Paul Blaisdell, Monster Maker: A Biography of the B Movie Makeup and Special Effects Artist

by Randy Palmer

  Dr. Lombardi (Chester Morris) places Andrea (Marla English) in a hypnotic trance in The She-Creature. The backdrop behind the actors contains surrealistic designs which presumably are there to telegraph Lombardi’s occult powers.

  Soon Lombardi hits the big time with syndicated newspaper columns, live auditorium performances, and a best-selling book, The True Story of Elizabeth Wetherby. Chappel, who has slowly grown to dislike Lombardi, asks the hypnotist to vacate his premises. When Lombardi refuses, Chappel insults him. “You’re very foolish to say those things to me,” Lombardi warns him.

  The following evening, following a failed attempt to kill Erickson by mentally controlling Chappel’s dog, Lombardi puts on another demonstration for the house guests. Once again he regresses Andrea to her primordial state, and once again the She-Creature walks. Lt. James, stationed on the beach, sees the scaly monstrosity materialize right in front of him. Before he can escape, the creature slays him with one of its hooked, razor-edged claws, then makes its way to Chappel’s office, where it kills him as well. Under Lombardi’s command, it returns to Andrea’s side, where it finds Erickson waiting. Gloating in triumph, Lombardi orders the creature to kill Erickson. The lethal claws are raised high in the air, but at the last moment the creature hesitates, then turns and strikes Lombardi instead. During a surreal moment, the She-Creature gazes down at its future body, then leaves to return to the ocean and the past.

  Dr. Erickson (Lance Fuller) futilely attempts to rouse Andrea (Marla English) from the hypnotic trance in which Lombardi has placed her in The She-Creature. Marla English was thought by many to resemble Elizabeth Taylor, which undoutedly delighted Sam Arkoff and Jim Nicholson.

  With his last breath, Lombardi releases Andrea from her mental prison. “You couldn’t kill the man you loved,” he acknowledges in defeat, falling lifelessly at her side. With the monster lost forever to the past, Andrea wakes one final time and leaves to take up a new life with Erickson.

  Rusoff’s script for The She-Creature included several scenes calling upon its title monster to perform actions that no AIP monster had ever performed before. Although its actual screen time would be minimal, the actions required by the script meant that the creature costume was going to have to be pretty durable.

  With that in mind, Paul Blaisdell began working on ideas for the physical appearance of the She-Creature. It was important to keep the preliminary sketches of the beast feminine in appearance—or at least as feminine as possible within the context of something that was totally inhuman. To that end, Blaisdell designed the look of the creature using as few straight lines and as many curves as possible, which helped to magnify the suggestion of femininity. Some of his earliest sketches included tentaclelike arms (which actually showed up in a preliminary AIP poster design), but Blaisdell abandoned that approach when he realized such an effect would be too difficult to pull off realistically. In the end, over 100 sketches of the creature’s anatomy were made before everyone was completely satisfied with the design.

  The She-Creature lumbers away after clawing to death its latest victim in a scene cut from the final print. Look closely and you’ll notice several strands of the monster’s “hair” (actually plastic tubing) that have unravelled and are hanging down the front of the suit. The prone figure on the beach is Ron Randell (courtesy of Fred Olen Ray).

  As he had with Marty the Mutant, Blaisdell began the monster-making process with an ordinary pair of long johns. Since this monster came from the depths of the ocean as well as the beginning of time, Blaisdell wanted to give its flesh the look of a dried seabed. He and Jackie began sectioning blocks of foam rubber that would be arranged in a jigsawlike design. No two pieces had exactly the same shape. Each of these “scales” measured between one and three inches thick and was bonded to the long johns using contact bond cement.

  During the climax of The She-Creature, the monster threatens Dr. Erickson (Lance Fuller) as Lombardi (Chester Morris) looks on approvingly. Since this scene was filmed from chest-height, Blaisdell wore the cumbersome lifters which added over 12 inches to his height.

