William Henry Pratt, known professionally as Boris Karloff and occasionally billed as Karloff the Uncanny, was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film Frankenstein (1931), his 82nd film, established him as a horror icon, and he reprised the role for the sequels Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939). He also appeared as Imhotep in The Mummy (1932), and voiced the Grinch in, as well as narrating, the animated television special of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966), which won him a Grammy Award.
The Mummy is a 1932 American pre-Code supernatural horror film directed by Karl Freund. The screenplay by John L. Balderston was adapted from a treatment written by Nina Wilcox Putnam and Richard Schayer. Released by Universal Studios as a part of the Universal Monsters franchise, the film stars Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Edward Van Sloan and Arthur Byron.
Gift of Gab is a 1934 black-and-white film released by Universal Pictures. Edmund Lowe stars as a man with the "Gift of Gab"—he can sell anyone anything. The film costars Ruth Etting, Ethel Waters, Victor Moore, and Gloria Stuart, and features Boris Karloff and Béla Lugosi. The film's sets were designed by the art director David Garber.
Mae Clarke was an American actress. She is widely remembered for playing Henry Frankenstein's bride Elizabeth, who is chased by Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, and for being on the receiving end of James Cagney's halved grapefruit in The Public Enemy. Both films were released in 1931.
The Man They Could Not Hang is a 1939 American horror film directed by Nick Grinde from a screenplay by Karl Brown. It stars Boris Karloff as Dr. Henryk Savaard, a scientist who develops a procedure for bringing the dead back to life. When he is arrested and sentenced to be executed for murdering a young medical student who volunteered to be killed to test the procedure, Savaard vows retribution on the individuals responsible. Alongside Karloff, the film's cast includes Lorna Gray, Robert Wilcox, and Roger Pryor.
Granville Gustavus Withers, known professionally as Grant Withers, was an American film actor. He began working in motion pictures during the last years of the silent era. Withers moved into sound films, establishing himself with a list of headlined features as a young and handsome male lead. Historian Terry Rowan writes, "As his career progressed ... his importance diminished, but he did manage a 10-year contract with Republic."
The Ape is a 1940 American horror film directed by William Nigh. The film is based on Adam Hull Shirk's play The Ape, which was previously adapted by Nigh as The House of Mystery (1934). The film stars Boris Karloff as Dr. Bernard Adrian who is seeking to cure a young woman's polio through experiments involving spinal fluid. Meanwhile, a vicious ape has been terrorising the towns locals, and breaking into Adrian's lab. A battle ensues between the two leading to Adrian deciding to skin the ape and disguise himself as the beast in order to get more spinal fluid which was destroyed in the battle.
The Walking Dead is a 1936 American horror film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Boris Karloff, who plays a wrongly executed man who is restored to life by a scientist. The supporting cast features Ricardo Cortez, Marguerite Churchill, and Barton MacLane. The film was distributed by Warner Bros. Dr. Beaumont's use of a mechanical heart to revive the patient foreshadows modern medicine's mechanical heart to keep patients alive during surgery.
Araminta Estelle "Minta" Durfee was an American silent film actress from Los Angeles, California, possibly best known for her role in Mickey (1918).
Man-Made Monster is a 1941 American science-fiction horror film directed by George Waggner and produced by Jack Bernhard for Universal Pictures. Filmed in black-and-white, it stars Lon Chaney Jr. and Lionel Atwill. Man-Made Monster was re-released under various titles including Electric Man and The Mysterious Dr. R. Realart Pictures re-released the film in 1953 under the title The Atomic Monster as a double feature with The Flying Saucer (1950). On the film's original main title, there is no hyphen; it's simply Man Made Monster.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a 1947 American Technicolor comedy film, loosely based on the 1939 short story of the same name by James Thurber. The film stars Danny Kaye as a young daydreaming proofreader for a magazine publishing firm and Virginia Mayo as the girl of his dreams. The film was adapted for the screen by Ken Englund, Everett Freeman, and Philip Rapp (uncredited), and directed by Norman Z. McLeod.
His Sister's Kids is a 1913 American short comedy film featuring Fatty Arbuckle.
British Intelligence is a 1940 spy film set in World War I. It was directed by Terry O. Morse and stars Boris Karloff and Margaret Lindsay. The film, also known as Enemy Agent, was released in the United States in January 1940. The Warner Bros. B picture was based on a 1918 play Three Faces East written by Anthony Paul Kelly and produced on the stage by George M. Cohan. Two film adaptations of Three Faces East in 1926 and 1930 preceded British Intelligence.
The Boogie Man Will Get You is a 1942 American comedy horror film directed by Lew Landers and starring Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. It was the final film Karloff made under his contract with Columbia Pictures, and it was filmed in the wake of his success in the 1941 Broadway production Arsenic and Old Lace. As he had done several times previously, Karloff played the part of a "mad scientist", Professor Billings, who is using the basement of his inn to conduct experiments using electricity to create a race of superhumans. The inn is bought by a new owner, who is initially unaware of the work Billings is conducting.
Portnoy's Complaint is a 1972 American comedy film written and directed by Ernest Lehman. His screenplay is based on the bestselling 1969 novel of the same name by Philip Roth. It was Lehman's first and only directorial effort. The film starred Richard Benjamin, Karen Black and Lee Grant, with Jack Somack, Jeannie Berlin and Jill Clayburgh in supporting roles.
The Devil Commands is a 1941 American horror film directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Boris Karloff, Amanda Duff and Richard Fiske. The working title of the film was The Devil Said No. In it, a man obsessed with contacting his dead wife falls in with a sinister phony medium. The Devil Commands is one of the many films from the 1930s and 1940s in which Karloff was cast as a mad scientist with a good heart. It was one of the last in line of the low-budget horror films that were produced before Universal Studios' The Wolf Man. The story was adapted from the novel The Edge of Running Water by William Sloane.
The Steagle is a 1971 American comedy film based on the novel of the same name by Irvin Faust. The film was directed by Paul Sylbert and starred Richard Benjamin. The film concerns the personality change which overcomes the protagonist during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and the film's title implicitly references the transient nature of the Steagles NFL team, existing for only the 1943 season during a national crisis.
Glamour for Sale is a 1940 American crime film directed by D. Ross Lederman and starring Anita Louise, Roger Pryor, and Frances Robinson.
Roger Pryor was an American film actor.
The Man Who Returned to Life is a 1942 American black-and-white drama film directed by Lew Landers, written by Gordon Rigby and released by Columbia Pictures.
