- He purchased the film rights to Ira Levin's novel "Rosemary's Baby", but Paramount Pictures would give him the green light for the project only if he didn't direct--the studio feared that his reputation as a director of low-budget gimmick horror films would harm the project. Roman Polanski was finally selected to direct while Castle, as producer, was allowed to make a significant cameo appearance.
- He emulated Alfred Hitchcock. This included the practice of appearing in the trailers, and even making cameo appearances in his films. He went so far as to create a trademark silhouette that showed him in a director's chair and in profile with a cigar. Hitchcock noticed the big grosses for Castle's low-budget House on Haunted Hill (1959), which led him to return the "favor" by taking a page from Castle and creating his own low-budget thriller--Psycho (1960).
- He began his career as an actor on Broadway at the age of 15. He reportedly got his first role by passing himself off as the nephew of Samuel Goldwyn.
- John Goodman's character in Matinee (1993) was based on Castle.
- He began his directing career at the age of 18 with a stage production of "Dracula."
- His daughter Terry Castle co-produced and consulted on the remakes of two of his films to make the plot even more frightening: House on Haunted Hill (1999) and Thir13en Ghosts (2001).
- Worked in radio with Orson Welles.
- Castle often appeared at the beginning of his own films, "warning" movie-goers about the terrors they were about to experience. To ensure that audience reaction was maximized, Castle frequently resorted to "interactive gimmicks" - like theatre seats wired to slightly electrocute patrons during scary scenes (The Tingler) a 3-D skeleton that floated from the screen on wires (House on Haunted Hill) and cards handed out by ushers purportedly letting movie-goers determine how the movie would end (Mr. Sardonicus). Hoaky though they were, these promotional stunts worked - Castle's films rarely failed to turn a profit.
- He derived his professional name by simply translating his real family name Schloss to Castle.
- He had seen the Pete Smith short "Murder in 3-D" (1941) which demonstrated the 3D process in motion pictures. In 1950, while at Universal, he proposed doing Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" with the gimmick of 3D to bring in the audiences. He was told that it would be too costly and that audiences wouldn't want to wear the required glasses for an entire feature and that there was no interest in science fiction. Two years later, Arch Oboler's "Bwana Devil" (1952) became a boxoffice sensation and launched a short lived craze for 3D films. Castle would direct at least 3 features in 3D for Columbia. Throughout the 1950s, Universal produced a string of very profitable science fiction films (some in 3D). RKO would produce "From the Earth to the Moon" (1958) as one of their final in-house productions.
- At the time of his death, he was at MGM producing a movie to be titled "200 Lakeview Drive." He was only 63.
- Under contract at Columbia, 1944-47, 1953-56 and 1959-63 and at Universal in 1949 and 1951.
- Castle made his final on-screen appearance in a film he did not direct: He had a cameo role in John Schlesinger's Day of the Locust as a movie director dealing with the collapse of a set while filming a period war movie.
- Worked as a dialogue director for Columbia in the 1940s.
- His eldest daughter was Georgie Castle.
- He was a heavy smoker. Even his trademark silhouette featured Castle seated in a director's chair with his ever-present cigar. This was assumed to have contributed to his fatal heart attack at the age of only 63.
- In mid 1973 it was announced that he would direct Marcel Marceau in Shock.
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