Guillermo Del Toro: At Home with Monsters at LACMA 2016, Pt. 2

[Note: To read Part 1 of this post, please click here.]

As I mentioned last time, the primary focus of the Guillermo del Toro exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (aka LACMA) that we attended yesterday (Oct. 26, 2016) was naturally on the films and artwork of Mr. Del Toro himself. With the massive collection of props, costumes, storyboards, sketches, and fully realized figures representing his monsters and characters on display, how could it not be so?

But the secondary – though equally as important – focus was on his influences, a great many of which (if not the vast majority) also happen to be my influences as well, but Del Toro filters them through his quite remarkable talent and attention to detail that a high percentage of the time produces hauntingly memorable cinematic art for the world. Me, I just take those same influences and go, "Wow, that monster was pretty cool."

As before, much of the artwork and collection is to be found (normally, when they aren't on display in an exhibition at a museum) at Del Toro's Bleak House. If anyone ever needed an absolutely on the nose answer as to what I would do if I had the money to do whatever I wanted, taking a look at this exhibition is pretty much what you would get. Well, apart from the fact that I would also have a life-size Robby the Robot, a Batmobile, and the Robot from Lost in Space. But you get the gist. Del Toro's commissioned pieces include diorama featuring Harry Earles, Johnny Eck, and Schlitzie the pinhead from Tod Browning's horror classic Freaks, a scene showing Ray Harryhausen sitting comfortably in a chair (while wearing slippers) as he handles some of the models he created for his still astounding stop-motion animation features, Jack Pierce applying makeup to a seated Boris Karloff as they work on creating Frankenstein's Monster, and a fairly elaborate scenario featuring the Monster meeting his Bride while a catty Dr. Pretorius stands aloofly to the side. There was even an oversized lifelike bust of master makeup guru Dick Smith.

Dick Smith, makeup artist extraordinaire.

Frankenstein plays a major part in the exhibition. The head of Karloff's monster looms large over the entrance to the room containing many issues of comics and Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, and there are numerous spots where paintings of the monster, original Berni Wrightson drawings from his acclaimed illustrated edition (which I still need to replace; note to myself), various editions of the book, and even a life mask of Boris Karloff from 1960 were on display.

Among the life-size figures were writers who count amongst Del Toro's favorites and influences, including (in totally expected fashion) Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. There were also cases displaying the writings and books of Lord Dunsany, Charles Dickens, Andrew Lang, and many others. The case featuring Dickens also contained an assortment of spirit photographs from the mid-19th century, which proved to be one of the more unnerving displays for me, not so much for the supposed spirits contained in the photos but because they were deathbed images of real people.

Of course, Famous Monsters of Filmland and the other Warren Publications played a role in the exhibit. I was a little upset by the width of the box frame surrounding the issues because, in combination with the lighting from above, it served to create shadows on the top row of the comics and magazines making snapping a picture rather annoying. Scattered throughout the collection, I also found some pretty cool artwork from the Warren mags done by Richard Corben.

Of the vast amount of artwork on display in the exhibit, I was more than a little skittish about shooting photographs of it. I know they were fully allowing photos, but for whatever reason – and believe me, I was also a tad bit shy about taking the other photos – I was weirding out a little about taking pictures of paintings. Eventually, I overcame my shyness, but I really wish that I could go back and see all of them again. There was a fantastic Dave Cooper painting over which my brother Mark and I – seeing it at separate moments during the morning – each went equally gaga. I took a quick snap so I could reference it later and look up information on it, but the result was not clear or good enough to post here. I really wish to go back to check it out again.

Other shelves and cases revealed a vast number of interesting images and models. One case which held special interest for me contained several cast statues by Ray Harryhausen from his original designs, such as Talos from Jason and the Argonauts and the Ymir from 20 Million Miles to Earth. Most striking to me was a tableau showing Harryhausen at work filming a scene on his table in his garage. The same case also held the mask from Brian De Palma's The Phantom of the Paradise, and a truly strange marionette of Peter Cushing which went largely unexplained, but was fascinating nonetheless. Another case held various memorabilia from assorted vampire movies, such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Del Toro's own Blade II, and Nosferatu.

Will I get back to the exhibit again before it closes on November 27? Time and money are against me, but I sure hope to find an opening. There was so much there, I really regretted it after I stepped out to get a snack with the rest of the family, because once I left, I could not get back into it. I could have easily done another hour in there, if not more. Short of getting a chance to work with Del Toro in his real Bleak House, it's the closest that I will get. Should the opportunity arise, I will go again.

RTJ

Guillermo Del Toro: At Home with Monsters at LACMA 2016, Pt. 1

The inside entrance to At Home with Monsters, guarded by the
Angel of Death from Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

It was a long enough wait, and October 29th finally rolled around today. My brother Mark, his wife Marci, and my teenage nephew (and burgeoning rock star) Aerin were in town from the north part of the state to join Jen and I at the Guillermo del Toro exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (aka LACMA). We had planned this excursion a few months earlier in July and I, like many horror and fantasy fans in the area, was just beyond waiting any longer to go see it.

