I grew up in an era when movies were all about the action on the big screen. Until I saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show, it never dawned on me that the theater itself could be part of the action. Of course, as with all other subjects, researching the history of the movie industry opens your eyes to all sorts of interesting facts. As it turns out, there was a moment in time when the entertainment on the screen was only part of the fun of going to the movie theater; a time when there was a variety of entertainers, alive and in person, spooking audiences across the nation.
The Midnight Spook Show
Before the advent of technologies such as VHS and digital content streaming services, which brought movies directly into our living rooms, motion pictures lived strictly in the local movie theater. If you wanted to see the latest monster movie or action adventure, or love story, or whatever, there was only one way to do it....you had to open the newspaper (or pick up the phone) to find out where the movies you wanted to see were playing. Then you had to get in your car, drive to the that theater, stand in line, buy a ticket....you get the picture.
Even though they were called "movie theaters", these venues weren't necessarily restricted to only screening movies. They were theaters, after all, where live performances could also take place, given the right circumstances. Actors and comedians, monsters and magicians, all plied their trade in many of these arenas, to live audiences, who were always on the lookout for fun and entertainment. The Midnight Spook show, a mix of live horror, comedy, magical illusions and trickery, was just the thing for audiences who had crowded into the local movie house, looking to be scared out of their wits with a good horror movie and have a roaring good time in the process.
Bringing Together The Best of Both Worlds - A Ghostly Vaudeville
The spook show was, in many respects, a ghostly version of a vaudeville performance - a form of entertainment which attempted to provide something for everyone. Song and dance, comedy, magic, death-defying thrills and excitement. It was all available on the Vaudeville stage. While the majority of those plying their trade within Vaudeville were never heard from again, a hardworking few, such as Mickey Rooney and Stan Laurel, parlayed their Vaudeville careers into starring roles in Hollywood. It was an extremely popular form of live entertainment from the 1880's up until the 1930's, when it began to suffer greatly due to competition from motion pictures.
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| Promotional poster for the Sandow Trocadero Vaudevilles (1894) (public domain - Wikipedia) |
The spook show, which rose to prominence during the 1940's and 1950's, would include many of the same types of performances seen in Vaudeville, from magicians and illusionists, to mentalists and mediums, from seances, to Grand Guignol-type scenes of gore and horror, all emceed by the "ghostmaster", who made sure to direct the attention of the audience to each new ghastly (or ghostly, as it were) scene, as it materialized on to the stage. After the spook show was over, the fun wouldn't be over, as it was then time to watch a horror movie.
A Captive Audience
Theater owners saw there was money to be made by offering something more to their audiences. Sure, they could show them movies, just like every other movie house in town. For some entrepreneurs, however, the movie was just the start of the nightly good time. Since they already had them in their theater, why not give the audience something more for their money? In addition, they saw that the spook show could set them apart from everyone else, which would hopefully see ticket sales soar. At the same time, stage performers who perceived their livelihoods to be threatened by the surging popularity of movies, took hold of a way to reinvent themselves and to ride the coattails of the new cinematic technology of the time.
A Formula For Success
All great entertainment comes out of careful planning. Even improv, which showcases someone's ability to come up with laughs, literally on the spot, seemingly out of nowhere, requires intense skill, which comes from years of experience and training in order to be able to deliver the goods on cue.
The Spook shows were no different. The performers who created and staged these shows were usually not employees of the theatre - they were independent entertainers, who were in business for themselves. They needed to be able to show theater owners that they had the best spook show in town, which helped them get the available bookings. They also had to come up with their own promotional tricks and gimmicks in order help fill theater seats for their shows.
In a typical early spook show, the host, or "ghostmaster", would first come out on stage to introduce himself to the audience. He would then do some sort of warm up routine to get audience members acquainted with him and with what they were about to see. What followed was the meat and potatoes of the spook show - approximately one hour of mediums, magicians and mentalists, performing their acts, often bringing up volunteers from the audience to complete a trick or be the butt of a joke.
