Geekboy's Movie Poster Collection: Part 2

New year equals new posters right?  Yeah, 'Buy more posters on Ebay' was more or less the extent of my New Years resolutions.  Nothing beats setting personal goals and striving to make oneself a better person, amiright?  Anyway, when I bought my first wave of posters, the plan was to eventually expand my collection and rotate the ones I had on display every couple of months.  Sort of like pictures on a calendar.

First up we have William Castle's 1959 film 'House on Haunted Hill'.  This movie is a throwback to the Old Dark House genre - 'Cat and the Canary' and 'And then there were None' type stuff.  Love the way it looks like a pulp mystery novel cover.

And while we're on the subject of mysteries, here's the 1946 republic serial 'The Crimson Ghost'.  It's been a few years since I've seen this one, so I don't remember many of the details, but it's one of those 'One of these four-to-six people on a board of executives is secretly a masked villain running the criminal underworld - - - and we only have twelve-to-fifteen chapters to figure out which one!' type serials.  A bit like 'Manhunt of Mystery Island'.  And speaking of 'Manhunt' 'Crimson Ghost' also has serial queen Linda Stirling as the Leading Lady.

 No movie poster collection is complete without a few Universal Monsters.  Here's 1943's 'Frankenstein meets The Wolf Man!'  This is the first in a series of crossover Monster films.  Nerds and Hipsters site this as the first example of the Cinematic Universe.

And speaking of the Universal Monsters, here's the one that INTRODUCED me to the franchise.  1954's 'Creature from the Black Lagoon.' I think this one will look nice hanging up next to my 'The Green Slime' poster.

-Geekboy.

On Villains... Part 2:

A while back I talked about some of the most influential love-to-hate-em villains of my childhood:  Murdoc from TVs MacGyver and Lord Sinister from Lego: Adventurers.

Today I'm going to cover a couple more bad guys from my formative years.  Let's take a look.

When I was a kid there were basically two kinds of people: Those who were reading Harry Potter and those who were reading A Series of Unfortunate Events.  Me and my siblings fell into the Series of Unfortunate Events camp.

In the first of thirteen books, the three Baudelaire children become the three Baudelaire orphans.  After discovering they are the heirs to an enormous fortune they are thrust into the clutches of their evil relative and legal guardian Count Olaf.

Count Olaf spends this and the next 12 books trying time and time again to steal the Baudelaire fortune through any means necessary.  Impersonation, Hypnotism, framing our heroes for murder, Sending them down a rocky mountain cliffside road in an out of control carnival wagon...

The list goes on and on.

I haven't seen much of the 1914 cliffhanger serial 'Perils of Pauline' but I imagine it's melodramatic formula had some influence on 'Series of Unfortunate Events'.  Plot synopsis?  Pauline is an heiress set to inherit a fortune.  However, she decides to travel the world before she settles down.  Mr. Koerner, who is in charge of handling all of Pauline's money, decides she should have an 'accident' while she's off adventuring.  Somehow Pauline escapes or is rescued from each trap he sets.

I wasn't really into serials yet when I was into 'Series of Unfortunate Events', but looking back on it, the cliffhanger serial was an obvious inspiration for the books as well as the 2004 movie.

Book 4, "The Miserable Mill" involves tying an individual to a sawmill, which is one of the things everyone thinks of when they think off serials an melodramas, although the only serial I can think of that uses this as a plot device is 'G-men vs the Black Dragon'.  As the book progressed, the stories began to end in cliffhangers, such as the aforementioned wagon ride from 'The Carnivorous Carnival'.

This made following the books as they were being published a lot of fun.  I remember waiting so impatiently for the next installment.

The movie adds a cliffhanger with a sequence where Count Olaf locks our heroes in a car parked on the railway tracks.  I only really started thinking about the books being patterned after 'Perils of Pauline' when I re-watched the movie awhile back.

Jim Carrey plays Count Olaf in the movie, and he has a knack for stealing the show making you cheer every time he's on screen, even though he's the bad guy.  He does the same thing as Riddler in 'Batman Forever'.  Count Olaf is an over-the-top humorous in the books, but Carrey's unusual mannerisms turn it up to eleven.

Our next villain for today is Professor Ratigan from the 1986 Disney movie 'The Great Mouse Detective'.  In this parody of Sherlock Holmes, Ratigan is less like the Moriarty of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories, and more like a cross between Snidely Whiplash and the classic Bond movie villain.  You know how in a James Bond movie the bad guy has pet Sharks, Piranhas, or Alligators?  Ratigan feeds people to a giant cat.

