If He Reads, It Bleeds

Our reader's a fellow named Lorre
Sit back and he'll tell you a story
A doctor goes mad
and does something bad
The ending is horribly gory

It's story time with Peter Lorre, seen here as Doctor Gogol in Mad Love (Karl Freund, 1935). We're just starting the month-long Countdown to Halloween.

Hyde and Seek

Through science the doctor had tried
to prove that we're beastly inside
Ingesting a serum
while testing his theorem
he found he had something to hide

A panel from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Wally Wood, from This is Suspense #23, 1955. Read the entire story at The Horrors of it All.

Rated X-Ray

They x-ray the poor monster's spine
It's Igor's they should realign
A kink in his neck
was giving him heck
since hanging around on the Rhine


Edgar Norton, Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone and Bela Lugosi in Son of Frankenstein (Rowland V. Lee, 1939). The Countdown to Halloween continues.

Oedipus Hex

It stuck in Doc Frankenstein's craw:
His creature had cranial flaw
A criminal brain
would partly explain
But mostly, it's who was his paw

As Frankenstein (1931), Colin Clive tries to reason with Boris Karloff's monster. The mad doctor is in the Countdown to Halloween. Visit Countdown to Halloween headquarters to find links to all of the many, many participating blogs.

Rue Pall

Mad doctors in film are perverse
These psychos are sadists or worse
When medical peers
reject them with jeers
to vengeance they aren't averse

Image: Murders in the Rue Morgue (Robert Florey, 1932). Source: Only the Cinema. This kicks off the Countdown to Halloween, a month-long internet blogathon with dozens of participating blogs and sites.

R.I. P. Tony Curtis

In Spartacus togs or a dress
he smelled the sweet smell of success
His accent was "foddah"
for critics but what a
career Tony had nonetheless

R.I.P. Arthur Penn

A Miracle Worker has died
his Left-Handed Gun from him pried
Among little men
walked big Arthur Penn
the guy who shot Bonnie and Clyde

Read Penn's obit here.

R.I.P. Abbey Lincoln

Some jazz singers scat willy-nilly
while busily gilding the lily
But Abbey would swing
like breezes in Spring
and flow free and easy like Billie

Chicago born jazz singer, actor and activist Abbey Lincoln died on August 14th. Billie Holiday was her greatest influence. Learn about the great Ms. Lincoln here and here.

R.I.P. George Blanda

Coach Halas thought George wouldn't stick

but Blanda could still pass and kick

For sixteen more years

he made it quite clear

no mind did he pay to Time's tick

George Blanda played professional football as quarterback and kicker for 26 seasons, retiring a month shy of his 49th birthday.

Automatic Response

The gun nuts all thought they would dig her
A .45 bust? What a figure!
But when they peruse
her very short fuse,
her temper, they find, is hair trigger

Gam Bit

Some legs just seem never to end

thin pins of the type that will send

your typically hale

and healthy young male
to crawl on all fours 'round the bend

Norm


Legs Benedict

But others like curvier gams
preferring those hourglass ma'ams
Voluptuous gals
to so inclined males
have legs that will pass their exams

Surly


Betty Grable's famous WW2 era pin-up.

Spree Speech

Her pie-hole was always unzipped
and from it the gossip just dripped
Convicted of slander
the judge said, with candor
that duct tape would keep her tight-lipped

Bard Copy

He thinks someone murdered his dad,
that suitor of mom is the cad
To gather the proof he
starts acting all goofy
The rub is, he might just go mad



Strange Illusion (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945). Edgar G. Ulmer's low budget update of Hamlet stars Jimmy Lydon, film's Henry Aldrich. Lydon plays a jive-talking teen feigning insanity to investigate the murder of his father. His best lines are "What's mixin', vixin? Been missin' my kissin'?" Image source: Film Noir Photos; Lost in the Frame.