# Let's Thank Universal Pictures for Monster Movies!

An episode of [Stuff You Should Know](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/278981407), 1 Oct 2026, 44 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/a91018a4-ea4f-4130-bf55-ae270180c327/3d494b3c-945d-46fd-aa4c-b4d300ee7cda/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=44710ecc-10bb-48d1-93c7-ae270180c33e

Basically everything you think of when you think of vampires, mummies, werewolves, and Frankenstein all come from a spate of films made in the 1930s, and every one of them by Universal Pictures. Amazingly, they are still among the best films ever made. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:12] Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
[0:15] Speaker 2: and Jerry Gould-Roland is here with us, too. And this
[0:19] Speaker 2: is Stuff You Should Know, kicking off the great month
[0:23] Speaker 2: of October.
[0:23] Speaker 1: That's right. One of our favorite months. I just watched
[0:28] Speaker 1: Backrooms last night. Didn't you tell me to see that?
[0:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, what did you think?
[0:32] Speaker 1: You know, I thought it was kind of cool while
[0:35] Speaker 1: I was watching it.
[0:36] Speaker 3: But it's one of those movies where after when I
[0:38] Speaker 3: thought about it, I really didn't like it very much.
[0:41] Speaker 2: What didn't you like about it?
[0:43] Speaker 3: It ended up like I liked it. I thought it
[0:45] Speaker 3: was cool looking and like had a lot of cool stuff.
[0:47] Speaker 3: But afterward, I was like, it felt like just some
[0:52] Speaker 3: kid had a bunch of cool ideas that didn't end
[0:54] Speaker 3: up making a movie. And then when I read the
[0:56] Speaker 3: background of the movie, I was like, oh, that's kind
[0:58] Speaker 3: of exactly what it was.
[1:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess I didn't take it like that at all.
[1:04] Speaker 2: I just enjoyed it on its face. I wasn't aware
[1:07] Speaker 2: of like the mythology behind it and everything like that,
[1:10] Speaker 2: which apparently it built on pretty well.
[1:14] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:15] Speaker 2: But yeah, I just liked it as it was, I think.
[1:18] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:19] Speaker 3: I think it felt like he was like, it'd be
[1:20] Speaker 3: cool if I did this and this would be cool
[1:22] Speaker 3: and this would be cool.
[1:23] Speaker 1: And if I introduced this agency, that'd be cool. And
[1:25] Speaker 1: then like none of that went anywhere.
[1:27] Speaker 3: And so I was kind of like, wait a minute,
[1:29] Speaker 3: you can't just throw a bunch of cool things in
[1:30] Speaker 3: a movie and have it be a movie kid.
[1:32] Speaker 2: I don't, I disagree that that's what he did.
[1:35] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:35] Speaker 3: I mean, a lot of people liked it. So I'm, I'm, well,
[1:37] Speaker 3: I don't know about the minority because a lot of
[1:39] Speaker 3: people felt like I did too. So I think it's
[1:40] Speaker 3: devices what they say.
[1:42] Speaker 2: That's crazy. It's such a neat movie. Everybody just needs
[1:44] Speaker 2: to relax and enjoy a neat movie.
[1:47] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:47] Speaker 1: Just like everything you like.
[1:48] Speaker 2: Exactly. It drives me bananas. Yeah. So we are talking
[1:55] Speaker 2: about movies in particular, which I guess is why you
[1:57] Speaker 2: brought up Back Rooms.
[1:58] Speaker 1: That's right.
[1:59] Speaker 2: I got a couple of movies to shout out now
[2:01] Speaker 2: that I think about it. Have you seen Undertone? It's
[2:04] Speaker 2: a horror movie about a podcaster. So it's really like
[2:07] Speaker 2: right up your alley. I finally saw Martyrs, which is
[2:11] Speaker 2: an amazing movie that, yeah, that's a really amazing movie.
[2:17] Speaker 2: And then I also saw The Devil's Bath. Okay. I
[2:21] Speaker 2: would not necessarily recommend that to everybody. It's a very
[2:25] Speaker 2: dark movie and it's in German and it's subtitled and
[2:28] Speaker 2: it's set in the middle of the 18th century in
[2:32] Speaker 2: rural Germany.
[2:33] Speaker 1: Tough watch?
[2:34] Speaker 2: Not in the way that you would think. It's more
[2:36] Speaker 2: just like some of the gut punches that come through
[2:39] Speaker 2: are really hard gut punches. But if you're into like
[2:41] Speaker 2: really disturbing, dark, psychological horror, I would recommend it.
[2:47] Speaker 1: All right.
[2:48] Speaker 3: Okay.
[2:48] Speaker 1: Okay. That sounds great. You want to talk about the uni-monsters?
[2:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking about the universal monsters, and we should
[2:56] Speaker 2: probably talk about horror films in general, because a lot
[2:58] Speaker 2: of people point to the universal monster movies starting in
[3:02] Speaker 2: the 1930s as essentially kicking off at least monster movies,
[3:06] Speaker 2: if not the horror genre itself. And there were other
[3:10] Speaker 2: horror movies that came first, but it wasn't until the 20s,
[3:15] Speaker 2: pre-universal admittedly, that people started like, trying to scare audiences,
[3:21] Speaker 2: hence the beginning of horror movies.
[3:24] Speaker 1: Yeah. Specifically, the cabinet of Dr.
[3:27] Speaker 3: Caligari and Nosferatu in the early 1920s kind of got
[3:30] Speaker 3: that going. But like you said, it was really the
[3:33] Speaker 3: 1930s when we got Draculas and Frankensteins and mummies and
[3:37] Speaker 3: wolf men and stuff like that, that things really kicked off.
[3:41] Speaker 3: And we have a family to thank for that. If
[3:44] Speaker 3: you I don't know if these theaters are still there.
[3:46] Speaker 3: I really hope they are. I'm sure they're still there.
[3:48] Speaker 3: I don't know if they have been taken over by
[3:50] Speaker 3: a different name. But the Lamley theaters in Los Angeles
[3:54] Speaker 3: were always these great sort of usually independently minded or,
[3:58] Speaker 3: you know, showing maybe not the first run big hits
[4:02] Speaker 3: of the day. And there were a few Lamley theaters
[4:04] Speaker 3: and they come from the Lamley family, which is where
[4:08] Speaker 3: Universal Studios comes from. A German immigrant in 1906 named
[4:12] Speaker 3: Carl Lamley. opened a Nickelodeon in Chicago, and a few
[4:16] Speaker 3: years later opened up the Independent Motion Picture Company, and
[4:19] Speaker 3: then merged with a few other companies to create Universal
[4:22] Speaker 3: Pictures in 1912.
[4:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, and then 1915, they opened a 230-acre studio in
[4:29] Speaker 2: Los Angeles. So in nine years, that guy went from
[4:33] Speaker 2: opening a Nickelodeon to starting a major motion picture company.
[4:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, not major yet because the majors were the
[4:41] Speaker 3: big five at the time. Paramount, Fox, Warner Brothers, RKO
[4:44] Speaker 3: and Lowe's. It's crazy to think about Universal and Columbia
[4:48] Speaker 3: being and United Artists being the upstarts. But that's what
[4:52] Speaker 3: they were in the early 1900s film business.
