Sunday Snippets—Fortunetelling goes awry

Though the long-running Weekend Writing Warriors seems to be officially over for all intents and purposes, I’ve decided to keep its spirit alive by sharing my own snippets on Sundays. There are no more rules about a certain number of lines, so we get to decide how much to include now!

Since I haven’t any new Halloween-themed material to share, I’m using snippets from Chapter 15, “Mrs. Malspur’s Séance,” from Movements in the Symphony of 1939 (the book formerly known as The Very Next). It’s May of 1939, and what started as a routine séance hosted by the mystical-minded Mrs. Malspur has quickly devolved into drama caused by Mr. and Mrs. Green. Now Kit has begged to be the first to get her fortune told.

“You ain’t getting your fortune told, you spoilt brat,” Mrs. Green said. “I’m shocked Ione let any of Julieanna’s friends come. This is supposed to be strictly adult business. Children should be seen and never heard.”

“Funny how you never apply that philosophy to your precious little Sammy, who’s more of a spoilt brat than Kitty will ever be,” Mr. Green said. “At least I don’t hide the real world from Kitty the way you shelter Sammy. That little mama’s boy is in for such a huge shock if he ever leaves home and cuts the apron strings.”

Everyone around the table sat frozen, some of their mouths hanging open. After the long, awkward silence finally passed, Kit drummed her fingers on the table.

“May I please get my fortune told now? I wanna know if I’ll marry a handsome man with blonde hair and blue eyes. I like blonde men best, ’cause my entire family is blonde.”

“Thank God for that,” Mr. Green whispered.

“What did you say, Phillip?” Mr. Scots asked.

“Nothing important. I was just thinking out loud without realizing it.”

Miss Runds took Kit’s hands and gazed into her eyes. “I see many misfortunes for you.”

“That’s enough!” Mrs. Green shouted. “I can already tell you’re making it up just to scare Kathleen, though I care less if she suffers a thousand misfortunes in her life.”

“Bernadette!” Mr. Green shouted back. “If you don’t quit speaking out of turn and insulting Kitty, you’ll have to leave. And her name is Kit now, not Kathleen. Her name hasn’t been Kathleen for some time.”

“That’s all your damn fault, you stupid pushover. Who the hell gives permission for a child to legally change her name to a nickname? There was nothing wrong with the name Kathleen. Normal people go by nicknames and legally keep the full name so they’re taken seriously. My legal name is still Bernadette, even if I’m almost never called that. You meanwhile think it’s perfectly appropriate for her to have a nickname for her legal name. She’ll always be Kathleen to me, whether you like it or not.”

Miss Runds cleared her throat. “As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted, I see many misfortunes in your future. You’ll be cursed with a bad marriage and three sick children in a row. Sick blood, sick brain, sick blood.”

Mrs. Green began hyperventilating.

“Sick blood?” Kit asked. “What does that mean?”

“I see blood, lots of blood, blood everywhere, for a boy and a girl. And a sick brain in between. Sick blood runs in families and comes through the maternal line. Very unusual I see a girl with sick blood, not just a boy.”

“That’s enough!” Mrs. Green shouted, pushing back her chair. “Phillip, we’re taking Kathleen and getting out of here right now. How dare this fraud try to embarrass our entire family and expose us to such shame, disgrace, and ruin!”

“What are you talking about, Bernie?” Mr. Green demanded. “Maybe Kitty will have some misfortunes, and maybe this is just nonsense being made up to try to scare her. I don’t particularly believe in fortunetelling, but you insisted so strongly, and I became curious. And since when are there any diseases in our family? Have you been hiding something from me?”

“That’s none of anyone’s damn business!”

Everyone stared as Mrs. Green attempted to run from the room and tripped in the unnatural darkness, cursing up a blue streak when she hit the hardwood floor. She picked herself up and felt her way out of the room, sobbing hysterically.

