Now Wash Your Hands
Boris Karloff, dusky-hued in BEHIND THAT CURTAIN.
Boris again, dusky-hued again, in ISLE OF THE DEAD.
It’s Boris Karloff’s birthday!
It was only last year that I learned about Boris’s Indian ancestry. It seemed to make so much sense. It accounts for the darker pigmentation around his eyes, and may even account for his stage name: by assuming a Slavic name, William Henry Pratt could account for his colouring without admitting to any non-white heritage. This was in an age when the British spoke of someone like Boris having ” a lick of the tar-brush.”
Even if his appearance were accounted for, Boris still found the only parts he could get were exotic types, and sinister westerners. Without the simple ethnic explanation, those shadowy eyes became a repository for malevolent projections. Or maybe he was just naturally scary-looking.
Still, Boris had more range than he’s credited with: see FIVE STAR FINAL, an excoriating attack on yellow press scandal sheets from Mervyn LeRoy and Warner Bros. Eddie Robinson is the editor who destroys a whole family with his muck-raking tactics, and Boris is boozy reporter and sex pest (“Don’t get in a taxi with him”) T. Vernon Isopod. He’s grotesque, yes, simpering and slurring and lisping and leering, but he manages to be hilarious until the sheer repulsiveness of his profession tips him over into monstrousness of a different kind.
Happy Birthday Boris!
shadowplay 
November 23, 2010 at 3:01 pm
In GODS AND MONSTERS I seem to recall him being dismissed by Ian’s Whale, at that social gathering, as someone benign but dull maybe? Can’t recall exactly the implication or the tone. I think most would agree that one of his best performances was in THE BODY SNATCHER. I once worked with someone named Todd, and would address him at the onset of the day with “Hello Toddy”, trying out my best BK impression, much as Boris’s grave robber would greet the annoyed and distressed Henry Daniell.
November 23, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Saw him as an early noir-ish psycho in “The Lost Patrol” just last week. What an interesting performer, one who, by the looks of it, never had a happy birthday in his life – very appropriate post!
November 23, 2010 at 5:26 pm
On Turner, right this minite, You’ll Find Out starring Boris, Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi, Ginny Sims and Ish Kabibble with Kay Kyser and his College of Musical Knowledge.
Yes it’s as dreadful as it sounds.
November 23, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Having never seen a Kay Kyser film… I kind of want to.
I wasn’t entirely convinced by The Lost Patrol when I saw it, but maybe I’d like it more now. Always nice to se Boris outside of the horror genre though, just for variety.
Actually, I may have made a mistake and tomorrow might be the Big Day. Still, this will all be appropriate then.
November 23, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Another eye-opening post, sending us scrambling to follow your leads. I love that his father’s civil service post, if we can trust IMDB, was the matter-of-fact “Deputy Commissioner of Customs, Salt and Opium”. Also, of course, envisioning the title credit “The Monster … Pratt”.
Zach R.: But he’s”‘Happy” MacDonald, the suave proprietor of “Happy’s” nightclub in the gloriously pre-Code NIGHT WORLD (1932).
November 23, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Ah, Night World! I got myself a copy of that a while ago, but have yet to take the plunge.
Karloff is clearly the name he was born to assume. Karloff & Lugosi sounds exotic and sepulchral, Pratt & Lugosi sounds like an end-of-the-pier comedy team.
November 23, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Boris Karloff was a genuinely great actor. The usual thing about performances in horror films is that the actors tend to get lost in the make-up and the sets and special effects, like Murnau did with Max Schreck in Nosferatu but Karloff’s performances in the Frankenstein films overwhelm the effects really and his work in The Black Cat is one of the greatest malevolent forces in film history and he’s also great in Val Lewton’s Isle of the Dead(though the film like the others, is not up to the level of the Tourneur films).
November 23, 2010 at 7:31 pm
And leave us not forget his wordless performances in Whale’s The Old Dark House and Frankenstein
November 23, 2010 at 8:17 pm
TA
November 23, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Oops. What I meant above to say above was: Take that plunge! NIGHT WORLD has not only Karloff, but Mae Clarke showing Ruth Keeler how ingenue SHOULD be done, pre-stardom George Raft as an unmitigated heel, Clarence Muse apparently exactly the same age as in CARWASH, a Busby Berkeley floorshow number complete with wisecracking showgirls, and much, much more. In 57 minutes.
November 23, 2010 at 9:48 pm
With excellent timing, my Val Lewton Box Set has just arrived. Isle of the Dead tonight, I think…
I am a fan of The Lost Patrol and have always thought that it was here, rather than in Rio Bravo, that Carpenter found the template for Assault On Precinct 13.
