THE GHOUL

Now then, this porridge faced fellow presents something of a puzzle. To start with he resembles neither titular terrors found in the two horror movies of the same title - looking not a bit like Boris Karloff in the 1933 British horror thriller The Ghoul, nor the diseased and crazed Don Henderson in the Tyburn movie of the same name from 1975. However we do have the source image: quite clearly the card is based on this still...

However here is where the mystery lies - for although this still is often credited as being from the 1944 mad science flick The Monster Maker, this fellow doesn't actually appear in the movie. Is it a publicity still featuring something cut out of the finished film? Well, it is possible...

...But our whey-faced fellow bears a close resemblance to a character in another vintage fright flick - George Sawaya as Sailor in The Black Sleep (1956), seen here in a behind-the-scenes shot enjoying a smoke!

Although in the movie Sailor sports a distinctive scar or wound across his melty bonce, I think it's safe to assume that the fella on the card and in the still is the same mutated miscreant! So that's one mystery solved, let's move on swiftly to the next and far more troubling one...