Classic Horror Behind the Scenes: “What Place is This?” Basil Rathbone and THE COMEDY OF TERRORS, Part 1.
In Part 1, we’ll discuss Rathbone’s military service, his feelings about Sherlock Holmes, and his beloved second wife, Ouida.
By Bill Fleck, author of the Rondo-nominated nonfiction book CHANEY’S BABY, available here.
(Check out the other articles on this Rondo-nominated website! You can access the homepage here.)
Did you know? Rondo-Award winning filmmaker Thomas Hamilton is in the process of making THE CHANEYS: HOLLYWOOD’S HORROR DYNASTY, which is inspired by my book, CHANEY’S BABY. (I’m also a producer on the film.) If you’d like to support the project, click here and see what’s going on. Thanks!
Wednesday, September 4, 1963. The 15-day production begins on what will be released as THE COMEDY OF TERRORS, directed by Jacques Tourneur. [1]
Inspired by the nearly $1.5 million box office performance of the horror-comedy THE RAVEN (1963)—the equivalent of slightly more than $14.7 million today—producers James Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff have brought back RAVEN’S Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and Peter Lorre, as well as screenwriter Richard Matheson.
Matheson’s instructions?
“Make this one even funnier!”
Quick and prolific, Matheson concocts a humdinger.
He sets the story in New England in the 1890s. Waldo Trumbull—to be played by Price—is a lazy drunk. He’s married to Amaryllis Hinchley (Joyce Jameson), whose ancient father Amos owns a funeral parlor. Waldo intends to gain control of the business.
But there’s a problem with his plan. Waldo only bothers himself with work when financial disaster is inevitable.
Whenever he needs money, Waldo secretly kills off folks and charges their families for funerals. He’s reluctantly assisted by Felix Gillie (Lorre), whom Waldo is blackmailing.
Waldo also keeps a bottle of deadly poison—which he calls “medicine”—lying around the house, and threatens to pour it down Amos’s throat whenever Amaryllis gets out of line.
Meanwhile, John F. Black—Waldo’s stiff-necked landlord—threatens to evict the entire crew for nonpayment of rent. To avoid being thrown out into the cold, Waldo and Felix murder one of the richest guys in town. But the man’s widow takes a powder before paying for anything, leaving Waldo with only one alternative…
He must kill his landlord.
Thereafter follows a series of hilarious scenes wherein Black—who suffers from catalepsy—is repeatedly “murdered”…and repeatedly comes back!
Meanwhile, Amaryllis and Felix fall in love. When Waldo finds out, he attempts to kill them both. But when the cops intervene in the nick of time, Waldo pretends to be unconsciousness. Amos, thinking his son-in-law is sick, pours the bottle of “medicine” down his throat.
It’s lights out for Waldo. And Felix and Amaryllis are finally free of him.
Good, campy stuff, right in the wheelhouse for both Price and Lorre. And Karloff is set for the scene-stealing role of Black.
As an added bonus, playing Amos—the ancient-of-days—is none other than Philip St. John Basil Rathbone. Which, of course, is such a mouthful, that he’s shortened it professionally to Basil Rathbone.
[Above: Basil Rathbone as John F. Black in THE COMEDY OF TERRORS. Originally signed to play the ancient Amos Hinchley, Rathbone ends up playing Black when co-star Boris Karloff requests that they swap parts.]
But shortly before cameras turn, a small wrench is slung into the machine. The soon-to-be 76-year-old Karloff loves to stay busy, even at this stage of his life. (For more on this, see my blog here). But his legs don’t like it. And Black is a very mobile, active part. So, Karloff has a suggestion.
“Let’s reverse the parts,” he says to Rathbone.
Rathbone doesn’t like the idea, at least at first.
“They were so delighted with the script,” Matheson will recall years later, “especially Basil Rathbone who was just bubbling, burbling all over the place about it.”
But now, Rathbone has to go from playing the senile but sweet Amos to the unhinged Black, seeking revenge for his “murders”…no matter how comically.
“It doesn’t amuse me to chase someone down a corridor with an ax,” he’ll tell writer Don Alpert.
[Above: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Rathbone in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939). At the time, Rathbone was mostly playing villains, so the somewhat heroic Wolf Von Frankenstein was a welcome change for him.]
But—in the end—two things win him over. The first is camaraderie.
“Boris Karloff and I have been friends in pictures for a long time,” he’ll explain. [2]
The second? Money.
