A TRIBUTE TO DWIGHT FRYE (PART 1)

You wouldn't read about him in any of the movie trade journals of the day. You wouldn't see a photo feature or personality profile of him in any of the film fan magazines, and it's not likely that anyone knew who he was when he collapsed and fell dead on a Hollywood bus aisle in front of his wife and child on November 7, 1943 at the age of 47. Ironically, they were on their way home from the Pantages Theatre after they had just seen Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH. The profession listed on his death certificate read: "Tool Designer".

He was an actor, and once you saw him on the screen and speak, you would not likely forget him. He was Renfield, he was Fritz, he was Karl and he played the most legendary lunatics in cinema history, and who died ignominiously on the floor of that Hollywood bus in the town that virtually shunned him.

His name was Dwight Frye and like so many other talented character actors, he was typecast and tragically cast adrift by studios that should have been glad to sign him for any role. Instead, he struggled for nearly his entire career to earn a decent living and provide for his family.

Photograph taken in N.Y. ca. 1925, inscribed to his wife.

Dwight Iliff Fry was born on February 22, 1899 in Salina, Kansas, the son of a Christian Science couple (which may have explained his untreated heart illness in the years before his death). In the 1920's he played on the stage on screen, some of them comedies, ironically which he preferred above any other type of role. Instead, he was repeatedly cast as a villain and "troubled weakling".

“I am a character man,” he said in a 1929 LOS ANGELES TIMES interview. “There seems to be an impression I do one type of thing. I don’t and I haven’t. One of my first successes was in comedy…. I don’t like specialization. I have no interest in anything but character work, and I have made it a point to vary my roles as much as possible.”

Despite his wish, after his incredibly remarkable role as Renfield in DRACULA, he was thereafter most often typecast as a "troubled lunatic weakling".

Today begins a weekend tribute to this very talented actor.

This article on Frye from FILM FAN MONTHLY (April 1974) includes his filmography:

Dwight Frye as Renfield in DRACULA (Universal, 1931):

A clip from DRACULA:

Antonia Carlotta on Dwight Frye:

Scenes from five of Dwight Frye's best "unhinged" roles:

CONTINUED TOMORROW!

CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN

"Entombed for eons - turned to stone

- seeking women, women, women!"

- Curse of the Faceless Man Ad

Last week I reviewed the low-budget (but very entertaining) THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE. Another of my favorite guilty pleasure B-Horror movies high on my list is CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN. It's a straight up horror thriller directed by Eddie Cahn.

Shot on a shoestring, it nevertheless embodies all the elements of a classic period shocker: ancient remains discovered in a dig, specimen brought back for a curious -- but unwitting -- scientist to study, monster comes to life, monster kills, monster fixates and grabs for the first hunk of female it can find and carries her off (this time into the ocean!), monster is destroyed just in the nick of time (this time the salt water dissolves it's crusty body), the world is spared further destruction.

The monster in this case is reanimated Mt. Vesuvius disaster victim Quintillus Aurelius, played by cowboy and stuntman, Bob Bryant. He is suited up, rubber creases and all, as a human lava lamp with the aid of makeup and special effects man Charlie Gemora (who created the shrunken heads in FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE). Elaine Edwards is the unwilling participant of the monster's amorous advances and is carried off through the sand dunes of Malibu Beach for her troubles by a frustrated Quintillus (wouldn't you be, too if all your parts were encased in dried lava?) before being dragged in for a dip in the Pacific Ocean.

While Miss Edwards may be the object of the monster's desire, for my money, the real eye candy in this flick is the professor's daughter, Maria Fiorello, played by the very fetching Adele Mara. The Spanish-American beauty was born Adelaide Delgado in 1925. She was a young singer/dancer in Xavier Cougat's famed orchestra before being discovered by a Columbia Studios executive and signed to a contract at the age of seventeen. Miss Mara's first role in a horror film was in THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST (1945), an obscure Republic Pictures thriller. She also had roles in THE CATMAN OF PARIS and TV shows THRILLER and THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR. She died in 2010.

CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN was reviewed in the August 16th, 1958 issue of HARRISON'S REPORTS. Filmed at L.A.'s Griffith Observatory and Malibu Beach, it was released in the same month on a double-bill with IT, THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE, another Cahn fifties fright film that is generally referred to as the inspiration for ALIEN.

Lobby Cards:

Pressbook (IT, THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE/CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN combo):

Curse of the Faceless Man One Sheet.