Lovin' the Dernsies: A Salute to Bruce Dern

By BRAD WEISMANN

At Cannes this year, where he won best actor for his role in Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska,” Bruce Dern explained his references to his trademark “Dernsies” as “ . . . little things that you do, either character things or interjections of dialogue that is not on the page, or behavior that is not on the page.” (1) Ah, the Dernsies. What would my sense of menace be like without them? I would love it if he won an Oscar for his performance in Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska,” but at the least let him garner some of the appreciation he deserves.

I have tried to explain to my kids who he is. “He’s Laura Dern’s dad,” I said. “Who’s Laura Dern?” they replied. I strike myself, again, in the temple with an old decorative bronze ashtray. I faced with the same difficulty regarding Donald Sutherland and James Brolin. I have many dents in my head.

To know, love, and have fully memorized all the Dernsies, I think, you really had to grow up with him. His first screen credit came the year I was born, in Elia Kazan’s “Wild River.” Dern was part of that first generation of extraordinary post-studio-era American actors such as Hoffman, Redford, Pacino, Caan, Hackman, and Duvall, all who did a lot of TV work early. Soon he was a familiar presence on my TV screen, first in oaters like “Stoney Burke,” playing a comic sidekick to Jack Lord before Lord became Steve McGarrett on the original “Hawaii-Five-O.”

He segued into what he termed assorted “psychotics and freaks and dopers” in multiple series. Dern seemed to be a natural heavy, pigeonholed as an eccentric performer. He got tons of juicy and variegated death scenes in his early work, always a privilege of a screen villain; as such, he forms the missing link between Elisha Cook Jr. and Sean Bean.

A small but key role in Hitchcock’s “Marnie” led to more big-screen opportunities. He gets decapitated early on in “Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte,” but his head makes a few more appearances, off and on, so to speak, through the film. His first level of awesomeness came with his entrance into his immortal Biker Trilogy (“The Wild Angels,” “The Cycle Savages,” and “The Rebel Rousers”), which also made him a life-long friend and associate of Jack Nicholson, Roger Corman, and other key figures in the American New Wave of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

He hit the big time when he landed the part of Asa Watts, the villainous “Long Hair” who kills John Wayne in “The Cowboys,” for which he is punished later by being pulled apart by horses. To be honest, neither of these scenes terrified me so much as the one in which he grabs a young kid and SLOWLY AND DELIBERATELY BREAKS THE KID’S GLASSES. Yep. That bastard. Being a boy who was incessantly breaking, misplacing or sitting on his own spectacles, Bruce ending up on the wrong end of an equine taffy-pull wasn’t punishment enough.

By this time, he had perfected the Dernsies. First, there’s hiss quiet, quiet voice -- the soft drawl that quickly ramps into a screech. His eyes triple in size, his brow accordions up, his teeth are bared. His gestures and inflections swoop, twitch, flare, growl, subside, and finally bury the needle in the red. You aren’t sure what’s going to happen next, but you are sure it’s going to be interesting.

There’s something remindful of John Qualen there in his face, a raggedy, liquid-eyed intensity.

In contrast to a naturalistic, underplayed approach, Dern is never afraid to go for Baroque – to really be theatrically big onscreen. Somehow, he always makes it work. I think this comes from two places: first, the performance ethic that, at the end of the day, the audience deserves a good time. If you have an epiphany while you are working, great. If not, too bad. Give people their money’s worth.

Second, there’s a quite literally larger concept of what acting is. Another actor Dern reminds me of, in a good way, is John Carradine.

Carradine’s gaunt, fierce, demonstrativeness, his roundly phrased orations, came from the conventions of the Victorian stage. It worked for Carradine, usually in a horror-film context, partly due to the acceptance of “bigger,” tragically-pitched performances in that genre.

Dern doesn’t bear that tragic mantle in his work – it’s more like a never-extinguished anguish that’s eating at him, the eye-darting frenzy of an intelligent animal faced with the prospect of having to gnaw off his trapped leg. The idea that mannerism or extremity on film can’t play runs aground on the rocks of Dernsiness. Dern is loose enough so that he can be completely off-the-wall, yet focused enough to move a scene forward. His style doesn’t (usually) overwhelm the story.

So from a craft perspective, if you want a loony with a pitchfork, Dern can do that. And if you want more, Dern can easily break out of his collection of tics. Given a good script and director, when challenged, he goes above and beyond. He calms down, turns down the Dernsies, and allows the emotional percolations to simmer just under the surface. A leading man in the guise of a character actor.

Some of his more remarkable turns include

·         Freeman Lowell in “Silent Running” (Douglass Trumbull, 1972) – the lonesome misfit-hero ecowarrior who decides it’s better to kill his fellow spacemen than let Earth’s last forests perish.

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·         Jason in “The King of Marvin Gardens” (Bob Rafelson, 1972) – as a charming, delusional con man, Dern is a kind of postmodern Gatsby with Nicholson as his brother and Nick Carrawayesque narrator.

