Huge volume of 62 short but cool Q&A interviews, often on a single film, TV episode, or role featuring: Jimmy Lydon on Robert Armstrong...Joanne Fulton on John P. Fulton...House Peters, Jr on 1936 Flash Gordon...Frankie (Tom Tyler's Luck) Thomas...Jean (One Million BC) Porter...Jo Ann (Karlof's the Man with Nine Lives) Sayers... Hubert (Karloff's On Borrowed Time) Rudley... Tommy (On Borrowed Time) Ivo... Henmry (Karloff's Secret Life of Walter Mitty) Corden... Fintan (Thriller) Meyler...Michael A. Hoey on Dennis (Inspector Lestrade) Hoey...Ealr (Lugoi's Return of the Vampire) Bellamy... Alev (Bela Lugosi Meetsr a Brooklyn Gorilla) Gordonm...Herman (Bela Lugoi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla) Cohen...Karolyn (Chaney's Albuquerque) Grimes... Mickey (Of Mice and Men) Knox... Irving (Chaney's The Life of Riley) Brecher... Barbara (Chaney's Born Yesterday) Knudson...Richard Kline on Sam Katzman... Sid (Lost Continet) Melton...William (Five) Phipps.. Arthur L. (Five) Swerdloff...Marilyn (Unknown World) Nash...Diana (War of the Worlds) Gemora...Fess (Them!) Parker... Rosemarie (The Golden Mistress) Bowie... Paul Wurtzel and John G. Stephens of Bell Air Productions... Pamela (Attack of the Crab Monsters) Duncan... Marsha (Back from the Dead) Hunt... Herbert L. (Blood of Dracula) Strock... Peggy (Screaming Skull) Webber... Lisa (Queen of Outer Space) Davis... Troy (Monster on Campus) Donahue... Nan (Hideous Sun Demon) Petersonm...Richard (Face on Fire) Erdman... the Calvin BNeck-Norman Bates Connection... Roger (Housew of Usher) Corman...Alan Young on makeup man Jack Pierce... David (Thriller) Whorf... Alex (Underwater City) Gordon...Arch Hall Jr on Ray Dennis Steckler... Arnold Drake on 50,000 BC (before Clothing... Tony (7 Faces of Dr. Lao) Randall... Frederick E. (Devil Doll) Smith... Edward Bernds and Merry Andres oin Elvis' Tickle Me... Ib (Lost in Space) Melchior... stuntman Whitey Hughews, actor Richard Kiel, and Kenneth Chase onm The Wild, Wild West... Burt (Space Monster) Topper... Peter Marshall on Edgar G. Ulmer... Tom (Murderer's Row) Reese... Richard Gordon on Protelco Productions...Nick (Mission Mars) Webster, .. Gary (Land of the Giants) Conway... John "Bud" Carlos and Martin Varno on Nightmare in Wax... Jan (Twilight People) Merlin... actor Robert (Empire of the Ants) Pine...and Ken (Sinbads Goes to Mars) Kolb. Whew!!!
Filmmakers who turned out science fiction and horror movies during the period 1930-1970 are once again the focus of author and film historian Tom Weaver who brings together a raft of interviews with Hollywood people from all walks, focusing on their genre work.
Actually, in this collection Weaver forsakes the straight Q&A approach with particularly loquacious interviewees whose discussion allows him to drop the "Q" and pull the answers together into a nearly seamless "as told to" article. An example of tight focus is when Fess Parker discusses his brief, comedic role in Them (1954) which won him his subsequent role as Diseny's Davy Crockett.
Actors, actresses, makeup artists, stuntmen, producers, writers, directors, and others discuss individual movies and TV shows, and some of the stars they worked with like Elvis, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., and Bela Lugosi.
You'll read actress Lisa Davis' take on Zsa Zsa Gabor's imperial turn as the pampered star of the space schlock Queen of Outer Space (1958). Davis says her imitation of Zsa Zsa, not at all intended as a compliment, got her in the door at Disney where she was interviewed by Uncle Walt himself to voice Cruella de Vil, and was hired to voice Anita. Davis also describes the sexual harrassment actresses had to put up with in Hollywood, made difficult because as the breadwinner for her family, she couldn't afford to alienate the would-be letharios.
Sid (The Danny Thomas Show) Melton tells how he interviewed for a movie job for Billy Crystal and the moment he walked in the door, Crystal screamed at him that his death scene in The Lost Continent (1951) in which comic relief Melton was drilled by a triceratops caused young Crystal four nights of childhood nightmares.
Diana Gemora tells how, as a 12-year-old, she and her dad, makeup artist Charles Gemora, pulled an all-nighter, successfully altering the three-eyed, tentacled Martian costume needed for an 8am filming on the set of the classic War of the Worlds. It was a great special effect in a movie that was people by then-unknown actors so that the effects could be played up.
Roger Corman tells how he had to qualm the objections of American International Pictures co-producer Sam Arkoff about putting up the money for the House of Usher because there was no monster, by saying "the house is the monster." Corman then confused star Vincent Price with a line about the "house breathing," but Price agreed he could play it when he understood Corman's motive in allaying the fears of Arkoff.
Actor Tony Randall discusses the make-up process involved in portraying six characters in the 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), the seventh face being the Abominabloe Snowman played by a stuntman.
Ross Martin, who played Artemis Gordon, in The Wild Wild West, was 75% of the successful CBS television show, says stuntman Whitey Hughes. Although a friend of Robert Conrad and respectful of Conrad's skills, especially in doing a lot of the stunts, Hughes insists Martin's contribution is underrated. Ross Martin, of course, entertainingly donned a wild disguise in each episode. As Hughes points out, it didn't matter -- Gordon, after all, was a government agent, a stranger who could easily pass himself off any way he wished. But that was the gimmick so Martin donned disguises.
And towering Richard ("Jaws") Kiel talks about how he tried to upstage the dimunitve Michael ("Dr. Miguelito Lovelace") Dunn in one of his three appearances on The Wild, Wild West as Dunn's gargantuan sidekick (Dunn did 10 turns as Lovelace, the show's Professor Moriarty to agent Jim West). During a musical duet with Lovelace's girlfriend, Kiel stood by and tapped his foot while eating candy. Robert Conrad spotted what he was doing and laughed, then had the cameras focus a moment on Kiel tapping his foot to splice it into the sequence. Anything to make it more interesting, claimed Kiel.
And that, sas the Titanic's captain would say, is just the tip of the iceberg. What can I say? I love this stuff.
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