Peter Bogdanovich and Polly Platt.

But then a shocker surprise: Charles Greene and Brian Stone!

These guys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHyOFBwOm7Y

I knew someone who worked with them in later years. He was not happy.

There's a lot about them in this Ahmet Ertegun bio I have and no doubt in Shakey as well.

He's very good in The Criminal Code, which in general could stand to be rated higher in Hawk's ouevre imo. You got the Indicator release, James?

The 50's remake with Glenn Ford and Broderick Crawford is to be avoided.

No, just the Criterion Channel.

Another Targets movie-within-the-movie is The Terror.

My favorite story is Mae Clark absolutely adored Karloff but was so terrified of the Frankenstein’s monster makeup that she couldn't get through her scenes. They came up with a system where he would wiggle his pinkie during takes to remind her ‘it’s just me, your dear Boris’

:)

Wonder if Cagney did something similar for her.

Came to say that Targets was a good career capstone for him, even if technically he might have made a few more after that.

I have a 2XDVD set of this unreleased anthology series called The Veil... Boris Karloff is not only host but also stars in each episode. It's pretty boilerplate paranormal and not particularly scary but it's worth watching. Not sure why it was never released - there are ten standalone episodes

I've never heard of The Veil before, I'm going to have to check it out ... I see all 10 episodes are available on Tubi

Not already mentioned - The Sorcerers (1967), Michael Reeves' second film, already showing signs of auteurism, authentic Wimpy Bar location, some psychedelic visuals, cheap, grotty bedsit interiors. A haggard Boris and the extraordinarily intense Catherine Lacey suck up Ian Ogilvy's yoof - old age as a living hell.

Targets is one of those films I saw as part of Moviedrome on BBC2 - in 1998, sadly not with Alex Cox:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPXNXHe6n1g

I remember thinking that one of the production staff must have recently bought a Ford Mustang, because they got their money's worth out of it. Karloff was in the film because Roger Corman had contracted him for another film which was finished two days early. It's one of those "let's make a film right here" kind of films. It feels strangely old-fashioned - it's on the cusp of New Hollywood but it's not quite there yet, like a blend of the 1950s and the 1960s - and I wonder if Peter Bogdanovich ever thought about remaking it after his career as a director took off.

I've never heard of The Veil before, I'm going to have to check it out

And well what d'ya know.

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/frontpage/products/the-veil

The Criminal Code leaving Criterion Channel at the end of the month so maybe I should finally get around to watching it.