VIKING WOMEN AND THE SEA SERPENT

"Fabulous! Spectacular! Terrifying!"

- Poster art of Viking Women and The Sea Serpent

Movies such as this epitomize the economy with which Roger Corman made his pictures. The thankfully short, 66-minute film was estimated to have had the minuscule budget of $65,000. And yes, it shows.

With the unimaginably long official title of THE SAGA OF THE VIKING WOMEN AND THEIR VOYAGE TO THE WATERS OF THE GREAT SEA SERPENT, it is generally shortened for an obvious reason. Mercifully, the titular sea serpent--who looks like it could be a cousin of Reptilicus--is only briefly seen on screen and deftly photographed as to not have the viewer dwell on the cheap-looking monster.

The plot is simple: a band of viking women set off to rescue their men who have disappeared land on an island where they encounter the evil Grimaults lead by Stark (Devon) and a hungry sea serpent before they can accomplish their task.

One thing Corman could do was hire a cast of fairly capable actors that would try their best to take the rough edges off of the usual insipid scripts and vapid stories. In this case it was the viking women (Abby Dalton, June Kenney, Betsy Jones-Moreland, Lynette Bernay, Sally Todd and Susan Cabot), leading man Bradford "Brad" Jackson and villain Richard Devon. B-movie players Jonathan "Little Shoppe of Horrors" Haze and Gary "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein" Conway also had bit parts.

Jackson had starred in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE in 1963 and Devon in two other Corman quickies, playing Satan in THE UNDEAD (1957) and WAR OF THE SATELLITES (1958), as well as being in high demand as a TV character actor. Sally Todd lent her physical talents to numerous girlie magazines and was Playboy's Playmate of the Month for February 1957. She starred in THE UNEARTHLY (1957) and FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER (1958), in which makeup man Harry Thomas wanted her to play the monster, but the producers didn't think she was big enough to pull it off. Todd was often in the news, especially when she was dating Hollywood men such as Troy Donahue, Jack Webb, John Ashley and Peter Lawford. Susan Cabot went on to star as the titular character in THE WASP WOMAN in 1959. The story of a woman obsessed with an age-reversing drug, it has a bizarre correlation to events in her personal life (more on that in a later post).

While location shooting was done at several locations around town: Bronson Canyon (Griffith Park, Los Angeles), Iverson Ranch (Chatsworth, California), Cabrillo Beach (San Pedro, California), Malibu, California and Santa Monica, California, the sea-faring sequences were filmed on a sound stage at Ziv Studios in Santa Monica using a prop boat and rear projection. Stage hands added to the rough water effect by throwing water on the actors. In one scene where the boat was actually used on the ocean, the man towing it out to sea fell asleep (!) and all eleven of the viking women had to be rescued by a pair of surfers. To make matters worse, only Sally Todd and Abby Dalton knew how to swim! It was just one more example of Corman's notorious recklessness with putting his actors in the face of danger. There were numerous injuries and close calls, and a near-fatality occurred when a cameraman was nearly electrocuted while filming a water scene at Ziv Studios.

THE VIKING WOMEN AND THE SEA SERPENT had just a couple more things going for it besides the babes: the music by B-movie veteran Albert Glasser and the poster art was by one of the best -- Reynold Brown.

Pressbook sample pages:

Lobby cards:

Stills:

Screen grabs:

Lynette Bernay, June Kenney, Abby Dalton, Susan Todd.

Susan Cabot.

Betsy Jones-Moreland

The terrifying titular serpent:

The article below from the Canadian film magazine, TAKE ONE #9 (1968) is an interview with actor Jay Sayer who plays Senya, the king's son in the film. Sayer provides a lengthy synopsis of the story and some behind the scenes insight. The interview was first published a year before in 20 CENTS MAGAZINE, October 1967, published by The Twenty Cents Publishing Company, London, Ontario.

H.P. LOVECRAFT IN A MEN'S MAGAZINE?

I never thought I'd see the day. My curiosity got the best of me when I came across this digital copy of the UK skin magazine, MAYFAIR from 1970, so I thought I'd take a quick peek--you know--just to look at the articles. Hardly a few pages in, I stopped, and not just a little surprised: here was H.P. Lovecraft's story, "From Beyond"! Interest in HPL was enjoying a new resurgence at the time, but still, to have one of his stories published in a men's magazine? It truly boggles the mind.