All the furies of nature in his electric-charged body and revenge-wracked brain

Man Made Monster, released 28 March 1941, has a very special place in horror cinema history as Lon Chaney, Jr.’s horror début. Though he began acting in 1931 (and technically first appeared in 1922 with a shot of just his hands), he didn’t immediately work in the genre he’s best-known for today. He more than proved his worth, and Universal offered him a long-term contract. Six films later, he starred in The Wolf Man, and the rest is history.

Though the film’s original title card has no hyphen, it was later released as Man-Made Monster. Some of these rereleases gave it entirely new titles, like The Atomic Monster, The Mysterious Dr. R., and Electric Man. The lattermost came from the story it was based on, “The Electric Man,” by H.J. Essex, Sid Schwartz, and Len Golos.

In 1936, Boris Karloff was cast as Dan McCormick, and Béla Lugosi was cast as Dr. Paul Rigas, but the project, then called The Electric Man, was shelved on account of too closely resembling another Karloff-Lugosi film from that same year, The Invisible Ray. When Universal came under new management in 1940, interest in the project revived.

It was shot in just three weeks, at a budget of $86,000 ($2,040,622.54 in 2026). While that was far from the type of budget found on Poverty Row, it nevertheless was one of Universal’s cheapest films of the year. And despite the low budget, they were able to do some awesome special effects.

On a dark and stormy night, a bus has a horrible rollover crash into a utility pole. The only survivor is Dan McCormick (Lon Chaney, Jr.), whom everyone is amazed survived the profound electric shock that killed the other five passengers. As he explains to Dr. John Lawrence (Samuel S. Hinds) in hospital, he works with electric shocks in a carnival act, so he barely feels the effects.

That night, Dr. Lawrence steps into his lab and takes his assistant Dr. Paul Rigas (Lionel Atwill) to task for his obsessive experiments with electricity. He believes Dr. Rigas is challenging the forces of creation, while Dr. Rigas is convinced his so-called madness will be a net good for humans.

After Dan is discharged from hospital, journalist Mark Adams (Frank Albertson), who’s engaged to Dr. Lawrence’s niece June, traces him to the Lawrence home. Though June (Anne Nagel) denies it, Mark knows he’s there, and is determined to write a major story about Dan.

In the lab, Dr. Lawrence proposes the theory that Dan’s long, constant exposure to electricity has created an immunity, like a vaccination against the effects that would hurt most other people. He wants Dan to live there and help him with transforming the power of electricity into a positive force for treating people suffering the ill effects of exposure.

Whereas Dr. Lawrence wants to study Dan for benevolent scientific reasons, Dr. Rigas wants to use him as a human guinea pig in his mad experiments. Dr. Rigas proceeds to give Dan greater and greater doses of electricity to increase his immunity, and gets away with this because Dr. Lawrence is out of town.

The trouble begins when Dr. Rigas gives him five times the usual dose and Dan discovers his hands emanate powerful electric shocks. Corky the dog (whose real-life name was also Corky) runs away in fear, sensing the invisible force, but Dan can’t figure out why Corky is suddenly afraid of him. He only realizes what happened when he sees the goldfish reacting negatively.

Dr. Rigas keeps applying electricity until Dan develops greater and greater immunity and stops fainting after the exposure. He notes with glee in his logbook that Dan now craves this life-giving force, and isn’t happy unless he’s being pumped with electricity.

When Dr. Lawrence comes home, he notices the change in Dan, but doesn’t have any reason to immediately suspect Dr. Rigas had anything to do with it. Then June tells Dr. Lawrence about the goldfish, and Dr. Lawrence takes a sample of Dan’s blood to analyze under a microscope. He calls Dr. Rigas into the lab to ask what’s been going on, and Dr. Rigas insists the experiments have been proceeding normally in his absence.

That night, while June and Mark are out on a date and Dr. Lawrence is writing notes in bed, the loud sound of electricity permeates the house. Corky whimpers and paces outside the door, and Dr. Lawrence sees his lamp going dim.

This final application of high voltage causes Dan to glow in the dark and radiate electricity from his entire body. Dr. Rigas is beyond thrilled, and makes Dan wear a rubber suit to prevent his newfound high energy from being sapped.

