By G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.com
October is a great month. For sports fans, football is in full swing. Leaf peepers get to see the last of foliage during that month. Some days are still warm enough for outdoors activities, while evenings are delightfully cool.
For me, though, and those like me, October is the one month of the year during which it’s completely acceptable to be a horror fan.
At other points on the calendar, being a fan of the stuff that bumps in the night in movies and literature seems odd to many, but in October, Halloween allows even the most shallow of posers to embrace the dark side.
I wasn’t born a horror film fan – far from it. My mom, God bless her, was not a horror fan. She loved movies and Spencer Tracy was one of her favorite stars, until she saw him in the 1941 adaptation of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” The film bothered her so much she never went to another Spenser Tracy movie.
Therefore she wasn’t keen about having her two sons exposed to horror films as well. Those went on the same list as comic books and MAD magazine – all as forbidden as she could make them.
Yet despite my mom’s best efforts, they eroded when I entered junior high school and the movie bug bit me hard and deep. I had a fear of horror and science fiction, but I often noticed that an actor I liked in one kind of movie would appear in another genre. By following actors I was introduced to a variety of films.
I also had decided that I needed to outgrow my fear of these movies, so I plunged in by watching them on TV. WVIT, the NBC affiliate out of Connecticut, had a Saturday night movie show back then, featuring a host named Swenghoolie who presented classic monster films from the 1930s and ’40s in the time slot that eventually “Saturday Night Live” took over.
My brother and I had a small old Dumont black and white TV in our rooms – we thought ourselves pretty cool – and every Saturday night we religiously watched Swenghoolie’s offerings.
I started reading “Famous Monsters of Filmland” in 1969 when actor Boris Karloff died, and I would buy a copy whenever I could. “Castle of Frankenstein” and “Larry Ivie’s Monsters and Heroes” were two other magazines that were on my list.
“An Illustrated History of Horror Films” by the late Carlos Clarens was my bible. I still have the copy I bought more than 40 years ago.
I cut out movie ads from the Transcript-Telegram and Morning Union and put them in a scrapbook. I marveled at films that were unknown to me – “What are these?” – and wanted to see them all.
Of course, I couldn’t. Many of them were at drive-ins and before the days of obtaining my driver’s license I knew my parents were not going to sacrifice time, money and sleep to satisfy my cinematic curiosity. When I did get my license, my girlfriend at the time didn’t care for horror films and her father certainly didn’t care for his daughter going to the passion pit with the questionable likes of me.
So, my movie going was often a solitary affair if the film was not “suitable.”
My brother frequently went with me, though. We saw Vincent Price in “Cry of the Banshee” at the Westover Air Force Base theater, which was also the only place we could see Christopher Lee in a rare hero role in “The Devil’s Bride.” We got my dad to drop us off at the former Fox Theater on Boston Road in Springfield for a double bill of “Trog” and “Taste the Blood of Dracula.”
In the days before home video, you might not ever have the chance to see a film – horror or not – in a market such as Springfield. Not all films played here and if there was something you wanted to see you better go before the bill changed.
My mania knew few bounds, and I started an amateur magazine in high school all about my interests. My father helped with the printing and my mother was my typesetter, even though the subject matter mystified them.
In the mid-1970s, I started going to various pop culture conventions and there I actually was able to meet some of my heroes. Perhaps the most significant was the chance to speak with British actor and horror legend Peter Cushing. He was standing alone in the lobby of the old Hotel Commodore in New York City as a guest of a Famous Monsters of Filmland convention. Shoving my shyness aside, I strode up to him, stuck out my hand and said, “Welcome to New York, Mr. Cushing.”
He looked up, smiled and asked me a barrage of questions: What was my name? Where was I from? Why was I attending the convention?
What a nice man!
I used my love of writing and my career choice to further my interests in film and especially horror. A personal high point for me came in 1983 when I was able to interview a hero of mine, Vincent Price. Appearing at the University of Massachusetts with a one-man show, Price made himself available the following day. Candid and funny, Price was everything I had hoped – simply a great man.
Another great man who became a close friend for two decades was the movie producer Richard Gordon, who made horror and science fiction films with the likes of Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. A movie fan since he was a boy in his native Great Britain, Gordon had an encyclopedic knowledge of film and every time I was with him was a learning experience.
For a horror fan such as myself having the opportunity to meet some of the people whose work I admired was something that, as a 13 year-old kid studying the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland, I could never imagine.
If you want to become familiar with the classics of horror, I suggest the following viewing selections: “Bride of Frankenstein,” “White Zombie,” “Curse of the Cat People,” “The Horror of Dracula,” “The Brides of Dracula,” “Witchfinder General” and “Theatre of Blood.”
That’s the short list.
So, this October when most people are taking their annual dip in the horror pond, I will be pouring a drink and lighting a cigar in honor of all of the people who have made my life so much richer by evoking both fright and a sense of wonder.
G. Michael Dobbs is the managing editor of Reminder Publications and Prime’s local columnist.