November 23, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Isle of the Dead, along with The Mummy, was the first horror movie to really freak me out asa kid. In both cases, the burial alive theme is what did it. Not sure why that particular terror afflicted me so… in Isle, the plodding inevitability that the character afflicted by a morbid fear of premature burial would suffer that precise fate made it all the more upsetting.
I like Assault on Precinct 13 somewhat, but I prefer Pitch Black.
Guy, Whale does have a line in Gods and Monsters about Karloff being unutterably dull, but this seems to be not the case. He was an eccentric who loved gardening in his underwear and kept a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig as pet before it was fashionable or popular to do so.
November 23, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Karloff loved his garden,an obsession(something this gardener can understand).Heard tell it wasn’t uncommon to see the Frankenstein monster watering his garden,as Karloof would rush home breifly in breaks of filming Bride” and Son”
Karloff gets real sceeery at the end of Isle of the Dead when hes in stalking mode..And the premature burial sequence running along side makes a for Val Lewton PLUS!..wind and voices always make for good chills.
November 24, 2010 at 12:01 am
Has the question of Karloff’s ancestry actually been settled? I thought it was still an open question, but perhaps I missed an update.
I quite like Kay Kyser. He looks great in academic robes, has a chipper personality, and waves his baton with aplomb. He’s like a COOL Lawrence Welk.
November 24, 2010 at 2:03 am
I just learned about the Indian background myself a couple of weeks ago, and I couldn’t figure out why it seemed right until I remembered the Indian actor Amrish Puri in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. As the main Kali cultist, Puri’s acting always reminded me of Karloff’s peculiar menace; I thought he was imitating what Karloff might have done.
The IMDB has a good photo of Amrish Puri in the role:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0700869/
YOU’LL FIND OUT is surprisingly easy to get through, with Karloff, Lorre and Lugosi having fun even though they’re stuck playing spoofs of themselves.
November 24, 2010 at 3:07 am
Really fascinating bit of info about Karloff’s heritage.
November 24, 2010 at 4:24 am
Amrish Puri is well known in Hindi cinema for frequently playing bad guys. He’s more Bela Lugosi than Karloff. Especially his campy turn in MR. INDIA by the pre-expat Shekhar Kapur. He also played stern patriarchs and comic roles towards the end of his life.
November 24, 2010 at 5:58 am
Holy cow. By sheer coincidence, I’m at this moment listening to my CD of Franz Waxman’s “Bride of Frankenstein” score for the first time in years. What a beautiful happenstance.
This guy was a terrific actor and one of the great icons of the 20th century. Thanks for the info, DC.
November 24, 2010 at 6:03 am
This just in: Ingrid Pitt, RIP. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcGiYYcTZmA
November 24, 2010 at 11:09 am
Aw. Always got the impression she was a nice, rather eccentric lady.
November 24, 2010 at 3:28 pm
I watched Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets not too long ago, and while it’s mostly forgettable, Karloff, playing a washed-up horror star who retains his integrity, is wonderful. The whole movie seems to exist for the sole purpose of giving Bogdanovich a chance to shoot a scene of Karloff telling the story “Appointment in Samarra,” which he does beautifully.
November 24, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Lovely. I like the film quite a bit, although it looks as if they ran out of time somewhat when shooting the climax. The evocation of modern-day psychotic violence struck me as pertinent and scary (with very subtle use of slomo) and I like P-Bog’s uncertainty and callowness as an actor, compared to Karloff’s gentle grandeur.
Really, the movie exists to recycle ten minutes of footage from The Terror, so on that basis it’s something of a triumph. I kind of wish Karloff had retired then, rather than making those Mexican movies with Jack Hill…
November 24, 2010 at 4:07 pm
You’re right about Bogdanovich’s performance: there’s a not-quite-rightness to it that, while it actually works in this part, also serves as a reminder that acting’s not as easy as it looks!
(And I do love the way they used the old footage–a brilliant solution.)
November 24, 2010 at 10:41 pm
I love Targets…its a nice little time capsule of late 60s Los Angeles.
November 25, 2010 at 12:15 pm
John: In only heard about Karloff’s Indian extraction recently, but it was cited as fact by Kim Newman and others, who usually know their stuff, so I guess it’s been established.
I think Bogdanovich had acted before, in theatre, so he wasn’t a total novice, but directing himself, in a lead role, opposite Karloff, must’ve been a daunting challenge. Still, he’s totally believable as a tyro movie brat!