So I was looking over last year’s entry, where we trotted out a crapload of surviving footage of Lon Chaney Sr. And in trying to futz around and find something to talk about to start Day 19 of 32 Days of Halloween this year, I went back to Chaney Jr. and then saw that he had worked rather a lot with John Carradine, starting in 1937 where they just happened to be in This Is My Affair together…Chaney had an uncredited tiny role.
But the films seemed to go increasingly downhill as their time together progressed.
Let’s show this here…in 1944 Chaney was with Carradine in one of the Mummy sequels (which we previously posted the trailers for here). Also, in 1944, there was House of Frankenstein followed the next year by House of Dracula:
[ad#shortpost]
Direct link for the feedreaders.
Yes, it’s Chaney reprising his role as The Wolf Man and Carradine as Dracula. And of course, in the first film, Karloff is the mad scientist and not the Monster–Glenn Strange’s first time playing the role was in House of Frankenstein, although Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi had both had the role between Karloff and Strange.
1956 brought us The Black Sleep, with Chaney, Carradine playing Moses, Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi and…yes, that’s Tor Johson. Well spotted.
Direct link for the feedreaders.
In fact, check out this promo photo from that film.
Then we have the really abysmal looking Blood of the Man Devil aka House of the Black Death in 1965. Where they look like they’re just on hand for the paycheck, FSM bless em.
Direct link for the feedreaders.
There are some others that I couldn’t find trailers for, like Hillbillys in a Haunted House…I might just have to snag the DVD for that one.
- Best place to get House of Frankenstein on DVD is from the apparently out of print Legacy series from Universal. It’s available for a decent price still on Amazon. You get the whole original Frankenstein franchise.
- The Legacy Series Dracula is the same way for House of Dracula. Click here to buy it from Amazon.
- Neither Black Sleep or Blood of the Man Devil appear to be available on DVD.
- Click here to buy Lon Chaney Jr. stuff from Amazon.
- Click here to buy John Carradine stuff from Amazon.
