Original subtitles

Although "Frankenstein" established Boris Karloff as a star,

the sheer volume of work in the wake of The Criminal Code,

meant he was becoming familiar to film goers.

Covering a wide range of types and ethnicities, his parts included:

A drunken orderly in Imperial Russia,

a treacherous Arab chief in the serial "King of the Wild",

a shifty would be revolutionary in "Cracked Nuts",

drug pusher Cokey Joe, in "Young Donovan's Kid",

a gambler losing his stake , in "Smart Money",

and the prisoner ate a hearty breakfast!

1/ V, -V \._':,:,. H: '_

There was more: a Russian peasant in "The Mad Genius" ,

Luigi, an opportunistic butler in "I Like Your Nerve".

In "The Public Defender", just for a change, he was one of the good guys,

helping vigilante Richard Dix expose a corrupt and powerful group.

Set your watches at exactly six minutes after five

Possibly his finest pre-stardom film was Howard Hawks "Scarface",

based on Al Capone, in which he was a rival to Paul Muni's mob boss,

who sense's his days are numbered.

Well I was on my way here, to the garage to keep an appointment. And I was late.

Yeah'?

In Scarface he's got a very interesting role,

but people complained because he was this English voiced gangster.

But the real person that that character was based on

was actually an Englishman anyway.

Yeah, you were lucky you were late. Now take a good peek and see what you missed!

I remember, I sat in on an acting class that was conducted by Vincent Price

and somebody asked him, "What is the difference

between acting on the stage and acting in films?"

And he said: "Well that's very easy.

On screen you learn to act with your eyes." And Karloff was a master of that.

Though "Scarface" is a classic, Karloff was better served by "Five Star Final",

a gritty look at yellow press journalism.

As Don't. Vernon lsipod, he's an unscrupulous reporter,

charged with resurrecting a long forgotten murder case.

I'm gonna team you up with lsipod. Oh, and don't ride in taxis with him.

Here pay attention lsipod. Look here.

I want you to go out and get yourself a black outfit,

black hat - you know - stiff collar

Ah yes. Just like the one I used on the Parclay case last year.

Posing as a clergyman, lsipod convinces the Townsends to confide in him...

And you, Mrs. Townsend, do you find it easy to pass the time.

Oh I - I'm just a housewife, that's all.

Oh now, now, now Mrs. Townsend, judging from all that I have heard...

What have you heard?

Why... that you are a wonderful mother, Mrs Townsend.

Quite a lot of British Actors who didn't make it

above the line did a rather good career, actually,

playing characters, the same kind of baddie,

the same kind of wily Oriental or whatever it was.

That could well have happened to Karloff,

had it not been for the James Whale Frankenstein.

While Jack Pierce experimented with the Frankenstein make up,

Karloff also filmed a supporting part in Columbia's

"The Guilty Generation" as Italian mob boss Tony Ricca.

And a good job, that I got myself,

and I don't owe anybody anything.

And you don't owe me anything?! I'm your father

What makes this interesting, are two coincidences.

Karloff, preparing for Frankenstein, acts in a film directed by Rowland V Lee,

who eight years later will direct Son of Frankenstein.

And one of KarlofFs henchman, seen holding the door,

is an uncredited Glenn Strange. 13 years later,

when Strange himself played the monster, brought to life by Karloff,

neither actor remembered the previous occasion.

In the 7 weeks between finishing Frankenstein and it's release,

Karloff stayed busy,

first with a rare comedy role as a waiter in Gloria Swanson's "Tonight or Never".

I'll go down at once.

Oh no sir, she wishes to come up here to you, sir.

She asked me to tell her when the Marquessa went to bed sir.

She told me not to mention the matter to you, sir, but...

but I thought perhaps I'd better.

Oh. Yes-yes of course.

Columbia's "Behind the Mask" had him in jail again, for the opening scenes.

Now get this. The guy's name is Arnold.

If you get away with this and find the house, ask for him.

Anticipating his later work at the studio, it featured a mad doctor.

But this one was played by Edward Van Sloan.

Though Karloff is on screen quite a bit, he is merely a henchman.

However Columbia cleverly exploited his presence in their publicity.

In early December, Universal signed Karloff for 2 years,

but he had one more commitment before he could join them.

1919's "The Miracle Man", a story of con-artists posing as faith healers

was the breakthrough for Lon Chaney, playing "The Frog", a contortionist,

whom the con-artists repeatedly "cure". Chaney's riveting performance,

catapulted him to fame, in much the same fashion as Karloff

So when Paramount decided to remake the film with sound,

casting Karloff seemed like a clever move.

Don't pull that "kiddo" stuff with me. Cut that out.

You heard what she said. Cut that out.

However the film squanders the opportunity, with Karloff cast as Nikki,

a sleazy tavern owner who meets an early death.

By January, Universal had at last found something for Karloff: "Night World"

where he played 'Happy' MacDonald, a prohibition era club owner,

playing host to an array of characters and a Busby Berkeley chorus line.

Oh-me-oh-my-oh

The success of Dracula & Frankenstein wasn't lost on the rest of Hollywood.

Most of the studios want to jump on the Horror bandwagon.

It seems to be relatively low budget and the returns are fantastic.

The horror stampede was on! Paramount produced Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde,

bracingly directed by Rouben Mamoulien, Warners' released Doctor X,

the grisly tale of a serial killer.

And in 'The Most Dangerous Game" demented Count Zaroff

hunted human prey on his uncharted island. Each one was popular, if controversial.

Irving Thalberg and MGM were keen to join the party

And it was Irving Thalberg who gave the go-ahead to one of

the most notorious films ever made in Hollywood, Freaks,

It was a project Tod Browning had nursed for years,

and in summer 1931, with the phenomenal success of "Dracula",

Thalberg threw his support behind the film

Here this grubby, nasty, little movie drew the special attention of Thalberg.

Freaks is now regarded as a masterpiece,

and quite advanced in its depiction of its deformed characters.

But in January 1932, it's preview audience found it shocking

in the worst possible way.

Even with 30 minutes of cuts,

the film was barely palatable and MGM ultimately pulled it from release.

Thalberg next remade an old Lon Chaney film,

but when that, too, failed he realised he needed a genuine horror star.

Boris Karloff was promptly borrowed

for his first title role appearance in "The Mask of Fu Manchu".

In early 1933 Universal hired Karloff out to Gaumont-British

to appear in their entry in the horror stakes,

"The Ghoul" - Karloff's first professional acting role in his own country.

It's Gaumont British's attempt at Universal Film

and you can see the sets are very over the top,

kind of Victorian, er, kind of German expressionistic,

British cinema will develop it's own brand of Horror film.

But this early attempt, though well photographed,

misfires due to it's makers' inexperience of the genre.

It's odd in all kinds of ways. Karloff plays an archaologist.

So why does he look so grotesque?!"

For a lot of the film Karloff looks like he has

all kinds of really strange things on his face

and it kind of handicaps the film and his performance.

The Ghoul tries hard to be as grisly and thrilling as possible,

and it has its fans. But the New York Times dismissed it saying

"a newsreel of a Sunday school picnic would have been more thrilling!"

In June 1933, Karloff was scheduled to appear in James Whale's The Invisible Man.

But Universal had agreed with him a pay structure, which they failed to employ.

So Boris, ever the Unionist, walked.

Proving that he needed Universal less than they needed him,

Karloff signed for prominent roles in two major productions:

John Ford's The Lost Patrol and Darryl F. Zanuck's The House of Rothschild.

The Lost Patrol was filmed in Yuma, Arizona.

Karloff played Sanders, a religious zealot.

Director Ford was known for pressing his actors beyond their comfort zone.

I had live bullets fired at my feet,

out on the desert, and that was interesting too.

Ford came to me and said, you know:

"I hate this scene where they have sort of pops in the sand

and that sort of thing, it just doesn't work,

It'll be wonderful if we can get these shots

as you walk across the sand at your feet."

I said: "|t would indeed, how do you propose to do it?"

He said: "Well I've got Partner Jones here, who's a sharp shooter."

And there's nothing to do but take his word for it.

So I took a deep breath and we got the shot.

While The Lost Patrol and House of Rothschild were successful films,

audiences and reviewers still saw Karloff primarily as a horror actor.

Since his triumph as Dracula in 1931, Bela Lugosi had appeared in such films as

"White Zombie", "Chandu the Magician" and "The Island of Lost Souls".

But his career was losing momentum

and increasingly he made minor films at small studios.

By the time Karloff and Lugosi first actually worked together,

his professional standing had fallen down quite a bit.

He was playing scenes from Dracula in Vaudeville

at the time the call came for Karloff and Lugosi to do the Black Cat.

So "The Black Cat" was a comeback for Lugosi.

However, he was suspicious of his co-star.

Their background, as far as what led to their first film,

the dynamic of what was happening then, was really a very dramatic one,

Of one person getting this incredible break

and one person kind of left holding the bag afterwards.

Er, and so you can certainly understand Lugosi

having a certain amount of wariness

in approaching Karloff at first in their film unions.

But even though he and Karloff were very different, they worked well together.

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They just really feed off each other very well

and they seem to be enjoying each other

and enjoying the challenge each one brings to the other, in their films together.

It's very interesting to watch The Black Cat

and the contrast in the way that the two characters approach what they're doing.

Again, Lugosi early in the film, to watch him in the train when he gives a speech.

I too am going very near there.

For the sport?

Perhaps. I go to visit an old friend

And again, the technique, the way he uses his eyes, the way he uses his voice,

Carl Laemmle Senior saw the rough cut and he said:

"You know, I'm not gonna release this movie.

This company's not gonna put this thing out there for public consumption.

You're gonna have to put it back in production and tone it down."

They put it back and the basic changes were to try to make Lugosi more of a hero,

So they decided to soften his character, and they did, very effectively.

If you watch the film, certain scenes, different, different close ups,

little short scenes, little changes of dialogue really do the trick.

They make him, again, this tragic hero character.

Karloff and Lugosi would work together another seven times.

Yet their salaries were never equal. Many have speculated why.

The answer lies in the radically different status of each actor.

Karloff had the Universal contract,

Universal was building Karloff tremendously,

you know, Mummy, they...

"Karloff the uncanny" on the posters, these sorts of things.

On The Black Cat Karloff received - $7500 was his flat fee

which meant that he was on contract at Universal and Lugosi as a freelancer

was getting $1,000 a week and a three week guarantee on the picture.

