Help me solve this Bela Lugosi mystery...

[Illoman]

The official Bela Lugosi web site lists him as being in the film.

Mike

[Wich2]

Guys, I'm all for it, in cool "maybes" like this!

But I need stronger evidence than a desire for it to be so...

Best,
-Craig

[fibbermac]

Guys, I'm all for it, in cool "maybes" like this!

But I need stronger evidence than a desire for it to be so...

Best,
-Craig

Craig-

I wish more folks like you had been on the O.J. jury.

-fibbermac-

[Wich2]

(*grin*)

[fibbermac]

I just noticed another similarity which might influence skeptics like Craig.

Take a look at any Lugosi photo where you can clearly see both of his eyes and compare his left eye to his right eye. What do you notice? Using my screen grab from "The Midnight Girl" as an example, you can clearly see that his right eye is slightly narrower (squintier) than his left eye. I just did a Google search for Lugosi images and noticed the same thing in nearly all of his photos throughout his career. Its one of the things that makes Lugosi's appearance distinctive.

Its subtle, but I can make out the same trait in the clown picture.

Am I just imagining this or can others see this too?

-fibbermac-

[Wich2]

Fibber, just to be clear: I'm not a skeptic! I just need EVIDENCE to be convinced of something, beyond just the "but it would be so COOL if it was true!" wish. (Remember, back in the FM days, how sure everyone was that Lon Chaney Sr. would've starred in both Dracula and Frankenstein if he'd lived? How cool! Except that, with modern scholarship by David Skal and others, we know know that both of those thiings were very, very, VERY unlikely.)

I forward, by his permission, this info from Gary Don Rhodes:

I think Lugosi and HE WHO GETS SLAPPED is something I'm asked about more often than most other Lugosi-related topics.  To begin, the listings on Imdb and other internet sites just stem from folks years ago typing what they read in Michael Blake's second Chaney book and my first Lugosi book.  No "hard" data exists on this topic, and Blake's source (and mine) was Richard Sheffield.  In fact, we were all three together talking about this at an FM in the early-to-mid nineties as I recall. 

Richard found at least one, perhaps two HE WHO GETS SLAPPED stills among Lugosi's own photo collection in the 1950s while Lugosi was still alive.  I have no doubt that he did.  And when he and I were at Forry Ackerman's once upon a time (mid-nineties, probably), he found the very still from HE that has recently been posted on the Army, as well as one other that looks very much like Bela (which is published in my latest Lugosi book, DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES).  We also watched HE with Bob Shomer (another of Lugosi's friends from the 1950s), and we all spotted a clown in it that closely resembles Lugosi.

In terms of visuals, I agree that it looks like Bela.  Whether or not he looks a little older/younger/etc. than he "should" is for me personally not a credible guide.  If he was a clown, he's under a lot of makeup that (along with lighting) could easily over-accentuate eyebrows or a nose, or etc.  I think on that front the most we have is that there is a clown in the film that looks like him. 

Then we have the fact that Richard found those photographs in Bela's scrapbooks/photo archive, and Lugosi did not generally keep movie stills from any films other than his own.

The fact that he did not mention working with Chaney to anyone is not strange to me, one way or the other.  The interviews he did do were usually brief... those from fan magazines often are as much studio hype (that he was bitten by a real vampire, etc) as anything else.  And while he did do a very lengthy interview with a would-be biographer in the fifties, the notes from it have disappeared.  Plus, Richard never asked Lugosi about Chaney after seeing the HE stills in his collection.

As for "hard" facts at MGM etc.  I searched and searched and came up with nothing.  Nothing in any of the trade publications that said Bela was cast in that film.  Nothing from 1924 that I saw after research proves that he was in the film.  BUT, I also came across no list of extras used in the film either.  In other words, unless it is buried somewhere not yet found by Michael Blake or myself or anyone else, there seems to be no proof one way or the other in studio materials or trade publications or etc. 

