Legendary screenwriter Charles Byron Griffith was born in Chicago on
September 23, 1930. His mother and grandmother starred in the famous
radio show, "Myrt and Marge," which went on to New York and became a
soap opera. After a hitch in the army, Griffith went to California to
live with his grandmother, Myrtle Vail.
Before he started writing scripts, Griffith and his cousin Ron Fellows
were in a stage act called "Tsk, Tsk, Pare!", with famous movie and
stage comedians Ole Olsen and
Chic Johnson. Later, he tried his hand at
writing, with his first attempt being a proposed television version of
"Myrt and Marge". Griffith then met and became good friends with actor
Jonathan Haze, who had just started
working for prolific producer/director
'Roger
Corman' on _Monster From The Ocean
Floor (1954). Wanting to help his friend break into movies, Haze took
several of Griffith's scripts and put them right down on Corman's desk.
Corman liked the scripts and hired him. Corman took Griffith's third
script and turned it into a western,
Sonntag sollst du sterben (1956), starring Beverly Garland and John Ireland. Griffith's next movie for Corman became a sci-fi
cult classic: It Conquered the World (1956).
He not only wrote for Corman but also acted in some of them and was an
assistant director for many. In "It Conquered the World" he was Dr.
Pete Shelton. Later he wrote
The Undead (1957) for Corman -- a
fascinating journey into reincarnation. Originally written in iambic
pentameter, the script was translated by Griffith back into English. It
starred Pamela Duncan,
Richard Garland and
Allison Hayes -- who appeared in three of
Griffith's films and later appeared as the title character in
Angriff der 20-Meter-Frau (1958),
for which she achieved "cult-status" among sci-fi fans.
Griffith's next film was the sci-fi classic
Gesandter des Grauens (1957), an
excellent venture concerning an alien vampire from outer space that he
co-wrote with Mark Hanna.
Paul Birch starred as Mr. Johnson,
the "blood-seeking" vampire from the planet Davanna, whose very eyes
can incinerate a person's brain. The film also starred the beautiful
and highly talented Beverly Garland. This low-budget excursion is
considered by some to be one of the best sci-fi films of the 1950s. The
interesting plot concerns the Davannans traveling to Earth, via a
teleportation-integrator, in order to obtain human blood because of a
blood disease that their dying race has contracted. More films
followed, ;including another "B" sci-fi classic:
Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957),
which he not only wrote but also acted in and served as assistant
director/second-unit director. This starred Richard Garland,
Russell Johnson, Pamela Duncan
and Ed Nelson, along with two of
Griffith's best friends: Jonathan Haze and
Mel Welles. Ed Nelson was also good friends
with Griffith and went on to appear in several films Griffith wrote,
such as Rock All Night (1957),
Teenage Doll (1957) and
Das Vermächtnis des Professor Bondi (1959).
Both "It Conquered The World" and "Not of This Earth" had alien
monsters created by the genius "monster-maker",
Paul Blaisdell. For "It Conquered the
World", Blaisdell created an innovative alien that was nicknamed
"Beulah." In "Not of This Earth" Griffith's script called for a
"protoplasmic" robotic dog, but because of budgetary restrictions
Blaisdell made a different creation--a flying alien "umbrella bat"
which would assimilate human brain tissue! For "Attack of the Crab
Monsters" Blaisdell was asked to create a giant crab monster, but he
turned it down because he thought he could not produce a
realistic-looking monster due to the small amount of funds allocated to
him.
"A Bucket of Blood" was a dark horror comedy about an artist who
murders people to make art works out of them.
Dick Miller starred in this film,
one of Corman's most popular. Probably Griffith's best-known film was
the low-budget classic
Kleiner Laden voller Schrecken (1960).
Shot in three days, this horror comedy starred Jonathan Haze as nerdish
Seymour Krelboin and 'Jackie
Joseph' as
pretty but somewhat air-headed Audrey, Seymour's love. Haze delivered a
magnificent performance in his role. This was such a popular cult movie
that it later became a Broadway musical which was eventually made into
a film
(Kleiner Laden voller Schrecken (1960).
Griffith had four parts in the original film: he was the voice of the
plant Audrey 2 ("Feed meeee!"), a shadow on the wall in an alley, a man
running out of the dentist's office and the burglar who breaks into the
flower shop of Gravis Mushnik (Mel Welles) only to be eaten alive by
Audrey 2. Griffith and Welles shot exterior locations for this film in
the "Skid Row" section of Los Angeles. Griffith wrote many more films,
including another cult-classic,
Frankensteins Todesrennen (1975), which he
adapted from a story by Ib Melchior.
Griffith also appeared at a number of movie memorabilia shows on the
West Coast, but only appeared at one show in the East (in March 2007 in
Ohio). He was a guest celebrity at the show for a "Little Shop of
Horrors Reunion" along with his good friends Jonathan Haze, Jackie
Joseph and writers Lawrence Fultz Jr. and Stephen Knepp.