On The Raven, Karloff is getting 10,000, Lugosi's getting 5,000.

On The Invisible Ray it's not even close any more

Kar|off's getting $3,125 a week; Lugosi's getting $4,000 for the entire picture.

Also, of course, it's always been Karloff and Bela Lugosi in these early films,

but now it's 'The Great Karloff and Bela Lugosi' on the posters.

As well as billing issues, there were other changes within Universal

and the industry itself which would have far-reaching consequences

not just for Karloff and Lugosi, but the horror genre as a whole.

You have a real problem with censors.

The production code has really beefed up,

they're looking for anything that might be a problem.

There's a great fervour across the country of religion trying to tone down Hollywood.

All right, there's the Catholic Legion of Decency,

and of course the Breen Office is sort of taking a cue from them,

The Hays Code was partly to stop sex in films and taboo subjects.

Betty Boop, who used to wear a very, very short skirt and a garter right here,

suddenly was wearing a dress tastefully cut off at the knees.

Jane, in the early Tarzan movies was wearing a very brief outfit.

Suddenly she was wearing a Mother Hubbard out there in the jungle.

Those are superficial examples but very tangible examples

of the kind of change that was imposed on every Hollywood film maker

The situation was much the same in Britain.

Throughout the whole of the early mid-'30s,

the censors and the press in many respects in Britain,

had become increasingly more and more anti-horror films.

This caused problems with what should have been Kar|off's next British made film,

"The Man Who Changed his Mind",

and production was delayed while studio and

censor thrashed out an acceptable screenplay.

In the interim Karloff went to work, at Warners.

The Walking Dead gave him one of his most sympathetic parts in a film that

seasons a typical Warners gangster story with a touch of the supernatural..

I'm Loder. Did you want to see me?

Yes sir. My name is John Elman. A man told me to come and see you.

He said you were always ready to help a fellow.

Desperate for work, he falls prey to a group of gangsters

planning to murder a prominent judge, the same one who sentenced him.

With a ready made motive, he's the perfect fall guy.

Arrested and accused of the murder,

Elman is defended by a corrupt attorney in the gangster's pay.

I thought that Nolan was defending this bird!

Looks to me like he's pushing the electric chair right under him.

Just as planned, Elman is convicted and sentenced to death.

Despite his pleas of innocence, he goes to the Electric chair

The film seems about to enter Frankenstein territory

when a scientist uses a new technique to revive the wrongfully executed man.

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And, um, he's like, this kind of zombie type figure,

very, very quiet, very subdued with very watery eyes.

And he hardly speaks.

And I think the thing that stood out for me was a moment when he was

playing the piano, because he's a pianist, and he plays the piano beautifully,

And two of the people that railroaded him are in the room

and his eyes just go round very slowly and then he just locks on them

while he's playing. And there's this beautiful change in his expression.

It's It's just wonderful acting.

It's like what you were saying about his silent style acting,

really coming into play, and I think it's very powerful

Following the success of The Walking Dead,

Warners signed Karloff to a four picture deal.

The Man Who Changed his Mind was now ready to roll,

so Dorothy and Boris set sail to England again.

I would say it's quite possibly his greatest mad doctor role ever.

A lot of people seem to muddle it up with

the other mad doctor films that he made later in his career.

But in fact they were made four years later at Columbia in America,

whereas The Man Who Changed His Mind was a British film made in 1936.

By the time the Kar|off's returned to

Hollywood a lot had changed.

Universal had new owners, the Laemm|e's were gone

and Joseph I Breen's campaign to kill the horror film seemed to have succeeded.

Sunday March 13th, 1938 brought a brief reunion for Boris and Bela,

Though the movies would make me a terrible brute

When my make up is off I am really quite cute.

We're horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible men

Over the previous two years both actors had experienced career slumps.

In Bela's case, his only appearance had been in a serial.

He had no film work for most of 1938.

His son Bela Junior was born in January of 1938,

not long after that Lugosi lost his home that he had in Hollywood Hills.

He was under great, great duress.

And, he himself he said that the Hollywood attitude

toward him was who wanted anything to do with a jobless spook.

And that's how they were regarding him, you know.

And another time he said: "They had reduced me to the status of an animal"

Although Boris was a bit more fortunate,

Warner's attempt to break his contract was not encouraging.

So when Dorothy told Boris she was expecting their first child,

it's no surprise he eagerly accepted an offer from low budget

Monogram Pictures to star in their planned series of Mr. Wong mysteries.

One of the most popular film characters at the time

was the Chinese detective Charlie Chan, played by Warner Oland,

a Swedish Caucasian performing in what is now termed 'Yellow face...

Karloff himself played a guest role

opposite Oland in Charlie Chan at the Opera.

You'll never put me behind those walls again.

Remember presence of honourable daughter.

She didn't know me, she's afraid of me. She thinks I'm mad.

That and his more recent success in West of Shanghai

made him a natural choice for the cerebral James Lee Wong,

whose methods of deduction were very similar to Sherlock Holmes.

For Karloff, the series was timely,

since the five adventures which followed kept him on screen

and provided a nice change of pace from his more sinister roles.

Having made a fortune from re-issues of Dracula and Frankenstein in summer 1938,

Universal inaugurated a second wave of horror with Son of Frankenstein.

Karloff had reservations about returning in his most famous role.

Karloff probably was not crazy about playing the Frankenstein monster

for a third time on screen, but he did sign a new

term contract with Universal and he was a pro.

But apparently he did insist that in this one the Monster does not speak.

And he got his wish and the creature is very muted,

perhaps by the, you know,

the cataclysm that destroyed him supposedly in the last one.

One of the problems with Son Of Frankenstein is that, um,

nobody liked the original script in which the monster talked

and in which there was no Igor at all.

It was improvised. There was a script but it wasn't adhered to at all.

And the director and producer Rowland V. Lee,

decided that basically he would start the film and rely on inspiration

to make it work, right, day-to-day inspiration -

which of course drove the actors crazy, particularly people

like Basil Rathbone, Lionel Atwill & Josephine Hutchison.

Again, Universal pulled a nasty deal with Lugosi, they

were aware that he had had problems, professional problems,

and so when they brought him in to play Igor they said:

Well, um, tell you what we'll do -- of course at that

point they didn't know how big a role Igor would be

because of the, you know, it was

everything was an evolution, so they said:

Well Well basically, they told Rowland Lee,

film everything that... you're gonna use him for in a week.

We'll give him $500 and send him home, that'll be it, you know.

And Lee got very angry, and he said:

"You're terribly underestimating this man, he's a terrific actor,

he's gonna give a fantastic performance in this movie,

and I'll tell you what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna keep him on this movie every single day.

I wanna bring him in every day and

he will be in it up until we wrap the move at the end of production.

And almost day-by-day a story was cobbled together

and one of Bela Lugosi's major roles, Igor,

appears in no script, but somehow Lugosi almost walks off with the picture.

When he played Igor in the Universal film he pretty much took over the film as...

It had a little bit of a comedic twist that he put on that role.

And I think that's one of his best performances.

Lugosi's performance as Igor is tremendous.

It's funny, it's malevolent, it's, it's brilliantly creative,

He... does things for me.

Has he always been here?

Nearly always. This is place of, the dead.

We're all dead, here.

N' ,. z

That is my favourite Bela Lugosi performance of his entire career.

I think that he brings a demented relish, a very, very precarious vulnerability

to his Igor. That, that... you know, with the broken neck stump,

is so perverse, so quirky, but In a very different way than,

than the quirkiness of Bride of Frankenstein.

But while the adults were memorable, one cast member almost stole the show.

Well, hello!

Right out of the Deep South, okay. Everybody ruptured and I thought:

"Oh, my Mom's gonna give me heck now..." Several times later, okay,

including off, off the set, Boris Karloff had some fun with me on that,

he was "Well hello, Donnie!" or something like that. He was a great guy.

As with Marilyn Harris 8 years earlier,

Donnie's reaction to seeing Karloff in monster make-up, was far from frightened.

On the set, I think very early in the shooting, Mr Karloff came walking out,

I guess from the area of his dressing room

And he was practicing his walk, with his heavy boots on,

and I recognised as he came up closer, and I recognised who he was,

all that makeup on and some tube thing in his neck and everything and

And I broke out laughing. He laughed. And other people laughed.

And that was one of the happiest casts

and the most friendly cast of all eight movies in my life.

While Donnie was an onset favourite of Karloff and Rathbone's,

he didn't make the same impression on the third star.

Mr Lee, the Director, had us all assembled,

not in recall formation, but kind

of loosely assembled, and several people were late. The main one we were waiting

for was Mr. Bela Lugosi. Just a few days before this, okay, my mother tried

to start grooming me with some ethics and some protocol in how

to introduce people. She really made a thing about how to introduce people which,

which was good for a little runt kid, right?

So I'm standing there, and here comes Mr Bela Lugosi, he's late.

He was commonly late by they way. Here he comes.

Now I wanna impress my mother, everybody's standing right there, Mr. Karloff

is right there by me, great guy...

"Look everybody, here comes Mr Belly Goosy." Everybody roared.

Boris Karloff really roared; patted me on the back someone, like this,

and here comes Mr Bela Lugosi.

Slow now, right up to me, looked down at me like: Grrrr!

He never spoke a word to me the whole movie.

We'd pass each other all the time, he'd glare at me.

Now what made this worse was wonderful Karloff,

who had a great sense of humour, during the production,

every once in a while Boris would see Bela Lugosi over somewhere

and say "Hey, Belly! How you doin' or something like that.

- I ..

Universal knew they had a hot property

and Son of Frankenstein was rushed through post-production

at astonishing speed, hitting theatres just one week after the final retake.

Under contract to Warners, Columbia, Monogram & Universal,

Boris now found himself busier than at any time since 1931.

Tower of London was a well produced if set bound drama,

Tudor history with a dash of horror.

Karloff played Mord, the king's torturer come

executioner, a man who really enjoyed his work

I mean right from the beginning when you see him,

he just lifts up a weight and puts it on another body in the dungeon.

While Mord lacks the depth of Kar|off's best roles,

his delight in causing pain and absolute devotion to Richard III

made him a memorable addition to Karloff's gallery.

He's like a fawning child in it,

he just seems to absolutely adore Richard and wanna do everything for him.

