A Study in Classic Horror- ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1953)

If there’s one thing you can say about the Abbott and Costello monster movies, it’s that, despite the comedy, they were willing to let the monsters be monstrous.  They quite smartly leave the shtick to Bud and Lou when I’m sure it was tempting to just have Mr. Hyde slip on a banana peel. That being said, it still seems this movie could have been funnier. Not that it’s unfunny; it definitely has its moments; I certainly laughed out loud when Bud Abbott, usually oblivious to the dangers that threaten his partner, screamed in terror at his first glance at Mr. Hyde. It just doesn’t quite reach its potential.

I guess what I really wanted was a completely different script. Abbott and Costello are at their funniest when they’re doing their, mostly verbal, stage routines. Here the humor mostly boils down to Costello’s wild takes when confronted with danger. A sequence when Lou is transformed into a giant mouse gets some mileage, as does the two-Hyde climactic chase, but it still doesn’t quite hit the mark.

And then there’s Karloff. Just as with the previous Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, his talents aren’t used to their full potential. In his performance I see ghosts of the film that could have been. It’s no secret that uncredited stuntman Eddie Parker stood in for Karloff for the Hyde scenes, and given the physical demands of Hyde in the film, I can see where they might have been difficult for the aging actor, but I would have loved to have seen what the movie could have been like if only Karloff could have played both parts; a movie where there is more to Hyde than simply running and snarling. Also, I’m afraid the characterization of Jekyll leaves much to be desired. He gets one monologue where he articulates his desire to rid the world of evil impulses thus bringing an end violence and bloodshed, but he quickly abandons that desire to become the monster so he can eliminate those he feels have wronged him. In fact, his role as the jealous older man echoes his role in The Climax. The Karloff performance I would have liked to see is the Jekyll who made that monologue juxtaposed with a more sinister conniving Hyde.

I suppose this is really more of an unfair entry on the film that wasn’t than the one that was, and I apologize for that. Overall, I certainly don’t think this was a bad film. It was still a lot of fun; I just can’t escape the notion that it could have been much more.

Supporting features:

Tom and Jerry in Fraidy Cat (1942)

The Our Gang short The Kid From Borneo (1933)

Next time:
Son of Dracula (1943) starring Lon Chaney Jr., Robert Paige, Louise Allbritton, and Evelyn Ankers

 

A Study in Classic Horror- SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939)

Well, well, a Frankenstein movie in which Dracula is the star. I must say I’ve really been looking forward to this one, primarily for the reputation of Bela Lugosi’s performance as Ygor, and I concur that it is everything people say it is. Bela’s flair for throwing himself completely into a role really pays off here. This is the part that conclusively establishes how much more he was than simply screen presence with an accent.  Of course the Lugosi aura helps, but where many of his characters are rather one-dimensional Ygor is, at last, a character with depth, at times earning our sympathy, at others our revulsion, an echo even of the Monster who he befriends and controls.


Taking place some time after the events of Bride of Frankenstein, this story concerns the journey of Baron Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone) back to the castle and surrounding village where his father Henry conducted his notorious experiments so many years before. The villagers remember the creature Henry Frankenstein unleashed on them all to well, and Wolf, along with his wife Elsa and his son Peter (Josephine Hutchinson and Donnie Dunagan) are greeted with a rather cool reception. Only Inspector Krogh (Lionel Atwill), who himself lost an arm to the Monster as a boy, shows them any treatment resembling respect, but he still advises them to leave for their own good. Soon Wolf encounters Ygor, an estranged villager shunned by the town having been convicted and unsuccessfully hanged for grave robbing. Ygor reveals he has befriended the Monster (Boris Karloff) Wolf’s father created, but that the Creature has fallen ill. Wolf, who had been in denial that the Monster even existed, now comes to his aid, not knowing that Ygor has been using him to enact his murderous revenge on the jury that convicted him, and so finds himself continuing the work of his father, just as the villagers feared.


