Tag: Bela Lugosi

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

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Movie Reviews , , , , , , ,

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

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Movie Reviews , , , , , ,

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.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews , , , , , , , , ,

We have a family get together on Saturday and I was looking for a movie for the grandkids in case things get too quiet.  By luck I had recorded this monster themed comedy movie back in October.  Now of course I’ve seen this movie many times.  One of my local tv stations back in New York City during my childhood would cycle through the Abbott and Costello movies on Sundays.  Annoyingly, the movie always coincided with church which really made me wonder about God’s priorities and sense of humor.

So, I put it on tonight.  And just as I remembered, it’s the perfect movie for boys between the ages of seven and eleven.  All of the jokes are corny as hell and the monsters are about as tame as rabbits.  But Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolfman still look the part.  And Lou Costello sells his constant hysterical fear with his signature screams of panic and running around in circles.

The plot is laughably bad.  Dracula and the Frankenstein monster have been shipped to America disguised as exhibits for a “House of Horror.”  Bud and Lou work for the company that is supposed to deliver them.  The Wolfman is in America to foil the plan and Lou’s girlfriend Sandra is a mad scientist who is working with Dracula to re-energize the weakened monster.  In addition, she has selected Lou’s brain to be transplanted into the monster’s body to give it a more controllable personality for Dracula’s plans.  Of course, Lou doesn’t know about these plans.

Add in a beautiful insurance claims investigator named Joan who is searching for the missing monster exhibits and a non-evil medical doctor who is assisting Sandra and you have a showdown at the island castle laboratory with Sandra, Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster and Lou in the operating room when Larry Talbot (the Wolfman), Bud Abbott and the Doctor break in and stop the surgery.  Eventually the Wolfman grabs Dracula in his bat form and the two of them fall from the castle heights into the ocean.  The doctor rescues Bud and Lou from the monster by setting on fire the dock that the monster is trapped on.  In the last scene Bud and Lou are in a rowboat and are rejoicing that Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster and the Wolfman are dead and they don’t have to be scared anymore.  Suddenly the Invisible Man chimes in that he wants to join the fun and the boys jump overboard.

I didn’t give a spoiler alert because the plot really doesn’t matter at all.  It’s just an excuse for Universal Studios to cross-pollinate their monster movie franchise with their most successful comedy team.  They would follow this up with several of the other monster characters (the Mummy, the Invisible Man and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) meeting the “boys” but I would say this first effort was the most successful and most enjoyable.  It works as an Abbott and Costello comedy and as an homage to the Universal horror movies of the 1930s and 1940s.

I’m very hopeful that the younger grandkids will enjoy this ancient comedy.  I’ll report back with an update.

October Viewing – 3

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Movie Reviews , , , , , , , ,

And now a return to form.  Whereas Charles Laughton can make a “horror” movie into a semi-legitimate film, putting Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi into a movie ensures that the full Universal horror treatment will ensue.

The Black Cat was such a pairing.  Bela Lugosi is a German medical doctor who was taken prisoner by the Russians during the First World War and eighteen years later he is looking to take revenge on Karloff who was the German commander who sold his troops out before the battle.  Also, while Lugosi was in prison Karloff stole away his wife telling her that Lugosi was dead.  Lugosi comes back to the scene of the battle where strangely Karloff has built an art deco palace on the site of the fort that he had commanded.  Later on, we learn that the whole hill is still booby-trapped with dynamite.  Well, you never know when that might come in handy.

There is a young American couple honeymooning in this Hungarian locale (sure why not) and Lugosi befriends them and then because of a motor vehicle accident during a rain storm, Lugosi is forced to bring them both to Karloff’s house where the doctor performs minor medical procedures that require putting her under a powerful sedative that makes her somewhat prescient upon meeting Karloff.

While the Americans sleep that night Lugosi and Karloff have a conference and we find out that Lugosi’s wife died of “pneumonia” years before.  Unsurprisingly Karloff decided to have her embalmed and put on display in his basement.  Well, sure, who wouldn’t!  And if all that isn’t bad enough Karloff tells Lugosi that his young daughter also died.  Next, we find out that Karloff is a satanic priest and the next night is the new moon and he will be celebrating a black mass at which he wants to sacrifice the American girl to Satan or something.  Lugosi objects and Karloff offers to play a game of chess to see whether she will die.  And Lugosi loses.  Darn.  Meanwhile we discover that Lugosi’s daughter is not dead but is married to Karloff and living in the house they are in.  The American girl meets her but somehow Lugosi still hasn’t heard about her.

A lot of goofy stuff happens with Lugosi’s servant pretending to obey Karloff and the American man being trapped in a room that eventually he escapes by just opening the door.  And even though the satanic mass is quite crowded Lugosi somehow easily manages to rescue the American girl.  And then everyone heads down into the basement for the climax.

