Summer Solstice 201 9
ein Schlag ins Gesicht des Weltraums Zapf.punkt 2
Italian Horror Castles - Situationism - Jekyll & Hyde zapf.punkt jun 2019
Table of Contents
2 Castle to Castle in Italian Horror 9 On Situationism: An Interview 16 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1 886) 20 A Tragedy of Errors at Notre Dame
cover: Margrete Robsahm from Castle of Blood, and background cutout by Roy Gold. Collage: Lex Berman, contents banner: Barbara Steele in Black Sunday (1 962), back cover: Collage: Lex Berman.
Zapf.Punkt Quarterly, V.1 No.2, (Jun 2019) is published by Diamond Bay Press, PO Box 426028, Cambridge, MA, 02142. Editor: Lex Berman. Entire contents (c) 2019 by Merrick Lex Berman. All rights are herewith released to individual contributors. Nothing may be reproduced or otherwise distributed without their permission. Please send articles and LOC to [email protected] zapf.punkt page 2
half an hour into the film, when told directly to his face that there is a Zapf.pweurewolf onnthe looske, he cant't believe it.
ein Schlag ins Gesicht desGyWpsye: lIt'lrl taelul ymou swhat a werewolfis: it's a human being possessed by a wolf! Quantum Physics - CthulWhhuen t-he eDvil heyeairs aonnyoiu,Cthue slavtasge Barbara Steele at Massimo Castle, Arsoli, Italy, from La beast somehow gets inside and controls Maschera del Demonio (1960) you. Makes you look and act like a wolf. Castle to Castle Makes you hunt down a victim and kill like a wolf. With fangs: like a wolf! in Italian Horror Cop: Why you're crazy! You better not My introduction to horror movies was let anyone hear you talk like that Pappy, or at the Saturday matinee in Chicago. you'll wind up in the booby hatch! The double bill usually featured one Werewolf! Come on! movie so terrible that nobody could remember it upon leaving the theatre, Of course, you would have to sit and other sub-standard movies such as through another merciless twenty I was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), or Fiend minutes of preachy townies in denial, Without a Face (1958). If you are before they finally form a posse, tug on familiar with those films, you will their cowboy hats, and set off to hunt know of the trends that they down the lycanthrope. But to suggest represented. The first, are films what is perfectly obvious, as Pappy ostensibly about violent monsters does when he looks at the crime scene attacking ordinary people, which reveal photo, is to risk the most severe themselves as status-quo social reprisal. Offto the booby hatch! You’re commentaries under a thin veneer of not allowed to say that. You’re not panic. allowed to believe that. The point is that any degree of non-conformity, In the case of I was a Teenage Werewolf, even if your position is undeniably the film was a flat-out indictment of true, cannot be tolerated. You must be juvenile delinquency. The do-gooder insane not to be exactly like everyone police officer is so square, that even Spring Equinox 2019 else. Confo4rm0i0tycisonuotpans option. zapf.punkt page 3
Did the creators of I Was a Teenage telekinesis and thought projections Werewolfeven grasp the message of have been amplified by the radiation their un-ironic film? But to be fair, the from a nuclear power station, causing a posturing of “delinquent" movies such malevolent invisible life form to as The Wild One (1953), with Marlon emerge. These blood-thirsty alien Brando in his black leather biker jacket, beings multiply, killing people left and and Rebel Without a Cause (1955), with right, and then, seeking more energy, the infamous runaways James Dean, they crank up the reactor to its highest Sal Mineo, and Natalie Wood, were no output level. Unexpectedly, this extra better. They were all projecting the radiation causes the monsters to same morality tale about delinquency become visible. The subsequent fight and conformity. between the humans and the flying, stop-action brains-with-spines has The other type of films you’d see at the become a B-movie legend! Saturday matinee (back when such things still existed) had genuinely Of course some attempt was made in creepy aspects. This creepiness was all these B-movies to find creepy their only virtue, and lacking both locations. At the very least the camera budget and talent, the directors, writers, and actors would all grope collectively to find the creep factor. The results, as can be expected, were uneven, at best.