Karloff is in good form as usual, though I wish there could have been more of a progression in the Monster’s development from the more articulate characterization in Bride of Frankenstein. Here he’s reverted back to the grunting and moaning Monster of the first film. Lionel Atwill gives a fine performance as Krogh, the voice of reason among all the madness. There are some rather nice scenes between him and young Donnie Dunagan as Peter. It’s a nice turnaround from the character I saw him play in Man Made Monster, which came two years later. Now, I’ve seen Basil Rathbone’s performance criticized as over-the-top, but I didn’t see it that way. I think maybe it’s because he exhibits behavior we’re used to in slapstick comedies. As things start to unravel around him, he runs around in hysterics trying to hold things together, not unlike Archie trying to keep Betty and Veronica from finding out he’s made a date with both of them on the same night. Yet Wolf’s behavior is justified. This is a man who’s found himself out of his depth trying to protect his family while trying to hide a terrible secret.  I think the performance works.


Finally, I must say I loved the art direction for this movie, particularly the enormous and sparse interiors of the Frankenstein home.  Wolf and Elsa take their meals in a virtually empty dining room while enormous twin gargoyles loom over them from a pair of fireplaces you could walk into. Young Peter’s bedroom appears to be on the farthest end of the house, accessible by a delicate-looking staircase, serving to heighten the danger he’s in when the Monster’s on the loose.


Overall, it’s not as solid as James Whale’s entries, but it’s still a worthy part of the series, a fitting swan song for Karloff’s tenure as the Monster. And congratulations to Lugosi, though I fear this is probably also the moment when his career entered into decline.


Supporting features:
Tom and Jerry in The Night Before Christmas (1941)
The Our Gang short Birthday Blues (1932)


Next time:
The Climax (1944) starring Boris Karloff, Susanna Foster, Turhan Bey, and Gale Sondergaard

A Study in Classic Horror- DRACULA’S DAUGHTER (1936)

Dracula’s Daughter is a strange attempt at continuing the story from 1931’s Dracula. Universal was obviously desperate to cash-in on the first movie’s success. At it’s heart it’s a worthy story, and might have done better if it were allowed to stand on its own rather than use the Browning / Lugosi film as a crutch.

The core story is intriguing. The title character, Countess Marya Zaleska, played by Gloria Holden, is actually trying to free herself of the curse that consumed her father. When Dracula’s death fails to rid her of her hunger for human blood, she turns to a psychiatrist, Otto Kruger as Dr. Jeffrey Garth, for help. I found the idea of vampirism as addiction a refreshing take on the genre, even if Dr. Garth’s methods of surrounding an addict with that which tempts him or her are absurd in today’s world. The Countess’ desire to rehabilitate herself makes her a much more sympathetic character than her father. She comes off, not as evil, but as a soul tortured by her own needs.

I really enjoyed Gloria Holden’s performance. It might easily be mistaken as lifeless, but I think it’s just right. The sadness in her eyes and mysteriousness in her voice are just what the character requires. I even wonder if her portrayal had any influence on Carolyn Jones years later in The Addams Family. If only the rest of the film had been more tightly constructed.

The first problem the film has is its attempt to begin exactly where Dracula left off. This movie opens just moments after the last one’s climax as two policeman discover the body of Renfield, and Professor Van Helsing (again played by Edward Van Sloan) emerges from the next room having just staked the Count. He is immediately arrested under suspicion of double murder. I suspect with no television or home video market, the filmmakers assumed audiences would simply forget that John Harker and Mina were also on the scene, or that Doctor Seward could corroborate Van Helsing’s story. Van Helsing seems to have forgotten as well because he can only think to defend his case by bringing his colleague, Dr. Garth in to vouch for his character. Somehow, even in the 1930s, I doubt audiences were that forgetful.

Another problem is the film’s use of humor. In other horror classics like Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and Werewolf of London humor balances out the more serious aspects of the stories rather well. Here it seems odd and fairly forced. I’ve read in the early stages of developing a Dracula sequel that James Whale was the first choice to direct. As Whale directed two of the films I just mentioned, I wonder if the awkward use of humor here was an attempt to imitate Whale’s style.

Finally, in need of a climax, the last act of the film abandons the psychological plot threads to fall back on the old rescuing-the-damsel cliché. The Countess abruptly give up on her decades-old quest for inner peace and decides to embrace her curse, although in a bit of a twist, Dr. Garth was willing to share her curse in order to save the damsel.