Dr. Lawrence enters the lab to find out what the hell is going on in there, and is stunned when Dr. Rigas proudly presents this superman who’s going to lead a race of other radioactive humans. Not wanting to let Dr. Rigas get away with this deliberate destruction of a human being, Dr. Lawrence starts calling the cops.

Dr. Rigas isn’t about to let his long, hard work go down the toilet so easily, and sics Dan on Dr. Lawrence, with catastrophic results. He’s not at all worried about Dan possibly going to the chair after the resulting trial, since Dan’s superhuman levels of immunity to electricity will cancel out Old Sparky’s voltage.

Will the secret of this mad experiment ever come out, and how much more damage will Dan wreak as a walking lighting bolt? And can Dr. Rigas be stopped in his mad quest to create a race of electrified humans under his command?

A mad wizard reveals what the grave conceals

The Devil Commands, directed by the legendary Edward Dmytryk and released 3 February 1941, was the penultimate of the six films Boris Karloff made for Columbia. It was based on the 1939 William Sloane novel The Edge of Running Water.

On a dark and stormy night by a house on a seaside cliff, Ann Blair (in a voiceover) laments how her father, Dr. Julian Blair, is persona non grata after he was once so respected and beloved by the scientific world. We then jump back to seven years ago, when all the trouble began.

Before a rapt audience, Dr. Blair (Karloff) demonstrates his research assistant Dr. Richard Sayles (Richard Fiske)’s brain waves being live-recorded on a screen. Afterwards, his wife Helen (Shirley Warde) comes in and reminds him tonight is Anne’s twentieth birthday party. She then volunteers to be the next guinea pig for the brain waves demo. Dr. Blair comments to the other scientists that every woman he’s done this with has shown stronger and bigger brain waves than men, despite being considered the weaker sex.

On the way home on that very rainy night, Dr. Blair goes into a bakery to pick up Anne’s cake, and the baker volunteers to take it out to the car because he wants to see Helen. They emerge to the horrible sound of a crash and the sight of Helen being removed from the car, fatally injured.

Dr. Blair can’t bear to go back to the house after this tragedy, since everything there reminds him of Helen. He now spends all his time throwing himself into his brain wave research.

On another dark and stormy night, Anne (Amanda Duff) comes for a visit to the startling news that her mother supposedly still lives because of the latest brain wave experiment. When his colleagues get there, Dr. Blair insists this is a miraculous breakthrough that will enable the dead to communicate with the living. Thus, there must be a way to establish communication between the living and so-called dead. After all, radio was once scoffed at as fantasy and then very primitive, and yet it’s become very powerful. They may hold the key to the veil between life and death and end our fear of death.

Everyone walks out after dismissing the idea and saying it could be dangerous. The only one who remains is Karl (Ralph Penney), who entreats him to meet a medium named Mrs. Walters, whom he regularly visits to speak with his mother who died two years ago.

During the séance, a ghostly spectre appears over the table and speaks to Karl. Afterwards, Mrs. Walters (Anne Revere) claims she’s too sapped to conjure up any more spirits. Dr. Blair praises her work, but not because he believes she’s legit. He proceeds to expose all of the tricks she used while Karl disappointedly lingers.

A true man of science, Dr. Blair asks what kind of wiring she uses, and she says she never uses wiring. He passionately tells her she may be closer to real communication with the dead than she ever realized, and that if she agrees to work with him, she’ll be well-paid.

Dr. Blair becomes even more obsessed with his experiments, and spends even more time in the lab, now with Mrs. Walters and Karl. All the while, he insists this is pure science, not occultism.

The experiments get more and more intense, with massive amounts of voltage, leading Dr. Blair to be convinced he’s on the verge of a breakthrough. He refuses to abandon his work even after Anne and Richard say the entire university board is talking negatively about him and that he has to give it up.

Shortly before Anne and Richard came by, Karl was shocked into a horrific state necessitating constant medical care. Dr. Blair resigns from the university board, arranges to go away, sells the house, and sends Anne away.

Dr. Blair keeps in touch with a check every few months, but no letters. Meanwhile, he’s relocated to that cliffside house on Barsham Harbor, where he quickly becomes the talk of the town and hated by everyone just on account of his rumored experiments.

