The Horrors of Ernest Booorgnine!
Vol. 159: I really have no shame.
But first-
Why Do Ghosts Want To Hang Around with Us? We’re Not That Interesting.
Paranormal mysteries. It’s where the author takes a spooky ghost story, slaps it together with a deep, dark family secret (murder!), and produces something dripping with ectoplasm that is mmm-mmm delicious. So let’s go through a menu of paranormal mysteries and see what you’re in the mood for.
1. The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James- she’s a Big Kahuna in this genre, and one of my favorite authors. I actually could have pointed you towards others by her, such as Murder Road, The Sun Down Motel, or The Broken Girls, but this story of a wealthy woman who has lived under a cloud of suspicion since the 70s is the latest I’ve read from St. James and the spookiness is*chef’s kiss* stewed to perfection.
2. City of Masks by Daniel Hecht- The first in a series featuring a New Orleans parapsychologist who works the case of a haunted mansion that is terrorizing the new resident, a descendant of the original owners.
3. The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell- Elsie is widowed soon after marrying a wealthy man. Living in his old mansion, she discovers a hidden wooden figure that looks eerily like her.
4. Jackaby by William Ritter- The first in a YA series about a 19th Century private investigator who can see ghosts.
5. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier- classics are classics for a reason. This 1940s Gothic has all the spooky atmosphere you can handle, and the mystery of what happened to the first Mrs. de Winter, who was such hot shit that the housekeeper remains loyal to her even though she...just read it.
6. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill- a young law clerk is sent, alone, to go through the paperwork of a deceased client who lived in a big creepy mansion that becomes unreachable when the tides come in. Just describing this haunted house Gothic makes me happy!
7. Disappearance at Devil’s Rock by Paul Tremblay- a mother doesn’t understand why her thirteen year-old son would run away, but as time goes on without any leads on Tommy, his mother believes his ghost has returned home.
8. Fyneshade by Kate Griffin- Marta is forced to take a governess position at Fyneshade, where she will instruct one little girl. Ostracized by the other servants, she’s intrigued by the homeowner’s son and why he’s considered dangerous. If you loved the classic Turn of the Screw, this is your next read.
The Horrors of Ernest Borgnine
Borgnine was one of those actors who never wanted to stop working. He loved working, loved attending movie premieres, and always looked like he was having the time of his life. He only stopped because he died, which puts a period on just about everything.
We’re not going to go through all his screen credits, which number in the hundreds and includes an Oscar win. No, we’re here to discuss the number of horror and disaster movies he racked up. Whether it was fire, a spewing volcano, or a dystopian society, Borgnine was present and bellowing his way through it.
He worked consistently through the 1950s, mainly in WWII and Western movies, playing both heroes and baddies. In 1955, he played the title role of Marty, a sweet, lonely man looking for someone to love. It was very much against type and earned him an Oscar. He went back to Westerns and worked consistently throughout the 60s. Then the 1970s happened. With that decade came an avalanche of disaster movies. And creature features. And quite a few devil movies. Borgnine, bless him, did them all. Maybe he learned how to pivot and adapt in his childhood.
Borgnine was born in Connecticut to Italian immigrants named Borgnino. They separated when he was a baby and his mother took him back to Italy, where he spent his toddler years, so English was his second language. The family eventually reunited and returned to America.
His acting career got a late start because of WWII. He enlisted in the Navy in 1935, right out of high school. He served on a minesweeper and was discharged in the Autumn of 1941, but Pearl Harbor was attacked in December so he reenlisted before his bunk was even cold. He served on the USS Sylph, an anti-marine patroller, and was discharged after the war ended in 1945. That’s nearly a solid decade in the military. Was there any doubt that we would win the war? Imagine being the enemy and seeing this guy coming for you. You couldn’t throw your rifle down fast enough.
His first real horror credit was 1971’s Willard, about a friendless young man who discovers that his family home is overrun with rats and does the rational thing of training them to exact revenge. It also starred Elsa Lanchester and a couple of young actors who would go on to have admirable horror credits- Bruce Davison (The Lords of Salem, The Manor) and Sondra Locke, who would appear the following year in A Reflection of Fear with Robert Shaw.
Fun Fact: I don’t want to tell you what the big twist in this forgotten horror is.....yes, I do! Locke played Shaw’s teen daughter (even though she was nearly thirty years old when she played the role) with whom he has never had a relationship because her strange mother didn’t want him around. It isn’t until the girl murders her mother that Shaw finds the daughter’s birth certificate and learns that she is actually a he. Freaky stuff for that era.
Anyway, Borgnine was the big name in Willard, playing the horrible boss who cheats and humiliates Willard after having cheated Willard’s father. It did well enough to have a sequel, Ben, which was also about an awkward male who has a rat addiction.
