Ship of Ghouls

Published May 13, 2024 by biggayhorrorfan

Time is strange, right? I know decades have flown by, yet it seems like it was just yesterday that I was watching the shows of my youth. This was a golden age for appearances by faded filmdom greats. Performers like June Allyson, Van Johnson and Joan Fontaine were my regular living room guests then. Now, these folks are long gone, never to do the overpriced photo op treatment at some local nostalgia festival.

Yet they seem so near – a mere streaming service or DVD away.

I was especially reminded of this duality while watching Ship of Ghouls, the 1978 Halloween The Love Boat episode, centering around a famed illusionist referred to as The Great Alonso (the legendary Vincent Price). This segment of the show also featured the misty charms of three celluloid goddesses, Joan Blondell, as Alonzo’s devoted companion, and Iris Adrian and Bibi Osterwald, as his overly ardent fans.

Of course, Blondell’s loyalty is put to the test as Alonso begins to ignore her in deference to his newfound coterie of fawning females. Naturally, by the final credits, time and the show’s wise and ever present Captain Stubing (Gavin MacLoed) bring the estranged lovebirds back together again.

Otherwise, there is much to enjoy decoratively and costume-wise — dig Ted Lange’s Frankenstein’s Monster and that All-Star Pumpkin band – with this seasonal offering.

Interestingly, while Price is the horror giant here, his femme counterparts also have some macabre credits flitting, bat-like, among their filmographies. Blondell, by far the best known of the three, had major roles in Death at Love House and The Dead Don’t Die, well-regarded ’70s television films. Adrian, known for playing comedically inclined moll types in the ’40s, logged appearances in such classic capers as Horror Island, Bluebeard and (crime mystery) Lady of Burlesque. Osterwald, meanwhile, did latter day duty via guest appearances on such shows as Werewolf and Tales from the Crypt.

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

http://www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Joan Blondell

Published July 21, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

Joan B pin up.jpg

She was one of Warner Brother’s brightest, sassiest dames in the ‘30s. The distinctive Joan Blondell also found recognition in such ‘70s MFTV horror flicks as The Dead Don’t Die and Death at Love House.

But whatever era she found herself in, she was always her simply irreplaceable self…most particularly in this production number by the influential and equally singular Busby Berkeley.

Also of significance here are the haunting vocals of Etta Moten. Moten appeared in a number of fun Warner Brothers pictures, including the WIP epic Ladies They Talk About, but was never allowed to reach her full potential, cinematically, due to the racism inherent in that (and, unfortunately, every) decade.

Etta

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

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan

Sharkbait Retro Village: Death at Love House

Published February 14, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

Death Main

Mysterious houses have not been kind to the fragile male ego in horror films. James Brolin and Ryan Reynolds both succumbed to the madness of the Amityville house in different versions of The Amityville Horror while Jack Nicholson and Steven Webber spiraled into insanity, decades apart, while attending to The Shining’s Overlook Hotel. Similarly, novelist Joel Gregory in 1976’s Death at Love House finds himself transported to the brink of erotic hysteria by the lingering essence of a former movie queen in her long shuttered abode. Dorothy Death

Efficiently helmed by veteran television director EW Swackhamer, this telefilm is perhaps most notable for its use of such Golden Era greats as Joan Blondell, John Carradine, Dorothy Lamour and Sylvia Sidney. That they all play former rivals of or associates to the glamorous Lorna Love, a kind of Jean Harlow-Marilyn Monroe-Jayne Mansfield hybrid, makes this quick primetime horror a truly fun experience for those lovers of ‘30s and ‘40s cinema. Sidney, as Ciara Joseph, the mansion in question’s caretaker, definitely has the most interesting role, but one has to wonder how this frequently cantankerous presence felt about playing the film’s silly twist in the project’s final reels.

Joan Death Of course an argument could be made that DALH, piloted around the disintegration of Gregory’s marriage to his wife/collaborator Donna (Kate Jackson) as they work on a project about Love, truly comes alive when LaMour, as coffee commercial queen Denise Christian, reminisces about Love’s evil deeds. Blondell devotees are also sure to admire her hysterical break from reality during the heat of the film’s fiery climax. Whatever your preference, DALH is ultimately high on mysterious mood and thoroughbred nostalgia.

Dorothy Trio Death

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

www.facebook.com/biggayhorrorfan