[4:55] Speaker 2: So, yeah, it was it was actually Lemley's son who
[5:00] Speaker 2: really put Universal on the map, as we'll see. But
[5:04] Speaker 2: Lemley Sr. had a part to play in that. He
[5:07] Speaker 2: ended up. basically starting the star system in the movie
[5:12] Speaker 2: industry by taking one actress, Florence Lawrence. Good Lord, the
[5:17] Speaker 2: Lemley family and Florence Lawrence together at last. And he
[5:23] Speaker 2: started a publicity campaign that focused on her. And this
[5:26] Speaker 2: was new because up to that point, it was like actor, actor,
[5:30] Speaker 2: I don't care who you are. I'm here for the story.
[5:33] Speaker 2: He made Florence Lawrence like the point to go see
[5:37] Speaker 2: a movie. And he did it in fairly dastardly, amusing fashion.
[5:42] Speaker 3: Yeah, he created a fake story about her dying in
[5:46] Speaker 3: a car crash and then blamed her former employer, Biograph,
[5:50] Speaker 3: for creating that fake story to begin with because they
[5:53] Speaker 3: were mad that they lost her to Universal. So this
[5:56] Speaker 3: created a lot of publicity buzz and, you know, kind
[5:59] Speaker 3: of helped create that star system.
[6:01] Speaker 2: Sure. And it's just such a great indicator of like
[6:05] Speaker 2: how kind of rogue do yourself underground the early days
[6:10] Speaker 2: of film were yeah especially when you compare it to
[6:14] Speaker 2: how the whole industry is today it's neat to just
[6:17] Speaker 2: think of it as created by initially by artists who
[6:20] Speaker 2: were dedicated to their art and were coming up with
[6:23] Speaker 2: neat innovative things to do is really well portrayed in
[6:26] Speaker 2: the shadow of the vampire with john malkovich where they're
[6:30] Speaker 2: making nosferatu Yeah, there are.
[6:32] Speaker 3: Quite a few movies about this era because I think
[6:36] Speaker 3: it's just so fascinating.
[6:37] Speaker 2: Yeah. But moving on, getting back to the monster stuff,
[6:41] Speaker 2: Universal had already done a couple of monster pictures that are,
[6:45] Speaker 2: depending on who you ask, part of the Universal monster canon.
[6:49] Speaker 2: The first one is pretty highly debatable. Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
[6:54] Speaker 2: Hyde came out in 1913. It was the first universal
[6:57] Speaker 2: monster movie of any kind. But it was 26 minutes long.
[7:01] Speaker 2: So a lot of people are like, that's not feature length.
[7:03] Speaker 2: I don't know if we can count that.
[7:05] Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
[7:06] Speaker 3: 1920s, you got The Hunchback of Notre Dame and then
[7:10] Speaker 3: The Phantom of the Opera two years later in 1925.
[7:14] Speaker 3: These are noteworthy because Lon Chaney Sr., the man of
[7:17] Speaker 3: a thousand faces starred in these and the Chaney family
[7:20] Speaker 3: would figure heavily in his son's life for the Universal
[7:25] Speaker 3: Monster series.
[7:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, Lon Chaney Sr. is a really interesting guy in
[7:29] Speaker 2: and of himself. He was in 157 or 150 films
[7:34] Speaker 2: from the 20s to the 30s. And he did his
[7:36] Speaker 2: own makeup, right? He was known as the man of
[7:38] Speaker 2: a thousand faces. And he was such an expert on
[7:40] Speaker 2: makeup that he wrote the Encyclopedia Britannica entry for makeup.
[7:46] Speaker 2: And there was a joke from the 20s. It was,
[7:49] Speaker 2: don't step on that spider. It might be Lon Chaney.
[7:51] Speaker 2: That's how good he was considered in getting into weird
[7:55] Speaker 2: different characters.
[7:57] Speaker 1: That's pretty fun.
[7:58] Speaker 2: I thought so too.
[7:58] Speaker 3: All right, so the studio is putting out spooky movies
[8:03] Speaker 3: at this point. They're in haunted mansions sometimes. They're in
[8:07] Speaker 3: strange places. This is between like 25 and 30 when
[8:10] Speaker 3: the talkies are happening. And then in 1931 when Carl
[8:14] Speaker 3: Lamley Jr., I think he's taken over a couple of
[8:18] Speaker 3: years by this point. He started as head of production
[8:20] Speaker 3: in 1928 at just 21 years old and then won
[8:24] Speaker 3: an Oscar for All Quiet on the Western Front. Um,
[8:27] Speaker 3: even though they were like, this is a Nepo baby kid, uh, he,
[8:31] Speaker 3: he really was putting out some pretty good movies. And
[8:33] Speaker 3: as far as the monsters cannon goes, hit it out
[8:37] Speaker 3: of the park, out of the gate with Dracula.
[8:39] Speaker 2: Yeah. From 1931, which turned out to be a really
[8:42] Speaker 2: big year for monster movies. Um, it kicked off with
[8:45] Speaker 2: Dracula and Valentine's day, 1931, and it was marketed as
[8:50] Speaker 2: a romance, which it is. It's a tragic romance in
[8:52] Speaker 2: a lot of ways. And Nosferatu, the actual 1920s film
[8:57] Speaker 2: starring Max Schreck, was not authorized by Bram Stoker's estate.
[9:04] Speaker 2: So it wasn't based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. It was
[9:08] Speaker 2: Nosferatu instead. This was based on Bram Stoker's version, but
[9:12] Speaker 2: they adapted it from a stage play. And they hired
[9:16] Speaker 2: a director named Todd Browning, who made what I think
[9:19] Speaker 2: is one of the great revenge movies of all time, Freaks,
[9:22] Speaker 2: in 1932. But this was the year before he was
[9:26] Speaker 2: directing Dracula.
[9:28] Speaker 1: That's right.
[9:29] Speaker 3: We didn't do a whole episode on Freaks, but we
[9:31] Speaker 3: mentioned it, I guess, in our– we did an episode
[9:34] Speaker 3: about that.
[9:35] Speaker 2: About Freak Shows.
[9:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, Freak Shows. I didn't know how to say it
[9:39] Speaker 1: in 2026.
[9:40] Speaker 2: I think that's still how they say it.
[9:42] Speaker 1: Okay.
[9:43] Speaker 3: So Todd 1D Browning is a big shot director at
[9:46] Speaker 3: this point. He's making spooky movies. He's working with Lon
[9:51] Speaker 3: Chaney Sr., It probably would have been Lon Chaney Sr.
[9:55] Speaker 3: as Dracula, but he died in 1930 of bronchial cancer.
[9:59] Speaker 3: So he looked around and he said, who can I
[10:02] Speaker 3: pick to be Dracula?
[10:03] Speaker 1: Who, who, who?
[10:05] Speaker 3: And this scary looking Hungarian said, why don't you pick me?
[10:10] Speaker 2: Yeah. So Bela Lugosi, every single Dracula idea or impression
[10:15] Speaker 2: like you just did That all comes from Bela Lugosi's
[10:20] Speaker 2: 1931 performance. And the reason they picked him is, remember,
[10:22] Speaker 2: this was adapted from the stage adaptation. And Bela Lugosi
[10:27] Speaker 2: had already made a name for himself starring in the
[10:30] Speaker 2: stage adaptation on Broadway. They were like, we think you
[10:33] Speaker 2: got the chops for this. And it was a very
[10:35] Speaker 2: good casting decision because I watched it last night for
[10:39] Speaker 2: the first time. And he does an astounding job.
[10:42] Speaker 1: It's great. And by chops, you mean literal fangs.
[10:45] Speaker 2: That's right.
[10:47] Speaker 3: So what did you think of it, watching it today?
[10:51] Speaker 1: Do you ever watch old, old movies like that?
