 This is the SF Productions podcast network Schluck visionary William Castle from the pop culture bunker. I'm Mindy and I'm Mark You can check out our audio podcast how I got my wife to read comics on itunes or on our website SF podcast network comm We're starting a new series on the show Covering classic purveyors of what is called Schluck Cinema films made on the cheap for maximum profit and minimal effort Mark really likes these ideas and we're starting with William Castle the king of gimmicks His early years are rather depressing losing both parents by age 11 and then living with his older sister He saw the film Dracula at age 13 and decided his life direction was to make horror movies But first he spent a few years in theater having dropped out of school at age 15 He managed to get Orson Welles to lease him a Connecticut theater and then hired a German actress Then learned that rules at the time required that German-born actors only perform in German plays right around World War two The solution he wrote a German play then translated it into English Nazi Germany happened to invite the actress to a performance in Munich and Turned her refusal into his first gimmick a fake telegram with the refusal was linked to the papers Then Castle called the actress the girl who said no to Hitler He then secretly vandalized his own theater with swastikas making patriotic Americans want to go to the show even more by his early 20s Castle went to Hollywood to direct B pictures for Columbia and There he got a reputation to bring movies in on time and under budget, which was very important Especially probably the most important thing especially with B pictures By 1947 he was an associate producer on Orson Welles the lady from Shanghai By the 50s Castle went independent during the horror movies. He always wanted to do In order to get people in the seats He came up with bizarre stunts announced in the trailers many times by Castle himself Who saw himself as another Hitchcock? Macabre in 1958 Castle mortgaged his own home in order to make the picture then arranged with Lloyds of London for insurance policies for all audience members $1,000 would be paid if they died of fright watching the movie Clauses were in place for heart conditions and suicide and nurses were on standby in the theater Castle arrived at the premiere in a coffin Audiences were also asked not to reveal the climax of the movie to others the first spoiler He would make five million dollars at the box office a tidy sum for a tiny independent film How son on at Hill? 1959 starring Vincent Price and made it a cost of two hundred thousand dollars the film made 1.5 million the big gimmick was Emergo not exactly 3d But a plastic skeleton with glowing red eyes that would fly above audiences on a wire at some theaters Hitchcock was so impressed with the film. He decided to make his own low-budget horror flick psycho The film was remade twice in the 90s and in the odds with another remake underway and a prequel penned by Castle's daughter the tingler in 1959 filmed in Percepto Again, just a gimmick at one point audiences watch a film within the film and an audience member in the theater a paid Plant screams and faints She's taken away on a stretcher also an act and Vincent Price on screen mentions the lady who fainted and asks the audience to sit back down The film then appears to break and the titular monster is somehow let loose on the audience The film and the lights go out and we hear price say ladies and gentlemen Please do not panic, but scream scream for your lives. The tingler is loose in this theater At that point small motors surplus plane de-icers from World War two attached to some of the seats go off Shaking the audience member and pandemonium ensues Price then says that the tingler has been paralyzed the danger is over and the film resumes just an incredible example of showman It's such an interactive thing for that time. It's incredible 13 ghosts 1960 this film introduced Illusional an actual visual effect of the film But still a gimmick the film was shot in black and white But the scenes involving the ghosts were shot with a blue tint while the ghost had a red tint Audience members were handed both blue and red eye filters The brave ones used the red filters to see the ghost while the rest could use the blue filters and avoid them But anyone watching without a filter still saw the ghost Homicidal in 1961 back to pure showmanship the film included a fright break near the climax a 45-second halt of the film at which point audience members too frightened to see the ending could go to the Cowards corner a yellow cardboard booth in the theater complete with nurse holding a blood pressure cuff They would then hand in a coward certificate and sign it stating They were a bonafide coward at which point their ticket price would be refunded Of course, they had to do this in front of the whole audience Following yellow lights and footsteps while the recording said watch the chicken watch him shiver in cowards corner Virtually no one would go through this so paid plans had to be hired to do it a trailer for the film had castle Explaining all this and warning the viewer not to reveal the ending to friends or they will kill you if they don't I will Mr. Sardonicus 1961 I recently saw this on Sven Gully on me TV actually the inspiration for this episode Audience members were given cards with glow-in-the-dark ink showing a thumbs up at one end and a thumbs down at the other Near the end of the film castle comes on screen and explains that the cards are for the punishment pole Should the villain get his comeuppance no matter how horrible it would be or should he get mercy? The audience would hold up the cards depending on their answer and castle would count their responses He goes on about you in third row. Can you hold yours up higher and that couple over there of fifth row? Are you are you voting as one person or two? He then tells the projection as to play the proper real based on the pole Of course only the thumbs down ending was ever shown or apparently ever shot 13 frightened girls in 1963 castle created a campaign to find the prettiest girl in 13 countries He then shot 13 slightly different versions of the film with the winners to be shown in their home countries Some were not actually from foreign countries, but well straightjacket 1964 Castle was pushed by financial backers to stop gimmicks this time in a horror film starring Joan Crawford Of course, he couldn't help himself and handed out little cardboard axes to the audience and the Columbia logo at the start of the film You know the torch bearing woman is decapitated with her head laying at her feet. I saw what you did in 1965 another Joan Crawford vehicle involving teenage girls who do prank phone calls Plants to promote the film using giant plastic telephones was given the cabache by Ma Belle So castle made plans to add seat belts to certain rows of the theater so that patrons would not be jolted out of their seats by Fright, it never actually made it to the showings Rosemary's baby 1968 castle saw a huge potential in the yet to be published novel. So he bought the film rights in advance Unfortunately Paramount was not interested in him actually directing the film So he's the producer only with no gimmicks to be found Castle had kidney failures soon after the film's release and he only did a few bee pictures after that and only one with a gimmick If you can call it that bug in 1975 a horror film about cockroaches was publicized with a million dollar insurance policy for the star Hercules the cockroach William Castle passed away in 1977 John Goodman played a character based on Castle in the film matinee 1993 much of which is about film gimmicks a Documentary on his career spine tingler the William Castle story came out in 2007 John Waters would call Castle God and then go on to play him in the Betty and Joan season of FX's feud Robert Semeckis considered Castle to be his favorite filmmaker and formed a production company solely for the purpose of remaking his films And has he remade them? Yeah. Yeah several of them from his production. Yeah. Yeah, maybe you'll have to go look for those Oh, yeah, they're probably not nearly as good. Yeah in the meantime You guys can check out our audio podcast how I got my wife's read comics on iTunes or on our website as a podcast network Dotcom from the pop culture bunker. I'm Mindy and a mark. Thanks for watching coming at ya