William Castle

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Colorful director William Castle is best known for his prolific horror film output, but toiled in programmers, routine dramas, and westerns for years before finding his niche. The native New Yorker was born William Schloss in April 1914. Breaking into Broadway productions in the 1930s, Castle made his way to Hollywood later in the decade and soon found himself working in various facets of film production at Columbia.

Coming up through the ranks, eventually the studio let him direct many of its programmers, such as "The Whistler" (1944) and "Crime Doctor's Man Hunt" (1946). By the mid 1950s, Castle was working in television, where he discovered his talent for science fiction and horror. In 1955, he directed some episodes of the sci-fi anthology series "Science Fiction Theater" along with another famed horror director, Jack Arnold.

Castle's first real foray into horror films came in "Macabre" (1958). In order to promote the film, Castle employed the first of a series of gimmicks designed to hype his films. For "Macabre", theatergoers were issued a life insurance policy which was payable if any audience member died of fright while watching the film.

Castle's gimmicks were nothing short of brilliant, using wired plastic skeletons to frighten theatergoers watching "The House on Haunted Hill" (1959) and 3-D for "13 Ghosts "(1960). He found his greatest gimmick in Joan Crawford, whose career revival in 1960s horror flicks packed audiences in theaters to see "Strait-Jacket" (1964) and "I Saw What You Did" (1965).

Castle's directorial output slowed in the late 1960s. Since he owned the film rights to Ira Levin's 1967 novel "Rosemary's Baby", he produced the film version the following year, but Roman Polanski served as director. In the early 1970s, Castle produced the NBC TV series "Circle of Fear". And on occasion, he acted in several films, including "Day of the Locust" (1975) and "Shampoo" (1975). The latter film was a reunion of sorts for Castle and Joan Marshall, the star of Castle's 1961 psycho thriller "Homicidal." Marshall's husband, Hal Ashby, directed "Shampoo", in which Marshall also makes an appearance.

Just one year after the publication of his autobiography "Step Right Up!: I'm Gonna Scare the Pants Off America", William Castle passed away from a heart attack in May 1977 at the age of 63. He was survived by his wife and two daughters.

Horror Filmography

Gimmicks used by Castle

Macabre - 1958. A certificate for a $1,000 life insurance policy from Lloyd's of London was given to each customer in case he/she should die of fright during the film. Showings also had ushers dressed in surgical garb with ambulances outside theater.

House on Haunted Hill - 1959. Filmed in "Emergo" . An inflatable skeleton attached to a wire floated over the audience during the final moments of some showings of the film to parallel the action on the screen when a skeleton arose from a vat of acid and pursued the villainous wife of Vincent Price.

The Tingler - 1959. Filmed in "Percepto". In the film a docile creature that lives in the spinal cord is activated by fright, and can only be destroyed by screaming. In the film's finale one of the creatures removed from the spine of a mute woman killed by it when she was unable to scream is let loose in a movie theatre. Some seats in theatres showing the Tingler were equipped with larger versions of the hand held "joy buzzers" attached to the underside of the seats. When the Tingler in the film attacked the audience the "joy buzzers" were activated as Vincent Price's voice encouraged the real audience to "Scream - scream for your lives". Much more effective was a scene in the black and white film of a hand rising from a bathtub filled with bright red blood. This color section was spliced into each print and remains impressive even today. The film also contained a sequence with Vincent Price taking

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

13 Ghosts - 1960. Filmed in "Illusion-O". A hand held ghost viewer/remover with strips of red and blue cellophane was given out to use during certain segments of the film. By looking through either the red or blue cellophane the audience was able to either see or remove the ghosts if they were "too frightening". The similarity to anaglyph 3-D glasses often causes this film to be listed as 3-D when in fact there are no 3-D segments in the film.

Homicidal - 1961. This film contained a "Fright break" with a 45 second timer overlaid over the film's climax as the heroine approached a house harboring a sadistic killer. A voiceover advised the audience of the time remaining in which they could leave the theatre and receive a full refund if they were too frightened to see the remainder of the film. To receive the refund the patron had to stand in the "Coward's Corner" until the film was over and the exiting audience filed by. To ensure the more wily patrons did not simply stay for a second showing and leave during the finale a different color "Coward's Certificate" was given each patron who had to present it in order to receive the refund for that showing. Although the film was dismissed by most critics as a rip off of Psycho Time magazine listed it as one of the top ten films of 1961 and described it as "Made in imitation of Hitchcock's Psycho, it surpasses its model in structure, suspense and sheer nervous drive". John Waters summarized it well as follows:

"William Castle simply went nuts. He came up with "Coward's Corner," a yellow cardboard booth, manned by a bewildered theater employee in the lobby. When the Fright Break was announced, and you found that you couldn't take it anymore, you had to leave your seat and, in front of the entire audience, follow yellow footsteps up the aisle, bathed in a yellow light. Before you reached Coward's Corner, you crossed yellow lines with the stenciled message: "Cowards Keep Walking." You passed a nurse (in a yellow uniform?...I wonder), who would offer a blood-pressure test. All the while a recording was blaring, "'Watch the chicken! Watch him shiver in Coward's Corner'!" As the audience howled, you had to go through one final indignity -- at Coward's Corner you were forced to sign a yellow card stating, "I am a bona fide coward." Very, very few were masochistic enough to endure this. The one percent refund dribbled away to a zero percent, and I'm sure that in many cities a plant had to be paid to go through this torture.

April 24, 1914 - May 31, 1977

"Remember, if you scream at just the right time, it might just save your life."
~William Castle