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Of all the iconic stars of horror, Lon Chaney jr was always one of the
more tragic figures: He just missed the golden era of the genre
(the early to mid-1930's) by a few years and would thus never become as
popular as golden era-stars Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, he was maybe
the horror star of the 1940's, a time when the quality of horror thrillers
(especially those made at Universal)
rapidly decreased, his chronic alcoholism would gravely damage the later
years of his career, and he would forever be overshadowed by his father,
the legendary silent film legend star Lon Chaney, star of such films as Phantom
of the Opera (1925, Rupert Julian, Edward Sedgwick) - who by the
way did not want his son to become an actor. On the other hand though,
Lon Chaney was a fine actor with a full soothing voice who was way better
than many of the films he was in during his career. Lon Chaney jr was
born Creighton Tull Chaney in 1906 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to singer Cleva Creighton
Chaney and to Lon Chaney, then a struggling actor still years away from
fame. The marriage of Cleva and Lon sr was less than happy and ended in
1913, when Cleva was staging a public suicide attempt in Los Angeles. After
the split-up, young Creighton stayed with his father, who sent him to
boarding school after boarcing school, until he could provide him a stable
home with his second wife Hazel Hastings in 1916. By then, Lon Chaney sr
was already employed in the film industry and his star slowly began to
rise. As a (horror) actor, Lon Chaney had his breakthrough in 1919,
playing the cripple Frog in The Miracle Man (George Loane Tucker),
and after that his career pretty much went from strength to strength until
his untimely death in 1930 ... but still he would not permit his son to
follow his footsteps, instead had Lon jr learn the plumbing trade. So
while his father was a star, Lon jr spent most of the 1920's as a plumber
- but both Lon sr's death in 1930 and the Great Depression hit Lon jr and
family (he married Dorothy Hinckley in 1928 and had two children with her,
Lon, born in 1928, and Ron, born in 1930) hard, and eventually Lon Chaney
jr saw himself forced to leave the plumbing trade and instead try and find
his fortune in the movie industry in circa 1931, initially hooking up with
RKO as a
contract player, but soon going freelance.
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In his first
films, Chaney still appeared under his real name, Creighton Chaney, his
parts were often no more than bit-parts, for which he did not necessarily
even receive on-screen billing, with only the occasional bigger role
thrown in. Among the more interesting of his early films were:
- The
Last Frontier (1932, Spencer Gordon Bennet, Thomas Storey), a Western
serial that has the distinction of being the only serial ever to be distributed by RKO,
provided Chaney with an early lead role, playing a frontier newspaper man
who - occasionally sporting a Mexican accent and disguising himself as the
mysterious Black Ghost - battles a gang of outlaws who cause
all kinds of Indian uprisings, but whom Lon in the end defeats with the
help of General Custer (William Desmond). Lon as we know him nowadays
might be a weird choice for a range hero, but in his early years, Lon was
tall, handsome lean and wiry and fitted the bill quite perfectly. Thing
is, not even he could save this rather poor serial.
- Bird of Paradise (1932,
King Vidor) is a vehicle for Dolores Del Rio and Joel McCrea, with her
playing an island girl about to be sacrificed to the volcano god and McCrea
the white man who has fallen in love with her. Chaney merely play a small
supporting role in this film that did get notorious mainly for a brief
nude swim scene.
- The Mascot-serial The Three Musketeers
(1933, Colbert Clark, Armand Schaefer) was basically a vehicle for a young
John Wayne, then himself merely an up-and-coming star with an uncertain
future [for an article on John
Wayne in the 1930's click here, for
an article on Mascot click here]. Chaney had only a small
role in the first chapter of this one - as the character who first betrays
Wayne, then tries to kill himself but is stopped by Wayne only to be
murdered by the bad guys, who in turn blame Wayne for it - but he is
sixth-billed throughout the serial.
- Girl
o' my Dreams (1934, Ray McCarey) is actually a cheap and
disappointing musical comedy produced by Monogram
in which Chaney can be seen singing a tune - and wouldn't you know it,
he turns out to be the best singer of the whole musical.