[10:53] Speaker 2: Sometimes. So last night, for work, which is pretty awesome,
[10:59] Speaker 2: I watched Dracula. I watched The Bride of Frankenstein. And
[11:02] Speaker 2: I watched The Invisible Man. All three for the first time.
[11:05] Speaker 1: The Invisible Man is good.
[11:07] Speaker 2: Yes. So was The Bride of Frankenstein. I think it
[11:09] Speaker 2: was the best of the bunch.
[11:11] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[11:13] Speaker 2: It made me more open to watching movies. old films
[11:16] Speaker 2: as well. Yeah. They were amazingly done, like the lighting,
[11:21] Speaker 2: the direction, the shots, like all this stuff, but also
[11:24] Speaker 2: the storytelling. It was really, it sucks you in. And
[11:27] Speaker 2: if you look at the runtimes of these things, they're
[11:30] Speaker 2: just barely over an hour.
[11:31] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[11:32] Speaker 2: And they're still getting everything across in beautiful fashion. So, yeah,
[11:38] Speaker 2: there's a couple of movies that came up in this
[11:40] Speaker 2: research that I want to go watch now. Yeah.
[11:42] Speaker 3: I mean, if you watch movies from the 30s, that
[11:44] Speaker 3: black and white, if you have like a good TV,
[11:45] Speaker 3: it still looks incredible. It's not like this old grainy,
[11:48] Speaker 3: like weird looking thing. Like it is sharp and it
[11:52] Speaker 3: looks amazing. Yeah.
[11:53] Speaker 2: But you want to put your motion smoothing on your
[11:57] Speaker 2: TV to make sure you can enjoy it to its
[12:01] Speaker 2: maximum potential. Yeah.
[12:02] Speaker 1: All right, so Lugosi is doing his thing.
[12:06] Speaker 3: In the 1930s when the talkies were starting to become
[12:08] Speaker 3: really popular and they didn't have other film industries yet,
[12:12] Speaker 3: it was kind of like Hollywood was the thing. They
[12:15] Speaker 3: would oftentimes shoot the same movie in a different language,
[12:19] Speaker 3: sometimes multiple languages.
[12:20] Speaker 1: And that was the case with Dracula.
[12:22] Speaker 3: Like when they were shooting Dracula on the uni lot
[12:24] Speaker 3: during the day, they were– by the way, I keep
[12:27] Speaker 3: saying that.
[12:27] Speaker 1: It's obnoxious.
[12:28] Speaker 3: That's what– when I worked out there, that's what everyone
[12:31] Speaker 3: called it. who worked in the film business, so I'm
[12:34] Speaker 3: not trying to be like, that was an insider, but
[12:37] Speaker 3: it's just ingrained in me.
[12:39] Speaker 2: It hasn't come across as obnoxious at all.
[12:41] Speaker 1: Okay, good. So the uni lot, everybody.
[12:46] Speaker 3: They were shooting Dracula during the day, and then at
[12:48] Speaker 3: night they had a completely separate crew and cast and
[12:51] Speaker 3: director and everything shooting a Spanish version of Dracula. Its director,
[12:56] Speaker 3: George Melford, was American, so didn't speak Spanish, had a translator,
[13:00] Speaker 3: and a lot of people are like, This version's better, actually,
[13:03] Speaker 3: because they saw what was going on during the day
[13:05] Speaker 3: and improved on it at night.
[13:07] Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, I think it has a longer runtime, too,
[13:11] Speaker 2: because when they re-released Dracula a few years after its premiere,
[13:17] Speaker 2: the Hays Code existed now, which was censorship, so they
[13:20] Speaker 2: had to cut it down even further. And the Spanish
[13:22] Speaker 2: version didn't have to undergo that same thing. So I've
[13:25] Speaker 2: not seen that one, but I can imagine it's pretty good.
[13:28] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd like to check it out. All right, so
[13:31] Speaker 3: Dracula was a big hit. I promised we were going
[13:34] Speaker 3: to introduce you to a little guy named Frank.
[13:36] Speaker 1: I lied. It's actually a big guy named Frank. Frankenstein.
[13:40] Speaker 3: This was released Thanksgiving 1931, directed by the great James Whale.
[13:45] Speaker 3: He was a Brit. I mentioned other movies made about
[13:48] Speaker 3: this era. There's a great, great film called Gods and
[13:51] Speaker 3: Monsters about the final days of James Whale that I
[13:55] Speaker 3: highly recommend.
[13:56] Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't know that was about him.
[13:58] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[13:59] Speaker 2: I noticed there's a huge difference, you can tell, between
[14:01] Speaker 2: Todd Browning's Dracula, the way that's directed, and the way
[14:05] Speaker 2: that The Bride of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man, which
[14:07] Speaker 2: James Whale did both of those, are directed. And I'm much— like,
[14:12] Speaker 2: I love freaks, but I'm now a big James Whale fan.
[14:14] Speaker 2: He was amazing.
[14:15] Speaker 1: Oh, nice. You should check out Gods and Monsters.
[14:17] Speaker 2: I will.
[14:17] Speaker 1: Good money.
[14:17] Speaker 2: I will.
[14:19] Speaker 3: So Frankenstein adapted also from a stage play. And, you know,
[14:24] Speaker 3: like you said, he had a lot of flair as
[14:25] Speaker 3: a director, right? I think he was influenced by like
[14:29] Speaker 3: German cinema at the time, which, you know, the time
[14:33] Speaker 3: was probably a little more interesting than what was going
[14:35] Speaker 3: on in Hollywood.
[14:36] Speaker 1: So lots of like really cool stuff.
[14:38] Speaker 3: And especially in The Invisible Man, which we'll talk about,
[14:41] Speaker 3: like that invisible, like for the 1930s, the little trick
[14:48] Speaker 3: he did to make him seem invisible, like still holds
[14:50] Speaker 3: up pretty well, I think.
[14:52] Speaker 2: I agree. I was very impressed by it. There's only
[14:54] Speaker 2: a couple of times where you're like, the thing he's
[14:56] Speaker 2: holding looks a little invisible too. But for the most part,
[14:59] Speaker 2: it was, I imagine it just knocked everybody's socks off
[15:02] Speaker 2: back then if it still holds up today. Yeah. But
[15:05] Speaker 2: that was a, it was a really cool, interesting movie.
[15:08] Speaker 2: And it did kind of go to show just what
[15:13] Speaker 2: this studio was capable of now and the kind of
[15:15] Speaker 2: things they were doing. And this is all pretty quick, right?
[15:19] Speaker 2: I think The Invisible Man just came out two years
[15:22] Speaker 2: after their first movie, Dracula. So they were gaining by
[15:26] Speaker 2: leaps and bounds very quickly.
[15:28] Speaker 3: Yeah, and establishing sort of the tropes or the standby
[15:32] Speaker 3: stuff that these movies would be known for forevermore, like
[15:36] Speaker 3: a mad scientist lab, a hunchback assistant.
[15:39] Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. It was Fritz in the first one.
[15:42] Speaker 3: Igor came along a little bit later, I think in
[15:44] Speaker 3: 1939 with Son of Frankenstein. But this Frankenstein played by
[15:51] Speaker 3: Boris Karloff was only grunted.
[15:53] Speaker 1: It wasn't like the book version, Mary Shelley's version.
[15:56] Speaker 2: Yes. Until they made The Bride of Frankenstein. Have you
[16:01] Speaker 2: seen that one? Oh, yeah.
[16:02] Speaker 1: Okay. Okay.
