Screen Guild Theater: The First Year / Blind Alley / Arsenic and Old Lace

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• published: 04 Dec 2012
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The First Year Ozzie Nelson, Harriet Hilliard Blind Alley Edward G. Robinson, Isabel Jewell, Broderick Crawford Arsenic and Old Lace Boris Karloff, Eddie Albert William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 -- 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.[1] Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939). His popularity following Frankenstein was such that for a brief time he was billed simply as "Karloff" or "Karloff the Uncanny." His best-known non-horror role is as the Grinch, as well as the narrator, in the animated television special of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). His role as the Frankenstein monster in Frankenstein (1931) made Karloff a star. The bulky costume with four inch platform boots made it an arduous role but the costume and torturously administered makeup produced the classic image. The costume was a job in itself for Karloff with the shoes weighing 13 pounds (6 kg) each, and Karloff having to sleep in between two books to avoid ruining his monster makeup. Universal Studios was quick to acquire ownership of the copyright to the makeup format for the Frankenstein monster that Jack P. Pierce had designed. Boris was lucky to get the part, as it had supposedly been offered to Bela Lugosi, who declined it. A year later, Karloff played another iconic character, Imhotep in The Mummy. The Old Dark House (with Charles Laughton) and the starring role in The Mask of Fu Manchu quickly followed. These films all confirmed Karloff's new-found stardom. The 5'11" (1.80 m) brown-eyed Karloff played a wide variety of roles in other genres besides horror. He was memorably gunned down in a bowling alley in the 1932 film Scarface. He played a religious World War I soldier in the 1934 John Ford epic The Lost Patrol. However, horror remained Karloff's primary genre, and he gave a string of lauded performances in 1930s Universal horror films, including several with Lugosi, his main rival as heir to Lon Chaney, Sr.'s status as the top horror film star. Karloff reprised the role of Frankenstein's monster in two other films, The Bride Of Frankenstein in 1935 and The Son Of Frankenstein in 1939, with the latter also featuring Lugosi. Karloff would revisit the Frankenstein mythos in several later films as well, starring with the role of the villainous Dr. Niemann in House of Frankenstein (1944), in which the monster was played by Glenn Strange. Karloff returned to the role of the "mad scientist" in 1958's Frankenstein 1970, as Baron Victor von Frankenstein II, the grandson of the original inventor. The finale reveals that the crippled Baron has given his own face (i.e. Karloff's) to the monster. The actor appeared at a celebrity baseball game as the monster in 1940, hitting a gag home run and making catcher Buster Keaton fall into an acrobatic dead faint as the monster stomped into home plate. Norman Z. McLeod filmed a sequence in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Karloff in the monster make-up, but it was deleted. Karloff donned the headpiece and neck bolts for the final time in 1962 for a Halloween episode of the TV series Route 66, but the episode featured Karloff playing himself, who, within the story, was playing "the monster". While the long, creative partnership between Karloff and Lugosi never led to a close friendship, it produced some of the actors' most revered and enduring productions, beginning with The Black Cat. Follow-ups included Gift of Gab (1934), The Raven (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936), Black Friday (1940), You'll Find Out (also 1940), and The Body Snatcher (1945). During this period, he also starred with Basil Rathbone in Tower of London (1939) as the murderous henchman of Richard III. From 1945 to 1946, Karloff appeared in three films for RKO produced by Val Lewton: Isle Of The Dead, The Body Snatcher, and Bedlam. In a 1946 interview with Louis Berg of the Los Angeles Times, Karloff discussed his three-picture deal with RKO, his reasons for leaving Universal Pictures and working with producer Lewton. Karloff left Universal because he thought the Frankenstein franchise had run its course. The latest installment was what he called a "'monster clambake,' with everything thrown in — Frankenstein, Dracula, a hunchback and a 'man-beast' that howled in the night. It was too much. Karloff thought it was ridiculous and said so." Berg continues, "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." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Karloff