The Halloween Double Feature

    

    It's that time of year for ghosts, goblins, and Reese's Cups (my favorite, which my granddaughters each save for me from their stash!).  And every Halloween since the 50's, I remember one afternoon at the Levoy Theater…when I became a monster and terrorized over 1000 kids… 

…There was going to be a great kids' event.  A Halloween live magic show at the movies – an afternoon I had been waiting for since it was first advertised on a big poster in the lobby during the summer.  "Coming in October to Your Theatre…Dr. Silkini's Traveling Magic Show - Live on Stage…and a Double Creepy Feature…Abbott and Costello Meet the Wolfman and Meet the Mummy…PLUS AN APPEARANCE OF THE REAL FRANKENSTEIN AND DRACULA LIVE ON STAGE. 

"All this and more for one low ticket price…"  The words were blood red across a background of bats surrounding a photo of the great grand magusi himself – Dr. Silkini with a fireball shooting from his wand!  This was going to be the great Halloween – I just knew it and started to cross off the days on the Abbott's Fine Bakery calendar hanging in our kitchen. 

    Finally, the Saturday before Halloween came, and I couldn't wait to get to my favorite seat at the movie – I got there as the doors opened.  But as I walked through the lobby, a young lady stopped me and said, "Young man, you look like somebody who might enjoy having extra fun today. How would you like to be in our show?  I am Dr. Silkini's assistant, Miss Carol, and I think you would be a perfect fit for our show!"  How did she know I was a Charter Member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians and had been playing the Cub Scout Blue & Gold Dinner circuit since I was a kid?  (I started to do magic shows when I was 9, four years ago) This was an incredible piece of good luck.  I was going backstage with a "real" magician and, even better, a part of his big act.   Miss Carol instructed me to come backstage through the exit door to the right of the stage just before the first movie ended so I could get my script and makeup.  Makeup! I was going to get makeup – this was real showbiz.  As Bud Abbot and sidekick Lou Costello ran from a monster for the last time,  I made my way backstage. I was in the dim light behind the translucent, flickering screen.

    This was a real backstage with dressing rooms, ancient theater posters on the walls, ropes and pulleys – I had no idea that our local movie house was a real theater - a stop on the traveling vaudeville circuit.  I was very excited until I saw a half dozen of my friends sitting on folding chairs – I wasn't going to be the only star of this show.  A man, dressed in sneakers and a sweatshirt, got our attention (this was the famous Dr. Silkini, but he didn't look much like a wizard or a doctor; he looked like just a person).  He asked us to form a line, and as he walked by each of us, he quickly made assignments for the show. "You two will be floating hands.  You will be Dracula; all you have to do is lie in that coffin and sit up when I  knock on the lid.  You other two will work the flying bats; Miss Carol will show you how.  And you (me), big guy, will be my Frankenstein.  When I cue ya, just walk out on stage (he demonstrated the stiff Karloff monster walk), make some loud monster noises, and when the lights go out, jump off the stage and run, I repeat run as fast as you can, up the center aisle, and wait for us in the lobby to get you back here.  Thanks, guys, for your great help, and all of you will get an autographed picture of me as a souvenir of our big Halloween show."  And that was it. 

    Miss Carol, who came from the one dressing room, now in her very brief red sequined outfit, helped me get into my costume, consisting of a giant padded black canvas coat and a pair of shoes with six-inch blocks of wood attached to the soles.  She advised me to practice walking because walking in them was not easy.  She handed me a well-used Frankenstein rubber mask that covered my whole head.  I pulled it on.  It smelled like Swiss cheese, and I practiced walking and trying to see where I was going while the "hands" and the "bat" guys got dressed in long black robes with hoods.  Miss Carol sprayed their hands with white fluorescent paint – and they glowed magically as they waited in the dark wings of the stage.  She raced through our last instructions - "Listen to Doc...just follow what he says - hands just walk around the stage and wave at the audience.  Bat guys' fly' the bats at the edge of the stage out over the audience when he tells you - like casting with a fishing pole.  Drac, I'll push you out to the center, and don't forget to sit up.  Frank, you will come on when the Doc cues you".

    The "live" show started with the Doc doing a few traditional magic tricks –  Chinese linking rings, an ancient and weary rabbit appeared and disappeared, and then he did his "big finish" - he cut Miss Carol in half and restored her, no worse for wear!  She pranced into the wings. (And from my point of view, I now knew how this trick was done, but I would never tell).  The stage darkened. And black lights above the stage were turned on -  (Note: for the un-magician, these lights made things glow in the dark.)  

