Category Archives: supernatural

Casting Shadows, Part Two

1940s mystery, character development, Claude Rains, Film Actors, Film Noir, Gothic, Horror films, Murder, mystery, Shadows of a Dark Past, Sharon Healy Yang, Sharon Yang, supernatural, suspense, Val Lewton, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Casting Shadows,  Part Two”

 

Philip Carlyle –  The master of the Carlyle Estate where the Wellstone Mystery Hour is making its remote broadcast, Philip Carlyle has opened his home and the secrets of its past to answer the mystery behind the disappearances of Felicia Blasko and his brother Bill Carlyle.  An engineer and businessman by profession, Philip still nurses the soul of a poet and musician, while holding secrets of his own concerning Felicia.  Embodying Philip requires a man of power, incisive wit and vision, as well as a sympathetic sense of artistry ‒ someone whose fascination with Jessica Minton rings more sad than creepy.  Claude Rains is my choice.  Think of the urbanity and authority of his Victor Grandison in The Unsuspected and the sly, mordant humor in Casablanca’s Inspector Renault.  Then there’s his incisive and forthright authority as Now Voyager’s Dr. Jaquith, tempered by his wry humor and genuine, though never soppy, compassion. Also think about the vulnerable passion of Paul Verin in The Man Who Reclaimed His Head, a quality that burns beneath the wall of authority in Job Skeffington of Mr. Skeffington. That’s the complexity of Philip Carlyle.

 

Jeanne Rivers and Madame Wanda are two ladies who may or may not be whom they seem.

 

Jeanne Rivers is the housekeeper for Philip Carlyle in the mansion that Felicia haunts.  She’s a top sergeant making the place run like clockwork, even managing to banish the indomitable Liz Minton from kitchen gossip fests with the help. Her wit can be acerbic, but she can show warmth and good humor when she’s helpful ‒ a woman of practical advice.  She also has ties to the mansion’s tragic past that could open up its secrets. ­A fine choice to inspire Jeanne is Jean Brooks, leading lady of the RKO B-division.  Brooks has demonstrated a dry and clever wit in such films as The Leopard Man, The Falcon in Hollywood, and The Falcon and the Co-eds. Falcon Tom Conway can’t get by without her popping up somewhere! Further our Ms. Brooks is no stranger to a cinematic world of shadows.  A veteran of Val Lewton’s dark tales, in addition to playing a smart-talking gal in The Leopard Man, Brooks also portrayed the haunted Jacqueline in The Seventh Victim.

 

Madame Wanda – Wanda Hendrix brings more than a first name to Shadows’ medium.  Apple-cheeked and merry-eyed, Hendrix played comedy deftly in films like Miss Tatlock’s Millions and The Admiral Was a Lady.  Thus, Madame Wanda shatters the stereotypes of film mediums as otherworldly, mysterious, and at times even sinister.  Our stylishly outfitted Madame Wanda is quick with a quip to challenge and defeat skepticism about her capabilities, especially from the suspicious Liz Minton and Gerry Davis.  Still, Wanda’s description of her powers and her conjuring of a voice from beyond the pale demonstrate her bona fides for connecting with the supernatural.  Preparing her for the darkness of Shadows, in My Own True Love and Ride the Pink Horse  Hendrix moves through a post-war world now darkened by bitterness, vengeance, and corruption.

Next entry, a look at more of Jessica’s colleagues from the Wellstone Mystery Hour.

Casting Shadows, Part One
Shadows of a Dark Past
Jessica Minton Mysteries
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Images

-Claude Rains  Photo from John Engstead. Star Shots: Fifty Years of  Pictures and Stories by One of Hollywood’s Greatest Photographers. New York:  EP Dutton, 1978. p. 185.

