Friday, 17 February 2017

Film You May Have Missed (#11)

Mad Monster Party (1967)


A stop-motion –musical-comedy animated feature created by Harvey Kurtzman who founded the great comic/magazine ‘Mad’ back in the early 1950’s. 

The film features the voice of Boris Karloff (or William Henry Pratt as he was christened in East Dulwich) and Phyllis Diller (American comedienne) in a story that tells of a gathering of monsters (Dracula, The Invisible Man, The Werewolf, The Mummy, The Monster, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde etc.) called by Baron Frankenstein (Karloff) to announce his retirement and his successor.

Phyllis Diller does the voice of the Monster’s Mate, Gale Garnett plays Francesca but all the other voices are done by Allen Swift, including a Peter Lorre impersonation that is spot-on. Swift was an actor but worked mainly as a voice artist during a career that lasted from 1947 to 2002.

 

The creatures are designed by the legendary cartoonist Jack Davis who, as well as working on Mad Magazine for many years, also did quite a few movie posters (‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’, ‘The Russians are Coming The Russians are Coming’, ‘The Producers’, ‘Bananas’ etc.), comic strips, advertising copy, book covers, Time and Life Magazine covers, record covers etc.

The poster shown above is not by Jack Davis but by famous ‘fantasy’ artist Frank Frazetta. Quite how he got involved I don’t know.

‘Mad Monster Party’ is good fun for all the family (from 8 to 80).


No comments:

Post a Comment