  In the center of the abdomen, Blaisdell constructed what he called the She-Creature’s “lunch hooks.” These outsized claws or teeth were carved from soft pine, coated with layers of liquid latex and allowed to dry. The latex was then slit up the back, stuffed with cotton, and bonded to the costume directly. Although there was nothing in the script about them, Blaisdell thought the lunch hooks broke up the monotony of the jigsaw design and made his monster look even more formidable. By simply exercising his stomach muscles in the tight-fitting costume, Blaisdell could make the lunch hooks close and open up again—the idea being that this monster could disembowel its victims if it wanted.

  Contact sheet from The She-Creature. Left column, top to bottom: (1) Marla English and Lance Fuller seem oblivious to the unidentified crew member inspecting part of the rock outcropping behind them. (2) Dr. Carlo Lombardi (Chester Morris) and “King,” the canine he can hypnotically control. (3) Director Eddie Cahn (with pipe) consults with another crew member during location filming at Paradise Cove. (4) Marla English awaiting the acting call during a break in the filming.

  Middle column, top to bottom: (5) (6) and (7) which are printed in reverse order. The monster (Blaisdell) approaches Lt. James (Ron Randell) and strikes him dead. (8) Chester Morris in character as Dr. Lombardi.

  Right column, top to bottom: (9) The creature materializes in the waters of the Pacific. (10) The monster buddies up to an unidentified friend during the location shoot. (11) and (12) The monster lumbers off after killing Lt. James. Photo (11) plainly shows loose strands of She-Creature “hair” (plastic tubing) which are swinging outward as Paul Blaisdell makes his way across the beach.

  On the back of the costume, Blaisdell arranged twin columns of “armored plates” made of foam rubber. Since entry into the costume was effected by an industrial-size zipper that ran the length of the spine, the plates were not merely decorative, but also served to hide the zipper. Each plate was fashioned separately and coated with latex rubber which was colored by hand. Highlights were airbrushed onto each plate to give them a ribbed appearance, suggestive of waves breaking against the seashore. Once Paul was zipped into the costume, the dual columns of plates were pushed together and fastened in place with small metal snaps.

  A long “prehistoric tail” was added to the costume at the suggestion of the film’s director, Eddie Cahn. The tail, which continued the jigsaw design of the creature, was assembled from chunks of foam rubber trimmed to shape. Its complete flexibility allowed it to be rigged on the film set, if desired, so that it could slap wildly back and forth. Unfortunately, in the finished film the tail simply drags along behind the monster because Cahn was in too much of a hurry to bother setting up the effect.

  For the She-Creature’s claws, Blaisdell used a pair of thick welder’s gloves which were first painted black and then covered with foam rubber pieces that followed the jigsaw pattern of the body. Once all the pieces were in place, the black paint between each piece helped to highlight the pattern and give the claws a sense of depth. A long, curved hook was added to the tip of each glove to suggest a razor-sharp claw. The hook was carved from white pine, attached to the material with contact bond cement, coated with latex, and painted. Because the script required the monster to break through a wooden doorway, Blaisdell screwed small plywood panels directly into the pine talons to give the monster gauntlets the necessary stability to perform the scene. To avoid embarrassing and potentially dangerous accidents, the plywood panels were removed for scenes with live actors.

  Blaisdell’s most popular creation, the She-Creature (1956), was built up from over 70 lbs. of foam rubber and latex. The bony protuberances on her elbows, claws, knees, and heels were carved out of white pine. The “lunch hooks” in the creature’s abdomen were also made from pine. Using his stomach muscles, Blaisdell could make the lunch hooks open and close, but director Edward L. Cahn never utilized the effect in the
movie.

  This location photograph from The She-Creature nicely captures details barely seen in the finished film, including the bony hooks on the back of the heels, the double row of dorsal fins, and the tail that could have (and should have) “slammed and slapped to and fro,” if only director Eddie Cahn had taken time to rig the effect.

  To create the huge, double-toed, feet Paul used the kind of “swim-fins” normally worn by deep-sea divers. Individual pieces of block foam, covered with latex and painted, were bonded to the fins in the jigsaw pattern, and a pine-sculpted hook on the back of the heel completed the effect. The finished swim-fin feet were able to completely hide a pair of low-cut sneakers that Blaisdell wore during the filming.

