Horror Classics
I’m a sucker for old horror movies. A couple of years ago, I picked up one of those ‘50 Horror Classics’ sets (classics being loosely defined here) - the kind they sell for $10. How could I resist? I’ve been slowly and sporadically working my way through them, and I thought blogging about them might encourage me to get through all of them, plus remind me which ones I’ve actually watched. Last night when I was trying to pick one, I couldn’t tell which I’d already seen. See, the current generation isn’t the only one that cranks out tons of movies with similar/near-identical plots based on what seems statistically likely to put butts in seats.
I finally settled on The Monster Maker, a 1944 ‘classic’ starring J. Carrol Naish and Ralph Morgan. Mad scientist Igor Markoff deliberately infects concert pianist Anthony Lawrence with a horrible disfiguring disease that will ruin his life and leave him ripe for blackmail, as Markoff is also the only one who can provide a cure. The disease is kind of like low-grade elephantiasis, and causes swelling of the extremities. Hands are extremities, concert pianists tend to use their hands quite frequently…and you begin to see the problem. Why does the mad scientist do all this? Because he wants to marry the concert pianist’s daughter of course, who happens to be the spitting image of said scientist’s dead wife, who died under “tragic circumstances” and who was named (what else?) - Lenore!