February 6, 2025 • 56 mins
In part one of our exploration of the Transylvanian tyrant turned tourist trap, we break down some of Dracula's origins. Don't worry, this is not going to be that same old "Dracula is based on Vlad the Impaler" lecture that you've already heard. It's much stranger than that. And much more wonderful.
Then we start to place the good Count into some of his earliest theme park appearances.
Part 2 should be up next week!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Silence mortals, you dare to enter this sanctuary of
the Prince of Darkness, king ofthe Vampires, lord of all undead
, count Dracula.
(00:32):
Hello and welcome to theLowdown on the Plus Up, a
podcast where we look ateveryone's favorite theme park
attractions, lands, textures andnovelties.
We talk in over, about andthrough our week's topic and
then, with literally no concernfor practicality, safety or
economic viability, we come upwith ways to make them better.
My name is Kelly McCubbin,columnist for the theme park
(00:55):
website Boardwalk Times, andwith me, as always, is Peter
Overstreet University, professorof Animation and Film History
in Northern California.
So Pete yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
What are we talking about today?
Today, we're going to betalking about the Prince of
Darkness himself.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I noticed you did that with a little bit of a
Transylvanian accent.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I was going to do something with a little bit more
flourish, but I decided— andthen you aborted.
I wanted to save it for later,for all of our Hungarian
brethren.
We're going to talk about thePrince of Darkness himself,
count Dracula.
Count Dracula, yes, indeed,count Dracula is one of those
literary characters that hasbeen adapted to more media than,
(01:48):
I think, any other, apart from,maybe, sherlock Holmes.
Yeah.
I think.
Yeah, I'm sure that there's acompetition between the two of
them, but Dracula, if it is notin first, it is certainly in a
close second to Sherlock Holmes.
Yeah, as far as being adaptedto films, but what's interesting
about Dracula is that SherlockHolmes doesn't have any theme
(02:13):
park attractions based aroundhim, none that I'm aware of.
None that I'm aware of, I mean,apart from 221B Baker Street.
You know, no shade thrown to myBaker Street.
You know irregular friends outthere in the UK.
They do a fabulous job with theactual recreation of Sherlock
Holmes' lair.
However, there isn't like awhole theme park based around
(02:36):
the guy and there isn't reallyan attraction built around him
as far as I am aware of.
And, by the way, listeners, ifyou are listening to go well, I
happen to know one send us anemail.
We'd love to hear about it.
We'd love to learn about thisbecause I'm a massive Sherlock
Holmes nerd.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Boy, if there were a Sherlock Holmes ride I would go.
I would find a way to get onthat Elementary elementary I
would totally do that yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
So, anyhow, we're going to talk about Dracula as a
central figure in a whole slewof attractions all over the
United States and maybe a littlebit in Romania, depending upon
how much time we got tonight.
Ah, cool, yeah, we are going tohave to start somewhere, but we
(03:22):
might as well just go right forthe heart.
Let's actually go to Romaniafor a minute.
Go right for the heart.
I see what you did there.
Okay, so the trick is thatDracula has been a fascinating
figure in both history,literature, mythology and movies
.
Yeah, many people have putdifferent connotations and
(03:45):
different meanings behind thecharacter, the book.
Kelly and I have had thisconversation numerous times,
where I'm a big lover of Draculamovies and yet I'm always
disappointed by them becausenone of them actually seem to
get it right for me.
Because I've read the book.
It was the very first book Iever read that was not a
(04:07):
children's book.
Yeah, it was the summer of 19,.
What was it?
1982.
Mm-hmm.
And.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
That makes you 38 right now, right, oh God.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
And yeah, I wish, yeah, so no, my father got us a
video disc machine, a RCA CEDvideo disc machine.
Wow, now, for those who don'tknow what this is, ka-chunk,
let's go back in time.
Yeah, today we've got streaming.
You go a little bit furtherback.
(04:41):
You have Blu-ray and DVDs.
You go a little bit furtherback, you have VHS.
You go a little bit furtherback, you have Blu-ray and DVDs.
You go a little bit furtherback, you have VHS.
You go a little bit furtherback, you have Betamax.
And right about the same timethat VHS is just starting, you
also have LaserDiscs, which wereactually a much superior but
very expensive product to make,product to make.
(05:02):
But before that, just before,the RCA company devised a way to
take the information memorystorage material, which is,
strangely enough, the exact samefilm that you put onto CDs.
Yeah, yeah, but in order tokeep the cost down, they put it
(05:22):
on LP, vinyl, which presents ahuge amount of problems.
First off, it can only store acertain amount of information on
one side, right, so that's oneproblem.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
You had to flip them right.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
You had to flip them.
You would watch a movie andthen halfway through the movie
it would just stop.
You'd be like what happened,and sometimes the disc would
have a little code saying turnover disc.
And so you'd have to go up andthey all came in these plastic
sleeves and you would shove thesleeve in on side A and then
pull it out and the machinewould hold on to the disc in the
(05:59):
specialized sleeve and thenstart playing the disc and all
the discs.
There wasn't even push buttonson these things, it was all like
these big, heavy, likespring-loaded levers to make it
play.
Yeah, and then you'd watch themovie and the quality was okay,
it wasn't bad, it was VHSquality.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, maybe a little better.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Poor VHS quality.
Yeah, it was okay.
And then halfway through thefilm it would stop and you'd
have to get up.
Put the disc all the way in thesleeve, all the way in, grab
the disc, pull it out, flip itover to side.
B, put it in, pull out thesleeve again and watch side B.
So there are movies to this daywhere I still feel this
instinctual twitch in my lowerback Raiders of the Lost Ark,
(06:42):
Sensual twitch in my lower back.
Raiders of the Lost Ark, StarWars, King Kong, Frankenstein,
the Godfather, Dark Crystal, theProducers I owned all Murder by
Death, we owned all of thesemovies on CED.
But I always go oh, I got toturn it over, because I'm almost
there, Because I was inevitablythe DJ of the CED disc Like go
(07:04):
turn it over, kid.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
It's kind of like those eight tracks that you
listen to as a kid, like whereyou know where the kachunk is
coming.
Yeah, it's like you're justready for it, and when it
doesn't happen it seems wrongsomehow.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Right.
So, like on the Star Wars CEDdisc, I know exactly when to
flip it over.
Yeah, because it stops rightwhen Grand Moff Tarkin says
Terminator immediately.
Yeah, and then I would have toget up and flip it over.
Yes.
Which is great because thatrole was played by the fabulous
Peter Cushing, yeah, who playedVan Helsing to Christopher Lee's
(07:38):
Dracula.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, maybe the greatest Van Helsing.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I would totally agree with that.
Yeah, and so because of the CDdiscs.
And why I'm bringing this up isanother disc that we owned was
the 1931 classic film starringBela Lugosi, directed by Todd
Browning.
Yeah, dracula, from UniversalStudios.
And how we acquired that led tomy love of this story.
(08:03):
It's because these discs wereexpensive and my parents did not
make a lot of money at thistime.
So my dad made a deal with me.
He says read the book first,smart dad.
And I'm six years old.
Yeah, read the book first.
Yeah, okay.
So he hands me a paperbackedition and here's Dracula.
(08:25):
And I said well, what if I runinto a word I don't know?
Peter, this is called adictionary.
Oh well, what if I read thedictionary and I still don't
know what it is?
Peter, you see these things uphere.
This is called the EncyclopediaBritannica Yep, encyclopedia
Britannica Yep.
And so I had to read Draculaand I was not allowed to ask my
(08:47):
parents any questions about thebook until I finished it.
Yeah, and I had to do a bookreport.
Oh, brilliant.
So this was like.
I finished it in about twoweeks.
Yeah, because it was likeserious summer and we had a room
in the front of our house withall of our LPs.
So I listened to creepyclassical music Lots of Toccata
(09:09):
and Fugue and lots of Mazorski.
I was listening to a lot of itwhile I'm reading Dracula.
Engel's Cave over and overagain, oh yeah.
And if I, and a lot of WendyCarlos, because we had a copy of
the Shining, yeah, and alsoPenderecki, right, right, you
know Gustav Penderecki, soanyway.
(09:29):
So I listened to a lot of thisand I really got into the book,
and if I ran into something Ididn't understand I would go to
the dictionary.
I don't know what this wordmeans, you know?
Oh, okay, tree panning, what isthat?
Oh, I know what that is and Ilook it up.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
It's the thing that Yoko stopped John from doing.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Pretty much and then I did a and.
As a reward for reading thebook, my dad bought me a copy of
the CED disc of Dracula, whichI played voraciously because I
loved those locations, the bleakcastles and the weird asylums.
And Dwight Frye, as Renfield isso good in that film, he steals
(10:07):
the movie.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Oh, he's brilliant.
And of course Bela, and ofcourse Bela Lugosi, who's so
brilliant in that film, and Idefy anyone to.
I think that the movie has someissues and I love Todd Browning
, but I think the movie's alittle bit stodgy, a little bit
slow.
Many would agree with you, yeahyeah, but it's beautiful and
(10:30):
Bela Lugosi is irresistible.
He is, he is such a good actor.
It is kind of a shame that hegot stuck doing horror roles
after that, because anytime yousee him outside of that role, he
is also brilliant.
Oh yeah, like, just go watchNinochka.
He steals scenes from GretaGarbo, oh yeah, masterful.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Oh yeah, he's very, very good.
Yeah, I kind of want to do alittle side thing here, because
we're talking about the movieand we're talking about this
character and I hope you don'tobject to this, kelly but I'd
like to dedicate this episode toan acquaintance of mine who we
were becoming friends.
He was a scholar.
He wrote many, many books onthis very subject.
(11:14):
His name is David J Skoll, andDavid and I met through our love
of Dracula.
He wrote several books on ToddBrowning and on Bela Lugosi and
Bram Stoker.
He has a book called AmericanGothic that talks about the
development of the 1931 film andall the stage versions and
(11:34):
anybody listening who's like amonster movie nerd.
You can see him in almost everyDVD extra of the Universal
Monsters you're thinking of.
David just pops up.
Dvd extra of the UniversalMonsters.
I'm thinking of David, justpops up.
Sadly, last year around NewYear's on New Year's Day he was
driving home with his partnerand they were killed in a very,
very horrible car accident sotragic it was.
(11:55):
It was and I owe David a lotbecause I was writing a book
about the woman who wrote KingKong.
Yeah, and he really was one ofthe along with Kelly.
He was one of the three peoplethat really kind of kept pushing
me Like how's it going?
How's it going?
Yeah, yeah.
Giving me advice and he wasactually like offering to read
(12:18):
it and help me critique itbefore he passed, and I will
miss him because, beside all theme, me, me stuff, he was just a
really delightful human being.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
And the reason why I'm bringing him up is to talk
about Bela and the 31 Dracula.
We have to talk about what Ilike to call Draxploitation,
Because Dracula means so manydifferent things to so many
different people.
Yeah, and while they weremaking the 1931 version, the
English version of Dracula, allyou horror nerds who are
(12:52):
listening right now willprobably already be going what
about the Spanish version.
Right, because, for those whodon't know, carl Emly Jr who
convinced his father to doDracula.
His father did not want to do ahorror movie, but his son loved
the story, wanted to do it, andit took him several years to
put the film into developmentand also to get the rights from
(13:15):
Madame Stoker, herself Rom'swidow.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Well, she was gun-shy after the Nosferatu stuff.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yes, there is that, and we'll talk about that at
another time.
What they decided to do isthere was a big push to have
international audiences.
