[UA] Re: Horror Actors

[Timothy Toner]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stuart Anderson" <stuartanderson at qwest.net>
To: <ua at lists.uchicago.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2001 11:25 PM
Subject: [UA] Re: Horror Actors


> Stevens Dustin wrote:
>
> > ObUA: Obviously, you have an adventure made up of a
> > creepy old house where old horror actors; Cushing,
> > Karloff, Lugosi, Chaney (Sr. and Jr.), go when they
> > die to become zombies, vampires, werewolves, etc. Or
> > at least go to be put in make up one last time. Maybe
> > PCs follow Lee to the house (an off-branch of the
> > House of Renunciation?), then see somebody putting in
> > Lee's plastic fangs and burying him in the nearby
> > cemetery. The atmosphere is to perfectly duplicate an
> > old B&W silent horror movie, including with the
> > obvious fake gnarled tree, and dark backdrop. The
> > capper is when they all come out of the shadows for
> > one last 'bite'.
>
> Holy crap! I saw that picture! Help me out, y'all--it was John
> Carradine, Vincent Prince, Karloff, and someone else--Claude
> Rains?--Hell, I don't remember. It was one of the arty pictures
> the guys put out. I don't even remember the thrust of it. But it
> was just a bunch of creepy smart guys sittin around talking.
> Jeez--I haven't thought of that picture in years.

House of the Long Shadows (1983)
http://us.imdb.com/Details?0085693

It was Price, Lee, Cushing, and Carradine.  Sounds fascinating, not
available to rent or buy, tho.  What's also interesting is the source
material, a silent film called Seven Keys to Baldpate (1917), notable only
in that the script was written by George M. Cohan (I'ma Yankee Doodle Dandy,
and all that) from a novel by Earl Derr Biggers, who created Charlie Chan,
it's been remade four times (1925, 1929, 1935, 1947), and it has a curious
plot summary:

A writer bets a friend that he can write a 10,000-word novel in 24 hours.
The friends takes the bet, and gives him the keys to his Baldpate Inn, which
has been closed for the winter, so he can write in complete seclusion.
Things start heating up, though, when a succession of people who also have
keys to the inn begin showing up.


Doesn't that sound a little like The Shining?  More than that, though--maybe
the filming of the movie is some elaborate ritual, wherein a door is opened
that can only be closed by re-enacting the movie.  An open script could
serve as an invitation for several fictional characters to stop by for a
visit (we can only assume the matter was handled discreetly in 1917).  If
so, the door has been re-opened in 1983, and has not been shut since.  Or
maybe the similarity of the Shining unwittingly opened it, and the remake
closed it.




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