One night, Sheriff Ed Willis (Kenneth MacDonald) stops by and talks to housekeeper Mrs. Marcy (Dorothy Adams), who says she’s under strict orders to never go into the lab. Sheriff Willis is quite unnerved by the catatonic Karl, whom Mrs. Marcy describes as a harmless big dog who always minds when he’s spoken to. When Dr. Blair and Mrs. Walters come down the stairs, Sheriff Willis says five bodies have gone missing from the local crypt since they came to town, and he suspects they had a hand in it since the whole town suspects there’s a connection.

Sheriff Willis finally leaves, after repeated pleas that the lab is very private and the experiments aren’t for public consumption, but the fear remains that he might come back. On Mrs. Marcy’s walk home, Sheriff Willis drives up beside her and offers her a ride. She continues insisting she’s never been in the lab, and Sheriff Willis says he has to get to the bottom of things to prevent a lynch mob.

While Mrs. Marcy is snooping around in the lab the next night, she finds herself locked in by Karl. She can’t contain her screams and cries for help when she discovers the secrets hidden in there and realizes she’s trapped inside. Dr. Blair rushes to open the door before the worst happens.

What exactly is in this mysterious lab, and will Dr. Blair’s obsessed experiments ever achieve the miracle of communication beyond the grave? And can he escape the wrath of the angry townspeople who believe in mob justice without a trial?

A living corpse stalks the earth to avenge his own murder!

The Walking Dead, released 29 February 1936, was the last of the three horror films directed by the legendary Michael Curtiz. Unfortunately, since horror films were increasingly viewed as B-movies, and Curtiz wasn’t about directing films perceived as lower, he never worked in this genre again. It was theatrically rereleased in 1942, and syndicated for TV with 57 other horror and sci-fi films in 1963.

The film was a huge success, despite horror’s waning star in the later 1930s, and earned many rave reviews. It earned Warner Brothers $273,000 ($6,714,205.84 in 2026) in the U.S. and a total of $589,000 ($14,485,960.58) worldwide, representing a profit of $94,750 ($2,330,296.72).

The Walking Dead was banned in Finland, Singapore, and Switzerland for “gruesome content” (which seems so tame by modern standards), and a few segments were cut or edited in the U.K. In Australia, the film was unexpurgated but prefaced by a title card entreating nervous and excitable people to avoid it.

As part of an elaborate revenge plot against Judge Roger Shaw (Joseph King) for sending Stephen Martin to the clink for ten years, Stephen’s buddies enlist the aid of John Ellman (Karloff) just two weeks after Elwood’s release from prison. Ellman is assigned to staking out the bad judge for supposedly cheating on his wife.

Meanwhile, we’re introduced to Dr. Evan Beaumont (Edmund Gwenn), his assistant Jimmy (Warren Hull), and Jimmy’s fiancée Nancy (Marguerite Churchill) hard at work in the lab. Presently, Jimmy and Nancy are involved in a hit and run on a dark and stormy night. Ellman comes along to help after the other driver leaves on foot, and discovers a dead body in the backseat of the other car.

That body belongs to Judge Shaw, who was shot in the heart. Since Ellman is a convicted murderer, despite only having hit that guy in self-defence, he’s falsely judged guilty. He’s doubly considered guilty because Judge Shaw sent him to jail before, and he must be seeking revenge.

As happened far too often during the 1930s, Ellman is quickly convicted and sent to the chair, with all appeals being denied. (So many death sentences in classic films would never have been allowed today, for so many reasons, and even if these people were truly guilty, their sentences wouldn’t have been carried out almost instantly.)

Shortly before Ellman is scheduled for the chair, Jimmy and Nancy finally come forward to identify themselves as the two witnesses Ellman always insisted would clear him, and bear out his story of innocence. In a horrifying show of ineptitude, the guys responsible for relaying this news to the DA before midnight decide to finish their dinner first and then take their sweet time travelling there.

