Let's Thank Universal Pictures for Monster Movies!

Basically everything you think of when you think of vampires, mummies, werewolves, and Frankenstein all come from a spate of films made in the 1930s, and every one of them by Universal Pictures. Amazingly, they are still among the best films ever made. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 0:47Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 0:58Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry Ghul Roland is here with us, too. And this is Stuff You Should Know, kicking off the great month of October.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  That's right, one of our favorite months. I just watched Backrooms last night. Didn't you tell me to see that?

• 1:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, what did you think?

• 1:18Speaker 01

  You know, I thought it was kind of cool while I was watching it, but it's one of those movies where afterward, when I thought about it, I really didn't like it very much.

• 1:27Josh Clark?

  What didn't you like about it?

• 1:29Speaker 01

  It ended up, like, I liked it. I thought it was cool looking and, like, had a lot of cool stuff. But afterward, I was like, it felt like just some kid had a bunch of cool ideas that didn't end up making a movie. And then when I read the background of the movie, I was like, oh, that's kind of exactly what it was.

• 1:47Josh Clark?

  I, uh, yeah, I guess I didn't take it like that at all. I just enjoyed it on its face. I wasn't aware of, like, the mythology behind it and everything like that, which apparently it built on, built on pretty well.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01Josh Clark?

  But, um, yeah, I just liked it as it was, I think.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it felt like he was like, it'd be cool if I did this, and this would be cool, and this would be cool. And if I introduced this agency, that'd be cool. And then, like, none of that went anywhere. And so I was going like, wait a minute, you can't just throw a bunch of cool things in a movie and have it be a movie, kid.

• 2:18Josh Clark?

  I don't, I disagree that that's what he did.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, a lot of people liked it, so I'm, I'm, well, I don't know about the minority because a lot of people felt like I did, too. So I think it's devices, what they say.

• 2:28Josh Clark?

  That's crazy. It's such a neat movie. Everybody just needs to relax and enjoy a neat movie.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like everything you like.

• 2:35Josh Clark?

  Exactly. It drives me bananas. Yeah, so we are talking about movies in particular, which I guess is why you brought up Backrooms.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:45Josh Clark?

  I got a couple of movies to shout out now that I think about it. Have you seen Undertone? It's a horror movie about a podcaster, so it's really, like, right up your alley. I finally saw Martyrs, which is an amazing movie that, um, yeah, that's a really amazing movie. And then I also saw The Devil's Bath.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:07Josh Clark?

  I would not necessarily recommend that to everybody. There's a, it's a very dark movie, and it's in German, and it's subtitled, and it's set in the middle of the 18th century.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:18Josh Clark?

  In rural Germany.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Tough watch.

• 3:20Josh Clark?

  Not in the way that you would think. It's more just like some of the gut punches that come through are really hard gut punches. But if you're into, like, really disturbing, dark, psychological horror, I would recommend it.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  All right.

• 3:34Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  That sounds great. You want to talk about the uni monsters?

• 3:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we're talking about the Universal monsters, and we should probably talk about horror films in general because a lot of people point to the Universal monster movies, starting in 1930s, as essentially kicking off at least monster movies, if not the horror genre itself. And there were other horror movies that came first, but it wasn't until the 20s, pre-Universal admittedly, that people started, like, trying to scare audiences, hence the beginning of horror movies.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, specifically the cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu in the early 1920s kind of got that going. But like you said, it was really the 1930s when we got Draculas and Frankenstein's and mummies and wolfmen and stuff like that, that things really kicked off.

• 4:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  And we have a family to thank for that. If you, I don't know if these theaters are still there. I really hope they are. Or I'm sure they're still there, but I don't know if they're, uh, have been taken over by a different name.

• 4:38Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  But the Lamley Theaters in Los Angeles were always these great, sort of usually independently minded or, um, you know, showing maybe not the first run big hits of the day. Uh, and there were a few Lamley Theaters, and they, uh, come from the Lamley family, which is where Universal Studios comes from. A German immigrant in 1906 named Carl Lamley opened a Nickelodeon in Chicago, and a few years later, opened up the Independent Motion Picture Company, and then merged with a few other companies to create Universal Pictures in 1912.

• 5:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and then 1915, they opened a 230-acre studio in Los Angeles. So in nine years, that guy went from opening a Nickelodeon to starting a major motion picture company.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, not major yet, uh, because the majors were the big five at the time. Paramount, Fox, Warner Brothers, Arco, and Lowe's. Uh, it's crazy to think about Universal and Columbia being, and United Artists being the upstarts, but that's what they were in the early 1900s film business.

• 5:41Josh Clark?

  So, um, yeah, it was, it was actually Lemley's son who really put Universal on the map, as we'll see. But, um, Lemley Senior had a part to play in that. He ended up basically starting the star system in, um, the movie industry by taking one actress, Florence Lawrence. Good lord, the Lemley family and Florence Lawrence together at last. And he, he started a publicity campaign that focused on her, and this was new because up to that point, it was like, actor, actor, I don't care who you are, I'm here for the story. He made Florence Lawrence, like, the point to go see a movie.