The film A
Scream in the Night (1935, Fred Newmeyer) marked Lon Chaney jr's name-change: Little production company Commodore
Pictures obviously thought that the box office appeal of young
Creighton Chaney could be greatly improved if his name sounded more like
his father's - and they were probably right, because for the remainder of
his career, Creighton appeared almost exclusively as Lon Chaney jr or even
Lon Chaney - much to Creighton Chaney's dismay, because this way it was
almost impossible to escape his father's overwhelming shadow ... (To
increase the association between Lon jr and Lon sr even more, Commodore
Pictures even labeled Lon the younger
"the man with a 1,000 faces", a not-so-clever play on his
father's nickname "the man of a 1,000 faces".)
As a
film, A Scream in the
Night may be a dirt-cheap and a bit creaky crime thriller, but at
the same time it's also an entertaining and colourful B-picture that
features some nice exotic sets and a brilliant performance by Lon Chaney
jr, who plays not only the detective lead but also the villainous brute in
this one.
Actually, Commodore
Pictures had hired Chaney jr for three years with eight proposed films per
year, but of all this 24 films in total, only A
Scream in the Night and the inferior The Shadow of Silk Lennox (1935,
Ray Kirkwood, Jack Nelson) - in which Chaney plays the smooth gangster of
the title - ever materialized, and the company disappeared into oblivion
soon afterwards.
With Commodore
Pictures though, Lon Chaney jr's steady job evaporated, and for
the next 2 years, he was back to being a freelance actor. Among the more
interesting films from that era were:
- Undersea
Kingdom (1936, B.Reeves Eason, Joseph Kane), the classic early Republic
science fiction serial starring Crash Corrigan [Ray Crash Corrigan
bio - click here] has Chaney as the head guard of, well, the
undersea kingdom [Republic
history - click here].
- Both The Singing Cowboy (1936, Mack
V.Wright) and The Old Corral
(1936, Joseph Kane) were Westerns starring Republic's
very own singing cowboy and very first star Gene Autry. The latter film
also featured Roy Rogers in a bigger role, who was then still a few years away from becoming Republic's
biggest singing cowboy star [Roy
Rogers bio - click here]. Chaney plays baddies in
both these films.
- Ace Drummond (1936, Ford L.Beebe, Clifford
Smith) is an aerial action and adventure serial produced by Universal
that features plenty of sci fi trappings. In this one Chaney is one of
the villain's henchmen while John 'Dusty' King plays the titular hero.
- Another Universal
serial that features Chaney as the villain's henchman is Secret Agent
X-9 (1937, Ford L.Beebe, Clifford Smith) with Scott Kolk in the title
role.
- Cheyenne Rides Again (1937, Robert F.Hill), in which Chaney
plays a supporting role, is one of the Westerns Tom Tyler made for Victory
when his career was already on the decline [Tom
Tyler bio - click here]. A few years later, Chaney would
inherit the role of Kharis the
Mummy from Tyler.
- In Rose Bowl (1936, Charles
Barton), a sports comedy starring Eleanore Witney, Tom Brown and Buster
Crabbe [Buster Crabbe bio - click here],
Chaney can be seen as a football player.
As you can imagine,
none Chaney's roles in the above bunch of films was great or impressive,
but it kept him in employ, which finally paid off when he was eventually
hired as a 20th
Century Fox-contract player in 1937. Not in fact that his
filmroles at 20th
Century Fox were any better than those he had while freelancing,
but they were bread-on-the-table for Chaney and family, including his
second wife Patsy Beck, whom he married in 1937, shortly after the divorce
from Dorothy Hinckley. The two would remain married until Lon's death in
1973. Among Lon's more interesting films at 20th
Century Fox were two entries into the Charlie
Chan-series - Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937, Eugene
Ford) and City in Darkness (1939, Herbert I.Leeds)
-, one episode of the similarly themed Mr.Moto-series - Mr.
Moto's Gamble (1938, James Tinling) -, John Ford's Submarine Patrol
(1938) and several Westerns including
Cecil B.DeMille's Union Pacific starring Barbara Stanwyck and Joel
McCrea and Henry King's Jesse James (both 1939) starring Tyrone
Power. Still, even if these films would look good in anybody's resumé and
Chaney's work was at the very least solid, none of his roles were actually
impressive or were even designed for someone to make a name of himself -
he was just a supporting character actor and that was that ... until he
split up with 20th
Century Fox that is ...