“I’ve been unwise about money,” he’ll blatantly state to Alpert, “but that’s not important. I don’t know what could be nicer than to have people come up to you and tell you about a play or a picture and how much they enjoyed it.”
Well, that’s a nice sentiment, but—to paraphrase George Bailey in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)—“[Money] comes in real handy down here, bud!”
Basil Rathbone knows this as well as anyone…which is why he’s working on THE COMEDY OF TERRORS in the first place.
The 71-year-old actor has walked a long path since his birth on June 13, 1892 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
He’s the first-born son of Anna and Edgar Rathbone, though he has two older half-brothers. His younger siblings will be John and Beatrice. Anna had been a violinist, and Edgar is a mining engineer. Basil is three when the family suddenly relocates to England—a wise move since the Boers think Edgar may be some sort of British spy.
At school in Derbyshire, “Ratters” is noted for his athleticism. At some point, he also learns how to fence…a talent that will serve him very well later on in Hollywood.
But acting is his first love. He’s 18 when he hits the boards for the first time in THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. And though he keeps a day job as a clerk—mostly to keep peace with his dad—he’s able to head to America in 1914 for ROMEO AND JULIET.
He also marries (Ethel) Marion Foreman, an actress five years his senior on October 3, 1914 at the Church of St. Luke Parish of Battersea London.
[Above: Actress Marion Foreman, Rathbone’s first wife and the mother of their son, Rodion, born in July of 1915. Their marriage will end partly due to Rathbone’s experiences in The Great War.]
In July 1915, he and Marion welcome a son, Rodion. Basil’s also been back in London for A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. But soon, a different theater is calling for him: the Theater of War.
Rathbone is not liking the idea.
“I felt physically sick to my stomach,” he’ll note later, “as I saw or heard or read of the avalanche of brave young men rushing to join… I was pondering how long I could delay joining up? The very idea of soldiering appalled me…The whole thing was monstrous, utterly and unbelievably monstrous…”
One of those brave young men is Rathbone’s younger brother John,18, who has a different view. He joins The Great War quickly as he can, quitting school in May 1915. By June, he’s a popular Captain in the 3rd Battalion, the Dorset Regiment.
[Above: Rathbone serving in The Great War. Though decorated for bravery, he hated the experience, largely thanks to the death of his younger brother John, who was killed in action. The memories of war haunted him for the rest of his life. “War!” he’ll say later, “…if we had our own free will, not a living man of us would go!”]
It’s March 16, 1916 when Basil finally gives in to the inevitable and reluctantly enlists, leaving Marion and his 9-month-old son behind. Luckily, he serves as a second lieutenant with the Liverpool Scottish Regiment, which gets held up in London, away from the Western Front.
John Rathbone isn’t so lucky. He’s shot through the chest and right lung during the battle of Somme the following July. Eventually, he’ll be sent home to recover, though his intention is to get right back into action as soon as he’s able.
Soon, Basil—suffering from a bad case of the measles—will join him. They spend an idyllic month or so recovering together before their parents see Basil off at the train station on his way into real battle this time.
It’s the last time he’ll see his mother, who dies a short time later, aged only 51.
Once overseas, Basil lands in the trenches with the 2/10 Bn King’s Liverpool Regiment. In spite of the almost constant shelling and gas attacks, his biggest complaint is boredom.
“[T]he state of tedium we exist in can best be illustrated by telling you the captain was sent a beef and onion pie by his people about a week ago,” he writes home, “and it is still a topic of excited conversation for us. Otherwise—we kill rats. And lice. Or play cards. Or take rifle inspections or censor letters or write our own letters home.”
Perhaps to ward off the boredom, Basil begins making dangerous daytime excursions into No Man’s Land to gather intelligence.
He also meets—and falls in love with—a farmer’s daughter named Marie when he and his batman are housed on their property. The affair is never consummated. Rathbone will lose track of Marie and her family following a bombing later on that flattens their buildings and grounds.
Meanwhile, it’s 1918 before John Rathbone returns to the front. He spends a day on leave with Basil, complete with good food and Scotch at the London Scottish Mess.
That night, Basil dreams that he sees John killed.
Weeks later—on June 4, at 1 PM—Basil thinks of John and suddenly bursts into tears.
He later learns that John had been killed at exactly that day and time.
John’s death hurts him deeply…and angers him.