• 6:24Josh Clark?

  And he did it in fairly dastardly, amusing fashion.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, he created a fake story about her dying in a car crash, and then blamed her former employer, Biograph, for creating that fake story to begin with because they were mad that they lost her to Universal. So this created a lot of publicity buzz and, you know, kind of helped create that star system.

• 6:47Josh Clark?

  Sure. Um, and it's just such a great indicator of, like, how kind of rogue, do yourself, underground the early days of film were.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:59Josh Clark?

  Especially when you compare it to how the whole industry is today. It's neat to just think of it as created by, initially by artists who were dedicated to their art and were coming up with neat, innovative things to do. It's really well portrayed in The Shadow of the Vampire with John Malkovich, where they're making Nosferatu.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, there are quite a few movies about this era, uh, because I think it's just so fascinating.

• 7:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but moving on, getting back to the monster stuff. Um, Universal had already done a couple of monster pictures that are, depending on who you ask, part of the Universal monster canon. The first one is pretty highly debatable. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde came out in 1913. It was the first Universal monster movie of any kind. Um, but it was 26 minutes long, so a lot of people are like, that's not feature length. I don't know if we can count that.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. Uh, 1920s, you got The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and then The Phantom of the Opera, two years later, in 1925. Uh, these are noteworthy because Lon Chaney Senior, uh, The Man of a Thousand Faces starred in these, and the Chaney family would figure heavily in, uh, in his son's life for the Universal monster series.

• 8:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Lon Chaney Senior is a really interesting guy in and of himself. He was in 157, or 150 films from the 20s to the 30s, and he did his own makeup, right? He was known as the man of a thousand faces. And he was such an expert on makeup that he wrote the Encyclopedia Britannica entry for makeup. And there was a joke from the 20s, um, it was, don't step on that spider. It might be Lon Chaney. How good he was considered in getting into weird, different characters.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  That's pretty fun.

• 8:44Josh Clark?

  I thought so, too.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  All right, so the studio is putting out spooky movies at this point. Uh, they're in, you know, haunted mansions sometimes, they're in strange places. This is between, like, 25 and 30, when the talkies are happening. And then in 1931, when Carl Lamley Jr., um, I think he's taken over a couple of years by this point. He started, um, has had a production in 1928 at just 21 years old. Uh, and then won an Oscar for All Quiet on the Western Front. Um, even though they were like, this is a nepo baby kid, uh, he, he really was putting out some pretty good movies. And as far as the monsters canon goes, hit it out of the park, out of the gate with Dracula.

• 9:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, from 1931, which turned out to be a really big year for monster movies. Um, it kicked off with Dracula on Valentine's Day, 1931. And it was marketed as a romance, which it is. It's a tragic romance in a lot of ways. And Nosferatu, the actual 1920s film starring Max Shrek, was not-

• 9:47Josh Clark?

  Authorized by Bram Stoker's estate. So it wasn't based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. It was Nosferatu instead. This was based on Bram Stoker's version, but they adapted it from a stage play and they hired a director named Todd Browning, who made what I think is one of the great revenge movies of all time freaks in 1932. But that was the, this was the year before he was directing Dracula.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  That's right. We did a, we didn't do a whole episode on freaks, but we mentioned it, I guess, in our, we did an episode about that.

• 10:21Josh Clark?

  About freak shows.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, freak shows. I didn't know how to say it in 2026.

• 10:26Josh Clark?

  I think that's still how they say it.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Okay. So Todd, one D Browning is a big shot director at this point. He's, he's making spooky movies. He's working with Lon Chaney, senior. He, it probably would have been Lon Chaney, senior as Dracula, but he died in 1930 of bronchial cancer. So he looked around and he said, who can I pick to be Dracula? Who, who, who? And this scary looking Hungarian said, why don't you pick me?

• 10:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So Bela Lugosi, every single Dracula idea or impression, like you just did, that all comes from Bela Lugosi's 1931 performance. And the reason they picked him is remember this was adapted from the stage adaptation and Bela Lugosi had already made a name for himself starring in the stage adaptation on Broadway. They were like, we think you got the chops for this. And it was a very good casting decision because I watched it last night for the first time and he does an astounding job.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  It's great. And by chops, you mean literal fangs?

• 11:31Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  So, uh, yeah. What did you think of it? Watching it today? Like, do you, do you ever watch old, like old, old movies like that?

• 11:39Josh Clark?

  Sometimes. Um, that, so last night as for work, which is pretty awesome. I watched Dracula, I watched The Bride of Frankenstein and I watched The Invisible Man, all three for the first time.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Invisible Man is good.

• 11:53Josh Clark?

  Oh, yes. So was The Bride of Frankenstein. I think it was the best of the, the bunch.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:59Josh Clark?

  It made me more open to watching old films as well. Yeah. They were amazingly done, like the, the lighting, the direction, the shots, like all this stuff, but also the storytelling. It was really, it sucked you in. And if you look at the runtimes of these things, they're just barely over an hour.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:18Josh Clark?

