BOOK REVIEWS: Rod Taylor, Virginia O'Brien, Rondo Hatton

Bear Manor Media recently sent me a huge box of books to review and I spent the good part of the last month reading a few. I have a mantra not to review books that I feel could have been done better, so the brief book reviews below are not only superb for the subjects they extensively cover, but are highly recommended if you are seeking something to read when you get cozy in your lazy-boy in the coming winter months. 

 

THE MISFITS: THE FILM THAT ENDED A MARRIAGE

John Huston’s ‘eastern Western’ signaled the end of the careers of three major Hollywood figures. It was Marilyn Monroe’s last completed film. Clark Gable died a fortnight after shooting ended. Montgomery Clift rumbled on for a few years but without doing much of note.

 

It also signaled the end of Monroe’s marriage to Arthur Miller. Miller wrote the screenplay as a ‘gift’ to his troubled wife, but their marriage was already on the rocks by the time the cameras started rolling. Matters deteriorated further on the set, culminating in Monroe suffering a nervous breakdown in mid-shoot which led to the set being temporarily closed while she recuperated.

 

Aubrey Malone’s book chronicles the background production of this iconic film which changed the way people saw the old West. It also chronicles the on-set tensions, the squabbling and feuds and divided loyalties. Huston tried to hold everything together as he struggled with a gambling addiction that was too great a temptation to resist in the casinos of Reno. The dramas that took place behind the scenes were arguably as engrossing as anything that appeared in the film itself. Sample both sets of scenarios in this detailed study of a valentine to a bygone era. 

 

This is a superb behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of the movie and I can think of a large number of movies that I wish would receive this same kind of treatment. 

 

 

VIRGINIA O'BRIEN: MGM'S DEADPAN DIVA 

I first saw her on a couple of those MGM movies on Turner Classic Movies and knew there had to be a story behind her appearance. It was August and the station decided to devote an entire day to movies she played a role in. Yet, her screen career was short-lived.

 

Virginia O’Brien was one of the more unique talents under contract to Metro Goldwyn Mayer. The California native was discovered by MGM’s mogul, Louis B. Mayer when he attended a performance of the musical revue Meet the People. It was here that Virginia stopped the show with the deadpan delivery of her solo number. Her appearances in more than a dozen of MGM’s musicals were always a highlight. While one can’t “stop” a film, Virginia’s singular performances are etched in the memory of the fans of MGM’s lavish musicals. This is the story of the comedic actress-singer who was fondly known as “Miss Frozen Face.”

 

Author Robert Strom was able to track down O’Brien’s family and assemble a book documenting her personal life and screen career, as most people should do when assembling a biography – go directly to the family. Thank you, Mr. Strom.

 

 

ROD TAYLOR: AN AUSSIE IN HOLLYWOOD

Before Sam Worthington, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, and Mel Gibson, there was Rod Taylor. For over twenty years, Taylor was the biggest Australian movie name in Hollywood, starring in such films as The Time Machine, Hitchcock’s The Birds, and The Vips. Best known for his action roles, he was equally adept at romantic comedies and dramas, working with top stars, such as Doris Day, John Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda, and with major directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Walt Disney, and Michelangelo Antonioni. 

 

At a time when Australians could rarely see or hear themselves on screen, Rod Taylor helped keep his country in the public eye, and he paved the way for the "Aussie" actors that followed him.

 

Rod Taylor: An Aussie in Hollywood is his  full-length biography, a thrilling story of a working-class Sydney boy, who went to Hollywood, took on the Americans at their own game on their own turf in one of the toughest industries there is, and won. It's also the story of a talented actor, who was almost brought down by the demons of alcohol and ego, but who ultimately overcame them to triumph. Best of all are the numerous quotes from Taylor himself about his career including the short-lived cult classic, Hong Kong. This is a must for all Rod Taylor fans.