Actually, the first film that
Lon Chaney jr made after his split with 20th
Century Fox, the Hal Roach/United
Artists-produced John Steinbeck-adaptation Of Mice and Men
(1939, Lewis Milestone), could very well be described as his breakthrough,
at least on an artistic level. His sympathetic portrayal of Lennie, the
mentally retarded giant opposite Burgess Meredith's level-headed George is
probably the finest performance Chaney has ever given.
Overall, the film
was a hit with audiences and critics alike, and from here on Chaney was
(at least for a short time) specialized on playing hunky and demented
characters: He played the leader of the Rock People in the cavemen drama One
Million B.C. (1940, Hal Roach, Hal Roach jr), the monster opposite
Lionel Atwill's mad scientist in Man Made Monster (1941, George
Waggner) [Lionel Atwill-bio -
click here] - incidently Chaney's first entry into the Universal
classic horror cycle -, Frankenstein's monster in The
Ghost of Frankenstein (1942, Erle C.Kenton), Kharis the
Mummy in The
Mummy's Tomb (1942, Harold Young), The
Mummy's Ghost (1944, Reginald Le Borg) and The
Mummy's Curse (1944, Leslie Goodwins), a mute brute in the
escapist extravaganza Cobra
Woman (1944, Robert Siodmak) starring Maria Montez, and a very
Lenny-like role in Bob Hope's film noir parody My Favorite Brunette
(1947, Elliott Nugent) - but I'm getting way ahead of myself ...
Let's
return to 1941: Universal
has just given Chaney, then still relatively fresh from Of Mice and Men
and fondly remembered by the audience, a contract and put him into one of
their horror vehicles, Man Made Monster, a film that did well
enough to make the powers that be at Universal
give him the lead in their next horror vehicle (after they had him doing
supporting roles in a number of Westerns): The
Wolf Man (1941, George Waggner).
The
Wolf Man was indeed a lucky break for Lon Chaney jr: The role was
as far removed from the Lenny-style dumb brute as could be: Larry Talbot,
the Wolf Man's human alter ego, was a sophisticated young man (actually he
was supposed to be a good deal younger than 35-year old Chaney) who
originally didn't have an evil bone in his body - until he is turned into
a killing beast after being bitten by a werewolf (in the sequels to this
film, he turns more and more desperate wanting to either die or lead a
normal life once more). Chaney could invest his whole range of acting
talent into this role instead of just repeating his Lenny-cliché, and he
did so admirably well ... But The
Wolf Man wasn't only satisfying on an artistic level, it was also
a big success at the box office, and it was a role Chaney had for himself,
unlike all the other Universal
monsters he later also played (making him the only actor to play all four Universal
monsters, actually): There is little doubt that Dracula
always belonged to Bela Lugosi, no matter who followed after him, and both
Frankenstein's
monster and the Mummy
would be measured by Boris Karloff's performances. The
Wolf Man on the other hand was something new, something Lon
Chaney jr had created (or helped to create anyways), and it was a role
noone else but him played in subsequent films, and even if the character
did not get his own series as such, he would pop up in four more Universal
films.
After the success of The
Wolf Man, Universal
immediately knew they had a winner in their hand - as long as they kept
him in the horror genre at least, so within the next two years they cast
Chaney as Frankenstein's
monster in The
Ghost of Frankenstein, Kharis the
Mummy in The
Mummy's Tomb, and Dracula
in Son of Dracula
(1943, Robert Siodmak). Of these films, only Son
of Dracula is of some greater interest, since it gives Chaney the
chance to do more than menacingly stumbling through the landscape. Based
on a story that was written by Curt Siodmak who also wrote the screenplay
for The Wolf Man [Curt
Siodmak bio - click here], the film relocates Count Dracula
(not his son, the son is only in the title) in the swamps of
Louisiana and involves him in a convoluted vampire-murder mystery - that in
the end seems to get a little out of hand. And unfortuantely, Lon Chaney
jr doesn't give one of his better performances here ...
