It's Alive! is a mainstream novel that happens to deal in the subject of horror. It's the story of the tumultuous week before the shooting began on the classic 1931 production of Frankenstein.
Good old Boris and Bela are major players in the saga of It's Alive, but it's really the story of Carl Laemmle, Jr and his struggle to be taken seriously by his father and the filmmaking world at large.
In '31 the silents were over and talkies were in to stay. Carl Laemmle Sr, who co-founded Universal Studios, was reluctant to change the formulas that made the company. Slapstick humor, cliched horse operas, and broadly exaggerated theatrics were slow habits to break.
Laemmle, Jr wanted to take movies into the future with bold, powerful new stories. He had seen enormous success with Dracula, but his father still resisted Frankenstein. Grave robbing, body parts assembled into a corpse, a walking dead man, it seemed too much.
Horror historians are quick to give credit to Karloff and Lugosi, to James Whale and Tod Browning, but I don't think enough people give Carl Laemmle, Jr his due. The Universal monster movies directly influenced eveverything in the genre that followed. Up to and including the present. Even people who have not, and would not, watch an old black and white horror movie are walking in the footsteps of Carl Laemmle, Jr. He was a visionary whose importance cannot be overstated.
It's Alive! brilliantly brings the world of 1931 to life. It feels completely authentic. Julian David Stone did his research, and while he certainly used his imagination to fill in some blanks, his account of the prelude to Frankenstein is faithful to known facts of the real-life events.
I loved It's Alive! without reservation, and whether you are knowledgeable about the subject, or are merely curious, so will you. It's too bad Forrest J Ackerman couldn't have read it.
Written by Mark Sieber
Good old Boris and Bela are major players in the saga of It's Alive, but it's really the story of Carl Laemmle, Jr and his struggle to be taken seriously by his father and the filmmaking world at large.
In '31 the silents were over and talkies were in to stay. Carl Laemmle Sr, who co-founded Universal Studios, was reluctant to change the formulas that made the company. Slapstick humor, cliched horse operas, and broadly exaggerated theatrics were slow habits to break.
Laemmle, Jr wanted to take movies into the future with bold, powerful new stories. He had seen enormous success with Dracula, but his father still resisted Frankenstein. Grave robbing, body parts assembled into a corpse, a walking dead man, it seemed too much.
Horror historians are quick to give credit to Karloff and Lugosi, to James Whale and Tod Browning, but I don't think enough people give Carl Laemmle, Jr his due. The Universal monster movies directly influenced eveverything in the genre that followed. Up to and including the present. Even people who have not, and would not, watch an old black and white horror movie are walking in the footsteps of Carl Laemmle, Jr. He was a visionary whose importance cannot be overstated.
It's Alive! brilliantly brings the world of 1931 to life. It feels completely authentic. Julian David Stone did his research, and while he certainly used his imagination to fill in some blanks, his account of the prelude to Frankenstein is faithful to known facts of the real-life events.
I loved It's Alive! without reservation, and whether you are knowledgeable about the subject, or are merely curious, so will you. It's too bad Forrest J Ackerman couldn't have read it.
Written by Mark Sieber
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