One of the big movie audiencesthat was readily accessible to
Hollywood was Mexico.
Yes, so they did a Spanishversion at night.
So the lights on the productionnever got shut off, because the
(13:43):
American crew would work allday and then, as they were just
starting to wrap things up, theSpanish crew would move in and
use the same sets, sometimeseven the same costumes.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, Spanish cast and crew.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yep, and it run by all because the producer, the
director who was behind theSpanish Dracula, fell in love
with its main star, lupita Tovar.
Yes, he was so smitten by her.
It's like I'm going to put youon the screen.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Oh, and you can see why.
Oh, baby.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Lupita Tovar Ay ay ay .
She is.
Wow, she's beautiful and she'sfantastic and she was really,
really sweet and she lived wellover 100 years.
I think she was like 104.
Holy cow, she lived to a verylong Lord age.
I mean I could look it up, butshe did live well past 100.
(14:35):
The one thing about thatproduction that fails is Dracula
.
Yeah, no offense to any CarlosVillarreal fans out there, but
Carlos is so hammy and so overthe top he almost ruins the
whole movie.
Yeah, but everybody else isjust going for it.
(14:56):
They're buying into it.
It's much darker, it's moodier.
There's camera moves that arenot being used in the English
version.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
It's interesting how dynamic the camera is compared
to Browning's, which has alwaysstruck me as strange, because
Browning was not shy aboutmoving the camera around, but
something about this productionseemed to be kind of tying his
hands.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Well, and that would be his alcoholism That'd do it.
Yeah.
So a lot of people haveactually speculated that he was
kind of director in name onlyand that the director of
photography I think it was CarlFreund.
It is, yeah, Carl Freund wasthe one who was actually pulling
the strings, which is why hegot to take the reins on the
(15:39):
Mummy.
Which with Boris.
Karloff, which, if you watch it,is almost the exact same story,
just with a dusty Egyptiannamed Ardeth Bay as opposed to
Count Dracula, right, but theyboth have very abrupt endings.
Much to my partner's chagrin,she's watched both of them.
They just go and they go andthey're great, and all of a
sudden they stop.
Why is that?
(16:00):
Well, it's only two reels.
Like what do you want you know?
Why is that?
Well, it's only two reels.
Like what do you want you know?
See, dracula is so fascinating,yeah, that there is a history
of using him as a, frankly, astourist fodder, yes, going all
the way back to the 1500s.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
People would go to Braun Castle just to see whether
or not the impaler himself,vlad Shepes, was gone.
Yeah, but the locals wouldcharge the money to go see the
abandoned castle.
Yeah, so it has been a touristattraction ever since.
Yeah, and here's one of Pete'sdeep dives for all you horror
(16:44):
fans out there that it mightblow you away Castle Bronn,
which is not technically CastleDracula, yeah, there are two
castles that he inhabited, theactual Castle Dracula and Bronn
Castle, right, okay, bronnCastle is where he was actually
imprisoned when he was near theend of his life, where Vlad the
(17:05):
Impaler, vlad the Impaler, okay,yes, that building was
commissioned by an order ofknights from Germany who
specialized in building wartimeencampments and embattlements.
Okay, and they were very good atit.
They were renowned allthroughout and they were
actually commissioned to buildstuff during the Crusades.
(17:25):
Yeah, they had a long familyhistory and they built Brown
Castle.
Hmm, as a matter of fact, oneof the patriarchs of the family,
who was a contemporary of VladShepis, was probably the person
who was responsible for thepropaganda against Vlad, because
Vlad owed him money, right.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Because I've heard this I actually read this very
recently.
Like it turns out that thepeople that were basically ruled
over and protected by Vlad theImpaler, their history of him is
actually quite favorable.
They really love the guy.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, they review him as a hero, yeah, yeah.
So it's almost like the sametype of propaganda of like the
English saying well, you know,napoleon was very short.
Right, you know it's that typeof thing, only it's to the
extreme.
Well, he impaled people, so hemust have drank their blood and
he thought he was a vampire andall that.
Yeah, well, who wasn't impalingpeople too?
(18:21):
Yeah, but the name of thisfamily is Frankenstein.
Wait, say that again.
The name of the family and theorder of knights that built
Bronn Castle is Frankenstein.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Okay.
So that, to say the least, is acoincidence.
Uh-huh, so that, to say theleast, is a coincidence.
So how do—so does MaryWollsing—and folks believe me,
I'm hearing this for the firsttime, just like you are, so I'm
trying to stand in and ask thequestions that I hope that you
(18:59):
have.
So does Mary Wollsingcraft,shelley, know this history, or
is she just pulling Frankensteinout of thin air?
Speaker 3 (19:08):
She was inspired by a visit to Castle Frankenstein in
Germany, okay, and the castlewas actually being used as a
research center for peopleworking on galvanistic
experimentation at the time.
The fact that I'm getting thisfrom is from a book called In
Search of Frankenstein, writtenby Radu Florescu.
(19:31):
Okay, and he goes into somedetail about how the Knights
Frankenstein were commissionedby Vlad's father to build the
castle.
They built it and then theDraculas and the Frankensteins
actually started having moneyissues between each other,
uh-huh.
And so at one point, you know,call Xandor Vorkov, right Like.
(19:53):
At one point, a Draculaprobably really did have a fight
with a Frankenstein For real,so like.
But it's just this weird littlecoinkydink that these two
families met.
But apparently the Frankensteinfamily was actually part of the
propaganda arm against Vlad theImpaler to paint him as a
(20:16):
vampire.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
This is the story you have waited your entire life to
tell, isn't it, Pete?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
I you know I love doing that.
So I do teach a college courseon the history of horror and I
love watching the eyeballs ofall my students pop when they
hear that.
And I and you know who didn'thear about that was David.
David Skull did not know thisand I said you need to read Radu
Flarescu's book.
And he read and he called me uplater.
(20:42):
He said I read it, holy moly,like that really blew my mind
and I went yeah, I mean it'sdocumented.
So yeah, the KnightsFrankenstein actually probably
met against Dracula's castle andit is operated as a historical
(21:04):
landmark.
And a tourist trap and a touristtrap, Because the minute you
walk up there's a dude dressedin a Dracula's cape, as
everybody knows by watchingBeetlejuice, Beetlejuice, so,
but still, you know it's.
I mean, my grandparents wentthere when I was very young.
Yeah, and okay, another littlestory from my childhood.
(21:27):
And this magazine is going tokeep coming up.
It was a magazine that startedin the 50s and it lasted the
real magazine.
They revived it, but it wasnever the same for me.
It ended right around 1982.
And it was started by a guynamed Forrest J Ackerman and it
was called Famous Monsters ofFilmland Magazine.
Yeah, In the 80s they used toput these advertisements for get
(21:48):
some real soil from Dracula'stomb and it looked like a gold
chain with a little goldencoffin that had these, and it
was hollow in the inside, exceptfor these two little pieces of
glass with a little bit of dirtin it.
It was hollow in the inside,except for these two little
(22:08):
pieces of glass with a littlebit of dirt in it, and it was
supposed to be real dirt fromthe basement of Dracula's actual
castle in Transylvania.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, and in 1970s money it was 20 bucks.
That's a lot of money, yeah,yeah, for a kid especially.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
For a kid especially.
Yeah, and you thought you weregoing to get this cool and I was
like I'm going to wear thatwith my Van Helsing outfit.
I have real you know like wow,yeah.
So I spent a whole summermowing lawns, walking dogs,
picking up dog poop whatever Ihad to do to get the money to do
(22:39):
it.
I sent away the money that Isent away for this thing, cut
out the little coupon in theback, sent it off to the captain
company in New York, yeah, andI waited for six weeks and then
I finally got this littleenvelope and I opened it up.
The necklace the actualnecklace part was plastic, oh no
.
And the coffin was made ofplastic.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
And I realized that there was this little fine print
on the advertisement because Iwas so upset Like I thought it
was gold, yeah, and it's like no.
It actually says it is aplastic thing.
But it's rendered to look likebecause it's an illustration,
it's not a photograph.
Yeah, but, it's rendered to looklike this shiny gold object,
(23:19):
but it's like, oh no, it's justthe way it's lit.
It's like, oh you, cheap.
Well, apparently a lot ofpeople got cheesed by that.
Yeah, a lot of kids rememberthat.
For a lot of you monster kidssome of you might be listening
now going I remember that I havethat too.
It was cheap.
So my grandparents felt for me,yeah, so they went to Romania
and they brought back a rockfrom the room where Vlad the
(23:41):
Impaler was imprisoned.
And I still have it.
It's up on my wall.
I have a actual stone fromCastle Dracula on my wall.
That's amazing, so like, andthat's because I got ripped off
by the Captain Company, becausemy grandparents were awesome,
but I have a love for this.
But Dracula's Castle is atourist attraction, yeah, but
(24:02):
it's mostly just a historicalattraction You're not going to,
except for near Halloween orWalpurgisnacht, where they let
you sleep in coffins in theGrand Hall.
Yeah, but other than that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
And I know that it was sort of post the Lugosi film
that the people in thatparticular area of Eastern
Europe said, hey, we might havesomething we could, you know,
make some money off of here.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
You get tired of hearing from tourists like
where's Dracula's castle?
They go all right, let's makesome bucks.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Well and it's interesting.
So you know, looking at thekind of origins and I swear
we'll get to some theme parkstuff soon but looking at the
origins of Dracula as a book, asBram Stoker's book, some of the
origin is clearly Vlad theImpaler.
He would have known thishistorical character, though
(24:52):
Stoker never in his entire lifewent to Eastern Europe.
He was well-traveled but hedidn't go to Eastern Europe, so
it's all hearsay.
Some of the origin is justbasically the Penny Dreadfuls
that are floating around England.
Barney the Vampire Barney theVampire yeah, and some of it may
(25:16):
be a little bit.
The person that Bram Stokerworked for Ah, yes, and who
might that be?
Kelly, that would be the mostfamous actor in England.
Henry Irving Ah, yes, and whomight that be?
Kelly, that would be the mostfamous actor in England.
Henry Irving Ah, yes.
So Stoker, he's an interestingguy.
He's Irish, he is stage, he'sdoing a lot of jobs, but at this
(25:37):
point he's stage managing forthe Lyceum Theatre.
He is the.
It is sometimes described asmanager of and it is sometimes
described as assistant to SirHenry Irving, and he is working.
And the Lyceum Theater at thispoint it's still around, but at
(26:01):
this point it's a fascinatingand weird group of people.
Many of them are connected oneway or the other with the Order
of the Golden Dawn AlistairCrowley's group.
And you say that and peoplehear it and go, oh, were they
evil?
No, it was just.
You know, it was like any kindof weirdo occult group that is
(26:22):
fashionable at the time.
That's what they were doing Now.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Let's all get drunk and go play ping pong.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
For a brief period of time, a woman named Pamela
Coleman Smith worked with theLyceum Theatre.
She was an American who caughtup with that company when it was
touring through America andthen was brought over to England
.
She was an illustrator and sheis the woman who drew the
(26:51):
Rider-Waite tarot deck thesingle most famous tarot deck in
the world Nice.
Pamela Coleman Smith drew thatand many of the actors from the
Lyceum Company are thecharacters on those cards.
Sir Henry Irving is certainlyat least one of them.
Stoker might be one, thoughthat's not entirely positive,
(27:17):
but he might be.
So a really interesting and oddgroup of people, but Henry
Irving had a reputation.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yes, he did.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Irving was a.