Unsurprisingly,
Chaney jr did not reprise the role of Dracula,
this role went first to John Carradine for two movies, then back to Bela
Lugosi - interestingly though, Lon Chaney jr played his role, the
Wolf Man, in all of these films, but let's not get ahead ...
With
The
Wolf Man being a winner, Universal
wasted little time to reuse the successful character again, but to
assure maximum profit, they teamed him up with Frankenstein's
monster ... though wait a little, wasn't Chaney himself the monster in the
previous installment of the Frankenstein-series,
The
Ghost of Frankenstein ? Yes he was, but Universal
never cared too much about continuity in their horror series and
boldly cast Bela Lugosi as the monster, who played hunchback Igor in The
Ghost of Frankenstein and the lycanthropic gypsy who turns
Larry Talbot/Lon Chaney jr into a werewolf in the first place in
The Wolf Man.
The resulting movie Frankenstein
Meets the Wolf Man (1943, Roy William Neill) is, not surprisingly,
silly as hell and is nowadays fondly remembered only by die-hard Universal
classic horror-fans and lovers of camp - but that did not
deter Universal
from making more all-star monster-movies: Next came House
of Frankenstein (1944, Erle C.Kenton), followed in 1945 by House
of Dracula (Erle C. Kenton again).
Both of these films featured
not only the
Wolf Man and Frankenstein's
monster (now played by Glenn Strange) but also Dracula,
this time around played by John Carradine [John
Carradine-bio - click here]. As an added bonus, House
of Frankenstein also features Boris Karloff [Boris
Karloff bio - click here], the original Frankenstein
monster, as the resident mad scientist. Again, these films are
decidedly silly ... but again, die-hard Universal
classic horror-fans and lovers of camp and/or absurd might
like them.
Eventually even the powers-that-be at Universal
must have realized how ludicrous their all-star monster movies have gotten
when they handed the franchise over to their in-house comic duo Abbott
& Costello for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
(1948, Charles Barton), in which Lon Chaney jr - who had already
co-starred with Abbott
& Costello in Here Come the Co-Eds (1945, Jean
Yarbrough [Jean Yarbrough
bio - click here]) - once again plays the
Wolf Man, with Glenn Strange as Frankenstein's
monster and Bela Lugosi returning to his role as Dracula after 17 years.
The film is one of the better films of the comic duo and is today fondly
remembered by comedy fans and horror fans alike. After that, Universal's
all-monster extravaganzas were a thing of the past - and remained so until
Van Helsing (Stephen
Sommers) in 2004 - the
Wolf Man though, Lon Chaney's own character, was no more ... But even while the
Wolf Man-series was still going strong, Universal
established their (then) leading horror star Lon Chaney jr in yet another
series, the Inner Sanctum-anthology-series of (mostly
supernatural) murder mysteries, somehow inspired by the radio show of the
same name. The good news was that Chaney wasn't reduced to playing the
monster in these films (6 in total) but always played the hero - the bad
news was though that none of these movies was very good, they were
unimaginatively directed and badly written little B-movies that left
hardly any impression at all ...
- In Calling Dr Death (1943,
Reginald Le Borg), the first of the series, Chaney plays a neurologist who
has lost his memory of the last few days, which is bad enough in itself
but even worse so because his wife has been murdered during that time -
and he couldn't remember if he murdered her or not even if his life depended on
it ... which incidently it does. Eventually he reverts to hypnotism.
J.Carrol Naish plays the inspector on Chaney's trail.
- Next was Weird
Woman (1944, Reginald Le Borg), an unconvincing voodoo-tale also
starring Anne Gwynne as Lon's wife and Evelyn Ankers as the villainess. The film was
based on Fritz Leiber's novel Conjure Wife, which was later filmed in the
UK as Night of the Eagle/Burn Witch Burn (1962, Sidney
Hayers) starring Peter Wyngarde.
- Dead Man's Eyes (1944, Reginald
Le Borg) has artist Chaney losing his eyesight when his jealous model Acquanetta
accidently makes him wash his face with acid. Fortunately, the father of his
fiancée (Jean Parker) promises him his eyes for transplantation after he
dies - but when he dies prematurely, suspicion immediately falls upon
Chaney.
