Universal Terrors 1951-1955

Terror Forming

Universal Terrors 1951-1955
By Tom Weaver with David Schecter,
Robert J. Kiss and Steve Kronenberg
McFarland Books
ISBN 9780786436149

A quick shout out to a great book which is actually so dense in content and information that, with my lack of amount of free time these days, it took me a fair amount of time to read and absorb. Subtitled Eight Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Films, Tom Weaver’s Universal Terrors 1951 - 1955 is an exhaustive tome written by the same team (with one addition) behind The Creature Chronicles (reviewed by me here).

This one is pretty much a ‘making of’ style book about the production (plus pre and post) and making of eight specific movies, most of which I knew fairly well. These include three which I wouldn’t necessarily myself had counted as being typical of the films Universal were churning out to their horror fan base in the 50s... those being The Strange Door, The Black Castle and Cult Of The Cobra. The other five are all ones which I would instantly associate with that decade’s predilection for atomic aged monsters... either rediscovered, mutated or out of this world... namely It Came From Outer Space, Creature From The Black Lagoon, This Island Earth, Revenge Of The Creature and Tarantula.

The lion’s share of the volume is written by Weaver with his usual doses of humourous writing and the occasional judgemental eye at the behaviour and credibility of cast and crew, many of whom he has interviewed in his many years over his career as a film historian specialising in such B-movie gems... for instance, you can tell how he feels about director Jack Arnold and the stories he’d spun throughout his life (and perhaps he’s right to make that judgement call). Other writers also have their own specialist sections within the chapters, with the layout of the book being an introduction (including a great, hand drawn map of the Universal International front lot at the time) followed by eight big chapters with sub sections by Weaver, followed by the great David Schecter (who I have a lot of respect for in his coverage of the music, considering how many of those film scores he’s rerecorded and raised from the dead on his CD label Monstorus Movie Music), Robert J. Kiss and Steve Kronenberg.

Each chapter is split into sections being Full Credit Information, then Weaver’s big chunks following Production History, which includes sub sections on Synopsis, Cast Biographies, Production and Marginalia (with some wonderful doses of interesting trivia)... before going onto the other writers’ sections exploring The Release (including Critics Corner which quotes various quotes from reviews from the films’ initial releases), The Music Score (very detailed breakdowns including many notes on who wrote what and which bits were tracked in from other identified movies) and a final Analysis section.

And, yeah, it’s pretty thorough. If you want a blow by blow account of which actor or stuntman ‘so and so’ were doing on 3pm on a given day on the shoot, if that was of any interest... you are going to find it all in here. It gets very interesting when the notes from the day’s shooting doesn’t correspond to how people later remembered things from that day.

Among many nuggets which I learned for the first time (except from the two chapters on Creature From The Black Lagoon and Revenge Of The Creature, which are cut down versions of the chapters in the book on the trilogy of movies covered in the aforementioned The Creature Chronicles) are such gems as the fact that long standing Robin Hood actor Richard Greene was actually the grandson of motion picture pioneer William Friese-Greene. Or that Charles Drake (no, not Charlie) was sometimes a drunken mess and once assaulted an actress outside her home for publicity. And I also didn’t know that Jeff Morrow went on to become the face of Suntory Whisky in Japan for a while (just like director Akira Kurosawa was and, fictionally, Bill Murray’s character was in Lost In Translation... from what I remember). There’s also some criticism thrown into the mix on the extent of Ray Bradbury’s involvement on the screenplay for It Came From Out Of Space.

And, like I said, a short review and that’s all I’m going to say about Universal Terrors 1951 - 1955 other than to say that, if you were a ‘monster kid’ as many Americans are fond of labelling a certain kind of horror movie enthusiast (as I guess I was, to the extent that you could be in the UK) then you are probably going to love this book and should maybe try and grab a copy. It’s a long read with many facts and figures (and previously rarely seen photos from the productions) plus it’s entertainingly written and certainly an enlightening experience, for sure. Definitely worth the price of admission.