Son of Frankenstein (1939) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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As a kid this was one of my favorite Universal horror movies.  In a way it was the last of the legitimate Frankenstein movies from the series.  Boris Karloff played the Monster for the third and final time.  And they even brought back a couple of the actors from the original Frankenstein movie although as different characters. So, there was a certain amount of continuity with the first two movies.  Basil Rathbone adds his considerable talents to the production as the titular son of the original Dr. Frankenstein.  Lionel Atwill makes his turn as the memorable Inspector Krogh; he of the prosthetic right arm (which the Monster had torn off when Krogh was a child).  And even poor Bela Lugosi is there as Ygor to lend his legitimacy as a part of one of the earlier Universal films (Dracula) that had a lot of “prestige.”  Yes, this movie has everything.  Not only does the younger Dr Frankenstein have a very pretty wife but he also has a curly-haired young son whom the Monster befriends.  After this film the later Frankenstein films became kind of campy to my mind.  So, this is the climax of the original films.

I won’t worry about spoilers because we know that the Monster will come back for endless sequels so let’s just talk about the story.  Dr. Frankenstein and his family have arrived from the United States where he had met his wife.  They find the villagers surly and suspicious because mysterious deaths have continued to occur in the village and the Monster is still blamed for these.

We find out that Ygor has been hiding the Monster below the ruins of the destroyed laboratory but recently the Monster was struck by lightning (!) and hasn’t regained consciousness since.  Ygor wants the doctor to restore the creature.  Ygor was a grave robber who was hanged for his crimes but somehow the hanging didn’t kill him so he went free.  And now he’s befriended the Monster and it does his bidding.  Doctor Frankenstein is intrigued by his father’s creation and we are shown him using “modern” medical equipment like a fluoroscope to examine the Monster.  There’s some gibberish about his rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, cellular structure and we even find out that he has two bullets lodged in his heart which don’t seem to bother him at all.

So, the doctor sets up the generator and zaps the Monster but other than a short bout of consciousness he seems to have failed to rouse the Monster.  But later on, we hear that the doctor’s little boy met a “giant.”  And so, when the murders begin happening again both the doctor and Inspector Krogh are sure the Monster is on the loose again.  After a dart game between Doctor Frankenstein and the Inspector (which was thoroughly lampooned in Mel Brook’s movie; “Young Frankenstein) we have the climax of the movie.  Doctor Frankenstein kills Ygor in self-defense and the Monster kidnaps the little boy and brings him back to the lab.  At this point both the Inspector and the doctor attack the Monster.  Even after the creature tears off Krogh’s prosthetic arm, he manages to fire a number of bullets into the Monster.  And Doctor Frankenstein outdoes him by a swashbuckling rope swing that propels the Monster over the lip of a ledge and into a very convenient, bubbling pool of 800-degree F sulfur-bearing magma.

Alright.  It’s a silly movie.  But it’s a lot fun.  I’ve got a warm spot for this one.  All the hand waving to make the Monster’s existence “scientific” appeals to the ten-year-old kid in me.  They even go so far as to clarify that the “ray” that the original movie said was “beyond the ultraviolet” was actually cosmic rays.  Well, cosmic rays!  What more could you ask?  Highly recommended for ten-year-old boys and other folks who like a good monster movie in black and white.

The Black Cat (1934) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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To call this a horror movie would be kind of absurd.  Whatever value this movie possesses stems from the enjoyment of imagining the quaint innocence of the audiences in the 1930s being frightened by the silliness on screen.  Reviewing this movie, I will not worry about spoiling the plot twists.  They are too ridiculous to consider.

Peter and Joan Alison are an American newlywed couple inexplicably celebrating their honeymoon in the Carpathian Mountains of Hungary.  They meet Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Bela Lugosi) on the Orient Express and all three leave the train to take a bus to their destination.  But the bus crashes during a rain storm and Joan is injured so Werdegast takes them to the home of his arch-enemy Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff) whom Werdegast believes has stolen his wife while Werdegast was imprisoned in Russia for fifteen years after WWI.

Werdegast treats Joan for her injury and injects her with a powerful sedative so she will sleep the night.  Peter Alison sees that Werdegast and Poelzig are foes but he bides his time to leave the house the next morning when his wife is well enough to travel.  Meanwhile Werdegast confronts Poelzig and demands to know where his wife Karen is.  Poelzig brings him down into the subterranean fortress under his house (the one still wired with dynamite).  Here he is shown Karen’s embalmed body in a giant bell jar.  And he is told that his daughter (also named Karen) is dead.  Slightly later on we find out that Werdegast’s daughter isn’t dead but instead is married to Poelzig and that she believes her father died in prison.

