50 Fun Facts About Universal Classic Monsters

Which actor was billed only as a question mark in the opening credits of Universal's Frankenstein (1931)?

Boris Karloff's teasing "?" billing worked so well that Universal repeated the trick in 1935, crediting the Monster's bride the same way.

Which Hungarian-born actor played Count Dracula on Broadway before starring in Universal's 1931 film?

Bela Lugosi had the luck to be in Los Angeles with a touring company of the play just as Universal was casting, and won the part over several other actors.

What is the name of Henry Frankenstein's hunchbacked lab assistant in Universal's 1931 film Frankenstein?

Fritz is the original, played by Dwight Frye; the better-known Ygor is a broken-necked blacksmith who only arrived in Son of Frankenstein (1939).

Which future Western star made his uncredited screen debut as a lab technician in Revenge of the Creature (1955)?

Clint Eastwood turns up in the sequel that hauls the captured Gill-man out of the jungle and into an oceanarium tank for study.

The 1922 opening of which pharaoh's tomb inspired Universal to make The Mummy a decade later?

Tutankhamun's tomb had been covered for a New York newspaper by John L. Balderston, the former journalist Universal then hired to write the script.

Which actress played both the Monster's mate and author Mary Shelley in Bride of Frankenstein (1935)?

Elsa Lanchester had followed her husband, Charles Laughton, to Hollywood with only moderate success, and had gone home to Britain alone when the offer of the double role reached her.

Which 1960s sitcom was allowed to copy Universal's copyrighted flat-headed Monster design for its bumbling dad?

The Munsters could give Herman the famous flat head and neck bolts because Universal co-produced the show and owned the look.

Which comedy duo met Dracula, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's Monster in a 1948 Universal horror spoof?

Abbott and Costello were among Universal's most powerful stars, and the hit sent them on to meet the Invisible Man and the Mummy in later comedies.

Scientists in Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) find the Gill-man while exploring which great river?

The Amazon suited a story that grew out of a South American legend about a race of half-fish, half-human beings living in its waters.

What does Frankenstein's Monster fear above all in the Universal films, a weakness his tormentor exploits in 1931?

Fire first panics him when the lab assistant waves a flaming torch in his face, and the village mob later uses it to trap him inside a burning windmill.

Which actor is the only one to have played the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy and Dracula for Universal?

Lon Chaney Jr. was born Creighton Chaney, and Universal insisted on billing him under the name of his famous late parent, a giant of silent cinema.

Universal's 1933 film The Invisible Man was adapted from an 1897 novel by which science-fiction pioneer?

H. G. Wells sold Universal the rights for $10,000 but insisted on approving the script, and he turned down at least one draft.

Which star of the 2017 reboot of The Mummy was meant to launch Universal's short-lived Dark Universe?

Tom Cruise's film drew such poor reviews and box office that Universal shelved the whole slate, starting with a planned Bride of Frankenstein.

In The Wolf Man (1941), Larry Talbot buys a walking stick whose wolf's-head handle is made of which metal?

Silver seals his fate: the cane Larry buys as an excuse to chat to a shop girl is the very weapon that later strikes him down as a werewolf.

In Dracula (1931), which visitor to the castle becomes the Count's servant, obsessed with eating flies and spiders?

Renfield went to Dwight Frye, even though the actor who had played the part on Broadway wanted to repeat it on screen.

Which English director made Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein for Universal in the 1930s?

James Whale chose Frankenstein mostly because none of the studio's other properties interested him and he wanted to make something other than a war picture.

In Bride of Frankenstein (1935), who befriends the Monster in a forest hut and teaches him his first words?

A blind hermit thanks God for sending him a friend, and the director halted filming for ten days until the actor he wanted for the part was free.

Universal shot a second Dracula in 1931 at night on the same sets, with a different cast speaking which language?

Spanish audiences got Carlos Villarías as the Count, in a night-shift version long thought lost until a print was discovered in the 1970s.

Which Universal make-up chief created the Monster's flat-topped head in 1931 and later the Wolf Man's fur?

Jack Pierce was out of a job in the 1940s once Universal decided it wanted the famous Westmore name, and Bud Westmore ran the department for the next twenty years.

In The Wolf Man (1941), Larry Talbot returns to bury his brother at the family's ancestral home in which country?

Wales is the setting, in the invented village of Llanwelly, where Larry also hopes to make peace with his estranged parent, Sir John.

What is the name of the ancient Egyptian high priest who returns to life in Universal's The Mummy (1932)?

Imhotep took his name from a real architect of ancient Egypt, a choice made by the screenwriter who moved the story there.

In the make-up designed for Frankenstein (1931), the famous "bolts" on the Monster's neck are meant to be what?

Electrodes carry the electricity that revives the stitched-up corpse, which is why they sit on either side of the neck.

In Frankenstein (1931), what do the Monster and little Maria toss into the water during their fateful game?

Flowers run out, so the Monster throws the girl in instead and accidentally drowns her. State censor boards cut the second half of the scene in 1931.

In The Wolf Man (1941), which symbol does a werewolf see on the palm of his next victim?

A pentagram first appears when a fortune-teller reads a village girl's palm and frantically sends her away. The mark was made up for the film, not taken from folklore.

In Frankenstein (1931), what does the assistant bring back after ruining the healthy specimen he was sent to steal?

A criminal's brain ends up in the Monster, lifted from the same medical lecture room where the good one was dropped.