But it's interesting because that film includes one of Boris's sentimental scenes

when he picks up one of the children,

the princes in the tower he's gonna have killed,

and the child grabs Mord's collar

and Mord looks like he's got a moment of regret, but he kills him anyway.

Karloff had to have his head shaved for Tower of London,

a total of 44 times during filming.

He sported this unusual look at several public events

and Screen Actor's Guild meetings.

And in a curious gesture he wasn't the only member of his family to do so.

One day my mother left me in his care for the afternoon

and my father thought it would be amusing to have my head shaved too.

My mother didn't think it was so cute!

Aside from this, his other films were more modest.

Along with the Monogram six, there were two with Bela Lugosi.

"Black Friday"'s posters and promotion made it seem like this was a

Karloff-Lugosi vehicle in the vein of their earlier collaborations.

In fact it was nothing of the kind and the two actors don't even share a scene.

They make Black Friday, which is basically almost a gangster film with a,

with a supernatural horror element added to it

It's not one of their better pictures, but it's, it's in "the fun" category

of so many of the pictures, the program movies that Universal was making.

They have a gangster's brain transplanted into the professor and,

sort of a Jekyll and Hyde character.

Do you remember the name Marnay?

Marnay! He's the one who took your place.

Karloff, allegedly, was offered the role of the professor

who then becomes a criminal, but he apparently opted to not play that part

and Lugosi was gonna be the doctor, the mad doctor,

Instead Karloff is the mad doctor and Stanley Ridges,

who was a wonderful actor, plays the slash, criminal/good guy,

Mama�!

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And again, there are some, scuttlebuck about the fact that, you know, Karloff

did this on purpose because he wanted to you know, sort of reduce Lugosi in

Lugosi's standing in the film. But I, I think that's pretty ridiculous.

I think that you know, first of all the role that Stanley Ridges plays, the

professor gangster, is clearly the star role in the film. And I don't believe

Karloff would give up the star role in the film simply so he could somehow

nudge Bela Lugosi down, you know, in the pecking order of the film.

I mean that would...

that seems very illogical and certainly out of character for him.

And Lugosi is sort of shunted off to a gangster role,

which he was really not particularly suited for.

So maybe that killer's after us too.

A good deduction.

But who would want us dead, except some friend of Red's.

And who would about Red Cannon's friends better... than Sonny?

You know, truth be told,

Lugosi was really pretty happy to play gangsters at this point.

I mean he was, he had, he had been on a picture a short time before

The Saint's Double Trouble and he said at the time, he said:

"I really enjoyed you know, this is gonna broaden my field.

I don't think I'm gonna

I shouldn't be typecast again... Just as horror - just in horror roles.

This shows I can play all different kinds of heavies including gangsters."

So I don't think Lugosi probably was upset

as the legend says he was to end up in that role.

And of course he got that great sideshow thing with,

with the trailer of that being hypnotised

Reporters saw Dr Manley Hall hypnotise actor Lugosi

to give reality to a scene in Black Friday.

Horror struck, they witnessed the hypnotized actor's mortal agony

as Lugosi actually experienced the terror of suffocating to death... in a closet!

That's right, in the closet, which, er,

which he really wasn't, but which he really enjoyed pretending he was.

But the most interesting were the four he made at Columbia.

He's always a doctor with good intentions who's interrupted by

somebody who's not as knowledgeable and messes the whole thing up.

And then he comes back for some kind of revenge.

And in The Man They Could Not Hang he has a student's permission

to kill the student so he can use his method to revive him.

Now a nurse runs off and panics and calls the police.

The police come, arrest the doctor, Karloff,

and he's not in a position to revive the student, so the student dies.

So the doctor's hanged. And his method is used to revive the Doctor

and then he gets his revenge on all the people he feel is to blame for his death.

And he brings them all together in a house like, er, And Then There Were None,

like Agatha Christie, and he starts bumping them off.

But unfortunately, they don't pursue that in the film far enough.

They should have had, everyone but one

because Boris's daughter turns up and it goes in a different direction.

But, er, that's probably the best one.

I think my first memories of my father were

at home at our house on Beaumont Drive.

I can remember him down on the tennis court

and he and my mother gave me a Cooker Spaniel puppy

and we would take it down to the tennis court and let it roam free,

both on the tennis court and on the grass that we had.

He loved animals, he was wonderful with animals.

At one time we had 22 dogs when we lived there.

We had Scotties and West Highland Terriers and Bedlington Terriers.

He had a pig named Violet. He had turkeys.

He'd fashioned himself a gentleman farmer.

I can remember him spending a lot of time in his study

reading, he was a veracious reader.

He just liked to spend his home time quietly.

He and my mother had a myriad of friends,

some in the business but mostly not.

And they entertained, not in a Hollywood fashion at all.

My father loved the out of doors, we had a tennis court,

they both played both my parents played tennis.

He loved to be in the swimming pool, he taught me how to, not to swim,

but not to drown. And I can remember he had my footprints put,

put in the concrete around the pool.

Boris is asked to appear in Arsenic And Old Lace,

a comedy about two old spinsters who murder lonely people

and then have their bodies buried in the cellar.

But he'd made so many films that when he was first approached by

Lindsay and Crouse, who did Arsenic And Old Lace

to play the role in Arsenic And Old Lace,

my father said: "Oh, it's been so long since I've been on the stage

I couldn't possibly do a Broadway play."

And Boris said he would only do it if there were

at least two parts that were better than him.

And there's several, there's two old ladies and there's

Mortimer Brewster who is an art critic who hates the theater,

and Boris plays his brother Jonathan who has been on a killing spree

and he comes home to hide in Brooklyn and Boris loved it.

And it's quite a canny move because Jonathan

doesn't appear till quite a way into it

so he's got all that time to just sit and wait.

,, ' 'if. I ' 0' 113;? "Q1: :'5 :'~, , " " 5 I: ' t'

His sidekick in crime asked him why he had killed somebody,

. - :. ~' : ~~ '. '~

"Because he said I looked like Boris Karloff!"

(AUDIENCE: LAUGH)

And that brought... that brought the house down every night.

It was a wonderful play. For many years it held the record for longest play

longest running play on Broadway and he adored doing it.

With the prestige of his Broadway success,

Universal rolled out the red carpet,

a bigger than usual budget and Technicolor for his return.

While Karloff had missed out on The Phantom of the Opera,

the new film was designed as a semi sequel,

again set in the Paris Opera house,

and featuring Karloff as an insane theater physician.

So it turned into this strange tale of obsession

Rest, my dear, gently slipping away into another world

a world of my design.

But though great to look at, the film wastes it's star on a one dimensional part

Yeah, beautiful to look at but rather dull.

Boris looks completely uninterested in it.

Which is rare.

It's one of those films where he looks like he's just fulfilling his contract.

Karloff next rejoined the Frankenstein franchise

for a more typical Universal production of this period.

Well when I went to The Mode, to see

House of Frankenstein I thought Boris Karloff played Frankenstein.

So when I got into the theater and I saw his name on the credits, okay,

he's gonna play Frankenstein, the Monster.

And then suddenly I saw him at a prison,

Now will you give me my chalk.

Boris Karloff didn't wanna play the Monster anymore at that time,

but they wanted to use his name of course in the movie.

Try that again and I'll put you in solitary confinement

you would-be-Frankenstein!

And they got an actor named Glenn Strange

Now on the set Boris coached Glenn Strange as to how to walk,

how to do the walk, how to play the Monster,

and Glenn Strange told me that he was

indebted to Karloff all his life because of that.

Karloffs Dr Neiman was the sort of role he could play in his sleep.

Fortunately, something more challenging was on offer from RKO,

who signed him to appear in three films for Val Lewton.

The first of these to be released was one of his best, The Body Snatcher,

and a part that offered real real depth and character.

There's bad news, boy, bad news. We have to go out again.

It's a remarkable - remarkably rounded performance, and

the little girl - he's charming to the little girl

He knows every little girl in Edinburgh.

Some day when you're running and playing in the streets,

he'll knicker at you as we go by.

He was very merciful and very kind to younger actors

which was everybody on the set who was younger than he was,

and he was especially gentle with me.

There were several scenes where he picked me up and one

where he held me over to pet the horse

And I had no fear of him at all.

He didn't have too many compliments

for some of the other directors he worked for, I must say.

But Val Lewton knew his stuff completely and he did stuff

underneath the main themes of the films, which was very interesting.

As it turned out Val Lewton brought in Bela Lugosi

for box office value and cast him in a small role

I would like to speak to you.

Well I presume you shall, this won't be my last visit here.

I want to speak to you alone. I saw something, I heard!

What did you hear?

I know... maybe some other time.

And, and I think Lugosi's feelings were,

were quite hurt to be given a role this small.

I think he was very self-conscious and he was not in good shape during the shooting.

Robert Wise mentioned that Karloff did a lot to try to cheer Lugosi up,

that he was very aware of the sensitivity of the situation,

that Lugosi was not at his best at that time,

and that they worked together in a very smooth way.

While she didn't fully comprehend how big a star her father was,

Sara became accustomed to the odd reactions of others.

Being in an elevator with my father was an experience.

People never knew whether or not to mind their manners.

There was a lot of body language going on

in an elevator with my father, they'd be nudging one another.

And the minute we stepped out of an elevator they'd be pointing and say:

"That was Boris Karloff, that was Boris Karloff)'.

So, he really couldn't go anywhere that he wasn't recognised either

certainly by his looks.

My father drove a convertible and stopping at a stop sign,

people would look then take a double take

and look again and make certain saw what they saw.

And that was always amusing, to me.

And you just had to learn to live with it.

And he learned to live with it very graciously and,

and he was very appreciative of his fans

- ..~~ -. ~'-'.~~

he had to spend a lot of time at home

because he

One time he took me to a football game and I can guarantee you,

people in the rows around us could never tell you a thing about that football game.

They were looking at him, watching him, talking about his being there.

They wasted their money as far as seeing that game.

But they spent it well being able to watch him.

So when he went out in public he really didn't have any private time.

And that's how I recognised the, the degree of his fame.

But during the previous few years Boris had become estranged from Sara's mother.

He had been in Arsenic and Old Lace for three years. Now you think about that.

That means he's doing eight performances of that play a week, right.

He's away six nights a week, two afternoons a week.

And if you examine his career at the time,

at the same time he's doing Arsenic And Old Lace in New York, for example,

he's doing radio shows that he manages to sandwich in

before the performances at night, all right.

