WORLD OF MONSTERS: 2025

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

THE DAY THEY TORE DOWN HORROR HISTORY

“The Opera ghost really existed. He was not, as long believed, a creature of the imagination...”

– Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

Since today is the last day of the year, I am dedicating one more post to the 100th anniversary of Lon Chaney's legendary film, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, one of the greatest achievements of the silent film era.

Carl Laemmle and Gaston Leroux in Paris.

After visiting author Gaston Leroux in Paris, Carl Laemmle secured the rights to his novel. Upon his return to Hollywood he began the process of bringing the story to the screen. Laemmle spared no expense and ordered an authentic replica of the famed Paris Opera House, built as Stage 28 on the Universal lot.

During the building of the Opera House, edifices, statues and other decorations were constructed by a crew of eleven craftsmen. One of them was Charles Gemora, who just a few years earlier had stowed away on a ship in his native Philippines bound for the United States, disembarked in San Francisco and eventually settled in Hollywood. While sketching portraits outside the Universal lot, he was “discovered” and put to work as a sculptor on THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD. Similarly, he plied his talent assisting with the Opera House set design.

Construction of Stage 28 in 1924.

[Images source: thestudiotour.com]

Over the ensuing years, Stage 28 was used in many films, including DRACULA, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, PSYCHO, THE BIRDS, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1943) and MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES (1957).

In 2014, Stage 28, the oldest set still standing in Hollywood, was demolished to make way for an expanded Nintendo attraction. Word was the building had been designated as a historical landmark, but a records search by Antonia Carlotta of the Universally Me YouTube channel and Laemmle family member came up empty.

Stage 28 before demolition.

[Images source: thestudiotour.com]

Universal assured concerned parties that the Paris Opera House edifices would be "carefully" removed and stored "safely" away to perhaps be used later as a feature for Universal Studios Florida. So far, the public has not been notified where these precious cinema artifacts are being held. One theory is that they are still somewhere on the Universal lot, but there has been no official confirmation.

So, we'll just have to wait that one out. I'm not holding my breath, though. In the meantime, one of the most famous sets in cinema history, including that of the Universal monsters has virtually disappeared. Chalk another one up to progress.

Antonia Carlotta/Universally Me Stage 28 episode (4:08):

LON CHANEY SHALL NOT DIE!

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

WARNER OLAND: A SOBERING STORY

Film star Warner Oland was born Johan Verner Ölund on October 3, 1879 in the seaport town of Umea, Sweden. When he was 10 years old, the family immigrated to the United States when his father tired of trying to make a living in the harsh climate. “Even at that age,” Oland said of himself in an interview in PHOTOPLAY (February 1918), “my ambitions were definitely formed—I decided to be an operatic star.” He went to Boston “where the music was” and soon found that “art must be sacrificed to appetite”.

A young Werner Oland.

Next, he turned to the stage where acting was a more suitable fit than a singing career—and besides, the money was better. He played numerous villains during this period and was often cast as an Asian because of his vaguely similar features (With a very few exceptions, Asians were still a long way from starring or supporting roles). During this period he met the woman who would be his future wife: a distinguished portrait painter named Edith Gardener Shearn, who notice him at a play and began to visit him during rehearsals, after which they were married.

Werner Oland as Charlie Chan.

Werner Oland and Charlie Chan cast members.

With Rita Hayworth in Charlie Chan in Egypt.

Oland’s next move was screen acting, and he found himself demand for many of the same types of characters he played on stage. He is best known for his roles as Fu Manchu and especially the wise American-Chinese Honolulu detective Charlie Chan in a series of hugely successful films for Fox based on the five novels by Earl Derr Biggers. Compared with Universal’s early horror pictures, Oland’s Chan films brought in enough box office earnings to keep Fox out of financial trouble during the first unstable years of the Great Depression. It is estimated that he earned a total of $640,000 over the course of 16 feature films.

One Sheet theatrical poster.

Oland stars with Boris Karloff.

Oland stars with Bela Lugosi.

Oland and his wife lived well and spent the money he earned, sharing their time between a bungalow in Beverly Hills when he was making pictures in Hollywood, a beach house in Carpinteria, California, an old farmhouse outside Boston and a 7,000-acre island off Mexico. Oland is also noted for translating with his wife, the Swedish author August Strindberg’s works into English.

With Henry Hull in Werewolf of London.

Despite his popularity and fortune, Oland had an Achilles heel: like so many other Hollywood actors, he was a chronic alcoholic. After years of heavy drinking and smoking, he became unpredictable and irrational to the point where, among other humiliating incidents, he unceremoniously walked off the set of his last Chan film. This eventually led to an acrimonious divorce on April 2, 1938 after 30 years of a seemingly otherwise happy marriage.