- In The Frozen Ghost (1945, Harold Young) Chaney plays a
stage mentalist one of whose audience members dies under hypnosis, and who
out of guilt quits hypnotizing to work at a wax museum - which is where
the problems really start ...
- In Strange Confession (1945, John
Hoffman) Chaney is a scientist who gets both his formula to cure influenza
and his wife (Brenda Joyce) stolen by drug manufacturer J.Carrol Naish -
but eventually Chaney retaliates by cutting off Naish's head. The film is
based on a play by Jean Bart that has previously been fimed in 1934 as The
Man who Reclaimed his Head (Edward Ludwig) starring Claude Rains,
Joan Bennett and Lionel Atwill [Lionel
Atwill-bio - click here].
- Pillow of Death (1945, Wallace
Fox) is the last of the series, and it has Chaney as the prime suspect of
a murder case whose dead wife keeps appearing to him - whom he might or
might not have murdered. Once again, Brenda Joyce, who has become Johnny
Weissmuller/Tarzan's
second Jane earlier that year, costars in this [Johnny
Weissmuller bio - click here].
By the mid-1940's
though, both the Universal
horror cycle and the horror genre as such had lost their
attraction at the box office, and the fact that the studio used Chaney in
a Chic Johnson-Ole Olsen comedy in 1944, Ghost Catchers (Edward F.Cline),
might already signify that. When Chaney's contract expired in 1945, Universal
refused to renew it, partly also due to the fact that Chaney's alcholism
became more and more apparent, which made it harder and harder to work
with him - even if it did not yet mar his work like it later did.
The
remainder of the 1940's, Chaney made only the occasional film appearance
like above-mentioned comedies My Favorite Brunette
and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
- a return to Universal
limited to one picture - as well as the Randolph Scott Western Albuquerque
(1948, Ray Enright) and the Monogram
adventure flick 16 Fathoms Deep (1948, Irving Allen) - a remake of
a movie of the same name from 1934 co-directed by Allen and Armand
Schaefer ... in which Chaney had incidently starred as well. The
1950's proved to be a rollercoaster ride for Chaney: The horror genre that
has made Chaney a star in the 1940's was essentially dead, and roles in
horror films were far and few between, which forced Chaney to accept
numerous unimportant supporting roles in numerous unimportant films -
along with a few good ones that is. On the other hand though, television
was quickly becoming the mass medium of the day, and TV was in constant
need of experienced (B-)actors ...
Here are some of the more
interesting films/tv-shows Lon Chaney jr acted in during the 1950's:
- Bride
of the Gorilla (1951, Curt Siodmak), one of the first productions
of schlock-producer Jack Broder, was essentially a remake of
The
Wolf Man, even written and directed by that film's screenwriter (Bride
of the Gorilla actually was Curt Siodmak's directing debut). The
difference is that it is not about a man turning into a wolf but into a
gorilla, and that this time around Lon Chaney jr does not play the
shapeshifter - this role is reserved for Raymond Burr - but the police
commissioner hot on his trail. Of course, the film is pretty much as
ludicrous as it sounds but trashfans might come to like it nevertheless.
Flame
of Araby (1951, Charles Lamont), an Arabian nights-style
fantasy, is essentially a showcase for red-haired Maureen O'Hara as an
Arabian Princess and Jeff Chandler as her hero. Another Arabian
nights-style fantasy, Thief of Damascus (1952, Will Jason), has
Lon Chaney jr as Sinbad (!), join forces with Ali Baba
(Philip Van Zandt) and Aladdin (Robert Clary). The star of the film though
is Paul Henreid. In The Bushwhackers (1952, Rodney Amateau), a
cheap Western produced by Jack Broder starring John Ireland, Wayne Morris,
Lawrence Tierney and Dorothy Malone, Lon plays an arthritic old
villain. In the Tales of Tomorrow-episode called Frankenstein
(1952, Don Medford), Chaney was allowed to reprise his role as Frankenstein's
monster, a role he had already played in The
Ghost of Frankenstein - and even though Chaney was reportedly
drunk while filming this (a live show) and thought he was only a doing
a dress rehearsal, his performance is rather good. Too bad the episode
as such was based on such a bad script then.. -
In High Noon (1952, Fred
Zinnemann), the classic Western with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly and
probably the most high profile film of Chaney's career (if not his most
high profile role), he played the old Sheriff and fatherly mentor of
Cooper's character, even if in real life Cooper was 5 years Chaney's
senior.
