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Movies 101: Scream Queens
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With their terrifying high-pitched banshee screams, loud enough to split our ears in the theatre yet somehow not loud enough to actually reach the ears of people that can help them, the Hollywood Scream Queen has become a staple of all horror movies since the advent of sound. Without the high volume wails and sometimes overacted "damsel and distress" methods of these women, Hollywood movies would not be as terrifying or as memorable.
The only place I can think to begin is with Hollywood's oldest and perhaps most famous Queen of Scream, the lady herself, Fay Wray. Most famous as the screaming blonde in the original King Kong, Fay Wray echoed in our ears with her shrill cries of terror and earned herself the title of "The Queen of Scream". What many people don't know that before King Kong, Fay Wray was screaming her head off in tons of movies, including the Doctor X, The Most Dangerous Game, The Vampire Bat, and Mystery of the Wax Museum. Wray even managed the jump from silents to sound. However, after Kong, Wray found herself in mostly b-movies such as Her career then tapered off into television in the 1950s.Fay Wray created the Scream Queen stereotype and ever after, each woman in a horror film always seems to fall short of Fay's performance.
There are many other noted Scream Queens who came after Fay Wray as stars of some of the Golden Age's most celebrated horror films. Elsa Lanchester starred in the title role of the 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein, perhaps her most famous part, and created the cult image of the monster's bride with long pointed, streaked white hair. After that, Lanchester did move on to various roles in movies such as in Lassie Come Home, The Bishop's Wife, The Secret Garden, Les miserables, Witness for the Prosecution, and Bell Book and Candle. In Witness for the Prosecution, she starred alongside her husband Charles Laughton.
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The illustrious career of actress Gloria Stuart included a screamingly good role in the 1933 production of The Invisible Man. Stuart also starred in crime dramas Laughter in Hell and The Girl in 419 leading up to her role in The Invisible Man. Current audiences would remember Gloria Stuart as Old Rose in the 2004 romance Titanic. Stuart is also a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild and still works and lives in Hollywood.
Any 50s B-movie fan appreciates the work of Allison Hayes, the star of such films as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Undead, The Disembodied, Zombies of Mora Tau, The Unearthly, The Hypnotic Eye, and The Crawling Hand. Hayes also appeared in some westerns, the soap opera "General Hospital," and court room drama "Perry Mason". Hayes started out as a contestant in the 1949 Miss America pageant and appeared in films with legends such as b-movie king Tor Johnson, and starred with Raymond Burr and Joanne Woodward in her debut film.
Hillary Brooke is the Scream Queen who appeared alongside comedic geniuses Abbot and Costello in such movies as Africa Screams and was a regular on their show, as well as one a few Sherlock Holmes movies and in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. She had a part in the gothic romance Jane Eyre, The Fuller Brush Man, and Invaders from Mars. In addition to Abbot and Costello, she also worked with funny men like Bob Hope and Red Skelton. Because of her affected accent, sounding almost English though she was from Astoria, New York, and her high class manners, the funny men she worked with treated her like a goddess on and off the set. She said this made her exempt from their off-screen pranks, though she wouldn't have minded to be part of the fun once in a while.
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A famous Hitchcock Blonde and one of the most famous Scream Queens is none other than Janet Leigh, who will forever be remembered for her paralyzing shower scene in Psycho. The scene in the shower was so terrifying that Leigh herself cannot take a shower to thsi day. Of course, Hitchcock's slew of screaming starlets belong in a category all their own. Discovered by none other than the Queen of MGM, Norma Shearer, Leigh worked with Errol Flynn,Frank Sinatra, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Orson Welles, Paul Newman, and Judy Garland throughout her career. Leigh is also famous for being the mother of fellow Scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis, who appeared in films such as Terror Train and Halloween II.
Hauntingly beautiful, Barbara Steele is another famous scream queen. Though she stared in Federico Fellini's classic 8 ½, most of her fans come from her work in frightening films for the 1960s and late 1970s. Her list of horror films includes Black Sunday, The Pit and the Pendulum with the terrifying Vincent Price,The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock,The Ghost ,Castle of Blood, Night of the Doomed, Curse of the Crimson Altar, Shivers, Piranha, and Silent Scream (1980). Steele tried to branch out of the horror films for which she was most famous, but most of her scenes in other movies ended up on the cutting room floor. She did return to horror later
Love them or hate them, Scream Queens play an essential part in making a horror movie what it is. No matter if their screams echo your own or are just plain over the top, Scream Queens and horror films go hand in hand.
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