How was the black-and-white Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) originally shot and shown in big-city theaters?

In 3-D, with polarized glasses, is how large downtown theaters ran it. The fad was already fading by 1954, so many smaller houses showed the Gill-man flat.

Which British stage actor made his American film debut as the bandaged lead in The Invisible Man (1933)?

Claude Rains had just failed a screen test for another studio; by some accounts his voice carried into the next room and won him the part.

In The Mummy (1932), what punishment did the high priest suffer for trying to raise his dead princess?

Buried alive is what the archaeologists work out: the mummy's organs were never removed, and it shows signs of a struggle inside the wrappings.

At the end of The Invisible Man (1933), police shoot the fleeing Griffin after spotting his footprints in what?

Snow gives him away after he is driven out of the barn where he was sleeping. The effects crew made the prints appear by letting it drop through foot-shaped holes cut in a hidden board.

The towering hairstyle worn by the Monster's mate in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) was based on which Egyptian queen?

Nefertiti was the model for the Bride's hair, the part of her look on which the director gave the make-up department the strongest steer.

Universal's 1935 werewolf feature starring Henry Hull was called Werewolf of which city?

London is where a botanist bitten in Tibet finally turns wolf, in what is counted as the first feature-length werewolf film.

Universal's Stage 28 was built to hold a replica of which city's opera house for The Phantom of the Opera (1925)?

Paris's opera house had to be rebuilt strong enough for hundreds of extras, which made Stage 28 the first soundstage with steel girders set in concrete.

Which medium turned Universal's old monster films into a 1957 craze through a 52-film package called Shock Theater?

Television stations usually ran the package late at night at weekends, and in many cities a costumed horror host introduced each film.

The underwater scenes in Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) were shot in the clear springs of which US state?

Florida's Wakulla Springs hosted the second unit, where a specialist swimmer played the Gill-man while a different actor wore the suit on land.

The fur glued to the star's face for The Wolf Man (1941) came from which animal?

A yak supplied the hair, which was glued on in layers during a make-up session of five to six hours, with another hour needed to remove it.

Which sinister scientist pushes Henry Frankenstein into building a mate for the Monster in Bride of Frankenstein (1935)?

Dr. Pretorius, Henry's former mentor, wins him over by showing off a collection of tiny homunculi he has grown himself.

Which actor played Henry Frankenstein, the Monster's obsessed creator, in both Frankenstein (1931) and its 1935 sequel?

Colin Clive died in 1937, so the third film in the series was made without him and handed the family experiments on to Henry's son.

In Dracula (1931), which English property does the Count lease, next door to Dr. Seward's sanatorium?

Carfax Abbey is the film's own name for the place: in Bram Stoker's novel the property is simply called Carfax.

In Universal's 1940s Mummy sequels, a brew made from which sacred plant keeps the shambling mummy going?

Tana leaves are dosed by the moon: the fluid of three must be given to the mummy during each full-moon cycle, and the same plant was sealed in his tomb.

Which work by Tchaikovsky supplies the music heard over the opening credits of Universal's Dracula (1931)?

Swan Lake stood in because no score was ever composed for the film, and Universal reused the same excerpt a year later for The Mummy.

Gloria Stuart, the fiancée in The Invisible Man (1933), was cast at 86 in which James Cameron blockbuster?

Titanic cast her as the 100-year-old elder Rose, a return to mainstream cinema that came 64 years after she played Flora Cranley for Universal.

Who strikes the fatal blows on the werewolf at the climax of The Wolf Man (1941), unaware of who it really is?

His own father, Sir John, clubs the beast down with a cane and then watches in horror as the body turns back into his son.

Milicent Patrick, who designed the Gill-man's face for Universal in 1954, began as an animator at which studio?

Walt Disney's former animator was the main designer of the head and face, yet her department boss downplayed her role and took sole credit for half a century.

Which ancient text, read aloud by a young archaeologist, brings the mummy back to life in The Mummy (1932)?

The Scroll of Thoth was invented by the screenwriter, and the assistant who reads it out laughs hysterically as the mummy shuffles off with it.

Which star of The Invisible Man Returns (1940) voiced an unseen cameo to end Universal's 1948 monster spoof?

Vincent Price is heard but never seen in the closing boat gag, which the producer added to the ending a week into shooting.

Which production chief, still in his early twenties, oversaw Universal's Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931?

Carl Laemmle Jr. had the ending of Frankenstein changed so that Universal could bring its key characters back in later productions.

Which future Gunsmoke bartender played Frankenstein's Monster in three Universal films of the 1940s?

Glenn Strange got the part when Universal's make-up chief, preparing him for an action film, noticed that his features and 6'4" height suited the Monster.

Which cinematographer of Dracula (1931) directed The Mummy a year later and went on to shoot I Love Lucy?

Karl Freund had already photographed Metropolis in Germany, and The Mummy was his first film in the United States as a director.

Which screenwriter of The Wolf Man (1941) invented its supposedly ancient werewolf poem and much of the lore?

Curt Siodmak's verse is widely mistaken for a real legend. The Dresden-born writer had left Germany after hearing an anti-Semitic tirade by the Nazi propaganda minister.

Which fictional drug turns Griffin invisible, and slowly insane, in Universal's The Invisible Man (1933)?

Monocane's madness was the screenwriter's addition to the story, and the novel's author, who had script approval, signed off on the change.