(Note: The following is a fictional interview with the equally fictional "other Karloff,"  Max Bellamy. It explores "what might have been" if Universal Studios had decided to keep Frankenstein's Monster in center stage even after Boris Karloff left the role.)  

Max Bellamy (1913-1999), the last of Universal Studios great horror stars of the 1930's and 40's, died this week only a few weeks short of his 86th birthday. He began his career as the second monster (behind Boris Karloff) in The Other Frankenstein (1937) and went on to repeat the role in The Terror of Frankenstein (1941) and Universal’s last classic fright show House Of Midnight in 1949. He was interviewed in 1990 by John Boles of Famous Filmsters Of Monsterland magazine. An edited version of that free-wheeling interview appears below.

FFOM: How did you get the role of the Monster in The Other Frankenstein?

MB: Karloff told me that after Bride Of Frankenstein he’d told the people at Universal that unless he personally approved any further scripts involving the Monster he would not be signing on the dotted line. On the quiet, someone in the story department had shown him several script treatments for a third Frankenstein film and Boris said they were all terrible. By ‘37 the muckety-mucks who’d taken over the studio from the Laemmles had decided to aim the horror films at a younger audience and were becoming hostile to sophisticated films like Bride. Boris wanted to keep playing the part but he had too much love and respect for the character to see him become a joke. But the muckety-mucks…

FFOM: Max, pardon me…but some of our younger readers may not recognize that expression.

MB: Muckety-mucks? Oh. I think these days they’re called "suits." Anyway, the suits were afraid of Boris. They were. They wanted to keep him at Universal but they didn’t want to pay him what he was worth and they didn’t want any more highbrow horror pictures like the kind Jimmy Whale had done for them. The Other Frankenstein was basically a compromise. The way I heard it, my part, the second monster, was created as a kind of novelty to offset the downbeat nature of the story. And they were grooming me to take over the character if Boris told ‘em adios… which he eventually did of course. Dumbest move Universal ever made…not giving Karloff what he wanted. It was certainly good for my career but really no one could fill his shoes. I used to get tons of fan mail telling me I’d never be as good as Karloff (laughs). But you wanted to know how I got the part. Nothing very dramatic really. Universal put an item in the trade papers that they were looking for someone to play a kind of evil brother Monster to Boris in a second sequel to the original. Well, I was six foot four, two hundred thirty pounds, had a prune face which made me look a lot older than I really was--actually I look more like Glenn Strange, who also played the part, than I did like Boris--had worked as a clown and a mime and my agent always told me I’d be great for the part. So I went down and auditioned. Roy William Neill, the director, and Jack Pierce took me into a little room like they were cops getting ready to interrogate me. Jack kept squinting at me and rubbing his chin and then he grinned. "You’ve got a great face, Mr. Bellamy," he said. Jack was always a very polite guy. Neill asked me if I could do a camera test right then and I just shrugged and said sure, why not? They didn’t make me up or anything but I put on these black clothes and those big clunky boots. They asked me to walk and do things like get mad or act scared. Really, it was a cinch. Like I told you, I’d been a mime so the test was as easy as chewing gum. Then they took some still photos of me which Jack used to do a mock-up of how I’d look as the Monster. Two days later I got a call and they told me I had the part. Like I said, nothing very dramatic.

FFOM: Did you have any say in the design of the make-up? The bolts through the top of the forehead instead of in the neck, the heavy scarring across the neck.

MB: Oh, absolutely not! That was all Jack. Nobody told Jack his business.

FFOM: What was it like to work with Karloff?

MB: Boris was a pro. Always prepared, never complained, never threw any tantrums. I knew a lot of top stars in my day but Boris Karloff was the most modest, professional and most likable of them all. He knew what the score was, that they were grooming me to take over the role but he gave me all the help I needed. Remember, I was only twenty-four at the time. He was a great guy.

FFOM: Of the three "Frankenstein" films you were in which one do you like best?

MB: I like all of them but The Other Frankenstein certainly had the best script. Boris made sure of that. It was written by Curt Siodmak, one of his first studio jobs after coming to this country. They’d given Boris a bride in the previous film and that ended tragically. So now they gave him a brother…and a friend…and, of course, that ended the same way. The Lugosi character in Son of Frankenstein was a non-monster version of me. Or so I’ve been told.

FFOM: You didn’t play the part again for four years.

MB: Right. After Son Of Frankenstein in ‘39 Boris saw the handwriting on the wall and abandoned the part for good. They wanted to bring back the Basil Rathbone character from Son and use Evelyn Ankers too. This was before The Wolf Man and they wanted to make her their Scream Queen. That’s what they called her around the lot. The muckety-mucks then had this big debate about whether I should inherit Boris’ make-up or appear looking as I did in The Other Frankenstein. It was Jack Pierce who convinced ‘em to have me appear as I did before. I looked that way in all three pictures.

FFOM: What did you do in between your roles as the Monster?

MB: Played heavies in gangster films and westerns. I made a pretty good living.

FFOM: Scholars of the horror film say that your performance in The Terror Of Frankenstein is your best. Do you agree?

MB: (He smiles) It had to be. I was playing against Rathbone who chewed the scenery like it was a hero sandwich. I decided early on to underplay my role as a way of countering Basil’s performance. I have to admit it was very smart of me. I got the best reviews of my life. I don’t mean from professional critics but from fans. My mail was all positive. Many people wrote me that when they froze me in the ice at the end they actually cried.

FFOM: I take it you didn’t like Rathbone.

MB: Oh no…I did like him. But he didn’t really want to be in the film; he didn’t particularly like horror movies, you see. He was just there for the money. And it affected the atmosphere on the set. I think he was bored and compensated for it by playing, as they say these days, over the top.

FFOM: And Evelyn Ankers?

MB: I was in love with Evelyn. Of course, I never told her. I wasn’t her type. I was kind of a bohemian in those days and Evelyn was pretty straight.

FFOM: You have the distinction of being in the last of the classic horror films, House Of Midnight.

MB: Uh-huh. Nineteen forty-nine. We saved the Universal horror film from an ignoble ending at the hands of Abbott and Costello the year before.

FFOM: You don’t like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein?

MB: It would have been a terrible shame for those three great characters, the Monster, the Wolf Man and Dracula to’ve ended their careers that way. House Of Midnight allowed them to go out with grace and dignity. Don’t you think?

Photo of Max Bellamy just prior to his death in 1999.