[16:03] Speaker 2: In this one, the monster learns to talk. And Boris Karloff,
[16:07] Speaker 2: who played Frankenstein and made his career, started his career
[16:11] Speaker 2: by playing Frankenstein, he was like, I don't think we
[16:14] Speaker 2: should have let the monster learn to talk. Because he's
[16:17] Speaker 2: like friend good to start and ends up like telling Dr. Frankenstein,
[16:24] Speaker 2: like you can sleep after you're done working by the
[16:27] Speaker 2: end of the movie. They also teach him to smoke
[16:30] Speaker 2: and drink.
[16:31] Speaker 1: Which is kind of.
[16:32] Speaker 2: Funny to see. And I saw that it's basically described
[16:38] Speaker 2: by a lot of people as campy, like James Whale
[16:41] Speaker 2: intentionally made The Bride of Frankenstein a little sillier than
[16:46] Speaker 2: the original Frankenstein was, and that it kind of comes across.
[16:50] Speaker 2: And that also Dr. Pretorius, who's the He's even more
[16:54] Speaker 2: mad than Dr. Frankenstein. He's the real bad guy of
[16:58] Speaker 2: this movie, Bride of Frankenstein, that he's a clearly gay
[17:03] Speaker 2: or queer character, I guess, is how film buffs put
[17:07] Speaker 2: it today. Yeah.
[17:08] Speaker 3: Well, James Whale was gay. So the gay community in
[17:11] Speaker 3: camp maybe have always gone hand in hand.
[17:16] Speaker 2: You know?
[17:17] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[17:18] Speaker 1: Have you seen The Bride, the latest Maggie Gyllenhaal's film?
[17:22] Speaker 2: I have, but without sound. I watched it over someone's
[17:26] Speaker 2: shoulder on an airplane. And it looks pretty good.
[17:30] Speaker 1: So you really saw it, huh?
[17:31] Speaker 2: It looks good. You know what's funny, though? I noticed
[17:35] Speaker 2: there's a conversation between Dr. Pretorius and Frankenstein's monster in
[17:41] Speaker 2: a crypt. And they're talking basically about how You know,
[17:46] Speaker 2: the dead are good. The living are bad. And I
[17:50] Speaker 2: think that's kind of like the premise of The Bride,
[17:53] Speaker 2: isn't it?
[17:55] Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I didn't think it was that great.
[17:57] Speaker 1: I like it was a big swing.
[17:58] Speaker 3: And I like I love that she made this movie
[18:00] Speaker 3: and that the studio put money behind her to make
[18:03] Speaker 3: this kind of weird movie. Sure.
[18:05] Speaker 1: But a lot of this stuff didn't work for me, unfortunately,
[18:08] Speaker 1: is my review.
[18:09] Speaker 2: Hey, we've always got Secretary.
[18:11] Speaker 1: I love that movie.
[18:14] Speaker 2: Man, that's a good movie. All right.
[18:16] Speaker 3: Well, speaking of movies, let's talk about a few more
[18:19] Speaker 3: of these monster movies because they start churning these things
[18:22] Speaker 3: out in the 1930s because they realized they had an
[18:24] Speaker 3: audience that was rabid for this spooky stuff. And so
[18:28] Speaker 3: the first mummy movie came about in 1932. Keep in mind,
[18:32] Speaker 3: this is just about 10 years later after King Tutankhamen's
[18:35] Speaker 3: tomb had been opened. So, you know, we've talked before
[18:39] Speaker 3: about Egypt fever striking the United States, and that was
[18:43] Speaker 3: why they released the mummy. But this was not yet
[18:46] Speaker 3: The bandage-wrapped mummy monster at this point.
[18:49] Speaker 1: That would come later.
[18:50] Speaker 2: No, he was a very smart, very evil Egyptian high
[18:54] Speaker 2: priest that was reborn, reanimated, I guess, into modern times,
[19:00] Speaker 2: wearing a fez.
[19:02] Speaker 1: That's right. Boris Karloff again in this case.
[19:04] Speaker 2: Yes. And it's hard to understate how big a star
[19:09] Speaker 2: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and some of the supporting actors
[19:13] Speaker 2: became from these movies, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And they
[19:16] Speaker 2: were also, they were knocking them out. And some of
[19:18] Speaker 2: them you can definitely tell this thing was shot in
[19:20] Speaker 2: two weeks. Others, it's amazing what they were able to
[19:24] Speaker 2: do over very short periods of time and at first
[19:28] Speaker 2: fairly limited budgets. But these movies like were really coming
[19:32] Speaker 2: on strong. I think Frankenstein ended up being the top
[19:35] Speaker 2: grossing movie of 1931, not only beating out Dracula, but
[19:39] Speaker 2: beating out Charlie Chaplin's City Lights too. So people had
[19:42] Speaker 2: an appetite for this like right out of the gate.
[19:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
[19:47] Speaker 3: There was one in 1932, a Poe, and we'll see,
[19:50] Speaker 3: Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. Murders of the Rue Morgue with
[19:53] Speaker 3: Bela Lugosi.
[19:54] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[19:55] Speaker 3: Again, in 1932, there was White Zombie, which is where
[19:58] Speaker 3: obviously where the Rob Zombie got his band name from.
[20:02] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[20:03] Speaker 3: Not an official Universal movie, but it was an independent
[20:06] Speaker 3: shot on the Universal Stages. And it did have Bela Lugosi,
[20:09] Speaker 3: so it's worth mentioning.
[20:12] Speaker 2: Yes, and it also gave us a lot of the
[20:13] Speaker 2: tropes about essentially like a person who has been resurrected
[20:18] Speaker 2: from the dead and is now under the spell of
[20:21] Speaker 2: a magician of some sort who uses them to carry
[20:24] Speaker 2: out evil deeds. Not brain-eating, not walking, shambling around collectively,
[20:29] Speaker 2: or even more terrifying, running at top speed at you.
[20:33] Speaker 2: But the funny thing is it was based on a
[20:35] Speaker 2: book called The Magic Island. By W.B. Seabrook, which is
[20:39] Speaker 2: a nonfiction travel log. So I guess I don't know
[20:42] Speaker 2: if those were presented as fact or what, but that's
[20:45] Speaker 2: what the movie was based on. Yeah.
[20:47] Speaker 3: So you're Invisible Man that you saw and loved and
[20:50] Speaker 3: that I loved, 1933, based on the H.G.
[20:54] Speaker 1: Wells novel.
[20:55] Speaker 3: You had another Poe adaptation in The Black Cat in 1934.
[20:59] Speaker 3: And this one is notable because it was the first
[21:02] Speaker 3: time they were like, hey, we got these stars. Why
[21:03] Speaker 3: don't we put them together in the same movie? Yeah.
[21:05] Speaker 3: And see what happens. See if we get some Chris Tucker,
[21:08] Speaker 3: Jackie Chan magic. And they put Bela Lugosi and Boris
[21:12] Speaker 3: Karloff together in this film for the very first time.
[21:15] Speaker 2: Yeah. I have not seen it. I was reading about it.
[21:19] Speaker 2: And it sounds pretty amazing. I saw somebody describe it
[21:22] Speaker 2: as one of the progenitors of psychological horror.
[21:26] Speaker 3: Okay.
[21:27] Speaker 2: Okay. Have you seen it?
[21:28] Speaker 1: I have not.
[21:29] Speaker 2: Okay. We'll watch it together then.