With a better script, the Countess could have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her more iconic counterpart from Bride of Frankenstein; instead she’s relegated to mere cult status. Still the film is worth watching, and maybe occasionally revisiting thanks to an enjoyable performance by its lead actress.

This week’s supporting features:

Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy in Orphan’s Benefit (1934)

The Our Gang short Spanky (1932)

Next time:

The Black Cat (1934) starring Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners, and Julie Bishop

A Study in Classic Horror- REVENGE OF THE CREATURE (1955)

In some ways I’ve been dreading reviewing this one, because the only time I’ve seen it before Mike Nelson and his robot pals were heckling it on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and that may have clouded my perception of it. After a second viewing I’d say it’s not a bad film, but it’s certainly not a great one either. It’s kind of like the second Jurassic Park movie, which really didn’t work for me either. It’s about finding an excuse to get your monster to civilization so it can wreak havoc on a grander scale, but when you really get right down to it, it’s just more of the same.

The man versus nature theme worked so much better in Creature From the Black Lagoon. In that one, you could make the argument that the Gill Man is a sort of protector of his little part of the world that has remained untouched by humanity, even if he does have an inexplicable interest in human females. In this sequel he simply becomes a savage beast in captivity that turns on his captors. One tiny line about his DNA being closer to man than fish is about all the film does to further his saga, it may offer an explanation for his pursuit of the film’s blonde bombshell, and it might even set up events for the third movie, but apart from that it quickly becomes a rather generic monster movie.

Another sad fact about this sequel was the filmmaker’s need to tweak what was already a great costume. In my Black Lagoon review I talked about the near believability of the costume design, but here the eyes look a bit more rubbery and bubbles from the back of the Gill Man’s head betray the suit’s breathing apparatus.

But my biggest problem with Revenge is John Agar. I just find him so unappealing. In other entries I’ve talked about the forced romances in the old horror and sci-fi films, and I think this one has the most forced of all. Lori Nelson even seems to play the earliest scenes of romance as if Agar’s advances are unwelcome, yet they’re still engaged before the film’s last act. Their paring could not have been any less believable had Agar said, “We seem to be the two leads in this picture, we may as well be a couple.”

I’ve got one more film to go in the Gill Man’s saga, but based on this one, it’s hard to place high hopes on it, especially since I’ve already seen pictures of what becomes of his look in that one. Hopefully, I’m wrong and the script will make up for it.

This week’s supporting features:

Tom and Jerry in Puss Gets the Boot (1940)

The Our Gang short Free Eats (1932) featuring the debut of George “Spanky” McFarland

Next Time:

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) starring Lon Chaney, Patsy Ruth Miller, and Norman Kerry

A Study in Classic Horror- THE MUMMY’S HAND (1940)

Is this Hollywood’s first attempt at rebooting a franchise? I’m sure many who haven’t seen The Mummy’s Hand and the three Mummy films that followed it assume they are sequels to the 1932 Boris Karloff vehicle, when it is, in fact, its own series. Yet, it’s clearly conceived to build on people’s memories of the first film. The origin of Kharis, the mummy of the latter films is virtually identical to that of Karloff’s Imhotep, so much so that his origin flashback is presented with the same footage from the earlier film.

The Mummy’s Hand is enjoyable enough, even if it is a bit uneven. (Which so far seems to be a consistent characteristic of the Mummy films.) It can’t seem to make up its mind on whether it wants to be a horror, comedy, or adventure film, but at least it has a capable cast of character actors. Dick Foran and Peggy Moran establish the chemistry they will carry over into Horror Island the following year, while Wallace Ford and Cecil Kellaway make for entertaining comic foils. George Zucco is a formidable villain, and Tom Tyler is creepy enough as Kharis the mummy, even if I question the decision to black out his eyes. I’ve seen photographs of him in full mummy make-up and his own gaze is formidable enough without special effects.

The plot is rather simple, and probably launches the cliché we’ve come to associate with mummy movies: Desecrating an ancient Egyptian tomb leads to becoming the victim of that tomb’s mummified guardian. Though I never realized that a catalyst in the form of a fanatical religious cult was needed in order to restore life to the guardian, for the mummy cannot walk unless disciples of the cult give him a dose of serum derived from tanna leaves. It seems to me the cult’s value of ancient tombs over human life requires a high level of devotion, but I suppose such fanaticism can be found in modern religions to this very day.

