SwanShadow Thinks Out Loud

If you can tear yourselves away from the latest Tiger Woods update for just a moment, I have a real tragedy to report.

Paul Naschy has passed on.

Who’s Paul Naschy? you ask. Permit me to enlighten you, friend reader.

Paul Naschy was a cult filmmaker from Spain. (His real name was Jacinto Molina, which sounds more like a baseball player than a movie star.) For most of his lengthy career, Naschy acted in horror films, many of which he wrote or directed or both. Due to his performances as many of the classic monsters of cinema, he was nicknamed “the Spanish Lon Chaney.” And like the junior of the two American actors by that name, Naschy was most famous for portraying a werewolf on screen.

Beginning with his 1968 film The Mark of the Wolf Man (La Marca del Hombre Lobo), Naschy created his signature character, the werewolf Waldemar Daninsky. (Naschy made his antihero Polish because the government cinema censors of the day would not sanction films that showed Spanish characters engaging in violent behavior.) Naschy would assume the Daninsky role a dozen times over the next 35 years, in movies that for the most part had little if anything to do with one another, save for Naschy/Daninsky himself. He finally retired the character in an American production, Tomb of the Werewolf, directed by another notorious schlockmeister, Fred Olen Ray.

In addition to his Wolf Man series, Naschy starred in dozens of other movies, almost all of them in the horror or crime genres. Unfortunately, most of Naschy’s oeuvre — at least the handful of examples I’ve seen — is pretty poor by any objective standard. In fairness, we’re talking about films that were being made on budgets smaller than our monthly cable bill. Still, it doesn’t take all that much viewing to figure out that as filmmakers go, Naschy was immeasurably closer to Ed Wood than to Orson Welles.

During my tenure as a film critic for DVD Verdict, I once landed the unfortunate assignment of reviewing a Naschy opus — 1973’s Curse of the Devil (titled El retorno de Walpurgis in its original Spanish release). I don’t know what the devil had against me that he cursed me with watching this incoherent monstrosity, but if you follow the magic link, you can share my agony. Because misery loves company.

Or is that Missouri? I forget.

Anyway…

Whatever his failings as a cinematic genius, Naschy boasted a devoted fan base that salivated over every ghastly frame of celluloid in which he appeared. The strong-stomached among you may wish to check out The Mark of Naschy, a thorough and surprisingly well-appointed shrine dedicated to the man and his legacy.

Make sure your sidearm is loaded with silver bullets.

I doubt that it will attract the notice that the passing of Patrick Swayze garnered, but character actor Henry Gibson also died earlier this week.

Like most TV viewers, I first was introduced to the mousy, soft-spoken comic actor on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Gibson would appear, wearing a quaint suit and holding an enormous artificial flower, to recite a humorous, often ironic rhyme about some innocuous subject. His bits always began with Gibson’s quavering, deadpan monotone, “A poem… by Henry Gibson.” His presentations concluded with a bow and a self-effacing, “Thank you.”

Gibson turned up frequently on television in his post-Laugh-In career, usually playing the kind of nebbishy, passive-aggressive types for whom he became famous. Most notably, he was a regular on the ABC series Boston Legal, as the put-upon Judge Brown. He also appeared in numerous films, including the recent hit Wedding Crashers, and earned a Golden Globe nomination for his work in Robert Altman’s Nashville.

My favorite Gibson role was his voicing of Wilbur — the humble, radiant pig whose best friend is a talented spider — in the animated adaptation of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. The casting was perfect, with Gibson bringing a delightful, plucky innocence to the role.

Until today, I did not know that Henry Gibson wasn’t really Henry Gibson. The actor, who was born James Bateman, took his familiar stage name as a pun on playwright Henrik Ibsen. I remember long ago noting the sonic similarity between the two names, but I’d always assumed that this was merely a coincidence.

I thought it appropriate that, in Gibson’s memory, we offer the following verse.

A poem… about Henry Gibson.
He always brought us laughter
When with blossom he’d appear;
His charming bits of doggerel
Made us grin from ear to ear.
As years passed, we discovered
He could also play things straight;
His talents as an actor
Proved nothing less than great.
We always will remember
This quirky little fellow;
His voice odd and distinctive…
His sunflower, bright yellow.

Thank you, Henry.