American Cinematographer - December 1986 - 39

weakest and

most badly muffed of the set. It was di¬
by Harold M. Young, an American-born director,
writer and film editor who had gained greater fame in
England and France. His most famous directorial effort
is London Films' The Scarlet Pimpernel. Upon returning
to the U. S. he spent most of his career directing "B"
pictures and some Disney cartoons. Ivano was again di¬
rector of photography.
Treading on uneven ground, The
Frozen Ghost has Chaney as Gregor, a stage hypnotist
whose subject-a drunken heckler (Arthur Hohl)-dies
from a heart attack while under his sway. Absolved in
court, Gregor is still obsessed with the fear that he is a
murderer. He breaks his engagement to his assistant
(Evelyn Ankers) and finds employment in a wax mu¬
seum, where he becomes involved in a convoluted plot
involving suspicion, jealousy and a murder. After the
death of Rudi (Martin Kosleck), a sculptor, who falls
into a furnace when he tries to kill Gregor, it is shown
that the intrigues were instigated by Gregor's agent
(Milburn Stone), who wanted to prove Gregor insane so
he could gain control of his fortune.
Not even the talents of a very good
cast (which also includes Douglas Dumbrille, Tala Birell
and Elena Verdugo) could save this film from being a
mess, but it does have visual eloquence and sometimes
manages to raise itself above its subject matter. Ivano
once said, "I never cut corners on any film I ever shot.
High budget or low, I went for the same style." The
Frozen Ghost exudes the Ivano style, with barely percep¬
tible lens diffusion (in contrast to Miller's sharp-edged
style) and some appropriately eccentric lighting effects.
A good optical effect opens the
story: the camera dollies in on a poster outside a theater,
halting as a drawing of Evelyn Ankers fills the frame,
then dissolves into a matching shot of the actress. Cam¬
era dollies back to reveal that she is on stage assisting
Chaney in his act. The picture also has a certain charm

rected

for aficionados of artifacts from famous movies. Utiliz¬

ing the vast Universal property warehouses, unit decora¬
tor Ray Jeffers filled the wax museum with props from
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Man Who Laughs,
The Mummy and other vintage productions.
Of all the films, only one remains
generally unavailable to the modern audience. This is the
fifth of the series, Strange Confession, a well-acted and
compelling drama "based on a composition by Jean
Bart." The "composition" was a French anti-war play
that was the basis of Universal's excellent 1934 picture,
The Man Who Reclaimed His Head. For "Inner Sanc¬
tum" it

was

updated and Americanized by M. Coates

Webster.
It marked the feature

directing debut
extremely interesting filmmaker,
John Hoffman. Born in 1905 in Budapest, where he
studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Hoffman
worked as a set designer with Willy Pogany and Joseph
of

little known but

Urban, both of whom had

impact

George Turner Collection

director of montages and special effects
He created these segments for more than 40
productions, including San Francisco (earthquake sequence), The Great Ziegfeld, One Night of Love, Boom
Town, Cover Girl and A Song To Remember. Following
Strange Confession he directed a handful of other pic¬
tures, then switched to film editing and teaching at USC
for the rest of a varied, if obscure, career.
The director of photography, Maury
Gertsman, ASC, is the only surviving "Inner Sanctum"
cinematographer. Born in Philadelphia in 1907, he had
only recently been designated a director of photography,
having assisted most of the MGM cinematographers for
eight years and operating the camera for most of Univer¬
sal's top men for many more years. He was operator for
Milton Krasner, ASC, for seven years, and much that he
learned from Krasner is evident in his work. By 1947 he
moved up to bigger pictures, some of the more notable
being Time Out of Mind, Rachel and the Stranger,
Rogue's Regiment, City Across the River, Comanche Ter¬
ritory, The Glass Web, and To Hell and Back. Prior to
his retirment he photographed The Lucy Show and
Here's Lucy for 11 years.
This time Chaney is Jeff Carter, a
once brilliant scientist, who stumbles into a lawyer's
home one night in a crazed and disheveled condition.
He shows Brandon (Wilton Graff) the contents of a
bag-the lawyer is horrified-and forces him to listen to
his story. He had been a chemist pledged to relieve
human suffering, happily married to Mary (Brenda
Joyce) and the father of a young son. Graham (J. Carrol
Naish), profit-mad pharmaceutical tycoon, sent Carter
Vorkapich

South America

upon

motion

picture design. He assisted chief art director
Charles D. Hall at Universal, contributing settings to
several early talkies including Dracula, then changed di¬
rection to become a serious colleague of Slavko

December 1986

American

an enormous

as a

sequences.

work

on a cure

Model Acquanetta

and artist Chaney in
Dead ^an s ^Ves-

for influenza. When

epidemic swept the country, Graham marketed Car¬
ter's half-completed formula as Zymurine. Many deaths
resulted, including Carter's son. Graham, meantime, was
attempting to steal Carter's lonely wife.
Cinematographer

American Cinematographer - December 1986

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - December 1986