[21:32] Speaker 3: That Bride of Frankenstein you mentioned, the first one was
[21:34] Speaker 3: in 1935. And then along with that Mummy movie, The
[21:39] Speaker 3: Werewolf in London came about in 1935, even though the
[21:45] Speaker 3: werewolf thing didn't really get its legs until Lon Chaney Jr.
[21:50] Speaker 3: starred as the Wolfman in 1941. That's where it really
[21:52] Speaker 3: took off.
[21:53] Speaker 2: Its legs covered only in ripped short pants.
[21:57] Speaker 1: And hair.
[21:58] Speaker 2: And yeah, Lon Chaney Jr., again, another Nepo baby, but
[22:03] Speaker 2: really made a name for himself, portraying the Wolfman and
[22:05] Speaker 2: some other scary people. And just like, you know, Boris
[22:09] Speaker 2: Karloff and Bela Lugosi, as they would kind of go
[22:12] Speaker 2: on and become part of pop culture, they would just
[22:14] Speaker 2: be tapped for like guest appearances or to play like
[22:17] Speaker 2: a spooky, scary character or something like that. I would
[22:21] Speaker 2: direct you no further than the Riff Treks, Hillbillies in
[22:26] Speaker 2: a Haunted House series. Episode where Lon Chaney Jr. plays
[22:30] Speaker 2: a big, scary guy along with John Carradine and I
[22:33] Speaker 2: think Basil Rathbone. Oh, man.
[22:36] Speaker 1: Oh, Basil Rathbone's great.
[22:37] Speaker 3: Yeah. So Lamley Jr. is running the studio, but not
[22:41] Speaker 3: for too long. He was pretty loose with the pocketbook. He,
[22:46] Speaker 3: you know, not in a huge way, but enough to
[22:48] Speaker 3: put them in financial peril, at least. But they say
[22:51] Speaker 3: that he might have raised the typical mid-level film budget
[22:55] Speaker 3: a From $ 200, 000 to $ 260, 000, which is like $ 4. 7 million
[22:59] Speaker 3: to $ 6. 1 million today, but it's sort of apples to
[23:02] Speaker 3: oranges as far as movie budgets are concerned.
[23:04] Speaker 1: It's not like exactly one-to-one.
[23:08] Speaker 3: But his big mistake was he made a really good
[23:11] Speaker 3: movie from Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Show Boat. also directed
[23:15] Speaker 3: by James Whale. It costs about 1.3 mil. And it
[23:19] Speaker 3: did well. It was a critical hit and a financial hit,
[23:22] Speaker 3: but they just spent too much money and they were
[23:24] Speaker 3: in arrears and in trouble.
[23:27] Speaker 2: And on top of that, Lamley Sr. had put the
[23:29] Speaker 2: studio up as collateral for a loan, almost like remind
[23:34] Speaker 2: you like of a, of some tycoon putting his studio
[23:38] Speaker 2: up in a poker game or something like that.
[23:40] Speaker 1: Right, yeah.
[23:41] Speaker 2: This is a little more legit than that. There was
[23:42] Speaker 2: a company called Standard Capital. Under the terms of the loan,
[23:47] Speaker 2: if the loan was not repaid in a timely manner,
[23:49] Speaker 2: they were able to buy Universal Studios for $ 5. 5 million,
[23:55] Speaker 2: Universal Pictures.
[23:56] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[23:57] Speaker 2: Lamley missed some payments. The loan was called in. And
[24:01] Speaker 2: Standard Capital bought the studio out from under the Lamley family.
[24:06] Speaker 2: And I guess Lamley Jr. took the blame because he
[24:09] Speaker 2: had potentially put the studio in these dire straits by
[24:13] Speaker 2: raising production costs. And he said, OK, it's me. I'll resign.
[24:19] Speaker 2: But Universal kept putting monster movies out, even without the
[24:22] Speaker 2: family that really kickstarted them.
[24:25] Speaker 1: That's right. I want to look up. I don't know
[24:27] Speaker 1: when they started the theater, their theater stuff.
[24:30] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[24:31] Speaker 1: Look that up. Should we take a break and go look?
[24:34] Speaker 2: Yes.
[24:34] Speaker 1: All right. We'll take a break regardless. But I was
[24:36] Speaker 1: just teasing. I'm not going to go look right now.
[25:05] Speaker 2: Okay, so we're back. And Chuck still will not tell
[25:09] Speaker 2: me when the Lemleys opened their theater. He claims to
[25:13] Speaker 2: not know, but I think he knows as a matter
[25:15] Speaker 2: of fact. But speaking of theaters, this wasn't a Lemley theater.
[25:18] Speaker 2: This was the Regina Wiltshire Theater. Is that how you
[25:21] Speaker 2: say it, L.A. boy?
[25:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, Wiltshire maybe.
[25:27] Speaker 2: That's right. Like in the British way.
[25:30] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[25:31] Speaker 2: In 1938, so this is still in the midst of
[25:33] Speaker 2: monster movie fever. The Regina Wiltshire Theater was like, hey,
[25:38] Speaker 2: let's just start showing some of these smash hit monster
[25:41] Speaker 2: movies again. And they did. And they were smash hits
[25:44] Speaker 2: all over again. So the studios were like, we should
[25:48] Speaker 2: just keep making monster pictures.
[25:50] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[25:51] Speaker 3: And they were successful because people loved them, but also
[25:54] Speaker 3: because they were like, hey, Bella, how'd you like to
[25:57] Speaker 3: come to some of these screenings and appear?
[25:59] Speaker 1: And he said, what is the pay?
[26:02] Speaker 3: And I guess they paid him enough to support his
[26:05] Speaker 3: very sad drug habit.
[26:07] Speaker 1: And he came out and they were smash hits.
[26:10] Speaker 3: The Hollywood executives saw the writing on the wall and
[26:13] Speaker 3: they were like, hey, these things like they have legs. Maybe,
[26:16] Speaker 3: you know, it's not over for this franchise, these multiple franchises.
[26:21] Speaker 3: So they started cranking these things out again, like new movies.
[26:24] Speaker 3: And Bela Lugosi got more work again, thankfully. And he
[26:26] Speaker 3: was in five movies in 1939 again. including Son of
[26:30] Speaker 3: Frankenstein opposite Karloff. And then this kind of fed the.
[26:35] Speaker 1: 1940s, right?
[26:37] Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the things that really characterized the 1940s
[26:40] Speaker 2: is what Universal called monster rallies. Not monster truck rallies,
[26:46] Speaker 2: just monster rallies, right?
[26:47] Speaker 1: Yeah, that was not lost on me.
[26:49] Speaker 2: And that was when there were crossovers between some of
[26:52] Speaker 2: their Universal monsters. So I think the first one was
[26:55] Speaker 2: Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. That was 1943. 1944 was House
[27:01] Speaker 2: of Frankenstein, and that had not only Frankenstein and the Wolfman,
[27:04] Speaker 2: but also Dracula, the Hunchback, and the Mad Scientist all together.
[27:10] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[27:11] Speaker 3: So Abbott and Costello say, hold my beer, because in 1948,
[27:16] Speaker 3: they did a comedy mashup, Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein.
[27:19] Speaker 3: And what it should have been called was Abbott and
[27:21] Speaker 3: Costello meet Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, and the Invisible Man,
[27:25] Speaker 3: because that all happened in that movie. And I think
[27:29] Speaker 3: they sort of had a little string of those sort
[27:32] Speaker 3: of comedy horror crossovers with those two guys.
[27:35] Speaker 2: Exactly. The plot of that movie, I looked it up.
[27:38] Speaker 2: The Wolfman warns Abbott that Dracula wants to use his
[27:42] Speaker 2: brain to make a new monster.