·         Big Bob Freelander in “Smile” (Michael Ritchie, 1975) – a perfectly pitched pompous would-be civic leader in a masterful ensemble satire of beauty pageants.

·         George Lumley in “Family Plot” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1976) – Hitch’s last leading man.

·         Cap. Hyde in “Coming Home” (Hal Ashby, 1978) – not only the best actor in this film, perhaps the only one acting in the film. He does go batshit crazy, but it’s from the script.

·         The Detective in “The Driver” (Walter Hill, 1978) – so good in this vastly underrated film. The most implacable pursuer of a criminal since Javert.

·         Uncle Bud in “After Dark, My Sweet” (James Foley, 1990) – another great role in another unseen gem.

And, in the meantime, there were the Dernsies. Whether playing a mad guru in “Psych-Out,” a mad scientist in “The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant,” a mad dirigible pilot in “Black Sunday” . . . and so on.

So give the guy some love. He says, of meeting Marilyn Monroe, “She leaned over to me and, I’d never met her – she’s Marilyn Monroe, I’m Brucy from Winnetka – and she said, ‘Oh, you’re Gadge’s [Elia Kazan’s] new wunderkind, aren’t you? And I said, ‘Oh, c’mon, please. He doesn’t say that.’ She said, ‘Yes, he does. He also says nobody’s going to know who you are until you’re in your late 60s.’” He’s 77.

1.      William Bibbiani, CraveOnline, May 27, 2013.

‘Probing deep into a woman’s soul . . !’: Two female protagonists in early film noir

Kansas visits Henderson on Death Row in "Phantom Lady" -- great noir cinematography by Woody Bredell.

By BRAD WEISMANN

Ask around. Compelling, complex roles for actresses beyond what society deems “breeding prime” are few. Even within that ripeness range, women are still largely props – saintly victims, evil temptresses.

Nowhere more so than in film noir, where these stereotypes are essential to the efficient functioning of the genre’s typical plotline. A classic film noir is usually thought of as being the story of a hapless man drawn cynically to his doom in an amoral, uncaring, brutal world by a femme fatale. However, a recent pair of screenings of initial noir outings by later masters of the genre provides an interesting contrast to this conception. These two films feature, surprisingly, active female protagonists with their wits about them.

I had a chance to see Robert Siodmak’s 1944 “Phantom Lady” and Joseph H. Lewis’ “My Name is Julia Ross” from 1945 recently on the big screen. (A curatorial pal, the International Film Series' Pablo Kjolseth, who has a dandy backyard cinema, showed these over the course of a couple of summer weekends. They leaped to life, beautiful prints gleaming through the lens of a venerable 16-millimeter projector, the air faintly redolent of machine oil and heated celluloid. Mmmmmm.)

Robert Siodmak, as versatile in his workmanlike way as Michael Curtiz or Victor Fleming (he would helm strong entries in the swashbuckler, Western, horror, and other types). He would feature strong women in later noirs such as “Christmas Holiday” -- the debut of Deanna Durbin as a “serious” actress, featuring Gene Kelly as an insane killer, complete with soundtrack from “Tristan and Isolde”! – and “The Spiral Staircase.” Lewis, too, would give us compelling if not as heroic women in “Gun Crazy” and “The Big Combo.”

Both films come from the first of three classic-era noir periods as defined by Paul Schrader, which lasted only from 1941 to 1945. Schrader characterizes this period as that of the “private eye or lone wolf,” and its films feature A-list budgets and casts, favor static shots over action sequences, display a disdain for location shooting, and maintain a strong grounding in the smooth, elegant studio look that would soon be displaced by the gritty-realism trend of the genre of the 1950s.

What unites these two films in my mind is the way they give their protagonists the floor – as competent, nuanced characters that come up with novel ways to overcome the obstacles they face.

Phantom Lady

1944

Dir: Robert Siodmak

Part of the film’s balance may come from the fact that it was the first producer credit for Joan Harrison, whose work as a screenwriter included classics such as “Rebecca,” “Suspicion,” “Saboteur,” and “Foreign Correspondent.” Harrison would become one of only three female producers in Hollywood at the time, and would later helm the TV series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” Another contributing factor may have been the source material, penned by Cornell Woolrich as William Irish. Woolrich, one of the best and most adapted crime writers of the 20^th century, whose novels and stories are crammed with central female characters who are threatened, disappointed, out for justice.

The protagonist is played by Ella Raines, a generic starlet of the day. She plays “Kansas,” the faithful secretary of the young, dumb, handsome and unhappily married civil engineer Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis). When Scott’s wife is killed, he has no alibi – save for a mysterious lady he gave a spare theater ticket to and sat with at a Broadway show. The “phantom lady” distinguished by her uniquely designed hat, sporting a full-sized bird, identical to one worn by the star of the show (Aurora Miranda, sister of Carmen).