The Lowdown on the Plus Up is aBoardWalk Times podcast, a
BoardWalkTimes podcast.
At BoardWalkTimesnet you'llfind some of the most
well-considered and insightfulwriting about the Walt Disney
(27:51):
Company.
Disney history and the universeof theme parks available
anywhere.
Come join us atBoardWalkTimesnet he was
arresting.
He could hypnotize with hiseyes.
(28:26):
He was erudite.
He was friends with QueenVictoria, which helped the
theater a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
So he's basically like a Victorian Peter O'Toole?
Yes.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
And so, to an extent, Dracula may have been in part
based on Henry Irving, a guythat was not particularly
likable.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
No, he's not.
Yeah, for all accounts, he isnot very likable.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
But I think what is really interesting about the
story of Stoker and Dracula andhow it first connects to theme
parks is that Stoker and Irvingwere in New York at a certain
point and they saw in about 1896, they saw Buffalo Bill Cody's
(29:16):
Wild West show.
Irving was entranced by this.
I'll bet he was fascinated bythis thing and you know, at this
point Buffalo Bill Cody was abig deal Like.
These were big shows.
He was somehow getting hugecasts, including large casts of
Native Americans who wereIncluding the great Sitting Bull
(29:37):
himself.
This is right, yeah, and whowould come out and actually
simulate their own defeat?
He was doing these big shows,huge audiences, and Irving
convinced him to come to England.
Wow, and so Cody came toEngland.
Stoker helped facilitate allthis.
Stoker did not like Cody either.
(29:59):
A lot of people didn't likeCody either, right, so Cody came
to England.
Mm-hmm, irving sponsored it.
The papers had kind of a fieldday because they considered Cody
this sort of you know, ruffian,right, you know this guy that
they didn't have a lot ofrespect for and they couldn't
figure out what his relationshipwith Henry Irving might be.
(30:21):
Right, so there are all sortsof aspersions cast, but Irving
did be.
So there are all sorts ofaspersions cast, but Irving did
know Queen Victoria and he gother to come to these shows twice
.
She came to see Buffalo BillCody twice, and so it ended up
being a huge deal.
Buffalo Bill Cody made a ton ofmoney.
Probably Irving did too.
So one of the things that.
(30:44):
So I'm going to tie this intoboth the book Dracula and into
the origins of theme parks.
Only the way you can Go ahead.
I feel like I'm slaloming here.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
No, you're doing great.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
I'm on my way, I'm totally with you.
Okay, when we see film versionsof Dracula—and I think we both
know that more people have seenfilm versions of Dracula than
have actually read that bookCorrect Generally the climax of
the book and spoiler alert.
If you've never, ever seen afilm version of Dracula, is
(31:18):
Professor Van Helsing doingsomething to kill Dracula, right
?
This is not what happens in thebook.
No, in the book, a characternamed Quincy Morris kills
Dracula.
Yep.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
With a bowie knife.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
With a bowie knife.
Yeah, jonathan Seward tries toslit his throat while Quincy
Morris stabs Dracula through thechest with a bowie knife.
It's pretty gruesome.
Morris then dies heroically.
Quincy Morris is an old WildWest character.
He's from the United States.
(31:54):
He is very much in the vein ofBuffalo Bill Cody.
This is fairly clearly theinspiration for this character,
and Stoker's doing somethingreally interesting here, where
he's taking two different kindsof frontiers and having them
clash and in a way, sayingthey're both better off dead.
(32:18):
So you've got.
Dracula is in his past.
Heroic.
Dracula is defending his peoplefrom the Turk.
At some point they describe himas living at the edge of Turkey
land, yeah, and he supposedlymakes a deal with the devil or
(32:42):
sells his soul or something todefend his people, the Turk.
This is a long time ago andhe's done it and that frontier
is no longer a threat and he'sjust devolved into the creature
that we know him.
Now Quincy Morris has come overfrom the United States.
His frontier is dying too.
(33:03):
This is, like you know, thelate 1800s, the early 1900s.
We're not taming the Wild Westreally anymore, right, yeah, and
so his frontier is also dying,and so we put these two frontier
characters, neither of whichStoker likes very much, and they
(33:24):
kill each other.
Wow, it's really interesting.
And you know, quincy Morrisdies very beautifully in the
book, yeah, like he lays downjust as the sun is setting,
mm-hmm, and just says you know,it was all worth it to see this.
Yeah, I mean, it's a beautifulthing.
So how do we tie this intotheme parks?
(33:47):
In about 1906, buffalo Bill Codyappears in Missouri and he
meets a very, very young WaltDisney.
This is true.
Now, this is late in his career.
This is like 10 years later.
Cody is not as big a dealanymore.
(34:09):
No, he's still a legend, but,yeah.
But Walt sees him marchingthrough the center of Marceline,
missouri.
Wow, and Cody picks Walt up andputs him on the back of his
horse.
This is true, this actuallyhappened.
Wow, and Walt Disney rides,puts him on the back of his
horse.
This is true, this actuallyhappened, wow.
And Walt Disney rides throughtown on the back of the horse
(34:31):
with Buffalo Bill Cody.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
That's really cool.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
And later, remembering it, disney says I
was mighty impressed.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
What a Walt thing to say what a Walt thing to say.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
So ultimately we've got this through line of this
one character, the characterthat Stoker brings over from
America, this actual person,buffalo Bill Cody, the character
that he becomes in the book,who actually kills Dracula, and
then the character that inspiresWalt Disney.
A lot of stuff going on there.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
We could go into all of these different origins, for
because there's a lot of weird,weird connections with just
Dracula alone.
I do want to talk about, reallybriefly, about one fun little
factoid.
Yes, because the film is whatreally makes Dracula the popular
thing that it is.
(35:28):
Yeah, but it may have actuallybeen film that inspired Dracula
as well, or at least an elementof it.
Yeah, there was a Frenchfilmmaker who made his own
movies in Montreal in France.
His name was Georges MélièsMm-hmm and he made what is
credited as the first horrorfilm called the Devil's Castle.
(35:50):
Now, it's a silly romp and he'slike jumping around doing his
usual stuff and stopping thecamera and starting it and
making stuff vanish and reappear.
But it opens with a bat in acastle flapping around in front
of the camera and with a puff ofsmoke suddenly appears a man in
a castle flapping around infront of the camera and with a
puff of smoke suddenly appears aman in a huge black cloak with
a high-peaked collar.
(36:10):
Yeah, many have speculated thatthat one little thing may have.
If it didn't inspire Brom, itmost certainly may have inspired
filmmakers like Todd Browning.
Yeah, for having that elementof you know, the transformation
(36:37):
from a man to a bat.
Yeah, also, it's interestingfilm plays into the exploitation
of Dracula in a way here, andit really starts with some
Hungarian Jews who moved to LosAngeles called the Lemleys.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
And Carl Lemley basically had his entire family
living on the lot.
It was like a family ranchwhere they made movies,
universal Studios, and veryearly on he knew that as movies
grew in popularity and as peoplestarted flooding into the
desert community of Los Angelesand Hollywood to try and get
(37:20):
into this new thing, this newentertainment medium of motion
pictures, and everybody camefrom all over.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
That he could make a little extra money because
movies were competitive, becauseyou also had three different
places that were dominantfilmmakers in America.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
You had the British making films and you had the
Germans making films and, yes,other countries were making
films too, but those were thetwo main European centers for
cinema and the Italians, but asfar as true industry, it was
America, with most of theproductions happening in both
New York and in Los Angeles.
So Lemley Sr makes a shrewdbusiness move and he starts
(38:05):
charging in mission to takepeople onto the set, which was
easy because it was silent.
You didn't have to worry aboutpeople talking, right, yeah, you
just.
Oh, hey, look over here they'reworking on a Western.
Look over here they're workingon a Charlie Chaplin film.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
And they're doing it at the same time, Like there's
no reason not to.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Right, yeah, literally right next to each
other, or you know, back andforth.
And so they would do walkingtours and they realized, well,
there's a lot of people.
And then the back lot gotbigger and bigger.
So he bought some excursionbuses and chopped off the top
and they would drive around withthese convertible buses with
the open top, and that's thebirth of the tram ride, Right,
(39:02):
right.
So when Lemley Jr and Srcollaborated on the Hunchback of
Notre Dame starring Lon ChaneySr, those tours obviously became
a lot more centered on thesehumongous sets that they built
to replicate the streets ofParis.
Some of these sets still, inlittle bits and pieces, still
exist, but they've also beenwiped out over time.
But one of the sets that stillexists is what is called the
Court of Wonders, which is partof the Hunchback set, and part
of it became transformed intoinsert the Vania location for
(39:25):
your monster movie here.
But it was used in almost allof it was used in the Wolfman,
Frankenstein, Dracula, all ofthat, and it's still part of the
tram tour.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
You know, what's funny is I just finished a book,
a very late book, by RayBradbury.
Later in his career he waswriting murder mysteries, for
whatever reason, and several ofthe books that he wrote were
murder mysteries that featuredhimself as a main character and
occasionally a character basedon Ray Harryhausen.
(39:55):
And so I just finished thisbook called A Graveyard for
Lunatics, and it all takes placeon an old movie lot.
I'm going to assume that we'retalking about the 50s, maybe 40s
, but frequently he referencesbeing on the Hunchback of Notre
(40:16):
Dame set.
Oh yeah, that is on that lotand it's an imaginary lot he's
made it up, but it is clearly aconglomeration of several movie
studios that you know,absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
And so Universal is where it really takes off.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Now.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
I do want to put a pin and just say we would love
to talk about all of thecarnival attractions and also we
should, while we talk aboutsilent films, the Cinematograph,
which was a carnival attraction.
That was basically a silentmovie theater in a big black
tent and they would usually putthese elaborate facades in the
(40:55):
front and they would show GeorgeBen-Elias movies like Voyage de
la Lune and the Castle of theDevil.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Voyage de la Lune, which turned into a theme park
attraction in Disneyland Paris.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yes, it did.
Yeah, Absolutely, and one ofthe other films that was
featured in Cinématographs wasFW Murnau's Nosferatu.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Yeah, masterpiece.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Masterpiece.
Yeah, although the widow Stokerdidn't like it.
No, she was not crazy aboutthat she fought them and
actually won her copyright caselitigation against Murnau and
Albin Grau, who were a pair ofoccultists who wanted to make a
whole series Like in analternate universe.
Stoker was, you know, MadameStoker was actually okay with it
(41:39):
.
Yeah, and there was all thesedevil-worshiping silent movies
that we would get to see byMurnau and Albin Grau, but we'll
never find out.
So you know, Murnau Herzog willhave to make an alternate
reality movie of that.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, and Stoker was Bram Stoker was dead by that
point.
Yes, he was.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Yes, he was this notion of having.
So we love to talk about allthe carnival rides in which
Dracula is usually some sort ofdummy, usually in a Bela
Lugosi-style cape with the redlining and the fangs in a coffin
.
Dracula, at this point, whenyou go into the 50s, is already
a staple of Halloween fare.
(42:16):
Yes, okay, yes, okay.
But the notion of taking peopleonto the set as an attraction
where, yeah, I want to see I'vealready seen the movie, but I
want to see more of this yeah,so they're exploiting Dracula as
one of the sales pitches,because they would actually
start dressing somebody up asLugosi to walk around and you'd
get your photo op with them oryou'd sit in a coffin.
(42:42):
Yeah, so along comes the 1960s,yeah, and with the birth of
color television and black andwhite television, there's this
push to come up with new, catchy, edgy types of television that
will appeal to younger viewers.