This groping around for the edge of fear is manifested in the British production of Fiend Without a Face; where people die mysterious deaths, screaming as if they were being choked. Autopsies of the victims revealed that their entire brain and spinal cords were missing, and only toward the end of the film is it revealed that a professor's experiments with Visible at last! Fiend Without a Face (1958) zapf.punkt page 4
would be driven out to Bronson canyon road every week -- even a Canyon with a car-load of bit actors, bland New England mansion looked hoping that some elan from all the other almost scary. To be sure, rainy days in movies shot there would rub off on Rhode Island can be awfully bleak, but their meagre productions. How could judicious camera angles in the filming they go wrong, following in the of Seaview Terrace at Newport, gave footsteps of classics such as Robot the t.v. series Dark Shadows (1966) a Monster (1953) or Attack ofthe Crab twinge of scariness that Hollywood Monsters (1957)? lacked.
By the time that the caves in the In sharp contrast to these American B- mountainsides of Bronson Canyon movies, we sometimes encountered became the setting for Batman’s secret something completely different. Films hideout (1966), they were already with ravishing actresses and gruesome stereotypes of themselves. Thus, as a details, that were set in fantastic consequence of overuse, a film location castles, dungeons, and stone itself can provide fodder for satire, seen fortifications. These sexy and amazing for example, in Larry Blamire's The Lost films appeared and disappeared Skeleton ofCadavra (2001). without a trace for us miserable t.v. viewers in the pleistocene. In those When you have been indoctrinated days, we lacked the internet, and we with this fare -- the same townies had no access to encyclopedic surveys driving their trucks up the same desert of genre films, such as Roberto Curti's zapf.punkt page 5
amazing Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957-1969. So we had almost no resources to research popular culture artifacts.
These fleeting images came and went like the dust blowing through the fence at the Cactus Drive-in. Sure, I could badger all my friends with vague questions such as: "What was that Grand staircase in I, Vampiri (1956) fantastic vampire movie on last Saturday night? With all the dungeons Those stone arches and parapets will and chains, vampires, bondage, and always remain, half in shadow, while those amazing castles. Doesn't anyone the people come and go around them know?" But nobody seemed to like flutters of silk on a moonlit night. remember. Even though the films in question often "You mean the movie that came on had some of the worst translations and right after Rat Patrol?" someone offered, worst over-dubs in human history, trying to let me down in a friendly way. nonetheless, with their heavy gothic "No, no, no! The movie with a ambience, and their vampires crawling beautiful woman laying in a tomb, who up from the tombs of giant medieval was brought back to life by a splash of stone castles, they left my adolescent fresh blood, and who kept coming back brain spinning. What were these to life as a zombie vampire, creeping movies, and more urgently: where around secret passageways wearing a were those castles? They didn't look diaphanous negligee in order to sink like the typical Hollywood sets with her fangs into everybody’s throat, until their unbelievable, overblown features. a whole pack of priests and townsfolk The Universal back lot -- used for lit her on fire and threw her off a cliff." filming all the classics from Dracula By that point of course, my friends had (1931) to Frankenstein Meets the Wolf mysteriously vanished, but it became Man (1943) -- were illuminated with even more crucial to find out about cloying and balanced perfection, giving those films and to identify their them a hollow, plastic quality. In intransigent architecture. Hollywood castles, even the shadows zapf.punkt page 6