Beyond the Freudian suggestiveness of a woman’s hat as an object that defines feminine identity, a search for one takes us into uniquely feminine territory – couture being a land few men dally in. A lady’s hat, like Desdemona’s handkerchief, has been used as a device in stage farces and tragedies for centuries, usually designating a woman’s virtue or reputation as moveable and external to her essential nature. In “Phantom Lady” a hat becomes the key to identifying a murderer.

Kansas, of course, is secretly in love with Henderson – which, in movie-logic terms of the day, means that he must be innocent and that they are meant to be together. She trails the few witnesses to his alibi, all of whom have lied to the police to incriminate him. She stalks a close-mouthed bartender with a death’s-head countenance – in a memorably staged scene on a train platform, he nearly pushes her into the path of the cars, only to be run down in the street later himself, on the run from her relentless questions.

 

Kansas, alone and vulnerable on a midnight train platform.

Kansas, abetted marginally by a male authority figure, Burgess (Thomas Gomez, usually a villain, as the supportive police inspector), even dresses up as a jazz-loving, gum-chewing floozy to attract the attention of pit drummer/witness Cliff (Elisha Cook Jr.). Cliff takes her to a shadowy basement jam session, littered with beer bottles and Dutch angles, and populated improbably by solid jazzmen Jimmy Slack, Barney Bigard, Howard Rumsey, Roger Hanson, and Dole Nicolls.

It’s the most inventive and disturbing sequence in the film. Kansas, dodging the phallic instruments that protrude across her eye line, plies Cliff with booze, after which he kisses her roughly. She puts up with it, fist obviously clenched in distress. She walks away, reapplying her makeup in a handy mirror – and stopping a moment to shake herself and regard herself in her slutty disguise, as though this persona could so easily envelop her own.

Meanwhile, Cliff looks her up and down lustfully, while banging out a wild drum solo. Kansas is seen now from below, stretching out her arms and goading him on like some demon, even laughing with head thrown back like the clichéd vamp. Cliff’s face becomes a rictus of unfulfilled orgasmic expectation. This is a man who is certain he’s going to get laid. (No wonder this scene got censored in Pennsylvania (1).)

As with the first perjured witness, Cliff is marked for death as well (the killer? I’m not going to tell you who he is, but his initials are Franchot Tone, playing the standard I’m-a-sensitive-artist-so-I-strangle-people-who-piss-me-off-as-I-rub-my-eye-furtively-as-though-I-might-have-a-brain-tumor role). Kansas finally tracks the hat’s owner through the milliner, whose employee, an oppressed-looking immigrant woman who knocks off copies under the table. The Phantom Lady is found – she turns out to be a dead end -- in a doctor’s care, distraught and deranged over the death of her intended husband (of course! Wouldn’t that drive any woman mad?). Hung up on a man she can’t have, she serves as a kind of passive doppelganger for Kansas.

Eventually, the plot succumbs to Movie Logic and Kansas is rescued by Burgess just after the murderer’s confession, but before he can dispatch the heroine. The final blow comes when the freed Henderson proposes to Kansas via Dictaphone. Whatever autonomy Kansas has earned is about to be snuffed out again.

My Name is Julia Ross

1945

Dir: Joseph H. Lewis

Good old George Macready. He’s such a stinker.

 

George Macready as Ralph -- obviously not ready to appear on "The Newlywed Game."

The cultured, well-spoken actor, marked by a distinctive scar on his right cheek, had a long career as a screen villain, and is remembered particularly for his roles as baddies in “Gilda” and “Paths of Glory.” He’s the perfect choice to play the psychotic, murderous man-child Ralph Hughes in “Julia Ross” – the incarnation of Husband as Monster. He is that rarity in film noir – rather than a femme fatale, he is a “homme fatale.”

The writers of both the source novel and screenplay were women – the book “Lady in Red” was penned by Lucy Beatrice Malleson, writing as Anthony Gilbert (wheels within wheels!) and the script came from Muriel Roy Bolton. Like “Gaslight” and other thrillers that always seem to take place in old Victorian mansions, memory, identity, and threatened male dominance are key themes.

Julia Ross (Nina Foch) is a young woman, just getting over a breakup and needed surgery. She applies for a secretarial position at an agency that insists that she have “no family entanglements, no romantic interests.” “I’m absolutely alone,” she responds. She’s a blank slate.

She also happens to resemble the late unlamented wife of Ralph, who, it seems, gets a little bloodthirsty when he’s on edge. His overprotective mother, played by May Whitty, chides, “Try to remember -- if it wasn’t for your temper, you wouldn’t be in this awful trouble today.” Ralph responds later, “It’s all Marion’s fault – she shouldn’t have cried.” Ralph has a tendency to shred things, like spouses, with knives – his mother has a drawer full of weapons she has confiscated from him. To get Marion’s money, Ralph and his mum need a body that doesn’t look like it was stabbed over and over and over. And over. Welcome Julia!

Julia is taken to the Hughes’, and promptly drugged. Everything she owns is incinerated. When she wakes, everyone calls her Marion, tells her she is married to Ralph, and informs her that she is recovering from a nervous breakdown. Everything she owns has an “MH” monogram. The Hughes’ ornate seaside mansion, which nominally might seem to be a dream come true for a single woman of the period, a scene of domestic bliss and security, is a prison and a death trap.