And thanks to our friendForrest J Ackerman and his
magazine Famous Monsters, yeah,and also Boris Bobby Pickett and
(43:03):
his song, the Monster Mash,monster Mash.
Yeah, the birth of the monsterkid era is in full force at this
point.
Yeah, and rather than doing yetanother, daddy knows best,
leave it to beavers style, ozzieand Harriet style sitcom style.
(43:24):
Ozzie and Harriet style sitcom.
Producers at Universal Studioscame up with an idea to
basically take that sitcomformula and mix it with the
monster craze, and thus comesthe Munsters, the Munsters, yeah
, with Herman and Grandpa andLily and Eddie and the whole and
Helen.
The works right.
Okay, the cool thing is and myparents have memories of this,
(43:46):
going to Universal Studios, yeah, you go on the tram tour and
they would be filming theMunsters on the back lot, and so
, and people would request, canwe and that was actually part of
the map Go see the Munstershouse?
Huh, on the Universal Studiosmap 1313 Mockingbird Lane.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
1313 Mockingbird.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Lane, 1313, mockingbird Lane, absolutely,
and you would go on it andsometimes the actors would be
outside.
So Al Lewis would be outsidesmoking a cigar out there with
Fred Gwynn and they're doingburlesque stick outside and Fred
is like half naked because hewould be wearing so much foam
padding that he'd be losing somuch weight from all the sweat
(44:24):
as a German.
But they would be out and theywould sign autographs and take
pictures with fans on the tramtour.
And eventually Universal,during the second season of the
Munsters, they said well, peoplerequest these so much, we can't
let them on the set.
It's slowing down the filming.
Yeah, so if you happen to seethem, great, but we're not going
to stop the Tran.
(44:45):
Let them off the Tran onto theset, which is what they would do
.
Yeah, they built a fake set,right adjacent to 1313
Mockingbird, so you'd see thehouse.
But then they take you intoGrandpa's lab and they had a wax
figure from the wax museum inAnaheim, california, made up of
Herman on a slab, and they hadsome replica of Strickfadden
(45:08):
equipment zapping away around it.
Yeah, and you get your picturewith this fake Herman to visit.
You know, the Munsters?
Yeah, and the Munsters becamequite a staple and there were a
lot of monster fans out thereand a lot of it has to do with
Forrey Ackerman.
Sure, because Forrey startedfandom.
He really did.
(45:29):
He made it okay for people tosay I'm a geek, you're a geek,
wouldn't you like to be a geektoo?
Yeah, he's also responsibleresponsible for being the press
agent of L Ron Hubbard'sDianetics.
Oh, weird.
Yes, one of the things that heactually kind of regretted in
life is helping Hubbard getScientology as popular as it was
(45:52):
.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Wow, he had no idea he wasn't a.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Scientologist.
He was not a Scientologist, hedidn't believe in it.
He thought okay.
But he helped him sellDianetics and he was a very good
salesman.
Forry could sell anything andhe was best friends with
Harryhausen and Bradbury.
They were best friends, theywere absolute besties.
But Forry's love for monstersreally came through in the
(46:17):
magazine and I grew up with thismagazine.
I collect these magazines.
I love them.
Apart from theme parks andanimation, monsters are my third
thing and I love them so much,and it's mostly because of Fori,
who I got to meet when I wasvery young.
The thing is is that as themonsters waned, fandom for
monsters started to wane too alittle bit, because this is the
(46:39):
late 60s, mm-hmm.
People's attention was suddenlymoving away from the gothic,
yeah, and it was moving muchmore towards movies like Blood
Feast, yeah, you know, night ofthe Living Dead, mm-hmm.
All of the Texas ChainsawMassacre.
It was moving to these muchless gothic, much more gritty
slasher films, and so the publicinterest was moving away from
(47:01):
that.
And then somewhere in the early70s it came back.
Yeah, no one can explain howthat happened, except for one
thing, which is General Millsputting out serials based off of
these monsters.
We're talking about CountChocula and Frankenberry and
Booberry, which went through itsown controversy because of the
(47:22):
dye used.
It was seriously affectingchildren's poop and changing its
strange colors, which terrifiedparents.
So they had to.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
But probably delighted the kids.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
Yeah, the kids were like, wow, it's like neon green
and glows in the dark.
I must be a monster, right?
But people were reallyinterested in monsters again for
this, like this new flash hadhappened.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
You know, blue poop is the kind of erudite
conversation that people tune infor.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Speaking of Carl Emily.
Yeah, so there was this newpush for it, and also because of
Famous Monsters.
The other thing that Forrey didis he introduced fans like
myself, but also filmmakers likeJohn Landis, rick Baker, joe
Dante, steven Spielberg to thepeople who were behind the
(48:09):
scenes.
Yeah, and one of the familiesthat was behind the scenes was
the Westmore family.
Okay, now the Westmores areeverywhere in Hollywood.
You can't shake a stick and notbump into a Westmore in
Hollywood, especially in themakeup world.
Bud Westmore was the Westmore inquestion who took over Westmore
(48:32):
of record.
Yes, bud Westmore took over theUniversal Makeup Department in
the 1940s, where he took overfor Jack Pierce.
Okay, jack Pierce is the makeupman responsible for all the
Universal Monster makeups.
Right, he was a genius, eventhough he was kind of a
curmudgeon and he was exacting,but man, he was amazing with
(48:53):
makeup.
Very, very fascinating fellow.
But he never had a contract.
So when the new management tookover Universal Studios, they
bought it off of the Lemleys.
They realized he didn't have acontract and so he was just
unceremoniously fired.
Oh, wow, and I mean he did makeup off and on from that point
(49:14):
on, but I think his last gig wasactually making Gus the Talking
Mule by putting peanut butteron its lip.
Yeah, yeah, it's really kind ofsad.
The ending of his life isreally really really poorly
taken care of.
But he was very influential.
But Bud Westmore was veryopportunistic, but every
(49:36):
Westmore kind of special.
Bud specialized in charactermakeups.
And then his brother worked atMGM and he specialized in
glamour makeup, like makingtaking Edith Head's costumes and
mixing it with that Westmore'smakeup.
It was amazing, yeah, and therewas a Westmore at Paramount,
there was a Westmore at Fox,there was Westmores everywhere.
Yeah, well, the Westmore family, their children, came up with
(49:58):
an idea at Universal Studios.
Let's let people in on thesecrets.
Yeah, so they did a show calledHollywood Movie Makeup Show.
Yeah, and it was like thisweird little outdoor gazebo that
had makeup tables and theywould pull people out of the
audience and do like a glamourmakeup on one and make somebody
up as Frankenstein, like somedad.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Oh, wow, and it was pretty cool, yeah, and I can see
where this is going to leadinto the kind of show that
Universal does for a very, verylong time, absolutely, and it
becomes you know the magic.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
You are in the magic of the movies.
Yeah, this is kind of I meanthey had pulled people.
I mean it goes with an oldtradition from the old studio
tours where sometimes if youwere on that tour, you had the
right face, they would pull youoff that tram, shove you in the
background of a movie.
You got to look, kid, let's getyou in there.
You know, there it is.
Here's your two bits.
(50:51):
Yeah, here's your two bits.
Yeah, but in this case you'regetting charged a certain amount
of money for a photo op right.
Well, along comes UniversalStudios and they are working on
a remake of Dracula, yeah,Starring the, based off of the
Broadway revival of the Dean andBalderston play starring Frank
Langella, yeah, and they decideto cash in on this and they
(51:15):
decide to take the makeup showand blend it and they go.
Well, who do we know who reallyknows monster movie makeups?
Well, there's a bunch of moviemakeup guys out there.
You know we've got JohnChambers who did the Planet of
the Apes movie, but you knowhe's currently busy saving
people from Iran because he waspart of the.
(51:37):
Argo project.
Who else do we know?
How about Don Post?
He makes all those moviemonster masks, right?
Uh-huh, don Post was a filmmakeup guy but he was producing
these fabulous movie monstermasks Dracula, frankenstein,
quasimodo, that kind of stuffand they would sell them on the
back of Famous Monsters ofFilmland magazine.
(52:00):
Yeah, but they were not likethe cheap masks.
These were high-qualityHollywood masks that in the 60s
were going for 30 bucks a pop.
Wow, frustrating every babyboomer monster kid you can think
of.
So they were like well, wecould just get a bunch of movie
monster masks, we'll have themonsters.
So they called Don Post.
He's like I'm busy, I can'treally do this, but I got a guy
(52:22):
who works for me and his name isVern Langdon.
Yeah, now, vern is a wild man,this guy.
Let me tell you something.
Vern Langdon, he did everything.
He was a sculptor, he was awrestler, he was born in Oakland
, california.
Oh huh, he was a local boy forus.
(52:44):
You know, and he worked at theDon Post studios and he worked
on the calendar masks, as theywere known, because there were
12 masks and they look like acalendar.
Yeah, they even sold like aversion of King Kong, like a big
gorilla suit and a Metalunamutant version.
That was pretty cool too.
He worked on the show.
The makeup show was actuallycalled the Land of a Thousand
Faces Makeup Show yes, and thatwas in 1975.
(53:09):
And then they shut that down.
They tore out the gazebo, yeah,and they raised it and they
built this beautiful castle yeah, With gargoyles and stuff.
You walked in.
You were in this fabulous youknow castle yeah, With gargoyles
and stuff.
You walked in.
You were in this fabulous youknow castle and out would come
Dracula and out would comeRenfield and people would get
(53:30):
pulled out of the audience andthey would be turned into
monsters.
I loved this thing so much andVern was one of the designers of
the show.
He even did the music.
He played the organ.
He actually released a wholebunch of record albums, like
Vampire at the Harpsichord andEric at the Phantom at the organ
, and he's also known forcreating the theme song for the
(53:53):
Carnival of Souls.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
Oh huh, Interesting.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Yeah, he was a very and he later, when he was done
sculpting, he became aprofessional wrestler and he
died in 2011.
Yeah, by all accounts, like areally, really sweet guy, but he
did.
He was a circus clown, he was amagician.
Yeah, this attraction, whichwas Dracula's Castle Castle
Dracula is what it was actuallycalled yeah Was touted in the
(54:20):
advertisements as being superspecial because they spent $3
million to build it.
They were so proud of this.
They put that in the newspaperads.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
Yes, and one of the things that I read about this
show that they were doing isthat so when we talk about
Universal Studios and at thispoint it's starting to become
more of a fully-fledged themepart we have to talk about Jay
Stein.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
Yes, please, let's talk about Jay Stein.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
So Jay Stein is, at this point, the creative head of
Universal Studios.
He also seems pretty insane.
Also seems pretty insane.
Yes, when you compare thestaffs of Universal Studios to
(55:09):
the staffs of Disneyland, youfind a really interesting
comparison.
The staffs of Disneyland,they're geniuses, brilliant
people, thoughtful,inspirational.
The staff of Universal Studiosis a mob.
Yeah, they are cutthroat.
(55:29):
They will fire you if you like,breathe funny, yep.
And Jay Stein is right, at atthis point, the top of the
ladder here.
Yeah, and one of the thingsthat you are all if you work for
Jay Stein.
At this point, the thing thatyou are trying to achieve is
what's known as a J-bang.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
Okay, a J.
Okay, please explain what is aJ-bang.
So a J-bang is Folks.
This is still an appropriateshow for kids.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
It is absolutely.
It's not what you're thinking.
Thanks for listening to partone of our Dracula in the Theme
Parks episode.
Please join us next week forpart two, where we discuss
Universal's Castle Dracula in alot more detail.
