RKO Radio Pictures Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films, 1929-1956 by Michael R. Pitts

Author:Michael R. Pitts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2015-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

Lobby card for The Monkey’s Paw (1933).

Monkey’s Paw publicity claimed that the film’s property boy, Ted Burton, who was in charge of the title talisman, handled it only wearing gloves because he did not want to touch the charm with his bare hands. Allegedly the film’s cast took this as a compliment: “It proved they had been able to make the story real to at least one member of their first-hand audience.”

“The Monkey’s Paw” was initially staged as a one-act play in London in 1903 (a year after the Jacobs story was published), with Cyril Maude and Lena Ashwell. Louis N. Parker’s play based on the story was produced in 1922. Between those years, in 1915, the first of a trio of British films entitled The Monkey’s Paw, a three-reel production starring John Lawson, was released by Magnet. In 1923 a six-reel British feature of the story starred Moore Marriott and Marie Ault. Twenty-five years later (1948) a third British version was issued by Butchers headlining Milton Rosmer and Meg Jenkins. The tale was reworked as Espiritismo for a 1961 Mexican film that was shown on U.S. TV in a dubbed version called Spiritism. The Jacobs story was also the basis for the segment “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” in the 1973 anthology Tales That Witness Madness, a British production issued in the U.S. by Paramount. Short films of The Monkey’s Paw came out in 1978, starring Herb Graham and Evelyn Coffman; in 2003 from Tribal Film Entertainment with Chris Perrons and Sylvia Mains; and in 2012 from Lewisworks Studios starring Josh Burns and Rosemary Gearheart. A 2013 feature from TMP films headlined Stephen Lang and C.J. Thomson.

There have been a number of radio adaptations of “The Monkey’s Paw,” including episodes of Favorite Story, broadcast September 18, 1948; two CBC Radio productions, Mystery Theatre (1966) and Nightfall (July 11, 1980); Fear on Four (September 22, 2007); New Radio Theatre (February 6, 2011); and Christopher Lee’s Fireside Tales on BBC (December 30, 2011).

“The Monkey’s Paw” was an early broadcast on British television, first in 1938 with Olive Walters and Nigel Stock. On U.S. television, CBS-TV’s Suspense telecast a version on May 17, 1949, starring Boris Karloff and Mildred Natwick and again on October 3, 1950, headlining again Natwick with Stanley Ridges. A version of the story was telecast April 7, 1953, on Your Jeweler’s Showcase with Rhys Williams, Una Merkel and Walter Kingsford. NBC-TV’s Great Ghost Stories, broadcast July 20, 1961, presented it as a segment starring R.G. Armstrong and Mildred Dunnock. It was reworked as “The Monkey’s Paw—A Retelling” on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour on CBS-TV, telecast April 19, 1965, starring Leif Erickson, Jane Wyatt and Lee Majors. England’s Anglia Television did it as part of Great Mysteries with Cyril Cusack, Meg Jenkins (star of the 1948 film) and Patrick Magee, on November 10, 1973.

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