And he's dressing up as Santa Claus at, at a hospital,

and he's doing all these other things

and personal appearances and so on and so forth.

And he's just completely throwing himself into his work.

And obviously there's only so many hours in the day,

so he's probably not seeing his wife very often,

he's probably not seeing his little girl very often.

And I think that probably at by the time of 1945 when they divorced,

that Dorothy felt well,

I've kind of lost my husband in a sense to his profession...

Because I think, your mother and your father broke up...

Yes. When I was seven.

When you were seven.

So the memories of the three of you as a family

are really just until you were seven?

Yes. And they each remarried very happily and very successfully.

My stepmother adored my father and he her.

She took very good care of him.

And my mother married very successfully and I adored my stepfather.

So it was a win-win situation for everybody.

And I got to spend some very marvellous quality time with my father

whenever he was in Los Angeles working, which was quite a lot.

And my mother and I moved to San Francisco with my step-father.

With horror production in limbo,

Karloff reverted to juicy supporting roles in bigger films,

such as the sinister Dr. Hollingshead in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"

that Mr Mitty called, Walter Mitty, M-

I know of a way to kill a man and leave no trace.

Excuse me, I'll be with you in just a moment.

In "Lured", he was an unhinged former dress designer,

as chorus girl Lucille Ball tries to uncover a serial killer.

Not so loud! It hurts the ears...

In DE Mi||e's "Unconquered"

Karloff was a demonised version of the real life Guyasuta, Chief of the Senecas.

As for Universal's lavish but clich� ridden

"Tap Roots", the New York Times noted that

"Our old friend Boris Karloff appears to be getting into another rut,

for he is playing an Indian again, though quite a civilized one this time."

And you?

I'm happy to be relieved of the necessity of killing you.

Between these he was the thuggish Gruesome in one of RKO's

"Dick Tracy" films, costarring the memorably named Skelton Knaggs.

Any more!

At all? At All!

I see. Tell him I'll do what he says for exactly fifteen minutes.

Oh please, now!

Unless of course you're back within that time, with half the take.

- ' ~' 1 '

marked the end of Universal's classic monster series,

pitching the cross-talk duo against Lugosi's Dracula,

Chaney's Wolf Man & Glenn Strange as the monster.

Karloff wasn't involved, but gave it a plug,

when it opened in New York, in return for which Universal paid his hotel bill.

He didn't like the monster to be mocked,

yet was willing to revive the character in the right circumstances.

And, as recently discovered stills reveal,

the monster almost appeared in the Walter Mitty film.

What's interesting about The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is

Boris was willing to do the Monster in a comedy film.

There was a dream sequence in it in which Karloff again put on his monster costume.

But obviously it seems that what he was doing would be straight

and it would be Danny Kaye reacting to it.

But it was never really in the movie. I don't know if it was even in any previews,

and that's a that would be a really great piece of film to find.

At 62, Karloff, was facing a downturn in his film career.

Screen Actors Guild dues were based on how much money you made.

So if you were making less money you paid less dues.

And by the late 1940s Boris

was reclassified to a lower dues paying category as a result.

Which would have meant ...?

It would have meant that he's making less money

under Guild contracts for motion pictures.

He did two other plays, each of which ran seven performances,

so I can say that I was among the masses who missed both

The Linden Tree and The Shop at Sly Corner.

One who did see the second of these was actor, Nehemiah Persoff.

And there's only one thing I remember and that was there was some lady,

sitting on a chair the way I'm sitting, and he walked slowly behind her.

And they were talking and having a simple conversation

and he walked behind her and he got behind her and he had big hands.

And he put both his hands around there and then he took them away.

And it was a great moment, great moment.

And of all the entire play that's all I remember.

You are in a deep sleep, a sound sleep.

You hear nothing but the sound of my voice.

With two failed Broadway productions in quick succession

"Abbott & Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff" provided welcome employment.

Afterwards it was back to New York for a live TV production

ofArsenic and Old Lace, and the beginning of new phase in his career.

...you get out of here!!

But I'm Jonathan, your nephew Jonathan.

Oh no you're not, you don't look a bit like Jonathan,

so don't pretend you are. You just you get out of here!!

But Aunt Abby, I am Jonathan and this is Dr. Einstein.

The '50s were very full of instant gratification for my father,

both television wise and the stage.

Peter Pan was a very exciting project for me

because it had some very good people in it, Jean Arthur, Boris Karloff.

I was very excited about getting it.

About a week before that, the Actors Union, Equity,

had a meeting in which they honoured Bela Lugosi.

And I was a great fan of Bela Lugosi. I was sitting there and he came on stage,

when he came on stage he mocked himself.

And out of the blue it came to me in and I let out a heart-curdling screech

. ~ " 7 - ' I~"~. ~ ~~.~ ~ ...

And I slid down my chair. And everybody, 75 people started laughing and

and Lugosi too started laughing and applauding and it was very good.

I was very happy I did it.

And as a young actor you were always very happy whenever you've made an impression,

some kind of impression on people in the business,

because it's very hard to get in the business

Anyway, so this was about a week before we began rehearsing Peter Pan.

We had the first rehearsal,

I walked on stage and there was Boris Karloff standing there, and I thought

I made such a big hit with that scream I'll try it again.

And I came over to Boris and:

Ahhhhh! And I screamed and ran off the stage.

Nobody laughed.

It wasn't funny. It was a mistake. I shouldn't have done it.

In the late fall, early spring of '49 and '50

I was asked if I would like to audition to play John

in the Jean Arthur/ Boris Karloff edition of Peter Pan.

I had been in show business prior to that,

doing radio early in the 1940s on kids' shows,

and then playing the part of the youngest son in

Life With Father on Broadway for about two years,

And actually my agent and I decided that

we didn't really appreciate

the financial offer that was made and I turned it down.

And another young boy was actually selected and chosen for the part.

About two weeks into rehearsals they came back to me and said:

"Jack, we want you to do the part. We'll pay your price."

The director was a British director, John Burrell,

and he didn't like people sitting out front watching the actors work on stage,

so we all had to go into the wings, and I found a nice chair for myself there.

And I used to watch the action from the side.

I loved to see Jean Arthur flying, that was great.

After a little bit, Boris Karloff came to me, he brought a chair with him and

sat down next to me and he said: "How are you?" I said: "Fine, thank you."

He was sorry that there was such a relationship between us,

that I didn't have to feel that way, that what he would like to establish

is a rapport between Captain Hook and the pirates that was more friendly.

Pirates, but still very kind and good.

And I looked at him and I thought:

What a terrible mistake I made,

I shouldn't have, shouldn't have done that scream.

I hurt his feelings I know.

But after a few moments he left and I felt I could be his friend.

And so right after that when I came to the theater I'd pass his dressing room,

I'd knock, I had a special da-da, da knock so he knew it was me,

and he'd say: "Come in, Nicky, come in."

And I'd talk for a while with him.

And the conversations are not the kind of conversations

you have with a star because

most stars will tell you how they're recognised, how this and

da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da having to do with their stardom.

' J � \ ' V. ,

He talked about driving a truck; he talked about kindness;

he talked about goodness; he talked a little bit about this Screen Actors Guild,

he helped organise that I think, I'm not sure.

" ~ ' " ' '

Our rehearsals were generally the blocking, the staging

and certainly getting used to each other in our roles.

And it was really an eye opening experience

for a 13 year old boy at that time.

His first encounter with Karloff as Captain Hook was memorable.

That was an astounding transformation.

Because he did his own makeup, of course,

and I was just amazed that he could do that kind of a job

and transform himself so tremendously

and just be the total opposite of the urbane and very British Father Darling.

He played the role beautifully, better than anyone I've ever seen do it,

and I have seen a few other productions.

But I, I think he was just great all around.

He had a very striking stage presence.

I think had he not had the film career to precede it,

he still would have been extremely effective on Broadway or in the theater.

He was very moving. He was a very tender, moving presence on the stage.

This is a tremendous success. And in fact the New York Times critic says:

"This is Mr Karloffs day of triumph, all right,

in which he shows really what he can do as an actor," right.

Both those roles he plays, he plays the menace, he plays the comedy,

he sings, you know, it's an incredible showcase for him.

He found his greatest rewards and satisfactions first on Broadway

and then on radio as well and --

which was a dominant medium at this time;

and then in the early days of live television,

which was also based out of New York where he was working on the stage.

So he found great opportunities away from Hollywood,

not so many great ones in Hollywood.

Live TV was a handy source of extra income for actors like

Karloff and Nehemiah Persoff, but it wasn't covered by the terms of any Union.

I had just finished doing a TV show for $50

which was too low but there was nothing you could do,

One day I got to my dressing room

and there was a flyer announcing that a new union would be formed,

the American Federation of Television Radio Artists.

And when I got that, I went down to Boris and he had the flyer too --

and he didn't say anything about going there or anything.

I didn't wanna bring it up because I didn't wanna force him.

This was when Senator Joe McCarthy

was stirring up fear of communist activity in the entertainment industry.

In the era of the Hollywood Ten,

anyone supporting a new union could fall under suspicion.

It was very quiet going up the steps,

and when I got there I knew why it was quiet because there was nobody --

nobody there.

The place was empty, except the one man that was sitting

in the audience there, was Boris Karloff.

I walked over and I said: "Hello." He said: "Hello."

And he told me that I shouldn't worry about it, that actors,

workers in general who don't have a Union don't know what they're missing.

And these actors don't know what they're missing when they don't support a Union.

First time I saw him on stage was in Peter Pan.

And he had arranged for me to see him from the wings

and backstage and out front and for five, five days.

And I loved every bit of it. At the end of my stay he said to me:

"Well, I can tell you don't have the fire in the belly

because you paid more attention to Nana the dog than you did to me."

And he knew right then that I never would really have

the passion to be an actress and he was absolutely right.

His first film in two years was "The Strange Door",

Universal-|nternationa|'s attempt at a horror revival,

as Voltan to Charles Laughton's succulent Sire Alain DE Maletroit.

I suggest you stay in the old barn.

(WHISPERS) The panel.

(LAUGHING) One's really subdued, and one's really over the top.

Voltan... you want your ears cropped for eavesdropping.

(CRIES OUT)

But these were not especially popular films,

and so they didn't make very many of them.

And of course these were movies that allowed Karloff to play

the kind of parts that he was now typecast in.

During filming, Boris's co-star made him an exciting offer.