[27:45] Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it writes itself.
[27:48] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[27:49] Speaker 1: Exactly.
[27:51] Speaker 2: It's hard to keep something like this up, especially when
[27:54] Speaker 2: your monsters start appearing with comedy legends in their comedy movies. Like,
[27:59] Speaker 2: that's a pretty clear sign that, like, the thing is
[28:01] Speaker 2: going off the tracks. Jump the shark, as Fonzie would
[28:04] Speaker 2: later do, right?
[28:05] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[28:07] Speaker 2: And Bela Lugosi, again, started to hit on hard times.
[28:11] Speaker 2: He very, very famously, his last movie was Plan 9
[28:15] Speaker 2: from Outer Space, and he died during filming, which was
[28:18] Speaker 2: directed by Edward Jr. And I can't imagine him at
[28:22] Speaker 2: that age as anything but Martin Landau now because that
[28:26] Speaker 2: movie ruined me. Pull the string. Exactly. But a cool
[28:31] Speaker 2: little fact about Bela Lugosi was buried in his black
[28:34] Speaker 2: cape that he wore in Dracula.
[28:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
[28:38] Speaker 3: And by the way, folks, if you haven't seen Ed
[28:40] Speaker 3: Wood from Tim Burton, it's well worth watching. Yes.
[28:44] Speaker 2: And if you haven't heard the great Bauhaus song, Bela
[28:47] Speaker 2: Lugosi's Dead, go listen to that, too.
[28:50] Speaker 1: Well worth listening. Do it all in one night. You
[28:52] Speaker 1: can do it, everybody.
[28:53] Speaker 2: You really could.
[28:54] Speaker 1: Pretty easy. Beautiful black and white, too, from Tim Burton,
[28:57] Speaker 1: by the way.
[28:58] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[28:58] Speaker 2: It is, I think, his last great movie.
[29:02] Speaker 3: I would have to look, but I may agree with you.
[29:06] Speaker 3: I have a mixed relationship with Tim Burton, for sure.
[29:11] Speaker 2: I can tell you it ain't Dark Shadows.
[29:14] Speaker 1: No, I wasn't even a big fish guy, and a
[29:15] Speaker 1: lot of people love that movie.
[29:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, I could see that having a cult following, for sure.
[29:20] Speaker 1: I did think the Beetlejuice sequel was, like, good. It
[29:23] Speaker 1: wasn't great, but it was good.
[29:24] Speaker 2: I thought it was eye-bleedingly bad.
[29:26] Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was good enough.
[29:28] Speaker 2: But that's okay. I don't like it, and you do.
[29:31] Speaker 1: Hey, I feel that way.
[29:34] Speaker 2: I do, too.
[29:38] Speaker 1: Uh all right so you got my text that said
[29:40] Speaker 1: you know yeah okay.
[29:43] Speaker 2: Good i didn't think you're gonna bring it up but
[29:45] Speaker 2: yes i did and i'm trying to behave.
[29:47] Speaker 3: All right 1950s roll around we get the creature from
[29:50] Speaker 3: the black lagoon which is it gets included in the
[29:54] Speaker 3: canon of monster movies for sure but it's a little
[29:56] Speaker 3: more science fiction than the rest Because it's, of course,
[30:00] Speaker 3: about a prehistoric humanoid that they discover in the Amazon.
[30:05] Speaker 1: It was a 3D movie.
[30:07] Speaker 3: And I could have sworn we did a short stuff
[30:09] Speaker 3: on Millicent Patrick.
[30:10] Speaker 2: We did not. But we did mention her before, though.
[30:14] Speaker 1: Okay.
[30:15] Speaker 3: Did we, like, sing her praises as a very undersung
[30:18] Speaker 3: woman of Hollywood at a time when men were taking
[30:21] Speaker 3: credit for her great work?
[30:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I think it was in special effects, colon,
[30:26] Speaker 2: a short history episode.
[30:28] Speaker 3: All right. That makes sense because I was wondering if
[30:30] Speaker 3: it was movie crush. But, yeah, the great Millicent Patrick
[30:33] Speaker 3: basically created the Gilman suit, which still looks amazing from
[30:36] Speaker 3: Creature of the Black Lagoon or from the Black Lagoon.
[30:39] Speaker 1: Excuse me.
[30:40] Speaker 3: But it was like I said, men took credit for
[30:43] Speaker 3: her great work. And in this case, it was Bud Westmore.
[30:45] Speaker 3: So thumbs down.
[30:48] Speaker 2: That produced two sequels. Revenge of the Creature is worth
[30:52] Speaker 2: mentioning because this is the first time Clint Eastwood is
[30:55] Speaker 2: on film. Yeah. Although he was just a bit part.
[31:00] Speaker 3: Sure.
[31:01] Speaker 2: And then this was also the only actual classic Universal
[31:05] Speaker 2: Monster movie that Mystery Science Theater 3000 did. It was
[31:09] Speaker 2: also very noteworthy for being the first episode with Bill
[31:13] Speaker 2: Corbett as Crow.
[31:15] Speaker 1: Oh.
[31:16] Speaker 2: Lots of MST3K stuff and Rift Trek stuff coming up
[31:19] Speaker 2: in this episode, thankfully.
[31:20] Speaker 1: Why haven't we done a full episode on that?
[31:23] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[31:25] Speaker 1: That's weird.
[31:26] Speaker 2: All right.
[31:26] Speaker 1: That's an oversight.
[31:27] Speaker 2: All right, let's do it, Chuck, okay?
[31:29] Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll definitely do a Mystery Science Theory 3000 ep.
[31:32] Speaker 1: That'd be a lot of fun.
[31:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, it would.
[31:34] Speaker 3: All right, so 1960s are coming along. Things are changing
[31:37] Speaker 3: in the world. Things are changing culturally. Things are changing
[31:41] Speaker 3: in the media and creatively at Universal. So they're like,
[31:45] Speaker 3: you know what? Let's park it. Let's start doing some
[31:47] Speaker 3: more fun movies. Let's do some rom-coms. We love Doris Day.
[31:52] Speaker 3: We love Rock Hudson. The movies find new life on TV,
[31:57] Speaker 3: on reruns, with people like Elvira hosting these late night
[32:01] Speaker 3: horror movie watches. And they still remain even through the 60s,
[32:06] Speaker 3: even though they're not cranking these out, like very firmly
[32:08] Speaker 3: in the cultural zeitgeist.
[32:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw Vampyra was the first horror TV host
[32:15] Speaker 2: in 1954. Elvira came along in 1981. Sven Gulli's been
[32:19] Speaker 2: around for a really long time, too. And then you
[32:22] Speaker 2: mentioned it being all the way into the 60s as
[32:24] Speaker 2: part of the cultural zeitgeist. I think, Chuck, you're probably
[32:28] Speaker 2: referencing the Monster Mash, that song.
[32:32] Speaker 1: Well, I mean, that's one of the things for sure.
[32:35] Speaker 2: Okay. That was Bobby Boris Pickett and the Crip Kickers
[32:40] Speaker 2: who originally recorded that. And he was doing an impression
[32:43] Speaker 2: of Boris Karloff, right? Right. I turned up evidence of
[32:48] Speaker 2: a ABC teen music show called Shindig from the 60s
[32:54] Speaker 2: that Boris Karloff appeared on. And not only did he
[32:57] Speaker 2: sing Monster Mash, he sang the Peppermint Twist.