glow, the dust is fresh, and the cobwebs biting continues, and the midnight sparkle. cravings of scantily clad actresses were slaked in scene after scene, you begin Those iconic Hollywood castles leave to warm to the idea that there is not you totally unprepared when you first actually a sense of righteousness in the lay eyes on Mario Bava's classic La need to stop these beautiful monsters. maschera del demonio [Black Sunday] Rather you get the feeling that it is (1960) where the castle speaks for itself. surrender to their demonic desires that In these Italian pre-giallo horror films, is the whole point of the movie. Maybe we were visiting actual landscapes. this has something to do with the The characters ride horses and centrality of the Church, with the long carriages through real gates, and the sweep of the Dark Ages, and horses are taken into the stables where modernity’s sweeping crisis of faith; you can smell the hay. Mountains drop but whatever it is that unleashed this off into canyons. Stone walls facing the torrent of sensuality and angst... well, sea are lashed with waves and mist. viva Italia! Everything being filmed is half- hidden in shadows, covered in dust, As for the perception of the films in and thrown into relief against the Italy, Roberto Curti provides an swirling chiascuro of a darkening sky. example, for L’ultima preda del vampiro [The Playgirls and the Vampire]: Only many years later did I rediscover these films, such as The Blancheville Monster, The Horrible Doctor Hitchcock, Black Sunday, Diabolique. With their absurd plots, on the surface they seemed to be projecting a typical moral objection to the existence of monsters, vampires, and beastly predators. Their local townspeople were in the habit of taking things incredibly slowly, allowing the bodies to pile up before taking any action. But as the neck- Lyla Rocco in L’ultima preda del vampiro (1960) zapf.punkt page 7
“In Italy, The Playgirls and the This review by the commission’s Vampire passed almost unnoticed. The president is quite a blast! Having censorship commission gave it a VM16 indicted the film for having no artistic rating because ofits macabre subject merit whatsoever, he goes on to say matter and its many shocking scenes, with that it isn’t even scary, so “unskilled only a briefcut in the scene ofthe nude and elementary” that it is like a self- vampire’s nightly visit. parody. The obvious skill of the The commission’s president explained reviewer’s prose, and the humor he the decision at length, in a note to the uses to tear the film apart while at the Ministry ofSpectacle’s undersecretary: same time approving it, suggests that “L’ultima preda del vampiro is a very he might have been a trifle jealous. modest work, devoid ofany artistic merit, Why should someone of his talent be and despite its title, unable to provoke in making a living reviewing such shlock, the viewer the morbid state ofanxiety that while the producers of the shlock made normally characterizes this type of money by cheap exploitation? product. The few scenes that should give thrills make use ofthe usual cumbersome Even so, there is no outrage being ingredients, which are however used in expressed about the castles in Italy such an unskilled and elementary way as being sacrosant, either culturally or to give the film almost a parodic flavor spiritually. It’s almost as if the intrepid compared to the wider genre production. However, the Commission—in view ofthe subject matter’s nature, its gloomy setting and intentionally scary (although poorly made) scenes, and with a few cuts of several shots where a well-determined complacency towards eroticism can be found—has decided not to deny the visa, failing to find any evidence that would justify such a measure. The only valid reason to refuse the visa, ifthat were possible, would be represented by the patent offense to good taste as well as the Barbara Steele Horrible Dr. Hitchchock poster (1962) viewers’ intelligence.” zapf.punkt page 8
producers in Italy realized their opportunity: you don’t need to build sests for spooky castles, just drive for an hour out of Rome in any direction, and there they are! So, it was a lot like driving out to Bronson Canyon in Los Angeles, instant B-movie!
Whether built by kings, such as Carlos V of Spain, by monks, or other powerful people with too much money, The Blanchville Monster (1964) my impression of the Italian castles is that they ended up primarily as private References: mansions. By the time of the renaissance they had sprung up 1. Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957-1969, everywhere, too many of them to by Roberto Curti. McFarland (2015). count. And yet there were a few, of all the possible castles, that became dear to 2. The Playgirls and the Vampire our horror-stricken hearts. (L’ultima preda del vampiro), directed by Piero Regnoli. Film selezione (1960).