  And they're still getting

• 12:19Speaker 01

  You can knock them out.

• 12:20Josh Clark?

  Everything across in beautiful fashion. Um, so yeah, there's a couple of movies that came up in this research that I want to go watch now.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, if you watch movies from the 30s, that black and white, if you have like a good TV, it still looks incredible. It's not like this old grainy, like weird looking thing. Like it is sharp and it looks amazing.

• 12:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah. But you want to put your motion smoothing on your TV.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  No, don't ever do it.

• 12:45Josh Clark?

  You can enjoy it to its maximum potential.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  All right. So Lugosi is doing his thing. Um, in the 1930s, when the talkies were, you know, starting to become really popular and they didn't have other film industries yet. It was kind of like Hollywood was the thing. They would oftentimes shoot the same movie in a different language, sometimes multiple languages. And that was the case with Dracula. Like when they were shooting Dracula on the uni lot during the day, they were, by the way, I keep saying that it's obnoxious. That's what, when I worked out there, that's what everyone called it who worked in the film business. So it's, I'm not trying to be like, uh, that was an insider, but it's just ingrained in me.

• 13:25Josh Clark?

  I, I don't, it hasn't come across as obnoxious at all.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Okay, good. So the uni lot, everybody. Uh, they were shooting during Dracula during the day and then at night they had a completely separate crew and cast and director and everything, shooting a Spanish version of Dracula. Uh, its director, George Melford was American, so didn't speak Spanish, had a translator and a lot of people are like, this version's better actually, because they saw what was going on during the day and like improved on it at night.

• 13:53Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Um, yeah, I think it has a longer runtime too, because when they re-released Dracula a few years after its premiere, that haze coat existed now, which was censorship. So they had to cut it down even further and the Spanish version didn't have to undergo that same thing. So I've not seen that one, but I can imagine it's pretty good.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd like to check it out. All right. So Dracula was a big hit. Uh, I promised we were going to introduce you to a little guy named Frank. I lied. It's actually a big guy named Frank, Frankenstein. Uh, this was released Thanksgiving, 1931, uh, directed by the great James Whale. Uh, he was a Brit. Uh, there was, you know, I mentioned other movies made about this era. There's a great, great film called Gods and Monsters about the, the final days of James Whale. That's, I highly recommend.

• 14:42Josh Clark?

  I didn't know that was about him.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:44Josh Clark?

  I, I noticed there's a huge difference. You can tell between Todd Browning's Dracula, the way that's directed and the way that The Bride of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man, which James Whale did both of those.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:56Josh Clark?

  Are directed and I'm much, I like, I love freaks, but I'm now a big James Whale fan. He was

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Oh, nice. You should check out Gods and Monsters.

• 15:03Josh Clark?

  I will. I will.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  So Frankenstein adapted also from a stage play. Uh, and you know, like you said, he had a lot of flair as a director. Um, I think he was influenced by like German cinema at the time, um, which, you know, the time was probably a little more interesting than what was going on in Hollywood. So lots of like really cool stuff and especially in The Invisible Man, I think, which we'll talk about, like that invisible, like for the 1930s, the, um, the little trick he did to make him seem invisible, like still holds up pretty well, I think.

• 15:38Josh Clark?

  I agree. I was very impressed by it. There's only a couple of times where you're like, the thing he's holding looks a little invisible too. But for the most part, it was, I, I imagine it just knocked everybody's socks off back then, if it's still

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 15:50Josh Clark?

  today.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:51Josh Clark?

  But that was a, it was a really cool, interesting movie and it did kind of go to show, um, just what this studio was capable of now and the kind of things they were doing. And this is all pretty quick, right? I think, um, The Invisible Man just came out two years after their first movie, Dracula. So they were, they were gaining by leaps and bounds very quickly.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And establishing sort of the, you know, the tropes or the, the standby stuff that these movies would be known for forevermore. Like, uh, you know, a mad scientist lab, a hunchback assistant. Uh, it was Fritz in the first one. Igor came along a little bit later, I think in 1939 with Son of Frankenstein. Uh, but this Frankenstein, uh, played by Boris Karloff was only grunted. It wasn't like the book version, Mary Shelley's version.

• 16:42Josh Clark?

  Yes. Until they made The Bride of Frankenstein. Have you seen that one?

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:49Josh Clark?

  Okay. In this one, the monster learns to talk and Boris Karloff, who, um, played Frankenstein and made his career, started his career by playing Frankenstein. He was like, I don't think we should have let the monster learn to talk. Um, cause he's like friend good to start and ends up like telling Franken, Dr. Frankenstein, like you can sleep, you, you can sleep after you're done working by the end of the movie. Um, they also teach him to smoke and drink, which is kind of funny to see. Um, and I saw that they, it's basically described by a lot of people as campy. Like James Whale intentionally made

• 17:28Josh Clark?