 

 

BEFORE I FORGET: DIRECTING TELEVISION, 1948-1988

James Sheldon directed many of the radio and television shows that shaped the American consciousness. He directed the original radio version of We, The People when it became the first commercial CBS network program to telecast nationally on June 1, 1948. Since then, he experienced technological changes from live to electronic tape to film, from black and white to color, and from a few hundred thousand to multi-millions of television sets that in use today.

His early live credits include dramatic series, such as Robert Montgomery Presents and Studio One; comedies, such as Mister Peepers; musicals, such as Don Ameche's Holiday Hotel. He was also part of the move from New York to Los Angeles as television production shifted west in the mid-1950s, directing The Johnny Carson Show, West Point Story, Harbor Command, and Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater.

Sheldon helped many actors begin their careers, including James Dean, Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, Carroll O'Connor, Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Lee Remick, Tony Randall, and Tyne Daly.

In the 1960s, he directed episodes of Naked City, Route 66, The Millionaire, My Three Sons, and The Twilight Zone. In the 1970s, he directed episodes of M*A*S*H, The Virginian, Sanford & Son, and Raymond Burr's Ironside. In the 1980s, he directed episodes of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Cagney & Lacey, and The Equalizer. Thanks to author James Rosin, I was put in touch with Sheldon to chat about his work on The Twilight Zone for my book about the television series, so naturally I wanted to read Sheldon’s book. I was not disappointed. Rarely do we get a chance to read the memoirs of someone who was so instrumental.

RONDO HATTON: BEAUTY WITHIN THE BRUTE 

In the horror movie heyday of Universal Pictures, he made the studio back lot his own personal preyground: Rondo Hatton, star of the company’s “Creeper” series. The victim of a disfiguring disease, Hatton needed no makeup to play the Creeper, a night-prowling vertebreaker, in The Pearl of Death (1944), House of Horrors (1946) and The Brute Man (1946).

 

A lot of misery and physical pain were packed into Rondo Hatton’s 51 years on Earth and he met his challenges with courage. This book (co-authored by four extremely knowledgeable and awesome historians) tells Hatton’s full story and pays tribute with a full biography, the production histories of his five horror movies, artist George Chastain’s tribute to other “Brute Men” of the movies, artwork (and an afterword) by celebrated pop culture cartoonist Drew Friedman and more. Also: Rondo’s miraculous 21st-century “rebirth” as a coveted award for the finest in Monster Kid achievement. Hatton received his due with this one.

 

Waging the War of the Worlds (Book Review)

Perhaps no other old-time radio program is more fascinating than the Mercury Theater's production of H.G. Wells' novel, War of the Worlds. Known as the 1938 panic broadcast, the subject fascinates even youngsters to this day. While it is universally agreed among historians that the broadcast sparked public hysteria, it has also been proven that the newspapers were quick to run with any story of people running through the streets with wet towels over their faces to protect themselves from the poison gas that was supposedly in the air. Truth be told, the mass hysteria was so minor that the newspaper journalists found more stories to set to print than there were. The "fog of war" anxieties that were underlying of the times helped boost fears that war overseas would soon approach our homeland.

Numerous magazine articles and books have been written on the subject but none can be truly as extensive or accurate than John Gosling's book titled Waging the War of the Worlds: A History of the 1938 Radio Broadcast and Resulting Panic. From the facts behind the week's rehearsal and re-writes, smoke and mirrors, the obvious bloopers that can be heard during the broadcast that should have tipped off the listeners, to a reprint of the radio script... it is all here. Gosling even covers similar incidents of panic resulting from similar radio broadcasts in Latin America, Brazil, Portugal and other countries.

The book also includes scans and reprints of historic documents and archival photographs from various libraries. 

If you wanted to read up on the history of the 1938 War of the Worlds panic broadcast, this is the one book you want to grab this Halloween. 

Arch Oboler's THE SKEPTIC'S CLUB (1937)

Just as Arch Oboler was walking away from the NBC weekly half-hour horror program, Lights Out!, to devote time writing brief sketches for The Chase and Sunburn Hour and Rudy Vallee's program, he made multiple attempts to produce, direct and script his own horror anthology, as evident with a number of radio scripts which he recycled from Lights Out!

