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

by Randy Palmer

  Porter: They can’t all be dead! N-not the girl, not Albino!

  The Fiend: Ha-ha-ha! They’re destroyed. You have to face it. Speaking of facing it, I’m about to perform a small experiment of my own. Ever since I lost my face I’ve waited for a chance to find another. Sorry I can’t offer you any anesthetic, but time is short, you know.

  Porter: You mean you want to steal my face?

  The Fiend: Well, I prefer to think of it as a little face lifting job. Now, now … where did I put my meat cleaver … oh, yes! Here we are! Now then—oof! What the—? I almost tripped over that vine. Drat it, that jungle stuff gets in everywhere…. Hey! The vine seems to be crawling up my leg! By Jove, it’s a boa constrictor! Fancy that! I must say that—urph! Gasp! Ch-choke! Cough! Hack! Gasp! Unnnngh.

  Albino: Good work, snakey-dear, you saved this poor helpless jerk from the Faceless Fiend. There. I’ll set you free, buster.

  Porter: Ahh, thanks. B-but how did you escape?

  Albino: I went through the same trap door the Faceless Fiend dragged you through. Pa nor any of the others made it. Now I have nobody left but Snakey.

  Porter: You-you’re an orphan. I’ll have to take care of you.

  Albino: You couldn’t—ooh! Save me, save me!

  Porter: Uh, what?

  Albino: That mouse, that mouse!

  Porter: Hmm? Oh, oh yes. Back, you mouse! Get back there! Ah. See? He’s gone. Now, back in civilization you’re more likely to run into a mouse than you are a lion or tiger or boa constrictor.

  Albino: I-I guess you’re right. I do need you to take care of me.

  Porter: Yeah, yeah, only … I think I’m going to have to find a new job when I get back. My editor is never going to believe this story. You know, with Dr. Nork gone, P. J. Flushing is going to need a new writer for his comic books. And after all this, I think I’ve got just the experience for the job.

  Music swells as they walk into the sunset.

  “One Summer Night”

  The BARG group performed a creepy little scenario with a punch ending entitled “One Summer Night.” Jim Harmon brought it to the attention of the group members, who agreed it should be performed and recorded. Unfortunately, I have been unable to determine whether Harmon wrote “One Summer Night” or if he merely found it in a short-story collection or heard about it from someone else. The Saki-style ending doesn’t come across quite as well in print as it does in the radio play, but at any rate it’s an enjoyable little skit that’s worth repeating here.

  The Man in the Coffin (Paul Blaisdell): The fact that I was buried does not seem to me to convince me that I am dead. I’ve always been a hard man to convince. The rainwater dripping onto my nose is unquestionably real; I cannot deny the testimony of my senses that I am actually buried in a coffin in a grave. I am flat on my back, my hands crossed on my stomach, tied with some string that I can break easily, although it does not seem to profitably alter my situation. I’m still in strict confinement, wrapped in black darkness and profound silence, except the occasional drip of water. All in all, the situation is inescapable: I have been buried alive. I’m not dead, just ill. Very, very ill. No doubt everything will work out, if I just get some rest, gather my strength and wits. Musn’t waste my time just lying here thinking idle thoughts. Must get right to sleep. Sleep, aahhh …

  Narrator (Ron Haydock): All is peace with Henry Armstrong in his grave. But something was going on overhead. It was a dark summer night, with a full wind blowing the cold rain during a lull in the thunderstorm. This distant lightning brought out the ghastly distinctness, the monuments, the headstones of the cemetery, and seemed to set them dancing. It was not a night in which any creditable witness was likely to be straying about a cemetery. So the three men who were there, digging into the grave of Henry Armstrong, felt reasonably secure. Two of them were young students from the medical college a few miles away. Talbot Lawrence is digging down into the grave. Pretty hard work, isn’t it?

  Talbot (Bob Burns): Y-yes, but—umph!—it’s going to be worth all the work—urgh!—to get that body. Never enough of ‘em to go around. I’ve got a theory that … that … no, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it. No, not until I can write up my paper for the journal.