  The Bride of Frankenstein a little sillier than the original Frankenstein was and that it kind of comes across. And that also Dr. Pretorius, who's the, he's even more mad than Dr. Frankenstein. He's the real bad guy of this movie, Bride of Frankenstein, that he's, um, a clearly gay or queer character, I guess, is how film buffs put it today.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, James Whale was gay, so, uh, the gay community in camp maybe have always gone hand in hand.

• 18:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  You know?

• 18:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Have you seen The Bride, the, the latest Maggie Gyllenhaal's film?

• 18:08Josh Clark?

  I have, but, um, I, without sound, I watched it over someone's shoulder on an airplane. And it looks pretty good.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  So you really saw it, huh?

• 18:18Josh Clark?

  It looks good. You know what's funny though? I noticed there's a conversation between Dr. Pretorius and Frankenstein's monster in a crypt. And, um, they're talking basically about how, you know, the, the dead are good, the living are bad. And I think that's kind of like the, the premise of The Bride, isn't it?

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I didn't think it was that great. I like, it was a big swing and I like, I love that she made this movie and that the studio put money behind her to make this kind of weird movie.

• 18:50Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  But a lot of the stuff didn't work for me, unfortunately, is my review.

• 18:55Josh Clark?

  Hey, we've always got Secretary.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Love that movie.

• 19:00Josh Clark?

  Man, that's a good movie.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  All right. Well, speaking of movies, let's talk about a few more of these monster movies, because they start churning these things out in the 1930s because they realized they had an audience that was rabid for this spooky stuff. And so the first Mummy movie came about in 1932. Keep in mind, this is just about 10 years later after King Tutankhamun's tomb had been opened.

• 19:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  So, you know, we've talked before about Egypt fever, um, striking the United States, and that was why they released The Mummy. But this was not yet the bandage wrapped, like, mummy monster at this point. That would come later.

• 19:36Josh Clark?

  No, he was a, um, a very smart, very evil Egyptian high priest that was born, or reborn, or reanimated, I guess, into modern times, wearing a fez.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  That's right. Boris Karloff again, in this case.

• 19:50Josh Clark?

  Yes. Um, and it's hard to understate, like, how big a stars Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, um, and some of the supporting actors became from these movies, right?

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:02Josh Clark?

  And they were also, they were knocking them out. And some of them, you can definitely tell, this thing was shot in two weeks. Others, it's amazing what they were able to do over very short periods of time and at first fairly limited budgets. But these, these movies, like, were really coming on strong. I think Frankenstein ended up being the top grossing movie of 1931, not only beating out Dracula, but beating out Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, too. So people had an appetite for this, like, right out of the gate.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Um, there was one in 1932, Poe. And we'll see, there were a few Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, Murderers at the Rue Morgue with Bela Lugosi.

• 20:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Uh, again, in 1932, there was, um, White Zombie, which is where, obviously, where the Rob Zombie got his band name from.

• 20:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Uh, not an official Universal movie, but, uh, it was an independent shot on the Universal stages, and it did have Bela Lugosi, so it's worth mentioning.

• 20:58Josh Clark?

  Yes, and it also gave us a lot of the tropes about, um, essentially like a, a person who has been resurrected from the dead and is now under the spell of a magician of some sort who uses them to carry out evil deeds. Not brain eating, not walking, shambling around collectively, or even more terrifying, running at top speed at you.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:19Josh Clark?

  But the funny thing is, is it was based on a book called The Magic Island, uh, by W. B. Seabrook, which is a nonfiction travelogue. So I guess, I don't know if those were presented as fact or what, but that, that's what the movie was based on.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, uh, You're Invisible, Man, that you saw and loved and that I loved, 1933, um, based on the H. G. Wells novel. Uh, you had another Poe adaptation in The Black Cat in 1934. And this one is notable because it was the first time they were like, hey, we got these stars. Why don't we put them together in the same movie?

• 21:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  And see what happens. See if we get some Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan magic. And they put Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff together in this film for the very first time.

• 22:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I have not seen it. I was reading about it. Um, and it sounds pretty amazing. I saw somebody describe it as one of the progenitors of psychological horror.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 22:13Josh Clark?

  Okay. Have you seen it?

• 22:15Speaker 01

  I have not.

• 22:15Josh Clark?

  Okay, we'll watch it together, then.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Uh, that Bride of Frankenstein you mentioned, the first one was in 1935. Uh, and then, uh, along with that Mummy movie, The Werewolf in London, uh, came about in 1935, uh, even though the werewolf thing didn't really get its legs until Lon Chaney Jr. starred as the Wolfman in 1941. That's where it really took off.

• 22:39Josh Clark?

  Its legs covered only in ripped short pants.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  And hair.

• 22:44Josh Clark?

  Um, and yeah, Lon Chaney Jr., again, another nepo baby, but, um, really made a name for himself portraying the Wolfman and some other scary people. And just like, you know, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, as they would kind of go on and become part of pop culture, they would just be tapped for, like, guest appearances or to play like a spooky scary character or something like that. Um, I would direct you no further than the riff tracks, um, Hillbillies in a Haunted House, episode where, um, Lon Chaney Jr. plays a big scary guy along with John Carradine and I can't, I think Basil Rathbone.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Oh, man. Oh, Basil Rathbone's great.

