Going thru my old monster magazine editions that I probably purchased in my teens I came across a half dozen issues of Monsters of The Movies. Cool covers! Much like the many issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland. Turns out this is a “Stan Lee Presents” project which is clearly explained in the editorial message on pagers 4 thru 7 including an introduction to the magazine’s Chief Editor, Jim Harmon.
Now on to the featured articles that one could sink their teeth.
Cover boy, King Kong, gets the very first article which sends us back in time to Merian C. Cooper dreaming up the story of Kong and his tragic journey to New York.
Moving on there’s a very good interview with author Jeff Rice who actually penned the original novel The Kolchak Papers which wound up in the hands of famed writer Richard Matheson who wrote the screenplay for Dan Curtis and ultimately became one of the highest rated TV Movies ever. The interview covers the backstory of just how Rice’s unpublished novel became the classic vampire movie which turned me into a lifelong Darren McGavin fan thanks to his performance as the nosey reporter and modern day vampire hunter, Carl Kolchak.
Keeping horror fans in the news there are some brief comments and a two page spread of photos from not one but two Hammer Film releases on there way to a cinema near you, Captain Kronos : Vampire Hunter and Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell.
Under the Monsterscope banner that covers movies in production readers can learn that George Pal has bought the rights to the Doc Savage novels and Ron Ely is set to star. (I wonder who owns the rights nowadays?) Only one film ever got off the ground so the planned series proved a bust. Peter Cushing is off to Hong Kong to film The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires for Hammer. Mel Brooks is directing a new comedy, Young Frankenstein. Something called Tender Dracula by way of France is also in production. (Still never seen this rare Cushing title).
Also in this segment a film titled Nine For Dinner is discussed as if it’s already “in the can.” I can’t find out anything at the IMDB about it but the article points out it’s very akin to the old Karloff thriller The Man They Could Not Hang. A mystery production lost to time?
Christopher Lee is mentioned as a possible star/producer of a new movie taken from a book titled Bugged! I though this may have turned out to be Bug that starred Bradford Dillman but the writers of the projects don’t match. AIP is about to release Sugar Hill. A film I just watched for the first time last month and loved it.
Peter Sellers is reported to have signed on to film The Ghost In the Noonday Sun. A film which never saw the light of day and was recently the focal point of a documentary about Sellers and the ill fated production titled The Ghost of Peter Sellers.
Some upcoming Ray Dennis Steckler features include Terror at Girl’s Ranch and Bog People. I’m not sure either film was actually made/finished.
What’s a horror themed 70’s magazine without a feature dedicated to Boris Karloff? It’s an article/interview which Dear Boris gave on the set of The Raven back in 1963 to the writer, Ron Haydock.
Editor Jim Harmon relates the history of Monsters on the Radio as he looks back at the heyday of radio programs that delivered thrills and chills to families gathered around the radio in the comfort of their homes long before television took over.
I associate Stan Lee with comics so it only stands to reason that there would be a tale of terror included within the pages of the Monsters of the Movies debut.
“The Dracula Rip-Offs” by Donald F. Glut. I know that name! That’s the guy that wrote The Dracula Book. One of my earliest memories of borrowing a book from the library dedicated to the history of vampire films. Years later I acquired a copy for myself. The article serves as a prelude to the release of the “forthcoming” The Dracula Book and covers many of cinema’s vampire pretenders including Count Mora, Armond Tessla, Count Lavud and Blacula.
Back to the cover boy, King Kong, to wrap up the June 1974 edition in an article similar to the Dracula one that preceded it. It’s a tribute to the “Sons of Kong.” Among them Might Joe Young and of course 1933’s Son of Kong. Not to be overlooked are Toho’s contributions to the Kong brand name. So you can expect some comments on King Kong vs. Godzilla and one of my favorite Toho efforts outside of the Godzilla Universe, King Kong Escapes.
Surprisingly there were no pages at the end of the magazine dedicated to mail order products like posters, books, models and masks. Along with the pages dedicated to upcoming movie productions and releases (many of which never see the light of day) these advertisements are sometimes the most fun one can have looking back through the dusty newsprint pages.
That’s it for June. See you with next month’s selection.
Mike's Take On the Movies 
There used to be a shop in St Martin’s Lane in central London, in between Covent Garden and Leicester Square that used to sell these kind of mags and the owner would start to get a bit snippy if he was guessing you were actually reading the mags rather than buying them. Often they had glossy covers but were just awful newsprint inside. Great to see you delving further into your collection.
No loitering kiddies! That’s exactly what many of them were. Glossy on the outside with gorgeous artwork but heavy on the ink and newsprint on the inside.
I didn’t mind the newsprint because this was stuff you didn’t get in mainstream mags.
Interesting that so many movies in this issue are listed as in-production or in the process of being made, and then they just…disappear. Makes you wonder just how many films overall fell to the wayside in just one month’s or one year’s time. I always think about the last Hitchcock film that went into production (or pre-production), and then sadly never saw the light of day.
And I got kinda excited about that Jeff Rice novel featuring Kolchak, and I was eager to track it down…oh, UNpublished. Damn!
I love to find those upcoming production notes in old magazines. The great “what ifs” lost to movie history. There are Kolchak stories out there as I have a couple myself. I have two volumes of short stories that make for light reading.