Conrad Veidt – Master of Horror and The Man You Loved to Hate

The face you loved to hate so well in film, was in fact another person altogether.

I remember his career backwards, like in some character in an avant-garde film, since I generally saw his last roles first.  As a kid, I remember him first as the sneering Nazi officer Major Strasser in Casablanca.  Conrad Veidt was a strident anti-Nazi took pains to get roles to show how vile the Nazis were to a pre-war audience.  I also remember him as Jaffar, the evil vizier in The Thief of Bagdad with those powerful hypnotic eyes.

From there my remembrance jumps to Veidt as the somnolent puppet of the Doctor in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, although the first few times I saw the movie, I didn’t know him.  Well that is somewhat out of backwards sequence, but who said memory was linear or for that matter, of time but made up of associations.  Heaven knows free association has led me down some interesting path.  Much of my blog posts are an amalgamation of memory, associations, and serendipity.

From here I had to find some biographical data on Conrad Veidt, because I only knew his as a series of characters, not as a person.  I was pleased to find that he personally was the antithesis of nearly every role he ever played.  Not only was he actually good guy, but a man who tried to reverse the flow of history in his own way. 

 

He was blacklisted in prewar Nazi Germany due to his politics and for being married to a Jew, his third wife Llona.  They fled Germany in 1933 to escape persecution and became a British citizen in 1939.  He loaned his considerable fortune to the British Government and donated large amounts of his film salaries to help with the British war effort during WWII

As an interesting near-miss, he was in the running for playing the dreaded Count in Dracula, but lost the role to Bella Lugosi in 1931.  Of interest to most of my blog readers is that Veidt  played in horror films and psychological thrillers over the years before he became a much more subtle monster in Casablanca. 

Not bad for a guy who just fell into acting.  He died of a heart attack in 1943, not living long enough to see the end of Hitler’s regime, but did his own part in resistance.  Check out the links below for information about his films.  Conrad Veidt is not well known in the United States as an actor in early horror and science fiction film and I hope that I can change that perceptive of an actor that is largely forgotten. 

                                                                                     CoastConFan

Here is a partial list of Conrad Veidt’s works

Around the World in Eighty Days (1919)  A silent film I have never seen.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920) as Chesare

The Head of Janus (Der Januskopf) (1920) A film based on Dr Jeckl and Mr Hyde

The Hands of Orlac (Orlacs Hände) (1924)  Transplanted hands kill

Waxworks (Das Wachsfigurenkabinett) (1924)

The Man Who Laughs (1928)  He was a sort of proto-Joker character

King of the Damned (1935) Movie about Devil’s Island

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)  he played Jaffar

Casablanca (1942)  You remember him as Maj Strasser

Some of Conrad Veight’s masterworks are available on YouTube: 

 Cabinet of Dr Caligari http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrg73BUxJLI

 The Thief of Bagdad  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WXrYUOCApk

 The Man Who Laughs (part 1/11)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsLQcOV2YeU

 Waxworks (part 1/9) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNTuHjq64RA

 Hands of Orlac  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGff-jovycQ

 

Links of interest about Conrad Veidt

 http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0891998/bio 

 http://badassdigest.com/2013/07/09/meet-conrad-veidt-badass/

 http://garbolaughs.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/the-good-german-the-life-and-legacy-of-conrad-veidt/

 http://www.examiner.com/article/so-good-at-playing-bad-tcm-explores-career-of-german-actor-conrad-veidt-aug-23

Mobicon XVI Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, 17 – 19 March 2013, in Mobile Alabama

It’s time once again for that annual southern treat of MobiCon, a Science Fiction, Fantasy,  and Horror convention held in Mobile Alabama!  I have attended a fair number of MobiCons over the past decade or so and always enjoyed the laid-back southern fen that operate and attend MobiCon.  The committee’s hard work always makes MobiCon a great convention to attend, especially for a costumer.  Along with panels, there is a costume contest, a game room as well as LARPs and lots of interesting people to meet.

This year their guests include:

Artist GoH, Amanda Nen Kilburn

Anime GoH, Chris Cason, of Dragon Ball Z fame.

Special Speaker,  Douglas Mallette

Gaming GoH,  Lou Zocchi, the polydice king

Author GoH, Candace Sams

Horror GoH Dr. Anne Marie Guzy

Publishing GoH,  Barbera Frendish

Fan GoH, Karl Ruhl

If you are in the south, (in Foghorn Leghorn voice), “ah say, ah say, the deeeep south, son”, come on down to Mobicon and enjoy this quirky convention, run by and for fans.

Last year at Mobicon 15, 2012                    CoastConFan

Here’s a blast from the past, slide show from Mobicon XI back in 2008

 For more information click on the URLs

http://www.mobicon.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOBICON

William Hope Hodgson and the H. P. Lovecraft Connection

Horror and fantasy before the Great War unleashed its own horror

Lovecraft was a voracious reader and one author that clearly had an influence on young Lovecraft was the works of William Hope Hodgson whose books all date to before WWI.  Hodgson had a fascinating and varied career as a sailor, bodybuilder, personal coach, poet, author, and military member.  In fact, he died in WWI in April 1918 at Ypres.  Had he lived, who knows what other books he would have written.  As it is, he was a great influence to readers and writers.