-Jean Brooks in white trenchcoat:  Wikipedia public domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Brooks#/media/File:Jean_Brooks_1940s_fan_photo.jpg

-Jean Brooks in plaid jacket public domain:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean_Brooks_in_The_Falcon_in_Danger_1943.png?uselang=en#Licensing

-Wanda Hendrix photo, Author’s collection

 

Casting Shadows, as It Were

1940s mystery, Bela Lugosi, Dracula, Film Noir, Gail Russell, Gothic, Halloween, Horror films, Jessica Minton, Murder, mystery, New England, radio, radio drama, radio dramas, Shadows of a Dark Past, supernatiral films, supernatural, suspense, The Black Cat (1934), The Uninivted, Vitus Werdegast, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Casting Shadows, as It Were”

In the past, I’ve posted on how “casting” characters as if they were played by (mostly) classic era actors in my earlier Jessica Minton mysteries helped me  flesh out their characters.  Now  that Shadows of a Dark Past is out, I thought you might enjoy reading about the inspirations for the folks Jessica, Liz, and James encounter on the mysterious Birdsong Island.  So, let’s begin!
When you’re writing a ghost story à la Val Lewton/Edgar Ulmer/ Joseph Lewis, it only makes sense that some of your characters be inspired by star players from those films.  So, with whom to start?  Why not the inspiration for the haunted scientist/widower of Shadows, Vitus Blasko?
Who is a prime prospect to play a man whose obsession with his work cost him his wife and child many years ago?  My choice was one of the premiere players of 1930s/40s horror, especially at Universal:  Bela Lugosi.    “What?!” you exclaim.  “The guy who played those Machiavellian vampires in Dracula (1931) and Return of the Vampire (1945), as well a plethora of sinister scientists?” “You bet!” I reply.  Lugosi also played the tortured and highly sympathetic Dr. Vitus Werdegast in 1934’s The Black Cat.  Here, he’s a doctor who had been sent to a death camp at the end of WWI, costing him his wife and daughter, through the betrayal of Boris Karloff’s Hjalmar  Poelzig.  (Now those are names!)  His intellectual battles with Poelzig may seem sinisterly to threaten a young married couple caught in the middle at Hjalmar’s Frank-Lloyd-Wright-on-LSD designed mansion.  However, Werdegast’s grief over what he has lost and his protection of the couple reveal a sympathetic tenderness in Lugosi’s acting.  In honor of the sensitivity of Lugosi’s performance, I opted to select Vitus for the first name of my haunted scientist from Lugosi’s character in The Black Cat and the last name from Lugosi’s actual family name.

Jamie Blasko:  Jamie, Vitus and the ghostly Felicia’s daughter, has terribly suffered through her mother’s murder (or abandonment?), a broken engagement, and living in a shadow-shrouded manse looking after a father broken by the mistakes of his past.  With a cast member of The Wellstone Mystery Hour offering her the life saver of romance, Jamie has a chance for happiness.  Dare she take it?  The radio program will broadcast shows focusing on that most terrible time: the mystery of her mother’s disappearance.  Can Jamie bear a revival of that scandal and pain?  Will the program provide the answers she needs?  Will she and her father be able to bear those answers?
Soulful-eyed Gail Russell is the natural inspiration of my creation, Jamie Blasko.  In such roles as the haunted daughter determined to embrace the ghostly touch of her mother in The Uninvited or the young woman struggling against the psychic prediction of her death at a fast approaching appointed hour in The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Russell’s gentle demeanor threaded with flashes of piercing anguish embodies the spirit of the Blasko girl.

 

Gerry Davis:  A WWII vet who lost a leg at Anzio, Gerry is a true radio trouper on The Wellstone Mystery Hour, not only playing most of their romantic leads but a host of other parts as the need arises.  Handsome with wavy blondish brown hair and a twinkle in his eye, Gerry’s kind heart and impish wit may be just the ticket to save Jaime Blasko from the darkness shadowing her life.  However, Gerry must overcome the antipathy between Vitus Blasko and the Carlyle family sponsoring these broadcasts of a past tearing apart both families.  For Gerry, I’ve turned to a more modern player for inspiration: Geraint Wyn Davies.  The humor, passion, and intelligence Davies has brought to roles ranging from Shakespeare to the conscience-stricken vampire detective of Forever Knight makes him an ideal choice to inspire Gerry’s good nature and passion  to protect Jamie Blasko.
If you haven’t already, check out my blogs on casting characters in the first three novels of the Jessica Minton Mysteries
Bait and Switch
Letter from a Dead Man
Always Play the Dark Horse

Image Credits
Bela Lugosi images screen shots from The Black Cat (1934), © Universal Pictures.
First Gail Russell Image:  Screen Shot from The Uninvited (1944) © Paramount Pictures.
Second Gail Russell Image Public Domain from Wikkipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gail_Russell_postcard_photo_circa_1950s.jpg
Geraint Wynn Davies image a portion of Lady Vamp’s Forever Knight Site, http://www.foreverknight.org/LadyVampKnight1228/home.html

If any violation of copyright has been inadvertently committed by my posting or re-posting these images, let me know and I will remove them.
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Live! And on the Air!: Shadows of a Dark Past!