- Merrick Lex Berman 3. “Censura” by Mino Argentieri, in the Enciclopedia del Cinema (2003). URL: https:/ / tinyurl.com/ y6bgogxx
from Planet ofthe Vampires (1965), directed by Mario Bava zapf.punkt page 9
On Situationism: One of them was the pamphlet that the an interview with Situationists put out that was calling Derek Murphy for changes to the way that the city of Paris was governed, and in a way that Diamond Bay Radio would put a surprising kind of power Lex Berman interviewed Derek in the hands of regular people. For Murphy on to topics Situationism, example, they talked about putting surrealism, and other approaches to so- dimmer switches on all the street lights called Reality in an hour-long in the city of Paris. And they talked interview, recorded in Cambridge, MA about opening the tunnels of the Metro on 28th Mar 2019. to the public after dark when the trains stopped running, so everyone could MP3: https://tinyurl.com/y5jn5894 just wander through them. And they talked about opening the rooftops as Lex: You mentioned that you well, about creating pathways between encountered Situationism in Greil all the rooftops. So, it was a lot about Marcus' book, Lipstick Traces? directly democratic situations opening up new ways to appreciate a city. Derek: That was how I first heard about Situationism. I started reading Lex: And those really have to do with that book because of the surrealist the transformation of public space. connection, and having heard recommendations about the way he traces the history of radical art movements all the way from Europe in the early 20th century to the London punk scene. In reading that book, I was introduced to both Lettrism and Situationism. I didn't really get what the Situationists were about while reading Lipstick Traces but there were a few things that really captured my imagination. zapf.punkt page 10
This brings in the idea of psycho- Derek: Yeah, that book is hilarious and geography that’s also associated with challenging. The first time I tried to the Situationists. read it I had no real background in Marxism or Marxist literary theory. Derek: That's right, they mentioned an And Debord was a heterodox Marxist, activity they did, where they mapped you wouldn't call him an orthodox all of their travels throughout Paris, Marxist. And I think my impression is drawing a line whenever they went that the Situationists were largely a anywhere, keeping track of the Marxist group. Then, with the 2016 pathways they followed day-to-day election I became politically and over a long course of time. Then radicalized. Before then, I had a they did an analysis of that afterwards. standard, left-of-the-Democratic party position, but I hadn't really Lex: For me, finding out about interrogated it that much. So, after the Situationism would be to pick up a election, when someone as obviously copy of Guy Debord's Society ofthe monstrous and corrupt as Donald Spectacle, and read it, then say: I don't Trump gets elected, you start to know what it means! reconsider whether the institutions of your society are actually functional.
Lex: Yes!
Derek: So I started to get really interested in reading more left theory, not just theory, but also novels like The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin. Which is fantastic! And I did stuff like reading the Communist Manifesto, of course, and the 18th Brumaire ofLouis Bonaparte, and a few other texts. I'm reading Murray Bookchin now, and basically I'm getting a crash course in not just Marxism but also Anarchism Bwana Devil audience at Paramount Theater, Hollywood, 26 Nov 1952. Photo by J.R. Eyerman. (c) Life, Getty Images. zapf.punkt page 11
and other left ideologies. And so, read Marcus and saw how he reading The Society ofthe Spectacle right associated the movements of the now is another step in that self- Situationists with punk rock, I thought education process. I had been of fandom and the punk zines, which interested in Situationism from the had their own intensity of purpose. I artistic point of view, or an art history realized that Marcus was talking about perspective, and now I'm learning the total rejection of the typical more about them from a political authoritarian system. This is a way of ideology perspective. expressing yourself so that you can undermine the mechanisms of society Lex: It ties together for me since I came that are trying to keep you in a box. through Anarchism, and I remember And this is where I came into Colin Ward's Anarchy in Action, which Situationism as a pursuit that I wanted was a really interesting book for me. to know more about. Ward described how, during the dysfunctional period of the Prague Derek: I don't know much about punk Spring -- in between when the government myself. I started to listen to the Sex collapsed and when the tanks rolled in for Pistols, but I wasn't really that the counter-revolution to re-establish the impressed. authoritarian