A physical wreck, after the divorce he returned to Sweden where his health quickly worsened. He contracted bronchial pneumonia and died in a Swedish hospital on August 6, 1938 at the age of 58.

His ex-wife Edith survived him by 30 years.

MOVIE MIRROR (November 1935):

PHOTOPLAY (January 1918):

PHOTOPLAY (January 1936):

Who's Who on the Screen (1920):

Monday, December 29, 2025

GOODBYE, BÉBÉ.

In the summer of 1969, my Dad took me to see SPIRITS OF THE DEAD. I had been watching the very seductive ads in the local paper that promised "Edgar Allan Poe's Ultimate Orgy of Evil". EAP and an orgy? What was there not to look forward to?

It was playing the Art Theater at Topanga and Ventura boulevards. In those days, there were tons of movie theaters in the San Fernando Valley: The Topanga, Baronet, Holiday, Valley Circle, etc., all gave way to multiplex's in the 1970's.

The Art Theater was scoffed at by us young teens because it was a dingy, tiny thing squeezed between other shops and had the reputation that nothing but "artsy-fartsy" movies played there. After watching it, I thought: it's was no wonder that SPIRITS OF THE DEAD was one of them.

Being the die-hard monster kid that I was, I cajoled my Dad (the same Good Ol' Dad that let me buy my first monster magazine off the newsstand rack outside the Owl Rexall Drug Store on Van Nuys Blvd. just a few years before) to take me to this R-rated movie.

Well, we sat there with our box of popcorn and cup of soda and got through the whole thing. Talk about disappointed! I wanted this to be a good movie, but instead I was bored to tears. Where were the monsters? Where were the spooks? Where was Poe? And, fer chrissakes, where was the friggin' orgy of evil?

I'm sure my Dad wondered why the hell I wanted to see this movie in the first place. Well, with a cast of high-brow actors like Jane and Peter Fonda, Alain Delon, Brigitte Bardot and Terence Stamp, and lensed by directors, Frederico Fellini, Roger Vadim and Louis Malle, SPIRITS OF THE DEAD certainly was a movie that deserved to be played at the "artsy-fartsy" Art Theater! [see the rest of this post HERE.]

What made this film watchable were the two gorgeous actresses that played in it. One was Jane Fonda, who would star as Barbarella the same year, and she never looked better during this period. The other was a French actress named Brigitte Bardot, that left me panting (and maybe even drooling a little, too) she was so strikingly beautiful.

Brigitte Bardot in Spirits of the Dead "William Wilson" segment.

Bardot and co-star Alain Delon on the set of Spirits of the Dead.

The foregoing all came back when I heard the sad news that Brigitte Bébé (a nickname derived from her initials) Bardot had passed away yesterday at the age of 91 from an undisclosed illness in Saint-Tropez, France.

Born Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot on September 28, 1934 in Paris, she originally aspired to be a ballerina, but turned instead to modeling and acting in a possible act of rebellion against her strict and sometimes abusive Catholic parents. Her breakout role was as an 18 year old libertine in AND GOD CREATED WOMAN (1956) directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim. For years, she wowed the public with her seductive charm, sexuality and provocative lifestyle, earning the nickname, "sex kitten".

But all that came at a price; battling depression she attempted to end her life on more than one occasion. She was also convicted and fined five times in France for inciting racial hatred as a result of her very vocal objection to the Muslim method of slaughtering sheep without sedation during religious holidays.

Tiring of living up to the rigors of international fame, relentless media attention and "sick of being beautiful every day", in a move that shocked millions, she retired from acting in 1973 and devoted the rest of her life to her real passion: animal rights. Ultimately, I'm sure that was much more rewarding for her than looking sexy in front of a camera 24/7.

The 60s was the decade of the sex goddess and while there were a lot of candidates, it's hard to name any of them before Brigitte Bardot.

Rest in peace, Bébé.

Brigitte Bardot Gallery:

Brigitte Bardot in the April 1969 issue of PLAYBOY:

Sunday, December 28, 2025

BLADE RUNNER COMIC BOOK ADAPTATION

Marvel managed to snag the rights to the adaptation of BLADE RUNNER and published the first of the two-part series about two weeks before the film premiered. The script was written by and illustrated by Al Williamson and Carlos Garzón. Dan Green and Ralph Reese were credited as inkers along with Williamson and Garzón, but it is not known to what extent they contributed.

The comic does a fair job of presenting the story, considering it lasted just the two issues. Of note is Williamson's and Garzón's pencils and the inks bear a striking resemblance to Jim Steranko in a number of panels.

Today's post includes both issues and are presented without ads.