1940s mystery, Always Play the Dark Horse, Autumn, Bait and Switch, Fall, Film Actors, Film Noir, Gothic, Halloween, Jessica Minton, Joan Bennett, Letter from a Dead Man, mystery, New Hampshire, radio, radio drama, Sharon Healy Yang, Sharon Yang, supernatural, suspense, The War of the Worlds, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
In my first novel, Bait and Switch, heroine Jessica Minton starts out as a moderately successful stage actress.  So why did I switch her from the stage to the radio as I continued the series with  Letter from a Dead Man?  Well, there are two reasons.  First of all, radio work gave Jessica more free time to join her sister Liz in unraveling mysteries.  However, the second reason is far more interesting.  I’ve always been fascinated by the imaginative entertainment radio provided Americans for almost five decades. The more I delved into how shows were written and produced; what made some actors excel and others bomb when playing to an audience over the airwaves; the way audiences were engaged, even enthralled, by the “theatre of the mind,” the more possibilities I could see this environment inspiring in a mystery.

My first awareness of radio entertainment of the classic 1920s-50s came from old movies of the ’30s through ’50s that I watched on TV as a child – a very young child.  I loved the excitement of actors and musicians, quiz contestants, and newscasters performing before live audiences.  I was so influenced by what I saw that I was close to six or seven before realizing that the music I heard on the radio was not being performed live at the local radio studio. Until that epiphany, I had been dearly puzzled by how the Beatles and Supremes could get from Lowell to Lawrence, MA in a matter if minutes! 

As I got older, read more, and watched movie and TV portrayals of radio with a deeper understanding, I learned more about the intricacies of production – including writing, directing, acting, and sound effects creation, which made me even more fascinated.  Books such as The Great American Radio Broadcast, Terror on the Air, Suspense, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, and The I Love a Mystery Companion  revealed to me the behind the scene creation of programs such as Inner Sanctum, Lux Radio Theatre, Suspense, and I Love a Mystery, to name a few – from initial inspiration and pitching of a show to sponsors, to the intense schedule for writing and rehearsing, to actors’ perspective on radio performing, to audience reactions.  I was especially intrigued by how special sound effects, combined with an audience’s willing imagination, were such a powerful force in creating reality:  coconut shells became pounding hooves, a stabbed melon was transformed into a fatally impaled human, a flushing toilet could be modified to become space invaders’ horrific weapons, or a heart beat might be created with a rubber sponge, a turn table, and a stylus (Maltin 108)!  Of course, there were also the ultra realists like Jack Webb whom Leonard Maltin reveals created the sounds of passing cars on Los Feliz Blvd. at 2:30 a.m. by having a sound man go out and record passing cars at 2:30 a.m. on Los Feliz Blvd. (Great American Radio Broadcast 100).

One source that especially galvanized my interest was Rupert Holmes’s Remember WENN (the real first original AMC series).  This delightful program traced the adventures of a Mid-West small-town girl who makes it to the big city (sort of), Pittsburgh, and starts as writer but soon finds the hectic demands of the station moving her swiftly into the roles of director; producer; business manager; and, occasionally, actress.  With humor that is sometimes whimsical, but always clever, Remember Wenn joyfully captures the seat-of-your-pants spirit at a radio station that characterized how this medium entertained and delighted audiences.

Whether in Remember Wenn or in the books I read, I especially loved learning how actors had the pleasure of playing an enormous catalogue of roles because we created their characters in our minds on the inspiration of their voices.  That’s how a short, chubby chap could become a strapping western marshal or a middle-aged man could mentally materialize as a kindly old grandmother in the theatre of our minds!  Or we got to “see” our favorite actors playing roles they never had a chance to have a crack at on the screen.  For example, as a Joan Bennett fan, I was delighted to catch her deftly cracking wise in Rosalind Russell’s part in Hired Wife or seductively manipulating Burt Lancaster in Barbara Stanwyck’s role in Double Indemnity. 

