039 - Rondo Hatton: The Pearl of Death / House of Horrors / The Brute Man

Episode 039 - Rondo Hatton: The Pearl of Death (1944) / House of Horrors (1946) / The Brute Man (1946)

 

 

NOTES, SOURCES, & FURTHER READING

For an overview of Universal Horror in general, the bible remains Tom Weaver, Michael Brunas, and John Brunas’ Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 1931-1946 (second edition, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2007)

For more on the workings of Universal during the Classical Hollywood era, we recommend chapters 1, 6, 13, 18, and 23 of Thomas Schatz’s The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era (1988)

Very few scholars have devoted much ink to Rondo Hatton over the years.  Aside from the Weaver/Brunas/Brunas tome, our main source of information on the reluctant thespian has been Cory Legassic’s ‘“The Perfect Neanderthal Man”: Rondo Hatton as The Creeper and the Cultural Economy of 1940s B-Films’ in Recovering 1940s Horror Cinema: Traces of a Lost Decade (Lexington Books, 2015).

For more on Martin Kosleck, consult Harry M. Benshoff’s Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the horror film (Manchester University Press, 1997).  There’s not much there, but the quality of the information surpasses its brevity.

James O’Neill’s Terror on Tape (Billboard Books, 1994) includes capsule reviews of The Pearl of Death and The Brute Man, but inexplicably omits House of Horrors despite mentioning it in the other reviews.

John Stanley’s Creature Features: The Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Movie Guide (updated edition, Berkley Boulevard, 2000) includes capsule reviews of all three Creeper films discussed in this episode.

 

Intro Music: The Pearl of Death Main Titles by Paul Sawtell

Outro Music: The Bute Man Main Titles