Lewis’ use of objects and light patterns to convey meaning is exemplary. Secret passages abound in the house; the shadow of a hand stretches across her covers, Nosferatu-like; Julia screams and flings a brush across the room, breaking a mirror – more Freudianism, still in vogue across the cinema of the day (think “Spellbound”). Bars, physical or shadow, constantly obscure Julia’s face.

 

Nina Foch as Julia/Marion, trapped in her dream house.

The standout scene in “Julia Ross” in one in which, gutsily, Lewis shoots over Ralph’s shoulder as he engages in a bit of a psychotic ramble. Only Julia’s eyes can be seen, reacting warily. Ralph’s image is literally blotting her out. Julia fights back repeatedly when Ralph tries to kiss her, slapping him once and triggering his attempt to throw her out a window. Julia would rather be dead than subsumed.

Julia hangs on to her identity, against all odds, and works actively to free herself, escaping once in a visiting car and getting letters in the post. The usual authority figures – minister, doctor, policeman – all come to the Hughes’ door, only to be fooled by the family’s pretense. Only when Julia fakes her suicide, forcing Ralph and his mother’s hands, do Julia’s friend Dennis and some officers appear in the nick of time – shooting Ralph to death as he flees down the beach.

The reassuring male paradigm is reasserted. Julia’s friend and savior Dennis proposes a new job for her. “A combination secretary, companion, nurse, housekeep-“ “That sounds like a wife,” Julia responds. She accepts immediately, and they embrace. Alarmingly, they are driving at the time – but thanks to Movie Logic, their car doesn’t crash. Fadeout. “Ironically, she will soon assume a new name and a new identity, although one presumably not at the hands of a violent psychopath.” (2) In both “Phantom Lady” and “My Name is Julia Ross,” the possibility of female autonomy is tantalizingly dangled, only to be snatched away at the very end.

These two films are emblematic of a transition point in American film – a move away from complex, independent female characters as embodied in “women’s films”/”weepies” of the ‘30s and ‘40s (“Dark Victory,” “Imitation of Life,” “Now, Voyager,” and other vehicles for Davis, Crawford, Stanwyck, Harlow, et al) and the post-war reassertion of male privilege onscreen. As soldiers came home and reintegrated into society, women film characters shifted into rigidly defined categories. They became either wholesome and home-abiding, or they dangerous free agents, up to no good.

Film noir can be a fertile ground for heroines. Here we have women as protagonists, righters of wrongs, refusing to be victims – agents of positive change rather than ministers of destruction or helpless victims or good girls that stand by and watch. It was fun while it lasted.

NOTES

1.      Jazz Noir: Listening to Music from ‘Phantom Lady’ to ‘Last Seduction’, David Butler, Praeger, 2002, pg. 68

“People Can Think Themselves into Anything: The Domestic Nightmare in ‘My Name is Julia Ross,” Marlisa Santos, The Films of Joseph H. Lewis, Gary D. Rhodes, ed., Wayne State University Press, 2012, pg. 144

OTHER SOURCES

Who the Devil Made It

Peter Bogdanovich

Alfred A. Knopf

New York

1997

Hollywood Heroines: Women in Film Noir and the Female Gothic Film

Helen Hanson

I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd.

London/New York

2007

Joseph H. Lewis: Overview, Interview, and Filmography

Francis M. Nevins

The Scarecrow Press, Inc.

Lanham, Md./London

1998

Robert Siodmak

Deborah Lazaroff Alpi

McFarland & Company, Inc.

1998

13 (OK, 20) Horror Icons

Writer/editor note:

This year, I threw together a list of top horror performers on my Facebook page in a run-up to Halloween. After wrapping it up, I thought it might be nice to put all the info in one place. It makes an excellent companion to my horror-film history from two years ago. Enjoy!

To laud horror-film performers in and of themselves doesn’t suffice. They didn’t create themselves; they are performers filling in the outlines drawn by others. Still, it takes special skills to scare us. No matter how genial an actor or actress is in real life, they must be able to reveal depths of danger and madness, triggering catharsis in the audience. At their best, they became inextricably linked with the horrors they portrayed. No one can think of Frankenstein’s Monster without thinking of Karloff, or Dracula of Lugosi.

Here’s a list of key figures in the horror-film pantheon. I reluctantly limited myself to 13, then had to revise that to 20. This still leaves a long list of significant performers, who are appended. If there is a common thread in most of these careers, it’s a grounding in classical stage training and experience. American mythos doesn’t let tragedy in; maybe only in horror films can we indulge in that sense of struggle against doom, and defiance of fate, that is usually found in epic drama. Great horror performers make their creations, however bizarre, sympathetic enough to allow us identify with them.