  To make his monster appear bigger on-screen, Blaisdell added extra foam padding to the shoulder areas. Breasts, also made from pieces of block foam, were glued to the front of the suit. (When the director saw them, he said they weren’t big enough, so Blaisdell returned to his workshop and gave the She-Creature Dolly Parton–size boobs.) In addition, rudimentary wings were attached to the back of the shoulders. The wings were made from a wire frame and several coatings of liquid latex. Six-inch “claws” made by the pine/latex method were added to the elbows and kneecaps to help conceal the foam’s tendency to crease when the suit was being worn.

  Work on the She-Creature headpiece began with one of Blaisdell’s “blanks,” created by painting numerous layers of latex over the bust previously made by Jackie. Using small pieces of block foam, Blaisdell gave the head its catlike shape and feline features. He used larger strips of foam to add depth and some slight protrusions around the cheekbone area. When the features were exactly the way he wanted them, Blaisdell covered the entire head with more layers of liquid latex. He bought several yards of plastic tubing to use for the creature’s hair. The tubing was bonded to the top of the headpiece and allowed to hang loose at the neck. By tangling up the loose ends, Blaisdell was able to make it stay in place. (Most of the time. Once in a while during the filming a few of the tubes would come loose. There are several stills in existence showing one or two long strands of “hair” hanging down the front of the costume.)

  The She-Creature’s ears ran from the jowl line to the top of the head. Paul sculpted each ear in clay, then coated the resultant positive mold with multiple layers of liquid latex. After carefully removing the dried latex from the mold, the ears were spray-painted and bonded into place on the headpiece. The monster’s four antennae, designed to suggest a cat’s whiskers, were made from twelve-inch long candles. Blaisdell would first heat a candle until it became soft and pliable, then bend it to the desired shape. A kind of notched design was pressed into the wax, which was set aside and allowed to harden. Several layers of liquid latex were later painted over the candles. When the latex dried, it was carefully removed and stuffed with cotton and wire so the antennae would maintain its shape. These were later airbrushed and bonded to the headpiece with contact cement.

  Blaisdell obtained black plastic from the Frye Plastics Company to create the She-Creature’s unusual eyes. Vertical slits were cut into the plastic to enable him to see. The pupils were hand-painted, and a thin line of sequins was added around each iris so that the eyes would glitter in the sunlight during location photography.

  The fangs came, once again, from a local novelty store. In this instance Blaisdell used two sets of “vampire fangs,” cut in half and glued together backwards to make one long row of teeth with a single long canine on either end. Once the teeth were glued in place and all the other features were exactly as he wanted them, Blaisdell texturized the latex skin and added pores to the cheekbones using a tiny metal hammer he had purchased especially for that purpose.

  The final accoutrement to the costume was a circular finlike projection that attached to the headpiece just below the chin. It was made from latex rubber over a wire frame and helped conceal the place where the headpiece fit onto the body suit.

  Although the She-Creature has been erroneously described as a crustacean, it was really supposed to be a deep-sea mammal. The source of the confusion is a promotional lobbycard from the film which depicts a lobster-red creature costume, but this is nothing more than a colorized black-and-white photograph. (Most lobbycards from 1950s films were colorized.) In fact, Paul gave the costume a green/green-blue color scheme with black and white trim. The armor plating along the back was light green with dark highlights. The “lunch hooks” were white trim on black, and each of the claws was ivory with a hint of brown trim. The lips were given pale pink highlights. Blaisdell christened his lady-fiend “Cuddles.” The completed costume weighed in at a cumbersome 72 pounds.

  There was not enough money in the budget to create a watertight costume which could be submerged for underwater photography as in Universal’s Creature from the Black Lagoon, so Cuddles was neither watertight nor waterproof. She was, as Paul explained, water-resilient. “In other words, she’s able to cope with it,” he said. For the one shot in the film where the monster would be seen emerging from the ocean, this would be good enough, or so he thought.