Ratigan has crafted an elaborate plot to usurp the mouse queen's rule over England.  But first he has to get his nemesis, the heroic Basil of Baker-street, out of the picture.  For this purpose he has crafted an elaborate Rue Goldberg machine that involves a phonograph record that triggers an elaborate deathtrap when as the song plays.  Oh, and did I mention that the song is 'Goodbye so Soon,' the best (in my humble opinion) villain song in Disney history?  Vincent Price does the voice Ratigan.  Everything is better with Vincent Price.


So, this is probably less of a 'Geekboy's Favorite Villains' post as it is a 'The Origin of Geekboy's obsession with Cliffhanger Serials' post.  Oh well.  Tell me about your favorite childhood villains in the comments.

Old Dark House Mysteries - A Crash Course

 You walk towards the creepy old house (or maybe it's a crumbling castle) in a driving rain.  Thunder rolls in the background.  Perhaps your car broke down and you are seeking shelter from a storm.  Maybe you took the last ferry for the evening and cannot return to the mainland until morning.  Perhaps the bridge has washed out

Are you here as a guest?  Is an eccentric millionaire throwing a dinner party in order to lure all of his greatest enemies to the same place at the same time?  Perhaps you are in the will of your late rich uncle.

Regardless of your reason for entering the spooky old house on a dismal night such as this, you can expect the following to await you within: A collection of colorful guests with diverse reasons for being there, secret panels and passages, a lost treasure or hidden fortune that drives men to kill, and a killer on the loose (often a hooded figure to unmask or perhaps a gorilla with a taste for human flesh).

This is the 'Old Dark House' genre.  Repetitive, cliche, and oft parodied, but undeniably nostalgic.  If you've watched 'Abbot and Costello', classic 'Scooby Doo', or played the board game 'Clue' (or 'Cluedo' in Europe) you'd probably recognize an Old Dark House mystery when you saw one.

Where I live it's been a really wet spring, with rain for a solid week in May, and off and on so far in June.  There was a storm this afternoon.  It's the perfect time of year for this kind of story.

I just recently read John Willard's 1922 stage play 'The Cat and the Canary' which is said to be one of the first, and perhaps most influential, examples of the genre.  I had seen the 1927 silent film, and the 1939 version with Bob Hope, but a silent movie often has minimal dialog, and inflection is lacking.  The Bob Hope movie is a comedy, and I wanted a serious take on the story.  It never hurts to go back to the original source material.  I really enjoyed the play, reading it in a single afternoon, and would recommend reading it if you're interested.

"So, now that I've read 'Cat and the Canary' what next?" you may ask.  I'm glad you did.  I'll tell you.  Here are some Old Dark House movies that I personally enjoyed:

#1: House on Haunted Hill (1959).  This is a later Dark House movie, and I really feel like it dodges and plays around with the cliches.  Also, Vincent Prince is in this one.  'Nuff said right?

#2: And Then There Were None (1945).  Based on the Agatha Christie mystery of the same name.  This suspense story features 10 people trapped on an island.  Soon they are killed off one by one...  This movie is missing several common elements of an Old Dark House picture, such as secret passages and a killer in a mask, but it's still a very influential Old Dark House film.  The climax is different from the original book, however, giving the story your typical Hollywood happy ending.

#3: Dark and Stormy Night (2009).  An independent comedy from the creators of 'The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra'.  This movie spoofs a ton of classic Dark House movies.  Perhaps the most noticeable is 'Cat and the Canary,' because most Dark House stories take so many queues from the classic play.

#4: The Monster Walks (1932).  Been a while since I've seen this one, but it's a good Old Dark House movie of the gorilla suit variety.

#5: Horror Island (1941).  This movie is very Scooby Doo, with a get-rich-quick Sea Captain who tries to con tourists into staying at a 'Haunted' pirate castle and search for buried treasure.  Unfortunately, a 'Real' ghost shows up.

#6: Hold That Ghost (1941).  Abbot and Costello inherit a gangster's haunted house in this classic comedy.

#7: The Gorilla (1939).  Again, it's been ages since I've watched this one, so I forget the details.  But I enjoyed this comical mystery, and should watch it again in the near future.

So, there are a few suggestions for your next summer thunderstorm.  If you're already a fan of classic mysteries, and I missed your favorite Old Dark House story, be sure to tell me about it in the comments.