  Narrator: Mr. Lawrence doesn’t want to talk. The other student, striking an orange glow to his cigarette as he leans on his shovel, is R. G. Junior Gordon. He always likes to talk.

  R.G. (Ron Haydock): I’ve got plans, big plans. And I’m not gonna let a few crummy exam points stop me. Once I get this body I can catch up on those lectures I missed, and then … then there are a lot of things a doctor can do that an ordinary man can’t. There are all sorts of possibilities. Why, I could tell you—

  Narrator: Yes, he could tell us endlessly. He has many plans. He will never realize any of them. This third man is Jess, a man of all work about the cemetery. Jess has only a few plans, but nothing will stop him from carrying them out. Jess knows people.

  Jess (Zeke Lapein): I knows people. I knows ehhh-very soul in this here place. Heh-heh-heh. Ha-ha-ha-ha! AH-HA-HA-HA!

  Later, after the men have uncovered the coffin …

  Talbot: Take it easy with that coffin, Jess. I don’t want the bones to get all broken up.

  Jess: Jis stand clear. Outta my way, now! Umph! Now I’ll get me to work on these here lid screws.

  Squeak, Squeak!

  Talbot: Did you hitch the horse up good? I don’t want to be stranded out here.

  Jess: Here comes dat old lid….

  Cre-e-e-e-a-a-a-k-k!

  Jess: Ah! Here be yer body, all laid out nice in a white shurt an’ blek pants.

  Talbot: Aughh! H-he’s sitting up!

  The Man in the Coffin: Arrrhhh … umph! Oh, hello!

  Talbot: Aaaaaaaah!

  R.G.: Oh my God!

  Jess: Aieeee!

  Later …

  Narrator: Gray morning. Grayer faces on Lawrence and Gordon as they pass a horse and white wagon and enter the dissecting room of their college. Are you still sure you saw it, Mr. Lawrence?

  Talbot: I saw it, I tell you!

  R.G.: That’s right, I did, too! And—oh, here comes Jess!

  Jess: Howdy, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Lawrence.

  Talbot: Is that your wagon out front?

  Jess: Yassah.

  Talbot: And that’s your shovel in the corner?

  Jess: Yassah.

  Talbot: Well, what are you doing here?

  Jess: I was waitin’ for you to pay me fer th’ merchandise.

  R.G.: Lawrence, that shovel … look! That isn’t rain, or r-rust, it’s … it’s … oh my God!

  Jess: Heh-heh-heh.

  “The Specimen’’

  Lastly, here is a piece of light-hearted fiction written by Paul Blaisdell. This whimsical slice of sci-fi first appeared in Fantastic Monsters #3. The BARG radio troupe changed Paul’s title to “Scouting Party” and performed their own version of the story, but it was still the same tale with relatively few changes. Below is the text of the original version.

  Somewhere across the city, a church bell sleepily tolled the hour of midnight as the two strangely attired figures moved silently throught the puddles of moonlight in the littered alley.

  “This planet’s atmosphere is choking me, Zilnik!” hissed the heavier of the two. “Let us return to the spaceship for atmosphere suits.’’

  “There is no time, Gilno,” breathed the other. “We must capture our specimen and go as quickly as possible before an alarm is given.’’

  “Then here is our chance,” whispered Gilno. “I sense an Earthman less than fifty zats away. Quietly now; and if we can’t take him by force, use your weapon.’’

  Mike crouched against the warm bricks of the factory near the mouth of the alley, and reflected bitterly on the passing thundershower that had soaked his coat, and left him shivering in the chill night air.

  The soft rustle of clothing barely warned him in time as he ducked, and spun to face his sha
dowy assailant.

  A blunt object thudded into the wall he’d been leaning against as he lashed out savagely with his hairy fist, burying it in his opponent’s stomach. A chopping right cut off a groan of pain in mid-air, and the figure crashed into a pile of boxes six feet away.

