The many magical expressions of John Carradine, the man with the India-rubber kisser. Taken from LA SIGNORA MUERTE, a low-grade Mexican mad scientist movie in which old Long John is by turns ludicrous, wonderful, terrible, repellant and kind of pitiable. He deserved better, and so do we.
“Never do anything you wouldn’t be caught dead doing,” was Carradine’s advice to his acting offspring, and one wishes that (a) he’d set his standards a little higher and (b) son David had paid better attention. Still, I like this cramped, busy, upsettingly strange composition ~
Uh, what’s the subject of this shot? The chandelier?
LA SIGNORA MUERTE shoehorns a bunch of horror cliches together without any regard for sense. Screenwriter Ramón Obón Jnr is an old hand at Mexican horror, and his father, also called Ramón Obón, penned the genuinely inventive and atmospheric EL GRITO DE LA MUERTE (THE LIVING COFFIN) some ten years earlier.
shadowplay 