These works were always scarce, hard to find and not sought out much by the average reader.  I first read The Boats of the Glen Carrig, and House on the Borderland when Ballentine published the Adult Fantasy Series, bringing back into print important and rare books of influence in the genres of Science Fiction, fantasy, and horror at an affordable price.  I read The Night Land somewhat later.  Long before Project Gutenberg, these editions were the only way an average person could read these scarce tomes.  In fact, if you follow the link, there is a list of published works that are a primer of horror and fantasy.  Now with the internet and on-line book finders such as Amazon.com, it is possible to turn up had to find books. 

I posted this blog entry to interest new readers to Hodgson or Lovecraft and to provide a rudimentary introduction to some of Hodgson’s works.  I am by no means a Lovecraft or Hodgson scholar and the advanced reader won’t find much here that he/she hasn’t already found out about this fascinating author.  Really this has been a trip down memory lane for me and if nothing else, the blog reader will find a few links of interest and some free downloadable books.  You just can’t beat free these days.

H. P Lovecraft had a bit to say about Hodgson’s The Boats of the Glen Carrig in his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature  (1927):

"In The Boats of the Glen Carrig (1907) we are shown a variety of malign marvels and accursed unknown lands as encountered by the survivors of a sunken ship. The brooding menace in the earlier parts of the book is impossible to surpass, though a letdown in the direction of ordinary romance and adventure occurs toward the end. An inaccurate and pseudo-romantic attempt to reproduce eighteenth-century prose detracts from the general effect, but the really profound nautical erudition everywhere displayed is a compensating factor."

The Night Land (1912) is a much longer and more ambitious book, that seems to presage Lovecraft’s Dreamlands.  Lovecraft absorbed much in his reading and little escaped his eye, filing away information like a computer for later inquiry or incorporation.  The House on the Borderland (1908) is perhaps the best known of Hodgson’s works to the modern reader, and one can see elements in Dreams in the Witch House.  China Miéville traces the origin of "the tentacle" as an object of horror in H. P. Lovcraft in the book, The Boats of the Glen Carrig, about ships trapped Devil’s Triangle of the Sargasso Sea in  his 2009 essay, The Tentacles.

Lovecraft’s early milieu is one that needs study to understand how genres of fantasy & horror evolved and then much later fused with elements of science fiction and reading the books that Lovecraft read can help our understanding of that time. The influences on the Cthulhu Mythos is varied and deserves study and our attention.  Interest in Hodgson’s works are now at an all time high and editions are more plentiful and easier to find.   However, you need not go out of pocket because Project Gutenberg has these  Hodgson novels available for free download:

The House on the Borderland  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10002

The Boats of the Glen Carrig  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10542

The Night Land  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10662

As well as two other novels

The Ghost Pirates  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10966

Carnacki, The Ghost Finder  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10832

And a short story by Hodgson from another source  The Fifth Message from the Tideless Sea  http://www.amalgamatedspooks.com/tidelesssea.htm

Lovecraft’s Supernautal Horror in Literature download     http://www.feedbooks.com/book/234/supernatural-horror-in-literature

A Hodgson Bibliography http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightbiblio.html

Additional links of interest

http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/william-hope-hodgson.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballantine_Adult_Fantasy_series

http://home.epix.net/~wallison/bafs.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Mi%C3%A9ville

Undoubtedly I have missed some obvious links and observations, but this little bit should be enough to entice and send an inquiring mind off into the aether of the internet for more information and stories.  Happy hunting and happy reading.

                                                                             CoastConFan

MOBICON XV – Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror & Anime

Mobicon is a science fiction, fantasy, horror, and anime convention held in Mobile Alabama annually.  This year it was held May 18-20, 2012 at the Asbury Hotel off of Airport Blv.  Attendance was up this year and there were lots of costumers and the game room was full.  They had belly dancers, cosplay, authors (Christopher Rice for one), an art room, and discussion panels. The costume contest had a bumper crop of participants and attendees. 

I really liked the energy this year at Mobicon.  You can feel the crackle of that fannish excitement the moment you walk into a convention.  Some have it and other don’t.  When you see a high proportion of attendees participating by costuming, you know you have a concentration of fannish energy.  I only attended Saturday, this time around and apparently from the photographs, that costuming energy was there on Friday too.  Sundays of course, are a bit more mellow.

I made this video for the enjoyment of fans who attended and for those who could not make it this time.  This video was compiled from the contributions of three photographers who attended Mobicon: Megan Ariel Mobley, Michael W. Moses, and Jason Putnoky. 

My thanks go out to all the fans and hard working staff that made Mobicon possible.  I’m still sorry at the loss of Wayne Hergenroder, a great driving force with Mobicon and the loss of Debbora Wiles, psychic and author (not Deborah Wiles, the children’s book author).

Here is an old Mobicon XI video I did a few years back, for those of you who missed it.