Springfield Rifle
(1952, André De Toth) was another Western in which Chaney supported Gary
Cooper. In 1952, Chaney also played one of his most unusual roles, that
of (historical) Native American chieftain Pontiac in Battles
of Chief Pontiac (1952, Felix E.Feist), another Jack Broder
production that was also Lex Barker's first starring film apart from the Tarzan-series
[Lex Barker bio - click here].
Even though this role might sound rather odd for an veteran horror actor,
Chaney totally identified with the role of the Indian chief and even went so
far as to live with the Indians (actual Sioux were used in the film) in a
Teepee during shooting. He even went so far as to not drink during the
entire shoot of the movie, even if the Indian actors on the film would
drink quite heavily.
In later years, Lon Chaney jr would occasionally
return to playing Indian chiefs, like in the Republic-production
Daniel Boone, Trail Blazer (1956, Albert C.Gannaway, Ismael
Rodríguez) starring Bruce Bennett [Republic
history - click here], in the TV-series Hawkeye
and the Last of the Mohicans (1957) - the only series in which
he ever was a regular, playing Chingachgook, siding by Jon Hall as Hawkeye
- or even in the Western comedy series Pistols and Petticoats
(1966-67). The
Black Castle (1952, Nathan Juran) saw Chaney's return to the horror
genre and to Universal
(again, only for one film), but Chaney is reduced to playing a hulking
mute here while the film belongs to hero Richard Greene, the ever dependable Boris Karloff and
Stephen MacNally as the villain. The film has actually more in common with
the Universal
horror cycle from the past decade than their more current
science fiction output, as it features Gothic horror settings as well as
over-the-top gothic pulp elements like alligator pits and leopard hunts - and as a result
it is quite enjoyable. With films like Raiders of the Seven Seas
(1953, Sidney Salkow) and The Black Pirates (1954, Allen H.Miner)
Lon Chaney jr would also tackle the genre of pirate adventure. I Died
a Thousand Times (1955, Stuart Heisler) is nothing else than a colour
remake of the black and white classic High Sierra (1941, Raoul
Walsh), starring Jack Palance, Shelley Winters and Lee Marvin. The remake
though pales in comparison ... Casanova's
Big Night (1954, Norman
Z.McLeod) was basically a showcase for comedian Bob Hope, but besides
Chaney it also featured horror greats John Carradine [John
Carradine-bio - click here] and Basil Rathbone. Despite being based on not one but two
stories by Edgar Allan Poe, The Gold Bug and The Tell-Tale Heart,
Manfish (1956, W.Lee Wilder) is not a horror film at all but rather
an adventure and murder mystery among divers. Lon plays essentially
another variation of his Lenny-character in this one. It's a pretty decent
film though. In Indestructible
Man (1956, Jack Pollexfen, Chaney) looks terrible: His face is visibly
scarred by alcoholism, most of the time he stumbles around a bit
uncontrollably, and he seems to be constantly puzzled, as if he was
constantly drunk. Ironically this works for his role here, as he plays a
man who has been resurrected from the dead but his brain is damaged and he
wants brutal revenge on those who have wronged him - and in that respect,
stumbling around uncontrollably and looking puzzled makes perfect sense.
And in the short monologue he has to deliver at the beginning of the film,
he proves that his diction at least is not affected and his voice is as
smooth as ever. On the whole of course, Indestructible
Man is typical a typical piece 1950's sci-fi-trash, but a very
enjoyable one. The Black Sleep (1956, Reginald Le Borg) is
another straight horror film, and what a cast it has: Aside from Lon
Chaney jr there's also Basil Rathbone [Basil
Rathbone bio - click here], Bela Lugosi [Bela Lugosi bio - click
here], John Carradine [John
Carradine bio - click here], Tor
Johnson [Tor
Johnson bio - click here] and Akim Tamiroff ... however the outcome is probably the single
most boring horror film ever with the most talent wasted in one single go. The
Allied
Artists-production The Cyclops (1956) is one of Bert
I.Gordon's lesser known giant
monster films, this one is about a party (Lon being one of
them) stranded in an isolated valley and having to battle a 25 foot-man
with only one eye. Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones (1958) was
another high-profile picture Chaney was in. In this one he supported
Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis playing two escaped convicts, one black one
white (obviously) who are chained together and slowly learn to come to
terms with each other. The Alligator People (Roy Del Ruth) from
1959 was a definite step downwards from The Defiant Ones, as it
seemed that cheap monster cinema had reclaimed Lon Chaney jr. In this one
he plays a hooked drunk and gives support to the film's stars Bruce Bennett and Beverly
Garland.
