Boris Karloff at San Francisco’s Balboa Theater
May 2nd, 2006 by Andre Soares
Press Release:
San Francisco’s BALBOA THEATER presents
AS SURELY AS MY NAME IS BORIS KARLOFF:
a tribute to Hollywood’s master of “terror films”
26 Boris Karloff films featuring frequent co-star & fellow horror icon Bela Lugosi (in 5 films).
Other co-stars include Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney, Basil Rathbone, John Carradine and Lionel Atwill.
Unless otherwise noted, all prints are in vintage black and white and 35mm.
Friday, June 2
A three-week tribute to acting legend BORIS KARLOFF opens with a speciial appearance by SARA KARLOFF. Ms. Karloff will talk about her famous father and be showing some rare home movies along with some additional surprises: episodes of Thriller, The Veil, Karloff Trailers, This Is Your Life, etc.
Saturday, June 3
FRANKENSTEIN (1931) The classic film that terrorized depression era audiences and launched Karloff on his long career as the world’s premier horror film star. I was at Universal doing a small part in GRAFT, having lunch in the commissary, when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Mr. Whale would like to see you at his table." Well, Jimmy Whale was the most important director on the lot. I think he had seen me in THE CRIMINAL CODE, but I didn’t ask him, and he didn’t tell me. He said he wanted me to make a test for the monster. Well, they liked the test and I got the part. Boris Karloff 71m.
THE BLACK ROOM (1934) An enchanting Gothic melodrama that seems to have come to life off the engraved pages of a beautiful old storybook. Karloff gives a virtuoso triple performance as the evil Baron Gregor, his kindly bother Anton and as Gregor posing as Anton. Greg Mank, Hollywood Cauldron 67m.
Sunday, June 4
BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) The absolute peak of Universal’s classic horror, a film that has it all: a fine cast working from a literate script, Whale’s excellent direction that mixes his sly humor and pathos into the blend, beautiful camerawork and a lush score by Franz Waxman. Widely regarded as one of the best horror films ever made. 75m.
THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932) Restored by the Library of Congress
Karloff’s first starring role features him in the thankless role of Morgan, the brutish butler, but the film itself is an unending delight of comedy bits from a superb cast of England’s finest: Charles Laughton, Melvyn Douglas, Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart, Eva Moore and the great Ernest Thesiger as Horace Femm, the eccentric master of the house. 71m.
Monday, June 5
SCARFACE (1932) Howard Hawks directed & Howard Hughes produced this gangster classic, with Paul Muni, George Raft and Karloff as the rival gang member who gets rubbed out in a bowling alley. 91m
GRAFT (1931) Karloff’s sinister make-up as the gangster in this Universal film led to his being screen tested for the Frankenstein’s monster. 65m.
Tuesday, June 6
THE BODY SNATCHER (1945) This eerie Val Lewton-produced chiller featuress Karloff in one of his finest roles as the unscrupulous lower class Edinburgh cabbie who delights in the control he is able to exert over the upper class Dr. MacFarlane (Henry Daniell), whom he supplies with illegally obtained corpses. Karloff’s last film with Bela Lugosi, directed by Robert Wise. 77M.
THE WALKING DEAD (1936) ? 16mm&
When an innocent Karloff is electrocuted, Edmund Gwenn restores him to life and Karloff seeks vengeance on the real killers. Directed by Casablanca’s Michael Curtiz. One of the most surprising, moving and truly spiritual horror films of the time. ?Greg Mank, Hollywood Cauldron. 66m.
THE WURDALAK (1963) Color
This stylish exercise in lush color cinematography and vampirism, featured Karloff as Gorcha, the stern patriarch of a Serbian family beset by Wurdalak’s. The final episode of Mario Bava’s horror trilogy Black Sabbath.
Wednesday, June 7
THE MASK OF FU MANCHU (1932) This pre-code brew of sexual perversity and sadistic torture was sponsored by W.R. Hearst’s Cosmopolitan productions, with Karloff as the mad oriental Dr. and Myrna Loy as his nympho daughter. 72m.
THE LOST PATROL (1934) John Ford directed this WWI Arabian Desert drama, with Karloff as a religious fanatic who goes over the edge. 71m.
Thursday, June 8
THE RAVEN (1935) Karloff plays second fiddle to Bela Lugosi’s mad Dr. Vollin, who lets out all the stops as a man obsessed at building Poe’s torture devices. 62m.