To celebrate the British Festival, Charles Laughton was putting together a troupe

to come to the UK to do George Bernard Shaw's "Don Juan In Hell",

and when Cedric Hardwicke dropped out because he had tax problems,

Boris was gonna take his place.

And in his letters, Boris is thrilled, you know, he's coming to do stage in England.

And then he says:

"I don't know how he did it, but he managed to sort his tax troubles out,"

and he never got to do it in the end.

Apart from one night at the Palladium for a charity show.

Whenever he came to work he had the, the Lords scores, the cricket,

he was really more interested in cricket than anything in the wor|d..

So he had all the scores in his pocket,

this huge news, newspaper with all the latest scores,

and he'd retire and read them and study them.

I thought that was enchanting.

In 1953, a friend, a young chap who'd been a local journalist

rang me frantically and said:

"|'ve got Boris Karloff coming back to England,

we've had a cable, and he wants to go to a cricket match

and you're the only person I know who goes to cricket."

So I met him at the flat they got him in Brompton Square,

and took him to the Oval.

And we sat on the

on the top shelf and watched right over the wicket and Alec Benson was bowling.

And Boris, the first words he'd said really, other than first meeting, was --

"This is like dying and going to Heaven,"

in that wonderful voice of his. And he sat all day and he then

I used to take him, we'd go to all the matches at Lords and the Oval

and test matches regularly. And, um, we were at the

there when England won the Ashes in 1953

and we were at Lords when Trevor Bailey and Willie Watson saved the game,

which looked as though we were losing.

So that was our beginning. And then over the years we built up a friendship,

a great friendship and he met lots of the cricketers and he umpired for them;

talked about the Hollywood Cricket Club;

told me how he and Aubrey Smith had set it up.

And, um, he was a man of enormous interest to me.

One day -- I'd got a little pub I just bought and I said to him:

"Boris, would you mind opening would you open it for me?"

And he said: "I would love to," he said, "great pleasure.

I've never He said an ambition of mine. And that was it.

And we arrived, and he got this old carrier bag in his arms

and he made a lovely little speech to the people who were there

And then he took out of this bag what looked like a champagne bottle

and he hit me over the head with it.

"I declare this pub open," he said. And he'd had this specially made, this

and he was oh, he was such a lovely, lovely man.

So it was a prop bottle?

It was a prop bottle he'd had made specially for it.

1 ~ -' '~ z ~' -~.. ~.

My first encounter with Boris Karloff was when I was six years old,

7 x I; ."",':,_' F} I: ~ ' iii? " " z" �W3, ::':'::~a~.: I: 'i:. .~

We'd just bought a telly - great excitement

- there it was in it's wooden cabinet

And there was this larger than life Colonel March,

with the black eye patch, who was solving everyone's problems from Scotland Yard...

Colonel March of Scotland Yard which I watched all the time,

and again, my mother said:

"There's Boris Karloff who played Frankenstein."

Didn't say the monster, we didn't know

the monster didn't have a name back then...

Colonel March is, is a good deal of fun.

It was very different than anything the American public had seen of Boris Karloff.

Good evening.

I'm sure that the American public in the mid-50's,

when they saw it really delighted in it.

But it was the charisma of the man, the bigness of him as a character.

He acted everybody else off the screen

and it sort of put in my mind how police adventures should be told.

Even TV Guide praised the series - saying it had "socko video potential" and said

"Colonel March out to bring Karloff as much appreciation

as his horror roles did."

He was the entire series and if you look at it today

you can see guest appearances by people who became famous later

I don't think I'd seen many Boris Karloff films by the time I worked with him.

I was aware that he was a big star from my agent and people around and the evident,

you know, attitude of people to him, it was very clear he was a big deal.

But I don't think I'd seen any of the legendary films

at that point in time as far as I can remember.

But I do remember loving his voice.

I've brought you some pyjamas, they're Mr Hartley's.

That's very kind of you, Andrew.

Is he going to die?

Of course not. What an idea, just a nasty bump on the head.

It was very careless of him falling down those stairs, wasn't it?

Naturally, his voice had an authority and a, and a spookiness to it all its own,

even when he wasn't putting it on in any way.

Even when he wasn't doing a monster voice,

his natural speaking voice was very cool

and that impressed me at the time, I distinctly remember.

Annette! How is Mrs Greer getting along.

She's still under the dryer, sir.

I was very nervous because of Boris's reputation.

I couldn't understand what sort of guy he would be,

but he was a charming, charming man

and very helpful and he reassured me that everything would be all right.

And so I was lucky, I was very lucky.

Boris Karloff was charming. I mean he was, he was nice to me,

and didn't talk down to me at all.

I mean at that age, sometimes grown-ups act like

a child actor's different from an actor actor.

And I liked working with him because,

as I say, he didn't treat me differently than any other actors, you know.

He wasn't particularly nice or different to me because I was young.

By the mid-'50s he's on Broadway in The Lark

which he considers the greatest acting achievement of his career,

playing the Bishop to Julie Harris's Joan of Arc.

He just thinks she's magnificent, he just loves acting with her eight times a week

and keeping eye contact with her on stage

and, and this is, this is really the high point of his career,

is doing The Lark.

He said it was sheer joy to work with that woman, that child at that time.

You had to get used to answering him

because he had that wonderful, rather slow delivery, so you couldn't

you could get a little bit... little nervous, we'd say:

hurry up Boris, get through that line.

But he always read everything so, so wonderfully and so musically.

He was of course, the cleric who

has to make decisions about the fate of Joan of Arc.

And he wasn't threatening. He was rational.

The way he depicted the character was understated.

But you knew that he was in control.

Bad actors can say: Yes, you know, I'm this, I'm that.

No. He just sat there quietly and you knew that her fate was in his hands.

Another audience member during the Broadway run of The Lark

I remember going backstage both to see Julie,

and to introduce myself to Boris because

I was going around with a petition

to replace the Board of AFTRA,

With John Henry Falk and Liberal people,

so that the Union board stopped

black-listing Television Actors.

And I went to Boris Karloff and asked him to sign a petition.

Now you don't sign

a petition without taking the chance of being blacklisted yourself.

And I remember how welcoming he was and how quickly

he said "Of course I will."

It was - it was very dear to me.

And there was something so humble about him and so genuine

I just remembered and appreciated him so, for being in the fight.

I think about two months into the run, one night Boris,

who was impeccably professional at all times, didn't show,

he didn't show at the 8 o'clock call for half hour, and

he didn't show at the 15 minute call,

And then a five minute call. Nothing.

...

And I was standing there with the stage management looking down the alley

outside the stage door and

no, no Boris. And then I suddenly felt some

I looked up and the entire cast

had assembled on the stairwells,

they all come out instinctively

and in silent agony,

waiting for Boris.

And And then suddenly he came over the threshold,

old Boris came through and they gave him a complete standing ovation.

They so adored that man,

he was much loved.

I felt that particular night...

I suddenly felt rather empty that...

I knew I'd worked with a very good man and I

don't mean that in any sentimental way, he...

He was a truly good man

Although Plummer didn't appear in the TV version of The Lark,

he and Karloff did act together on a live TV production of

"Even the Weariest River" along with Lee Grant,

who had been blacklisted for the previous 5 years.

I was 29 when I did that very public,

Television movie that went throughout the whole country.

And the first thing you saw was Boris Karloff,

Franchot Tone and Christopher Plummer.

If you looked for the name Lee Grant, you didn't find it.

And that was the way that the producer who was a great caring guy,

got me to be able to play the part and past the networks

and past the Blacklisting people. He got me in there secretly.

Because in those days, you had a long rehearsal

but you filmed the show in one day.

So that there was no chance for somebody to come

and say stop filming with her because she's a Red or she's married to a Red.

So he got me through the rehearsals

and we shot the whole thing in one day

and, he got me on television.

Y'kn0w which was a very brave and courageous

and extraordinary thing for any producer who wants to produce more.

Thank you Herb Brodkin.

It is a Western in blank verse.

He plays Doc Dixon on it, he's the

narrator, sort of tells this very tragic story of

a Sheriff who's starting to become somewhat senile and worrying about

keeping his authority in this lawless town.

And he's wonderful. He is dynamite.

He has all this excitement and energy and vitality as an actor.

And I can remember that wonderful sound he made as he read

Swinburne's poem:

No life lives forever;

that dead men rise up, never;

and even the weariest river

I V'_ D.

Some of Kar|off's most intriguing TV work

seems to survive only in the memories of those who appeared in or saw them.

Was a television version of Arsenic and Old Lace,

with Peter Lorre and this was I think 1955.

And I remember the next day at school, you know, we weren't

little boys weren't into little girls necessarily back then,

and we would take these girls that we had rivalries and we'd say:

"You look like Boris Karloff, you look like Boris Karloff."

So that's my early

my earliest recollection, and I became a fan of his instantly,

and he became my favourite actor and he still is to this very day.

I was tapped to play the Cary Grant part. I think I was 25 years old

and I played Boris Karloff's brother. What was he, 70?! But so what.

And CBS was touting me as the new young hot comic, so they put me on it.

But my experience on it was what a wonderful man Karloff was.

They have this weighted camera with a big weight and the guy sits in the centre,

the camera is here and there's a big weight,

so it can go like this, and you can get that kind of a shot.

The nickname for such a camera is 'the monster'.

So when we were shooting Arsenic and Old Lace somebody will:

"Get that monster over here!" And Karloff said: "I beg your pardon?!"

He was wonderfully self-effacing, you know, he could just make fun of himself.

Peter Lorre was miserable. "Aggh, it's hot; when are we gonna get a break?

I can't stand this." And Karloff would say:

"Relax, Peter, it's all in a day's work."

I knew a guy who used to do a one word impression of Boris Karloff, he'd go:

"Antipasto."

We did Mr Blue Ocean,

traditional Chinese play.

It was such a thrill to,

to meet Boris Karloff and actually work with him because he was the Monster,

you know. He was a huge star.

One of the nicest, giving actors that I've worked with.

I love a giving actor who's the star of the piece

and he's there for you as well as for the piece.

And the wonderful thing about, he has a slight lisp,

never, as far as I know, never worked to dismiss it,

he used it and it gave him even more humanity.

There was something about it that made him even sweeter.

There was just something awfully good about the man.

That I actually do remember in detail.

I think we did it in three acts.

After the first act, the director came out of the booth,

came onto the floor, went up to Susan Strasberg,

who was a child, who was... and he yelled in her face

"You're ruining my show!"

