First Date. Awkward.

On this day in 1935, the horror film classic starring Boris Karloff and Elsa Lancaster, Bride of Frankenstein, the sequel to Frankenstein, premiered in Chicago, Portland, and San Francisco. Arguably the best of the two films. Though a classic in its own right, Mel Brooks essentially destroyed the impact of this film forever after the release of Young Frankenstein.

Reel Character Series

 

Evelyn Ankers (1918-1985) was a British-American actress who made over fifty films between 1936 and 1950. She often played a cultured young lady in the early American horror films, in particular, The Wolf Man (1941), The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), and The Mad Ghoul (1943). She soon became the "Queen of The Scream." Her B-movie credits continued with forgettable films such as Jungle Woman (1944), the lead role in a murder mystery, The Fatal Witness (1945), a passenger in the crime drama, Flight to Nowhere (1946), and opposite Gerald Mohr in, The Lone Wolf in London (1947). She appeared in the [unintentionally amusing] crime noir, Parole, Inc. in 1948.

Another notable bit of trivia is that Ankers married the respectable B-movie actor, Richard Denning, in 1942. The couple starred together in Black Beauty (1946). Her transition to television in the 1950s offered her a variety of roles, most notably as a guest star on Denning's show, Mr. & Mrs. North (1952), as the feisty Constance Noble. The couple again starred together in the film short, No Greater Love (1960) and it would become her last role. They remained devoted to each other until her death. 

House of Horrors (1946)

 

On this date in 1946, House of Horrors had its US premiere. The most notable stars were Robert Lowry and Virginia Grey who were [over] shadowed by Rondo Hatton as "The Creeper." A struggling sculptor saves Hatton from drowning, taking the disfigured man into his care. The artist makes him the subject of his next sculpture but critics denigrate his work so he plans to eliminate any differing opinions by having the Creeper attempt to kill them all. The artist's unfaithful behavior does not sit well with Hatton for his final comeuppance. The lightning coming from The Creeper's eyes is offered only for the gullible.

Though normal-appearing when he was young, Hatton's unusual facial features developed during the early 1920s, the result of acromegaly, a syndrome caused by a disorder of the pituitary gland. Though he acted occasionally in the 1930s, his most unique place period was in the 1940's horror films under shadowy lighting. The film's release was about a month after Hatton's death by a heart attack due to his condition. It was his next to the last film.