Beauty Parts

All horror, or science-based dramas
Use torridly eye-popping mammas
These drive-in wet dreams
Provide piercing screams
What's more, they look fly in pajamas.

Ross Elliot, Nestor Paiva, and scream queen Mara Corday in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Hoarse and Buggy

A spider now dwells in your house
A giant-from-hell hairy louse
No rarebit-fueled dream
In terror you scream
Get insect repellent and douse!

Mara Corday reacts to the Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Carpet Diem

Are you nuts? Don't recline on the rug!
Your cute butt's in the line of a bug!
Get up, gal, we're not joking
Soon its talon starts poking
And your guts like cheap wine it will chug!

Mara Corday poses in a striking still from Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Ick-speriment!

It creeps through the scrub and the thistles
It’s hungry and covered with bristles;
The drive-in crowd cheers
Every time it appears
While Mara Corday provokes whistles.

Paul Truster



Mara Corday adds the sex appeal to Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955); with Leo G. Carroll.

Face Awful

The fact is, experiments leak
Contract something rare, you turn freak
Having meddled, Professor,
Your head's now a mess, sir
Attractive young characters shriek!

Leo G. Carroll startles Mara Corday in a still from Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Most Dangerous Dame

It's no fun when, as man, you're the prey
You can run but you can't get away
It's not just about you
Mister lust is here, too
And the hunter has plans for Fay Wray.



Fay Wray and Joel McCrea run for their lives in The Most Dangerous Game (Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack; 1932).

Slapsy Waxy

His face is all freakish, disfigured
When Miss Wray sneaks a peek, panic's triggered
For the skin made of wax
Brow to chin, quickly cracks
Now Fay's become equally jiggered.

David Cairns

Fay Wray batters -- and shatters -- Lionel Atwill in The Mystery of the Wax Museum (Michael Curtiz; 1933).

Thirties Rock

Screaming Fay has a date with an ape-brute
Smiling Kay's tempting fate, no escape-route
Busby's girls underdress
Just in pearls, or much less
And poor Mae gets a face full of grapefruit.

David Cairns



A passel of pre-Code prettys: Fay Wray flirts with King Kong (1933); gold-digger Kay Francis is one of the Girls About Town (1931) with Joel McCrea; moll Mae Clarke has breakfast with The Public Enemy (1931), James Cagney.

Laverne and Burly

With yearning the guys stop and gape
Laverne is in eye-popping shape
Though she might be a floozy
She's uptight and plays choosy
When spurning Goliath the ape.



Anne Bancroft plays Trapeze artist Laverne Miller in Gorilla at Large (Harmon Jones; 1954), a 3-D horror mystery. George Barrows is the gorilla "Goliath".

Belle Ringer

He'd mate with this mademoiselle,
But dating her doesn't go well
He's buff but no prince,
She's tough to convince,
And a cage at the zoo's a hard sell.

"Sultan", the ape (Charles Gemora) calls on Jeanette, the woman (Patricia Medina) in Phantom of the Rue Morgue (Roy Del Ruth; 1954). The Countdown to Halloween continues across the interwebs!

Birthday Suitor

Take a peep at this jewel at rest 
While asleep, by a ghoul she's undressed
She's adorably pink
He's a horrible fink
One more creep who's unduly obsessed.



Lionel Atwill strips Fay Wray for a waxing in the chiller shot in two-strip Technicolor, Mystery of the Wax Museum (Michael Curtiz; 1933). Title by David Cairns, well suited to horror.

Sculprit

Some artists mold clay, some play sax
Some carpe the day, some are hacks
This wise guy devises
A guise that surprises
And startles his prey with hot wax.



Two-strip Technicolor Lionel Atwill (as crazed sculptor Ivan Igor), and Fay Wray in Mystery of the Wax Museum (Michael Curtiz; 1933). Title and assist by David Cairns, waxing eloquently.

Wax of Vengeance

Going slack, they look queer as they melt
They're facsimiles, zero is felt
But Fay, who is real
On display, sure will feel
The hot wax on her rear, oh so svelte

Surly Hack and David Cairns



There's nothing quite like a nude and nubile Fay Wray in the pink two-strip Technicolor of Mystery of the Wax Museum (Michael Curtiz; 1933). This also started out as a comment on an earlier rhyme. The Countdown to Halloween continues.

A Sight at the Museum

With Fay stripped of slacks and apparel,

He's dripping hot wax from a barrel

This fiery plight,

Sees her frying tonight--

Unless gripped by hot hack Glenda Farrell.

 

David Cairns
 

Fay Wray, Lionel Atwill (as the alliteratively named "Ivan Igor") and Glenda Farrell, wisecracking reporter in Mystery of the Wax Museum (Michael Curtiz; 1933). This limerick was originally a comment on another post, The Wax of Life. Has Farrell (below) ever looked lovelier than in the pinks and greens of two-strip Technicolor?

The Wray of All Flesh

Who'd relax at this sinister show?
There's a max of pink skin, all aglow
You can't beat Fay Wray stripping
But with heating and dripping,
Hot wax is beginning to flow.

Actress and 'scream queen' Fay Wray is in the pink in 2-strip Technicolor, in the classic pre-code chiller Mystery of the Wax Museum (Michael Curtiz; 1933).

Let No Man Blast Asunder

Made in hell, and not heaven, this match
Hades belle, and a heavy, no catch
Both ad-hoc, made from pieces
On a doc's mad caprices
They rebel, pull a lever, dispatch.

David Cairns



The unhappy Bride (Elsa Lanchester) and Monster (Boris Karloff) in Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale; 1935).

Enwrappedtured

With the prodding, the poking, and stitching
It's not odd when she woke she was bitching
And wrapped like a mummy
She's apt to feel crummy
Her body--no joke--must be itching.



Elsa Lanchester emerges from the bandages in Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale; 1935). Title gift-wrapped by David Cairns.

You May Hiss the Bride

They unburied the mate he'll be nailing
But their very first date's not smooth sailing
He's horny and bold
But she's scornful and cold
What tears it: he hates high-pitched wailing.

Elsa Lanchester as the Bride, and Boris Karloff as the Monster, in Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale; 1935). Title by hisstrionic David Cairns.

Wife After Death

This shade from dead parts resurrected,
With a maid they restart is connected
Though to him she's enthralling,
She sees grim and appalling
And his traded-in heart is rejected.

The Bride (Elsa Lanchester) gives the Monster (Boris Karloff) the cold shoulder in Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale; 1935). The title was an afterthought of David Cairns.

A Matter of Wife and Death

They unwrap her, like lifting a veil
This unhappiest gift for the male
But no wedding bells dong
It is dead they belong
Blissful rapture for stiffs is a "fail."

Ernest Thesiger as Dr. Pretorius, Colin Clive as Baron Henry von Frankenstein, and Elsa Lanchester as the Monster's mate in Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale; 1935). Title by David Cairns, using his grey matter. Image © 2014 Universal Pictures. Courtesy of Pyxurz.