• 23:23Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  So, Lamley Jr. is running the studio, but not for too long. Uh, he was pretty loose with the pocketbook. Um, he, you know, not in a huge way, but enough to put them in financial peril at least. But, um, they say that he might have raised the, um, typical mid-level film budget from 200 grand to 260, which is like 4.7 million to 6.1 today, but it's sort of apples to oranges as far as movie budgets are concerned. You know, it's not like exactly one to one. Uh, but he made, his big mistake was he made a, a really good movie, um, from Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Showboat, uh, also directed by James Whale. It cost about 1.3 mil.

• 24:04Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  And it, it did well. It was a critical hit and a financial hit, but they just spent too much money and they were in arrears and in trouble.

• 24:13Josh Clark?

  And on top of that, Lamley Sr. had put the studio up, uh, as collateral for a loan. Almost like reminds you like of a, of some, some, you know, tycoon putting his studio up in a poker game or something like that.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah.

• 24:27Josh Clark?

  This is a little more legit than that. There was a company called Standard Capital. As, under the terms of the loan, if the loan was not repaid in a timely manner, they were able to, um, buy Universal Studios for 5.5 million, Universal Pictures.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:43Josh Clark?

  Lamley, uh, missed some payments. The loan was called in and, um, Standard Capital bought the studio out from under the Lamley family. And I guess Lamley Jr. took the blame because he had potentially put the studio in these dire straits by raising production costs. Um, and he said, okay, it's, it's me, I'll resign. Um, but Universal kept putting monster movies out, even without the family that really kickstarted them.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  That's right. Okay, I want to look up, I don't know when they started the theater, uh, their theater stuff.

• 25:16Josh Clark?

  I, I don't know.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Look that up. Should we take a break and go look?

• 25:20Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  All right, we'll take a break regardless, but I was just teasing. I'm not gonna go look right now.

• 25:42Josh Clark?

  Hey, everybody. YouTube Premium takes something you already love, YouTube, and makes it even better. The content, the creators, the feeling of finding exactly what you're into for every mood and moment of your day. Like, uh, for example, let's say you want to learn to cook, but you don't have time to go take cooking classes across town. Well, you can find tons of instructional cooking videos, all without ads, on YouTube Premium.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  That's right. Premium transforms that experience into a more supercharged, enhanced way to enjoy YouTube. A YouTube Premium subscription gives you access to exclusive YouTube features and benefits, including, but not limited to, ad-free, so we're talking about uninterrupted videos, background play, so background play lets you keep listening with your screen locked, and offline downloads. You can download your videos to watch anywhere, even without Wi-Fi connection.

• 26:29Josh Clark?

  That's pretty awesome. And Smart Downloads automatically downloads videos by your favorite creators. So even if you forget to download it ahead of time, Premium has you covered. So if you like YouTube, you'll love Premium. Sign up now for your free trial. Terms and conditions apply.

• 26:59Josh Clark?

  Okay, so we're back. Uh, and Chuck still will not tell me when the Lamleys opened their theater. He claims to not know, but I think he knows, as a matter of fact. But speaking of theaters, this was an Allemly Theater. This was the Regina Wiltshire Theater. Is that how you say it, LA boy?

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, the, the Wiltshire, maybe?

• 27:21Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 27:23Josh Clark?

  Like in the British way.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:24Josh Clark?

  In 1938, so this is still in the midst of monster movie fever. The Regina Wiltshire Theater was like, hey, let's just start showing some of these smash hit monster movies again. And they did, and they were smash hits all over again. So the studios were like, we should just keep making monster pictures.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they were successful because people loved them, but also because they were like, hey Bella, how'd you like to come to some of these screenings and appear? And he said, that's some, what is the pay?

• 27:56Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  And I guess they paid him enough to support his very sad drug habit. And he came out and they were smash hits.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  The Hollywood executives saw the writing on the wall and they were like, hey, these things like, they have legs, maybe, you know, it's not over for this franchise, these multiple franchises. So they started cranking these things out again, like new movies. And Bela Lugosi got more work again, thankfully, and he was in five movies in 1939, including Son of Frankenstein, Opposite Karloff. And then this kind of fed the 1940s, right?

• 28:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah. One of the things that really characterized the 1940s is what Universal called monster rallies? Not monster truck rallies, just monster rallies, right?

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was not lost on me.

• 28:43Josh Clark?

  And that was when there were crossovers between some of their Universal monsters. So I think the first one was Frankenstein meets the Wolfman. That was 1943. 1944 was House of Frankenstein, and that had not only Frankenstein and the Wolfman, but also Dracula, the Hunchback, and the Mad Scientist all together.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Abbott and Costello say, hold my beer, because in 1948, they did a comedy mashup, Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein. And what it should have been called was Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, and the Invisible Man. Because that all happened to that movie. And I think they sort of had a little string of those sort of comedy horror crossovers with those two guys.

