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Post by dem bones on Sept 16, 2010 20:56:08 GMT
The Sorcerers is a big favourite of mine too, but how about Corridors Of Blood, a strange, downbeat one shot in the late fifties but held over until 1962? Set in an impoverished Seven Dials, Karloff is Dr. Thomas Bolton - possibly based on Robert Liston, pioneering Edinburgh surgeon, anaesthetist and notorious body-snatcher - who mucks up an experiment (a nice messy amputation if i remember), gets laughed out of his profession by proto-Hooray Henrys and falls foul of murderous grave-robber Resurrection Joe (C. Lee) and his lowlife accomplices. Blackmail, drug addiction and corpse trading ensue! Maybe not top-notch Boris but a wonderfully sympathetic portrayal of a driven, decent man who gets in way over his head.
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Post by pulphack on Sept 16, 2010 22:49:03 GMT
Mr Wong may be non-PC but they're damn good mysteries and Boris is splendid, even if he does sound like he was an American Chinese chap educated at Oxford (bit like Sir Chris doing his Fu Manchu).
I had one of those Mexican movies from the end of his career on VHS about 20 years ago - I can't remember what title it went out under but I do recall it involved a rock that eminated evil and influenced a crap Mexican actor (and I like mexican wrestling movies, so when I say he was crap, he really was!) who was the lab assistant. Boris seemed to do all of his scenes either seated in the lab or from a bed, recovering from an attack of some kind - lots of one-way telephone conversations that he managed to carry off with elan. A bit sad to see him this way, but a sterling example of professionalism.
You could do worse that search out a hooky copy (no official release I fear) of the Colonel March series, where he investigates odd crimes as an unorthodox policeman. They're very cheap 50's productions, but he really shines as the scripts are ok even if the productions values are non-existant.
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Post by pulphack on Sept 16, 2010 22:51:21 GMT
Oh, by the way, Corridors of Blood was produced by Richard Gordon and shot back -to- back with The Grip Of The Strangler. I think it wasn't released at the time becasue it was supposed to double-bill with a movie that shifted distributors and there was nothing to pair it with, so it sat on a shelf - such were the vagaries of booking and making low budget movies in the uk back then!
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Post by marksamuels on Sept 16, 2010 23:35:05 GMT
I like mexican wrestling movies Me too, except for the actual wrestling We're talking Santo, Blue Demon, &c. uh huh? Especially the "Santo vs. Mummies of Guanajuato" or whatever it was called. Brings back memories of going down into the very same crypts to see desiccated corpses in hideous aspects of terror. I really enjoyed Jack Black's Nacho Libre too. Tribute to the above, naturally. Mark S.
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Post by ripper on Sept 17, 2010 7:22:02 GMT
I had forgotten all about Corridors of Blood. I have only seen it once and that was all of 30 years ago. I hadn't realized that Karloff's character was possibly based on Robert Liston. He was the guy with the fastest scalpel in the west. Once, in his haste to amputate a patient's leg, he also manage to amputate the poor chap's testicles. another time, he amputated a limb and the patient died of infection. While performing this same operation he also managed to cut off several of his assistant's fingers, who also died as a result of infection. Finally, an onlooker was so shocked by the operation that he had a fit and died...the only operation in history to have a 300% mortality rate.
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Post by lemming13 on Sept 18, 2010 12:20:24 GMT
Liston sounds much like my old GP - very proud of never taking longer than 5 minutes with any patient, and ignoring having the highest death rate of any doctor in the city. Regarding Boris, I loved the Colonel March stuff, been waiting in hopes of a legit release some time. I also loved him in British Intelligence, though the role was rather less heroic. I've been happily trawling through my old radio shows as well, and have enjoyed several episodes with the gentleman from Suspense, Weird Circle and Inner Sanctum.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 18, 2010 16:11:20 GMT
Michael Avallone - Tales of the Frightened: Recorded By Boris Karloff (Belmont, September 1963) " Could you drive a drive a stake through the heart of your fiancee if you discovered she was a vampire? (Consider the case of Count Alexis ...) Would you make a bargain with the Devil just for a face that would drive men mad? (Astra Vale did ...)"Think you might be interested in this thread, lemming. Tales of The Frightened, Told by Boris Karloff
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Post by lemming13 on Sept 23, 2010 19:48:28 GMT
It would have been lovely, but alas, the file is no longer available at that location on mediafire; still, it gives me something to hunt for on the internet archive. If nobody has uploaded it there they can usually tell you where it can be found.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 16, 2011 22:50:06 GMT
Richard Bojarski & Kenneth Beals - The Films Of Boris Karloff (Citadel Press, 1976) just when you decide there's no longer any point checking out the bookshelves in the charity shop, something as welcome as it is unexpected will show up, case in point being a splendidly pre-battered edition of The Films Of Boris Karloff. No frills, a barely adequate 25 page biography and then it's straight into a blow-by-blow account of each of the films plus (did Boris, by all accounts the gentlest of me, never sleep?) a too-short chapter on his television career. If you like your paperbacks low on highbrow analysis and generously illustrated, this will see you all right! Karloff, Bela Lugosi and chorus girls. A moment of spine-shattering terror from legendary lost horror classic, Tower Of Fear ....