Here is the Nerdy Girl Anthem video.  It has some photos from previous Mobicons as well as CoastCon and OmegaCon

There is also a Studio 10 interview for Mobicon XIV at this link:  http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/studio10/happening_here/studio10-mobicon-xiv .

                                                                                                               CoastConFan

Attending Mobicon XV with The Mysterious Pussy the Cat

Peter Saxon: Guardian, Author and Figment

I didn’t know that I didn’t know

The other day I made a comment to a post on Propnomicon’s blog site.  It was about a neat prop pen made from a bone and steel nib.  Anyway, I got thinking about Peter Saxon and the series of books he wrote about a group called Guardians who protected the world against sorcery and black magic.  I had read several of his works back in the 1970s but just didn’t know much about the author.

I was surprised to find out that there was no author by the name of Peter Saxon and that it was a house name.  That is to say, it was a pseudonym used by a variety of authors writing a series of books issued by a publisher.  From what I could find Peter Saxon was actually, W. Howard Baker (who was also known as W. A. Ballinger) Rex Dolphin, Stephen D. Francis, Wilfred McNeilly, Ross Richards, and Martin Thomas.  Not all of these authors wrote books for the Guardian series, but did publish through the same house.

Here is a list of books that appear under the house name Peter Saxon although not all of these were of the horror genre nor of the Guardians series.  A few of them were made into movies such as The Disorientated Man, which came out as Scream and Scream Again with Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing.  How can you beat that combination!  Black Honey and Corruption were also made into films, although I haven’t seen them:

 

 The Curse of Rathlaw

Dark Ways to Death

The Haunting of Alan Mais

The Killing Bone

Through the Dark Curtain

The Vampires of Finistere

The Torturer

Satan’s Child

Vampire’s Moon

The Disoriented Man

Black Honey

Corruption

Other titles by Peter Saxon, but not horror

The Enemy Sky

The Warring Sky

The Unfeeling Sky

Panky in Love

I read the Killing Bone back in the 1970s as well as Dark Ways to Death and Satan’s Child, but I understand The Vampires of Finistere and The Curse of Rathlaw are some of the best of the Guardians Series.  I suggest to Call of Cthulhu RPGers that these Guardian series books by Peter Saxon would be good scenario ideas for a game master.  While doing research I was utterly horrified (pun intended) to find no Wikipedia entry for Peter Saxon.  I hope some enterprising fan of detective horror fiction would type up an article.
                                                                                     CoastConFan

Lost Worlds Photo

This is a photo I took in 1986 or very early 1987. This photo was made with my (then new) Canon T-70 camera. The photo was made using only two small light sources. A small watt bulb bounced off the wall out of frame one in the lantern and the other a candle in the lantern in the frame. The Canon T-70 could be set to shoot almost in the dark as long as you had a good tripod and didn’t mind 20 second plus exposure times. I generally used 100 asa B&W film for the fine grain. The paper was this terrible Czechoslovakian stuff that was used to make postcards by itinerate photographers. I purposely chose it because it made instant antique looking pictures. There is no Photoshop manipulation and I like the antique look and softness overall. Now in the digital age things are a lot easier. I did add the date for archive purpose after the photo was scanned.



Items counter clockwise from the left: Gold pocket watch and chain, circa 1900 with curious caged monkey fob in low carat gold. Monkey is faux Persian turquoise (i.e. glass) but looks just like the person in the painting “The Scream”, very Chthonian. The book is a hand-written book in Arabic, probably rhetoric circa 1820s-1850s: not exactly the Necronomicon but a good prop nonetheless. Sitting on the right side of the book is a Cthulhu figure made by Michael W. Moses circa the mid 1980s. Below the book is a real (although new) calabash pipe with meerschaum insert and faux amber mouth piece. At the time calabashes were impossible to get in the U.S. because the gourd they are made from came from Libya: Our countries were not on speaking terms in those days. To the right of that is a set of 1960s Smith & Wesson handcuffs. Original 19th century cuffs were very hard to locate when I made the photo so I used modern cuffs. The book to the right of those is a book called Lost Worlds. On the book is a small ship’s light made of brass, which made a good hand lantern. To the left of that is an original Montenegrin Gasser pistol with ivory grips. These are large, impressive and huge pistols from the 1870s. Above the pistol is a book from the 1930s of ethnographic women prints. They were considered very naughty in their day. To the left of that was a nice pre WWII Zeiss Ikon Ikonta B camera. Next to that is a regimentally marked British military candlestick from the Crimean War era. To the right of the candlestick is a kinjal hilted dagger, probably Circassian about mid 19th century. Behind that is a piece of pottery I bought in the late 1970s that was half skull and half helmet. It was very ambiguous and looked dug. I have forgotten the name of the woman who made it. In the far back is an old Carrara marble lamp, probably from the 1920s. You can’t see it but it has a stained glass shade from the early 1970s that I put on it. Greatly out of focus is an Armenian ayran (yoghurt drink) cup from the mid 1700s that I used as a pen holder.

I hope this lengthy post helps some people putting together props. Where possible I gave links to the most stable sites I could find, but use Google to find more information on original items and props.