The Mummy’s Hand reliance on comic relief can be rather jarring at times. I found it particularly odd for Ford and Kellaway to be amusing themselves with card tricks mere moments after the death of a colleague, but sometimes that’s just the way of Hollywood. It’s going to be a while before I get to Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, but I’ll be certain to draw on memories of this film when I write my entry for it, because I could easily see the script for Hand working as a piece for Bud and Lou with only the slightest of tweaking.

This week’s supporting features:

The Silly Symphony The Skeleton Dance (1929)

The Our Gang short Shiver My Timbers (1931)

In two weeks:

The Black Castle (1952) starring Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., Richard Greene, Stephen McNally and Rita Corday

A Study in Classic Horror- DRÁCULA (1931)

I’m afraid I didn’t like it. Sorry to start this entry off so bluntly, but I know I’m going to take some flack for my opinion, so I thought it best to get it out in the open early. I know a great many people hold Universal’s Spanish language version of Dracula, shot on the same sets with a translation of the same script, in high regard, some even find it superior to the Lugosi version. It just turns out I’m not among them. I made an effort; I really went in wanting to like it, but it just wasn’t to be. Have my love of Lugosi and the higher profile of the other version become so elevated in my psyche that this one couldn’t possibly eclipse it? Perhaps, to a degree. After all, when we hear a new version of a popular song we tend to favor the original version that we fell in love with, but I think it was more than that.

Let me start by going over what I did like about the film. There were some good performances. Pablo Álvarez Rubio certainly made a good Renfield, although he took the character in a much more extravagant direction than Dwight Frye. Lupita Tovar made for an enjoyable Eva (this film’s version of Mina). And Carlos Villarías makes an adequate Count, even if I did think he looked like the son of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee with a dash of Nicholas Cage thrown in, still I found him lacking in the Lugosi charm. But casting-wise I felt most of the good performances were made by the tourists and villagers at the beginning of the film, and I particularly liked the wide-eyed frightened helmsman, who becomes the last victim on the cargo ship.

Production-wise, I appreciated some of the script elements retained in this version that were cut from the Lugosi version. It was nice to see exactly how the housekeeper escaped a possible attack from Renfield, and I was glad to see closure brought to the Woman in White subplot, even if it did come at an awkward time dramatically.

I did find it strange that there is footage of the brides of Dracula used from the English version that doesn’t match at all the brides we see a few minutes later, but I can forgive that. We’ll just say the Count has six brides in this version.

No, my biggest problem with Drácula was the pacing. This version is thirty minutes longer than the English version, and it feels like it. One might argue that it’s due to the aforementioned script elements that they kept, but no, it’s mostly due to the director’s slow pans and his need to show every single step as someone crosses a room. This is the same way the Ed Woods of the world pad out a film. Couple that with Eduardo Arozamena’s very stilted way of delivering his lines, and this makes for one very slow moving film. There were also some strange choices made when it came to the composition of some shots, particularly one where several of the actors are obscured by a sofa. On the whole, I found it very hard to remain engaged.

So, let the dissension begin. I was looking for discussion and debate when I decided to take this project to the Internet, so I’m looking forward to hearing what others have to say. I may not have liked it, but I look forward to hearing why others do.

To end on a high note though, there’s a nice anecdote connected with the film in Michael Mallory’s book that I can’t resist repeating here: Apparently, Lupita Tovar got the role of Eva because Universal executive Paul Kohner had fallen madly in love with her and she was to return to Mexico. Creating projects for young Spanish-speaking actors was apparently his ploy to keep her in Hollywood. Apparently, it worked. They were married in 1932 and remained so until his death in 1988. Incidentally, she’s still with us today at age 101, and the DVD I watched, features an interview with her from five years ago, still looking rather lively for a lady in her upper 90s.