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junkmonkey
Crab On The Rampage
Shhhhh! I'm Hiding....
Posts: 98
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Post by junkmonkey on Nov 17, 2011 0:46:55 GMT
I have a copy of that! It's been sat on my shelves for years. I used to have many more of this series but had a bit of an eBay clearout a few years back, The Films of Norma Shearer went for £80! but I couldn't bring myself to part with Boris. Not that he would have fetched that much.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 17, 2011 11:14:52 GMT
I've never owned a copy of that Karloff book, but I took it out of Abergavenny Library quite a few times!
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asenath
Crab On The Rampage
The Thing on the Doorstep
Posts: 32
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Post by asenath on Mar 6, 2012 23:35:16 GMT
I know I'm replying to an old post, but I couldn't pass this up. Karloff made a few films with Columbia Studios: The Man with Nine Lives, Before I Die, and The Man They Could Not Hang. If you like Italian horror, Mario Bava's Black Sabbath features Karloff in the last segment.
Sorry about the lack of italics on the film titles. Haven't figured that out on the Kindle yet.
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Post by Swampirella on Dec 11, 2016 23:12:53 GMT
Karloff's last three (four?) films were shot in Mexico. I've only seen The Camera of Terror, which is a bit rubbish really. Not seen the others; ( Isle of the Snake People and The Fear Chamber? The titles in translation seem to vary). Didn't he sometimes also act in, as well as host, the US TV series Thriller? I think so. Mark S. I've seen Isle of the Snake People but no-one else probably should. The Sorcerors is a great little film and I always thought it could be remade nicely - old people living vicariously through the young with horrific consequences could work equally well now. At the moment I'm waiting for the Boris Karloff Thriller box set to come down in price Just started watching BK's Thriller on Youtube. "The Grim Reaper" with William Shatner is quite good! Natalie Shafer (Mrs. Thurston Howell the III" from Gilligan's Island) is also in it. I've started binge watching and hope to finish the ones I like by the end of tomorrow, including Lady Celia Asquith's "God Grant That She Lye Stille".
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Post by ripper on Dec 12, 2016 10:23:33 GMT
I've seen Isle of the Snake People but no-one else probably should. The Sorcerors is a great little film and I always thought it could be remade nicely - old people living vicariously through the young with horrific consequences could work equally well now. At the moment I'm waiting for the Boris Karloff Thriller box set to come down in price Just started watching BK's Thriller on Youtube. "The Grim Reaper" with William Shatner is quite good! Natalie Shafer (Mrs. Thurston Howell the III" from Gilligan's Island) is also in it. I've started binge watching and hope to finish the ones I like by the end of tomorrow, including Lady Celia Asquith's "God Grant That She Lye Stille". I have Snake People in a box of cheapo DVDs I bought years ago. Yes, it's not very good, to say the least, and the great man is obviously not at all well. It is rather sad to see him in it. I prefer to remember him in his later years in films like The Sorcerors and Targets, both of which are miles better than those final Mexican ventures. I remember Channel 4 showing the Boris Karloff Thriller series in its early days, extremely late on--I think-- friday nights. They didn't attract so much advertising back then and during breaks at such late times there would be just music playing as no-one wanted to buy advertising time.
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Post by andydecker on Dec 13, 2016 19:29:19 GMT
Just started watching BK's Thriller on Youtube. "The Grim Reaper" with William Shatner is quite good! Natalie Shafer (Mrs. Thurston Howell the III" from Gilligan's Island) is also in it. I've started binge watching and hope to finish the ones I like by the end of tomorrow, including Lady Celia Asquith's "God Grant That She Lye Stille". I prefer to remember him in his later years in films like The Sorcerors and Targets, both of which are miles better than those final Mexican ventures. Targets had a huge impact on me. Wonderful chilling movie which I could never forget.
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