Paul Blaisdell, Monster Maker: A Biography of the B Movie Makeup and Special Effects Artist

by Randy Palmer

  Unfortunately, things would be a heck of a lot different very soon. Bob Burns was leaving town to stay with a relative, and the relative’s name was Uncle Sam.

  12

  The Last Her-rah

  I’ve played some oddball roles in my career, I guess. I’ve been a three-eyed atomic mutant, I’ve been a perambulating plant from the planet Venus, I’ve been a bug-eyed Martian with alcohol for blood; I’ve even played a prehistoric female with a big tail, big teeth, and big boobs. But who could ever forget The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow, where I had to come on like a real dingbat?

  —Paul Blaisdell

  The plotline of Herman Cohen’s How to Make a Monster had turned out, in a way, to be a bit prophetic for Paul Blaisdell. Paul even considered the film “somewhat autobiographical”—not in terms of the characters (he obviously wouldn’t have described himself as a maniacal makeup artist), but in terms of the story. Motion picture themes really were changing. The science-fiction and monster cycles were winding down, gothic horror was winding up, and AIP was preparing to diversify. Already the company was bringing home new coproductions with Britain’s Anglo-Amalgamated Films such as Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) and Circus of Horrors (1960). These pictures, filmed in color and CinemaScope, heralded the new face of AIP circa 1960.

  Goosed by the profits Hammer Films was generating with its new color renditions of the Frankenstein and Dracula mythos, Roger Corman shifted into overdrive and went to work convincing Sam Arkoff and Jim Nicholson that the time was ripe for a new line of bigger-budget, higher-class motion pictures. As it happened, neither Arkoff nor Nicholson required much convincing. Returns on recent double feature programs were anemic. It was obvious to them that something new was needed to buck up the box office. Despite healthy sales of Famous Monsters magazine and its black-and-white pulp-paper brethren, moviegoers seemed to be growing weary of 1950s-style fears like The Giant Leeches and The Brain Eaters.

  At the same time that Corman was betting audiences would queue up to see well-made adaptations of the classic horror tales of Edgar Allan Poe, screenwriter Lou Rusoff was also making changes in the way he approached the genre. Straightforward thrillers like Day the World Ended had become passé. The youth audience that had buttered AIP’s bread for so long had become more sophisticated, and they were demanding that Hollywood keep up with them.

  While AIP steeled itself for the plunge into color, widescreen, and name-brand actors such as Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone, it green-lighted a few final projects that seemed to offer new twists on tried and true themes. One was a new Lou Rusoff script called The Haunted Hot Rod. Rusoff was hoping to appeal directly to the contemporary teenager’s preoccupation with fast cars, fast chicks, fast music, and juvenile delinquency by stirring all those ingredients into a monstrous mix frosted with touches of comedy, suspense, and fantasy. The story did have a haunted hot rod, but it didn’t show up until the end, so Jim Nicholson decided to change the title to The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow. The problem with that title was that there really wasn’t a ghost. But that didn’t matter to AIP. It had fibbed before on more than one occasion, and it was still around making pictures.

  Fibbing was becoming more and more prevalent in the late 1950s, especially in 1958 and 1959, as the standard kind of “B” picture AIP specialized in began to dwindle in popularity. Low-budget productions were becoming even lower-budget. A movie called Tank Battalion was made with only one tank; The Brain Eaters were wind-up toy bugs; The Astounding She Monster was partially filmed without synch-sound, and when the zipper broke on the she-thing’s slinky, silver, skin-tight costume, the director decided to have her enter and exit each scene facing the camera so no one would notice. The Giant Leeches had various problems discussed earlier.

  Not surprisingly, The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow was going to be another super-low-budget affair. Rusoff’s story contained enough comedic/horrific elements that the film had a chance of repeating the success of Invasion of the Saucer Men. But the budget dictated a rushed and sloppy execution, and the result was an uneven and terribly unfunny “horror-comedy” that proved an embarrassment to almost everyone connected with it.

  Hot rods and dragsters were big news among the teen set in the late 1950s, so Rusoff had filled his screenplay with lots of tough jargon about race cars, hot rods, drag clubs, and the embryonic generation gap. These elements combined to make up most of the story’s suspense, while the comedy was generated almost entirely by the characters and a few mildly horrific situations. It was a far cry from the bleak vision of Day the World Ended or the time-tunneling The She-Creature, but AIP was convinced that contemporary audiences were weary of shivering at their budgetary boogeymen.

