Kenneth Strickfaden, innovative genius of illusionary special effects from silent films to the age of television, set the standard for Hollywood's mad scientists. Strickfaden created the science fiction apparatus in more than 100 motion picture films and television programs, from 1931's Frankenstein to the Wizard of Oz and The Mask of Fu Manchu to television's The Munsters. The skilled technician, known around Hollywood's back lots as ?Mr. Electric, ? once doubled for Boris Karloff in a dangerous scene and was nearly electrocuted. From his birth in 1896 to his death in 1984, Strickfaden's...