The Blackout
Many people considered the Blackout the real show stopper of the Midnight Spook Show. This was where everything climaxed in a moment of heart-stopping excitement. Without warning, all the lights would be shut off, throwing the entire theater into pitch blackness. It was then that the true thrills and chills of the show came out to play. By this point, if the ghostmaster had done his job well, the audience was sufficiently primed, anxious for strange things to occur at any moment. Without warning, ghostly luminous apparitions would either float or wander through the audience, reaching out to try and grab someone. Strange noises could be heard emanating from somewhere in the theater. Rubber snakes would fly, as if from nowhere, out into the laps of moviegoers, eliciting howls of laughter and terror. At some point, the lights would come back on, and everyone would breathe a sigh of relief. They had survived another spook show.
The blackout sequence was a creation of one of the very first well-known ghostmasters. Magician Elwin-Charles Peck, who went by the stage name, "El-Wyn", was a mentalist, who specialized in the art of reading minds. Sometime in the late 20's or early 30's, he began to host a Saturday midnight show, which eventually became known as "El-Wyn's Midnight Spook Party". The show borrowed heavily from the Spiritualism movement, popular at the turn of the twentieth century. This movement saw an incredible rise in people's desire to interact with the spirit world, which saw seances, hypnosis and mentalism become all the rage.
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| A 1945 theater advertisement for "Dr. Neff's Spook Show", as part of a screening of "Body Snatcher". |
The show became a major success, and El-Wyn set about travelling the world, hosting spook shows all along the way.
With popularity on the rise for the spook show, other people who thought they might try their hand at it got into the act. One of those was Jack Baker.
Jack Baker and Dr. Silkini's Asylum of Horror
Jack Baker, one of the most well-known "ghostmasters" of the era, was a beneficiary of the spook show performers who came before him, such as El-Wyn. While he didn't start the tradition of the Midnight Ghost Show, or that of the ghostmaster, he certainly took what had been laid down before him, creating something uniquely his own, in which he showcased his own brand of showmanship.
Born John Kessler in Toledo, Ohio, Baker - who was adopted and changed his name twice - was a door to door salesman in Minnesota when he was introduced to the profession that would forever change his life. An amateur magician, Baker got an opportunity to fill in for The Great Malroy, a magician who was a no-show at a local theater one evening. Regarding his performance that night, Baker was quoted as remarking, "I thought I was terrific. I'm sure I was terrible." Either way, the die had been cast for Baker's future success.
Baker, his wife and his brother, who was also adopted, began performing their own brand of spook show. It was, like so many ghost shows in the past, a mix of magic, comedy, allure and horror. However, while others had attempted to rely primarily on scaring their audiences, Baker added a dose of satire into the show, aiming to poke fun at the horror genre he was so much a part of, injecting a dose of silliness into his signature act, "Dr. Silkini's Asylum of Horror" spook show.
Film preview for Dr. Silkini's "Garganta the True King of the Monsters" an attraction in his "Giant Triple Scream Show" (public domain - Internet Archive)
The spook shows are viewed by many historians as a precursor to the gimmick-based movie promotional techniques used by such film producers as William Castle, who used various eye-catching marketing techniques to get people to see his films. I take an in-depth look at the career of William Castle in The Gimmicks of William Castle .
In some ways, it's sad that theaters are no longer the go-to spot when it comes to watching movies. So many wonderful things happened there. We were entertained, of course. But many of us also socialized there, bringing our friends with us, laughing and screaming together at the monsters, the villains and the heroes. Romances blossomed for many at movie theaters, a place where people could feel safe to be together, while in the comfort of the watchful (but hopefully not too watchful) eye of others. We learned how to behave, to be considerate of others; if you cracked too many jokes or horsed around too much, you could be thrown out, without your popcorn.
Let's face it....as fantasy-driven as movies are, catering to our varies desires, and as much as we like to separate ourselves from it, the overwhelming majority of motion pictures are a product created by companies, (usually) looking to make as much money as possible. Competition for you dollar is fierce and only the strong survive. With that being said, this competition can bring out some truly magical moments which serve to remind us just how special this medium truly is.
Regardless of where we are now with movies and entertainment, looking back on where we've been is, in many ways, just another form of entertainment, and that is a good thing, to be enjoyed.
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