HARUO NAKAJIMA

Haruo Nakajima, the original Godzilla. From 1954 through 1972, he cemented his reputation as the premier "suit actor" in film, also donning the costumes of Rodan, Varan, Baragon, and many more. In cheesy sagas such as "Destroy All Monsters," “The Mysterians,” and "Frankenstein Conquers the World," Haruo kept us entertained with his pro-wrestling fight moves, and cardboard-skyscraper-crushing enthusiasm. Thank you, sir!

ROBERT ENGLUND

Robert Englund is best known for his portrayal of Freddy Krueger in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" film series. (I saw him, and he stuck in my mind, as Whitey in his first film, the awful 1974 hick-trauma saga "Buster and Billie," which of course we saw at the drive-in.) Englund, a classically trained actor, has brought a strong, complex, and even . . . sympathetic? . . . charm to the part. Like the Golden Age horror actors, he gives this and other roles a combination of watchability, gravitas, and just enough distancing to give the role of fillip of ironic humor. It seems to that, unlike other typecast actors who bemoan their fates, Englund has retained a healthy sense of balance, using his niche fame to enable him to do the projects he's interested in, building a satisfying career.

LAIRD CREGAR

Laird Cregar seems an odd choice for this list, as his career was so short. However, in four specific films – as the obsessed Inspector Cornell in “I Wake Up Screaming,” as the fussy villain Willard Gates in “This Gun for Hire,” the demonic Mr. Slade in “The Lodger,” and the doomed protagonist composer George Harvey Bone in “Hangover Square,” he made a great impression. Another classically trained actor with maturity and presence far beyond his years, the tortured undertones to his villainous roles are exquisite! Unfortunately, the fairly bulky Cregar went on a crash diet for “Hangover Square” to assume a svelter outline onscreen. It caused his death by heart attack on Dec. 9, 1944, two months before his final film’s premiere. It is tantalizing to imagine what other great roles he could have filled!

PAUL NASCHY

The most criminally under-regarded horror actor in film history is Paul Naschy. Born Jacinto Molina Alvarez in Madrid, he was so fascinated by horror film that he made his life’s work of it. He wrote, directed, and starred in more than 100 horror films, most memorably as the doomed Count Waldemar Daninsky, aka El Hombre Lobo (the Wolfman) in 12 films. However, he explored the full gamut of the genre’s possibilities – he is the only film actor to have played Dracula, the Wolfman, The Mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster, Rasputin, Edward Hyde, Satan, along with assorted warlocks, zombies, Fu Manchu, hunchbacks, serial killers, vengeful knights from the dead, and medieval inquisitors. He single-handedly launched the Golden Age of Spanish horror – a heavily Catholic, Bunuelian stew of extreme gore, sadomasochism, misogyny, and barely repressed sensuality – the lunatic cry of society under Franco leaking out onto the screen.

Despite low budgets, bad special effects, and incompetent assistance, Naschy took his mission seriously, willing himself despite his looks (in contrast to many physically imposing horror actors, he was short and burly, with a face like that of a placid John Belushi) to embody a spectacular range of nightmarish personas that influenced future key filmmakers such as del Toro and Amenabar.

KLAUS KINSKI

“Ich bin der Zorn Gottes.” Klaus Kinski was a force of nature. A schizophrenic, this unconventional and intense performer started off in the German “Krimi” films, moving on to roles as spaghetti Western villains, psychopaths, anarchists, and murderers. He played Renfield in Jesus Franco’s “Count Dracula,” SS men, the Marquis de Sade, and Jack the Ripper. His biggest fame came as the muse of Werner Herzog, and Kinski was at his best in these films. He terrified me as the doomed, insane Woyzeck, the reincarnation of Max Schreck as Nosferatu, and most of all as the power-mad conquistador Aguirre, the Wrath of God. Kinski was violent, spiteful, and quite possibly molested his daughters. A fascinating actor I would cross the street to avoid.

Nosferatu The Vampyre (1979) pt. 1 by karimberdi

DWIGHT FRYE

Meet Dwight Frye, the original minion. He originated not only the role of Renfield in “Dracula,” he did the same as the hunchbacked assistant in the original version of “Frankenstein” (although his character is named Fritz, not Ygor). A talented stage actor, he started off like Peter Lorre, specializing in musicals and comedy. He found himself typecast on film as madmen, village idiots, murder suspects, and the like. He appears in the margins of many of James Whale’s films. No one could hit his high-pitched, manic note as a demented malefactor. Before he got a chance to diversify onscreen, he died in 1944 of a heart attack on a city bus, on his way home from watching a double feature with his son. All evil helpmates to follow, from Bela Lugosi through Marty Feldman to Manservant Hecubus, owe a bit of thanks to Frye.

