A Pictorial History of Horror Movies by Denis Gifford
Bottleneck (Letraset, 1972) together with Pinto (Rapitype/Mecanorma, ca. 1969) in use for the book jacket of A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, edited by Denis Gifford and published by Hamlyn, London, in 1973. The art is by Tom Chantrell.
Read all about it – cats, bats, phantoms, apemen and green rubber monsters, all from the lost world and dark houses of the Golden Age of Horrorwood! Watch the Mummy rise bandaged from its tomb, see Frankenstein’s creation reach out to grasp the sun, listen to the howl of the werewolves when the iron tongue of midnight has struck twelve!
From Mélies’ magic to the hauntings of Hammer, Denis Gifford will take you, ‘Raven’-loving reader, racing along in his ghost-ridden rattle-trap, a hair-raising journey down the highway of horror. No stones are left unturned and the long lost rise up to snarl and smirk beneath the dusty beam of the projector. The cinema’s sorcerers stand before you, splendidly summoned by anartful pen: Lugosi, curiously cadenced, blood on his lips; Max Shreck, shadowy, dissolving at dawn; the silken-voiced and unseen Rains; Veidt, lady-snatching on the roof-tops; Price, waxing strong in his museum; Laughton, bowed beneath his hump; beasts, brutes and mutants; zombies, devil bats and masked beings; claymen and vampires; dinosaurs from a distant era, things from outer space and horrors from the deep – all clamour for attention. Jekyll becomes Hyde, Kong becomes King, Lon Chaney becomes everybody and Karloff remains stupendously himself, bestriding the age in his eighteen-pound boots.
It is a book to be read, studied, treasured, looked at and, above all, enjoyed, and if you have to put it down, be careful not to step on it – it may be Lon Chaney!