  Mike let out a grunt of surprise as he straightened, and a second assailant landed heavily on his back. Lunging forward, he sent the figure flying over his shoulder in the direction of the first, then turned and ran for the mouth of the alley and safety.

  He never saw Zilnik rise painfully to his feet and level a flowing rod at his retreating back, but he felt the shock as the purple ray splashed over him in a shower of irridescent sparks and his brain sank slowly into oblivion….

  It was sometime later, when the silver spaceship flashed past the orbit of the moon, that Zilnik limped painfully into the control room, gingerly feeling his discolored third eye with one of his intermediate tentacles. With a sigh, he eased himself onto the pneumatic cushions.

  “Gilno, I had no idea that the Earthmen fought so savagely,” he wheezed. “Even now, when we have him safely in a cage, it frightens me to look at him. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to communicate with him.”

  It was with visible effort that Zilnik forced himself to stand squarely in front of Mike’s cage. Drawing himself up to his full sixteen inch height, he pointed to himself and pronounced his name slowly in his native tongue.

  But the only answer he received was the cold unwinking stare of a pair of luminous eyes. Eyes that belonged to Mike, the toughest, scrappiest alley cat in Flagstaff, Arizona!

  Memories of these creative sessions at Topanga Caynon remain strong for Bob Burns:

  I remember how Paul used to come up with these crazy ideas for things to do while [Kathy and I] were up there [in Topanga]. One time I did a Frankenstein monster makeup on myself, and Paul made himself up as Dracula, and we did a thing called “The Girl Who Sold Dracula’s Castle,” which was a story told entirely with photographic slides. We’d do tons of stuff like that, and all sorts of funny things that Paul would come up with. When he started to whistle—not a tune, but just a kind of whistle that seemed to say “I may look innocent, but I’ve got a trick or two up my sleeve”—he’d give me this look, and that meant his brain was clicking away. He would walk from one side of the room to the other, and from one room to the other, opening up all these drawers and doors and cabinets, and he’d start dragging all these things out, things that he’d think how to use on the spur of the moment to create a funny gag or a story or something like that. Now when I listen to some of these tapes we used to make, it reminds me of the fun we used to have, and how much I miss it. It’s very bittersweet. It’s fun to hear them, yet it kind of hurts. I guess it’s just something I’m never going to get over.”

  Filmography

  The Amazing Colossal Man (1957). An American International release of a Bert I. Gordon production. Produced and directed by Bert I. Gordon; screenplay by Mark Hanna and Bert I. Gordon; director of photography—Joe Biroc; production supervisor—Jack R. Berne; film editor—Ronald Sinclair; special technical effects—Bert I. Gordon; music—Albert Glasser; assistant to the producer—Henry Schrage; assistant technical effects—Flora M. Gordon; assistant director—Jack R. Berne; second assistant director—Nate D. Slott; property master—James Harris; production designer—Bill Glasgow; sound editor—Josef von Stroheim; set decorator—Glen Daniels; makeup artist —Bob Schiffer; men’s costumer—Bob Richards; sound recorder—Jack Solomon; hair stylist—Joan St. Oegger; chief set electrician—Joe Edessa; music editor—Lloyd Young. Running time: 81 minutes.

  Cast: Glen Langan (Lt. Col. Glenn Manning), Cathy Downs (Carol Forrest), William Hudson (Dr. Paul Lindstrom), James Seay (Col. Hallock), Larry Thor (Dr. Eric Coulter), Russ Bender (Richard Kingman), Lyn Osborne (Sgt. Taylor), Diana Darain (Typist), William Hughes (Control Officer), Jack Kosslyn (Lt. in Briefing Room), Jean Moorehead (Girl in Bath), Jimmy Cross (Sgt. at Reception Desk), Hank Patterson (Henry), Frank Jenks (Delivery Man), Harry Raybould (Army Guard at Gate), Scott Peters (Sgt. Lee Carter), Myron Cook (Capt. Thomas), Michael Harris (Police Lt. Keller), Bill Cassady (Lt. Peterson), Dick Nelson (Sgt. Hanson), Edmund Cobb (Dr. McDermott), Judd Holdren (Robert Allen), Paul Hahn (Attendant), June Jocelyn (Nurse), Stanley Lachman (Lt. Kline), Keith Heatherington (uncredited).