• 29:29Josh Clark?

  Exactly. The pod of that movie, I looked it up, the Wolfman warns Abbott that Dracula wants to use his brain to make a new monster.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's, I mean, it writes itself.

• 29:42Josh Clark?

  Exactly. So it's hard to keep something like this up, especially when the, your monsters start appearing with comedy legends in their comedy movies. Like, that's a pretty clear sign that, like, the thing is going off the tracks. Jump the shark, as Fonzie would later do, right?

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:01Josh Clark?

  And Bela Lugosi again started to hit on hard times. He very, very famously, his last movie was Plan Nine from Outer Space, and he died during filming, which was directed by Edward Jr. And I can't imagine him at that age as anything but Martin Landau now, because that movie ruined me.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Pull the string.

• 30:23Josh Clark?

  Exactly. But a cool little fact about Bela Lugosi was buried in his black cape that he wore in Dracula.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. And by the way, folks, if you haven't seen Edward from Tim Burton, it's, it's well worth watching.

• 30:38Josh Clark?

  Yes, and if you haven't heard the great Bauhaus song, Bela Lugosi's Dead, go listen to that, too.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Well worth listening. Do it all in one night. You can do it, everybody.

• 30:47Josh Clark?

  You really could, pretty easy.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Beautiful, beautiful black and white, too, from Tim Burton, by the way.

• 30:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it is, I think his last great movie.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  I would have to look, but I may agree with you. I have a mixed relationship with Tim Burton, for sure.

• 31:05Josh Clark?

  I can tell you Ain't Dark Shadows.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  No, I wasn't even a Big Fish guy, and a lot of people love that movie.

• 31:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I could see that having a cult following, for sure.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  I did think the Beetleju sequel was, like, good. It wasn't great, but it was good.

• 31:18Josh Clark?

  I thought it was eye bleedingly bad.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was good enough.

• 31:22Josh Clark?

  But that's okay, that I don't like it and you do.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Hey, I feel that way.

• 31:28Josh Clark?

  I do, too.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  All right, so you got my texts that said, you know?

• 31:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 31:38Josh Clark?

  I didn't think you were gonna bring it up, but yes, I did, and I'm trying to behave.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  All right, 1950s roll around. We get The Creature from the Black Lagoon, which is, it gets included in the canon of monster movies for sure, but it's a little more science fiction than the rest. Because it's, of course, about a prehistoric humanoid that they discover in Amazon. It was a 3D movie. And I could have sworn we did a short stuff on Millicent Patrick.

• 32:04Josh Clark?

  We did not, but we did mention her before, though.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Okay, did we, like, sing her praises as a very undersung woman of Hollywood at a time when men were taking credit for her, her great work?

• 32:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, exactly. And I think it was in special effects, colon, a short history episode.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  All right, that makes sense, because I was wondering if it was movie crush. But yeah, the great Millicent Patrick basically created the Gilman suit, which still looks amazing from Creature of the Black Lagoon, or from The Black Lagoon, excuse me. But it was, like I said, men took credit for her great work, and in this case, it was Bud Westmore, so thumbs down.

• 32:43Josh Clark?

  That produced two sequels. Revenge of the Creature is worth mentioning, because this is the first time Clint Eastwood is on film.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:52Josh Clark?

  Although he was just a bit, bit part.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 32:55Josh Clark?

  And then this was also the only actual classic Universal monster movie that Mystery Science Theater 3000 did. It was also very noteworthy for being the first episode with Bill Corbett as Crow.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 33:10Josh Clark?

  Lots of MST 3K stuff and Rift Track stuff coming up in this episode, thankfully.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Why haven't we done a full episode on that?

• 33:17Josh Clark?

  I don't know.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  That's weird. All right, that's, that's an oversight.

• 33:22Josh Clark?

  All right, let's do it, Chuck, okay?

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'll definitely do a Mystery Science Theater 3000 up. That'd be a lot of fun.

• 33:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it would.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  All right, so 1960s are coming along. Things are changing in the world. Things are changing culturally. Things are changing in the media and creatively at Universal. So they're like, you know what? Let's park it, let's start doing some more fun movies, let's do it with some, some rom coms. We love Doris Day, we love Rock Hudson. The movies find new life on TV on reruns with people like Elvira hosting these late night horror movie watches. And they're, they still remain even through the 60s, even though they're not cranking these out, like, very firmly in the cultural zeitgeist.

• 34:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I saw Vampire was the first horror TV host in 1954. Elvira came along in 1981. Sven Guly's been around for a really long time, too. And then you mentioned it being all the way into 60s as part of the cultural zeitgeist. I think, Chuck, you're probably referencing The Monster Mash, that song?

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, that's one of the things, for sure.

• 34:29Josh Clark?

  Okay, that was Bobby Boris Pickett and the Crypt Kickers, who originally recorded that, and he was doing an impression of Boris Karloff, right? I turned up evidence of a ABC, like, teen music show called Shindig from the 60s that Boris Karloff appeared on, and not only did he sing Monster Mash, he sang The Peppermint Twist.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 34:56Josh Clark?

