Classic Horrors Club

There’s an amusing sequence in episode 11 (‘Off Beat’) of World of Giants (WOG). Miniature Mel Hunter (Marshall Thompson) climbs inside a piano to look for stolen Egyptian art treasures that might have been placed inside for hiding. Jazz pianist Chick Crescent (Johnny Silver) is nervous about his part in the robbery, so he sits down to tickle the ivories.

Inside, Mel bounces up and down on the piano strings like they’re a trampoline. I don’t think there’s any real danger for Mel, but it looks like a good time. In fact, there’s not much of a sense of danger for anyone else, especially since, of the first time I can recall, Mel and his partner, Bill Winters (Arthur Franz) actually take care of the bad guys before the calvary arrives.

Also, Franz demonstrates the rubbery flexibility of his face in the episode. He follows Madame Corel (Narda Onyx) to the club where she’s meeting with Chick, but isn’t allowed inside. So he takes off his hat, scrunches up his face, and acts like he’s a salesman that wants to ask the patrons if they’ll buy any of his goods.

These are highlights in an otherwise ordinary episode. However, I do have a nit to pick. Where in the world did the characters find a tiny drum set for Mel so that he can sit outside his dollhouse of a home and play along with the musician helping them uncover the plot, Daddy Dean (Bill Walker)?!?

You might recognize Narda Onyx. She’s the greatest link yet to classic horror that we’ve seen in WOG… she played Dr. Maria Frankenstein in Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966!) Onyx was born on December 20, 1931, in Tallinn, Estonia. She became a child actress, but when she was 13 years old, her family fled for Sweden to escape the Russians.

They were then taken by the Germans to Danzig, where they fit in for a while because they spoke fluent German. Eventually, they made it to Bonn and sought refuge with the Swedish Red Cross. Then, when they moved to Sweden, Onyx resumed her acting career. She would later work in England and Canada.

In Canada, she met her husband, George Virand, also an Estonian refugee, and the couple moved to Hollywood. She became an American Citizen in 1961. Her IMDb credits are over 30, mostly television, but appeared in many more Canadian productions. Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter was her last film. She died 25 years later in Ventura, California.

Director Harry Horner also directed episode nine, ‘Rainbow of Fire’; this is an improvement. This was the only episode written by the prolific team of Kay Lenard and Jess Carnell. For one final name drop, “Man at Bar” was played by Robert Swan, none other than Tano from From Hell It Came (1957.)