CONRAD VEIDT

It’s bitterly ironic that the Ultimate Screen Nazi would be forced to flee Hitler’s Germany. Conrad Veidt will forever be Major Heinrich Strasser from “Casablanca,” but his horror work permeated his career. He was seemingly made for bad-guy roles -- tall and thin, with a beetling brow and penetrating eyes. He started in silent film, and played a key role in the groundbreaking “Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” – Cesare, the somnambulist. It brought him enormous fame, and he went on to several key roles in the horror pantheon. He was the first to play the pianist given the hands of a killer in “The Hands of Orlac,” and also Ivan the Terrible in Paul Leni’s “Waxworks,” the first horror anthology film. As Gwynplaine in 1928’s “The Man Who Laughs,” he served as the model for Batman’s nemesis The Joker. Again, as Jaffar the evil vizier in the 1940 Korda “Thief of Baghdad,” he was clearly the model for the villain in Disney’s “Aladdin.”

A fervent anti-Nazi, married to a Jew, he was on Goebbels’ hit list in 1933. They escaped and he continued to work in Britain and the U.S., finally playing the men he most despised. (He could play good guys, too, as in “Contraband” and “Above Suspicion.”) Like Robert Ryan, Veidt was a nice guy who wound up playing heels. A gem.

ANDY SERKIS

You have no idea who Andy Serkis is. You would probably pass him on the street unnoticed. Still, you have seen him quite a bit. The new cinematic tool of motion capture has made Serkis the go-to guy for portraying unworldly creatures – King Kong and Gollum for Peter Jackson, Caesar in the new “Planet of the Apes” movies . . . and Captain Haddock in “The Adventures of Tintin.” He’s a fine actor in the flesh as well – witness his turn as the terrifyingly strung-out, abusive record producer Martin Hannett in “24 Hour Party People,” or Capricorn in “Inkheart,” or serial killer Ian Brady in “Longford.” Pretty sure he can play anything, the closest thing we have to Lon Chaney, Sr. now.

At least in his performance capture work, let him also stand for all those who toil away in horror behind the mask, unrecognizable. Doug Bradley (Pinhead from the “Hellraiser” series), Warwick Davis (The Leprechaun), Tobin Bell (Jigsaw), Brad Dourif (the voice of Chucky), and Kane Hodder (1/4 of the 12 film Jasons from “Friday the 13^th”) likewise don’t get the credit they deserve.

BARBARA SHELLEY

The First Leading Lady of British Horror is Barbara Shelley. Working the spectrum from victim to perpetrator, she headlined a lot of Hammer horror in its prime – “Blood of the Vampire,” “Village of the Damned” and “Children of the Damned,” “The Gorgon,” “Dracula, Prince of Darkness” (her best bit as the undead Helen Kent) and “Quatermass and the Pit.” In an age when horror and sci-fi brought bimbos and helpless Hannahs to the screen, Shelley brought intelligence and class to the game. She was also able to break that invisible but steel-strong barrier against non-grotesque-looking women acting out evil roles on screen.

LON CHANEY, JR.

Lon Chaney Jr. My tragic hero. No one on this list suffered more than he did from his calling. Trapped in the deep shadow of his more accomplished father, The Man of a Thousand Faces, as Creighton Chaney he tried to break into the movie business and was bitterly rebuffed. “They starved me to take his name,” he later said, and as Lon Chaney, Jr. he found himself trudging along through the roster of classic characters – the Son of Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy, killers, nutjobs, a man-made monster, The Indestructible Man. Still, he was a deeply interesting actor when he got the chance – he is the definitive Lenny in “Of Mice and Men,” of course, and is riveting as Martin Howe in “High Noon.” But he did originate and make live that unique creation of Curt Siodmak -- the Wolfman. Cursed forever (? I am happy to let you know that he is cured AND gets the girl in “House of Dracula,” his last furry appearance) to turn into a murderous beast on the full moon, the constant undercurrent of despair he displays as Larry Talbot transforms him into a tragic figure. He is an unwilling monster, and the parallel to his alcoholism, which plagued him for decades, is inescapable to me.

JOHN CARRADINE

Name: John Carradine. Profession: Theatre, with an r-e, of course. Career span: 1925 to 1987. Screen credits: A jaw-dropping 340 (per IMDb). A master of fustian bombast and persiflage, Carradine was, spiritually, the last of the old Victorian-era  hams. An ardent admirer of the Bard, to his credit he took many thankless film roles simply for the money, which would allow him to continue to lead his repertory company in tours of the sticks, overawing crowds with ripe renditions of the classics. Like Lon Chaney, Jr., he could produce wonderful performances if he was supervised and restrained sufficiently. His Casy the Preacher in “Grapes of Wrath” is a tortured saint; Hatfield in “Stagecoach” is a textbook gentleman. As to horror, he played Dracula twice in the Universal cycle; starred as Heydrich in “Hitler’s Madman,” various mad doctors, the Cosmic Man, the Wizard of Mars, and on and on. No one could sell a line, no matter how ridiculous, like Carradine. There is the charming whiff of the charlatan, the mountebank, the barnstorming histrion about him. A good base line for his horror work is his rare starring horror role, 1944’s “Bluebeard,” directed by Edgar Ulmer. Both the film and Carradine are breathtakingly uneven!