THE RAVEN (1963) An inventive horror parody directed by Roger Corman, boasting Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Jack Nicholson who spar with Karloff as the charming but maniacal Dr. Scarabus?who truly shines in his tour de fforce duel of magic with Price. 86m.
Friday, June 9th to 15th
THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (1973) A beautiful restoration of Victor Erice’s Spanish classic. In Castile circa 1940, a traveling movie theatre brings Frankenstein to a small village and two young girls, come to believe the Monster is still alive and are determined to find him. 95m.
Friday, June 16
TARGETS (1968) Color
Karloff plays an aging horror star whose low-budget films can’t possibly keep up with the real-life horrors of America in 1968. Peter Bogdanovich directs and co-stars. 90m.
GODS AND MONSTERS (1998) Color & Panavision
Bill Condon’s beautifully realized fictional bio of director James Whale’s, focusing on his final days & memories of directing Karloff in The Bride of Frankenstein. "To a new world of Gods and Monsters " ?Dr. Pretorious. 105m.
Saturday, June 17
FRANKENSTEIN (1931) My dear old Monster. I owe everything to him ?Boris Kaarloff.
Sheer genius, one of the most remarkable performances in the history of the cinema
?Christopher Lee
THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) Many people liked The Bride better than the first one, but I don’t know. I’ve always preferred the original film. ?Boris Karloff.
Sunday, June 18
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (1947) Technicolor
Samuel Goldwyn produced this comedy with Karloff as a fake Dr. who terrorizes the daydreaming Danny Kaye by attempting to convince him he is insane. 110m.
THE BOOGIE MAN WILL GET YOU (1942) Peter Lorre co-stars in this farce modeled on Karloff’s sensational Broadway hit, Arsenic & Old Lace. 65m.
Monday, June 19
THE MUMMY (1932) A beautifully atmospheric chiller with Karloff as Im-Ho-Tep, a resurrected Egyptian mummy who seeks the reincarnation of his lost love. 72m.
THE GHOUL (1933) Karloff is an Egyptologist who is prematurely buried and returns to take his revenge. w/ Cederic Hardwicke, Ralph Richardson & Ernest Thesiger. Long believed lost, a beautiful new print was recently discovered in London. 80m.
Tuesday, June 20
THE CRIMINAL CODE (1931) This Howard Hawks prison drama with Walter Huston gave Karloff his first big break in a showy role that he first played on the L.A. stage. 95m.
THE GUILTY GENERATION (1931) Gang boss Karloff vies for control of bootlegging operations with his rival Leo Carrillo, as their kids fall in love with each other. Romeo & Juliet before West Side Story. 81m.
THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG (1939) I did a whole raft of stories at Columbia about a sort of man who’s on the verge of a discovery that he feels is going to be for the good of mankind and it goes wrong, and in the last act, very reluctantly, you have to destroy him. It’s as though you had to shoot a faithful dog who has gone mad. ?Boris Karloff 68m.
Wednesday, June 21
THE BLACK CAT (1934) Karloff and Lugosi at their feverish peak in this stylish Edgar G. Ulmer directed cornucopia of necrophilia, Satanism, and flaying of human flesh. 66m.
THE INVISIBLE RAY (1936) 16mm
Karloff dominates Lugosi here, in the first of his misunderstood scientists, whom the world perceives as mad. John P. Fulton contributes outstanding F/X work for this early S-F effort 81m.
NIGHT WORLD (1932) A Grand Hotel style drama set in a prohibition nightclub owed by gangster Karloff, featuring Mae Clarke doing dances choreographed by Busby Berkeley! 60m.
Thursday, June 22
SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939) A high-powered horror cast delivers the goods in Karloff’s farewell as the monster. Basil Rathbone is the son who revives the creature, Lugosi is Ygor, the demented shepherd and Lionel Atwill the one-armed Inspector Krogh. 99m.
HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944) Karloff as the mad Dr. Niemann, who hijacks a traveling chamber of horrors that includes Count Dracula, and later revives both Lon Chaney’s Wolf Man and Glenn Strange as the Frankenstein monster. 71m.
Karloff notes by Lawrence French
Real-Life Stasi Drama for Das Leben der Anderen / The Life of Others Star
A Few Examples of Immigration on Film
3-D Film Festival at the Egyptian
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