[33:01] Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
[33:02] Speaker 2: This is what I was talking about, where these people
[33:03] Speaker 2: were so known to be like just creepy in pop culture.
[33:06] Speaker 2: They just appeared everywhere, especially starting in the 60s when
[33:10] Speaker 2: it really became campy and silly everywhere. That's when it
[33:15] Speaker 2: stopped being serious in any way, shape, or form. At
[33:17] Speaker 2: least people like Boris Karloff and, well, not Bela the
[33:21] Speaker 2: Ghost anymore, but they had just expanded, transcended beyond just
[33:27] Speaker 2: their status as universal movie horror stars. They were something
[33:31] Speaker 2: bigger now.
[33:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, which is super cool.
[33:34] Speaker 3: Obviously, we have to mention How the Grinch Stole Christmas,
[33:37] Speaker 3: in which Boris Karloff lent his voice in 1966, but
[33:42] Speaker 3: three years before he passed away. Other film companies came
[33:46] Speaker 3: along to do different kind of wacky versions of these
[33:49] Speaker 3: universal monsters later. The Hammer Film Productions in the UK,
[33:53] Speaker 3: they did a mummy movie. They did The Curse of Frankenstein.
[33:57] Speaker 3: These were in color, and a lot of them starred
[34:00] Speaker 3: the greats. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, which, man, talk
[34:05] Speaker 3: about great, creepy acting.
[34:07] Speaker 2: Usually Christopher Lee was Dracula and Peter Cushing was Van
[34:10] Speaker 2: Helsing in any of the vampire movies. I also turned
[34:14] Speaker 2: up some other notable Hammer entries using Dracula. One was
[34:20] Speaker 2: the Satanic Rites of Dracula, where Dracula is doing his
[34:23] Speaker 2: thing in modern London in 1970s, early 70s. All right.
[34:28] Speaker 2: And then get this, The Legend of the Seven Vampires
[34:31] Speaker 2: in 1974 was a Dracula slash martial arts movie. It
[34:36] Speaker 2: was a co-production with the Shaw brothers, Run Run Shaw
[34:39] Speaker 2: and his brothers, the Hong Kong Kung Fu producers. They
[34:43] Speaker 2: made a crossover movie between martial artists and Dracula fighting.
[34:49] Speaker 1: Amazing.
[34:49] Speaker 2: They should do that today. I want to see that one.
[34:52] Speaker 2: They should do it today. It'd be pretty cool.
[34:54] Speaker 1: Agreed.
[34:55] Speaker 3: You got some Western mashups with Circle Productions with Billy
[34:59] Speaker 3: the Kid versus Dracula and Jesse James meets Frankenstein's daughter,
[35:03] Speaker 3: not Frankenstein.
[35:05] Speaker 1: This is in the mid-60s.
[35:06] Speaker 3: And then when Blaxploitation comes along, we did a great episode,
[35:10] Speaker 3: I think, on Blaxploitation films. And I know we mentioned
[35:13] Speaker 3: Blackula from 1972 in that movie.
[35:15] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[35:16] Speaker 1: Sorry, in that podcast.
[35:17] Speaker 2: I think it was Exploitation films in general, if I'm
[35:19] Speaker 2: not mistaken.
[35:21] Speaker 1: Oh, I thought we did one on Blaxploitation. Was it
[35:23] Speaker 1: just a part of that one?
[35:23] Speaker 2: Uh-huh. Yeah, definitely. But that was a great, fun episode.
[35:27] Speaker 2: But I didn't remember that the backstory to Blackula is
[35:30] Speaker 2: that he's a centuries-old African prince who originally met Dracula
[35:36] Speaker 2: because he went to go ask him for his help
[35:38] Speaker 2: in ending the slave trade. And Dracula's like, how about
[35:40] Speaker 2: I turn you into a vampire instead? And he wakes
[35:43] Speaker 2: up in the 20th century, Blackula does.
[35:46] Speaker 1: That's right.
[35:47] Speaker 2: Have you seen it? I don't think I've seen it.
[35:49] Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen Blackula.
[35:50] Speaker 2: How do you rate it?
[35:52] Speaker 1: I mean, it's good.
[35:53] Speaker 3: It's like I think any of those blaxploitation movies, you
[35:57] Speaker 3: just got to go into it within the right headspace
[35:59] Speaker 3: to enjoy it. It's like you can't compare it to like,
[36:01] Speaker 3: you know, some like modern film, like, you know, a
[36:05] Speaker 3: lot of that sort of. I mean, I think it
[36:08] Speaker 3: holds up in the way that blaxploitation movies hold. Sure.
[36:10] Speaker 2: I gotcha.
[36:11] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[36:12] Speaker 2: Do you remember this? They came up before you, but
[36:15] Speaker 2: I'm sure they were still around. Do you remember the
[36:18] Speaker 2: Groovy Ghoulies?
[36:21] Speaker 1: Why does that sound familiar? It sounds familiar.
[36:23] Speaker 2: I think it was only on for a season in 1970,
[36:25] Speaker 2: but it was the Wolfman, Frankenstein, and Dracula in like
[36:29] Speaker 2: a groovy band together in their adventures with all these
[36:33] Speaker 2: other like monsters that were in their orbit.
[36:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there has to be some weird memory
[36:40] Speaker 3: seed in my brain because that does sound familiar.
[36:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And then also, I don't remember the
[36:45] Speaker 2: company that made it, but there was a company that
[36:47] Speaker 2: made models that you put together that were of universal
[36:51] Speaker 2: monster like scenes and settings like you you could do
[36:56] Speaker 2: frankenstein's laboratory or whatever but that was around the same
[36:58] Speaker 2: time too.
[36:59] Speaker 1: Wow i used to be a model kid i'm surprised
[37:02] Speaker 1: i didn't get into that.
[37:03] Speaker 2: I never had one of those either i usually was
[37:05] Speaker 2: putting airplanes together.
[37:07] Speaker 1: Yeah i still i do a model every spring break now.
[37:10] Speaker 2: Do you do you sniff the glue sometimes.
[37:14] Speaker 1: That's for me to know and you to find out.
[37:18] Speaker 3: We have to mention Young Frankenstein from the great Mel
[37:20] Speaker 3: Brooks in 1974.
[37:23] Speaker 1: And don't sleep on.
[37:24] Speaker 3: Frank Langella's Dracula from 1979 either. It's a little slow,
[37:29] Speaker 3: but like kind of a cool movie still.
[37:32] Speaker 1: It is.
[37:33] Speaker 2: It looks good, especially for it just it looks like
[37:37] Speaker 2: a good dark 1979 Dracula movie for sure. Yeah.
[37:41] Speaker 1: And Frank Langella is great. I was I waited on
[37:44] Speaker 1: his table one time in New Jersey.
[37:47] Speaker 2: That's awesome. And how was he in real life?
[37:50] Speaker 1: He's a nice guy. He ate steak for lunch and
[37:52] Speaker 1: left a good tip.
[37:54] Speaker 2: I loved him in The Ninth Gate, which is one
[37:57] Speaker 2: of my favorite movies.
[37:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, he's great. I love Frank Langella.
