Purrsuit

Late at night -- something's wrong -- there's a sound  
You're uptight -- move along -- don't turn 'round!
Hear her growl in the dark,
On the prowl through the park...
She might bite, and belongs in a pound.



Jane Randolph takes a walk in Cat People (Jacques Tourneur; 1942). Title by cheap suit David Cairns.

Sex Kitten, Twice Shy

This poor dear has a terrible dread
It's a fear has her worried in bed
When she's reeling with passion
Will she squeal, feline-fashion?
Oh the tears! -- and the fur! -- that she's shed.

David Cairns

Irena dreams of hairballs: Simone Simon in Cat People (Jacques Tourneur; 1942).

That Loving Feline

Irena the Serb's very glamorous
Dejeuner sur l'herbe turns her amorous
When her mood gets erotic
Then she's brooding, psychotic
Brain disturbed, she goes furry and clamorous.

David Cairns



Simone Simon is the feline Irena Dubrovna in Cat People (Jacques Tourneur; 1942). Kent Smith is Oliver Reed, who falls for her. "Le déjeuner sur l'herbe" means "The luncheon on the grass", and is the title of an oil painting by Édouard Manet.

Ankers Away

Ankers' pictures, with loonies, all teem
Men afflicted by moonlight's full beam
Oh-so-scary amours
Who grow hairy on moors
And predictably soon there's a scream.

British actress and 'scream queen' Evelyn Ankers faints in the arms of The Wolf Man (1941), lounges in a promo pic below for The Mad Ghoul (1943), and points to a list of some of her other films at Universal, accompanied by director James P. Hogan and the Mad Ghoul himself, David Bruce. Here's a previous rhyme about Ankers.

The Strong Violent Type

Kong's a thing no mere army can tame
He's the King, and he'll harm, hurt and maim
You won't faze him with shackles
All you'll raise are his hackles
What will sting are the charms of a dame.



Fay Wray is beauty, and the beast is King Kong (Cooper and Schoedsack; 1933). Title by weak and wimpy David Cairns.

What's a Nice Gorilla Like you...?

Like she's shrunken to fit, Fay looks tiny
When a monkey's big mitt snares her heinie
He's no beautiful dreamer
She's a dutiful screamer
Full of spunk, but a little bit whiny.

David Cairns

Fay Wray gives her lungs a workout in King Kong (Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack; 1933).

The Kong Silent Type

 

Any creature he meets he soon smites
Makes no speeches--he beats and he bites
But his heartstrings respond
To a smart, clingy blond
In this screecher, petite, he delights.



Fay Wray screams her way through the greatest monster movie of all time, King Kong (Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack; 1933).  I scream, you scream, we all scream for Scream Queens.

The Visible Wray

On display in some gruesome goon's scheme  
Our Miss Wray was a nubile wet dream
Wearing outfits revealing
When she shouts it's appealing
She's a lady who knew how to scream.



Actress and "scream queen" Fay Wray (September 15, 1907 – August 8, 2004), looking perfectly pink in 2-strip Technicolor, in the classic pre-code chiller Mystery of the Wax Museum (Michael Curtiz; 1933).

Dust to Dustbin

Farewell to the eerie departed
From their dwellings of fear they've been carted
Only lost, not destroyed
They'll defrost, redeployed
When their hellish careers are restarted.

The Monster shambles off into the graveyard: Boris Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale; 1935). Title by dust-bunny David Cairns. With this goodbye, we expand our focus beyond the classic Universal monster films. First up, Scream Queens.

Bat For Business

If you poke him to death with a stick
It's revoked in the very next flick
But with box office losses
Not garlic or crosses
The cloaked one becomes really sick.

David Cairns

Dr. Neimann pulls a stake from the heart of Dracula: Boris Karloff and John Carradine in House of Frankenstein (1944). The 1940s monster cycle was winding down at Universal. The atomic age was just around the corner, bringing forth new creatures and giant, radioactive critters.

Wooden Box Office

Unholy, he slept in his crypt
Then slowly he crept out and sipped
Drac's undead and infernal
And it's said he's eternal
But by showbiz inept he is whipped.



Lou Costello as Wilbur Grey, Béla Lugosi as Count Dracula, and Glenn Strange as the Frankenstein Monster, in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Charles Barton; 1948), the film that put the final nail in the coffin of Dracula at Universal. Title by box office poisoner David Cairns.

The Mummy's (Given Up the) Ghost

Pre-diluvian, haggard, gray face
Dis-improved by time's saggy embrace
Beware, do, the beat
Of the two cloth-wrapped feet
Though he moves at a laggardly pace.

 David Cairns

Lon Chaney Jr. stars as the title monster in The Mummy's Ghost (1944). Here he's reaching out to Professor Norman (Frank Reicher), who was stupidly tinkering with tana leaves.

The Inner Skanktum

If this pharaoh should ever unwind
When he's bare, you'd revoltingly find
All the marks of decay
Carcass wasted away
Just a scary, old nude left behind.

David Cairns

Boris Karloff and make-up artist Jack Pierce bring life to The Mummy (Karl Freund; 1932). The mummy make-up took hours to apply and remove, and Karloff said that they forgot to give it a fly.