Music to Make Horror Movies By: Elisabeth Welch

Published November 15, 2020 by biggayhorrorfan

The stunning Elisabeth Welch is a major part of the success of the classic 1945 anthology Dead of Night. As the fun and vibrant Beulah in the film’s most popular segment, The Ventriloquist’s Dummy, she is one of the first characters to react to the fact that something is off with Michael Redgrave’s Maxwell and his devious puppet partner Hugo.

Welch was much more than a sympathetic terror conspirator, though. One of the most sophisticated stars of the British theater and Broadway, she often introduced songs that went on to be classics.

Cementing her status as a cult icon, Welch also fabulously worked with auteur Derek Jarman in the late ‘70s.

More can, but need not be said!

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Unsung Heroines of Horror: Googie Withers

Published November 13, 2020 by biggayhorrorfan

The height of English elegance, the distinguished Googie Withers made appearances in everything from Alfred Hitchcock adventures (The Lady Vanishes) to multiple, stagey dramas with Michael Powell (the director of the controversial Peeping Tom).

If they search their memories, classic horror lovers would find they remember her fondly, as well. As Joan Cortland in the acclaimed 1945 anthology Dead of Night, Withers proved herself to be a cunning adversary for a maniacal spirit that dwells within a mirror in one of the film’s most haunting tales. As Cortland’s husband Peter (Ralph Michael) suffers greatly due to the visions he sees within the spectral looking glass’ reflection, Joan wisely uses her investigative skills to determine its history, learning simultaneously how to defeat it. Working with subtle economy and grace, Withers proves herself to be truly modern, gracefully victorious heroine of horror here.

Nicely, Withers showed the extent of her range by playing the connivingly determined Helen Nosseross in the moody 1950 film noir Night and the City, as well. Teaming up with Richard Widmark’s wild eyed con man, Wither’s spits out Helen’s dialogue with spite and vitriolic vinegar, her disdain for her corpulent businessman husband (Francis L. Sullivan) visible in every frame of film that she imbues with her commanding presence.

Indeed, with dozens of theater projects and distinguished cinematic adventures to her credit, Withers, who died in 2011 at the age of 94, is definitely worthy of significant rediscovery by today’s always hungry celluloid masses.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Sally Ann Howes: The (Truly Natural) Queen of Horror!

Published July 31, 2014 by biggayhorrorfan

As a kid, actress-singer Sally Ann Howes meant my grandparents’ television soundtrack LP of Brigadoon. For many, of course, she was (the awesomely named) Truly Scrumptious from kiddy classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. (Chitty, of course, featured one of the most menacing figures of tiny tot horror, Robert Helpmann’s truly malevolent Child Catcher.)

But Howes has a pretty impressive terror pedigree, as well. Significantly, she played (naturally enough) a girl named Sally in the classic 1945 British anthology feature Dead of Night. Perkily, Howes recounts Sally’s tale of a supernatural encounter at a holiday party at a swanky mansion. But Howes, also, nails her character’s bone deep fright upon discovering the small boy she, innocently, tucked into bed was actually a ghost. The honest emotion that she brings to this story makes it just as significant a contribution to the film as its most famous tale, the story of an overpowering ventriloquist’s dummy featuring the legendary Michael Redgrave.

Years later, Howes brought a sense of true maternal concern to her role of Margaret Mitchell in 1980’s Death Ship. While no Gone with the Wind, Death Ship features plenty of spooky activity (including blood spurting shower heads and skeleton baths) taking place on a mysteriously drifting vessel, innocently boarded by the survivors of an aquatic wreck.

Howes does spend most of her time, here, either nurturing the actors playing her children or reacting in horror to being accosted by co-star Kate Reid’s bubonic prosthetics and/or George Kennedy’s maddened sea captain. But, her extreme naturalness makes all the extraordinary circumstances of this Nazi-tinged, water bound horror ring with truth, as well.

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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