| Mad Monster Party? | |
| Director: | Jules Bass[1] |
| Story: | Arthur Rankin Jr. |
| Producer: | Arthur Rankin Jr. |
| Screenplay: |
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| Starring: |
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| Music: |
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| Cinematography: | Tadahito Mochinaga |
| Studio: | Rankin/Bass Productions[2] |
| Distributor: | Embassy Pictures |
| Runtime: | 95 minutes |
| Country: | United States[3] Japan |
| Language: | English |
Mad Monster Party? is a 1967 stop-motion animated musical comedy film produced by Rankin/Bass Productions for Embassy Pictures.[4] The film stars the voices of Boris Karloff, Allen Swift, Gale Garnett, and Phyllis Diller.[5] It tells the story of a mad scientist who achieves the secret of total destruction as he summons all the monsters to his island home to show it off while planning to retire as the head of the "Worldwide Organization of Monsters".
Although less well known than Rankin/Bass's holiday specials, it has become a cult film.[6] The film is a camp homage to the classic monster movies of the 1930s-'40s. It was one of Karloff's final projects, and his last film in connection to the character Frankenstein.
Scientist Baron Boris von Frankenstein achieves his ultimate ambition, the secret of total destruction. Having perfected and tested the formula, he sends out messenger bats to summon all monsters to the Isle of Evil in the Caribbean Sea. The Baron intends to inform them of his discovery and also to reveal his imminent retirement as head of the Worldwide Organization of Monsters.
Besides Frankenstein's Monster (sometimes referred to as "Fang") and the Monster's more intelligent mate who reside on the Isle with Boris, the invitees include Count Dracula, the Mummy, Quasimodo (referred to as "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame"), the Werewolf, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon (referred to as simply "The Creature").
The Baron's beautiful assistant Francesca confirms that all invitations have been delivered and inquires about one of the addressees, a Felix Flanken. Frankenstein explains that Felix is his nephew and successor in the monster business. This displeases Francesca, who covets the role for herself. She asks why there was no invitation for "It". Boris replies that "It" was not invited since "It" can be a crushing bore, explaining that "It" even crushed the island's wild boars in his bare hands the last time "It" was invited.
Felix Flanken is a drug store pharmacist somewhere in the United States. Incompetent and asthmatic but good-natured, he is a constant burden on Mr. Kronkite, the greedy owner. A mailman arrives with Felix's invitation, and he joyously accepts. He boards a freighter headed for the Isle, alongside Dr. Jekyll and the Werewolf, among others. The ship's crew are wary of the monsters around them.
Frankenstein has his zombie butler Yetch, Chef Mafia Machiavelli, and the zombie bellhops and servants make preparations for the upcoming party while patrolling the Isle to ensure that "It" does not arrive uninvited. The monsters begin to arrive on the freighter that Felix is also traveling on. During dinner, Frankenstein shows them the formula, which he will demonstrate the next day while naming his successor. Francesca secretly meets with Dracula to inform him about Felix, promising to share Frankenstein's secrets when she becomes the successor if Dracula were to get rid of Felix. When they caught the Monster's Mate ease-dropping, she and Francesca began to cat-fight while the other monsters had an all out food fight.
Felix arrives to the island and is greeted by his uncle and Francessca, who took Felix on a tour of the island where the Mummy, Werewolf and Dracula planned to attack. While the human Felix proves to be unsuitably kindhearted, the monsters nonetheless plot to eliminate him and gain control of the secret formula. Later, Frankenstein tells Felix about his retirement, making his nephew leader of all the monsters in the world, Felix feels reluctant to take the job. Over time, Francesca develops feelings for Felix after he obliviously saves her on multiple occasions. As Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and the Monster's Mate descend upon Francesca, she sends out a letter (via messenger bat) to an unknown recipient. When the monsters corner Felix upon capturing Francesca, they are frightened at the arrival of "It" (a giant gorilla and take-off of King Kong) who proceeds to rampage since he was not invited. "It" snatches up the monsters and Francesca (on whom "It" develops a crush).
Felix rushes to tell his uncle what happened and is instructed to head to the boat. Frankenstein leads the zombies in rescuing Francesca from "It" using biplanes. Boris convinces "It" to let Francesca go and to take him instead. "It" complies. Felix and Francesca manage to escape the island in the boat as Frankenstein and the remainder of the monsters remain in "It"'s clutches. Displeased that the monsters tried to steal the secret for themselves and attempted to kill Felix as well as having to put up with "It", Frankenstein sacrifices himself by dropping the formula, destroying the Isle of Evil and everything on it.