The most prolific designer ofdark rides you've never heard of
(56:25):
, why Dracula bleeds money and,of course, the J-Bang See you
real soon, thank you.
Silence mortals, you dare to enter this sanctuary of
the Prince of Darkness, king ofthe Vampires, lord of all undead
, count Dracula.
(00:32):
Hello and welcome to theLowdown on the Plus Up, a
podcast where we look ateveryone's favorite theme park
attractions, lands, textures andnovelties.
We talk in over, about andthrough our week's topic and
then, with literally no concernfor practicality, safety or
economic viability, we come upwith ways to make them better.
My name is Kelly McCubbin,columnist for the theme park
(00:55):
website Boardwalk Times, andwith me, as always, is Peter
Overstreet University, professorof Animation and Film History
in Northern California.
So Pete yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
What are we talking about today?
Today, we're going to betalking about the Prince of
Darkness himself.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I noticed you did that with a little bit of a
Transylvanian accent.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I was going to do something with a little bit more
flourish, but I decided— andthen you aborted.
I wanted to save it for later,for all of our Hungarian
brethren.
We're going to talk about thePrince of Darkness himself,
count Dracula.
Count Dracula, yes, indeed,count Dracula is one of those
literary characters that hasbeen adapted to more media than,
(01:48):
I think, any other, apart from,maybe, sherlock Holmes.
Yeah.
I think.
Yeah, I'm sure that there's acompetition between the two of
them, but Dracula, if it is notin first, it is certainly in a
close second to Sherlock Holmes.
Yeah, as far as being adaptedto films, but what's interesting
about Dracula is that SherlockHolmes doesn't have any theme
(02:13):
park attractions based aroundhim, none that I'm aware of.
None that I'm aware of, I mean,apart from 221B Baker Street.
You know, no shade thrown to myBaker Street.
You know irregular friends outthere in the UK.
They do a fabulous job with theactual recreation of Sherlock
Holmes' lair.
However, there isn't like awhole theme park based around
(02:36):
the guy and there isn't reallyan attraction built around him
as far as I am aware of.
And, by the way, listeners, ifyou are listening to go well, I
happen to know one send us anemail.
We'd love to hear about it.
We'd love to learn about thisbecause I'm a massive Sherlock
Holmes nerd.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Boy, if there were a Sherlock Holmes ride I would go.
I would find a way to get onthat Elementary elementary I
would totally do that yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
So, anyhow, we're going to talk about Dracula as a
central figure in a whole slewof attractions all over the
United States and maybe a littlebit in Romania, depending upon
how much time we got tonight.
Ah, cool, yeah, we are going tohave to start somewhere, but we
(03:22):
might as well just go right forthe heart.
Let's actually go to Romaniafor a minute.
Go right for the heart.
I see what you did there.
Okay, so the trick is thatDracula has been a fascinating
figure in both history,literature, mythology and movies
.
Yeah, many people have putdifferent connotations and
(03:45):
different meanings behind thecharacter, the book.
Kelly and I have had thisconversation numerous times,
where I'm a big lover of Draculamovies and yet I'm always
disappointed by them becausenone of them actually seem to
get it right for me.
Because I've read the book.
It was the very first book Iever read that was not a
(04:07):
children's book.
Yeah, it was the summer of 19,.
What was it?
1982.
Mm-hmm.
And.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
That makes you 38 right now, right, oh God.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
And yeah, I wish, yeah, so no, my father got us a
video disc machine, a RCA CEDvideo disc machine.
Wow, now, for those who don'tknow what this is, ka-chunk,
let's go back in time.
Yeah, today we've got streaming.
You go a little bit furtherback.
(04:41):
You have Blu-ray and DVDs.
You go a little bit furtherback, you have VHS.
You go a little bit furtherback, you have Blu-ray and DVDs.
You go a little bit furtherback, you have VHS.
You go a little bit furtherback, you have Betamax.
And right about the same timethat VHS is just starting, you
also have LaserDiscs, which wereactually a much superior but
very expensive product to make,product to make.
(05:02):
But before that, just before,the RCA company devised a way to
take the information memorystorage material, which is,
strangely enough, the exact samefilm that you put onto CDs.
Yeah, yeah, but in order tokeep the cost down, they put it
(05:22):
on LP, vinyl, which presents ahuge amount of problems.
First off, it can only store acertain amount of information on
one side, right, so that's oneproblem.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
You had to flip them right.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
You had to flip them.
You would watch a movie andthen halfway through the movie
it would just stop.
You'd be like what happened,and sometimes the disc would
have a little code saying turnover disc.
And so you'd have to go up andthey all came in these plastic
sleeves and you would shove thesleeve in on side A and then
pull it out and the machinewould hold on to the disc in the
(05:59):
specialized sleeve and thenstart playing the disc and all
the discs.
There wasn't even push buttonson these things, it was all like
these big, heavy, likespring-loaded levers to make it
play.
Yeah, and then you'd watch themovie and the quality was okay,
it wasn't bad, it was VHSquality.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, maybe a little better.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Poor VHS quality.
Yeah, it was okay.
And then halfway through thefilm it would stop and you'd
have to get up.
Put the disc all the way in thesleeve, all the way in, grab
the disc, pull it out, flip itover to side.
B, put it in, pull out thesleeve again and watch side B.
So there are movies to this daywhere I still feel this
instinctual twitch in my lowerback Raiders of the Lost Ark,
(06:42):
Sensual twitch in my lower back.
Raiders of the Lost Ark, StarWars, King Kong, Frankenstein,
the Godfather, Dark Crystal, theProducers I owned all Murder by
Death, we owned all of thesemovies on CED.
But I always go oh, I got toturn it over, because I'm almost
there, Because I was inevitablythe DJ of the CED disc Like go
(07:04):
turn it over, kid.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
It's kind of like those eight tracks that you
listen to as a kid, like whereyou know where the kachunk is
coming.
Yeah, it's like you're justready for it, and when it
doesn't happen it seems wrongsomehow.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Right.
So, like on the Star Wars CEDdisc, I know exactly when to
flip it over.
Yeah, because it stops rightwhen Grand Moff Tarkin says
Terminator immediately.
Yeah, and then I would have toget up and flip it over.
Yes.
Which is great because thatrole was played by the fabulous
Peter Cushing, yeah, who playedVan Helsing to Christopher Lee's
(07:38):
Dracula.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, maybe the greatest Van Helsing.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I would totally agree with that.
Yeah, and so because of the CDdiscs.
And why I'm bringing this up isanother disc that we owned was
the 1931 classic film starringBela Lugosi, directed by Todd
Browning.
Yeah, dracula, from UniversalStudios.
And how we acquired that led tomy love of this story.
(08:03):
It's because these discs wereexpensive and my parents did not
make a lot of money at thistime.
So my dad made a deal with me.
He says read the book first,smart dad.
And I'm six years old.
Yeah, read the book first.
Yeah, okay.
So he hands me a paperbackedition and here's Dracula.
(08:25):
And I said well, what if I runinto a word I don't know?
Peter, this is called adictionary.
Oh well, what if I read thedictionary and I still don't
know what it is?
Peter, you see these things uphere.
This is called the EncyclopediaBritannica Yep, encyclopedia
Britannica Yep.
And so I had to read Draculaand I was not allowed to ask my
(08:47):
parents any questions about thebook until I finished it.
Yeah, and I had to do a bookreport.
Oh, brilliant.
So this was like.
I finished it in about twoweeks.
Yeah, because it was likeserious summer and we had a room
in the front of our house withall of our LPs.
So I listened to creepyclassical music Lots of Toccata
(09:09):
and Fugue and lots of Mazorski.
I was listening to a lot of itwhile I'm reading Dracula.
Engel's Cave over and overagain, oh yeah.
And if I, and a lot of WendyCarlos, because we had a copy of
the Shining, yeah, and alsoPenderecki, right, right, you
know Gustav Penderecki, soanyway.
(09:29):
So I listened to a lot of thisand I really got into the book,
and if I ran into something Ididn't understand I would go to
the dictionary.
I don't know what this wordmeans, you know?
Oh, okay, tree panning, what isthat?
Oh, I know what that is and Ilook it up.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
It's the thing that Yoko stopped John from doing.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Pretty much and then I did a and.
As a reward for reading thebook, my dad bought me a copy of
the CED disc of Dracula, whichI played voraciously because I
loved those locations, the bleakcastles and the weird asylums.
And Dwight Frye, as Renfield isso good in that film, he steals
(10:07):
the movie.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Oh, he's brilliant.
And of course Bela, and ofcourse Bela Lugosi, who's so
brilliant in that film, and Idefy anyone to.
I think that the movie has someissues and I love Todd Browning
, but I think the movie's alittle bit stodgy, a little bit
slow.
Many would agree with you, yeahyeah, but it's beautiful and
(10:30):
Bela Lugosi is irresistible.
He is, he is such a good actor.
It is kind of a shame that hegot stuck doing horror roles
after that, because anytime yousee him outside of that role, he
is also brilliant.
Oh yeah, like, just go watchNinochka.
He steals scenes from GretaGarbo, oh yeah, masterful.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Oh yeah, he's very, very good.
Yeah, I kind of want to do alittle side thing here, because
we're talking about the movieand we're talking about this
character and I hope you don'tobject to this, kelly but I'd
like to dedicate this episode toan acquaintance of mine who we
were becoming friends.
He was a scholar.
He wrote many, many books onthis very subject.
(11:14):
His name is David J Skoll, andDavid and I met through our love
of Dracula.
He wrote several books on ToddBrowning and on Bela Lugosi and
Bram Stoker.
He has a book called AmericanGothic that talks about the
development of the 1931 film andall the stage versions and
(11:34):
anybody listening who's like amonster movie nerd.
You can see him in almost everyDVD extra of the Universal
Monsters you're thinking of.
David just pops up.
Dvd extra of the UniversalMonsters.
I'm thinking of David, justpops up.
Sadly, last year around NewYear's on New Year's Day he was
driving home with his partnerand they were killed in a very,
very horrible car accident sotragic it was.
(11:55):
It was and I owe David a lotbecause I was writing a book
about the woman who wrote KingKong.
Yeah, and he really was one ofthe along with Kelly.
He was one of the three peoplethat really kind of kept pushing
me Like how's it going?
How's it going?
Yeah, yeah.
Giving me advice and he wasactually like offering to read
(12:18):
it and help me critique itbefore he passed, and I will
miss him because, beside all theme, me, me stuff, he was just a
really delightful human being.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
And the reason why I'm bringing him up is to talk
about Bela and the 31 Dracula.
We have to talk about what Ilike to call Draxploitation,
Because Dracula means so manydifferent things to so many
different people.
Yeah, and while they weremaking the 1931 version, the
English version of Dracula, allyou horror nerds who are
(12:52):
listening right now willprobably already be going what
about the Spanish version.
Right, because, for those whodon't know, carl Emly Jr who
convinced his father to doDracula.
His father did not want to do ahorror movie, but his son loved
the story, wanted to do it, andit took him several years to
put the film into developmentand also to get the rights from
(13:15):
Madame Stoker, herself Rom'swidow.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Well, she was gun-shy after the Nosferatu stuff.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Yes, there is that, and we'll talk about that at
another time.
What they decided to do isthere was a big push to have
international audiences.
One of the big movie audiencesthat was readily accessible to
Hollywood was Mexico.
Yes, so they did a Spanishversion at night.