system -- everything functioned. Like all the flour got Lex: I forget what I was writing at one delivered. All the bread loaves got point, something to the effect that every baked. There wasn't any money. punk band would hurl itself into the People sang songs in the streets and fire and self-destruct. That was the helped each other. The bus drivers whole point. You could say there's an drove the buses everywhere and there art to it, but you can only listen to one was no fare! And I was thinking: can side of Melt Banana before your brain... society be like that? So from the age of about sixteen I was always reading Derek: Melts. Anarchists, thinking: they have the answer. Then I was interested in self- Lex: Yeah, disintegrates. education and getting into Situationism on more of a political, radical side, Derek: That kamikaze attitude toward rather than an artistic side. When I having a band. zapf.punkt page 12
a separation that is deeper from Lex: Yeah, that kamikaze aspect has to economic alienation and goes into do with society in crisis. What can you identity, expression, leisure. do in a crisis? You have to save yourself. And maybe that amounts to In closing the interview we also a kamikaze attitude. discussed the feature-length documentary, “Sarasota: Half in Derek: You have to do something. To Dream,” written and directed by reject what exists. Debord talks a lot Derek Murphy (around 46:20). about "separation," which is similar to the Marxist concept of alienation. Lex: You made this really interesting movie about your worldview, which Lex: If I understand it, separation is a combined Situationism with politics, product or reaction to the control of and your childhood, growing up in society, which tries to push you into Sarasota, Florida. It dealt with climate certain specialized channels. So the change and all the issues of the day, situationists would like people to be expressing who you are and where you more flexible as a way to have came from. autonomy and self-determination of their emotions and artistic expressions Derek: That's a good description of it. that weren't separated and alienated It's called "Sarasota: Half in Dream," from everything else. I get the feeling and it's an experimental documentary, that the Situationists want to be like an heavily inspired by the tradition called amoeba that doesn't allow those hard the essay film, and also by the tradition and oppressive determinations to be called the "city symphony." The city made. By any group. Including symphony is often musical, and is a themselves. portrayal of a city at depth, where you can get across the beauty of the city. Derek: Debord talks about separation And the essay film is explaining from class, the product of labor. The something through the film. Often it Situationist view of separation goes will have a narration, which is like beyond just the Marxist definition, to reading an essay, in a way. They've got race, gender, nationality, specialization. a point of view -- personal, political, The Spectacle is something that drives whatever, that they're getting across. zapf.punkt page 13
So that's what I was doing with it. And Lex: And then you play with that. it's about the city of Sarasota, Florida, You're saying: this is how the city which is my home town. What it's like presents itself. Then you're showing: to grow up in a city that is ... well, the this is how the city really is. county it's in has got the highest median age in the country. The only Derek: That's exactly right. The film young people there are the people opens with found footage, a montage growing up there. "It's a good place to of various tourism films from the early raise a kid." Everyone moves out of 20th Century through the 90s maybe. Sarasota when they finish high school. We pick out certain phrases that recur They go to college and they don't come throughout the entire history of media back. representation of the town. It was astonishing some of the stuff we saw in To live in Sarasota in your 20s, is, well... those older films, and the line that stays there's no one there in their 20s. So the same through them. I'm talking basically there is this demographic void about specific phrases, like "thirty-five between age 18 and 40, maybe 45. miles of white sandy beaches" Everything there is oriented around appeared in a film from the 1930s and a serving the interests of old people and film from the 1980s. That exact phrase. wealthy people. It's also an extremely And in all of these films, whenever segregated town, unfortunately. they would talk about Siesta Key There's one black neighborhood in Beach, which is THE beach in the town, and you don't see a person who town...they talk about how white the is not white, outside of the that sand is. Every single time. The purest neighborhood a lot of the time. It's not white sand. The finest white sand. good. There's some very clear subtext here.