By the time the DA calls the warden’s office and a cop picks up, they’re just too late. (While I personally support the death penalty for violent murderers who are 100% established as guilty, it really makes me uncomfortable to see how beyond-liberally people are sentenced to death in classic films, and on such flimsy evidence and rushed trials.)

Not to worry, Dr. Beaumont and Jimmy immediately get to work on bringing Ellman back to life with the application of powerful electricity. The procedure is a success, and Dr. Beaumont is lauded around the world for this great scientific breakthrough.

Ellman’s memories fail to return, and Dr. Beaumont becomes obsessed with trying to figure out exactly what happened in his brain while he was dead to have caused this.

Ellman’s lawyer Nolan (Ricardo Cortez) goes back to court and gets Ellman half a million bucks for his ordeal, as well as being appointed Ellman’s guardian. However, when he comes to break the happy news, Ellman angrily orders him out and perceives him as an enemy.

Not long afterwards, while playing piano to an audience, Ellman recognises the guys responsible for sending him to the chair and becomes determined to get revenge on all of them, despite having no knowledge prior to his death that he was framed.

One by one, Ellman starts taking them out, always asking, “Why did you have me killed?” before doing the deed. None of the guilty parties are killed by his own hands, but through things like falling backwards through a window and running into the path of an oncoming train.

The DA suspects the targeted guys were indeed responsible for framing Ellman, and wants to find conclusive proof to have the remaining ones prosecuted, but Dr. Beaumont is still fixated on the idea of unlocking the secrets in Ellman’s brain.

Will Ellman’s mad quest for posthumous revenge continue until he’s ensnared all of his prey, or can he be prevailed upon to stop? And will Dr. Beaumont ever succeed in his lofty goal of learning what exactly happened while Ellman was dead?

Sunday Snippets—Ouija board goes haywire

Though the long-running Weekend Writing Warriors seems to be officially over for all intents and purposes, I’ve decided to keep its spirit alive by sharing my own snippets on Sundays. There are no more rules about a certain number of lines, so we get to decide how much to include now!

Since I haven’t any new Halloween-themed material to share, I’m using snippets from Chapter 15, “Mrs. Malspur’s Séance,” from Movements in the Symphony of 1939 (the book formerly known as The Very Next). It’s May of 1939, and Cinnimin and several of her friends are at a séance hosted by Julieanna Malspur’s mother. Kit’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Green, have both passed on trying to conjure up spirits in the mirror, and Mr. Green has only very reluctantly agreed to try contacting his father through the Ouija board (a device which we now have scientific evidence of working by the ideometer reflex).

Mr. Green moved the planchette to the first two letters of his father’s name, his hands slowly shaking less and less. As he tried to move the planchette towards E, it zoomed onto the second row and became stuck on a letter Mr. Green obscured with his violently shaking hands. The harder he tried to budge the planchette, the more it refused to budge. When the planchette began moving again after that terrified miniature eternity, it zoomed onto E in the first row and again refused to budge. Mr. Green held onto the planchette for dear life as it threatened to move back towards the bottom row and reveal another unexpected letter.

“Are you sure your father’s name was always Alexis?” Miss Runds asked. “Perhaps he had another name first, or would’ve preferred to go by a name that was denied to him in life.”

“You’re crazy!” Mr. Green finally took firm hold of the planchette and threw it across the room. “I should never have agreed to come here. I only decided to come because Bernie insisted so obnoxiously, and I had to make sure she wouldn’t do anything embarrassing or reveal any personal business. And I haven’t seen my parents since I was fourteen and a half. I really wanted to try to talk to them one more time.”

“How dare you agree to use that silly toy, Phillip!” Mrs. Green screeched. “You should’ve let your dear parents rest in peace and not tried to talk to them. I should’ve known you’d court trouble.”

“Didn’t I tell you she’s crazy?” Kit whispered to Sparky. “She always has tantrums like this.”

Miss Runds retrieved the planchette and gave the Ouija board to the other adults. Everyone tried their best to pretend the scene with the Greens hadn’t happened, though the adults continued murmuring about their shocking behavior. After they finished with the Ouija board, Miss Runds offered to tell futures, and Kit begged to go first.