Titled At Home with Monsters, the exhibition, curated by Mr. del Toro himself, was meant to do multiple things. First was to celebrate the art and films of the man himself; second, to pay tribute to the influences – from art to literature to cinematic or otherwise – that have influenced del Toro since his childhood days and straight through his remarkable career in film; and third, to give us a glimpse into what his inner sanctum is like, in this case, his home base (though it is not his actual home) in Los Angeles that he has named Bleak House after a favorite Dickens novel. (He has so much crammed into Bleak House, that he has a sequel house already called Bleak House 2.) Most of the contents of this exhibit, from paintings to sketches to models and even the life-sized statues of figures such as Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Frankenstein's Monster, and Johnny Eck (from Freaks) take up space in this place that also houses his working office, art studio, and research libraries.

I have decided to split this photo essay in two. This first part will feature photos of costumes, figures, and props related to Del Toro's own films; the second part will be exclusively devoted to objects in the exhibit portraying the wide range of influences on his talent and career.

The Faun from Pan's Labyrinth.

The Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth.

In addition to the full-sized figures such as the characters above and below, many of the rooms had video screens on the walls that played montages (in loops) based around common themes in his work, such as Death and Resurrection, Monsters, or Beauty and Brutality. There were also several stations spread throughout the vast exhibit that allowed you to push buttons to select different pages that had been scanned from his working notebooks, to get a sense of how devoted he is to his craft at seemingly every moment of his life.

The Ghost of Edith's Mother from Crimson Peak.

An illuminated book created for Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Insect paintings, sketches, and models in a section
mainly devoted to Mimic.

Costumes from Crimson Peak.

Weaponry and artifacts from the Hellboy films.

The Cronos Device (right) from Cronos.

Costume, weapon, and other pieces from the Hellboy films.

A wall-sized poster of a shot inside Del Toro's actual Bleak House.

Costumes from Pacific Rim.

An illuminated book from Pan's Labyrinth.

Pt. II, featuring some of Del Toro's major influences, will be posted tomorrow...

RTJ

The Headless Horseman Does Ride Indeed...!

Pics of the truly haunting appearances of Headless Horseman preceding the parade at Mickey's Halloween Party on Wednesday night, October 26, 2016 at Disneyland...

More on our night at Mickey's Halloween Party later this weekend...

RTJ

Growl and Glow in the Dark: Universal Monster Toys

The Phantom of the Opera
[click on any image to enlarge]

It's time for a short, rather incomplete profile of yet another Universal Monsters set, and one where I definitely wish that I had the other figures in the set. These figures are from a set put out in 1990 by a company called Uncle Milton. The two pictured here – the Phantom of the Opera and the Hunchback of Notre Dame _ are the only two that I was able to snag, or even find, in my neck of the woods (that being Anchorage, Alaska at the time, where I was born). 

I do not remember which store it was that I bought them, though Kay-Bee or Woolworth's are as likely suspects as any. I just remember that any time that I looked for the other figures, I could only ever find these two characters, as if the other bigger monsters were short-packed in the cases (which is a possibility, or the others just sold better). It's a scenario that I used to run into a lot in Anchorage back in the day, where even when a toy line was new to a store, they would only have a couple of the characters, and never the full set. You could make requests (which I would in many cases), but of course, the people working the toy counter don't give a rat's ass if the weird, nerdy guy who should really just grow up already that hangs out in the action figure section ever gets what he wants.

The Hunchback of
Notre Dame

There are six figures in the set overall, the other four being the Frankenstein Monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon (quite angry about never finding that one, mostly because he is my favorite Universal Monster, and partly because the mold is really cool), the Mummy, and the Wolf Man. Once more, we have a Universal Monsters set missing one of its primary figures, that of Count Dracula, which was largely due to the estate of Bela Lugosi pushing Universal Studios hard for royalties in order to use the likeness of their namesake. This situation has reversed itself in recent years for the most part, but it does mean that there are numerous Universal toy sets and other series (trading cards, books, etc.) out there where Dracula seems to have been forgotten altogether because of this insane back-and-forth battle.

From the slim information that I have been able to gather, the molds used for these figures are the exact ones used by the Marx Toy Company in the 1960s when they released their Universal Monster sets, which were exceedingly popular in the day. Growing up in the '70s, I knew kids who either owned or had inherited these figures, and was also roundly jealous whenever I saw them or (once in a while) got a chance to play with them. (I was the same way around Mego figures; never had any of my own, but went crazy when I had the opportunity.)

Because the Marx versions were in more varied colors and not meant to glow in the dark, you could make out the details a lot better on those than on these, including the names on the plates near their bases. 

While the lightness in color does make it hard to really make out many details, close-up views do reveal the fine sculpting and care used in creating these figures. 

I didn't really have time to get these puppies charged up and ready for a glow shot, nor did I have a photo of the entire set (since I don't own all of them), but a glance at eBay found a pretty groovy image of the whole crowd gathered for a glow in the dark group portrait.

Full group GITD shot ["juicyfinds4u" on eBay]

Seeing that shot just makes me even more covetous of one day having a full set, not just of the Uncle Milton remolds, but of getting a couple of different color variations or so of the original Marx releases. A fella can dream, can't he?
RTJ

[Except for the glow in the dark pic from eBay (noted), all of the images of toys in this article are from my personal collection. Feel free to copy and use as you wish, but if you repost on your website, please credit The Cinema 4 Pylon.]