  Attack of the Puppet People (aka The Fantastic Puppet People 1958). An American International release. Produced and directed by Bert I. Gordon. Screenplay by George Worthing Yates. Story by Bert I. Gordon. Director of photography—Ernest Laszlo; editorial supervisor—Ronald Sinclair; production supervisor—Jack R. Berne; special technical effects—Bert I. Gordon; music composer and conductor—Albert Glasser; title song “You’re My Living Doll,” music by Albert Glasser and Don Ferris, lyrics by Henry Schrage; singer—Marlene Willis; assistant to the producer—Henry Schrage; assistant technical effects—Flora M. Gordon; assistant director—Jack R. Berdel; second assistant director—Maurice Lessay; set designer—Walter Keller; production coordinator—Jack Diamond; associate editor—Paul Wittenberg; men’s costumer—Chuck Arico; ladies’ costumer—Pauline Lewis; makeup artist—Phillip Scheer; hair stylist—Key Shea; chief set electrician—Roy Roberts; property master—Walter Veady; sound recorder—Frank Webster; set director—Jack Mills; special devices—Charles Duncan; key grip—Buzz Gibson; sound effects editor—Edgar Zone; special designs—Paul and Jackie Blaisdell; script supervisor—Judy Hart. Running time: 78 minutes.

  Cast: John Agar (Bob Westley), John Hoyt (Mr. Franz), June Kenney (Sally Reynolds), Michael Mark (Emil), Laurie Mitchell (Georgia), Jack Kosslyn (Sgt. Patterson), Scott Peters (Mac), Jean Moorhead (Janet), Ken Miller (Stan), Susan Gordon (Agnes), Marlene Willie (Laurie), June Jocelyn (Brownie Leader), Hank Peterson (Doorman), Hal Bogart (Mailman), Bill Giorgio (Janitor), Jaime Forster (Ernie), Troy Patterson (Elevator Operator), George Diestel (Switchboard Operator), Mark Lowell (Salesman).

  The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955). An American Releasing Corp. presentation of a David Kramarsky production; produced and directed by David Kramarsky; screenplay by Tom Filer; associate producer—Charles Hanawalt; assistant director—Donald Myers; film editor—Jack Killefer; music—John Bickford; technical director—Sheldon Mitchell; art director—Albert Ruddy; special effects—Paul Blaisdell. Running time: 78 minutes.

  Cast: Paul Birch (Allan Kelly), Lorna Thayer (Carol Kelly), Dona Cole (Dandy Kelly), Richard Sargeant (Larry), Leonard Tarver (Him), Chester Conklin (Old Man Webber), Bruce Whitmore (uncredited).

  Cat Girl (1957). An American International Pictures release. Produced by Herbert Smith; directed by Alfred Shaughnessy; executive producer—Peter Rogers; director of photography—Peter Hennessy; production designer—Jack Stevens; art director—Eric Sawr; editor—Jocelyn Jackson; production manager—John W. Green; camera operator—Paddy A’Hearne; assistant director—William Hill; sound recordist—Len Page; continuity—Olga Brooks; make-up—Philip Leakey; hairdressing—Nina Broe; wardrobe—Vi Murray. Running time: 79 minutes.

  Cast: Barbara Shelley (Lemora), Robert Ayres (Dr. Marlowe), Kay Callard (Dorothy Marlowe), Paddy Webster (Cathy), Ernest Milton (Edmund), Jack May (Richard), Lilly Kann (Anna), John Lee (Allan), John Watson (Roberts), Martin Body (Cafferty), Selma Vaz Dias (Nurse), John Baker (Male Nurse), Geoffrey Tyrrell (Caretaker), Frank Atkinson (Guard).

