The Hit List: Boris Karloff

"The Monster was the best friend I ever had."
  Boris Karloff

   You can't help wondering how Boris Karloff's career might've turned out if he hadn't changed his name from William Henry Pratt. "Pratt" doesn't automatically send chills running up and down your spine. "Karloff," though, that's a different matter.
    He emigrated from England as a young man and did manual labor between stints with theatrical touring companies in Canada and the U.S. He first landed in Hollywood in 1916 and eventually found work in silent films, playing (what else?) villains. He had acted in something like 80 pictures, and the movies had started to talk, by the time he landed the role that defined him, the Monster in "Frankenstein" (1931). From that point on, he was typecast in horror, and while he objected to the word - he preferred "terror" - he often said that the Monster was the best thing that ever happened to him. 
    He was bow-legged, with a slightly stooped posture (and a bad back) that came from years of hard physical work. In films he was a nightmare figure, often cruel and just as often tormented. The more murderous and bloodthirsty his characters were, the more he seemed to love playing them.
    He made all kinds of movies over the years, some of them classics, others worth watching only because he was in them. Here are a few of the better ones:

"Frankenstein"
(1931/James Whale)
"The Bride of Frankenstein"
(1935/Whale)
"Son of Frankenstein"
(1939/Rowland V. Lee)
"House of Frankenstein"
(1944/Erle C. Kenton)
In the first three, Karloff plays the Monster. In the last, he's a doctor who brings the Monster back to life. 
"The Mask of Fu Manchu"
(1932/Charles Brabin)
Karloff plays the diabolical Chinese warlord, with Myrna Loy as his "ugly and insignificant daughter."
"The Mummy"
(1932/Karl Freund)
In one of cinema's most horrifying scenes, Karloff's character, an ancient Egyptian high priest named Imhotep, is cursed and buried alive.
"The Black Cat"
(1934/Edgar G. Ulmer)
"The Raven"
(1935/Lewis Friedlander)
Evil times two: Karloff and Lugosi.
"Mr. Wong, Detective"
(1938/William Nigh)
Mr. Wong was the Monogram Studio's answer to Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan. Karloff played the B-movie sleuth in five pictures between 1938 and 1940.
"Tower of London"
(1939/Lee)
Karloff plays Mord, the club-footed executioner, whose manner is as menacing as his ax is sharp.
"The Body Snatcher"
(1945/Robert Wise)
Karloff's a grave robber digging up corpses for Dr. Henry Daniell.
"Bedlam"
(1946/Mark Robson)
Boris plays the malevolent director of London's notorious mental institution.
"The Raven"
(1963/Roger Corman)
Boris and Vincent Price play rival sorcerers in a comedy derived only nominally from Edgar Allan Poe. 
"Targets"
(1968/Peter Bogdanovich)
Karloff's last great role, a thriller about a gunman at a drive-in movie theater, with Boris, cast as an aging horror star, essentially playing himself. 

   From the early '50s on, Karloff did a lot of television. He was a detective in Britain in "Colonel March of Scotland Yard", and hosted and often acted in two anthology shows - "The Veil", a Hal Roach production that never aired, and "Thriller", in which he introduced a strange new tale each week with the reassuring tagline, "As sure as my name is Boris Karloff, this will be a thriller." His distinctive voice enhanced "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (1966), and in a particular treat for horror fans, he joined Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr. in "Lizard's Leg and Owlet's Wing" (1962), the famous Halloween episode of "Route 66", appearing as the Monster one last time. 
    He never stopped working, even toward the end, when emphysema had slowed him down and arthritis had crippled him. His last four movies were cheapies made in Mexico (with his scenes shot in Los Angeles) and released only after his death. 
    Offscreen, he was a labor activist, a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild, and by all accounts a genuinely nice man, not at all like the killers and ghouls he played on film. Over time, he became as loved as his characters were feared, like everybody's kindly grandfather who happened to play monsters for a living. 
    He died on February 2, 1969, the most widely admired horror star ever. He was 81.