  After Rusoff submitted his script to AIP for approval, Nicholson and Arkoff assigned a director. They hired William J. Hole, Jr., on the strength of a picture he had directed for Crown International called The Devil’s Hand, about a black magic cult that worships the blood god, Damba. The film’s only distinction is that it marked the last appearance of Robert Alda (Alan Alda’s father) in an American-made film.

  While Hole was familiarizing himself with Rusoff’s script, Nicholson called Blaisdell to tell him about the new project. “This isn’t just another monster movie,” Nicholson promised. “It’s more like Saucer Men. It’s a comedy, so you’ll be able to do something a little different than usual.”

  Blaisdell’s ears perked right up. Something different? That sounded good. He would definitely enjoy being involved in a comedy, even a horror-comedy. “I’m going to send over the script right away so you can check it out,” Nicholson promised. Then he held out the carrot. “And you’ll actually have some dialogue to speak in this one, Paul.”

  That was even better. Paul couldn’t wait to see the script.

  When it arrived by carrier the next day, Blaisdell eagerly scanned the script, looking for telltale signs that might indicate which part Nick had in mind for him. It took less than ten minutes to figure out that he would just be playing the monster role again. He called Nicholson at the AIP office.

  “Look, Nick, I read Lou’s script, and it looks to me like it’s just another monster part.”

  “Well, it is, but the monster’s not really a monster. It’s you, Paul.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out.”

  “Isn’t that something?”

  “Yeah.”

  Blaisdell couldn’t hide his disappointment, but as Jackie pointed out, monsters were Paul’s business. It made sense to play the Dragstrip Hollow Ghost—except that he wasn’t going to be a “real” ghost. He was going to play himself, Paul Blaisdell, resident AIP monster-maker, pretending to be a ghost. Rusoff’s script was very specific in that regard. The character wasn’t just some old geezer hanging around a haunted house and scoring his jollies by scaring young kids. He wasn’t some evildoer trying to con a rich widow out of her inheritance. He was just a helium-headed Halloween prankster trying to have a little fun. “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Paul decided.

  Naturally, once Blaisdell had gotten over his initial reluctance to play a parody of himself, Arkoff called up with the bad news.

  “Hello, Paul?”

  “Yeah?”

  “This is Sam Arkoff.”

  Oh, great, thought Paul. He’s calling to tell me they can’t afford me. They’re going to get somebody else to do the costume. “What is it, Sam?” Paul asked.

  “Just wanted to let you know that everything’s ‘Go’ on Dragstrip Hollow.”

  Well, that was good news. “Okay, good. How long are you able to give me to work up the design of the Ghost?”

  “Uhh … didn’t Lou tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  Arkoff hesitated, then stormed ahead: “Well, you know, Paul, that you’re basically playing yourself in this picture. You’re not a real ghost, you’re a guy wearing a mask. So, ah, we thought we could save a little time and money if we just used your She-Creature outfit. See, it makes perfec
t sense because at the end of the picture you take off your mask and you even mention the other monsters you’ve played for us.”

  “But Sam, that costume has already been seen in three different movies,” Blaisdell protested. “You can’t be serious!”

  But, of course, he was. “We don’t have enough money in the budget for anything new, Paul. Look, just take your She-Creature costume and change it around a little bit.”

  “We already did that,” Blaisdell reminded him, “in Voodoo Woman.”

  Arkoff put his foot down. “Paul, that’s the way it’s gotta be.”

  And so it was.

  The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow can only be defined as a slight comedy with horrific overtones. It isn’t a horror-comedy, like Invasion of the Saucer Men, and it’s clearly not a black comedy in the vein of Roger Corman’s A Bucket of Blood or The Little Shop of Horrors. Scriptwriter Lou Rusoff apparently was more concerned with the ridiculous than the sublime because the humor in Ghost is immature, condescending, and not very funny. In fact, The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow could almost be a blueprint for AIP’s series of beach party movies made in the early 1960s. That’s not too surprising, considering that the first beach-bum film, which set the style for all the rest to follow, was written by Lou Rusoff. All the elements of the surf-’n’-sand pictures were present in Ghost: the “good” kids, the “bad” kids, the asinine jokes, an adolescent preoccupation with sex, an adult figure who established what few plot elements there were, and a surprise cameo by a horror film “star.” (Recall that Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and Peter Lorre all turned up in climactic cameos in the beach party pictures.) In a way, The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow could almost be the first beach party picture, except that it was filmed in black-and-white rather than color and featured hot-rodders on asphalt instead of surfers on sand. Other than that, it was really the same movie.

