INSIDER INFO (Bride of the Monster) - BEHIND THE SCENES
In 1952 Alex Gordon returned with Lugosi from England, where the Hungarian actor had toured in a stage play of Dracula. The tour was a financial failure, and Lugosi and his wife were stranded. To earn enough money to return to America, Gordon arranged for Lugosi to star in the low-budget British picture, Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952).
Returning from England, Gordon initially showed his script for The Atomic Monster to Realart Pictures. They passed on producing the script, but they "borrowed" the title for a 1953 re-issue of Lon Chaney, Jr.'s Universal film Man Made Monster (1941).
Alex Gordon's roommate at the time was would-be Hollywood writer-director Edward D. Wood, Jr. Ed Wood was also a friend and admirer of Lugosi's; he cast the actor in his bizarre 1953 autobiographical semi-documentary about transvestitism, Glen or Glenda.
Gordon gave the Atomic story to Wood to re-write. The new script was called Bride of the Atom. This new script was turned down by Monogram, a low-rung "Poverty Row" Hollywood studio.
Alex Gordon left for a tour of Europe with a new client, cowboy star Gene Autry, so Ed Wood decided to raise the financing for Bride of the Atom himself and direct it as an independent film.
Wood tried to secure financing for his film by casting lead roles with actors that he felt had strong financial connections. The female lead was given to a would-be actress named Loretta King, because Wood mistakenly believed she had $60,000 to invest in the picture.
Wood's girlfriend at the time, Dolores Fuller, had been promised the female lead, but was relegated to a walk-on part in the film after Wood gave Loretta King the leading role. Fuller had played the lead in Wood's previous films Jail Bait (1954) and Glen or Glenda.
Tony McCoy was cast in the male lead role, primarily because his father, Arizona entrepreneur Donald E. McCoy, was the owner of Packing Service Corp. (a meat packing concern), and was a major investor in the film.
Wood wrote a part in the script for his friend Paul Marco. Marco's agent lived on Kelton Avenue in Los Angeles, so Marco's character, a bumbling police patrolman, was given the name Kelton. Marco went on to play "Kelton the Cop" in two subsequent Wood pictures, Plan 9 from Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls (both 1959).
Wood began shooting Bride of the Atom in October, 1954 on a tiny soundstage in Los Angeles called Ted Allan Studios. He ran out of money after just three days and had to shut down production.
One of Wood's actors, George Becwar, resented the delays in shooting and reported Wood to the Screen Actors Guild. (In spite of this, Wood's work on the film would ultimately earn him membership in the Director's Union).
One of the backers of Bride of the Atom, Donald McCoy, ultimately funded the rest of Wood's picture. Wood had to give up his ownership of the film, though. All Ed Wood eventually received from Bride of the Monster was his director salary, which amounted to $350.
New film owner Donald McCoy also insisted that the movie end with an atomic explosion. Wood gladly complied, dipping into his bag of stock footage to come up with the nonsensical ending shot.
Filming resumed in March of 1955. At this time Lugosi demanded, and was given, a raise in his salary – from $750 to $1000.
The atomic ray machine in Dr. Vornoff's laboratory is played by a photo enlarger hung from a rolling microphone stand.
The much-discussed monster of the film, an octopus, is actualized by Wood in two different ways. In most shots it is seen via stock footage of a real octopus. Wood needed a monster to interact with actors too, so he and other crew members "appropriated" a mechanical octopus that had been used in the John Wayne film Wake of the Red Witch (1948). The prop was stored hanging from the ceiling in a warehouse at Republic Pictures. Accounts vary, but a motor that provided movement to the prop was either broken or left behind. Wires were attached to some tentacles during filming to provide limited (though jerky) movement.
The exteriors showing the "monster" grappling with its victims were shot on a cold night in Griffith Park. Wood and his crew created a four-foot deep "lake" by damming a small stream running through the park. After filming, the crew dismantled the dam and accidentally flooded a nearby golf course.
Throughout the film, Janet (Loretta King) incongruously drives an old 1938 Chevy sedan. Wood may have been intending to match some stock footage, but none is evident in the film.
Loretta King got a strange reputation on the set by refusing liquids. Some claimed that her fear was that she would put on weight for the camera. Others recalled that it was a mania, and that she actually became dehydrated. Wood himself said, "You would touch [her skin] and it would stay there. She was solid white. Any liquid she would immediately throw up." Lugosi feared that her skin would dry out and crack like a Mummy.
Bela Lugosi was nervous about delivering his lengthy "I have no home" speech in the film – it was a lot of dialogue to remember. The speech was written out on cue cards, but when it came time to film, Lugosi refused the cards and delivered the lines from memory. When he was finished, the crew burst into spontaneous applause.
Paul Marco later reported that Lugosi got through the filming only because of what Lugosi called his "medicine" – self-injected doses of Morphine.
Wood gave Lugosi some elaborate scenes of hypnosis to perform, because he admired the way Lugosi used his hands in the film White Zombie (1932), and wanted to include the same movements in his movie.
Sources:
imagesjournal.com/issue09
Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood Jr. by Rudolph Grey
AFI
The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film
Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Flashbacks: Conversations with 24 Actors, Writers, Producers and Directors from the Golden Age by Tom Weaver
The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi by Arthur Lennig
It Came From Weaver Five by Tom Weaver
The Horror People by John Brosnan
The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror by David J. Skal Video Watchdog
Psychotronic Magazine
Compiled by John M. Miller
