:32:02
Mr and Mrs Newman's moans
were dubbed in later
:32:04
to lessen the official body count.
:32:07
Perhaps they aren't dead yet,
but, in Monty Python fashion,
:32:10
are feeling much better after the dissolve.
:32:33
The Gypsy camp was added
during reshoots in April
:32:36
to bridge the deletions in the village.
:32:38
Maurice Black plays the Gypsy man,
and Elspeth Dudgeon is his sour mother.
:32:42
She's made up to evoke Eva Moore's
crusty matriarch in The Old Dark House.
:32:47
Elspeth also appeared in that film -
billed as John Dudgeon -
:32:50
as the 102-year-old family patriarch.
:32:52
Whale used her again
in Show Boat and The Great Garrick.
:32:55
She is memorable as the titular villain
:32:57
in a loony 1938 horror comedy
for Warner Bros, Sh/ The Octopus.
:33:02
Elspeth played the octopus,
not the imperative,
:33:05
and her transformation
as the grandmother from hell
:33:07
was an unsung high point
of '30s horror movies.
:33:30
In a sequence inspired by Shelley's novel,
:33:32
the monster finds refuge
with a blind hermit.
:33:35
Whale had shut the picture down
February 19th to March 2nd, 1935,
:33:39
waiting for OP Heggie
to finish a picture at RKO Radio Pictures.
:33:44
Whale was on dangerous ground here -
with the censor and the audience.
:33:48
One false step, and this
delicately charged material
:33:51
could explode
into maudlin sentimentality,
:33:53
ecclesiastical heresies
or baggy-pants burlesque.
:33:56
The integrity of this performance
from Heggie was crucial,