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Weekend Discussion Thread: Boris Karloff Riff TargetsAlert reguar “Sitting Duck” suggests:
I’m going to go with “The Mummy.” Oooh! Scary! Your pick? 35 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Boris Karloff Riff Targets”Commenting at Satellite News
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There’s a Corman flick “The Raven,” with Karloff, Peter Lorre and Vincent Price that cries out for riffing. It ostensibly is set in Europe but also features Jack Nicolson running around talking in a Texas drawl. The movie is a total hoot and one of my favorite guilty pleasures.
How about Cauldron of Blood: “Karloff plays a blind sculptor, Charles Badulescu, who uses the bones of real people in the creation of his art.”
Subject the crew to another Fu Manchu film, ‘The Mask Of Fu Manchu’, where Karloff plays the eponymous doctor.
I think I’d choose Voodoo Island. Standard sort of horror setup (with VOODOO! On an ISLAND!) meaning that Karloff’s character gets to try to debunk voodoo but ends up realizing it’s real. Stuff happens. Plants eat people. Zombies wander. Pretty typical fare. But it also stars Rhodes Reason, who sounds so much like his older brother Rex that it surprises me every time I hear him. And that’s Reason enough for me.
As a side note, I really would have liked to see them riff Tower of London, a nifty little historical drama with Basil Rathbone, Vincent Price, and Karloff as an executioner. I can only imagine what they might have done with it.
Black Friday. Karloff transplants part of a deceased gangster’s brain into his friend, which causes the man to switch identities. Karloff tries to get the gangster personality to reveal the location of stolen money. It also features Bela Lugosi as a mob boss, which was actually kind of enjoyable.
I’m pretty sure that Texans go on European vacations. Matter of fact, Quincey Morris from Dracula is from Texas. Of course, if the character in question is suppose to be a native of Europe, that’s different.
This is, if I may say so, a great and original WDT idea. Thanks, Sitting Duck!
I nominate 1934’s “The Black Cat.” It even has Bela Lugosi in it as well, so hubby and I thought it would be great when we caught it on Turner Classic Movies one night. Um, no. It’s awful. And it claims to be based on the Edgar Allan Poe story, but I don’t see how. It’s just bad in so many ways — dumb satanic rites, human taxidermy, goofy love interest couple who act like idiots. But at least it gave us the line, “Supernatural – perhaps. Baloney – perhaps not.”
Jeez, you beat me to this one by six minutes. But I’ll go the opposite direction–this is SO unexpectedly creepy that I want someone in the room laughing at it to take the edge off. Sets and costumes dive right off into Metropolis territory. And Karloff’s Hjalmar Poelzig may be the only Karloff role ever where it looks like he believed anything he was saying. The first movie with both Karloff and Lugosi, and according to imdb the biggest grosser for Universal in 1934. Only 65 minutes long, and it shows up frequently on Svengoolie. Oh, yeah–also, you didn’t know Lugosi could actually ACT.
Any of the Frankenstein movies just to hear Trace and Joel do their Frankie voices.
P.S. Wouldn’t it be great if the show could get a Karloff movie for Season 12? :-D
How The Grinch Stole Christmas –
Karloff narrated and our hearts grew three times.
“The Terror” would probably be a good choice. It’s public domain, it has Jack Nicholson as an officer in Napoleon’s army, it has a watery rather than firey climax, and Karloff gives his usual fine performance.
They could also try “The Invisible Ray” a good movie that still lends itself to riffing. And it has Lugosi (as a good guy!), so they could throw in a few “Ed Wood”-inspired riffs.
Has anyone here seen “Frankenstein 1970”, where Karloff uses an atomic reactor to animate yet another monster? From what I’ve read, it sounds like it has possibilities.
I wish I’d suggested “The Terror.” YES! And I saw Frankenstein 1970 when it came out. Probably good MST fodder, because it sucked on toast. It appears to be unavailable at the Usual Places–anybody?
“The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini.” Karloff as The Corpse. Yeech. It’s one of the Frankie and Annette Beach series, but no Frankie and no Annette. Instead it has Tommy Kirk (Blech!) and Deborah Walley along with the usual gaggle of idiotic teenagers performing show stopping musical numbers. Jesse White! Basil Rathbone! And Harvey Lembeck as Eric von Zipper.