The seventies was producer Irwin Allen’s decade, man. He was actually nicknamed “The Master of Disaster” because he could take any kind of disaster, shoe-horn in twenty B-listers, and turn out gold. One of his biggest movies was The Poseidon Adventure in 1972. Borgnine played the ex-cop with a soft heart in the story of a cruise ship full of passengers that flips upside down in the Aegean Sea. Gene Hackman had top-billing, but could he have survived without Borgnine? What, was Red Buttons going to do the heavy lifting? Roddy McDowell? I don’t think so. The Poseidon Adventure was such a massive hit that it spawned oceanic horror copycats. Did Jaws get the green light because of TPA? Maybe. I strongly suspect 1973’s The Neptune Disaster (aka The Neptune Factor) absolutely did. Borgnine, Ben Gazzara and Yvette Mimieux fought off giant eels from a capsized lab on the bottom of the ocean floor in this stinker that gets just 14% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Fun fact: Borgnine was married five times, with his last marriage, to Tova Traesnaes, taking place in 1973. This was the one that stuck, lasting nearly 40 years. His previous unions included a 42 day marriage to singer/actor Ethel Merman in 1964. He was a yeller, and she was famous for belting out ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ at the top of her lungs. One room cannot contain that much personality.
Now we come to the big one, as far as Borgnine’s horror credits go. If Marty showed his range as a lovable leading man, The Devil’s Rain gave him the chance to to put the panic in Satanic. It was 1975 and the multi-talented Ida Lupino was cast as a ranch owner outside a nearly deserted Arizona town. She’s mom to Mark (William Shat-Shat-Shatner!), who was still young and sexy in 1975, in case you’re wondering. She also has a second son, Tom, and Tom’s wife, Julie.
Mom is kidnapped by the local Satanists, headed by Borgnine, in an attempt to get an old book of Satanist names which has come down through generations of the family, raising the question of why a family of non-Satanists would keep such a thing instead of burning it or letting the kids take a Sharpie to it. The Satanists are hiding out in the isolated desert town and removing people’s eyes and it’s pretty much the Manson family with ceremonial robes. Oh, and there’s a glass bottle that contains the souls of the Satanists. That’s something to fight over, huh?
Directed by Robert Fuest, who had previously directed The Abominable Dr. Phibes, The Devil’s Rain is so very 70s. Borgnine’s evilness turning him into a ram/human hybrid and a young uncredited John Travolta has a moment when he melts like a candle in the Arizona sun. And yet, it’s very much worth watching. The cast of character actors is extensive, with Tom Skerritt, Keenan Wynn and Eddie Albert. (If you know the name ‘Eddie Albert’ you just reactively rolled your eyes.) The cast throws everything they’ve got into their roles and it’s effective, helped along by the isolation of a barely inhabited dirt town, the kind the Southwest is littered with. Just enjoy it for what it is.
Fun Fact: Real life Church of Satan leader Anton LaVey and his wife Diane had bit parts. Yep, Diane the Satanist. You might think they would take the opportunity to convert a few Hollywood types. There was a conversion on the set, as pretty, young Joan Prather (Julie), introduced pretty, young John Travolta to Scientology on the set of The Devil’s Rain.
In 1977, Borgnine and Allen were back together for a made-for-tv movie called Fire! (their exclamation, I’m not that emphatic about it) that is the tale of a convict who sets the Oregon woods on fire, forcing lots of character actors to fight for survival. Next was 1978’s made-for-tv movie, The Ghost of Flight 401 about a real 1972 plane crash. In 1979, he made a creature feature called Ravagers with Art Carney, Richard Harris, and Alana Stewart, who was married to Rod Stewart at the time. This movie was set after a nuclear holocaust, with the majority of Earth’s inhabitants being aberrations who kill humans. I know, I’ve never heard of it either.
Because they couldn’t seem to quit each other, Borgnine and Allen made When Time Ran Out in 1980. This was a volcanic disaster that also starred Paul Newman and William Holden. It bombed at the box-office. The Decade of Disaster was over, but Borgnine really bounced back by appearing in a small role in the dystopian Escape from New York with Kurt Russell.
He was nominated for a “Worst Supporting Actor” Razzie for his role in a long-forgotten and low-budget 1980 Wes Craven slasher, Deadly Blessing. If you hunt this one down, it features Sharon Stone in one of her first movie roles. And finally, Borgnine had a small part as a grandfather reading stories to his grandson in the wraparound of 1996’s horror-fantasy Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders.
He’d made his film debut in 1951 and worked nearly consistently for six decades, even making Hallmark movies in his last years. Borgnine gave his time generously to organizations that honored military vets and was once awarded Veteran of the Year. He died of renal failure in 2012 at the age of 95.
Welcome to my new readers in Arkansas and Australia! Two hot locales that are keepin’ it creepy.
Next week: Book reviews and Halloween news, and that includes pumpkin-shaped candy. Now, I consider that subscription-worthy.