This week’s supporting features:

Porky Pig in Paying the Piper (1949)

The Our Gang short Big Ears (1931)

Next week’s film:

The Mummy’s Hand (1940) starring Dick Foran, Peggy Moran, Wallace Ford, and Tom Tyler

A Study in Classic Horror- BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935)

Did anyone else ever read the monster books by Ian Thorne? They were a very accessible series on the classic movie monsters that were available in my elementary school library that I read long before I saw any of the actual movies. One of Thorne’s comments that always stayed with me stated that of all the Frankenstein films, Bride of Frankenstein most closely follows Mary Shelley’s book. Today having read the book and seen the movie, I’d say yes and no. Certainly, there are many elements from the book there, most notably the Bride herself (though she’s never completed in the book) and the scene where the Monster befriends a blind man, but the film goes in so many different directions from Shelley, I’m very reluctant to say that it closely follows anything she ever wrote. In fact, I’m rather amused by Lord Byron’s (Gavin Gordon) synopsis of the first film in Bride’s prologue to Shelley (Elsa Lanchester). He describes a series of events she never wrote. Perhaps Thorne took that prologue a little too seriously.

None of this is meant to sound like criticism. Today, I often see films that are based on books that I’ve read, and I take them on a case-by-case basis. I understand, accept, and even embrace some differences while I outright reject others. In the case if the classic movie monsters with literary origins, I’ve learned to accept them as works in their own right, more drawing inspiration from their respective books than being accurate representations of them.

Besides, there’s just so much to love about Bride of Frankenstein. I think if I had to pick one film to represent the whole of the Universal horror catalogue, this would probably be it. First, we have yet another solid performance by Boris Karloff. Many more people die at the monster’s hands in this sequel, but he still manages to remain sympathetic. His brief friendship with the blind man (O. P. Heggie) is very moving, and there’s a particularly touching moment where he looks longingly at the carving of a woman atop a sarcophagus and mutters “Friend”. The Monster is a bit more savage here, especially as his anger towards his creator mounts, but he never loses that pitiable edge.

Next we have the hilarity of Una O’Connor as Minnie, James Whale must have felt he underused her in The Invisible Man because she’s practically everywhere here. She’s part comic relief and part Greek chorus commenting on and running in and out of nearly every scene prior to the climactic sequence. It’s almost a surprise to find she’s a servant in the Frankenstein household considering her presence throughout the village.

Elsa Lanchester’s turn as the Bride is brief, but stunning. She’s not unlike a frightened feral kitten, savage yet vulnerable. I must confess, when I was a kid reading those Thorne books, I always found her a bit sexy. Her male counterparts, Dracula, the Monster and the Wolf Man easily comprise the big three when it comes to Universal’s iconic creatures, but I would place her solidly at number four.

Rounding out the standout performances we have Ernest Thesiger as Doctor Pretorius, possibly the maddest of all mad scientists and definitely one of the most entertaining. He certainly outshines Colin Clive’s crazy cackling from the first film, and makes him look quite sane when placed next to him in this one. With his campy demeanor as he introduces his collection of tiny people or his merriment as he dines in a crypt with a pile of bones as his lone party guest, they just don’t come much more eccentric. I could almost see someone giving him his own movie today, but I could not envision anyone but Thesiger in the role.

Finally, all of this comes together nicely under James Whale’s direction. His dark sense of humor reaches a pinnacle in this picture. Note how he takes one of the saddest moments of the first film, the death of little Maria, and gives it a dark punchline in the sequel by sending her parents to join her. Add Pretorius, his little people, and ditzy Minnie and there’s really a lot to laugh at in the film, yet Whale maintains a balance that keeps the film from slipping too far into silliness. The end result is a sublime and enjoyable ride.

This week’s supporting features:

Mickey Mouse in The Chain Gang (1930)

The Our Gang short Fly My Kite (1931)

Next week’s film:

Drácula (1931) starring Carlos Villarías, Lupita Tovar, Pablo Álvarez Rubio, and Eduardo Arozamena

A Study in Classic Horror- DRACULA (1931)

I wish I could see more of the classic horror films on the big screen. Watching Dracula, (or Bride of Frankenstein or Creature from the Black Lagoon or even Psycho, other classic horror films I’ve had the opportunity to view theatrically) you can see how these movies were always intended to be larger than life. In the Thirties, filmmakers like Tod Browning and James Whale probably had no idea their movies would one day primarily be viewed on a little box yet they seem to have crafted them specifically for these giant canvases. Today, I’m grateful I’m able to watch them on my 52 incher, but that still doesn’t compare to the enormity of the silver screen.