In this case, in September of 1937, he write a script for The Sceptics Club (that is how it is spelled on the front cover) as a pilot proposal for such a series. He recycled his "Black Zombie" radio script from Lights Out! for use on this new series. Since even the Lights Out! rendition does not exist in recorded form, and because Oboler would have used what he felt was his best script from the horror program for use in this proposal, it seemed prudent to san a copy into PDF and provide this on my blog in time for Halloween.

Enjoy!

Link for download:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kkrllrfth5vurcd/THE%20SCEPTICS%20CLUB%20%28Black%20Zombie%29%20%231%20Arch%20Oboler%20%281937%29.pdf?dl=0 

Dying of Fright from The Creeping Unknown (1956)

One of the ten best horror movies I ever saw was The Creeping Unknown (1956), also known to many as The Quatermass Experiment. The film concerns three astronauts who have been launched into space aboard a single stage to orbit in a rocket designed by Professor Quatermass. It crash lands with only one of its original crew, Victor Carroon, still aboard. No one knows whatever became of the rest of the crew, so Professor Quatermass begins investigating. The survivor, however, has a strange fungus under his fingernails, which slowly spreads on his hand, then his arm. It does not take long for the good professor to figure out the survivor is mutating into an alien organism, which, if it spawns, will engulf the Earth and destroy humanity. The survivor, driven mad from the ordeal, escapes the hospital and flees the British countryside where the manhunt involved Inspector Lomax of Scotland Yard. The finale, obviously, involves a fully-developed creature of true horror and an ending that ranks up there in popularity as the destruction of the Washington Monument (Earth vs. the Flying Saucers) and the destruction of the San Francisco Bridge (It Came From Beneath the Sea).

 

The Quatermass Experiment was originally a six-part TV serial telecast live over the BBC in 1953. Regrettably, preservation was not applied over the years and only the first two chapters of the television serial exist in recorded form. Written by Nigel Kneale, the television serial was an enormous success with critics and audiences alike, later described by film historian Robert Simpson as “event television, emptying the streets and pubs.” Among its viewers was Hammer Films producer Anthony Hinds, who was immediately keen to buy the rights for a film version. Incorporated in 1934, Hammer had developed a niche for itself making second features, many of which were adaptations of successful BBC Radio productions. Hammer contacted the BBC on August 24, 1953, two days after the transmission of the final episode, to inquire about the film rights and a motion-picture was produced with American actor Brian Donlevy playing Professor Quatermass.

 

Timed to coincide with the broadcast of the television sequel, Quatermass II, the motion-picture went on general release in movie theaters in the United Kingdom on November 20, 1955. In the United States, Robert L. Lippert attempted to interest Columbia Pictures in distributing the film but they felt it would be competition for their own production, It Came from Beneath the Sea, which was on release at the time. Because The Quatermass Experiment was unknown in the United States, Lippert renamed the motion-picture Shock!  

 

Unable to secure a sale, Lippert retitled it again, this time to The Creeping Unknown. United Artists eventually acquired the distribution rights in March of 1956 for a fee of $125,000, and the movie was packaged in a double bill with another horror movie called The Black Sleep, starring Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney, Jr. Four minutes, mainly of expository material, were cut from the runtime of the film, which means there are two versions of the movie, each with a different title and four minutes difference in length. Whichever version you watch today, however, does not affect the impact of the film’s emotional pull. 

 

The Creeping Unknown opened in theatres in the United States in June of 1956 and was so successful that United Artists offered to part-fund a sequel based on the second television series. Ultimately the Quartermass series became a franchise with additional sequels (including a big screen movie starring Barbara Shelley titled Quatermass and the Pit). 

 

This film easily ranks as one of my top ten favorite horror/science fiction classics and is a must-see. The film also includes a bit of trivia: The Guinness Book of World Records subsequently recorded this movie as the only known case of an audience member dying of fright while watching a horror film.

 

Variety magazine, November 7, 1956