It even has idiotic product placements for idiotic products!
Yeah, it’s tough to do bad comedies, but this one has so much potential.
Your welcome.
Found it on Amazon as part of a box set:
https://www.amazon.com/Karloff-Classics-Walking-Frankenstein-Broadway/dp/B002DY9KQG/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1527353745&sr=1-1&keywords=frankenstein+1970
Karloff usually was in better films later in his career than Lugosi and Chaney. While they were appearing in terrible films he was in movies like Corridors of Blood which holds up very well. The Raven and Comedy of Terrors also hold up well IMO. But Voodoo Island is an exception to this and typical of the black and white 50s horror movies that appeared on MST3K.
There are also four really low budget Mexican horror movies where they just shot some footage of Karloff at his LA home (he was too sick to travel at the time) and then edited the footage in poorly and released them after Karloff died and those might be too trashy for MST. They’re really sleazy.
Roger Corman’s movie The Terror with Karloff is barely a movie. Neck and neck with those Mexican Karloff movies in its shamefulness. I’m willing to bet MST3K got it in a box of tapes and rejected it. It’s so boring.
Like Vincent Price, Karloff had a sense of humor about his work. (Could Lugosi have voiced the Grinch? “How fortunate, the Whos will seemplify everything!”). Whereas Lugosi and Chaney had personal drugs/alcohol on their back, needed to take whatever embarrassing work they could get, and struggled to give it dignity.
The Raven and Comedy of Terrors were from Corman’s Vincent Price/Peter Lorre “spoof” trilogy along with “Tales of Terror”, and Karloff is in on the joke enough to have fun.
And a director who knows how to have things occasionally happen in the story.
Karloff’s good, just as Christopher Lee was good in his, even if Karloff’s version was hampered by Citizen Hearst in Hollywood, who wanted to use the doc and his daughter as social pre-Code yellow-peril propaganda for his newspapers.
It’s been one of the foundations of Public Domain since the days of local stations (never mind VHS or Amazon Prime), so if RT hasn’t done it by now, no one will. Legend Films probably would’ve made them do it, if it hadn’t ALREADY been in color.
Still, earnest young rising Corman star Jack Nicholson is so earnest in this movie as the young rising Corman hero, despite the utter lack of coherent plot, you’d think it would have been worth one filler episode of the CC era.
I agree about “Voodoo Island”, it was recently on Comet TV. That’s the first time I ever saw it and I have been watching movies like that since I was young in the late 50’s and 60’s. “Tower of London” is also a very good historical movie, not a horror movie like most people think. In interviews Karloff used get a little upset when that movie and a few others he did like “The Haunted Strangler” and “Corridors of Blood” were labeled horror films.
If you want riff-worthy, might as well go all the way: Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Always happy to see some love for “Corridors of Blood,” that movie really was a tragedy of mismarketing (a double feature with Werewolf in a Girl’s Dormitory, really??) but was a wonderful piece of history, and truly unnerving it is for a non-horror film. The scenes with Karloff having to commit surgeries and dealing with patient’s screams are wonderful.
Okay, going off-topic now because I’m thinking about good Karloff films, but can we just briefly talk about how GREAT Targets is? I saw it again recently and was blown away by its originality and suspense. And it also features The Terror!
“Targets” is one powerful movie. It wasn’t the last Karloff movie to be released, but it’s a perfect capper to his career. The counterpoint between Byron Orlock and the bland, nice & murderous Bobby Thompson is perfect.
SNAKE PEOPLE would be perfect.
I’m usually up for a good giggle at man-eating plants but in the midst of all its B-movie badness “Voodoo Island” managed to straight-up traumatize me with its scene.
Big love for “Corridors of Blood” here too. It has a beautiful blend of brilliance and garbage. Christopher Lee’s role in it should make it a lock!
The Karloff movie that I think never gets enough love is Val Lewton and Mark Robson’s “Bedlam” (1946). Karloff is a wonderfully villainous bastard in that one.
Targets is an awesome film. I’ll second Die Monster Die! For riffing. It did inspire a great song by the new Misfits. Somebody put it to footage from the Trailer of the film:
https://youtu.be/ikJcwCR1HdY
Black Sabbath is my favorite Karloff film though it may be too good for MST3K. The last of the three stories gave me nightmares when I was a kid, I still have dreams where I see the oval window with the flashing light outside.