  Blaisdell took pride in his work on the She-Creature costume. He believed it was not only his best-looking creation, but the most durable and the most functional. It had taken nearly eight weeks to complete, twice as long as Day the World Ended’s three-eyed mutant and two weeks longer than It Conquered the World’s mushroom monster. In fact, the costume was made well enough to survive the rigors of making not only The She-Creature, but three other American-International films in which it appeared, as well as a 1956 television special. As Blaisdell later noted:

  The way I designed The She-Creature, she could do anything the script said she would have to do, and more. She could eat, she could sleep, she could drink, she could smoke. She could borrow a cigarette from you, inhale it and blow smoke out of her nose. She could eat a ham sandwich, she could drink a bottle of Coke or sip a cup of coffee. And in spite of how clumsy her claws appear to be, she could pick a handkerchief out of your pocket. It was probably the most comfortable suit you could wear and stay in for a couple of hours. These were things I built into her to make her more lifelike.

  Several years before The She-Creature was made, Paul and Jackie had met Bob Burns and his wife Kathy at a science-fiction convention in Los Angeles. Both couples attended the convention mainly to hear Ray Bradbury talk about his work on Moby Dick and a brand new film called The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. During a break in the festivities, the Blaisdells and Burnses began talking, and Paul mentioned that he was working on a low-budget movie called The Beast with a Million Eyes. He invited Bob and Kathy up to his Topanga Canyon workshop, and before long the Burnses were making regular pilgrimages every weekend. They became fast friends, and during Paul’s stint on The She-Creature, Bob Burns made himself available to help out in whatever way he could.

  The night Blaisdell finished the She-Creature and first tried the costume on, Burns was there. He took a series of slides, some in 3-D, that showed off the costume’s best attributes. They shot a roll of 35mm film on and around Paul’s property, then walked to the nearest street that snaked through lonely Topanga Canyon.

  Blaisdell felt like having a little prankish fun. “Listen, Bob, I’ve got an idea,” he whispered from inside the creature costume. “You hide behind these bushes, and I’ll hide over there, and when we hear a car coming up the canyon, I’ll jump out and give the driver a little scare.”

  The road was not very heavily traveled, and it took a few minutes before they heard the sound of an approaching auto. “Get ready,” Burns said from his hiding place. “I can see the headlights coming up over the hill.” Blaisdell waited for just the right moment to be sure the driver would see him; then he sprang across the road in full She-Creature regalia as the car’s headlights reflected off the costume. He leaped behind a bush and waited, listening breathlessly. Sure enough, the sound of squealing brakes sliced through the chilly night air. The car skidded to a stop about 20 feet up the road. After
a moment, it began backing up. Then it stopped.

  From his hidden vantage point, Burns watched to see if anybody would get out of the car. It was too dark to see inside, but he had the feeling the driver was alone. And probably by this time pretty freaked out.

  Blaisdell refused to come out of the bushes. He couldn’t see what was going on, but by listening to the car’s engine he could pretty well guess that the driver had backed up to see what kind of hideous apparition was lying in the road. After a moment of silence, with no further reaction from his victim, Blaisdell decided to peek over the top of the brush.

  The car was stopped right in front of him, and somebody was staring out the driver’s side window.

  Burns couldn’t see his pal peering over the foliage, but he figured that Paul must have come out of hiding because suddenly the car’s tires began burning rubber as the driver hit the gas to high-tail it out of there. As Burns said later, “Whoever it was probably had a pretty good tale to tell at the local bar, if he made it that far. I just hope we didn’t give him a heart attack.”

  Blaisdell didn’t normally terrorize the neighborhood populace with his Hollywood monsters, but he did have a tremendous sense of humor and enjoyed playing around at home with the costumes and props he made for American International and other film companies. Jackie often posed for gag shots with Paul while he was decked out in his monster regalia. Bob Burns would take photos of their antics with his 35mm camera and use the negatives to produce greeting cards which Paul and Jackie sent to their friends at Christmas and on other holidays.