Lex: And the beginning of the film is a Lex: How does that reflect on series of promotional ads about the city Situationism? You had some voice- of Sarasota. It's supposed to the be this overs in which you actually talk about very white, safe, golf capital of the Situationism, and you have some world, apparently. poetic comments, such as hypnagogic logic, and I personally clicked on that Derek: Yep. because I like the whole idea of zapf.punkt page 14
hypnagogic states half way between of great, interesting ruins to check out. lucid dreaming and reality... so tell me And there is an aesthetic beauty to it. about how your own Situationist view So I talked about: what are people informed the making of this movie. doing in this golf course? Outside of what they are supposed to do with a Derek: Sure. Basically I try to portray city. It's a different way of interacting what it's like growing up there, when with the city than what you are used to. there is nothing to do, and feeling like you are at the margins. I focus on Lex: So that's Situationist, right there. places that are abandoned in the city. Change the space into something Places that are decaying, and outside different. The function of it. capitalism, in a way. Or left behind by capitalism. Specifically I mention Derek: Exactly, that's where I brought Situationists in the film when talking in the Situationist ideas. The same about an abandoned golf course. I talk thing I talked about earlier, that about the way new uses have been pamphlet they put out, opening up the found for the golf course by the local metro tunnels: finding a new way to community. People walk their dogs interact with the city that anyone can there. The golf course is on the fringe do. There's not really any rules. And of a suburb. You go deep into a there's a beauty in that. suburban cul-de-sac and at the very end is this golf course. So there are all Lex: And it reminds me of J. G. Ballard, these houses directly adjacent to this in the sense that he talked about the huge abandoned field. It's overgrown. built environment, and we're just the The buildings are falling apart. There subjects of some experiment that's are trees growing in the golf greens, going on, of the constant right in the middle of them. It's like a transformation of our physical jungle at this point, which is amazing, environment by powers that seem to be only after about ten years it's grown out of our control. Whether it's due to into a jungle. At first my friends and I industry, or whether it's the way public were there for urban exploration. spaces get consumed and turned into That's a big hobby for younger people something else for private use. And in suburban towns because what else what you're seeing in the abandoned are you going to do? And there's a lot golf course is when it reverts to Nature, zapf.punkt page 15
and there's this thread that runs restricts you from playing music that's through Ballard's books which is the louder than a dishwasher cycle after tension between the desire for society 7pm. So there is no ability to play live to control everything and create these music in that town. And I knew a guy spaces which it dominates with its about my age who got around that by narrative; and the resilience of Nature, renting a storage unit, right outside city or maybe just entropy. It's kind of like limits. So the noise ordinance didn't a deterioration of your mental state, as apply there. He used it as a venue and if your world is converting into would invite people over there. He'd something unnatural and open his own storage unit up where he unexplainable that's gonna devour you! had all the equipment and lights set up, Which is scary, but at the same time, all these laser lights, and he'd play what you're talking about in the film music for them. Sarasota: Half in Dream, where you are going into these abandoned golf Lex: Was that in the film? I saw a courses is something more positive. It's section like that. an act that you can make to convert the world into something that's good for Derek: Yeah, that's in the film. you! The point is: what can you do in an urban space? How can you make it Lex: I was wondering what that was. your own? Because there are all these It didn't look like Sarasota to me. It security guards and police and private looked like Dusseldorf or somewhere, zones that you're not supposed to be in. like a German trance session. So what are you going to do? You have to live there somehow. So how can you Derek: Well, that was a way for young take that space and turn it into a space people to actually have a party with that you're using the way that you music in a place where it's illegal to do want to? I think your film does a really so. It's about finding the margins good job of showing that. where you can express yourself, or to exist outside of the very rigid societal Derek: That was a theme I was really strictures on our behaviour. trying to get across. It wasn't only with the golf course. For example, there's a Watch for free: noise ordinance in the town that http://sarasotamovie.com/ zapf.punkt page 16
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde the unusual stigma: a publication date on the title page that was corrected by hand with pen and ink. (1)
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his classic tale of a split personality at Bournemouth, in his usual state of high strung nervousness. It is said that the story originated in a dream -- a nightmare -- and was improved based on suggestions from Stevenson's wife, Fanny Osbourne.
While in Bournemouth, the Stevensons were visited by the young painter, John Singer Sargent, who captured them in a famous portrait. In that painting, Stevenson is pacing madly around -- his habit while writing or thinking -- and Fannie sits casually on a couch,
Mort Kunstler cover painting from Classics wearing an Indian sari. (2) Illustrated, #33 (1953).
Although the original publication date of Strange Case ofDr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is listed as 1886, apparently it was actually published in an edition of 3000 copies in December of 1885. The booksellers, it seems, would not take a chance on that title until after the Christmas rush had died down, and after it had been reviewed by the Times. Subsequently, the Strange Case ofDr Jekyll and Mr Hyde went on sale in January of 1886. The first edition had Stevenson and his wife by John Singer Sargent, (1885). zapf.punkt page 17
The book became a sensation in London, and its popularity attracted impresarios to take on the dual role of the scientist and his bestial alter ego. Interestingly, the world premiere of the first Jekyll and Hyde adaption for the stage was held in Boston, in 1887, with a book written Thomas Russell Sullivan. One thing about that Sullivan fellow: well, far out 'stache, brother!
