Hollywood Gothic And The Monster Show!

Hollywood Gothic - The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen is a 1990, but updated in the early 2000's. Its sub-title tells up pretty accurately what the late David Skal was up to in this in look at how Bram Stoker's novel was composed and subsequently marketed, first on stage and later in the movie houses across the world. Stoker worked for a famous actor named Henry Irving and wanted his employer to bring the work to the stage but that never happened. Instead, the work was adapted to the stage a few times by various people, many with the authorization of Stoker's widow Florence, who in her time was a renowned beauty courted by not only Stoker, but Oscar Wilde among others. Dracula was a primary source of income for the widow, and she protected the rights with vigor. 

Many pages are dedicated to her battles to end distribution of Nosferatu, the German silent adaptation by F.W Murnau. Ultimately the court order to destroy all the prints of the movie failed thank goodness, or we'd not have arguably the scariest Dracula movie of all time. The other great Dracula movie is the 1931 effort from Universal and the story of how that cash-strapped studio finally put the project together is the core of this book. We follow not only the fortunes but also the misfortunes of the many actors and talents who have appeared in Dracula films. First among these is the bizarre Bela Lugosi who because of his appearance as the vampire became fantastically famous, but he was also trapped in horror roles. 

The book tracks the character as he became grist for others such as Hammer Films with their Christopher Lee offerings as well Frank Langella's take in a later Universal film. Even Marvel's long-running 70's comic version gets a mention. This is a fascinating investigation of the story of Dracula, from print to the silver screen. 

The Monster Show was written by Skal in 1993 and likewise was updated in the early years of this century. This book is a broader investigation of horror movies and how they've become such a staple of the entertainment diet. The title of the book was one considered as an alternate title for the movie Freaks by Tod Browning. Tod Browning is the focus of the early parts of this book as well as the way this director, formerly a carnival performer and explores his fascination with deformity. Deformity was something the world was forced to adapt to when so many soldiers returned from World War I with hideous life-changing war wounds, wounds that once upon a time would have killed them. 

Also of keen interest is Frankenstein, in particular the Universal horror movie starring Boris Karloff. Mad science is featured in horror films, progress run amok some might imagine. Skal tracks not only the Frankenstein films, but other such Island of the Damned and The Wolfman from the classic era. Then he follows the development of the monster movie into the 1950's and the bevy of radioactive monstrosities that rumble across the movie screen in all their giant splendor. 

The development of the "Monster Kid" generation was key with magazines such Famous Monsters of Filmland and the coming of classic monster movies to television.  Films like Night of the Living Dead and The Exorcist helped to define the 60's and 70's just as flicks like It's Alive and sundry slasher films defined the 80's. The human body and the mutilation of same by science or midnight intruder are at the core of what we regard as horror. 

Both of these books are dandy reads, as Skal tries to make some sense of how the world came to become at once bewildered by, entranced by, and even fall in love with monsters. 

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