And short stories or novels were brought alive for us as well – especially Orson Welles’s infamous trick more that treat, War of the Worlds.  Both situations inspired me to think about what fun it would be to take some of my favorite horror or mystery stories or even movies and imagine them as venues for Jessica to strut her thespian stuff.  So, in Dead Man, Jess gets to talk about doing “A Rose for Emily” and “The Dunwich Horror”; in Dark Horse, we have reference to her playing in “The Horla.”

 

In Jessica’s most recent adventure, Shadows of a Dark Past, I’ve centered the story around her work on a remote broadcast in a haunted New Hampshire mansion (somewhat inspired by Charlie Chan in the Wax Museum). Attempting to drum up ratings, her director/producer Scott plans to reopen the tragedy of a woman’s tragic disappearance, and likely murder, in this mansion twenty years before.  The owner of the mansion, the husband of the woman reputed to be the ghost, her daughter, and others in the town who remember the event have dangerously mixed emotions about the broadcast.  And Jessica finds that she has a disturbing connection to the woman in question.  Then there’s the Hound of Hell. The topper is when things go horribly wrong in a séance recorded for later transmission.

In a book still in the outline stage, the plot revolves around Jessica’s work in the studio with some members of the writing team who are dangerously not what they seem. It’s Dusty who sets the plot in motion! So, don’t change that station!  I plan to bring you more exciting installments of the adventures of Jessica, Liz, James, and Dusty in and out of the studio!

 

If you’re looking for some films to give you a flavor of radio at its most exciting and mystery-inspiring, check out Charlie Chan in the Wax Museum (1940),  Abbott and Costello’s Who Done It? (1942), Danger on the Air (1938), The Hucksters (1949), That’s Right, You’re Wrong (1939), The Big Broadcast of 1938, Playmates (1941) The Frozen Ghost (1945), Radioland Murders (1994 – George Lucas directing, no less), and The Scarlet Clue (1945).  For a sardonic look at the effects of Orson Welles’s broadcast of War of the Worlds, have a chuckle at Hullabaloo (1940); and for a (mostly) more serious look, watch The Night That Panicked America (1975).

Image of Orson Welles directing:  Broadcasting play:  https://musingsofamiddleagedgeek.blog/2022/10/07/the-night-that-panicked-america-1975-is-a-little-seen-tv-movie-about-the-greatest-halloween-prank-ever-played/

Screen shot of  soundman and toilet from The dvd The Night That Panicked America,CBS Studios, (c) 2014

Image of Melinda Mullins from AMC Movie Magazine.

Image of Joan Bennett, Dusty, and Jessica Minton, author’s collection

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Take That One Step Beyond

Autumn, Gothic, Halloween, horror television, horror tv, John Newland, One Step Beyond, supernatural, , , , , , , ,
Recently, I caught actor/director John Newland in a 1948 Bulldog Drummond movie, Thirteen Lead Soldiers.  That appearance piqued a craving to see more of Newland in a TV program that those of us growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s knew, One Step Beyond.  So, for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been re-watching the program on my Alpha Video editions.  A perfect treat to prime me for the Halloween holidays.

What is One Step Beyond?  Well, the half-hour (23-5 minutes sans commercial) was one of the early horror anthologies of the time period I mentioned above – right in there with The Twilight Zone, Thriller, and (just a little behind these) The Outer Limits (original version).  All filmed in glorious black and white.  Part of what made One Step Beyond stand out from the others was that its stories were all allegedly true, taken from “the records of human history.” So, the crippled woman calling out for help at the immanent impact of a tidal wave is rescued by and rescues the only one who hears her, a deaf man whose disability leaves him unaware of the blaring warning sirens.  A turn-of-the-century young wife is haunted by premonitions of deadly blazes set by a twin to whom she seems to be psychically attuned. A pilot radios back that he’s seeing something astonishing of the UFO variety, disappears for several days, then miraculously reappears hundreds of miles beyond the range of his prop plane before dying.  A bellhop repeatedly has visions of the rooms and buildings around him crumbling in an earthquake – in San Francisco, 1905.  No one believes him, and then it’s too late.  A German submarine sets out to sea as the Third Reich crumbles, with hammering and thumping in between hulls haunting it – only for a skeleton to be found between hulls holding a wrench twenty years later.  A night-school teacher receives a cameo as a gift from an awkward student, then finds whenever she writes on blackboard or paper that her hand is possessed to write in a foreign language she doesn’t know but is native to her gift-giver – all of which puts her at risk from him at what the writing reveals.