    Next, eerie music filled the theater from a record player in front of an ancient PA mike.  Dr. Silkinni, with a flashlight under his chin, spun a scary tale of Halloween, and the audience started to shriek as the stage went totally black.  Miss Carol pushed the six hands out on the stage, and the audience screamed as they saw them floating in mid-air.  Next, as the Doc continued his tale, the evil glowing bats flew to even louder shrieks.  Dracula was summoned and sat up on cue. The audience of hundreds of kids was now hysterical – and I was too...I was next.  Doc's story then introduced the greatest monster of them all – me.   Miss Carol gave me a not-so-gentle push out on the stage – I clomped to the center, doing my best monster impersonation (Boris would have been proud) - the music was deafening.  Thunder roared and strobes flashed as Doc yelled, "JUMP"!  

    I jumped off the stage into the black void. My giant shoes crunch through the aged floorboards in what used to house an orchestra pit.  I was stuck.  Finally, I pried both feet out and tried to find the center aisle - but I was immediately pounced on by all the kids in the first row.  I was pummeled with their tiny fists, showered in popcorn, beaned with Good and Plenty's – I feared that I would actually become one of the living dead – or worse.  I couldn't see anything in the sweaty mask. I desperately tried to find a way to escape.  I now realize why the Doc had repeated during our "rehearsal' that I should "immediately run" up the closest aisle. 

    Then a firm hand grabbed my arm – Miss Carol pulled me up the aisle as the house lights came on to a crescendo of rolling applause and hoots, then slowly dimmed. The next movie, Frankenstein and the Three Stooges, began.  And I had been saved from the kid monster hunters.  Safely backstage, Miss Carol said, "Great job, Frankenstein. Want to do it for our evening show tonight?  You can come to the movie for free."  How could I say no?  

    After my evening performance, my showbiz career was over for a while. Still, I was bitten that day, not by a horror show vampire, but by a showbiz bug whose effects have been with me ever since.

A TREAT OR A TRICK

     

Looking back, I have decided that my Mother was amazing!  She worked at a glass factory 8 hours a day and still came home to spend time with me before bedtime, read a story, and play Parcheesi (a game I insisted on playing).  But one Halloween, she outdid herself for sure.  I was 9 or 10, and Halloween was still a significant event in my kid year.  I looked forward to it almost as much as Easter, but not nearly as much as Christmas.  So, one night in early October at play time, Mom asked, “How would you like to have a Halloween party?”  “Why sure!” I replied, but I was not really sure what a Halloween party would be like, and I guess I looked puzzled because she added, “Just leave it to me…I will call the moms of your Cub Scout Den, and you invite your cousins, and don’t forget Bruce.”  I was surrounded by “cousins” one or twice removed.  My grandfather had built our small cottage between the homes of his two brothers, and they both had a bunch of kids. One cousin, Bruce, was my nemesis – the famous neighborhood bully. He was noted for his violent reprisals whenever anyone beat him at marbles, basketball foul shots, or even rummy on a rainy day.   I wondered why my Mother had decided that I had to invite Bruce.  Little did I realize she was up to producing a Halloween trick!  So, after throwing a marble game, I asked him the next day, and losing one of my favorite Tommy Trollers to avoid a black eye or worse.  To my surprise, he said he would come!   Yikes, he never went to parties; of course, he was never invited to any, primarily out of fear that he would do something bad to someone before the cake was served.  And so, a couple of nights before Halloween, ten boys all in costume, except Bruce, were assembled in our living room.  My Mother had been working on the event for days.  And it was a big secret as she worked in the laundry room.  It was off limits for me, and this was driving me crazy.  The festivities began with my grandmother turning out all the lights and turning on our record player – eerie organ music filled the darkness.  Mom entered carrying a candle – and she was dressed like a witch!  Tall, peaked hat, black cape (I later learned my grandmother made the costume), and she was riding an old broom.  We all shrieked, except Bruce, who was too cool to be impressed.  We sat mesmerized as this green-faced old witch cackled and conjured up the fun. First, she “read” our palms and told our fortunes – and she was hilarious.  I had no idea where she got the script for this.  (Later, she told me she had chatted with all the moms for some funny stuff to tell)  Next, Nanny served us cider and homemade cinnamon donuts.  We ate and played games for a couple of hours, pin the tail on the ghost, guess the monster charades, and then the big moment arrived.  Mom produced a long tube from a roll of paper towels that she had painted black and orange. – After showing it, she said in her best witch impersonation that it was a “magic spyglass” and if someone peered into it, they would see a real ghost.  But it only works once a night, so who would like to be brave enough to take a look?  Bruce immediately grabbed it and declared, “I’m the oldest, and the rest of you are too afraid.” This was the first sound he had said all night. Most of the time, he had been scowling, letting everyone know that he was much too cool to enjoy the kid games.  Mom explained that he had to look deep into the darkness of the device.  He put it to his eye and growled that he saw nothing.  Mom said maybe he should turn it a bit.  He did.  Not a thing! She suggested he try the other eye – again, NOTHING he yelled.  He took the tube away and snarled, “This lousy thing ain’t working”!  The room went wild with laughter!  The tube left big black circles around each eye.  Mom had added her mascara to the end of the tube.   For us ten-year-olds, this was the greatest practical joke ever, played on the one person that surely deserved it – we hooted for a long time, not caring that we might later feel the wrath of Bruce the next day after school.  For once, Bruce got the black eyes, not one of us.  Bruce had no idea what was going on until Mom gave him a mirror and he took a look.  He was mortified.  She gave him a wet paper towel to wash off his “black eyes”!  He didn’t say another word and just grabbed another donut.  And we all knew he knew he was undone by a mom no less, and not by a big kid’s punch.  The next day, I saw him on the school playground and anticipated a bad end to my mom’s practical joke, but he just looked at me with a smirky smile rather than his usual glare. 

