A Quaint & Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore
by Frank J. Dello Stritto. Cult Movie Press.
Until The Missing Link finishes
our official review of what promises to be an excellent read, we have provided the blurb
from the dust jacket, just to give you a flavour of what is now available from Frank's new
book. With the excellent Vampire Over London
already under his belt, Frank has turned his attentions to the backgrounds of our
favourite Monster Movie Heros.......If you just can't wait for your copy, please use the contact address below
A Quaint & Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore
delves into what is on the screen and what is just beyond it in classic horror films.
Hollywood of the 1930s and 1940s produced dozens of horror
and monster movies. Today, their reputations range from classic to schlock; but to their
young audiences, the movies were more than entertainment. For school-age moviegoers of the
Great Depression and World War II, and after-school television addicts of the 1950s and
1960s, the movie monsters were figures of modern legend. The monsters’ sagas involve
quests similar to their counterparts in children’s fairytales and classical
mythology: The Frankenstein Monster’s search for belonging; The Wolf Man’s
search for peace; The Mummy’s search for love. Drs. Frankenstein and Jekyll abandon
comfortable lives to pursue forbidden knowledge. King Kong’s untamed aggression falls
to Carl Denham’s unbridled ambition. Count Dracula, eternal evil personified, forever
corrupts the young; and each new generation must defeat him and all that he
represents—if indeed, he represents anything more than a count in a cape sleeping in
a coffin.
Behind the myths on the screen is the rich history of the
films themselves. Filmmakers took old legends and Victorian novels, and filtered them
through the 20th century prisms of global war and depression to serve up movies for mass
consumption. In doing so, Hollywood unwittingly produced a mythology that captures age-old
and modern themes. From Darwinism vs. Creationism to the 1930s’ rise of
fascism—from secular vs. spiritual to class and racial tensions to anxieties over
gender and aging—A Quaint & Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore
follows how movie horror portrayed the dark side of the world which its young audiences
were about to enter. Even as 1930s audiences flocked to see the movie monsters, outcries
arose for tighter censorship. Watchdog groups worked to drive horror off the screen. For a
time they succeeded, but they also forced the movies to become less explicit. With their
protagonists’ desires often left unstated, and their most terrible crimes unseen, the
movies invite speculation of what happens just out of sight. By taming the horrific, the
censors helped to create the mythic.
The filmmakers, the monsters, the censors, and the
mythology they all created are explored in entertaining detail in A Quaint &
Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore.
For
your own copy, contact: Frank Dello Stritto, 644 East 71/2 Street,
Houston, Texas. 77007 USA. E-mail
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