BARBARA STEELE

“I usually played these roles where I represented the dark side. I was always a predatory bitch goddess in all of these movies, and with all kinds of unspeakable elements. Then what is life without a dark side? The driving force of drama is the dark side. These women that I played usually suffered for it, and I guess men like that.” Barbara Steele’s honest self-assessment of her powerful, transgressive horror work led her away wearily from the genre after a time, but while she did it, she was extraordinary. A pale, voluptuous brunette with huge eyes and a capacity to convey evil, she was fascinating and frightening. Among her great performances: “Black Sunday,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock,” and “Castle of Blood.”

PETER CUSHING

Peter Cushing is my absolute favorite horror actor of all time. That this mild, friendly, gracious man should become synonymous with scary movies seems a bit silly, really. However, he could scare the living bejeezus out of an audience almost off-handedly, maintaining a clear, cold line of emotional turbulence and sheer weight of presence anchored him amidst the mayhem. (Mainstream crowds know him best as Grand Moff Tarkin in “Star Wars.”) He was a Hammer Horror stalwart. He played Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Van Helsing numerous times, always to good effect. He was very often a “good guy” as well, fighting mummies, skulls, the living dead and the like. He even played Dr. Who and Sherlock Holmes. No one was better than he at seeking to learn that which mankind must not know, or fighting the forces of evil with grim determination. And he could do comedy as well! An actor I really would have loved to have known.

CHRISTOPHER LEE

One of the few horror stars to be honored properly in his lifetime, Christopher Lee is unmatched in his ability to play evil. From 1957, when he played his first horror role, the Creature in “The Curse of Frankenstein” with his dear friend Peter Cushing, to today, his towering presence, rumbling bass voice, and penetrating eyes have made him unmistakable. He is, at least in my mind, the definitive Dracula – much more commanding, seductive, and animalistic than Lugosi. It would be difficult to list his every role, but here’s a nice selection to choose from – Resurrection Joe the grave robber in “Corridors of Blood,” Kurt Menliff in “The Whip and the Body,” the Mummy, Fu Manchu, Rasputin, Lord Summerisle in “The Wicker Man,” Rochefort in Lester’s “Three Musketeers” trilogy, Bond villain Scaramanga in “The Man with the Golden Gun,” Saruman in Peter Jackson’s “Ring” films, and Count Dooku in the “Star Wars” saga. Like Cushing he can do comedy – his Capt. Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt is hilarious in Spielberg’s “1941”; and he can play heroes, such as Count de Richleau in “The Devil Rides Out.” Lee has stated that he prefers the terms “cinema of the fantastic” to horror, and he’s helped create hundreds of flights of imagination. Salute!

BELA LUGOSI

Poor Bela Lugosi. The original Dracula suffered from a career typecast as monsters, mad doctors, and the like, becoming a poster child for drug addiction and the pitfalls of life in Hollywood in the process. All this pathos covers over the story of a strong performer with a fascinating life. Bela Lugosi was a classically trained Hungarian interpreter of Shakespeare. After serving as an officer in World War I, wounded three times, he was forced to flee to Germany on account of his left-wing, pro-union activities (he went on to help found the Actors’ Guild). His three-year run as Dracula on Broadway prepped him for the movie version, and he quite literally never looked back after that. Part of the stiffness and exaggeration he brought to the role is due to him facing what all stage actors moving into early sound film faced – not knowing how to underplay and work to the camera. But his extremely poor selection of roles, combined with his other debilitating factors, means that there is a lot of dross to pick through when looking at his oeuvre. However, his genuine screen magnetism and his ability to send waves of dread through an audience powered him through a handful of top-notch performances. Besides “Dracula,” he can be seen to advantage as Dr. Weredegast in “The Black Cat,” the Sayer of the Law in “The Island of Lost Souls,” Joseph in “The Body Snatcher,” ‘Murder’ Legendre in “White Zombie,” Dr. Mirakle in “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and Ygor in “The Son of Frankenstein.”

INGRID PITT

Oh, my goodness. Though she only appeared in two of the Hammer canon of films, Ingrid Pitt changed the game for horror actresses. In “The Vampire Lovers” and “Countess Dracula,” she played drop-dead gorgeous, intelligent, assertive women – which meant, of course, that she was an agent of the undead and as such had to be destroyed, in keeping with horror-film and Western cultural conventions. In contrast to so many of the interchangeable, eyelid-fluttering Hammer-heroine victims, she was vital and sympathetic. She made being a vampire seem like a swingin’, sexy, viable alternative to the obviously repressed ho-hum lives of the living.