    The best Halloween Ever was over for another year, and from that day forward, Bruce the Bully left all of us alone.  

TRICK OR TREAT?

  

  The kitchen calendar flipped to October 1, 1952, and I started to think of Halloween and my annual monumental decision - What would I be this year?  But that day, fate stepped in when I saw a full-face rubber mask of Frankenstein in the window of W.T. Grants.  It was $7.50 - yikes, a fortune in kid money, but I was sure I could talk my grandfather into a "loan".  My most excellent costume of all time was in the works.

    My grandmother was a great seamstress, and she turned an old black remnant into a monster's jacket. Next, a feat of genius, she fit the jacket perfectly, and it went over a large cardboard box, which gave me giant shoulders. My pop gave up his favorite pair of black work pants, and he nailed a couple of slabs of pine to the soles of a pair of worn-out work boots. I clomped around the house all week. Boris Karloff would have been proud.

    The wait slowed the clock as usual. The days ticked off. Now in South Millville, treating or Treating took more than one day to ensure we got to everyone.   We went out in a gang two nights before and then the big one, Halloween, filling a pillow case each night - with no worries about straight pins in our Baby Ruth bars.  As a warm-up, we also appeared at the Bacon School PTA Halloween party, marched around the gym, and ate hard gingerbread cookies from the cafeteria with a cider chaser.

    Back to mischief night - we tossed toilet paper over Aunt Kathleen's trees and ran.  We threw a couple of eggs at each other and would have turned over an outhouse if we could find one, but they had disappeared when we got city water.   We did not think of burning a neighbor's car, stealing a TV from a department store window, or destroying anything - we just had fun and always hoped we would meet the Jersey Devil at the second street hollow - just once.  But we never saw him/her/it.

    Each night, I donned the mask and stumbled out into the dark.  Actually seeing in the mask was not an option.  All around us were the hoots and shrieks of ghouls and a couple of gals dressed as Princess Summer Fall Winter Spring – a popular character on The Howdy Doody show and one of the best-selling store-bought costumes at our Woolworth's 5 & 10 @ $2.89.  I made the rounds from third to second and back with my friends.  Warren was choking in the skeleton costume he had outgrown about two years ago.  Danny was the Lone Ranger with a mask and a cap gun ready.  He fired off a few cap rounds at every door as a greeting.  And Sylvia was a "something" – none of us could figure just what.  But it was a raggedy, mismatched outfit held together with safety pins that decades later a famed pop star would wear the same on TV and change the world of fashion for teenage girls.  

    Inside my prized rubber mask, I was drenched as my breath condensed in the cool fall air into a moist and steamy mixture that got into my eyes.  This was a small price for what I was sure would be the biggest candy haul ever.  I thought that nobody would ever guess who this giant monster was.  I had practiced my monster voice all week, trying to sound like Mr. Boris K., but I was immediately recognized at each door.  "Great, get up there, Calvin," my uncle Harold said.   My bag of treats grew heavy, and I  dragged it behind me.  And then it was over, as all holidays must - too soon..

I staggered home and immediately got out of my wet mask to dump my haul on the living room floor and counted my stash.  32 candy bars, 7 homemade chocolate chip cookies, 46 cents in change, a rusty token from the NYC subway, and a pencil which said, Prince's Lumber Company.  I had bagged enough sugar to make a dentist drool.  Of all the treats, I preferred the regular-size Reese's Cups over the others.  They had a special flavor on the candy connoisseur's palate for at least two bites. On the other hand, I never ate the Mary Janes, those hard chomping waxy morsels that my mom tossed after they hung around for a few months.

    I put my dripping mask away, and it would stay on that shelf in my room until a yard sale 10 years hence.   But it remains the best mask I ever had for Halloween.