Dick Tracy vs Gruesome. Karloff played Gruesome. A character who never appeared anywhere else until a few years ago, when he appeared in the still running Dick Tracy comic strip. Think of all the references to Tracy’s rogues gallery they could throw in.
Mad Monster Party. A stop-motion Rankin-Bass movie, with Karloff voicing Dr Frankenstein, who throws a party on his island. Had all the classic monsters, including Phyllis Diller as the mate of Frankenstein’s monster. A bit on the family friendly side, but, so was The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t.
I remember feeling this way about King Kong Versus Godzilla when it came out when I was a seven-year old. I would dream walking down the road then see Godzilla popping up in the distance. Hopeful that the reboot they’re planning will be good.
I think that FRANKENSTEIN 1970 is prime MST3K material. Karloff really hams it up, carrying eyeballs in his bare hands. Great stuff.
Man, I love this stuff–on what other site can you get a quote like this?
This WDT is not a subject on which I can contribute, but I’m learning a lot and really enjoying everyone’s posts!
I have to echo a great many of the choices made already. “The Terror” and “Frankenstein 1970” are both great choices. Those last Mexican movies that were released posthumously are also good fodder. “Die Monster Die!” and “Crimson Cult” would fit as well.
Personally I would shy away from “Ghost In The Invisible Bikini”, “The Raven”, or “Comedy of Terrors”. Those films already are poking fun at themselves and I believe that MST works best when the at least the characters in the movie take themselves seriously. That’s why I don’t really care for “Catalina Caper” because although it is terrible, it knows it is nothing more than a stupid beach movie. I know it is a favorite among other MSTies, but to each their own.
I think that to get that wonderful cheap vibe of the Lugosi movies, 1940’s “The Ape” would be perfect for Karloff riffing.
Beyond that, I think the clear choice mentioned above would be “Voodoo Island”. Adam West made his film debut here! Alan Napier who played Alfred in the ’66 “Batman is in it too! And Rhodes Reason…the brother of Rex Reason from “This Island Earth”! And Elisha Cook Jr.!
http://fullrichblather.blogspot.com/2017/10/through-decades-with-dear-boris-voodoo.html
(A few days late with this one; I actually DID comment this weekend, but signed in on the wrong account, had it deleted, and then forgot to come back until today. Sooo, yeah.)
THE TERROR is one of those ubiquitous public domain movies that seemingly everyone has tried their hand at releasing/hosting/etc. over the years. It really is a bit surprising that neither the show nor RT has ever tackled it, because they almost certainly would be aware of it. I mean, you can’t get AWAY from the flick! Maybe they just didn’t/don’t think it’s well-suited to riffing? It IS an incomprehensible mess, one that I hated for the longest time, but the combination of Karloff, Jack Nicholson (as the world’s most unconvincing Napoleonic soldier), Gothic scenery and sumptuous early-1960s color has struck a chord with me in recent years. I’ve actually wound up sorta liking it in SPITE of itself! (There’s also a terrific widescreen print of the film that TCM occasionally airs and that I think has been officially released, and which is far, FAR better than the film deserves. A complete turnaround from the endless PD prints that have hit the market over the decades!)
Also, 1940’s THE APE. While obviously not a great movie, like Bela’s THE CORPSE VANISHES, it’s pretty harmless poverty row fodder. I actually just re-watched it a few weeks ago! I’m a total sucker for the cheapies of the 1930s & 1940s. It’s public domain too, so the biggest challenge in securing it would be finding a print that *doesn’t* look like it had been dragged around the parking lot 8 or 9 times before hitting the projector.
YES! I didn’t even think of that until I saw your comment, but DICK TRACY MEETS GRUESOME needs to be riffed!
Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood spoke words on how I feel about Karloff. Just kidding. Or not.
BTW: I’m distantly related through marriage to Boris Karloff on my Wife’s Mom’s side. They have cousins named Pratt which is Karloff’s civilian/birth name.
One of my favorite parts of Targets is where Karloff’s character tells the story of The Appointment in Samara. I named a doomed character in a story I wrote Captain Samara as a tribute.