Boris Karloff Interview (1957)

DVD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JJSDHE/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=d...

http://thefilmarchive.org/

Boris Karloff (23 November 1887 -- 2 February 1969), whose real name was William Henry Pratt, was an English-born actor who emigrated to Canada in 1909.

Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939). His popularity following Frankenstein was such that for a brief time he was billed simply as "Karloff" or "Karloff the Uncanny". His best-known non-horror role is as the Grinch in the television special of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.

Once Karloff arrived in Hollywood, he made dozens of silent films, but work was sporadic, and he often had to take up manual labor such as digging ditches and driving a cement truck to earn a living. A number of his early major roles were in movie serials, such as The Masked Rider (1919), in Chapter 2 of which he can be glimpsed onscreen for the first time, The Hope Diamond Mystery (1920) and King of the Wild (1930). In these early roles he was often cast as an exotic Arabian or Indian villain. A key film which brought Karloff recognition was The Criminal Code (1931), a prison drama in which he reprised a dramatic part he had played on stage.

But it was his role as Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931) which made him a star. The bulky costume with 4inch platform boots made it an arduous role. But it produced the classic image. Boris was lucky to get the part, not least as it had been offered it to Bela Lugosi who declined it. A year later, Karloff played another iconic character, Imhotep in The Mummy. Also quickly followed The Old Dark House with Charles Laughton, and the star role in The Mask of Fu Manchu. These films all very much confirmed his newfound stardom.

The 5'11" (1.8 m) brown-eyed Karloff played a wide variety of roles in other genres besides horror. He was memorably gunned down in a bowling alley in the 1932 film Scarface. He played a religious World War I soldier in the 1934 John Ford epic The Lost Patrol. Karloff gave a string of lauded performances in 1930s Universal horror movies, including several with his main rival for heir to Lon Chaney, Sr.'s horror throne, Béla Lugosi. Karloff was chosen over Lugosi for the role of The Monster in Frankenstein, making his subsequent career possible. Karloff played Frankenstein's monster in two other films, Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939), which also featured Lugosi. Karloff would revisit the Frankenstein mythos in film several times afterward. The first would be as the villainous Dr. Niemann in House of Frankenstein (1944), where Karloff would be contrasted with Glenn Strange's portrayal of The Monster.

Karloff returned to the role of the "mad scientist" in 1958's Frankenstein 1970, as Baron Victor von Frankenstein II, the grandson of the original inventor. The finale reveals that the crippled Baron has given his own face (i.e. Karloff's) to The Monster. The actor appeared at a celebrity baseball game as The Monster in 1940, hitting a gag home run and making catcher Buster Keaton fall into an acrobatic dead faint as The Monster stomped into home plate. Norman Z. McLeod filmed a sequence in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Karloff in The Monster make-up, but it was deleted. Karloff donned the headpiece and neck bolts for the final time in 1962 for a Halloween episode of the TV series Route 66, but he was playing "Boris Karloff," who, within the story, was playing "The Monster."

While the long, creative partnership between Karloff and Lugosi never led to a close mutual friendship, it produced some of the actors' most revered and enduring productions, beginning with The Black Cat. Follow-ups included Gift of Gab (1934), The Raven (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936), Black Friday (1940), You'll Find Out (also 1940), and The Body Snatcher (1945). During this period, he also starred with Basil Rathbone in Tower of London (1939).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Karloff

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[801liveable]

KARLOFF, WORKED HIS ASS OFF TO GET WHERE HE GOT..AN UNDER-RATED ACTOR PROBABLY BECAUSE HIS FAME WAS SO GREAT..HE SHOULD HAVE RECEIVED 2 ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS..FRANKENSTEIN AND THE BODY SNATCHER..THIS MAN DID EVERYTHING IN THE MEDIA..MOVIES..RADIO..T-V AND DID THEM ALL WITH SKILL AND PRECISION..

[jimcarrey0809]

Excellent. priceless!  Where do you get these?

[garganrose]

@Night0fTheLivingAN actually he played the great grand son of doctor Frankenstein in Frankenstein 1978

[steveJ1957]

Never seen this before, cheers for uploading

[Korea4Me]

Such a gracious man.

[Yemmuh4444]

My favorite actor of all time.

[Night0fTheLivingAN]

Actually he did 4 Frankenstein films because he played the monster in Frankensten, Bride and Son but also Doctor Niemann in House of Frankenstein. Actually he did 5 Frankenstein films if you count Frankenstein 1970(made in 1958) where he played Victor Frankenstein instead of the monster. One of my all time favorite actors if not THE favorite.

[karloffpratt]

He also received a Grammy Award in the spoken word category after the story of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" was released as a record. The story goes Karloff's agent accepted the award for him and when Karloff came to the agents office to pick up the Grammy, Karloff took one look at it and said that it looked like a door stop and put it next to the door. The agent let it stay there for a very long time after!