“I want to tell him to mind his place,” he fumes about John in July. “I think of his ridiculous belief that everything would always be well, his ever-hopeful smile, and I want to cuff him for a little fool. He had no business to let it happen and it maddens me that I shall never be able to tell him so, or change it or bring him back. I can't think of him without being consumed with anger at him for being dead and beyond anything I can do to him.”
As a result, he takes more risks while venturing into No Man’s Land.
“He may have no longer cared whether he lived or died,” writer Marcia Jessen will note years later.
It’s during one such mission that he nearly buys it.
Friday, July 26, 1918. Scouting out the enemy’s location—disguised as shrubbery!—Rathbone, Private Richard Burton, and Corporal Norman Tanner, a sniper, find themselves suddenly face-to-face with an enemy soldier in a German trench. Rathbone quickly draws his pistol and fires, killing the man. Tanner grabs the dead fellow’s dog tags while Rathbone clears his pockets.
Hearing other Germans approaching, Rathbone and company quickly climb the parapet and race through the barbed wire.
“I have the scars on my right leg to this day,” Rathbone will tell journalist Edward R. Murrow in 1957.
Hopping into a shell hole, the crew narrowly avoids the devastating machine gun fire that follows.
But they still have about 100 yards to run before they’ll be safe.
Thinking fast, Rathbone tells Burton and Tanner that they’ll leave the hole together, but then split up. By running in different directions, Rathbone is betting that the Germans won’t know which of them to shoot at first.
Amazingly, he’s correct. All three return to safety, bringing valuable intelligence with them. On September 19, 1918, Rathbone is awarded the Military Cross for his bravery. Following the armistice on November 11, he’s discharged.
But he’s a different man.
He gets acting work once back in the civilian life, but finds that he feels hollow. Today, we’d say that he was suffering from PTSD.
“Money meant nothing to me,” he’ll relate to PHOTOPLAY in 1938. “I never thought of getting ahead. I never cared about it. Somehow, I expected to be taken care of—as I had been in the army. I shrank from decisions. I never went after things I wanted. I hated any sort of battle or argument. I just wanted to be let alone—to vegetate. I was completely negative.”
This, of course, is no way to behave when there is a wife and child in the picture.
“Inevitably, after less than a year of life back in London, Basil and Marion separated…” writes David Clayton, Rathbone’s biographer. “Marion and Rodion became the latest casualties of the war which continued ruining lives and families long after it finished.”
Rathbone never gets over his experiences in the war. When asked in 1940 what real horror means to him, he’s quick to respond:
“War!...if we had our own free will, not a living man of us would go!...We go because we…are dominated by mass psychology…War is a trap, a monstrous, gigantic, inconceivably barbarous trap…A trap is the most horrible thing in the world…Because in a trap you are alone, crouched there with fear…In the trap a man, no longer a man, lives with Death. There is no horror like it.”
[Above: Doris Keane and Rathbone in THE CZARINA (1922). The play was a modest success. It was during a performance of this play that Ouida Bergere first noticed Rathhbone…and vowed to one day marry him.]
Flash forward now to September 1963. Much like co-star Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone is caught in something of a trap of his own making. (For more on Lorre’s situation at this time, click here.)
He’s certainly made his mark on stage and screen, first breaking out as a matinee idol on Broadway in THE SWAN (1923), opposite his short-term lover Eva Le Gallienne.
And for years, he plays the suave villain you love to hate. DAVID COPPERFIELD (1935). CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935). THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938). THE MARK OF ZORRO (1940).
His considerable fencing skills are often on display.
“I could have killed Errol Flynn anytime I wanted to,” he supposedly cracks during IN AND OUT OF CHARACTER, the one-man show he tours with in the 1960s.
[Above: Rathbone carved out a career playing the villains you loved to hate. Here, he fences with Errol Flynn in CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935). Rathbone’s fencing skills were legendary.]
And, of course, there’s Sherlock Holmes, a part he first plays in the excellent period films THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES and THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (both 1939) at 20th Century Fox, opposite his dear friend Nigel Bruce as Watson. These eventually lead to the Baker Street Dozen—a series of Holmes adventures set in modern times and made at Universal from 1942 to 1946.
Couple that with a regular Holmes radio show, however, and the overkill trap is sprung.
So, while he initially enjoys the part—“I think Holmes is one of the greatest characters in fiction…To play such a character means as much to me as ten Hamlets,” he’ll crow in 1939—by 1946, he’s ready to gnaw off his own leg to escape.