I’ve read that Dracula was a troubled production, with a drunken Tod Browning deferring much of the actual directing to cinematographer Karl Freund, fortunately with a strong cast and some beautiful art direction, the film suffers little for it.

First and foremost, we have Bela Lugosi; poor Bela may have been low on the list of candidates for the title role, but today it’s hard to imagine it having gone to anyone else. It’s with good reason that Lugosi as Dracula has influenced the image of vampires in our collective subconscious, and I’m certain he will continue to do so long after the Cullen brood has faded into obscurity. When he’s acting on his vampiric nature, he’s frightening and imposing, yet he’s perfectly charming when he’s the seductive Count. I know I’m saying this with some bias, but I really can’t see any other actor (not even Lon Chaney) pulling off such an iconic performance. The same day as this screening, I felt compelled to watch Tim Burton’s excellent Ed Wood which is as much a film about Lugosi to me as it is about Wood, and although it’s sad to see how far Lugosi fell from the Studios’ graces, it’s nice to think he achieved an immortality much like that of the character that made him famous.

A bit must also be said about Dwight Frye, who played the deranged Renfield. Frye is mostly forgotten today except among horror aficionados, but many of them will tell you his performance is one to be celebrated as well. His maniacal laughter, piercing stare and appetite for spiders and insects make him almost as frightening as the Count himself. Frye also turns up as Fritz and Karl respectively in the first two Frankenstein films and has a cameo in The Invisible Man, unfortunately the size of his roles continued to diminish until his untimely death in 1943. Dracula was truly his time to shine.

I’m glad to say that 80 years later, Dracula still possesses some truly chilling moments: Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) nearly succumbing to Dracula’s hypnotic influence, the undead Lucy (Frances Dade) walking the night as the Woman in White, or the enthralled Mena’s (Helen Chandler) attempted attack on her beloved John Harker. I found it particularly gratifying to hear many in the audience gasp as Renfield advances on all fours toward an unconscious housekeeper. (I hope that somewhere Mr. Frye was feeling some gratification as well.) I might also add, as this is the first time I’ve seen the film since reading Bram Stoker’s book, that it has more elements from the novel than I remembered.

I won’t say the film is without its weak points. David Manners as John Harker is yet another bland do-nothing leading man, and Dracula’s final moments are a bit anti-climatic, although that has been said about Stoker’s novel as well. And I do wonder about some of the filmmakers’ choices. For example, why is castle Dracula infested with opossums and armadillos? I suspect the opossums are meant to be giant rats, and maybe Hollywood thought armadillos would look downright alien to middle America. There’s also something annoying about a scene where Dracula escapes off-screen in the form of the wolf, I would guess the wolf’s no-show was a budgetary problem, but having Harker watch it runaway off-screen only seems to call attention to that fact.

A few more words on seeing it in a theatre in the present day: watching it on the big screen may be great, but sometimes sharing that experience with a modern audience may be a bit annoying. Yes, as a fan of the likes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, I’m guilty of laughing at old bad movies, but the operative word there is “bad”. Usually, when I watch old movies, I like to throw my mindset back in time and watch the movie on its own terms. For example, there’s a sequence set underwater in the 1924 version of The Thief of Bagdad. This was, of course, a time when you could not take a camera underwater, so instead the actors are on wires and all of the sea creatures are puppets, on the surface to today’s viewer it may look ludicrous, but I preferred to marvel at it for the accomplishment it was, considering the limitations of the day. As I sat watching Dracula there was much laughter at the expense of the limitations of 1930s filmmaking, and I found that rather disappointing. I could understand a chuckle or two, but at some point, I wish my fellow audience members could just accept that yes, it’s just a bat on a string, but it’s time to move on and enjoy the film for what it is.