Written in 1920, "From Beyond" was first published in the fan magazine, THE FANTASY FAN #10 (June 1934), and has since been anthologized many times, as is the rest of his fiction. It is not recognized as one of this best tales, but it's his first to elaborate on the recurring theme of his characters discovering a world outside our own five senses and the resulting interaction with it. You might know it better as cosmic horror.

The first page of HPL's original manuscript.

After the story itself, it is best known for Stuart Gordon's film adaptation from 1986. And here it is, over a half-a-century later, in a men's magazine.

A very unusual Lovecraft artifact, to be sure.

The accompanying illustration is by George Underwood. Underwood is a British artist and musician, who played in two different bands with his high school friend, David Bowie. Underwood famously punched Bowie in the eye in a fight over a girl which left Bowie with permanent sight problems. Nevertheless, they remained life-long friends.

Underwood gave up on a music career and went to art school, In the 1970s he designed album covers for Bowie (THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS, HUNKY DORY) , T-Rex, Procol Harum, and Mott the Hoople among others. He also illustrated hundreds of book covers.

Okay, since you might be wondering, here's the cover.

NEW ARTICLE PUBLISHED!

The latest issue of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN has just dropped and my article on Universal's WEREWOLF OF LONDON is included. Since its revival a few years ago or so it's developed into a very fine looking magazine and I recommend it, not only because my article is in it, but the rest of the features are well-worth taking a look if you aren't a regular reader already. Editor and publisher Don Smeraldi and his wife Vicki put together a fine publication.

You can find it at Barnes & Noble or order it direct HERE.

Here's a sample of my article:

Moon, Madness and Murder

A Look Back at Werewolf of London

By John M. Navroth

“We gave it all the shock and goosepimples

we could jam into it.”

 – Carl Laemmle on Werewolf of London

In 1935, actor Henry Hull said in a newspaper interview that he would never take a “pretty man” part. Instead, he wanted “strange” roles he “could sink his teeth into”. When Universal came calling in search of the lead for their newest picture, Werewolf of London, Hull literally got his wish.

Universal’s initial idea for a werewolf picture began in late 1931. A script with the working title The Wolf Man was completed and Robert Florey was slated to direct with Boris Karloff in the title role. An article in Hollywood Filmograph (January 23, 1932) broke the news: “Jack Pierce is creating a remarkable make-up for Boris Karloff, who will, in the very near future, appear as the star in ‘The Wolf Man’.  From what we learn, it is to be another character even greater than ‘Frankenstein’.” 

For some reason, the production was shelved and after having been unceremoniously removed as the director of Frankenstein in 1931, Florey would miss out on yet another chance at a career-booster.

The first known werewolf film was an 18-minute Canadian two-reeler released as The Werewolves in 1913. It is now considered lost after the only known print was destroyed in a fire at a storage facility in 1924. The second, Wolf Blood: A Tale of the Forest was a 68-minute feature released in 1925. Neither film bears any resemblance to what audiences recognize today as the werewolf legend. As a result, Werewolf of London has the distinction of being the first full-length feature film of its kind and the only werewolf film made in the 1930s.

Universal resurrected their idea that had been languishing on a shelf somewhere in the script morgue, gathering dust for over three years. John Balderston, the scriptwriter for Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy (as well as an unused script for The Invisible Man), was otherwise occupied with working on The Mystery of Edwin Drood and The Bride of Frankenstein. With their veteran of horror films unavailable, Universal turned to a relatively unknown playwright.

Fresh off co-writing the screenplay for MGM’s box-office bomb, Laughing Boy, starring Ramon Navarro and Lupe Velez, John Colton was helped off the floor and hired to compose the new script for Werewolf of London for which he was paid the princely sum of $8,500. Never missing a promotional opportunity, and at least partly—if not entirely—made up, Universal printed a puff piece on Colton in the April 20, 1935 issue of their in-house magazine, Universal Weekly: “In making his preparation to do the script Colton spent a month in public and private libraries in research on the subject. He conferred with the psychiatrists and physiologists attached to Universal’s medical staff in order to build the screen character of Henry Hull for the werewolf part according to the latest scientific tenets. He studied hundreds of paintings by Goya and other masters on this mysterious subject before putting a line of dialogue or description on paper.”

As for casting the lead, Boris Karloff was already signed to star for the second time as Mary Shelley’s monster in The Bride of Frankenstein so it was not feasible for him to also play a werewolf, especially for the time it would take him to sit for both makeups.

Enter Henry Hull.