“[P]laying Sherlock Holmes had made his public life torturous…” Clayton asserts. “The problem was Rathbone was instantly recognizable—he looked in real life exactly as he did in the Holmes movies. Unless he went out in disguise or avoided public places, he was stuck with Sherlock Holmes for life.”
Even being greeted on the street is painful. The words, “Hey there, Sherlock—how’s Dr. Watson?” increasingly grate on him.
So, when Universal proposes to do more Holmes pictures following the release of DRESSED TO KILL in May, Rathbone issues a ringing, unequivocal NO. [3] His plan? To leave Hollywood and get back to the stage in New York.
[Above: Rathbone and his good friend Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson in THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1939), and as depicted in the 1940’s Universal ‘Baker Street Dozen.’ Rathbone began to see the role as a trap, and determined to get free of it for good in 1946.]
In many ways, shuffling off the mortal coil of Holmes is just what Rathbone needs…at least that trap has been handled, though its shadow remains.
But the trap that has him doing THE BLACK SLEEP (1958), TALES OF TERROR (1962), and later QUEEN OF BLOOD (1966), is baited with money.
Or rather, the lack thereof.
Part of this—as Rathbone admits—is due to the fact that he is “unwise” about money.
But the biggest reason is Basil’s beloved wife, Ouida.
Ouida—pronounced WEE-duh—is six years Basil’s senior. She tells everyone who’ll listen that she was born on a train bound for Madrid in Spain in 1896, and that her parents are Marion and Stephen DuGaze. Supposedly, she lives in various parts of Europe until coming to America at the age of 11.
She claims to have acted extensively in plays under the name Ouida Bergere. She also claims to have written and directed plays, designed costumes, worked on set designs, edited films, and to have appeared in leading roles during the silent era.
By 1923, she is touting herself as Paramount’s leading scriptwriter.
Almost none of this is true.
[Above: The mysterious Ouida Bergere, who will become the second Mrs. Basil Rathbone. Much of what she said about her life simply wasn’t true. To this day, Rathbone scholars wonder if he, too, was fooled by her…or just went along with her stories because he loved her.]
She’s actually born in Arkansas (USA) on December 14, 1886. Her parents are named Ida and Stephen Branch. Her actual name is Eunie. She has a younger brother named Bernice.
At 19, Eunie—now known as Eula—marries R.H. Burgess. Almost nothing is known about him, and the union lasts less than a year. In 1906, she marries writer Louis T. Weadock. But by 1910, he’s done with Eula because she’s living back with her parents, saying she’s divorced, and claiming to be an actress when the census people come around. [4]
It’s true that she does some acting. She appears once on stage in Indianapolis in January, 1910. She also does THE STRANGER by Charles T. Dazey at the Bijou Theatre on Broadway. The play runs for 28 performances—beginning on December 21, 1911—before closing in January, 1912.
As far as films? Ouida appears in exactly two shorts in 1912: MATES AND MIS-MATES and GETTING EVEN.
It’s true that she does some screenwriting. She starts in 1915 by penning stories and scenarios for shorts, then graduates to features where she writes stories, scenarios, and some screenplays. A few of these are produced or directed by 32-year-old George Fitzmaurice. In 1923, Ouida can legitimately boast about forty genuine writing credits.
By 1918, Ouida is helping to raise her niece, who is also named Ouida. Some investigators into Ouida’s life think that the child might actually have been Ouida’s own, but there’s no proof of this at this writing.
What is sure is that on Friday, September 13, 1918, Ouida—now 31—marries Fitzmaurice. She’s still married to him in 1922 when she sees Rathbone as Count Alexei Czerny in THE CAZARINA at the Empire Theatre in New York.
As Rathbone performs, Ouida turns to a friend seated next to her.
“One day, I’m going to marry that man,” she vows.
Interestingly, “that man” is still legally married himself. Basil sends money to his estranged wife Marion—who still holds out hope that he will one day return—though, sadly, he spends virtually no time with Rodion, now almost seven.
But he does find time to spend with women.
First, there’s actress Joyce Carey, who plays Juliet to his Romeo in 1919…on and off stage.
Then, there’s the mystery lady named Madge, whom Rathbone dubs ‘Kitten.’ She reminds him of the lost farmer’s daughter Marie when they meet in 1921.
[Above: The play THE SWAN (1923) made Rathbone a star. He’s pictured here with actress Eva Le Gallienne, his short-term lover at the time. He was also dating a lady named June, and was about to meet Ouida.]
