The Wonderful World of William Castle
Competing with a growing television audience, filmmakers in the 1950's had to entice viewers into seeing their films. Trailers were the ticket! The worse the film, the greater need for an effective trailer. Of the best promoters of his directing and producing work,
William Castle looms over all others.
"William Schloss was born in New York City. Schloss means "castle" in German, and William Castle probably chose to translate his surname into English to avoid the discrimination often encountered by Jewish entertainers of his time. He spent most of his teenage years working on Broadway in a number of jobs. He left for Hollywood at the age of 23, going on to direct his first film when he was 29. He also worked an as assistant to Orson Welles, doing much of the location work for Welles' noir film,
The Lady from Shanghai."
Castle was famous for directing low budget B-films with many overly promoted gimmicks. Five of these were scripted by adventure novelist
Robb White.
After a long career, William Castle died of a heart attack in Los Angeles in 1977.
His films include:
Macabre (1958): A certificate for a $1,000 life insurance policy from Lloyd's of London was given to each customer in case he/she should die of fright during the film. Showings also had fake nurses stationed in the lobbies and hearses parked outside the theater.
Utube clip: Macabre:
House on Haunted Hill (1959): Filmed in "Emergo". An inflatable glow in the dark skeleton attached to a wire floated over the audience during the final moments of some showings of the film to parallel the action on the screen when a skeleton arose from a vat of acid and pursued the villainous wife of Vincent Price. The gimmick did not always instill fright; sometimes the skeleton became a target for some audience members who hurled candy boxes, soda cups or any other objects at hand at the skeleton.
The Tingler (1959): Filmed in "Percepto". Some seats in theatres showing
the Tingler were equipped with larger versions of the hand-held joy buzzers attached to the underside of the seats. When the Tingler in the film attacked the audience the buzzers were activated as a voice encouraged the real audience to "Scream - scream for your lives."
13 Ghosts (1960): Filmed in "Illusion-O". A hand held ghost viewer/remover with strips of red and blue cellophane was given out to use during certain segments of the film. By looking through either the red or blue cellophane the audience was able to either see or remove the ghosts if they were too frightening.
13 Ghosts.
Homicidal (1961): This film contained a "
Fright break" with a 45 second timer overlaid over the film's climax as the heroine approached a house harboring a sadistic killer. A voiceover advised the audience of the time remaining in which they could leave the theatre and receive a full refund if they were too frightened to see the remainder of the film. About 1% demanded refunds, but were subjected to demasculation and called "cowards".
Homicidal clip.
Mr. Sardonicus (1961): The audiences were allowed to vote in a "punishment poll" during the climax of the film - Castle appears on screen to explain to the audience their options. Each member of the audience was given a card with a glow in the dark thumb they could hold either up or down to decide if Mr. Sardonicus would be cured or die during the end of the film. Supposedly, no audience ever offered mercy so the alternate ending was never screened.
Zotz! (1962): Each patron was given a "Magic" (gold colored plastic) coin which looked nice, but did absolutely nothing.
Strait-Jacket (1964): Castle had cardboard axes made and handed out to patrons. This film, by the way, starred Oscar winner (not for this film) Joan Crawford -
Mommy Dearest herself.
I Saw What You Did (1965): Seat belts were installed to keep patrons from being jolted from their chairs in fright.
Other film trailers from William Castle:
The Old Dark House (designed by Charles Addams: the illustrator/writer who created "The Addams Family")
The Night Walker
Let's Kill Uncle
Thirteen Frightened Girls
William Castle acted as producer to Roman Polanski's direction of:
Rosemary's Baby The film remains one of the most artistic Castle productions ever made.
Today (1st period), after viewing and learning about William Castle, please join a film group of 1-6 people. Once you have a group, please complete the following tasks today in the lab.
A. Choose a member of your group to be a producer. You may select a second person to be the assistant producer. The producer(s) will select and assign roles to the rest of the film crew.
It is ultimately the producer's job to make sure the film is completed on time and is made by the deadline. No deadline has been chosen just yet, but it will be your final film for the year.
B. The producer should hear the group pitch ideas. Go around your group and TAKING TURNS, throw out ideas for a film that you could shoot for your final project. Try ideas in different genres and styles. The producer should just LISTEN and record ideas that he/she likes best. Keep pitching ideas until there are no more ideas from the group. The producer should choose the best idea from the list. The producer has final say on what ideas get turned into a script for the movie.
C. The producer should assign 1-3 writers to work on a 1-page treatment. WRITERS should write the treatment and be prepared to share it with the group by next class.
D. The producer should select the following roles for a film crew:
- a director
- an assistant director (to take over if the director is absent)
- a cinematographer or director of photography
- a primary or head writer
- writing assistant(s)
The producer, director, and cinematographer should help the writer write the shooting script for the treatment. The script should be between 5-10 pages at most. Remember that you will need to constrain or limit your idea to a SHORT FILM. This is not the epic, high budget film you might have written for your previous screen play project.
In summary:
Before the end of class today, please complete the following
--Choose a producer (or producers)
--Choose a writer and/or an assistant to create a 1-page treatment
If you have time, complete the following as well:
--Producer should choose a director
--Producer should choose a cinematographer (director of photography)
HOMEWORK: Complete the 1-page treatment for next class.