So the lights on the productionnever got shut off, because the
(13:43):
American crew would work allday and then, as they were just
starting to wrap things up, theSpanish crew would move in and
use the same sets, sometimeseven the same costumes.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, Spanish cast and crew.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yep, and it run by all because the producer, the
director who was behind theSpanish Dracula, fell in love
with its main star, lupita Tovar.
Yes, he was so smitten by her.
It's like I'm going to put youon the screen.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Oh, and you can see why.
Oh, baby.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Lupita Tovar Ay ay ay .
She is.
Wow, she's beautiful and she'sfantastic and she was really,
really sweet and she lived wellover 100 years.
I think she was like 104.
Holy cow, she lived to a verylong Lord age.
I mean I could look it up, butshe did live well past 100.
(14:35):
The one thing about thatproduction that fails is Dracula
.
Yeah, no offense to any CarlosVillarreal fans out there, but
Carlos is so hammy and so overthe top he almost ruins the
whole movie.
Yeah, but everybody else isjust going for it.
(14:56):
They're buying into it.
It's much darker, it's moodier.
There's camera moves that arenot being used in the English
version.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
It's interesting how dynamic the camera is compared
to Browning's, which has alwaysstruck me as strange, because
Browning was not shy aboutmoving the camera around, but
something about this productionseemed to be kind of tying his
hands.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Well, and that would be his alcoholism That'd do it.
Yeah.
So a lot of people haveactually speculated that he was
kind of director in name onlyand that the director of
photography I think it was CarlFreund.
It is, yeah, Carl Freund wasthe one who was actually pulling
the strings, which is why hegot to take the reins on the
(15:39):
Mummy.
Which with Boris.
Karloff, which, if you watch it,is almost the exact same story,
just with a dusty Egyptiannamed Ardeth Bay as opposed to
Count Dracula, right, but theyboth have very abrupt endings.
Much to my partner's chagrin,she's watched both of them.
They just go and they go andthey're great, and all of a
sudden they stop.
Why is that?
(16:00):
Well, it's only two reels.
Like what do you want you know?
Why is that?
Well, it's only two reels.
Like what do you want you know?
See, dracula is so fascinating,yeah, that there is a history
of using him as a, frankly, astourist fodder, yes, going all
the way back to the 1500s.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
People would go to Braun Castle just to see whether
or not the impaler himself,vlad Shepes, was gone.
Yeah, but the locals wouldcharge the money to go see the
abandoned castle.
Yeah, so it has been a touristattraction ever since.
Yeah, and here's one of Pete'sdeep dives for all you horror
(16:44):
fans out there that it mightblow you away Castle Bronn,
which is not technically CastleDracula, yeah, there are two
castles that he inhabited, theactual Castle Dracula and Bronn
Castle, right, okay, bronnCastle is where he was actually
imprisoned when he was near theend of his life, where Vlad the
(17:05):
Impaler, vlad the Impaler, okay,yes, that building was
commissioned by an order ofknights from Germany who
specialized in building wartimeencampments and embattlements.
Okay, and they were very good atit.
They were renowned allthroughout and they were
actually commissioned to buildstuff during the Crusades.
(17:25):
Yeah, they had a long familyhistory and they built Brown
Castle.
Hmm, as a matter of fact, oneof the patriarchs of the family,
who was a contemporary of VladShepis, was probably the person
who was responsible for thepropaganda against Vlad, because
Vlad owed him money, right.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Because I've heard this I actually read this very
recently.
Like it turns out that thepeople that were basically ruled
over and protected by Vlad theImpaler, their history of him is
actually quite favorable.
They really love the guy.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, they review him as a hero, yeah, yeah.
So it's almost like the sametype of propaganda of like the
English saying well, you know,napoleon was very short.
Right, you know it's that typeof thing, only it's to the
extreme.
Well, he impaled people, so hemust have drank their blood and
he thought he was a vampire andall that.
Yeah, well, who wasn't impalingpeople too?
(18:21):
Yeah, but the name of thisfamily is Frankenstein.
Wait, say that again.
The name of the family and theorder of knights that built
Bronn Castle is Frankenstein.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Okay.
So that, to say the least, is acoincidence.
Uh-huh, so that, to say theleast, is a coincidence.
So how do—so does MaryWollsing—and folks believe me,
I'm hearing this for the firsttime, just like you are, so I'm
trying to stand in and ask thequestions that I hope that you
(18:59):
have.
So does Mary Wollsingcraft,shelley, know this history, or
is she just pulling Frankensteinout of thin air?
Speaker 3 (19:08):
She was inspired by a visit to Castle Frankenstein in
Germany, okay, and the castlewas actually being used as a
research center for peopleworking on galvanistic
experimentation at the time.
The fact that I'm getting thisfrom is from a book called In
Search of Frankenstein, writtenby Radu Florescu.
(19:31):
Okay, and he goes into somedetail about how the Knights
Frankenstein were commissionedby Vlad's father to build the
castle.
They built it and then theDraculas and the Frankensteins
actually started having moneyissues between each other,
uh-huh.
And so at one point, you know,call Xandor Vorkov, right Like.
(19:53):
At one point, a Draculaprobably really did have a fight
with a Frankenstein For real,so like.
But it's just this weird littlecoinkydink that these two
families met.
But apparently the Frankensteinfamily was actually part of the
propaganda arm against Vlad theImpaler to paint him as a
(20:16):
vampire.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
This is the story you have waited your entire life to
tell, isn't it, Pete?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
I you know I love doing that.
So I do teach a college courseon the history of horror and I
love watching the eyeballs ofall my students pop when they
hear that.
And I and you know who didn'thear about that was David.
David Skull did not know thisand I said you need to read Radu
Flarescu's book.
And he read and he called me uplater.
(20:42):
He said I read it, holy moly,like that really blew my mind
and I went yeah, I mean it'sdocumented.
So yeah, the KnightsFrankenstein actually probably
met against Dracula's castle andit is operated as a historical
(21:04):
landmark.
And a tourist trap and a touristtrap, Because the minute you
walk up there's a dude dressedin a Dracula's cape, as
everybody knows by watchingBeetlejuice, Beetlejuice, so,
but still, you know it's.
I mean, my grandparents wentthere when I was very young.
Yeah, and okay, another littlestory from my childhood.
(21:27):
And this magazine is going tokeep coming up.
It was a magazine that startedin the 50s and it lasted the
real magazine.
They revived it, but it wasnever the same for me.
It ended right around 1982.
And it was started by a guynamed Forrest J Ackerman and it
was called Famous Monsters ofFilmland Magazine.
Yeah, In the 80s they used toput these advertisements for get
(21:48):
some real soil from Dracula'stomb and it looked like a gold
chain with a little goldencoffin that had these, and it
was hollow in the inside, exceptfor these two little pieces of
glass with a little bit of dirtin it.
It was hollow in the inside,except for these two little
(22:08):
pieces of glass with a littlebit of dirt in it, and it was
supposed to be real dirt fromthe basement of Dracula's actual
castle in Transylvania.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, and in 1970s money it was 20 bucks.
That's a lot of money, yeah,yeah, for a kid especially.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
For a kid especially.
Yeah, and you thought you weregoing to get this cool and I was
like I'm going to wear thatwith my Van Helsing outfit.
I have real you know like wow,yeah.
So I spent a whole summermowing lawns, walking dogs,
picking up dog poop whatever Ihad to do to get the money to do
(22:39):
it.
I sent away the money that Isent away for this thing, cut
out the little coupon in theback, sent it off to the captain
company in New York, yeah, andI waited for six weeks and then
I finally got this littleenvelope and I opened it up.
The necklace the actualnecklace part was plastic, oh no
.
And the coffin was made ofplastic.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
And I realized that there was this little fine print
on the advertisement because Iwas so upset Like I thought it
was gold, yeah, and it's like no.
It actually says it is aplastic thing.
But it's rendered to look likebecause it's an illustration,
it's not a photograph.
Yeah, but, it's rendered to looklike this shiny gold object,
(23:19):
but it's like, oh no, it's justthe way it's lit.
It's like, oh you, cheap.
Well, apparently a lot ofpeople got cheesed by that.
Yeah, a lot of kids rememberthat.
For a lot of you monster kidssome of you might be listening
now going I remember that I havethat too.
It was cheap.
So my grandparents felt for me,yeah, so they went to Romania
and they brought back a rockfrom the room where Vlad the
(23:41):
Impaler was imprisoned.
And I still have it.
It's up on my wall.
I have a actual stone fromCastle Dracula on my wall.
That's amazing, so like, andthat's because I got ripped off
by the Captain Company, becausemy grandparents were awesome,
but I have a love for this.
But Dracula's Castle is atourist attraction, yeah, but
(24:02):
it's mostly just a historicalattraction You're not going to,
except for near Halloween orWalpurgisnacht, where they let
you sleep in coffins in theGrand Hall.
Yeah, but other than that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
And I know that it was sort of post the Lugosi film
that the people in thatparticular area of Eastern
Europe said, hey, we might havesomething we could, you know,
make some money off of here.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
You get tired of hearing from tourists like
where's Dracula's castle?
They go all right, let's makesome bucks.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Well and it's interesting.
So you know, looking at thekind of origins and I swear
we'll get to some theme parkstuff soon but looking at the
origins of Dracula as a book, asBram Stoker's book, some of the
origin is clearly Vlad theImpaler.
He would have known thishistorical character, though
(24:52):
Stoker never in his entire lifewent to Eastern Europe.
He was well-traveled but hedidn't go to Eastern Europe, so
it's all hearsay.
Some of the origin is justbasically the Penny Dreadfuls
that are floating around England.
Barney the Vampire Barney theVampire yeah, and some of it may
(25:16):
be a little bit.
The person that Bram Stokerworked for Ah, yes, and who
might that be?
Kelly, that would be the mostfamous actor in England.
Henry Irving Ah, yes, and whomight that be?
Kelly, that would be the mostfamous actor in England.
Henry Irving Ah, yes.
So Stoker, he's an interestingguy.
He's Irish, he is stage, he'sdoing a lot of jobs, but at this
(25:37):
point he's stage managing forthe Lyceum Theatre.
He is the.
It is sometimes described asmanager of and it is sometimes
described as assistant to SirHenry Irving, and he is working.
And the Lyceum Theater at thispoint it's still around, but at
(26:01):
this point it's a fascinatingand weird group of people.
Many of them are connected oneway or the other with the Order
of the Golden Dawn AlistairCrowley's group.
And you say that and peoplehear it and go, oh, were they
evil?
No, it was just.
You know, it was like any kindof weirdo occult group that is
(26:22):
fashionable at the time.
That's what they were doing Now.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Let's all get drunk and go play ping pong.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
For a brief period of time, a woman named Pamela
Coleman Smith worked with theLyceum Theatre.
She was an American who caughtup with that company when it was
touring through America andthen was brought over to England
.
She was an illustrator and sheis the woman who drew the
(26:51):
Rider-Waite tarot deck thesingle most famous tarot deck in
the world Nice.
Pamela Coleman Smith drew thatand many of the actors from the
Lyceum Company are thecharacters on those cards.
Sir Henry Irving is certainlyat least one of them.
Stoker might be one, thoughthat's not entirely positive,
(27:17):
but he might be.
So a really interesting and oddgroup of people, but Henry
Irving had a reputation.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yes, he did.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Irving was a.
The Lowdown on the Plus Up is aBoardWalk Times podcast, a
BoardWalkTimes podcast.
At BoardWalkTimesnet you'llfind some of the most
well-considered and insightfulwriting about the Walt Disney
(27:51):
Company.
