The Films of Boris Karloff
By Richard Bojarski & Kenneth Beals
Published by Citadel Press, 1974. 287 pages.
This was a book that I checked out at my school library on several occasions. So much in fact that I was told by the librarian that I couldn’t check it out any more as to let others have a chance at it. This was probably one of the first horror reference books that I can remember paging through, in awe of the different characters that Karloff portrayed, and wondering if I’ll ever get a chance to see all of these films. That is when a mental list would start, hoping to catch on them on TV some Saturday afternoon.
Bojarski & Beals go film by film, listing the information like the cast, credits, year, with a synopsis of the film. The info on some of the earlier silent film work that Karloff are very brief. But after the his success with Frankenstein, with his roles becoming larger, more information is listed. There also notes and reviews for each of the movies. Plus there are tons of stills from the movies throughout the book, showing us the many faces of one of the most talented actors ever to grace the screen.
For Karloff fans and scholars, this is must book for their collection. Even if all the information might be found on the internet, and there isn’t a lot of details here, this is stil a fun book just to page through, recollecting the actor’s incredible body of work.