The next morning, we learn that Poelzig is a Satanist whose cult is about to celebrate the new moon by sacrificing a female victim.  Poelzig wants Joan to be that sacrifice.  Werdegast agrees to play a game of chess against Poelzig to decide Joan’s fate but he loses and so Werdegast seems to acquiesce in her role as victim and allows his man-servant to obey Poelzig and render Peter unconscious with some Hungarian karate chop and imprison him in a round room with a rotating tube as its wall.  Don’t ask me why such a room is part of the story.  The whole house is full of goofy modernist architectural features.  Meanwhile Joan is being prepped for her role as sacrifice at the satanist ceremony.

But at the last second Werdegast rescues Joan and while leading her to escape they find the body of his daughter Karen that Poelzig has just murdered.  Through a series of fight scenes Werdegast and his man-servant manage to manacle Poelzig and Werdegast uses a scalpel to skin Poelzig alive.  Joan sees this and starts screaming.  Peter finds a gun that Poelzig’s dead servant dropped and thinking that Werdegast is harming Joan, he shoots him.  While dying of his gunshot wound, Werdegast orders the young couple to flee the house as fast as possible while he triggers a five-minute timing device that will set off the dynamite under the house killing himself, Poelzig and the whole satanic cult gathered at the house.

O, brother!  Well, on the positive side the architecture in Poelzig’s house has some interesting German Expressionist touches.  And the dialog is sometimes hilariously over the top.  There is Karloff reciting a two-minute incantation in Latin which is quite absurd.  And then when Lugosi is supposedly flaying the flesh off of Karloff’s face, they show Lugosi’s shadow and the way his hand is moving it looks like he is scribbling on him.  This movie is a museum piece of what a 1930s horror movie might be.  And there is just enough atmosphere to make watching it silly fun.  Only for fans of the genre.

Camera Girl’s Seal of Approval

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For the last couple of weeks Camera Girl has been asking me to send her a copy of my book.  And I kept forgetting.  Now, she’s not the most tech savvy individual.  So, reading a book from her laptop isn’t ideal for her.  But a few days ago she finally figured out how to open the file I e-mailed her and began reading it.  Somehow yesterday she informed me that the last twenty pages of the book were missing.  This panicked me because I had sent her the same file I sent to all of the other readers and I was afraid everyone would think I was losing my mind and forgot to finish the book.  But on examining her copy I could see those last twenty pages.  Somehow, she had a second copy open and something screwy happened to it.

Well, the good news is she likes the book.  And this cheered me up quite a bit.  Firstly, because I think she really means it.  She is a very honest woman and even taking into account her bias in my favor, her positive comments were recognizable facets of the story.  Secondly, I’m encouraged because this gives me my first test sample for women readers.  And Camera Girl is a voracious reader of thrillers.  She’s always reading a Lee Child book or some other big author in the genre.  And she’s not a science fiction reader so if the other aspects of the book appeal to her it makes me think my story will have general appeal, possibly even with women!

And I’ll have to say that shocks me.  I would say that my reading and writing preferences are definitely pre-feminist.  The world at large currently is immersed in fiction that is geared for women readers almost exclusively.  Even male authors take into account the sensibilities and preferences of a female audience.  And to such an extent that men must notice that something has changed in these books.  So, I’m surprised that my writing style hasn’t triggered some alarm bells in Camera Girl’s fiction reading programming.  So, I think that’s interesting.

Of course, this has made me want to get some more female beta readers, but they’re hard to find in my circle of associates.  If any of you know of any women who are interested in this branch of fiction please let me know and I’ll send along a copy for her.  The trick is to find women who wouldn’t be politically triggered by the right-wing nature of the plot and characters.

Of course, Camera Girl still has twenty pages to go so there’s no guarantee that she won’t hate the ending.  But one positive sign is that a scene in the book sparked her desire to bake a crumb cake today.  And as much as I’m on a diet I saw it as a positive sign for her ultimate seal of approval on the book.  So far, she says her favorite scene in the book is when Chastain is being pressured to accept becoming the next President of the United States by the remaining upper echelons of the federal government (Supreme Court Justices, highest ranking military officers, etc.) and he tells them he has to call his wife first to get her advice.

Well, I hope she likes it.  I’m depending on getting her recommendation on the back cover.