Ella Bella

She's one of the forties film beauts
Is stunning in formfitting suits
Impeccably dressed
When trekking out west
With guns drawn, she'll floor you in boots!

Ella Raines in Phantom Lady and Tall in the Saddle (both 1944). We hope you've enjoyed our tribute to actress Ella Raines, and we'll return to her films soon. But starting tomorrow is our annual Countdown to Halloween.

Calamity Raines

Where she dwells there's no Gucci or furs
No rich swells there to smooch, no monsieurs
Just musty old garments
On crusty old varmints
So Miss Ella goes butch and wears spurs. 

David Cairns and Surly Hack


Ella Raines plays Arly Harolday in Tall in the Saddle (Edwin L. Marin; 1944).

Even Cowgirls Get to Choose

With each kick of her heels sharply spurring
The depiction of 'female' she's blurring
In plains drifter gear
Miss Raines would appear
And wicked strange feelings start stirring. 

Ella Raines portrays a very sexy tomboy in Tall in the Saddle (Edwin L. Marin; 1944).

Sartorial Bender

As a pestilence, Drac is deluxe
While we rest, he attacks and he sucks
All the woe, the lives wasted,
The type O he has tasted
Always dressed in a black cape and tux

Bela Lugosi dresses up as Dracula (Tod Browning; 1931).

Ready-to-Wear Wolf

On fashion this bore missed the boat
Styles clashing, his wardrobe's not haute
But at night he grows flair
And the height of wolf-wear
With this dashing and sporty fur coat.



Larry Talbot is walking the runway in HOUSE OF THE WOLF MAN. Images: Lon Chaney Jr. models the latest in yak fur in The Wolf Man (1941). Title by at-the-ready David Cairns.

It Takes Two to Mangle

Dressed in tux and in cape, Drac looks natty
Less deluxe is this ape, slack and tatty
On a break from his coffin
Asks the rake, "Come here often?"
Guess that cluck draped in black isn't chatty...

Surly Hack with David Cairns

Count Dracula brushes aside The Frankenstein Monster: Béla Lugosi and Glenn Strange in a publicity still for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Charles Barton; 1948).

Tux In

This Count Drac's not impressed by fine wines
He'd wear slacks and a vest when he dines
Though he knows he's a cutie
When he's posed in his suit, he
Can't relax when he's dressed to the nines.

David Cairns

Béla Lugosi returns to the tux of Dracula in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Charles Barton; 1948).

The Rhyme of the Ancient Nightmare-iner

Just for yuks his old part he's rehashing
Once more sucks at the parties he's crashing
No spruce goose, he's undying
Though no use in denying
In his tux the old fart still looks dashing.

Béla Lugosi gives Jane Randolph a spin in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Charles Barton; 1948).

Broken Window Dressing

Do beware of this dude in the cape
It has flair but gets used as a drape
He's the dapper undead
And likes lapping up red,
Though it's rarely the juice of the grape.

Helen Chandler and Bela Lugosi in Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931). Wrap yourself around Vampire Weekends.

Mourning Suit

His jacket's too short in the sleeves
He's lacking a shirt, so he grieves
He's encumbered by boots
That a lumberjack suits
All in black cause this mort's self-bereaved.

David Cairns

Boris Karloff is the monster, raised from the dead in Frankenstein.

Clothes Make the Maniac

Very natty, Drac stalks the hereafter
As a bat he will hang from a rafter

Flap his wings and he'll fly,
And then--zing!--he's a guy
Was his hat on before as it's after?


I get why in old movies Dracula has to wear pants when he transforms from a bat back into a vampire, but a top hat? John Carradine as the Count in House of Dracula (Erle C. Kenton, 1945).

Your Nit Parade

Jane, Tarzan and Cheetah swing free
As they arch jungle treetop to tree
In their spare tropic wear
They have nary a care
But the scars from a feed-frenzied flea.

Maureen Sullivan, Cheetah and Johnny Weismuller. Read our earlier Tarzan flea rhyme, "Hollywood and Vine".

Drac in Black

Looking spooky and luridly ashen
She's pursuing a prurient passion
Going on the attack
She'll be donning all black
In the ghoulish couture that's her fashion.


That goth girl in the gallows get-up is Gloria Holden, aka Dracula's Daughter (Lambert Hillyer, 1936). The title is by that gruesome grammarian, David Cairns.

Afro Pics

At his hairiest Vince steals a scene
With the scariest mincing routine
Like some gay Carry On
And cliché de salon,
He's the fairy-est disco-dressed queen.


Camping it up as "Butch", Vincent Price wigs out in Theatre of Blood. With Coral Browne in curlers.

No Ifs, Ands or Bust

When Gilda premiered, the press round-up
asked Rita just what kept her gown up
"Two very good reasons, "
she said, "I would squeeze in,
and both were strategic'lly bound up."

Rita Hayworth was liquid satin in Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946).

Hate Couture

Hell bent on revenge round the clock,
he invents gruesome ends bound to shock
No plate for mere fashion,
pure hate is his passion,
and he tends to be found in a smock



As The Mad Magician, Vincent Price once again dons his smock of vengeance, which he previously modeled in House of Wax (above). The head is Mary Murphy's. See? I knew I'd get back to House of Wax!

Hairdo or Die

A fashion that seems to have spread
is wearing a streak on the head
This hep two-tone 'do
suits Pepé Le Pew
as well as two guys that were dead



Boris Karloff in The Walking Dead (Michael Curtiz, 1936) and Humphrey Bogart in The Return of Doctor X (Vincent Sherman, 1939). Both play characters that mad science brings back from the dead, apparently to share a hair stylist.

Faux Joe

In suit, tie and snap-brim fedora
he looked like a cop out of Laura
But to "Java--and black"when waitress turned back
he added a pack of Cremora

Rote Couture

With pistols and trench coats and hats
no tough guy would ever wear spats
Try old fashioned dandies
with snifters of brandies
not mugs with a penchant for gats

Not Hirsute in Her Suit

Brazilian-waxed girl struts her stuff

She might as well be in the buff

Her suit made of string

hides barely a thing
Too bad it hides more than enough

Norm Knott