Then, there’s another mystery lady named June. Rathbone is dating her at the same time he’s romancing his co-star Eva Le Gallienne. [5] In fact, June is with him the evening he meets Ouida…and immediately notices their mutual attraction.
And, of course, there’s Ouida herself.
The meeting finally comes about when actor Clifton Webb encourages Basil to attend one of Ouida’s elaborate parties in November of 1923.
“Ouida Bergere, she’s divine…you’ll love her,” Webb says. “She’s a darling…come on, everyone will be there, and Ouida won’t mind.” [6]
Intrigued, Rathbone and June go to the soiree at Ouida’s stylish apartment over on 53rd and Madison. They settle excitedly into a corner, waiting to be formerly introduced. Before long, Ouida makes what Clayton terms “a dramatic entrance to the room.” She’s introduced to Basil and gives June a kiss.
“She was indeed young [7] and petite, with the most beautiful natural red hair I have ever seen…” Rathbone will rapturously recall. “[E]yes that danced with the joy of living and skin texture like alabaster. She wore a yellow, low-cut evening dress that flared at the waist. She was the perfect Renoir.”
He is instantly smitten.
And so it is that 31-year-old Basil Rathbone—tall and trim [8], with chiseled features and piercing blue eyes—enters Ouida Bergere’s orbit.
Next month in Part 2: From banquets to bankruptcy, the return of Rodion, and the making of THE COMEDY OF TERRORS.
NOTES
[1] Tourneur is noted for directing classics such as CAT PEOPLE (1942), I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943), OUT OF THE PAST (1947), and NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1957).
[2] Perhaps most notably, SON OF FRANKENSTEIN and TOWER OF LONDON, both in 1939, the latter of which also features Price.
[3] Rathbone’s decision pains Nigel Bruce, who is hoping to continue as Watson. Bruce knows he isn’t as versatile a performer as is Rathbone, and fears that other work won’t come his way. When his fears become reality, it becomes an issue between them.
[4] This chronology is courtesy of IMDB.com, and might be suspect. Too, Ouida seems to have taken great pains to cover her tracks.
[5] Marcia Jessen also writes that Basil had a one-night stand with a lady named Louise (whom he’ll later call Louie) which resulted in the birth of Basil’s daughter in the summer of 1925. Jessen reproduces a letter from Basil—dated October 24, 1925—acknowledging “the little one” and offering to help. “Basil accepted his responsibility for the baby to the extent of sending the family money,” Jessen writes. “He also visited the child on at least three occasions and told her that he would have liked to see her more often, but he wasn’t able to.” (See Jessen, “The Women in Basil Rathbone’s Life.”) Though this episode in Rathbone’s life appears to be true, I can’t verify it anywhere else…at least as of this writing.
[6] Given her 1922 declaration regarding marrying “that man,” it’s a cinch that Ouida won’t mind.
[7] She is soon to be 37.
[8] Rathbone claimed to be just shy of 6’2” and 170 pounds.
SOURCES
Alpert, Don. “What Ever Happened to Basil? He’s Much Alive, Not Kicking.” THE LOS ANGELES TIMES. September 22, 1963, pp. 508-509. Print.
Clayton, David. THE CURSE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2020. Print.
Jacobs, Stephen. BORIS KARLOFF: MORE THAN A MONSTER. Sheffield: Tomahawk Press, 2011. Print.
Jessen, Marcia. “Basil Rathbone and The Great War.” www.basilrathbone.net. Accessed December 6, 2023. Web.
Jessen, Marcia. “Ouida Bergere Rathbone.” www.basilrathbone.net. Accessed December 7, 2023. Web.
Jessen, Marcia. “The Women in Basil Rathbone’s Life.” www.basilrathbone.net. Accessed December 7, 2023. Web.
NeveR. “A Closer Look at the Second Mrs. Rathbone, Parts 1-4.” www.thegreatbazz.wordpress.com. Accessed December 7, 2023. Web.
Nollen, Scott Allen. BORIS KARLOFF: A GENTLEMAN’S LIFE. Baltimore, MD: Marquee Press, Inc., 1999. Print.
“Ouida Bergere.” www.ibdb.com. Accessed December 7, 2023. Web.
Rathbone, Basil. IN AND OUT OF CHARACTER. New York: Limelight Editions, 1956, 1962. Ebook.
Note: The photos utilized herein are intended for educational purposes only; I do not own the copyrights.
Terrific piece about a terrific actor (and real life badass)