  Also as in the AIP beach films, a lot was going on in Ghost, and yet nothing much ever really happened. The opening sequence is a hot-rod race through the streets of Los Angeles. The opponents are Lois Cavendish (Jody Fair) and Nita (Nancy Anderson). Nita cracks up her crate as she’s trying to escape a pursuing motorcycle cop, but Lois gets away.

  Stan (Martin Braddock), the leader of a local hot-rod organization called the Zenith Club, is working with a magazine writer named Tom Hendry (Russ Bender). Hendry plans to write a series of articles about the dragster clubs and their connection to juvenile delinquency, but he has latched onto the worst club in the city to pursue that particular angle. The Zenith members are juvenile, but they aren’t delinquents. They take their hot-roddin’ hobby seriously. So seriously, in fact, that local genius Dave (Henry McCann) has invented a new type of car that can think and act on its own.

  The Zenith Club has lost its lease and is about to close up shop, scattering the members back to the streets, but Lois’s aunt, loopy Anastasia Abernathy (Dorothy Neumann, the hook-nosed witch in Roger Corman’s The Undead), inadvertently comes to the rescue when she mentions a creepy old house she owns in Flint Canyon—an area the kids call Dragstrip Hollow. Anastasia’s pet parrot, the wise-cracking Alfonso, clucks in terror at the mention of the place. According to Anastasia, the house is haunted by her departed husband, Old John Abernathy the First. “The last woman who lived there was actually scared to death by a monster.” Anastasia cautions. The members of the Zenith Club volunteer to “de-spirit” the place if she will rent it to them as their new club headquarters.

  That evening, when the kids check out the house, horrible moans, high-pitched shrieks, and weird noises can be heard all around, but Hendry feels sure that someone is playing games with them. After one particularly intense bansheelike howl, he says, “I have a feeling I’ve heard that scream before.” (Actually, this is a clue to the picture’s surprise ending. It is also one of the very few plot points that makes any sense at all.)

  Hendry and Stan takes turns keeping watch on the house that night, but neither of them notices the weird, glowing eyes staring out of the darkness at them. Lois, sitting in front of the fireplace, is spun around like a carousel when the Dragstrip Hollow Ghost presses a secret panel which causes the hearth to swivel in a circle on a hidden axis. Dave is visited by a strange apparition, and one of the girls is pinched by the Ghost itself. Moving candles, spinning portraits, and collapsing tables are some of the other unexplainable events these hard-headed kids keep on snoozing through.

  In the morning, Hendry forms a plan. To expose the real culprit behind the weird goings-on, they will throw a “spook ball” that night and award prizes for the best costume. He drives into town to buy a bunch of cheap Halloween outfits while the kids start decorating the house. By nightfall the party is going strong, with everyone wearing a different costume. The Ghost ventures out and meanders through the crowd. Meanwhile, Nita and her gang of delinquents shows up. Nita challenges Lois to another drag race to try to even the score. Even though Lois risks suspension from the club, she won’t back off from Nita’s challenge. The gals hop into their crates and take off for a wild late-night ride.

  By the time Lois returns—triumphant—it’s close to midnight. Hendry and Stan slip away from the festivities and comb the house from top to bottom, looking for what Hendry calls “the Ghost’s sanctuary.” They can’t find it, so they appeal to Dave’s wondrous, all-knowing, all-seeing auto, which he has dubbed Amelia. “Is the house haunted?” Stan wants to know.

  “Y-e-s-s-s,” croaks the car engine. (We assume it’s the engine. What other part of a car could possibly talk?)

  “Will you show us the Ghost’s hideout?” Hendry asks.

  “N-n-n-o-o-o-o!” (This car is a chicken!)

  From the sidelines, Dave gives Amelia a direct order. It shimmies into action, unveils a telescoping rod, and drives straight into the hearth. The rod touches a concealed switch, and the fireplace spins open to reveal a control booth—just what Hendry has been looking for. He and Stan check it out and find it loaded down with gadgets, microphones, and electrical apparatus. To Hendry, this proves that the Dragstrip Hollow Ghost is not a real spook, but an ordinary human being playing tricks on visitors for his own purposes.