Sullivan was actually recruited to the task by the actor Richard Mansfield, who became well-known for his portrayal of the over-zealous Doctor and the wild killer inside him. (3) Mansfield as Jekyll and Hyde publicity photo by Henry Van der Weyde, taken in London. Only three days after the show opened at London's Lyceum Theatre, (in those days managed by none other than The first film production of Jekyll and Bram Stoker), Martha Tabram was Hyde featured King Baggot (1913) found murdered in Whitechapel of whose transformation scene made use London's East End. This was the first of of early cross-fade technique, and was a series of murders that later became the first Universal Studios horror film. associated with Jack the Ripper. In 1920, no less than three film So convincing was the performance of adaptions of Jekyll and Hyde appeared Richard Mansfield, as he transformed on the silver screen. Two of them were from the earnest physician, Dr. Jekyll, produced in Hollywood, including into the madman, Mr. Hyde, that Paramount's iconic version starring people suspected him of being the real John Barrymore. murderer. (4) He went on to reprise the role many times over the next twenty years. zapf.punkt page 18
John Barrymore as Hyde (1920)
As if Jekyll and Hyde's Self--Other internal conflict and its overtones of split personality was not enough fodder for the big screen, other film El Hijo del Dr. Jekyll (1951) adaptions were later spawned from the And let us not forget the crazy storyline. For example, the weird Hammer Films mash-up from 1971, Dr. classic The Son ofDr. Jekyll (1951), with Jekyll and Sister Hyde, where the story Louis Hayward. gets mixed together with the Ripper murders, along with another historical In this version, the intrepid son must case of grave-robberies that occurred pick up where his father left off, after more than half a century earlier. having been tossed out the academy for his occult practices. Amidst plenty In Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, the Doctor of unconvincing tinkering around with procures fresh cadavers, (supplied by flasks of smoking and bubbling the time-out-of-joint murderers Burke beverages, there are some more realistic and Hare). Jekyll extracts hormones images of the Doctor's nervous fingers from the corpses and mixes them into tapping out measures of white powder his fearsome potion, which then has a on little squares of paper, followed by double effect: turning him into a wild sudden bursts of anger and agression, beast, and changing his gender to such as swatting a whole rack of glass female. Martine Beswick starred as vials off his workbench. zapf.punkt page 19
Sister Hyde, in what can only be considered as the moment when cinema progressed from transvestite to trans-gender roles.
-- Merrick Lex Berman
Frederic March with the potion (1931).
References:
"The Double Life of Robert Louis Stevenson" by Marogt Livesey, in The Atlantic (Nov 1994)
Henry van der Weyde studio ("The Van der Weyde Light") was located at 182 Regent Street, London.
"Richard Mansfield was so good at playing Jekyll & Hyde, people thought he could be Jack the Ripper" by Goran Blazeski, (Oct 16, 2016)
Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Hammer Films (1971). zapf.punkt page 20
A Tragedy of Errors at Notre Dame
Notre Dame: the sky is in flames. We have gone completely blind to reality. Instead, we stare, nodding, and The fabled symbol of Paris, Notre fall asleep at computer screens. We rely Dame Cathedral, flared up into a on AI and real-time algorithms to alert towering inferno, sending up a heaving us to our situation. mass of smoke to fill the evening sky. After 800 years, the magnificent oak Yet how ridiculous. Big data crunching beams of the great Cathedral ceiling is no substitute for awareness. This is went up like matchsticks. how civilizations are lost.
The disconnect between the present We have not got the forests of oak trees and the past could not be more any more. We have not got the artisans palpable than this! While we monitor to hew them into beams. dials and sensors, we no longer know how to smell smoke, or how to pay And we have lost Gene Wolfe, too, like attention to the actual space around us! a stake through the heart of fantasy. [email protected]
Please send your articles, art, letters of comment, Russian caravan tea, and ideas to Zapf.punkt for our next issue, scheduled for Autumn Equinox 2019.