(LAUGHS)

And then he went back up into the booth.

Everybody was in shock.

The poor girl had two more acts to do

and she was there with her mother. Her first job,

by the way, this was her first job.

I thought she was fine.

I don't know what the director's trouble trouble was anyway.

That... that incident is just burned into my head.

I'll never forget it.

We all felt for the poor girl. But she did very well.

June 23rd, 1960 saw the broadcast of a show billed as

"a refreshingly different spectacular".

Directed by Norman Jewison,

this original musical set out to explore

"The Secret World of Eddie Hodges"

The kid was very talented.

And so we said: "What if we took him

and we dealt with his imaginary friends?

What do kids really like or what are they scared of,

or what are they impressed with?"

And someone said: "Well, you got the witch in the Wizard of Oz."

Oh, Margaret Hamilton, maybe we could get Margaret Hamilton.

And we She lives next door to Eddie Hodges.

"Oh, how about Captain Hook? Aye

the big Hook is here, aye." And who could we get.

"Oh my God, Boris Karloff. He would be wonderful."

I remember very clearly how

"Boris Karloff" would, would frighten the kid

and... would frighten Eddie,

and I asked him to really lay it on.

I mean it was... it was... Because it was kind of stylised.

But he was... he was terrific. He was, as I remember, he was,

he was very good with Eddie and, and very supportive and,

and I said: "Don't worry about Eddie Hodges, he'll take care of himself, Boris.

(LAUGHS)

He's he's kind of... he's very good with lines, he's very good with

memorising everything and he'll be fine."

Of all the great "might have beens" in Karloff's career,

the most intriguing was an idea by fan and acquaintance

Miles Kreuger.

During the 1950s my mother,

who was always in the world of fashion and knew everybody,

was the fashion coordinator for Bloomingdale's on Lexington Avenue,

and Boris Karloff used to come in all the time to shop.

And I would go down and have lunch with my mother,

so I ran into Boris Karloff and it occurred to me

that he would be a marvellous Peter Stuyvesant

in a revival of Knickerbocker Holiday,

which has a text by Maxwell Anderson and a score by Kurt Weill.

And I just walked up to him, and he seemed very approachable,

he was going through merchandise as people do in department stores,

I introduced myself, and I was just out of Bard College

and I said: "Would you be interested in that,

cause I would love to hear you sing The September Song?

I think you'd be marvellous doing that. And he seemed very interested.

And we went off to the coffee shop in the store and had a little cup of coffee

and something to nibble,

and my next task was to have Lotte Lenya agree

to the use of the Kurt Weill score and do a revival.

" ~. " " ' 1:� I; I .. "a-C}: I; I =9135i,"

And then I had to meet the Maxwell Anderson family

and I think he was still living, but I was

woefully inexperienced about how to get the show

on the stage. I had no instincts whatever to be a producer, none.

And yet I had a star, Boris Karloff, agreeing to do it;

Lotte Lenya agreeing to the Kurt Weill score,

I didn't know what to do next. And so it all fizzled out. But...

Mr Karloff and I talked several times about it.

How did you find Boris personally?

Oh, he was delightful. I mean he treated me to my coffee! (LAUGHS)

And it's interesting, I think Ron observed

that there's a recording of Boris performing September Song.

I just learned that. I can't believe it. I'd never heard it.

And it sounds like it was not long after you actually had the conversation.

Did I put a bee in his bonnet?!

Instead he received an intriguing offer to revive Arsenic and Old Lace

for a limited 3 day run...

in Anchorage, Alaska!

In 1957, Boris Karloff came to Anchorage, Alaska, to do

"Arsenic and Old Lace" and I was the stage manager for that production.

Prior to that time, mostly it was

high school productions. So they did a few minor things but

they came up on an anniversary and said:

"Well, we wanna do Arsenic and Old Lace," and they had auditions and

they just couldn't find anybody to do the Karloff part.

So somebody said, and I have no idea because I wasn't

privy to the upper levels,

said: "Let's get Boris Karloff."

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was the publicity person,

and I guess she somehow actually got through to him

and said: "Hey, would you come to Alaska?" And there was, you know, this kind of

give and take and finally he said: "Well, let's see if we can do it."

And everybody in the production was excited that he was coming.

And then when he got there, he was so gracious

and treated me just like he would have treated a stage manager in New York.

And that probably was why I stayed in theater for the rest of my life.

There's a scene in the play where he is going to operate on Mortimer

and the prop people had come up with this terrible

civil war doctor's roll of instruments.

And during one of the first run throughs he kind of fussed with this stuff

and then he came to me and said: "John, can you get me a knitting needle?"

"Yes sir, yes sir." And boy, I was off to grab a knitting needle.

And the next night he just took that out of the roll and he held it up

and he walked over to Mortimer and he measured the

distance between his eye and his ear.

And during the performance you could hear

people in the audience going: (GASPS)

And even the cast when they picked up these terrible

things the first time: Oh yeah, okay, that's bad. But

just using that needle, it was, it was really impressive to me.

One of the things that was in the Karloff archive

that we offered at Heritage Galleries, was a little scrapbook that he had kept

about that engagement. I mean it meant so much to him

that he actually had a little scrapbook all about this

Alaskan production of Arsenic And Old Lace.

He didn't have a scrapbook on Frankenstein.

You know, he didn't have a scrapbook on The Body Snatcher.

But he had a scrapbook on this particular production and,

everybody up there just loved him. They just, er, they just absolutely adored him.

And on the last performance, we recorded

And this is that recording

(AUDIENCE LAUGHTER)

That's your work doctor! You did that to me!

One of my favourite roles of Karloff is him playing Kurtz in Heart of Darkness.

CBS for Playhouse 90.

My iVOFY, my jungle, my earth, my son!

And you really get a sense of the sinister and enigmatic character

that is Kurtz through the performance of Boris Karloff.

(SCREAMS) Marian

This is your destiny, just as it was mine!

With the new interest in horror,

Karloff had his first starring vehicles in years...

with "Voodoo |s|and",

"Grip of the Strangler",

And "Corridors of Blood" produced in rapid succession.

For many new Boris Karloff fans

Voodoo Island was the first chance to see Karloff on the big screen.

And because I was basically unfamiliar with anything but his name,

I really didn't know which one of the actors in this picture was Boris Karloff

for a good deal of the running time.

It was a crazy movie.

It was about somebody who got mind zapped

and he was trying to go back and find out what happened to this guy, he was a zombie

No signs of inter-cranial pressures

Convinced, Mr Knight?

When you asked me earlier about what's my favourite movie,

Voodoo Island is so boring,

it's a non movie - it's really not good.

But he's great in it.

And the fact that it's shot in Hawaii,

y'know - or was it Costa Rica - anyway

it's some place I'd been because I kept staring at it going

this is reminding me of my trip there.

And all these years later everything still looks the same. Of course - right.

Cover him well over! Quicklime is cheap enough!

Much better were the two British films, directed by Robert Day.

The first, "Grip of the Strangler" cast Karloff as a Victorian writer,

determined to prove a man who was hung as the Haymarket Strangler

20 years earlier was in fact innocent.

...this one?

It's the one clear case that will prove my point.

If Stiles had had the money for an

adequate defence he never would have hanged.

For 19 year old Diane Aubrey,

acting with Karloff would be her first experience on the big screen.

I didn't know you were back.

Evening Lily.

Boris Karloff had a presence, a very special presence and a skill.

You know, people don't understand that

the skill of an actor, that you have to work and work

and work on something.

Considering the physical problems Karloff was having,

he's astonishingly energetic in his role.

My memory of Boris Karloff was that,

you know, you're very grateful as a

young new actor to kindness and help from older actors.

And he was very kind and

my impression was that he was very professional and

wonder of wonders he used to give me a lift home in his chauffeur driven car

having myself got the bus out there at the crack of dawn.

Diana's longest and final day of filming

was for the climactic scene in which she is strangled by her father

So we started, you know at 8 o'clock in the morning and it went on,

we went on till about 10 o'clock at night,

this I do remember.

And there were quite a few takes in the scene in the conservatory

when he's now become Hyde and is strangling me,

literally strangling me.

And so there were these dramatic scenes where he'd be going:

(IMITATES) that terrible face he used to make and I'd be going: Aggghhh!

And then and then the take would be over and then he'd say:

"Oh my dear, my dear, are you all right, my dear?"

And I'd say: "Yes, yes, I'm fine. Let's go again."

So that happened about five times,

but it was, it was wonderful to sort of see these two...

the actor being the monster and then the genuine kind of person that he is. Yeah.

The Grip Of The Strangler was a fairly successful picture

Paperback version of it, that was rather lurid,

that's all I can say.

There was a trend at that time to take the some of these pictures

that were ostensibly horror films or -

pictures like Gorgo or Bride of Dracula,

Stranglers of Bombay

and do very lurid,

sexed up, paperback versions

of these things, which weren't necessarily advertised as such,

but when kids, teenagers -

randy teenagers got a hold of these things

they suddenly discovered this was a kind of book you had to hide from mom.

Because it was... it was the equivalent of

Peyton Place for, for us kids.

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For your information, gentlemen,

this is a straight-forward amputation at the lower extremity of the femur.

And to you students again I emphasise the absolute necessity for speed.

I think that in Corridors of Blood, you see a richness has come

to Kar|off's performances

that comes from the fact that he has had this experience on the stage now;

he's had his experience in live television

He's getting better and better,

which is really interesting because the general belief is that as

actors get older they lose some of their spark.

In Karloff's situation it was really pretty much the opposite

and so when he was good, he was extremely good,

and he was showing little nuances and technique and things

that you might not have seen in earlier performances,

Karloff discovers anaesthesia and he gets addicted to it,

which means that he has to fall into bad company

, V, '3). I K _V , I

where there was all sorts of chicanery going

and I thought it was actually a pretty good movie.

What's so interesting in that is that Chris Lee plays a character who is

(LAUGHS) one guy!

Lee and Karloff had actually worked together five years previously

in an episode of Colonel March.

I'm afraid I'm not very good at games.

Oh but my little game is not altogether without point,

I know you have an interest in justice.

Lee was unknown then, they didn't know each other at all

and then it was several years before they

met together when they did "Corriders of Blood".

And then, by that time Lee himself had

played the Frankenstein monster in Hammer films The Curse of Frankenstein

with Peter Cushing and Dracula as well and

became a major horror star himself.

