Dr. Daniel's Movie Emergency - The X-Ray Machine

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"Pernicious nonsense! Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too." -- Parnell, Repo Man

THE X-RAY MACHINE

Universal Soldiers

       (Nov. 12, 1999) As is my usual way, I spent the day of Halloween on a 24-hour binge of horror movies. I raced through the night and day on Junior Mints, Cherry Coke, and, as a special treat this year, a case of Pixie Sticks. My slasher faves unreeled first, just to get the mood going. I threw in a few Japanese rubber-monster features, with a repeat on Godzilla Vs. Megalon. All that was a mere warm-up for the main festival, though.
        See, this year, and for every year hence, I've a standing Halloween date with a few important friends. Universal Studios has finally seen fit to rerelease the classic Universal Monster Collection, a boxed set of their genre-defining horror greats of the '30s and '40s. And, folks, after watching these wonderful films, and adding one more of my own to the list, I've decided that I need the assistance of you, gentle readers. I need your help with something that's long overdue, a wrong that should be righted immediately.
        I sat there, friends, and watched, in awe, as Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Lon Chaney, Jr. performed their magic. I watched as Boris twitched that first finger as Frankenstein's creation, and literally brought life to a legend. I was mesmerized by the dagger-like glare of Bela, staring into the eyes of his victims, that haunting Rumanian accent personifying elegant evil. And, I sat in amazement as I watched Lon, Jr. literally become the Wolf Man right before my eyes. And, yes, friends, I became a fan again, for the thousandth time.
        After watching these movies, I went deep into my vault and dragged out my well-watched copies of all the Lon Chaney Sr. movies I've managed to get on tape over the years. To watch Lon Chaney Sr. act is not only a treat, it is lesson in dedication and perfection. Seeing him buried under harnesses and rubber and make-up, yet still swinging over the streets of Paris as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, well, it is staggering. Then, after that harshness of misshapen humanity, to watch his work in The Phantom of the Opera, seeing almost the opposite characterization, a face virtually stripped of flesh, left stark and skeletal, but still capable of knowing the same love and emotion as "normal" people. The roles are silent, of course, but both speak louder than the vast majority of "talkie" parts that exist on film.
        And, yet, these four men, the four who defined a century of horror for audiences around the world, never received any awards for their contributions. Or for their sacrifices.
        It should be no secret that Chaney, Sr. spent days if not weeks studying photos and interviewing people in order to design make-up for a role. And his make-up was not simple latex and greasepaint. It was wire loops to force the eyes to bulge. It was leather straps cinched to their limit to force the body into almost a complete right angle. It was chunks of hard rubber forced into the mouth and up into the cheeks to distort the mouth. It was self-inflicted pain for the sake of art. Then, under all these devices, he had to act, in an era that knew no sound with film. Face and body that distorted and mistreated, Chaney had to be able to portray all human emotions through his facial expressions and body language. In his favor was a fact few knew -- he had been a gifted pantomime all of his life, because his parents were deaf. In order to include them in the everyday world, he told them stories of his day by acting them out. This gift helped shape one of history's first great film actors.
        Karloff was no stranger to suffering for his art either. Hours of tedious make-up sessions (and its even more torturous removal) made Karloff into the Monster of Baron Frankenstein and The Mummy, two of the roles that defined the horror genre forever. Chaney, Jr. managed the transformation from man into Wolf Man by sitting for hours as hair was applied to his face a few at a time, then photographed, then moved back to the chair for more hair. This process is reported to have taken several hours, for what amounts to fifty seconds onscreen, but that transformation has influenced special effects artists for 50 years since. And, while Lugosi did not suffer in make-up or harnesses, his was another pain. By being so completely believable as the Count, he could never shake the role of Dracula. His career never evolved much beyond the black cape and wicked eyes. The humiliating stereotype sent him into other worlds of alcohol and drugs, and, eventually, death. He was buried in the cape he wore as Count Dracula.
        Folks, outside the usual fan conventions and things, these four men have never received their due. Awards and accolades were few and far between, especially from within the industry they helped shape. It's a well-known fact that the horror film, in particularly those made by Universal in the early '30s helped keep the movie industry afloat during the Great Depression. Gangsters and monsters were the norm then, not the exception. I find it thoroughly disgusting that the United States Postal Service thought enough of these four men to commission a series of postage stamps in their honor, yet the business they helped create has chosen to ignore them.
        But, Doc, I hear you saying to yourselves, what can we do to remedy this situation? Glad you asked....
        I say we bombard the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences with a demand that they consider the four giants of horror -- Lon Chaney, Sr., Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Lon Chaney, Jr. -- for Special Oscars®, lifetime achievement awards for their contribution to the art of motion pictures, for helping to define a genre, and for their influence on generations of moviemakers and movie fans.
        To make it easy, I've included an e-mail form below that will help you make your feelings known. Fill it out, add your own comments to make your note unique, put your name on it, and zap it to L.A. as soon as possible. Better yet, if you're so inclined, please take the time to compose and postal mail a letter to the Academy. (It's easy for some folks to ignore e-mail, but a stamped letter reeks of importance.) Here's their address:

Robert Rehme, President
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
8949 Wilshire Boulevard
Beverly Hills, CA 90111-1972

Or, if you're really feeling it, why not fax a note? The number is 310-859-9351. Send them letters, post cards, petitions, whatever you like!
I know, I know. This may seem like a lot of hassle that nobody's ever going to listen to, anyway. But think about this for a second: if, at any point in your life, you ever curled yourself into the sofa and got the tar scared out of you by some old horror movie on the "Friday Night Frights" or "Chiller Theatre", you owe it to these men to try. If you ever ran all the way home to see if the new issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Forrest J. Ackerman's legendary magazine, was in the mailbox, you owe it to these men. If you ever built any of those wonderful glow-in-the-dark Aurora horror models, you owe it to these men. And, simply put, if you're a movie fan, you owe it to these men. Karloff, Lugosi and the Chaneys, we owe you much more than an Award, but...it's a start.

Get "reel" soon!

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