Music to Make Horror Movies By: Hattie McDaniel

Published November 25, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

After Hattie McDaniel won her Oscar in 1940, it was 24 years before another black performer received the statuette. While criticized for taking on stereotypical roles in her lifetime, McDaniel is now often praised for being a pioneer in the entertainment industry and for her commanding performances under frequently humbling circumstances. Nicely, the fun revue Thank Your Lucky Stars allowed her majestic personality to fill the frame as something other than a domestic and she appears to truly be enjoying herself as the neighborhood gossip in the number below, Ice Cold Katie.

Granted, McDaniel’s connections to the horror genre were small as she was mainly cast in comedies. But she did appear alongside terror icon Bela Lugosi in 1935’s Murder By Television. As the cook Isabella, she provided the studio mandated, over exaggerated comic relief, but she is eventually given a couple of more level headed moments. In one more progressive segment, she even interrupts a murder scene intruder and helps throw him out, proof positive of her power and strength as a performer.

Hattie Murder shots

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

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Olivia de Haviland

Published November 18, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

Filled with iconic musical numbers, the 1943 revue-style film Thank Your Lucky Stars is notable for showing the world a much sillier side to the usually regal and calmly gentile Olivia de Haviland. In the goofy The Dreamer, wherein this award winning performer is paired with George Tobias and the equally iconic Ida Lupino (Thriller, The Devil’s Rain, Food of the Gods), she so revels in the chance to be outrageous that the fact that her singing voice was dubbed by Lynn Martin doesn’t do anything to diminish her work here.

Haviland, who is still living a life of refinement and grace in England, nicely, lent her talents to such goth-tinged efforts as The Dark Mirror, in which she plays twins suspected of nefarious dealings, Lady in a Cage, Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte and The Swarm, as well. These credits add irrefutable evidence to the fact that she is the one of the true queens of all genres of filmmaking prowess. Hail, hail!

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

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Bette Davis

Published April 22, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

bette davis hush hush

After her role in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Bette Davis became the goddess of the Grand Guignol horror film. Her presence electrified such projects as Dead Ringer, The Nanny, Burnt Offerings and The Secret of Harvest Home.

While not as celebrated as Baby Jane, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte was another solid offering in the scare sweepstakes. Nominated for numerous Academy Awards (including one for supporting actress Agnes Moorhead), this production was, originally, supposed to reunite Davis with Jane co-star Joan Crawford. Crawford took ill, though, and was replaced by Olivia De Havilland, who gives a ghoulishly intense performance as Bette’s determined rival.

Here, Davis, the master of the television interview, sings Charlotte’s theme song on one such appearance.

Meanwhile, discounting Jane’s maniacally funny I’m Writing a Letter to Daddy, Davis’ best known singing performance has to be the clever They’re Either Too Young or Too Old from the star studded Thank Your Lucky Stars.

Sonically satiated, we leave you with one of Bette from her first breath of spring….

bete glamour

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

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