Especially from the late 1950's onwards, Chaney found
himself doing heaps of supporting work on television, interestingly mostly
on Westerns, and before long there was hardly a Western series on which
Chaney had not worked for at least one episode. Credits include The
Rough Riders, The Texan, Wanted: Dead or Alive
starring Steve McQueen, Johnny Ringo, Bat Masterson,
Stagecoach West, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater,
The Rifleman starring Chuck Connors, Rawhide
starring a pre-star Clint Eastwood, and Have Gun - Will Travel.
In 1959, Lon Chaney jr was also given the chance to host his
own horror-series, the Swedish-American 13 Demon Street,
a brainchild of Curt Siodmak [Curt
Siodmak bio - click here], who also directed all of the
episodes. In the series, Chaney can be seen introducing each episode as a
condemned man waiting for someone who has committed a bigger sin than his.
Unfortunately though, the series as such never aired, but in 1961, three
of the series' episodes were thrown together and a new framing story
starring Chaney, visibly scarred from years of alcoholism, as the Devil,
was filmed and released theatrically as The
Devil's Messenger (Curt Siodmak, Herbert L.Strock).
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In
1960, Chaney starred in yet another cheap horror film, the Mexican La Casa del Terror
(Gilberto Martínez Solares). In this one he plays a mummy
that at one point in the movie turns into a werewolf. This might sound
silly, but the film was actually supposed to be a comedy. However when
big-time movie importer Jerry Warren [Jerry
Warren bio - click here] brought the film to the USA 4 years
later as Face of the Screaming Werewolf (with additional material
from the 1957 movie La Momia Azteca/Attack
of the Aztec Mummy), he had the ill-advised idea to remove all the comedy and
try to make it a straight shocker - with limited success, as you might
expect. Also in
1961, Chaney had a supporting role in The Phantom (Harold Daniels),
a TV-pilot based on Lee Falk's comicstrip character. Unfortunately, the
pilot was rather poorly made, and it was never picked up and made into a
series - not that it would have mattered for Chaney, as his character is
killed by a leopard in this pilot episode.
By and
large, the 1960's saw a resurgence of the horror genre, thanks especially
to the immensely successful Gothics turned out by Hammer
and Roger
Corman's Edgar Allan Poe-series ... and eventually, Corman
remembered Lon Chaney jr for one of his Gothics, The
Haunted Palace (1963, Roger Corman [Roger
Corman bio - click here]), a film actually based on a
book by H.P.Lovecraft but marketed as an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation for
bigger profits. Essentially, The
Haunted Palace is Vincent Price's movie [Vincent
Price bio - click here], who hams it up as a
mild-mannered man possessed by his ancestor, an evil warlock, but Chaney
gives able support.
In Witchcraft (1964, Don Sharp), a
shocker produced in the UK by Robert L. Lippert, Chaney leads a family
whose ancestors were witches in the 17th century ... and when their
cemetary is desecrated, they return for revenge. House of the Black Death
(1964, Harold Daniels, Jerry Warren [Jerry
Warren bio - click here]), also starring
John Carradine [John Carradine-bio
- click here], Katherine Victor and Andrea King, is a total (and very
weird) mess, a film that was unreleasable to begin with and got even worse
when Jerry Warren did some doctoring on it ... In Dr.
