21 thoughts on “John Carradine Movies”

1. February 19, 2020 at 1:11 pm

   Hi Bob, great posts! Thanks for the review, generous rating, info and trivia, always appreciated. Happy you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.

   One of the regulars on my video channel suggested Lon Chaney Jr for future consideration and here it is. I think I’ve covered all the horror greats on my video let’s see… Karloff, Lugosi, Price, Lorre, Carradine, Cushing, Lee and Chaney Sr was well represented in my Tod Browning video late last year.

   I remember reading John Wayne also got angry at Kirk Douglas for playing the constantly whining and disturbed Vincent Van Gogh in Lust for Life, one of his best roles. According to IMDB Wayne was horrified. “Christ, Kirk! How can you play a part like that? There’s so few of us left. We got to play strong, tough characters. Not those weak que*rs.” Douglas tried to explain, “It’s all make-believe, John. It isn’t real. You’re not really John Wayne, you know.” Wayne looked at him oddly, as if Douglas had betrayed him.

   Three films scored 10 out of 10 from Chaney’s filmography – The Defiant Ones, Of Mice and Men and High Noon.

   High Noon tops both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes charts.

   “My father would be horrified if he knew I was making it in the pictures and that I wasn’t billed as Creighton Chaney.”
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2. February 19, 2020 at 12:30 pm

   STILLS/LOBBY CARDS I think that again I’m just about to list all of them; and that’s OK because the quality was fairly even throughout with some of the “shockers” maybe having a very slight edge. Anyway here goes:

   1-3 Mummy’s Curse, Ghost and Tomb
   4/Big Vic back one million years ago
   5/I died a Thousand Times – remake of Bogie’s classic High Sierra
   6/Big house USA
   7/Son of Alucard
   8/House of Frankenstein
   9/Revenge of the Wolf Man
   10/Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein – A & C of course one of WH’s Greatest Duos!
   11/The Wolf Man
   12/The Defiant Ones – WH probably includes me in that group!
   13/Of Joels and Men
   14/Coop begging for Lon’s help – The Duke would have burnt that one!
   15/The closing “frightener” – takes pride of place in my view

   Ah the days of Larry Talbot, Kharis, Alucard and “Frankie” as we kids used to nickname the Monster, in our ignorance not realizing that Frankenstein was the creator and not the Monster himself! I think though that it suited the studios to let kids think that.
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3. February 19, 2020 at 12:28 pm

   MY PICK OF THE 20 BEST POSTER SETS IN LON JUNIOR’s VIDEO

   1/first one for Bride of the Gorilla
   2/Alligator people
   3/The Black Castle – on double bill over here with Ronald Shiner’s comedy Top of the Form
   4/The Black Sleep
   5/first one for Mummy’s Ghost
   6/Pillow of Death
   7/first one for Mature’s One Million years BC
   8/House of Alucard
   9/Man Made Monster
   10/Weird Woman – was that one lifted in error from the Nick Charles films?
   11/first one for The Ghost of Frankenstein
   12/Cowboy of the Century as Billy the Kid – classiest poster I’ve seen for that movie
   13/Springfield for Rifle
   14/first one for House of Frankenstein
   15/Haunted Palace
   16/My favorite Brunette – very saucy!
   17/The Wolf Man
   18/Of Joels and Men – first one, very sexy!
   19/first one for High Noon
   20/Union Pacific.

   Ironically, I had just finished watching a TV rerun of Union Pacific when it was suddenly announced on the news that Joel had died. That would have been 20 Oct 1990 – gosh; I remember that announcement vividly as if it were yesterday! I would have been younger than The Work Horse – wiser but not as conceited of course!
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4. February 19, 2020 at 12:25 pm

   However by the 1950s the old style horror films had run their course and although Lon Jr appeared subsequently in sporadic “shockers” he was obliged to act in a variety of supporting parts in other genres [like that in High Noon] to continue in movies. By the 1960s he was further reduced and had small roles in cheap westerns such as Young Fury, Black Spurs and Apache Uprising [all starring my Rory] and Town Tamer featuring Dana Andrews.

   Those westerns and a number of others like them were all produce by A C Lyles [a close friend of Cagney] and they were nicknamed “graveyard films” because Lyles made them on shoestring budgets and virtually every role in each of them was occupied by former stars of reasonable importance but had become over-the-hill ‘has-beens’ who could be bought cheaply. Johnny Mack Brown even turned up in one in the tiny role of a humiliated sheriff who was run out of town I pantomime fashion. by the bad guys.

   Thus are the mighty fallen; and I always thought that Lon Junior’s participation in films nicknamed “graveyard” ones was rather ironic given that all of the horror films he made in his heyday would have well suited being set in graveyards and many of them on the face of it probably were if I recollect properly. My pick of the posters/stills/lobby cards are listed in Parts 3 and 4; and your video entertained me to the tune of 98.5%. A good pre-holiday treat from my perspective.
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5. February 19, 2020 at 12:24 pm

   When one reads the following passages from the profile of Lon Chaney Senior in Wikipedia it will be understood how hard an act Lon Junior had to follow:

   Leonidas Frank “Lon” Chaney was an American stage and film actor, make-up artist, director and screenwriter. He is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of cinema, renowned for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and afflicted characters, and his groundbreaking artistry with makeup. His ability to transform himself using makeup techniques he personally developed earned him the nickname “The Man of a Thousand Faces”.
   \
   In the 1970s the BBC television company over here used to run late-might seasons of black and white old horror films at weekends featuring stars of the genre such as Karloff, Lugosi and Lon Junior. I loved them and they made my weekend at times. However today I remember Lon Jr most for the scene in High Noon in which he refuses to help Cooper fend off the bad guys.

   It was scenes like that in High Noon that earned Coop The Duke’s eternal contempt because in Wayne’s view Cooper and the makers of High Noon were “showing small-town America up as cowards,” and Big John stated publicly that instead of “sniveling, crawling to ordinary citizens and depending in the end on his wife [Princess Grace] to save him,” Gary should have “got out there and protected the people that as peace office he was duty bound to serve,” by demonstrating, that as the cliché goes “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” as the Duke himself had done many times.

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