Disney history and the universeof theme parks available
anywhere.
Come join us atBoardWalkTimesnet he was
arresting.
He could hypnotize with hiseyes.
(28:26):
He was erudite.
He was friends with QueenVictoria, which helped the
theater a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
So he's basically like a Victorian Peter O'Toole?
Yes.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
And so, to an extent, Dracula may have been in part
based on Henry Irving, a guythat was not particularly
likable.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
No, he's not.
Yeah, for all accounts, he isnot very likable.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
But I think what is really interesting about the
story of Stoker and Dracula andhow it first connects to theme
parks is that Stoker and Irvingwere in New York at a certain
point and they saw in about 1896, they saw Buffalo Bill Cody's
(29:16):
Wild West show.
Irving was entranced by this.
I'll bet he was fascinated bythis thing and you know, at this
point Buffalo Bill Cody was abig deal Like.
These were big shows.
He was somehow getting hugecasts, including large casts of
Native Americans who wereIncluding the great Sitting Bull
(29:37):
himself.
This is right, yeah, and whowould come out and actually
simulate their own defeat?
He was doing these big shows,huge audiences, and Irving
convinced him to come to England.
Wow, and so Cody came toEngland.
Stoker helped facilitate allthis.
Stoker did not like Cody either.
(29:59):
A lot of people didn't likeCody either, right, so Cody came
to England.
Mm-hmm, irving sponsored it.
The papers had kind of a fieldday because they considered Cody
this sort of you know, ruffian,right, you know this guy that
they didn't have a lot ofrespect for and they couldn't
figure out what his relationshipwith Henry Irving might be.
(30:21):
Right, so there are all sortsof aspersions cast, but Irving
did be.
So there are all sorts ofaspersions cast, but Irving did
know Queen Victoria and he gother to come to these shows twice
.
She came to see Buffalo BillCody twice, and so it ended up
being a huge deal.
Buffalo Bill Cody made a ton ofmoney.
Probably Irving did too.
So one of the things that.
(30:44):
So I'm going to tie this intoboth the book Dracula and into
the origins of theme parks.
Only the way you can Go ahead.
I feel like I'm slaloming here.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
No, you're doing great.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
I'm on my way, I'm totally with you.
Okay, when we see film versionsof Dracula—and I think we both
know that more people have seenfilm versions of Dracula than
have actually read that bookCorrect Generally the climax of
the book and spoiler alert.
If you've never, ever seen afilm version of Dracula, is
(31:18):
Professor Van Helsing doingsomething to kill Dracula, right
?
This is not what happens in thebook.
No, in the book, a characternamed Quincy Morris kills
Dracula.
Yep.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
With a bowie knife.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
With a bowie knife.
Yeah, jonathan Seward tries toslit his throat while Quincy
Morris stabs Dracula through thechest with a bowie knife.
It's pretty gruesome.
Morris then dies heroically.
Quincy Morris is an old WildWest character.
He's from the United States.
(31:54):
He is very much in the vein ofBuffalo Bill Cody.
This is fairly clearly theinspiration for this character,
and Stoker's doing somethingreally interesting here, where
he's taking two different kindsof frontiers and having them
clash and in a way, sayingthey're both better off dead.
(32:18):
So you've got.
Dracula is in his past.
Heroic.
Dracula is defending his peoplefrom the Turk.
At some point they describe himas living at the edge of Turkey
land, yeah, and he supposedlymakes a deal with the devil or
(32:42):
sells his soul or something todefend his people, the Turk.
This is a long time ago andhe's done it and that frontier
is no longer a threat and he'sjust devolved into the creature
that we know him.
Now Quincy Morris has come overfrom the United States.
His frontier is dying too.
(33:03):
This is, like you know, thelate 1800s, the early 1900s.
We're not taming the Wild Westreally anymore, right, yeah, and
so his frontier is also dying,and so we put these two frontier
characters, neither of whichStoker likes very much, and they
(33:24):
kill each other.
Wow, it's really interesting.
And you know, quincy Morrisdies very beautifully in the
book, yeah, like he lays downjust as the sun is setting,
mm-hmm, and just says you know,it was all worth it to see this.
Yeah, I mean, it's a beautifulthing.
So how do we tie this intotheme parks?
(33:47):
In about 1906, buffalo Bill Codyappears in Missouri and he
meets a very, very young WaltDisney.
This is true.
Now, this is late in his career.
This is like 10 years later.
Cody is not as big a dealanymore.
(34:09):
No, he's still a legend, but,yeah.
But Walt sees him marchingthrough the center of Marceline,
missouri.
Wow, and Cody picks Walt up andputs him on the back of his
horse.
This is true, this actuallyhappened.
Wow, and Walt Disney rides,puts him on the back of his
horse.
This is true, this actuallyhappened, wow.
And Walt Disney rides throughtown on the back of the horse
(34:31):
with Buffalo Bill Cody.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
That's really cool.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
And later, remembering it, disney says I
was mighty impressed.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
What a Walt thing to say what a Walt thing to say.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
So ultimately we've got this through line of this
one character, the characterthat Stoker brings over from
America, this actual person,buffalo Bill Cody, the character
that he becomes in the book,who actually kills Dracula, and
then the character that inspiresWalt Disney.
A lot of stuff going on there.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
We could go into all of these different origins, for
because there's a lot of weird,weird connections with just
Dracula alone.
I do want to talk about, reallybriefly, about one fun little
factoid.
Yes, because the film is whatreally makes Dracula the popular
thing that it is.
(35:28):
Yeah, but it may have actuallybeen film that inspired Dracula
as well, or at least an elementof it.
Yeah, there was a Frenchfilmmaker who made his own
movies in Montreal in France.
His name was Georges MélièsMm-hmm and he made what is
credited as the first horrorfilm called the Devil's Castle.
(35:50):
Now, it's a silly romp and he'slike jumping around doing his
usual stuff and stopping thecamera and starting it and
making stuff vanish and reappear.
But it opens with a bat in acastle flapping around in front
of the camera and with a puff ofsmoke suddenly appears a man in
a castle flapping around infront of the camera and with a
puff of smoke suddenly appears aman in a huge black cloak with
a high-peaked collar.
(36:10):
Yeah, many have speculated thatthat one little thing may have.
If it didn't inspire Brom, itmost certainly may have inspired
filmmakers like Todd Browning.
Yeah, for having that elementof you know, the transformation
(36:37):
from a man to a bat.
Yeah, also, it's interestingfilm plays into the exploitation
of Dracula in a way here, andit really starts with some
Hungarian Jews who moved to LosAngeles called the Lemleys.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
And Carl Lemley basically had his entire family
living on the lot.
It was like a family ranchwhere they made movies,
universal Studios, and veryearly on he knew that as movies
grew in popularity and as peoplestarted flooding into the
desert community of Los Angelesand Hollywood to try and get
(37:20):
into this new thing, this newentertainment medium of motion
pictures, and everybody camefrom all over.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
That he could make a little extra money because
movies were competitive, becauseyou also had three different
places that were dominantfilmmakers in America.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
You had the British making films and you had the
Germans making films and, yes,other countries were making
films too, but those were thetwo main European centers for
cinema and the Italians, but asfar as true industry, it was
America, with most of theproductions happening in both
New York and in Los Angeles.
So Lemley Sr makes a shrewdbusiness move and he starts
(38:05):
charging in mission to takepeople onto the set, which was
easy because it was silent.
You didn't have to worry aboutpeople talking, right, yeah, you
just.
Oh, hey, look over here they'reworking on a Western.
Look over here they're workingon a Charlie Chaplin film.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
And they're doing it at the same time, Like there's
no reason not to.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Right, yeah, literally right next to each
other, or you know, back andforth.
And so they would do walkingtours and they realized, well,
there's a lot of people.
And then the back lot gotbigger and bigger.
So he bought some excursionbuses and chopped off the top
and they would drive around withthese convertible buses with
the open top, and that's thebirth of the tram ride, Right,
(39:02):
right.
So when Lemley Jr and Srcollaborated on the Hunchback of
Notre Dame starring Lon ChaneySr, those tours obviously became
a lot more centered on thesehumongous sets that they built
to replicate the streets ofParis.
Some of these sets still, inlittle bits and pieces, still
exist, but they've also beenwiped out over time.
But one of the sets that stillexists is what is called the
Court of Wonders, which is partof the Hunchback set, and part
of it became transformed intoinsert the Vania location for
(39:25):
your monster movie here.
But it was used in almost allof it was used in the Wolfman,
Frankenstein, Dracula, all ofthat, and it's still part of the
tram tour.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
You know, what's funny is I just finished a book,
a very late book, by RayBradbury.
Later in his career he waswriting murder mysteries, for
whatever reason, and several ofthe books that he wrote were
murder mysteries that featuredhimself as a main character and
occasionally a character basedon Ray Harryhausen.
(39:55):
And so I just finished thisbook called A Graveyard for
Lunatics, and it all takes placeon an old movie lot.
I'm going to assume that we'retalking about the 50s, maybe 40s
, but frequently he referencesbeing on the Hunchback of Notre
(40:16):
Dame set.
Oh yeah, that is on that lotand it's an imaginary lot he's
made it up, but it is clearly aconglomeration of several movie
studios that you know,absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
And so Universal is where it really takes off.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Now.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
I do want to put a pin and just say we would love
to talk about all of thecarnival attractions and also we
should, while we talk aboutsilent films, the Cinematograph,
which was a carnival attraction.
That was basically a silentmovie theater in a big black
tent and they would usually putthese elaborate facades in the
(40:55):
front and they would show GeorgeBen-Elias movies like Voyage de
la Lune and the Castle of theDevil.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Voyage de la Lune, which turned into a theme park
attraction in Disneyland Paris.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yes, it did.
Yeah, Absolutely, and one ofthe other films that was
featured in Cinématographs wasFW Murnau's Nosferatu.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Yeah, masterpiece.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Masterpiece.
Yeah, although the widow Stokerdidn't like it.
No, she was not crazy aboutthat she fought them and
actually won her copyright caselitigation against Murnau and
Albin Grau, who were a pair ofoccultists who wanted to make a
whole series Like in analternate universe.
Stoker was, you know, MadameStoker was actually okay with it
(41:39):
.
Yeah, and there was all thesedevil-worshiping silent movies
that we would get to see byMurnau and Albin Grau, but we'll
never find out.
So you know, Murnau Herzog willhave to make an alternate
reality movie of that.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, and Stoker was Bram Stoker was dead by that
point.
Yes, he was.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Yes, he was this notion of having.
So we love to talk about allthe carnival rides in which
Dracula is usually some sort ofdummy, usually in a Bela
Lugosi-style cape with the redlining and the fangs in a coffin
.
Dracula, at this point, whenyou go into the 50s, is already
a staple of Halloween fare.
(42:16):
Yes, okay, yes, okay.
But the notion of taking peopleonto the set as an attraction
where, yeah, I want to see I'vealready seen the movie, but I
want to see more of this yeah,so they're exploiting Dracula as
one of the sales pitches,because they would actually
start dressing somebody up asLugosi to walk around and you'd
get your photo op with them oryou'd sit in a coffin.
(42:42):
Yeah, so along comes the 1960s,yeah, and with the birth of
color television and black andwhite television, there's this
push to come up with new, catchy, edgy types of television that
will appeal to younger viewers.
And thanks to our friendForrest J Ackerman and his
magazine Famous Monsters, yeah,and also Boris Bobby Pickett and
(43:03):
his song, the Monster Mash,monster Mash.