And they stayed friends until Karloff died.

Lee often mentioned Kar|off's legacy when chatting with

He learned a lot from Karloff,

because he was the master, everybody kind of looked up to him

insofar as he was, he was the man,

so to speak. He really, really was.

And it, it's a, it's a tall thing to set, isn't it, it's a high benchmark to set.

The success of this and Kar|off's return to the big screen

made a new Frankenstein film with Boris inevitable

Karloff made at Warner Bros. for Howard Koch.

A TV company wants to shoot a series at the Frankenstein Castle and of course,

Boris is the last of the Frankensteins and he's got a big scar

and he's happy to have these people in his castle because he can

get parts for the monster that he's building in the basement.

And at one point Boris goes down to the catacombs and delivers

this soliloquy, which is I think he's doing for the camera

In this stone sarcophagus,

deep in the bowels of the earth,

he buried his creature - his creation.

At the end of the shoot he was quoted as saying:

"They just didn't know how to make horror pictures any more."

And I think he was reacting to the fact that there's a lot of

eyeballs and brains and all that, that sort of

stuff that Hammer ended up, you know, exploiting for a long time.

He just thought that was kind of gore for gore's sake.

By the 1960's Karloff was well and truly finished with the Frankenstein monster,

or was he?

Then of course there was that wonderful Route 66 episode

That proves it! The old ghosts are the best after all.

And the power of all three of us in one picture... can you imagine it!

Why it's almost too ghastly to contemplate.

You know, what a treat, what an absolute treat.

When Boris was doing the Route 66 Show,

I knew he was gonna be in town over like a few days,

and I assumed that he'd be staying in a Downtown hotels,

so I and a friend went to every major hotel in Downtown Chicago asking:

"ls Mr Karloff registered here?" "No."

"How about a Mr Pratt?" "No."

And we never dreamed that he was gonna be shooting like in the suburb somewhere.

Roger German's The Raven returned Boris to the

big screen in Deluxe co-lour and Cinemascope.

At age 75, Karloffs popularity was never stronger,

especially among Drive-in audiences.

And it led to the offer of his first long term contract in 25 years.

They signed him to a contract for 7 films I remember,

and he told me:

"Well if they have that much confidence in my longevity

I guess I'd better stick around and fill out the contract.

So he I think he fulfilled the entire contract that he had with them.

And not all the films were all that good.

But at least he had an opportunity to

stay busy, stay working in the profession he loved.

In '63 he went to Italy to make a film with Mario Bava called

"Black Sabbath" and - like in Thriller he introduces the stories.

So you have a nice suited Boris with a moustache introducing each of the stories,

but in one of the stories "The Wurdu|ak"

he plays his only vampiric role.

And it is very, very sinister It's a peasant setting,

rather than an aristocratic setting -

which is where the folklore of the vampire actually came from.

It's a peasant, wood-cutting family and a child

Mamma, I'm cold! Mamma! Let me in.

Let Me In'.

And "Let the Right one in" and all these recent films,

vampire films which are said to be so original

it's all in there in "The Family of the Wurde|ak"

And Karloff plays this sort of shambling peasant man,

And his performance is fantastic, with moustache and hair and...

somehow he - he makes you believe he's this rural peasant who -

this folkloric manifestation has changed his life.

I think "The Family of the Wurde|ak" is by far the best in that portmanteau,

D� N�

It also looks fantastic, the co-lour.

Post Hammer we're now in co-lour and y'know Karloff in co-lour - mmm.

It really retains all it's power. And for him to be able to

immerse himself into that new sort of horror film

and to hit those chords, alright - that Bava wanted

I mean that is really, I think, again

There's a great scene at the end

that Boris particularly loved where they show him on his horse,

riding on his horse.

And the camera backs away and you see how they do it,

the stage hands are jiggling the horse and running past with branches..

While Karloff greatly enjoyed filming this scene,

he was only half joking when he told Bava

he would probably catch pneumonia and die from the fans.

The "brutally cold" conditions did indeed cause a serious bout of pneumonia,

which took five months to recover from.

Returning to work in The Comedy of Terrors,

Karloff was supposed to play villainous landlord Mr Black,

but with worsening arthritis,

he suggested swapping roles with Basil Rathbone,

cast as a senile Funeral Parlour owner.

The choice was an inspired one.

Alexander the Great embalmed in honey so they say!

(CACKLES)

Egyptians used to hollow 'em out and pour 'em full of resin.

He's not the baddie really, he's not the nasty undertaker,

He's the old man at home who's got Alzheimer's

Egyptians used to bend them in two and stick them in a vase of salt water.

He can't remember anything, and he's very, very touching

Yank their brains out with a hook!

. ,

One time my, er, father-in-law was in the hospital and,

while I was visiting,

an alert went off and everybody had to go to the nearest

waiting room and you know,

until something was taken care of in the hospital.

And I went there and The Comedy of Terrors was on television,

There's a great scene where he's in charge of this funeral and he's

giving this really eloquent speech

This litter of sorrow, this cairn, this cromlech, this dread dachma, this...

And there must have been 12 people in that room,

and they were all watching it, and they are all roaring with laughter.

I mean...

(LAUGHS)

Even though though it was a hospital and it was a grim situation,

and we're all kind of locked up

in there at the time,

This unhappy cumulus, this - this (COUGHS)

What is the word? This...

(LAUGHS) You know, his timing is worthy of Laurel and Hardy,

he's just absolutely hysterical.

He enjoyed doing comedy and

but as a, as a person he had a wonderfully,

beautiful timing in his own sense of humour,

typically British humour and very often turned back on himself

Die, Monster Die,

Kar|off's next AIP assignment

was produced in England and is notable as an early film adaptation of H P Lovecraft.

I don't remember having invited you.

I think it's in Die Monster, Die. He has a

wheelchair for the first time and he loves it.

It was my first film.

The one problem that we had

was he was having trouble with his legs.

And I decided to put him in a wheelchair and I think he appreciated that.

Yeah, there's an interview and he says:

"This is just great, I'm gonna do this from now on."

And he does. I mean you just do see him in wheelchairs,

like in The Name of the Game on TV.

Well I think one of the great strengths of Boris Karloff was his voice.

He did a whole series of records for kids, narrations, "Just So" stories.

He did a narration for a Christmas short called The Juggler of Our Lady,

which the entire soundtrack is just some music and his voice.

A lot of his performances are

marked by the way he turns a phrase,

and that lisp and that accent and,

and the warmth of it. And I think that's one of his enduring legacies.

And any time you can pick up an audio book that was recorded

a long time ago by, by Boris it's, it's always a treat.

Early in 1966, Boris and Evie bought their final home,

Roundabout Cottage in Bramshott, Hampshire,

They're probably sitting back here, I think,

And um, you can't - you have to

stand up to see over the wall. Anyway

a funeral procession goes by.

And Boris goes "Shant be long!"

Oh wow, right.

You know he was joking all the time

because he was very ill for a number of years.

You're going to do a scene with Boris Karloff

your lines will appear, right here...

Despite increasing frailty, Boris was determined to keep working.

Come in, you know why I've asked you here!

You must convince the villagers that I am harmless.

Bedouins, the once fierce warriors of the Sahara desert are now accenting...

Voice over work was lucrative and undemanding.

In addition to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", he was The Rat

in Rankin Bass's "The Daydreamer"

I'd go myself but my poor lumbago - ooh aah ooh.

And for the same team in "Mad Monster Party",

\- '�_' \ .'- �~

Ha ha ha... quoth the raven, never more!

He had varied roles on TV series such as "The Wild Wild West"

as an emigree Maharajah training his sons to be killers.

BOYS! Are you defying me? Go to your rooms!

Butpappa!

Not another word, sir, go!

Even more camp was his criminal mastermind,

Agnes Tewksbury in "The Girl from U.N.C.LE".

Aaah, I just can't bear slow, torturous deaths, Mr Solo.

Well you're very kind, mother. May I ask what you're brewing here?

Embalming fluid, dear. My own recipe.

And I thought: Oh, we've got Boris Karloff on our show. Oh my I was so excited,

I didn't even look at anybody who was sitting in the next chair

because that person was sort of covered up and being worked on.

And I sat down, jumped in the chair and closed my eyes and the

make-up artist started putting make-up on me, and I said

I started chatting away about Boris and about how

he scared me when I was a kid and that voice and all of this and

Little did I know that being made-up next to me,

was not a woman in fact,

.' 15-20: ._ . . 'x? 'I: Don't:.

And when he was finished being made-up,

somebody said something about "Oh, it's going to be your birthday."

I said, "Yes, it's going to be my birthday."

Somebody said: "Well what day is it?"

And I said: "November 2nd," and this figure lifted up out of the chair

(IMITATES) "So is mine." And it was Boris. And he was talking like that.

I mean I absolutely dropped my cookies,

Body that emerged in a woman's, make-up

with a wig on was the man himself.

But for the fact that I'm being paid a fortune by Casa Bianco

to eliminate you, I'd be sorely tempted to keep you for my very own.

Wouldn't you hate to have that choice!

Hold yer tongue, ducks, or you won't have it much longer.

That gal was trouble. She... (LAUGHS) He was... he was really a trip in that show.

While Karloff enjoyed these, he really shines in "I Spy-Mainly on the plain".

One of his least celebrated performances.

He played this Nuclear scientist who had delusions of being Don Quixote

and acts out fighting windmills and that kind of thing.

And he's very poignant and lyrical.

He's nearing the end of his career, so all his lines take on

further resonance and have much more meaning

Have you ever been in an aeroplane,

flying in and out of patches of cloud.

That is how it has been with me.

Passing through mists that seem to cloud my mind.

Please! Be patient with me.

He was in very poor health at the time,

but being the consummate professional never complained - or anything.

But - And it was filmed in Spain, suitably.

And being where Don Quixote is from.

And it's just a, I think one of his really last great performances.

Karloffs films at this time were a mixed bunch.

His role was literally an afterthought.

Added when production was already completed

in an attempt to improve a film that embarrassed almost everyone involved.

The Venetian Affair was a marked improvement,

being a relatively serious, major studio release from MGM.

A downbeat spy thriller, starring Robert Vaughan, it cast Karloff

in a small but pivotal role of a scientist being manipulated by enemy agents

Dr Vaugiroud

Oh you recognise me. That is good, good. That you can still do that.

Oh my poor boy, my poor boy.

