Mini-Matinee #42 – A Bijou Halloween Spookfest

Frankenstein and Wolf Man were mere appetizers to the banquet of horror shorts that follow in our Bijou Halloween Mini-Matinee. Click here to enter the Bijou Mini-Matinee Theater on YouTube to enjoy the show. NOW PLAYING:

THE MAD DOCTOR (1933)
It would be hard to find a better Halloween cartoon than this vintage Walt Disney Mickey Mouse classic. The influence of the early Universal horror films like Frankenstein is evident in this frantic and frightening animated adventure. The Mad Doctor might as well be Frankenstein considering what he tries to do to poor Pluto. Skeleton gags abound.

FORTIES HORROR TRAILERS (1940s)
Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr. and Peter Lorre star in a trio of horror trailers from the 1940s. The Devil Commands (1041) trailer stars Boris Karloff as a different kind of mad scientist - one with a passion for dissecting the mind of his dead wife, rather than her body. Next, Lon Chaney, sans facial hair, stars in the trailer for 1944’s Weird Woman, a supernatural thriller based on the popular "Inner Sanctum" radio series. Tyrant Peter Lorre creeps us out as a cruel torturer in charge of a penal colony in this trailer for Island of Doomed Men (1940)

DEVILED HAMS (1936)
A sizzling musical short set in Hades, with vaudeville crooner Gus Van holding court as Satan, ruler of the nether world. Those on trial must prove themselves thru their music. Dancers Toy and Wing do some out of this world “toe” dancing to big band jazz. Erskine Hawkins and his band blend with Gus Van’s warbling to heat up the satirically sinful shenanigans. From Season Five of the original Matinee at the Bijou PBS series.

COBWEB HOTEL (1936)
The “hotel” is actually a spider’s web in which a sadistic host spider entertains unsuspecting guest flies. This surprisingly violent and sadistic Fleischer Color Classic was featured during Season Four of the original Matinee at the Bijou series on PBS.


HAMMER HORROR TRAILERS (1959-60)
A trio of classic British horror trailers from the Hammer Films. First up is The Mummy (1959). Christopher Lee is Mummy Kharis, and Peter Cushing the British Archaeologist who exhumes the ill-tempered remains. Next, Christopher Lee returns, this time as Dracula in Horror of Dracula (1958) and Peter Cushing returns as Dr. Van Helsing. Hammer had to change the U.S. release title from Dracula to Horror of Dracula to avoid confusion with Realart’s continuing re-release of the original Dracula and other famous 1930s Universal horror classics. Then Peter Cushing returns as Van Helsing in The Brides of Dracula (1960), Hammer’s overtly sexy interpretation of the Dracula myth that may very well have influenced the work of Anne Rice.