Monster Craze Memoirs

With a series of financial and critical flops behind him, producer Val Lewton finally started seeing some reigns put on him by new supervising producer and ex-Universal exec Jack J. Gross. In the process of trying to calibrate Lewton's vision to something more or in line with a conventional horror movie, however, Gross also got him a much bigger budget and a massive horror star, Boris Karloff, helping to deliver perhaps his best film since I Walked with a Zombie: It's The Body Snatcher (1945).All original music courtesy of Niel Jakobyhttps://nieljacoby.bandcamp.com/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MonsterCrazeMemoirsOfficialiTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monster-craze-memoirs/id1491963648Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aSrQ5JFez33XuVanaFYIwPocket Casts: https://pca.st/lkra63chSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-3949861YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBGcDWtQj2wGEnlAB7P4AFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/Monster-Craze-Memoirs-106199087480182/Twitter: https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2

The conclusion to our exciting supplemental trilogy on Val Lewton.Works cited for these supplemental episodes:Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg, The Celluloid Muse: Hollywood Directors Speak (1972)Edmund G. Bansak, Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career (1995)All original music courtesy of Niel Jakobyhttps://nieljacoby.bandcamp.com/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MonsterCrazeMemoirsOfficialiTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monster-craze-memoirs/id1491963648Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aSrQ5JFez33XuVanaFYIwPocket Casts: https://pca.st/lkra63chSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-3949861YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBGcDWtQj2wGEnlAB7P4AFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/Monster-Craze-Memoirs-106199087480182/Twitter: https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2

Here's part two of our supplemental trilogy, which finally gets down to how a Russian rich boy from Yalta ended up at the head of RKO Radio Pictures' fresh new "B" horror unit.All original music courtesy of Niel Jakobyhttps://nieljacoby.bandcamp.com/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MonsterCrazeMemoirsOfficialiTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monster-craze-memoirs/id1491963648Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aSrQ5JFez33XuVanaFYIwPocket Casts: https://pca.st/lkra63chSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-3949861YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBGcDWtQj2wGEnlAB7P4AFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/Monster-Craze-Memoirs-106199087480182/Twitter: https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2

For today's episode, we take a moment to commemorate Max Julien and Carol Speed, two actors who passed away in January of this year, by sitting down with The Mack (1973), one of the most significant films of the controversial "Blaxploitation" cycle of the '70s.All original music courtesy of Niel Jakobyhttps://nieljacoby.bandcamp.com/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MonsterCrazeMemoirsOfficialiTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monster-craze-memoirs/id1491963648Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aSrQ5JFez33XuVanaFYIwPocket Casts: https://pca.st/lkra63chSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-3949861YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBGcDWtQj2wGEnlAB7P4AFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/Monster-Craze-Memoirs-106199087480182/Twitter: https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2

With The Seventh Victim dying at the box-office, The Ghost Ship pulled from distribution, and Curse of the Cat People ruffling the feathers of RKO executives, Val Lewton's top-line production became his first definitive non-horror project: a period literary adaptation called Mademoiselle Fifi. Dad and I discuss Lewton's heavily compromised, and perhaps over-extended, stab at a poetic wartime film.All original music courtesy of Niel Jakobyhttps://nieljacoby.bandcamp.com/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MonsterCrazeMemoirsOfficialiTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monster-craze-memoirs/id1491963648Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aSrQ5JFez33XuVanaFYIwPocket Casts: https://pca.st/lkra63chSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-3949861YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBGcDWtQj2wGEnlAB7P4AFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/Monster-Craze-Memoirs-106199087480182/Twitter: https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2

Been promising this one for a while... Here's episode one of a three-part series of episodes to supplement our survey of Val Lewton's filmography.All original music courtesy of Niel Jakobyhttps://nieljacoby.bandcamp.com/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MonsterCrazeMemoirsOfficialiTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monster-craze-memoirs/id1491963648Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aSrQ5JFez33XuVanaFYIwPocket Casts: https://pca.st/lkra63chSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-3949861YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBGcDWtQj2wGEnlAB7P4AFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/Monster-Craze-Memoirs-106199087480182/Twitter: https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2

Peter Bogdanovich, another alumnus of the Roger Corman School of Filmmaking who went on to define the New Hollywood era, unfortunately passed away this past Thursday at the tender age of 82. In this first episode of our two part commemoration, we look into his first (unofficial) feature-directing credit, a 1968 re-edit of the previously covered Soviet sci-fi flick Planeta Bur (1962): Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968).All original music courtesy of Niel Jakobyhttps://nieljacoby.bandcamp.com/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MonsterCrazeMemoirsOfficialiTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monster-craze-memoirs/id1491963648Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aSrQ5JFez33XuVanaFYIwPocket Casts: https://pca.st/lkra63chSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-3949861YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBGcDWtQj2wGEnlAB7P4AFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/Monster-Craze-Memoirs-106199087480182/Twitter: https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2

We're back with our third episode in a series exploring the films of Val Lewton. This time, The Seventh Victim, a proto-noir with an oppressive, evocative atmosphere but a story that doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you break it down. Well, let's break it down!All original music courtesy of Niel Jakobyhttps://nieljacoby.bandcamp.com/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MonsterCrazeMemoirsOfficialiTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monster-craze-memoirs/id1491963648Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aSrQ5JFez33XuVanaFYIwPocket Casts: https://pca.st/lkra63chSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-3949861YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBGcDWtQj2wGEnlAB7P4AFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/Monster-Craze-Memoirs-106199087480182/Twitter: https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2

Having been hired by RKO head Charles Koerner to command the studio's brand new "B" horror unit, producer Val Lewton authored a series of low-budget programmers that went above and beyond the call of his contemporaries, and often against the express intentions of his employers. His second film, I Walked With a Zombie, takes cues from the traditions of dark romantic literature to weave a disturbing tale of tainted love, possession, fatalism, and the lingering ghosts of slavery.Works cited:Edmund G. Bansak, Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career (1995)All original music courtesy of Niel Jakobyhttps://nieljacoby.bandcamp.com/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MonsterCrazeMemoirsOfficialiTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monster-craze-memoirs/id1491963648Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aSrQ5JFez33XuVanaFYIwPocket Casts: https://pca.st/lkra63chSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-3949861YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBGcDWtQj2wGEnlAB7P4AFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/Monster-Craze-Memoirs-106199087480182/Twitter: https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2

Winding down our review of Boris Karloff's cycle of "mad doctor" films for Columbia, we delve into The Devil Commands, another surprisingly prescient work of science fiction and, perhaps, one of the first cinematic examples of "cosmic horror." We also compare and contrast the film to its source material, William Sloane's 1939 novel The Edge of Running Water.All original music courtesy of Niel Jakobyhttps://nieljacoby.bandcamp.com/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MonsterCrazeMemoirsOfficialiTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/monster-craze-memoirs/id1491963648Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aSrQ5JFez33XuVanaFYIwPocket Casts: https://pca.st/lkra63chSoundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-3949861YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBGcDWtQj2wGEnlAB7P4AFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/Monster-Craze-Memoirs-106199087480182/Twitter: https://twitter.com/KennethJWaste2