Terror's Gallery of Horrors (1967, David L.Hewitt), an anthology film
narrated by John Carradine, Chaney plays a Frankenstein-like
character trying to revive the dead. The film also includes a condensed
version of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Hillbillys
in a Haunted House (1967, Jean Yarbrough [Jean
Yarbrough bio - click here]) is a rather sad affair,
an ill-advised blend of horror and espionage elements on one hand and
country music on the other. Chaney once more plays a big brute but is
totally wasted in this one, as are Basil Rathbone [Basil
Rathbone bio - click here] and (once again) John
Carradine.
Spider Baby (1968, Jack Hill) on the other
hand is a highly original and totally weird horror tale about an inbred
and thus totally demented family that has even reverted to cannibalism,
with Chaney playing turning in a great performance as a (seemingly) kind-hearted man who is looking after them ... and not only did
he play the lead role in this one, he also got to sing the title song.
Upon its release, the film - which also starred Carol Ohmart, Sid Haig and
Mantan Moreland [Mantan
Moreland bio - click here] - was anything but a hit upon its release (it was actually made in 1964 but went unreleased for 4 more years) ... but
since it has become a regular cult item. ... despite this new
interest in the horror genre though, Chaney's horror career in the 1960's
was nothing more than a pale imitations of his Universal-days
in the 1940's - not necessarily because the movies were much worse (Universal
after all made its fair share of bad horror movies, and put Chaney in
quite a few of them) but because they lacked the prestige of the Universal-shockers,
and only very few of the 1960's filmmakers took Chaney seriously as an
actor - most of them needed only his name and marquee value to sell the
film. That Chaney during this era was visibly scarred by alcoholism did of
course not help one bit either ...
During the latter part of
the 1960's, Lon did not concentrate exclusively on the revived horror
genre but also played supporting roles in quite a number of Westerns,
including Law of the Lawless and Stage to Thunder Rock (both
1964, William F.Claxton), Young Fury (1965, Christian Nyby), Black
Spurs (1965, R.G.Springsteen), Town Tamer (1965, Lesley
Selander), Apache Uprising and Johnny Reno (both 1966,
R.G.Springsteen), Welcome to Hard Times (1967, Burt Kennedy), and Buckskin
(1968, Michael D.Moore) -
but even if some of these films were actually rather good, they were all
just bread-and-butter jobs for Chaney, whose career was more and more
going nowhere.
Towards the end of his career, Lon Chaney jr
fell prey to exploitation director Al Adamson [Al
Adamson bio - click here], who was always more than
willing to feature some former stars fallen on hard times in his films for
added marquee value (not that there's anything wrong with that, at least
he kept these stars in employ). Chaney's first film with Adamson was Female
Bunch (1969), a sort-of modern day Western about a gang of man-hating
and -killing women residing in a desert ranch. As if to add to the film's
already exploitative plot, the film was shot at the Spahn-ranch, Charles
Manson's favourite hang-out.
Chaney's last film, Dracula
vs Frankenstein (1971), again directed by Al Adamson, was a rather
sad swansong to his career. In this one he plays the mute brute assistant
to J.Carrol Naish's wheelchair-bound Dr Frankenstein who every now and
again picks up an axe to go and do some killing for his master. Russ
Tamblyn and Regina Carrol also star in this one which reportedly started
out as a biker film, later was transformed into a sci-fi-horror film and
at long last, footage featuring Dracula
(Zandor Vorkov) was for some reason also thrown into the mix. The
film is pretty much as bad as my description makes it to be ... but
it's also pretty funny if you are into bad cinema. It's just sad to see a
talented actor like Lon Chaney jr stumbling through the scenery visibly
scarred by alcoholism and illness, in a role not worthy of him. Lon
Chaney died in 1973 from liver failure in San Clemente, California, and
basically he died a broken man, an immensely talented actor who was only
rarely given the opportunity to show his full talent, who has all of
his life been overshadowed by his father who has long become a screen
legend, who has made his career primarily in a genre - horror - which he
didn't particularly like, who because of that did probably not get
many more accomplished roles in more high-profile films, and whose career
was constantly sabotaged by his chronic alcoholism ... That all said,
Chaney jr did turn in some very fine and subtle performances (if his roles
allowed it) and will be fondly remembered by many a film fan or at least
many a horror fan (this one included) for quite a few (genre-)classics he
has been in over the years.
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