[38:00] Speaker 2: Okay, so that's basically up to the 80s. As a
[38:04] Speaker 2: matter of fact, we just came right up to the
[38:06] Speaker 2: 80s and kissed him on the shoulder because we stopped
[38:10] Speaker 2: at 1979. And the 80s were a huge time. turning
[38:14] Speaker 2: point really for all horror because the emphasis became really
[38:20] Speaker 2: heavy on slashers, right? They may or may not have
[38:23] Speaker 2: a supernatural bend to them, but they are definitely not
[38:28] Speaker 2: a Wolfman or Dracula or something like that. That became
[38:31] Speaker 2: kind of passe. And then in 1999, everything kind of
[38:35] Speaker 2: came roaring back for the universal monsters because the mummy
[38:39] Speaker 2: was put out with Billy Zane and Brendan Fraser and
[38:42] Speaker 2: Rachel Weisz and And it was a huge out of
[38:45] Speaker 2: nowhere smash hit.
[38:48] Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a big hit. And everyone's kind of like,
[38:50] Speaker 3: are these things back? There was a Van Helsing movie
[38:53] Speaker 3: that was not good in 2004. I don't remember it
[38:56] Speaker 3: being not good.
[38:57] Speaker 2: It was just so-so. Oh, yeah.
[39:00] Speaker 1: I think it was pretty bad.
[39:01] Speaker 2: Well, I saw it in theater. So that was 20
[39:04] Speaker 2: years ago. I don't remember, I guess. Or maybe I
[39:08] Speaker 2: liked it and you didn't like it and that's okay.
[39:12] Speaker 1: Look at us.
[39:14] Speaker 3: There was a Wolfman movie in 2010. Again, not a
[39:16] Speaker 3: big thing hit wise. I think Jack Nicholson was in
[39:21] Speaker 3: the movie Wolf, but that was less universal monster than
[39:26] Speaker 3: just like a guy who turns into a wolf.
[39:27] Speaker 2: Like sexy wolf, right? He likes to. sleep with the ladies.
[39:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, it was Jack.
[39:33] Speaker 2: The wolf man, though, was Benicio Del Toro, and he
[39:35] Speaker 2: was really trying, and apparently it didn't do well.
[39:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it was kind of... Things weren't looking good.
[39:41] Speaker 3: They had, once the Marvel Cinematic Universe came out, they
[39:44] Speaker 3: had big plans in the 2010s to do the Dark Universe, which...
[39:49] Speaker 3: I mean, it would have been super cool, I think.
[39:51] Speaker 3: They were going to have Johnny Depp. I remember reading
[39:53] Speaker 3: about this. Johnny Depp was going to be the Invisible Man.
[39:55] Speaker 3: Angelina Jolie was going to be the Bride. Javier Bardem
[39:58] Speaker 3: was going to be the Monster from Frankenstein. And I
[40:02] Speaker 3: was super stoked at reviving the monsters. But Tom Cruise
[40:07] Speaker 3: put out the 2017 Mummy, which was going to be
[40:09] Speaker 3: sort of the kickoff.
[40:11] Speaker 1: And it was a big flop. And they just scrapped
[40:14] Speaker 1: the whole idea.
[40:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, just immediately. And all the ones that they already
[40:18] Speaker 2: had in production and lying to be part of this,
[40:20] Speaker 2: they're like, these are standalones from now on.
[40:23] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[40:23] Speaker 2: And they have. I mean, there's been some. Probably the
[40:25] Speaker 2: highlight of the last 10 or 15 years was The
[40:30] Speaker 2: Invisible Man. that Jason Blum, I think, directed with Elizabeth Moss.
[40:36] Speaker 2: And it's become, I haven't seen it, but I know
[40:38] Speaker 2: that it's very well regarded, especially for being almost an
[40:42] Speaker 2: indie movie as far as I can tell.
[40:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really good.
[40:47] Speaker 3: And they sort of look at it through the lens
[40:48] Speaker 3: of domestic violence starring Elizabeth Moss. And, you know, she
[40:53] Speaker 3: stands her ground. So it's a bit of a like
[40:55] Speaker 3: a rallying cry, I guess.
[40:58] Speaker 2: And then probably I said the high point was Invisible Man.
[41:01] Speaker 2: I know, like I said, it's very well regarded. I
[41:04] Speaker 2: should take that back. I think The Shape of Water
[41:06] Speaker 2: is probably the high point of the last like 10
[41:08] Speaker 2: or so years as far as Universal Monsters go. I
[41:13] Speaker 2: didn't see that one either, but I know that it
[41:15] Speaker 2: was everybody was crazy for that movie.
[41:18] Speaker 3: Yeah, I did not care for it, but it was
[41:20] Speaker 3: a big, big hit and a big critical hit. Guillermo
[41:23] Speaker 3: del Toro is trying to revive all these monsters because
[41:26] Speaker 3: he did the Frankenstein movie this past year, too, that
[41:30] Speaker 3: I also didn't love that one.
[41:32] Speaker 1: But it was it was OK.
[41:34] Speaker 2: Yeah. And just for those not in the know, Shape
[41:37] Speaker 2: of Water was a tale of the creature from the
[41:42] Speaker 2: Black Lagoon.
[41:44] Speaker 1: Yeah. A take on that.
[41:45] Speaker 2: That's what I was going for. Thanks, man.
[41:47] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[41:48] Speaker 2: You got anything else on Universal Monsters?
[41:51] Speaker 1: No.
[41:52] Speaker 3: Go out and see some of these old movies, though.
[41:53] Speaker 3: If you think you can't sit through a movie from
[41:55] Speaker 3: the 1930s, I bet you'd be surprised. Yeah.
[41:57] Speaker 2: I strongly suggest you start with The Invisible Man.
[42:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed.
[42:02] Speaker 2: Okay. Well, since we just agreed on that and we
[42:05] Speaker 2: just kicked off the spookiest month in style with this episode,
[42:09] Speaker 2: I think we can treat ourselves to Listener Mail.
[42:14] Speaker 1: This is about reggae. It's kind of a cool little email.
[42:17] Speaker 3: Hey, guys, I really enjoyed the August 6th episode on
[42:19] Speaker 3: reggae music. Early in the episode, you mentioned the mobile
[42:22] Speaker 3: discos known as sound systems. Now they help lead to
[42:25] Speaker 3: the development of toasting. That brought back a special connection
[42:28] Speaker 3: for me because my paternal grandfather started a sound system
[42:32] Speaker 3: called Maritone Music in the 1950s, and it recently celebrated
[42:36] Speaker 3: its 75th anniversary. Maritone Music has the distinction of being
[42:40] Speaker 3: the longest continuous sound system in Jamaica. And while Maritone
[42:44] Speaker 3: music has passed its peak of the years of the
[42:47] Speaker 3: 70s and 80s, it still draws crowds and remains an
[42:49] Speaker 3: important part of Jamaica's musical history.
[42:52] Speaker 2: That's cool.
[42:53] Speaker 3: Thanks for all you do and keep me company over
[42:55] Speaker 3: the years, guys. I've truly enjoyed listening. And that is
[42:57] Speaker 3: from Roger Blake.
[42:58] Speaker 2: Roger, that was a great email. I was not expecting
[43:01] Speaker 2: that one.
[43:03] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[43:03] Speaker 1: I mean, I got to look up Maritone music and
[43:05] Speaker 1: find out a little bit more about this.
[43:06] Speaker 3: For sure.
[43:07] Speaker 2: Maybe we'll even take a trip down to check it out.
[43:10] Speaker 1: Let's do it.
[43:11] Speaker 2: Well, if you want to be like Roger and let
[43:13] Speaker 2: us know something awesome that your ancestor did, we love
[43:16] Speaker 2: to hear about that kind of thing. They're seriously interesting
[43:19] Speaker 2: basically every time. You can send it in an email
[43:22] Speaker 2: to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.
[43:29] Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
[43:32] Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts
[43:36] Speaker 1: are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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