  Day the World Ended (1956). An American Releasing Corp. release. A James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff presentation. Produced and directed by Roger Corman. Original story and screenplay by Lou Rusoff. Music—Ronald Stein; “The S.F. Blues” solo by Pete Candoli; executive producer—Alex Gordon; photography—Jock Feindel; production supervisor—Bart Carré; film editor—Ronald Sinclair; sound—Jean Speak; special effects—Paul Blaisdell; makeup—Steven Clensos; wardrobe—Gertrude Reade; set decorator—Harold Rief; property master—Karl Brainard; key grip—Charles Hanawalt; script supervisor—Barbara Bohrer. Running time: 78 minutes.

  Cast: Ric
hard Denning (Rick), Lori Nelson (Louise Maddison), Paul Birch (Captain Jim Maddison), “Touch” Connors (Tony Lamont), Adele Jergens (Ruby), Raymond Hatton (Pete), Paul Dubov (Radek), Jonathan Haze (Contaminated Man), Paul Blaisdell (the Mutant).

  The Spider (aka Earth vs. the Spider 1958). A James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff Production. Produced and directed by Bert I. Gordon. Story by Bert I. Gordon. Screenplay by Laszlo Gorog and George Worthing Yates. Special technical effects—Bert I. Gordon; director of photography—Jack Marta; editorial supervisor—Ronald Sinclair; production supervisor—Marty Moss; music composer and conductor—Albert Glasser; assistant producer—Henry Schrage; assistant technical effects—Flora M. Gordon; assistant directors—Marty Moss and John W. Rogers; set designer—Walter Keller; script supervisor—Elayne Garnet; assistant editor—Paul Wittenberg; costumer—Marge Corso; makeup artist—Allan Snyder; hair stylist—Kay Shea; chief set electrician—Cal Maehl; property master—Jim Harris; sound recorder—Al Overton; set decorator—Bill Calvert; special devices—Thol Simonson; key grip—Del Nodine; sound effects editor—Bruce Schoengarth; special designs—Paul and Jackie Blaisdell; spider handler—Jim Dannaldson. Running time: 72 minutes.

  Cast: Ed Kemmer (Mr. Kingman), June Kenny (Carol Flynn), Gene Persson (Mike Simpson), Gene Roth (Sheriff Cagle), Hal Torey (Mr. Simpson), June Jocelyn (Mrs. Flynn), Jack Kosslyn (Mr. Fraser), Sally Fraser (Helen Kingman), Mickey Finn (Mr. Haskel), Hank Patterson (Janitor), Troy Patterson (Joe), Skip Young (Sam), Bill Giorgio (Sanders), Howard Wright (Jake), Bob Garnet (Pest Control Man), Shirley Falls (Switchboard Operator), Bob Tetrick (Dave), George Stanley (Man in Cavern), Merritt Stone (Mr. Flynn), Nancy Kilgas (Dancer), David Tomack (Foreman).

  From Hell It Came (1957). An Allied Artists Pictures Corp. presentation of a Milner Bros. Production. Produced by Jack Milner. Directed by Dan Milner. Screenplay by Richard Bernstein. Story by Richard Bernstein and Jack Milner. Associate producers—Richard Bernstein and Byron Roberts; music composer and conductor—Darrell Calker; director of photography—Brydon Baker; art director—Rudi Feld; film editor—Jack Milner; production supervisor—Byron Roberts; assistant director—Johnny Greenwald; set decorator—Morris Hoffman; wardrobe—Frank Delmar; property—Ted Mossman; script supervisor—M.E. Gibsone; recorder—Frank Webster, Sr.; makeup artist—Harry Thomas; hair stylist—Carla Hadley; special effects—James H. Donnelly. Running time: 78 minutes.