  Hendry turns to the party-goers and announces, “Now for the best costume award. Everybody take your masks off.”

  There’s one costumed creep who seems to be slinking away, so Hendry rushes over and lifts up the mask. Inside is Paul Blaisdell.

  The crowd gasps. Who is this man? He looks familiar, somehow.

  Blaisdell whimpers, “Y-you spoiled everything, you monster.”

  “I knew I had seen you before,” gloats Hendry, recalling the sound of the scream he heard last night.

  “Of course you’ve seen me before,” cries the monster-maker. “I scared you to death—to death—in Day the World Ended. You shivered when you saw me in The She-Creature. (Sniffle.) Oh, the shame of it, the indignity, they didn’t use me in Horrors of the Black Museum after my years of faithful service. (Sob.) They just discarded me.” Blaisdell notices a girl dressed in a Halloween costume that almost matches his Dragstrip Hollow getup scale-for-scale. “What picture did you work in?” he asks innocently.

  As the band cranks up another tune, she chases Paul away from the house. All seems well, until the real Ghost of Old John Abernathy the First walks through the crowd and out the front door. “The rock ‘n’ roll got rid of him!” chirps Alfonso.

  With the house finally exorcised of haunts, the party rages on. As the closing credits assure us, it’s The Endest, Man.

  Audiences were probably glad it was “The Endest” because The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow was not only the worst of Paul Blaisdell’s monster movies, it was very nearly the worst picture American International ever released. Sloppily staged and executed, the film has stood the test of time extraordinarily poorly. Rusoff’s plotline wandered all over the place without really going anywhere, the jokes were lame, the acting was horrid, the photography was flat, and the rock ’n’ roll was, well, at least most of it was in tune
. (All of the recording artists featured in the picture were signed to AIP’s own record label, American International Records. As far as can be determined, a soundtrack album was never released.)

  The last time Blaisdell’s She-Creature costume had been seen on the screen—in the 1957 Voodoo Woman—it had been partially concealed by a burlap dress and most of the accouterments had been removed. For The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow Blaisdell performed a mastectomy on the creature-costume, in effect changing its sex. (Without those double-barreled knockers, “Cuddles” definitely looked more male than female.) The wings, fins, horns, dorsal fins, and tail had already been removed, and now Paul took out the lunch-hooks from the abdominal cavity as well. Newly cut pieces of block foam were used to fill in the gaps to maintain the jigsaw pattern of the monster’s skin. The hands Paul had created for Voodoo Woman were reused for Dragstrip Hollow, but the monster feet were changed to sneakers. Although the Ghost’s feet were seen only fleetingly in the film, neither Blaisdell nor the filmmakers tried to hide the sneakers from the audience because this monster, after all, was merely a human being in disguise.

  The original headpiece of the She-Creature, last seen hanging on a wall in How to Make a Monster, was changed radically for The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow. Most of the plastic tubing that made up the hair was removed, and a new rubber latex appliance resembling a cross between a bat’s wing and a fish fin was bonded to the center of the forehead, where it tapered back to the crown of the head. The bottom two antennae were removed, and the top antennae were bent backwards so that they touched the ears, which remained the same. The fangs were taken out and replaced by two single protruding canine teeth, the decorative “circular-saw neckpiece” was removed; and the black, shiny eyes were repainted stark white.

  It took about ten days to patch up the suit and get it into shape for filming. After all the changes were made, the suit was repainted. But instead of carefully airbrushing the latex, adding highlights here and there to bring out the detail, Paul literally “slopped the paint on” with a brush, according to Bob Burns. This tended to fill in the creases and crevices of the foam padding that made up the jigsaw pattern, so that the costume took on more of a stiff, “hardened” appearance, giving the scales a shell-like texture. The repainted costume had a blue-green hue, whereas the original She-Creature was more of a sea-green color. When Paul was finished altering the creature’s appearance, it looked more like a cousin to the She-Creature than anything else. “He really hated to make the changes to the She-Creature head, because it was one of his favorites,” revealed Burns. “I think that’s why Paul didn’t take the same care with The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow that he did on the other films, in terms of making the suit look as good as possible.”