I am responsible for what they are doing to you,

you must not let it continue another day.

Michael Reeves "The Sorcerers" saw Karloff back as a mad scientist.

Though filmed cheaply, it had a good script,

excellent roles for Karloff and Catherine Lacey

and a gifted director

In stark contrast, the Spanish produced "Cauldron of Blood",

an ineptly directed fiasco, was so bad it didn't surface until 1971.

Fortunately Kar|off's next film would be a near classic.

Oh Sammy, what's the use. Mr Boogie Man, King of Blood, they used to call me.

Marx Brothers make you laugh, Garbo makes you weep, Orlock makes you scream.

It's an absolutely perfect film for him,

as Byron Orlock this old horror star who

figures he's lost

connection with the modern world, with the kind of films that he's made.

He said to me on the phone from London,

he says: "Since I'm playing a character based very much on my

on me, do I have to say such terrible things about myself?"

And I said: "Well, I think the more terrible things you say,

the more the audience will so no, it's not true. That's my intention."

And he said: "A|| right." So we didn't change it.

One line he rushed,

one line, it was the only line he rushed, he didn't wanna say it, but he said it:

And once I thought I'd be an actor - oh it's not that the films are bad,

I've gone bad. I couldn't even play a straight part decently anymore.

And he really delivered all that stuff fully.

And the audience did say: No, it's not true. They loved him for it.

Although not his final performance as some have suggested,

"Curse of the Crimson Altar"

is the last of his films to be completed and released in his lifetime.

You know this is a very interesting old house

Mmm, I don't know. It gets a bit creepy sometimes.

It's a bit like one of those old houses in horror films.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

As though Boris Karloff is going to pop up any moment.

The film Curse Of The Crimson Altar was produced by Tony Tenser

And I was offered the role and sent the script and delighted to do it.

And the script is a bit of a laugh, very camp, but hey,

the opportunity of working with the legend

Boris Karloff was just too thrilling to be true.

Boris of course was wonderful,

very gentle, not at all what I expected. But you think

all those monsters and you know,

he'd be kind of a little bit terrifying.

But he was polite, gentle, kind, interested,

very happy to have a conversation, was a delight.

Whereas Christopher was very, very cold, very austere,

didn't wanna have a conversation;

would never run lines, and unfortunately one of my first days

was working with him and we're all sitting round the breakfast table. And

we wanted to run lines - and

Christopher wasn't having it. He just picked up his newspaper

and was reading the paper and I thought it was a bit mean.

By the time Curse began filming it was winter,

and Karloff was in bad shape.

We'd all been told that Boris wasn't very well and

if he did and when he did come,

we'd have to sort of get it all in on

one day outside or one night

and he it was very limited to an amount of time.

And his voice was definitely very

rasping and when you see the movie he's sort of...

(TAKES DEEP BREATH)

Takes a deep breath and the music goes up,

um, and he was very soft, I remember that now.

His tone was,

was very soft and you sort of had to listen a bit

to what he was saying and get your cue in.

When we were sitting in the sort of like the drawing room,

I remember, um, he was

a delight and curious about the location and just,

like a lovely actor.

Be careful of this brandy, Elder.

It's as rare as gold, but infinitely more precious.

Thank you

Good girl. Completely wasted on women.

It's just like: What?!

(LAUGHS) Hang on!

Well you wouldn't, you wouldn't get away with that now, would you.

I mean it's kind of quite shocking.

But you know, it was what it was.

You just kind of went along with it.

But it's also a delicious scene because the way

There's a real sweetness to it.

Yeah, well he was a sweet guy.

He was very endearing. And I think that's what in a way was kind of surprising,

because when you look at him and when all the

wonderful things

and the roles that he's played, you don't expect that.

. '- ' ' ~' 1 .~ ' ~ ~ z " I ~ -"' *: ~ ~ ~~ ' ~ '~ ~' R ' ~-.

And they needed a lot of shots with Boris Karloff as pick-ups,

retakes and some stuff that they hadn't shot and

I was the obvious person to ask to join the crew.

And the call I think was probably 9 P.m. and it was winter

and off I went dressed suitably as I always was, am.

And I arrived and Boris Karloff was sitting in his wheelchair

out in the freezing cold in his costume but with a blanket round him.

It was freezing! And I'm sure filming outside can't have done him much good.

At the end of the take when we had decided what to print

and I'd spoken to the director, Boris stayed in situ

and I went and spoke to him, and I told him that I,

you know, seen him on the screen since 1933 when I was probably 7 years old,

and he'd been a bit of a hero and I'd been frightened of him of course,

so not hero really, but very frightened of him.

And your voice is so beautiful and I can't stop of course,

and then I become the normal me.

And he was very sweet to me but he was frozen, absolutely frozen.

And so I, you know, went away.

We did the fireworks scene and Vernon Sewell

was going crazy trying to get the fireworks to go across the frame,

which was absolutely terrifying,

Were closer closer, safety, out the window.

No, he didn't allow or encourage any danger

but director's enthusiasm does want closer, closer.

There is one that almost hits Boris.

Hm-mm.

It just kind of it goes phewwww. And you see him sort of-

Flinching. Yeah. Well he was lucky.

We all were lucky, you know. He was a bit nuts, Vernon.

His professionalism was so great that he made himself look comfortable

in the situation even though he obviously wasn't.

And behind the camera we were all concerned about how cold it was

and not, not his breathing, I mean I was unaware of that.

But, that this couldn't be good for an elderly gentleman

who's having to sit still because that's all he could do, all these long nights.

And we thought, you know, this is gonna kill him, and then when he died,

we kind of thought it did, but knowing now or then that he did other stuff

Is this the mockery you make of our lifetime of work,

to defile the daughter of a God with your brutal lust.

You can't feel so bad about it. And, he went doing what he loved.

This Mexican producer had made what everybody thought

was just an absolutely insane deal.

He, he wanted to hire Boris Karloff for four weeks,

shoot all of his scenes, for four pictures, he wanted to make

four pictures back-to-back. And he had no scripts.

So he saw He came to see a film that I had done for Roger

and so he thought maybe I could do it.

So I had to write... I had to come up with ideas to write four scripts

for Boris Karloff, horror movies,

in such a way that they'd be different, one from the other,

each would have its own personality but at the same time

be done in such a way that all of his scenes

could be shot in Hollywood because he had emphysema,

he could not go to Mexico City because it was 4,000 feet up or something, you know.

And the scripts were actually not too bad.

I had this vision in mind of Boris Karloff playing the organ with flames coming up,

you know, all Roger Corman movies end with things...

castle burning up, you know, so I wanted to have an ending like that.

And so I wrote the whole script so that I could have that scene.

And, and the others I did, one was a science fiction movie;

Help me strap her down Paul.

...1a" ~~. ' '~. ~' ' * ' ' '~' ' ~ ~~

You think that this miserable pig could be master of the legions of the dead?

And the other one was -- I don't even remember now, it was something else.

' ' ' V' '5,3 '

Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah. I thought that was a good idea, you know.

They discovered that in order to get this super kind of chemical

or super thing to cure, I forget what it was,

it can only be obtained by having a woman in such a state of terror,

Now hurry

When Boris came he, he had a little place in a street called

called Benedict Canyon, where a lot of people and studios lived in.

I went to visit him there. He was a really, really nice guy.

He's happy to do it, he says, as long as somebody will employ me, you know.

Beause he was dying of emphysema. And

But he, on the set he would be in a wheelchair

and then he would have an oxygen bottle here that he would breath from.

And then when it's time for if he had to do some action, like he did,

he would get up and do his action

and then he'd come back and take his oxygen again.

It was sad and yet the guy was just a trooper, you know,

just really wanted to do it. And he did a wonderful job.

When Boris Karloff died on February 2nd 1969,

every obituary commented on the amazing body of work he left behind.

The Monster, the Mummy, The Black Cat, The Body Snatcher,

Lorca the Wurdelak and of course Byron Orlock in Targets.

No one would seriously contest this, but beyond his roles,

Karloff the man, left an equally lasting legacy.

Any final thoughts you'd like to share about Boris?

Lucky! Blessed...

To be a part of whatever he was doing.

Having contact with somebody so moral

and so lovely and so giving

and so intelligent and elegant.

I'm gonna read you something because I want to I put it all down

on notes because I wanted to get it right.

So forgive me, everybody, for reading this but it'll answer your question I hope.

I'm calling it "Little Did I Know."

That's the title of my documentary, damn it!

(READS) "|t's about the monster that frightened me so much

when I first saw him on the screen.

But little did I know what a beautiful voice he had.

That those deep, dark piercing eyes that could assume

the gentlest of expressions and - ha -

such dark secrets that lived behind those deep eyes.

And little did I know how misused he had been in his early career,

overworked and underpaid and broken, physically,

but no complaints on his part.

Taken much advantage of.

And then to become the monster that made him a star, he had his revenge.

Little did I know then what a marvellous actor he was under the mask."

"And little did I know that I'd have the good fortune

of working with him many years later in two, two --

there was one on television and one on the theater --

one in Alvin Sapinsley's Even The Weariest River.

And I can remember that wonderful sound he made

as he read Swinborne's poem:

that no life lives forever,

that dead men rise up never

I V'_ D.

Does that answer your question?

Very well! - um

What do you think it is about Boris Karloff,

that has made him endure in the way he has?

First, I think it's his skill. It's his talent as an actor.

The fact that he worked so long, that he brought such grace and dignity

to everything he did, everything he did,

even some assignments that weren't worthy of him he,

he never condescended, he never disdained them.

Work was work.

That face was just so magical and said so much.

And it's all about the eyes.

And you saw his soul, didn't you?

You could feel, almost feel what was coming, what he was trying to say

but just through looking at his face.

Well he was wonderful to work with. He was very giving.

He directed me, as I told you, a couple of times, it was great.

And he never give me any problems at all. He was just very together and very...

just wonderful to work with.

I can't think of anything except that, he was great. My first movie star.

Your first movie star, yeah.

I've worked some movie stars in the theater, but not in movies.

Oh God, he was wonderful.

I just wish there were more stars like him in the world.

I am not talking as a fan.

I'm not talking as, as the 4 or 8 year old

and living in Guadalajara, I'm talking about a

film director with 25 years of work experience,

I can tell you that, that man was such a fine actor,

And then he just... he was born to be there in front of a screen.

I think that's a perfect point at which to end.

Thank you so much

My pleasure.