MIDDAY WITH DAN RODRICKS

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Today at 1 pm: "It's alive!"

What's your favorite horror film? If you had to pick one for a fright night, what would it be? With Halloween approaching, we've invited writer and film historian Greg Mank to talk about some of the classics -- the original Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy -- and to compare notes with callers on horror films. Mank knows his stuff; he's written books on the horror genre and on Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. He's also discovered some of Hollywood's skeletons -- the scandals and peculiar behaviors of the actors and actresses who once upon a time made the silver screen so scary. The stories behind the making of the horror classics are just as interesting as the films themselves. Cinema that screams -- after the news from NPR . . .