John Newland, himself, adds a unique touch.  Neither skeptical like Serling nor sinister like Karloff (Thriller), he talks to us calmly, almost warmly, all the while undercutting our “logical” explanations, raising questions with his knowledge of experts on “bilocation,” “psychometry,” “telepathy,” “precognition,” etc.  Then he ends with a warm smile, reassuring us – or maybe slyly enjoying having destabilized our certainties.

 

One Step Beyond may be less disturbing than its fellow horror shows for another reason.  Usually, the supernatural events occur to set right murder or injustice, give voice to the oppressed, reunite estranged spouses or families, rescue those in danger, or give comfort the suffering.  UXB guy William Shatner manages to see his wife one last time under unusual circumstances when she is pregnant. A wife leads her husband to their son trapped in a mine, only the rescuers also find her dead body trapped in that same mine. A psychic bond leads a wife to find her husband trapped under a car in rising waters, while the spirits of three neglected children reunite a child with her estranged father.  More unnerving but still equitable, ghosts mete out justice to their murderers who have left them on a mountain to die, sent them off to die on a patrol ambushed by Indians, poisoned them to marry a mistress, or disguised their killing as suicide.  Still, there are enough threatening, even unjust, experiences recounted to make us wonder just how reassuring John Newland’s smile is.  All her premonitions about being caught on a sinking boat doesn’t save a young bride’s husband from death on the Titanic.  The poor bellhop with premonitions of the San Francisco quake dies, even if his warnings do save that adorable old Italian couple.  How about the woman whose twin sister appeared to be setting fatal conflagrations – did she really merit for her fate? Did photographer Cloris Leachman ask to be chased around her apartment by the maniacal ghost of the guy who murdered his wife many years ago? No wonder she moved to Minneapolis and changed her name to Phyllis Lindstrom!

The program also has an intriguing roster of guest stars.  There are up-and-comers:  William Shatner, Louise Fletcher (!),Warren Beatty (!!!), Charles Bronson, Elizabeth Montgomery, Suzanne Pleshette, Patrick McNee, Robert Blake, Mike Conners, Werner Klemperer, Cloris Leachman, and Robert Lansing – to name a few.  Then there are some folks who were once big or relatively big names: Joan Fontaine, Anna Lee, Patty McCormick, Carl Esmond, Ron Randall, and Catherine McCleod.  Bob Newhart’s father-in-law, Bill Quinn, makes a few appearances, too – as well as lots of sixties stalwarts like William Schallert, Joanne Linville, Ed Platt, Johnny Seven, Warren Stevens, Scott Marlowe, and Jan Miner. Those of you who know your TV supporting players and later stars will have a blast identifying them.

Other folks I know who have seen One Step Beyond pretty much all agree on one point.  The really scary thing about the program wasn’t the stories, the acting, the visuals, even John Newland.  It was the damned music!  That darned theme, appropriately named “Weird” by composer Arthur Lubin, sent chills coursing through out bodies!  Then there was “Fear”:  once its bars snaked into hearing, you knew something creepy was afoot – but more powerful was that their sinuous, haunting snake up your spine.  I’ll tell you, when I was a little kid and my bedtime was 7:00, there were only two shows that I could see worth watching (long before cable!):  first One Step Beyond, then The Twilight Zone.  No wonder I slept with a night light until I was thirty-seven.

So, here, to set your October off in the right mood are  links to “Fear” and “Weird”.  Listen – if you dare!  But be sure to put on a sweater first – chills up the spine, you know!

 

Some Episodes that I highly recommend”

“The Promise”

“The Dark Room”

“Reunion”

“The Dead Part of the House”

“Ordeal on Locust Street”

“Deadringer”

“The Explorer”

“The Death Waltz”

“To Know the End”

John Newland Image:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/John_Newland_-_1959_%28One_Step_Beyond%29.jpg

Images from episodes are screen shots of public domain episodes and cover of Alpha Videos art work; author’s collection