Take that, Dad!
What’s the scariest monster to you? I remember watching the classic Hollywood monster movies with my dad when I was a kid and hiding behind the couch. It turns out that another father/son relationship is why those movies happened, but that one was way more damaged and unhealthy.
Julian David Stone’s novel It’s Alive! tracks the birth of the monster movie industry at Universal. It tells the story of Junior Laemmle. He was 23 years old and seen as a wunderkind in Hollywood. Someone who really understood movies. He was the head of all movie production for Universal Pictures, and under his reign, the studio was making a ton of money.
Carl Laemmle, his father and founder of the studio, hated what his son was doing. He hated the monster movies and was ready to stop him from making another one after Dracula, even though that movie was a huge hit!
Author: Jason Hellerman
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