Yeah, the birth of the monsterkid era is in full force at this
point.
Yeah, and rather than doing yetanother, daddy knows best,
leave it to beavers style, ozzieand Harriet style sitcom style.
(43:24):
Ozzie and Harriet style sitcom.
Producers at Universal Studioscame up with an idea to
basically take that sitcomformula and mix it with the
monster craze, and thus comesthe Munsters, the Munsters, yeah
, with Herman and Grandpa andLily and Eddie and the whole and
Helen.
The works right.
Okay, the cool thing is and myparents have memories of this,
(43:46):
going to Universal Studios, yeah, you go on the tram tour and
they would be filming theMunsters on the back lot, and so
, and people would request, canwe and that was actually part of
the map Go see the Munstershouse?
Huh, on the Universal Studiosmap 1313 Mockingbird Lane.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
1313 Mockingbird.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Lane, 1313, mockingbird Lane, absolutely,
and you would go on it andsometimes the actors would be
outside.
So Al Lewis would be outsidesmoking a cigar out there with
Fred Gwynn and they're doingburlesque stick outside and Fred
is like half naked because hewould be wearing so much foam
padding that he'd be losing somuch weight from all the sweat
(44:24):
as a German.
But they would be out and theywould sign autographs and take
pictures with fans on the tramtour.
And eventually Universal,during the second season of the
Munsters, they said well, peoplerequest these so much, we can't
let them on the set.
It's slowing down the filming.
Yeah, so if you happen to seethem, great, but we're not going
to stop the Tran.
(44:45):
Let them off the Tran onto theset, which is what they would do
.
Yeah, they built a fake set,right adjacent to 1313
Mockingbird, so you'd see thehouse.
But then they take you intoGrandpa's lab and they had a wax
figure from the wax museum inAnaheim, california, made up of
Herman on a slab, and they hadsome replica of Strickfadden
(45:08):
equipment zapping away around it.
Yeah, and you get your picturewith this fake Herman to visit.
You know, the Munsters?
Yeah, and the Munsters becamequite a staple and there were a
lot of monster fans out thereand a lot of it has to do with
Forrey Ackerman.
Sure, because Forrey startedfandom.
He really did.
(45:29):
He made it okay for people tosay I'm a geek, you're a geek,
wouldn't you like to be a geektoo?
Yeah, he's also responsibleresponsible for being the press
agent of L Ron Hubbard'sDianetics.
Oh, weird.
Yes, one of the things that heactually kind of regretted in
life is helping Hubbard getScientology as popular as it was
(45:52):
.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Wow, he had no idea he wasn't a.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Scientologist.
He was not a Scientologist, hedidn't believe in it.
He thought okay.
But he helped him sellDianetics and he was a very good
salesman.
Forry could sell anything andhe was best friends with
Harryhausen and Bradbury.
They were best friends, theywere absolute besties.
But Forry's love for monstersreally came through in the
(46:17):
magazine and I grew up with thismagazine.
I collect these magazines.
I love them.
Apart from theme parks andanimation, monsters are my third
thing and I love them so much,and it's mostly because of Fori,
who I got to meet when I wasvery young.
The thing is is that as themonsters waned, fandom for
monsters started to wane too alittle bit, because this is the
(46:39):
late 60s, mm-hmm.
People's attention was suddenlymoving away from the gothic,
yeah, and it was moving muchmore towards movies like Blood
Feast, yeah, you know, night ofthe Living Dead, mm-hmm.
All of the Texas ChainsawMassacre.
It was moving to these muchless gothic, much more gritty
slasher films, and so the publicinterest was moving away from
(47:01):
that.
And then somewhere in the early70s it came back.
Yeah, no one can explain howthat happened, except for one
thing, which is General Millsputting out serials based off of
these monsters.
We're talking about CountChocula and Frankenberry and
Booberry, which went through itsown controversy because of the
(47:22):
dye used.
It was seriously affectingchildren's poop and changing its
strange colors, which terrifiedparents.
So they had to.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
But probably delighted the kids.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
Yeah, the kids were like, wow, it's like neon green
and glows in the dark.
I must be a monster, right?
But people were reallyinterested in monsters again for
this, like this new flash hadhappened.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
You know, blue poop is the kind of erudite
conversation that people tune infor.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Speaking of Carl Emily.
Yeah, so there was this newpush for it, and also because of
Famous Monsters.
The other thing that Forrey didis he introduced fans like
myself, but also filmmakers likeJohn Landis, rick Baker, joe
Dante, steven Spielberg to thepeople who were behind the
(48:09):
scenes.
Yeah, and one of the familiesthat was behind the scenes was
the Westmore family.
Okay, now the Westmores areeverywhere in Hollywood.
You can't shake a stick and notbump into a Westmore in
Hollywood, especially in themakeup world.
Bud Westmore was the Westmore inquestion who took over Westmore
(48:32):
of record.
Yes, bud Westmore took over theUniversal Makeup Department in
the 1940s, where he took overfor Jack Pierce.
Okay, jack Pierce is the makeupman responsible for all the
Universal Monster makeups.
Right, he was a genius, eventhough he was kind of a
curmudgeon and he was exacting,but man, he was amazing with
(48:53):
makeup.
Very, very fascinating fellow.
But he never had a contract.
So when the new management tookover Universal Studios, they
bought it off of the Lemleys.
They realized he didn't have acontract and so he was just
unceremoniously fired.
Oh, wow, and I mean he did makeup off and on from that point
(49:14):
on, but I think his last gig wasactually making Gus the Talking
Mule by putting peanut butteron its lip.
Yeah, yeah, it's really kind ofsad.
The ending of his life isreally really really poorly
taken care of.
But he was very influential.
But Bud Westmore was veryopportunistic, but every
(49:36):
Westmore kind of special.
Bud specialized in charactermakeups.
And then his brother worked atMGM and he specialized in
glamour makeup, like makingtaking Edith Head's costumes and
mixing it with that Westmore'smakeup.
It was amazing, yeah, and therewas a Westmore at Paramount,
there was a Westmore at Fox,there was Westmores everywhere.
Yeah, well, the Westmore family, their children, came up with
(49:58):
an idea at Universal Studios.
Let's let people in on thesecrets.
Yeah, so they did a show calledHollywood Movie Makeup Show.
Yeah, and it was like thisweird little outdoor gazebo that
had makeup tables and theywould pull people out of the
audience and do like a glamourmakeup on one and make somebody
up as Frankenstein, like somedad.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Oh, wow, and it was pretty cool, yeah, and I can see
where this is going to leadinto the kind of show that
Universal does for a very, verylong time, absolutely, and it
becomes you know the magic.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
You are in the magic of the movies.
Yeah, this is kind of I meanthey had pulled people.
I mean it goes with an oldtradition from the old studio
tours where sometimes if youwere on that tour, you had the
right face, they would pull youoff that tram, shove you in the
background of a movie.
You got to look, kid, let's getyou in there.
You know, there it is.
Here's your two bits.
(50:51):
Yeah, here's your two bits.
Yeah, but in this case you'regetting charged a certain amount
of money for a photo op right.
Well, along comes UniversalStudios and they are working on
a remake of Dracula, yeah,Starring the, based off of the
Broadway revival of the Dean andBalderston play starring Frank
Langella, yeah, and they decideto cash in on this and they
(51:15):
decide to take the makeup showand blend it and they go.
Well, who do we know who reallyknows monster movie makeups?
Well, there's a bunch of moviemakeup guys out there.
You know we've got JohnChambers who did the Planet of
the Apes movie, but you knowhe's currently busy saving
people from Iran because he waspart of the.
(51:37):
Argo project.
Who else do we know?
How about Don Post?
He makes all those moviemonster masks, right?
Uh-huh, don Post was a filmmakeup guy but he was producing
these fabulous movie monstermasks Dracula, frankenstein,
quasimodo, that kind of stuffand they would sell them on the
back of Famous Monsters ofFilmland magazine.
(52:00):
Yeah, but they were not likethe cheap masks.
These were high-qualityHollywood masks that in the 60s
were going for 30 bucks a pop.
Wow, frustrating every babyboomer monster kid you can think
of.
So they were like well, wecould just get a bunch of movie
monster masks, we'll have themonsters.
So they called Don Post.
He's like I'm busy, I can'treally do this, but I got a guy
(52:22):
who works for me and his name isVern Langdon.
Yeah, now, vern is a wild man,this guy.
Let me tell you something.
Vern Langdon, he did everything.
He was a sculptor, he was awrestler, he was born in Oakland
, california.
Oh huh, he was a local boy forus.
(52:44):
You know, and he worked at theDon Post studios and he worked
on the calendar masks, as theywere known, because there were
12 masks and they look like acalendar.
Yeah, they even sold like aversion of King Kong, like a big
gorilla suit and a Metalunamutant version.
That was pretty cool too.
He worked on the show.
The makeup show was actuallycalled the Land of a Thousand
Faces Makeup Show yes, and thatwas in 1975.
(53:09):
And then they shut that down.
They tore out the gazebo, yeah,and they raised it and they
built this beautiful castle yeah, With gargoyles and stuff.
You walked in.
You were in this fabulous youknow castle yeah, With gargoyles
and stuff.
You walked in.
You were in this fabulous youknow castle and out would come
Dracula and out would comeRenfield and people would get
(53:30):
pulled out of the audience andthey would be turned into
monsters.
I loved this thing so much andVern was one of the designers of
the show.
He even did the music.
He played the organ.
He actually released a wholebunch of record albums, like
Vampire at the Harpsichord andEric at the Phantom at the organ
, and he's also known forcreating the theme song for the
(53:53):
Carnival of Souls.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
Oh huh, Interesting.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Yeah, he was a very and he later, when he was done
sculpting, he became aprofessional wrestler and he
died in 2011.
Yeah, by all accounts, like areally, really sweet guy, but he
did.
He was a circus clown, he was amagician.
Yeah, this attraction, whichwas Dracula's Castle Castle
Dracula is what it was actuallycalled yeah Was touted in the
(54:20):
advertisements as being superspecial because they spent $3
million to build it.
They were so proud of this.
They put that in the newspaperads.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
Yes, and one of the things that I read about this
show that they were doing isthat so when we talk about
Universal Studios and at thispoint it's starting to become
more of a fully-fledged themepart we have to talk about Jay
Stein.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
Yes, please, let's talk about Jay Stein.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
So Jay Stein is, at this point, the creative head of
Universal Studios.
He also seems pretty insane.
Also seems pretty insane.
Yes, when you compare thestaffs of Universal Studios to
(55:09):
the staffs of Disneyland, youfind a really interesting
comparison.
The staffs of Disneyland,they're geniuses, brilliant
people, thoughtful,inspirational.
The staff of Universal Studiosis a mob.
Yeah, they are cutthroat.
(55:29):
They will fire you if you like,breathe funny, yep.
And Jay Stein is right, at atthis point, the top of the
ladder here.
Yeah, and one of the thingsthat you are all if you work for
Jay Stein.
At this point, the thing thatyou are trying to achieve is
what's known as a J-bang.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
Okay, a J.
Okay, please explain what is aJ-bang.
So a J-bang is Folks.
This is still an appropriateshow for kids.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
It is absolutely.
It's not what you're thinking.
Thanks for listening to partone of our Dracula in the Theme
Parks episode.
Please join us next week forpart two, where we discuss
Universal's Castle Dracula in alot more detail.
The most prolific designer ofdark rides you've never heard of
(56:25):
, why Dracula bleeds money and,of course, the J-Bang See you
real soon, thank you.
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