PETER LORRE

It’s hard to imagine anything other than a career in horror roles for Peter Lorre. However, like James Cagney, he started off in stage comedies and musicals. Eventually, he worked his way to primary Berlin stages, working extensively with Brecht (“A Man is a Man,” “Happy End”). It’s almost unfortunate that his first significant screen role was in one of the greatest films ever made – Fritz Lang’s “M,” in 1931. As the serial child-killer Hans Beckert, Lorre is repulsive, compulsively watchable, and by the film’s end, tragically sympathetic. It would mark his film work forever. When he made it to America, he was immediately slotted as a freak, a monster, a slimy character actor. In “Mad Love,” his insanely possessive Dr. Gogol is an indelible portrayal. His typecasting as a horror figure soon became a gag, exploited in films such as “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “Beat the Devil.” However, he could play positive characters, such as Marius in “Passage to Marseille,” and even the lead, as he did as Cornelius Leyden in “The Mask of Dimitrios.” His single independently created film, which he wrote, directed, and starred in, “Der Verlorene (The Lost One)” is a disturbing meditation on German war guilt – it throws into stark relief the kind of thoughtful, nuanced work he was capable of. He wound up on the Corman roster, still going strong in “Tales of Terror,” “The Raven,” and “The Comedy of Terrors.”

VINCENT PRICE

He noted, “I don’t play monsters. I play men besieged by fate and out for revenge.” Did anyone in horror have more gusto than Vincent Price? I think not. The Prince of Peril, the Merchant of Menace! He could chew the scenery as few could, and did so as happily as anyone could. Although he played many of his more campy roles with a big wink to the audience (Dr. Goldfoot, anyone?) he was resolutely professional when it was time to play in a serious manner. He started off as a leading man and player of “goody-goody” roles, but soon found that villains were more fun to play and offer an actor a longer career path. After strong roles in film such as “Dragonwyck,” “Laura,” and “The Baron of Arizona,” Price hit his horror stride with 1953’s “House of Wax.” After that, he worked with many horror stalwarts, including directors John Brahm (“The Mad Magician”), Robert Fuest (the Dr. Phibes films), and William Castle (“The House on Haunted Hill,” “The Tingler”). His biggest impact was at the helm of so many Roger Corman horror films, including “House of Usher,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Raven,” “The Haunted Palace,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Tomb of Ligeia.” He had that special something . . . that scared the crap out of me.

BORIS KARLOFF

Boris Karloff! Childhood friend. It didn’t take him reading “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” to endear him to us. Long before that, in the first late-night flicker of the TV screen, we knew that his Frankenstein’s Monster was essentially harmless, violent only when abused. He was just a big kid! We loved him. Unlike some other players on this list, Boris, born as William Henry Pratt, kept his personal demons, if any, out of the equation. He loved to play make-believe, and his energy and powers of persuasion brought us into the story too. Neither was he ungracious – 10 years barnstorming onstage, followed by 15 years of Hollywood obscurity and day jobs, taught him to keep his fame in perspective. Among his many great roles – the evil Fu Manchu, the original Mummy, satanic priest Hjalmar Poelzig in “The Black Cat,” Dr. Bolton in “Corridors of Blood.” His best work is in the trilogy of films he made with Val Lewton – “The Body Snatcher,” Isle of the Dead,” and “Bedlam.” Who knows how horror would have developed without him? In an age when the monsters are soulless and interchangeable, Karloff’s work reminds us how much more powerful horror is when rooted in a sympathetic soul.

LON CHANEY, SR.

The father of all horror stars. The joke of his time was: “Don’t step on that spider, it might be Lon Chaney.” This amazingly inventive, expressive, determined artist astonished the world with his ability to assume seemingly any shape or form. Beginning with “The Miracle Man” in 1919, through to his untimely death in 1930, he epitomized the chameleon qualities of acting. He and Paul Muni fascinated me – actors who vanished into roles instead of molding them to fit themselves. His gallery of grotesques naturally led him to defining roles as Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame; the Phantom of the Opera, Alonzo the Armless in “The Unknown,” Phroso in “West of Zanzibar,” Professor Echo, Mr. Wu, Blizzard in “The Penalty.” (He could act without makeup as well – he’s great as a hard-bitten drill sergeant in “Tell it to the Marines.”) “I wanted to remind people that the lowest types of humanity may have within them the capacity for supreme self-sacrifice,” he said. ”The dwarfed, misshapen beggar of the streets may have the noblest ideals. . . . The parts I play point out a moral. They show individuals who might have been different, if they had been given a different chance.” Of all film actors, only Chaney Sr.’s work approaches the level of transformation, of magic.

And the others:

David Warner

Oliver Reed

Donald Pleasance

Lionel Atwill

Cedric Hardwicke

George Zucco

Richard Carlson

Bruce Campbell

Jamie Lee Curtis

Grant Williams

Claude Rains

Henry Daniell

Dana Andrews

Charles Gray

Andrew Keir

Michael Gough

Asia Argento

Caroline Munro

Udo Keir

Anthony Perkins

Bruce Dern

Coffin Joe

Basil Rathbone

Michael Berryman

Rondo Hatton

Ralph Fiennes

Helena Bonham Carter

Ian MacKellen

Doug Bradley (Pinhead)

Warwick Davis (Leprechaun)

Tobin Bell (Jigsaw)

Brad Dourif (Chucky)

Kane Hodder (Jason)

Rudolf Klein-Hogge

Howard Vernon