The destruction is witnessed Felix and Francesca, offshore. Felix expresses a desire to begin a family with Francesca, who tearfully admits that she is not human, but in fact a robot creation of Frankenstein's. Felix responds that "none of us are perfect", mechanically repeating the last two words, indicating that he is his uncle's robot creation too.
The film was created using Rankin/Bass's "Animagic" stop-motion animation process, supervised by Tadahito Mochinaga at MOM Productions in Tokyo, Japan. The process involved photographing figurines a frame at a time, then re-positioning them, exposing another frame, and so forth.[7] Known as stop-motion animation, it was the same approach used in RKO's King Kong, Art Clokey's Gumby and Davey and Goliath, and many other films, commercials and TV specials.
Classic monster films were enjoying a resurgence in popularity in the late 1960s, along with more comedy-centered examples, The Addams Family and The Munsters. This campy film is a spoof of horror themes, complete with musical numbers and inside jokes.
Mad Magazine creator Harvey Kurtzman penned the script (with writer Len Korobkin) and Mad artist Jack Davis designed many of the characters. Rumors that Forrest J. Ackerman had a hand in the script have never been confirmed and his name never appeared in the on-screen credits or in original promotion for the film at the time of its release. Rankin/Bass historian Rick Goldschmidt, in liner notes accompanying the Anchor Bay DVD release, denied Ackerman was ever involved, at the same time as the DVD packaging promoted Ackerman's name. Goldschmidt repeated his claims on this in a 2006 blog entry, based on his interviews with Korobkin, who claimed to have written the original screenplay, which then was revised by Kurtzman, but never worked with Ackerman.[8]
In addition to the famous monsters seen in the film, Mad Monster Party? also features several celebrity likenesses. Karloff and Diller's characters are both designed to look like the actors portraying them, while Baron Frankenstein's lackey, Yetch, is a physical and vocal caricature of Peter Lorre. Swift also performs impersonations when voicing his characters, such as James Stewart when voicing Felix, Sydney Greenstreet as the Invisible Man and Charles Laughton as the Freighter Captain.
Mad Monster Party? was one of several family-friendly projects Karloff lent his voice to in his final years (including the 1966 television adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!). It was his final involvement in a production connected to the Frankenstein mythos that had propelled him to stardom some three decades earlier.
Although the opening credits identify Ethel Ennis as singing the opening theme song and, in the same frame, a soundtrack being available on RCA Victor, a commercially released soundtrack was never produced in any format.[9] In September 1998, Percepto released the mono RCA recording on CD. Waxworks Records released it on vinyl on October 12, 2016.[10]
The film holds a 70% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on ten reviews.[11] Howard Thompson of The New York Times wrote that "this party should make everybody chuckle".[2]
The film has been available on video for years, first on original distributor Embassy Pictures' home entertainment unit, and then on other independent labels before StudioCanal acquired some rights to the film. Currently, Lionsgate distributes the film on video under license from StudioCanal.
Before Lionsgate's current video release of Mad Monster Party?, almost all video releases have been from 16 mm film and were of very poor color quality. The original film negative was water-damaged some years ago, but Sony Pictures Television (which now holds the television rights) eventually unearthed an original 35 mm pristine print. This print was digitally remastered, and is the source for the current DVD issue and all subsequent television showings. Anchor Bay released the previous DVD on August 19, 2003, then re-released it on August 23, 2005 with additional features. On September 8, 2009, it was released as a "Special Edition" DVD by Lionsgate. The special features include a documentary including interviews with Rick Goldschmidt, Arthur Rankin Jr., voice artist Allen Swift, storyboard artist Don Duga, musical director Maury Laws and others. The film was released on Blu-ray on September 4, 2012.
Rankin/Bass produced a related TV special called Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters from The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie series, which aired on September 23, 1972. This Halloween special featured many of the same monster characters. Bob McFadden did his imitation of Karloff when voicing Baron Henry von Frankenstein (who resembles Baron Boris von Frankenstein). The animation for the special is provided by Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Production with supervision by Steve Nakagawa, who was also known for his work with Iwao Takamoto at Hanna-Barbera Studios.