Next week’s film:

Bride of Frankenstein (1935) starring Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive, Ernest Thesiger and Valerie Hobson

A Study in Classic Horror- MAN MADE MONSTER (1941)

In Man Made Monster, Lon Chaney Jr. is instantly likeable as carny Dan McCormick, the soul-survivor of a tragic bus accident. He’s a happy, go-lucky and trusting sort, if a bit on the dim side, and that what’s makes the film’s turn of events all the more sad.

Let me start by saying Chaney’s performance is a refreshing change from the sad protagonists of The Wolf Man and Calling Dr. Death. I like his performances in those films, but I must confess I was beginning to wonder how much of a range he had, which is a bit unfair. I was forgetting that he’d already won a lot of people over on stage and screen as Lennie in Of Mice and Men, a performance that would be emulated in cartoons and other comedies for decades to come. In fact there are shades of Lennie in Dan.

I suppose the very things that make us like Dan are what lead to his downfall, most of all the fact that he’s so trusting. Surviving an accident that electrocutes all of his fellow passengers and his carnival job as Dynamo Dan the Electric Man, leads benign scientist Dr. Lawrence (Samuel S. Hinds) to believe Dan may have an immunity to electricity and wants to conduct some experiments on him. Trusting Dan is more than willing. Unfortunately, Lawrence’s duplicitous partner Dr. Rigas (Lionel Atwell) wants to use electricity to alter the brains of what he considers lesser men, to turn them into an army of mindless thugs, and Carl is the perfect guinea pig.

It’s heartbreaking watching what Rigas’s secret experiments do to Dan. The cheerful guy we liked at the beginning of the film becomes a morose parody of his former self, and eventually a zombified drone that murders Dr. Lawrence on Rigas’s command and finds himself on death row unable to defend himself with anything but the hypnotic confession that Rigas has planted in his mind.

It’s a very well made film, if you can handle the sad stuff, but then, most of the classic horror films have some kind of tragic element. Though I think the romantic subplot between a reporter and Dr. Lawrence’s niece / assistant June (Frank Albertson and Anne Nagel) could have been done differently. Albertson’s Mark Adams seems a bit wedged in to the story. Dan is clearly flirting with June early in the movie; I think some seeds of romance between those two might have better served the overall story.

Last but not least, I must mention Corky. This may be the earliest film I’ve seen to use an animal, particularly a dog, to elicit sympathy from the audience. There have been some canine casualties in The Mummy and The Invisible Ray, not that Corky dies, but the dogs in those stories were peripheral characters at best. Corky, the family dog in the Lawrence household, is very much a full-blown characters. Corky romps playfully with Dan, he sits waiting sadly outside the laboratory door as Dan receives the detrimental doses of electricity, and their last moment together… I’ll leave that for you to experience yourself. Corky was quite the little furry actor.

This week’s supporting features:

Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse in The Birthday Party (1931)

The Our Gang short Little Daddy (1931)

Next week’s film:

The Invisible Man (1933) starring Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart, William Harrigan and Henry Travers

A Study in Classic Horror- CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954)

The Gill Man is the last of the great classic Universal monsters, and he’s a big shift from his brethren. Unlike the other greats, there is no Karloff, Lugosi or Chaney to endow him with a soul. He’s not the first movie menace to be a head to toe creation of the make-up artists, but he’s certainly one of the most memorable. Not to take anything away from Ben Chapman and Rico Browning, the men who wore the suits, but I think most of this film’s success is owed to the people who designed them.

In terms of story, it’s pretty simple, and a tad uneven in places. A scientific expedition that falls victim to a hitherto unknown force of nature, in the form of the Gill Man, a missing link between fish and man. It’s a story framework that had been used before and has been done successfully several times since. (The Thing from Another World was released three years earlier, and of course later on we got that film’s remake, and the Alien and Predator films.) The characters don’t have much dimension. Richard Carlson and Richard Denning bicker constantly as the respective scientist and businessman of the institute sponsoring the expedition. Julie Adams (billed here as Julia) was a popular leading lady at the time, who took the role because it seemed like fun; she’s introduced as an intelligent member of the group, and not just a romantic interest for Carlson, but once the Creature shows up, her role is quickly reduced to that of the screaming, stumbling damsel. Then there's the Beauty and the Beast aspect of the plot, where the Gill Man is inexplicably drawn to a human female. (Either that, or she just looks like a more tender morsel than her male counterparts.)