  This is what I was talking about, where these people were so known to be, like, just creepy in pop culture, they just appeared everywhere, especially starting in the 60s, when it really became campy and silly. That's when that, it stopped being serious in any way, shape, or form. At least people like Boris Karloff and, well, not Bela Lugosi anymore, but they, they had just expanded, transcended beyond just their status as, as Universal movies, horror stars. They were something bigger now.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally, which is super cool. Obviously, we have to mention How the Grinch Stole Christmas, in which Boris Karloff lent his voice in 1966, but three years before he passed away. Other film companies came along to do different kind of wacky versions of these Universal monsters later. The Hammer Film Productions in the UK, they did a Mummy movie, they did The Curse of Frankenstein. These were in color, and a lot of them starred the greats Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, which, man, talk about great creepy acting.

• 36:01Josh Clark?

  Usually Christopher Lee was Dracula and Peter Cushing was Van Helsing in any of the vampire movies. I also turned up some other notable Hammer entries using Dracula. One was The Satanic Rites of Dracula, where Dracula's doing his thing in modern London in 1970s, early 70s.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  All right.

• 36:22Josh Clark?

  And then, get this, The Legend of the Seven Vampires in 1974 was a Dracula slash martial arts movie. It was a co-production with the Shaw Brothers, Run Run Shaw and his brothers, the Hong Kong Kung Fu producers. They made a crossover movie between martial artists and Dracula fighting.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Amazing. I, they should do that today.

• 36:45Josh Clark?

  I want to see that one. They should do it today, it'd be pretty cool.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Agreed. You got some Western mashups with Circle Productions with Billy the Kid versus Dracula, and Jesse James meets Frankenstein's daughter, not Frankenstein. This is in the mid 60s. And then when Blacksploitation comes along, we did a great episode, I think, on Blacksploitation films. And I know we mentioned Blackula from 1972 in that movie.

• 37:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Or, sorry, in that podcast.

• 37:11Josh Clark?

  I think it was exploitation films in general, if I'm not mistaken.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Oh, I thought we did one of Blacksploitation. Was it just a part of that one?

• 37:18Josh Clark?

  Uh huh, yeah, definitely.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:19Josh Clark?

  But that was a great fun episode. But I didn't remember that the backstory to Blackula is that he's a centuries old African prince who originally met Dracula, because he went to go ask him for his help in ending the slave trade, and Dracula's like, how about I turn you into a vampire instead? And he wakes up in the 20th century, Blackula does.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 37:41Josh Clark?

  Have you seen it? I don't think I've seen it.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've seen Blackula.

• 37:44Josh Clark?

  What, how, how do you, how do you rate it?

• 37:47Speaker 01

  I mean, it's good. It's like, I think any of those Blacksploitation movies, you just got to go into it within the right headspace to enjoy it. It's like, you can't compare it to, like, you know, some, like, modern film, like, you know, a lot of that sort of, I mean, I think it holds up in the way that Blacksploitation movies hold.

• 38:04Josh Clark?

  Sure, I gotcha.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:06Josh Clark?

  Do you remember this, they, they came out before you, but I'm sure they were still around. Do you remember the Groovy Goolies?

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Why does that sound familiar? It's, it sounds familiar.

• 38:17Josh Clark?

  It was, I think it was only on for a season in 1970, but it was the Wolfman, Frankenstein and Dracula in, like, a groovy band together? And their adventures with all these other, like, monsters that were, that were in their orbit?

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there has to be some weird seed, memory seed in my brain because that does sound familiar.

• 38:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. And then also, I don't remember the company that made it, but there was a company that made models that you put together that were of Universal monster-like scenes and settings. Like, you could do Frankenstein's laboratory or whatever, but that was around the same time, too.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Oh, cool. Wow. I used to be a model kid. I'm surprised I didn't get into that.

• 38:57Josh Clark?

  I never had one of those either. I usually was putting airplanes together.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I still do a model every spring break now.

• 39:04Josh Clark?

  Do you? Do you sniff the glue sometimes?

• 39:06Speaker 01

  That's for me to know and you to find out. We have to mention Young Frankenstein from The Great Mel Brooks in 1974. And don't sleep on Frank Langella's Dracula from 1979 either. It's a little slow, but like, kind of a cool movie still.

• 39:25Josh Clark?

  It is. It's, it's, it looks good, especially for, it just, it looks like a good dark 1979 Dracula movie, for sure.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and Frank Langella's great. I was, I waited on his table one time in New Jersey.

• 39:40Josh Clark?

  That's awesome. And how was he in real life?

• 39:43Speaker 01

  He's a nice guy. He ate steak for lunch and left a good tip.

• 39:47Josh Clark?

  He, I loved him in The Ninth Gate, which is one of my favorite movies.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's great. I love Frank Langella.

• 39:54Josh Clark?