Then you get to Bela's own schedule, and there is something interesting to note.  He was in a play in Chicago called THE WEREWOLF that summer of 1924.  The one review that mentioned him (it was a small role) gave him a good notice.  And then, inexplicably, he disappears from the play, with an understudy taking over his role.  Where he goes, we don't know.  Why he goes, we don't know.  But his disappearance from Chicago came shortly before HE was filmed on the West Coast. 

Could have Lugosi gone back to New York at that moment?  Possibly, but around the time he went to Chicago, he was sued in NY for some money he owed.  To quit a paying job in Chicago to go back to a city where he had no job and plenty of debt was something he could have done, but it seems unlikely to me.

It also seems unlikely, ridiculous even, that he would have quit a paying job in Chicago to travel to the West Coast to appear as an extra in a film.  Its difficult to see that as logical.  BUT, I would submit that it certainly is possible that he was offered a larger role in HE or in some other film on the West Coast ... that he quit THE WEREWOLF, ended up in LA for a film role (or even a screen test) that didn't materialize... that he did one of more extra jobs (inc. as a clown in HE) before leaving to return to NYC.  (After all, Lugosi had already had a major role in SILENT COMMAND in 1923, so its not impossible he was considered for another film role)

But this is only surmise. 

What I know for sure is that Richard found one or two HE photos among Lugosi's collection featuring a clown that looks like Lugosi... and I know for sure that his schedule in the summer of 1924 would have allowed him to be on the West Coast while HE was filmed, and that he did disappear for reasons unknown from THE WEREWOLF in Chicago after getting a good review in a play that continued on without him.

What I don't know is whether or not Lugosi was in HE WHO GETS SLAPPED.  And until some hard evidence shows up, none of us really know for sure.  Even though its fun to think about.

[Scary Terry]

Having just spent a whole lot of time studying Bela's face in order to sculpt it, I have to say I'm sold on that being Bela under the clown makeup -- the facial landmarks are all there....

[fibbermac]

Having just spent a whole lot of time studying Bela's face in order to sculpt it, I have to say I'm sold on that being Bela under the clown makeup -- the facial landmarks are all there....

Terry-

Yup. I've come to the same conclusion. The clincher for me was the facial landmark I mentioned in my last post. In these two pictures, compare Bela's left eye to his right eye.





Notice that the eyelid over his left eye follows a semi-circular pattern over the eyeball, but the eyelid over his right eye cuts across the eyeball in almost a straight line. This can be seen (to varying degrees, depending upon the camera angle) in most Lugosi pics throughout his career. Looking at the clown picture from HWGS using extreme magnification on my PC, the right eye shows the same straight line characteristic.

Craig's scholarly contributions are greatly appreciated as the kind of solid info I knew I count on from this group. Adding up the photographic evidence with the experts Craig sites which say that its possible (from a schedule standpoint), plus the fact that Lugosi kept a copy of this still in his personal collection...it all tells me that I've got a Chaney/Lugosi still in my collection. (Woohoo!)

I admit that its not as good as finding Lugosi's name on a comprehensive list of extras from that film, but until someone finds such a list or some other relevant documentation, I suppose Bela will be in the eye of the beholder.

-fibbermac-

[Wich2]

You're welcome, Fibber - the thanks really got to Gary, though.

And good eye on that eye thing - do you work in Forensics?

-Craig

[fibbermac]

You're welcome, Fibber - the thanks really got to Gary, though.

And good eye on that eye thing - do you work in Forensics?

-Craig

At the moment, I'm not working at all. But when I did have a job, I was a Medical Technologist... which is sorta, kinda, almost, but not really a forensics gig. 

-fibbermac-

[Monster Bob]

The 'eyes' have it. I agree, those look like Lugosi's eyes to me, too.

[LonChaney]

Here is a closer look at the clown on the left...

That is FORD STERLING.

[Scatter]

That is FORD STERLING.

Let's have a look.......

[LonChaney]

Look to your heart's content.  However, the two supporting actors in the photograph are FORD STERLING and CLYDE COOK, both of whom were Keystone Kops.

BELA LUGOSI was cast as background talent.

[Scatter]

Ford Sterling