On July 30, 1943 at 11:45 p.m., stage magician Francisco performed thrilling acts at the Auburn State Theater to frighten and entertain as part of his Big Midnight Spook Show. The show included “spirits” writing messages and floating ghosts mixed in with traditional illusions. The horror film, “Invisible Ghost” starring Bela Lugosi accompanied the show.
Sid Fleischman, noted children’s author who joined Francisco as an 18-year old stage hand in 1938, remarked in his June 2001 article in Magic Magazine that, “For theater managers the spook show’s appeal was seductive and unique. Like no other, these entertainments were found money, for we performed when the theater would otherwise be dark.”
Francisco hosted his Spook Show at the Auburn State Theater at least four times, the first in 1938. Spook Shows were popular in the U.S. from the early 1930s to late 1950s. The first magician to bring a spook show to the stage was El-Wyn (Elwin Charles Peck) in 1933. He was a vaudeville magician and, like many such performers of the era, found his livelihood threatened by radio and Hollywood films. The success of such horror films as Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931) and the Mummy (1932) may have convinced him that a show that entertained as well as frightened was the way to go. El-Wyn brought his spook show to the Auburn State Theater on February 24, 1934.
Spook shows inspired the development of what television historians refer to as “Shock Theater” which transitioned the show from the stage to late night television. The Vampira Show of the 1950s and ‘creature features’ of the 1960s and 1970s are examples of such shows. Aside from Francisco and El-Wyn, a variety of hosts brought their spook shows to the Auburn State Theater as well as to theaters in Roseville, Colfax and Lincoln.
Photo: Francisco (aka Arthur Bull), c. 1940
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