None of this, however, dampens the fun. The Gill Man is a pretty scary creation; no visible zippers or obvious mask lines here, like many of the other costumed beasts of the era. He’s menacing on land, and creepy underwater. (The vulnerability of being in water while a silent killer lurks below is a scary concept to me.) I find him at his scariest when he stares at the crew of the boat through the bamboo bars of the makeshift prison they create to take him back to civilization. As a costumed monster, he’s almost completely believable; I particularly love the way his gills flap when he’s on land.

I was also watching a documentary this weekend that accompanied the new Mystery Science Theater 3000 Gamera collection in which the Chiodo Brothers lumped the Gill Man in with the likes of Godzilla, Gamera and the other Japanese costumed monsters. They may be distant cousins, but I think Alien, the creatures of the original Star Wars films, and the types of characters Doug Jones has played in films like Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth are examples of more direct descendants.

Incidentally, I had the opportunity to watch Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3-D last year. If the opportunity arises, I recommend it. The underwater footage alone makes it worthwhile.

This week’s supporting features:

Speedy Gonzales in Mexicali Shmoes (1959)

The Our Gang short School’s Out (1930)

Next week’s film:

The Invisible Ray (1936) starring Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Frances Drake

A Study in Classic Horror- WEREWOLF OF LONDON (1935)

Five years before The Wolf Man, Universal spearheaded Hollywood’s first attempt at bringing werewolves to the big screen, and I must confess I find Werewolf of London a bit more engaging than its successor. But it may be a bit unfair to say it’s the better werewolf story, as it has more in common with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Generally, we think of a werewolf as a human who is transformed into a wild beast acting on pure instinct, but in this story we’re warned that “the werewolf is neither man nor wolf, but a Satanic creature with the worst qualities of both.” Indeed, the creature that Wilford Glendon transforms into is more calculating than the one Larry Talbot becomes, and there seem to be more rules involved with this lupine curse. This werewolf must kill each night he transforms or risk permanent change, and to make matters worse “the werewolf instinctively seeks to kill the thing it loves best.”

There’s a lot of fine acting here: Henry Hull as Dr. Glendon is an already obsessed botanist whose work overshadows his marriage to his wife Lisa, played by Valerie Hobson, and his curse only serves to drive the wedge further between them. You get a sense that the two really love each other, but know deep inside they are doomed to drift apart. Warner Oland, who is best known for the Charlie Chan films, is quite memorable as Dr. Yogami, the mysterious lycanthropy expert. But again, it is the supporting cast of character actors that really shine in the film. Like a Frank Whale movie, there is a lot of humor to support the horror, and a lot of great little performances to deliver it. Particularly notable is Spring Byington as Lisa’s pot-stirring aunt, one of those types who shun the unfamiliar while simultaneously craving it. Also unforgettable: Ethel Griffies and Zeffie Tilbury as Mrs. Whack and Mrs. Moncaster, two old cockney landladies.

When I wrote about The Wolf Man, I mentioned the absence of full moon references. Here it is implicitly stated that the full moon triggers the transformation, but the concept that it takes silver to kill a werewolf is completely absent. Instead we get the mariphasa plant, a rare Tibetan flower that only blooms in moonlight that can be used as a temporary remedy for lycanthropy.

Make-up artist Jack Pierce wanted to use the werewolf effect he eventually used in The Wolf Man for this film, but Henry Hull balked at spending hours in the make-up chair, which is why we get a more minimalist werewolf here. The look of Lon Chaney Jr’s werewolf became iconic, so I wonder if things might have been different had we seen that look five years earlier. I don’t know how much of the werewolf mythos we owe to Hollywood, but perhaps mariphasa would be a bigger part of it if that hairy beast had emerged sooner. Hard to say, Wilford Glendon is far less sympathetic than Larry Talbot, and while I maintain Werewolf of London has the better story, it lacks that out-of-time quality that became such a staple of these horror classics.

This week’s supporting features:

Daffy Duck and Porky Pig in Tick Tock Tuckered (1944)

The Our Gang short Pups Is Pups (1930)

I’m taking a break next week, then I’ll return the following week with:

Tower of London (1939) starring Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone and Vincent Price