« The artist must bow to the monster of his own imagination. » — Richard Wright
The legendary Jack Davis (1924-2016) casts a gigantic shadow over all things Hallowe’en, and not strictly by virtue of being a very tall fellow. In 1959, Topps released the first monster card set, a 66-card set optimistically titled You’ll Die Laughing, bearing splendid watercolour illustrations by Mr. Davis. Here’s a smattering of them — my collection remains far from complete — but you’ll get the notion.
For further samples and a sprinkling of historical perspective, check out this informative piece.
The cards backs also boasted a lovely Davis halftone illustration; the jokes, however, were not of the same calibre. Here’s one of the least underwhelming.
-RG
Love Jack Davis’ work. Also love NIGHT OF THE DEMON. I’m one of those who digs the monster. Except for one silly shot where it looks like it’s drunkenly wobbling up a driveway, it looks quite terrifying (I certainly wouldn’t want to encounter it during an evening stroll!). Film scholar Danny Peary once noted how it was almost fashionable to blast the monster since it went against Tourneur’s “suggest, don’t show” philosophy employed to great effect in CAT PEOPLE — “I believe most critics dislike the demon for no other reason than they know it was studio-imposed,” he said. As an example, he noted how Carlos Clemens bashed the creature in his book AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE HORROR FILM but then used it as the cover image of that very same book!
P.S. According to the film’s scripter Charles Bennett, the title was changed to CURSE OF THE DEMON in the U.S. because “Columbia idiots feared that if they used the word NIGHT, the movie would be confused with the Richard Burton movie THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA!!!!” Hilarious if true.
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Upon further reflection, I have to wonder about Bennett’s claim. NIGHT OF THE DEMON was released in the U.S. in 1958 while THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA wasn’t released until 1964. Considering Bennett was about 83 when he made that statement (in which he also said that THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA starred both Burton and Taylor, which of course wasn’t the case), methinks he was remembering incorrectly, although there was no doubt he thought the Columbia suits were indeed “idiots”!
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Oh, there’s truly little doubt about it. Perhaps Bennett was thinking of ‘Night Passage’? Couldn’t have been ‘Night of the Hunter’, that had been out a couple of years. At any rate, I’m sure whatever rationale the empty suits conjured up, it was anything but rational.
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