  Okay, so, that's basically up to the 80s. As a matter of fact, we just came right up to the 80s and kissed him on the shoulder because we stopped at 1979. And the 80s were a huge turning point, really, for all horror, because the emphasis became really heavy on slashers, right? They may or may not have a supernatural bend to them, but they are definitely not a Wolfman or Dracula or something like that. That became kind of passe. And then, in 1999, everything kind of came roaring back for the Universal monsters because The Mummy was put out with Billy Zane and Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. And it was a huge,

• 40:39Josh Clark?

  out-of-nowhere smash hit.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a big hit. And everyone's kind of like, are these things back? There was a Van Helsing movie that was not good in 2004.

• 40:49Josh Clark?

  I don't remember it being not good. It was just so-so.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I think it was pretty bad.

• 40:56Josh Clark?

  Well, I saw it in theater, so, that was 20 years ago. I don't remember, I guess. Or, or maybe I liked it and you didn't like it, and that's okay.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Look at us. There was a Wolfman movie in 2010. Again, not a big thing, hit-wise. I think Jack Nicholson was in the movie Wolf, but that was less Universal monster than just like a guy who turns into a wolf.

• 41:21Josh Clark?

  Like sexy wolf, right? He likes to sleep with the ladies.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you know, it was Jack.

• 41:27Josh Clark?

  The Wolfman, though, was Benicio del Toro, and he was really trying and apparently didn't do well.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was kind of, things weren't looking good. They had, once the Marvel Cinematic Universe came out, they had big plans in the 2010s to do the Dark Universe, which, I mean, it would have been super cool, I think. They had, they were gonna have Johnny Depp. I remember reading about this. Johnny Depp was gonna be the Invisible Man. Angelina Jolie was gonna be the bride. Javier Bardem was gonna be the monster from Frankenstein. And I was super stoked at the, like, reviving the monsters. But Tom Cruise put out the 2017 Mummy, which was gonna be sort of the kickoff. And it was a big flop, and they just, like, scrapped the whole idea.

• 42:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, just immediately. And like, all the ones that they already had in production and lying to be part of this, they're like, these are standalones from now on.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:17Josh Clark?

  And they have, I mean, there's been some, there was a, probably the highlight of the last 10 or 15 years was The Invisible Man, that Jason Blum, I think, directed with Elizabeth Moss. And it's become, I haven't seen it, but I know that it's very well-regarded, especially for being almost an indie movie, as far as I can tell.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was really good. And they, they sort of look at it through the lens of domestic violence, starring Elizabeth Moss. And, you know, she stands her ground. So it's a bit of a, like, a rallying cry, I guess.

• 42:51Josh Clark?

  And then probably, I said the high, the high point was Invisible Man. I know, like I said, it's very well-regarded. I, I should take that back. I think The Shape of Water is probably the high point of the last, like, 10 or so years, as far as Universal monsters go. I didn't see that one either, but I know that it was, everybody was crazy for that movie.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did not care for it, but it was a big, big hit and a big, critical hit. Guillermo del Toro is, is trying to revive all these monsters because he did the Frankenstein movie this past year, too, that, I also didn't love that one, but it was, it was okay.

• 43:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and just for those not in the know, The Shape of Water was a tale of the creature from the Black Lagoon.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, a take on that story.

• 43:39Josh Clark?

  Take, that's what I was coming for. Thanks, man. You got anything else on Universal monsters?

• 43:45Speaker 01

  No, go out and see some of these old movies, though. If you, if you think you can't sit through a movie from the 1930s, I bet you'd be surprised.

• 43:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I strongly suggest you start with The Invisible Man.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, agreed.

• 43:56Josh Clark?

  Okay. Well, since we just agreed on that, and we just kicked off the spookiest month in style with this episode, I think we can treat ourselves to listener mail.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  This is about reggae. It's kind of a cool little email. "Hey, guys, I really enjoyed the August 6th episode on reggae music. Early in the episode, you mentioned the mobile discos known as sound systems. Now, they help lead to the development of toasting. That brought back a special connection for me, because my paternal grandfather started a sound system called Maritone Music in the 1950s, and it recently celebrated 75th anniversary."

• 44:31Josh Clark?

  Oh, wow.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  "Maritone Music has the distinction of being the longest continuous sound system in Jamaica. And while Maritone Music has passed its peak of the years of the 70s and 80s, it still draws crowds and remains an important part of Jamaica's musical history."

• 44:46Josh Clark?

  That's cool.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  "Thanks for all you do and keep me company over the years, guys. I've truly enjoyed listening." And that is from Roger Blake.

• 44:52Josh Clark?

  Roger, that was a great email. I was not expecting that one.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I gotta look up Maritone Music and find out a little bit more about that.

• 45:01Josh Clark?

  Sure. Maybe we'll even take a trip down to check it out.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 45:04Josh Clark?

  Well, if you want to be like Roger and let us know something awesome that your ancestor did, we love to hear about that kind of thing. They're seriously interesting, basically every time. You can send it in an email to [email protected].

• 45:19Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.