This week, books on movie monsters, a genre killed pretty thoroughly by internet research tools like IMDB and Wikipedia. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, though, books like these (and magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland) kept interest alive in old monster movies. Remember, there were no VCRs, no streaming services. If a movie didn’t get re-run as the The CBS Late Movie or in a revival theater, it was practically as if it didn’t exist. I am reminded how a lawyer faced difficulty in trying to screen The Blob in the early ’60s as part of a copyright infringement case involving Joseph Payne Brennan’s story “Slime;” I don’t think they ever did manage to see it before going before a judge.

Monsters from the Movies (1972), by Thomas G. Aylesworth and part of Lippincott’s Weird and Horrible Library, is a little different from most. It’s not content to be a mere catalog of monster movies. Rather, it’s interested in sussing out the connections between the movies and the original folklore and literature. Thus we get the story of the Lake Geneva storytelling contest between Byron and the Shelleys, as well as a primer on Paracelsus’ homunculus before delving into Frankenstein’s legacy on the big screen. A brief history of mesmerism is prelude to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the large body of undead folklore precedes discussion of Dracula, The Mummy and zombie films. And so on. The first chapter is a quick history of horror films, the last a potpourri of more monstrous monsters, like Godzilla and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. A meaty filmography and lots and lots of black and white still rounds things out. One of the photos has the caption “[…] in the film the scene was a lot more convincing.” Which is one of the most endearing lines I’ve ever read in a book on film.

There are a couple different editions of the book, but I think this one has the best cover, by Robert Quackenbush (probably best known for the children’s book Henry’s Awful Mistake). I’m a sucker for loosey goosey pen with a limited color palette.