So, let’s see.  Lugosi stumbles on the dead body of his daughter.  Karloff and Lugosi get into a fight that ends when Lugosi’s fatally wounded servant helps him over power and chain up Karloff to a dungeon wall (yes dungeon).  Then Lugosi decides to finally revenge the deaths of his wife and daughter on Karloff by skinning him alive.  But when the American girl sees this going on she screams and her husband finds their location and mistaking Lugosi’s intention he shoots the doctor.    Lugosi calls him a fool but tells the American couple to rush out of the building and get away from the hill because he is about to set off the timer that will trigger the dynamite to blow up the satanists, Karloff and Lugosi.  And in the last scene the happy honeymooners continue their railway journey to Budapest.

This movie has so many hokey things going on.  Why would Karloff believe that Lugosi’s loyal servant would do his bidding instead of his master?  Why would Karloff still have the timer and detonator for the dynamite not only intact but on prominent display in his basement?  Why wouldn’t Lugosi have killed Karloff as soon as he saw his wife stuffed and mounted in Karloff’s basement?  Are all art deco architects, satanists?  Or are all satanists art deco devotees?  What did Lugosi’s morbid fear of black cats have to do with anything else in the movie except the title?  So many questions.

The strange thing is I enjoyed the movie.  Sure, it made no sense.  But there was a style and an energy to it that was fun.  You sort of knew the American couple would emerge unscathed so really, we were watching the duel between Lugosi and Karloff and we knew that some kind of justice would prevail.  And those lousy satanists would get blown up.

In a way, with its modernist architecture juxtaposed against the medieval stonework of the underground fort it was a perfect way for the modern (1930s) world to intrude on the gothic horror that is the stock in trade of the Universal horror movies.  Art deco horror.  Well done Bela and Boris.

October Viewing – 2

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , ,

So, I enjoyed my recent first foray into old horror movies with Dracula enough to give it another whirl.  Tonight, I was going to try the Mummy but last night TCM had some Lugosi movies on so I picked “The Island of Lost Souls.”  This is a 1932 film starring Charles Laughton as Dr Moreau; a scientist who experimented on surgically converting animals into humans.  Lugosi has a relatively small part as one of his experiments.  He looks like a man-wolf and functions as, “The Sayer of the Law.”  This movie is just a renamed version of H.G. Wells’ story, “The Island of Dr. Moreau.”

Okay, the first thing to take into account is that Laughton is a much better actor than your typical horror movie mad scientist.  Now granted, this isn’t “Mutiny on the Bounty” so he has to work with what he’s given but Laughton sells it well.  The rest of the cast is adequate to the task at hand.  And the movie does deliver the climax that a fiendish Frankensteinian scientist will always reap; destruction at the hands of his tortured creations.

The highlights of the movie are of Moreau portraying an omnipotent ruler as he commands the obedience of his many creations.  On a hill in the jungle, he rings a gong twice, cracks a bullwhip and shouts down to his assembled subjects repeatedly, “What is the law?”  And the Sayer of the Law gives the various answers at each repetition of the question,

“Not to walk on all fours.  Are we not men?”

“Not to spill blood.  Are we not men?”

“Not to eat meat.  Are we not men?”

And this is enough to quiet the beast within each “man” when the night awakens his blood.  And if they become especially restless, he reminds them of “The House of Pain.”  This is where Moreau rearranged their living flesh to simulate a human form and apparently anesthetic was not part of the program.  Just the mention of it triggers howls of fear.

But when Moreau orders one of his creatures to murder an outsider, a man like Moreau, the creatures put together the pieces of the puzzle.  Moreau ordered one of them to spill blood, so, “the law is no more!”  And a man like Moreau was killed, so Moreau could be killed!  And so, dragging Moreau into the House of Pain for some unskilled surgery of their own was now on the agenda!

The subplot where Moreau tried to get an outside human male to fall in love with the “panther woman” who was his most successful attempt at mimicking the human form is somewhat interesting.  And the antics of the sailors who show up in a couple of sections of the story provide a slight amount of comedy.  But the real story is Moreau playing god to his creations and the inevitable revenge reaction destroying him.  H. G. Wells was a good writer so it is no surprise that his story is somewhat fun to watch in its first Hollywood portrayal.  I very much enjoyed rewatching Island of Lost Souls.  And I assume that Charles Laughton is the main reason.  Now, without a doubt he hammed up his portrayal as needed.  But his Moreau is a successful portrayal of the mad scientist.  Kudos to Mr. Laughton.

 

Island of Lost Souls (1932) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Movie Reviews , , , , , , ,

This movie is a cinematic retelling of H. G. Wells’ novel “The Island of Dr. Moreau.” As opposed to the majority of the creature features and horror flicks this film has a very substantial actor involved. Charles Laughton plays Dr. Moreau. He’s a scientist who was chased out of the civilized world for the experimentation he was doing on animals. So, he lives on a small island in the South Pacific and a boat skipper delivers a cargo of live animals once a year. As the story opens up the boat picks up a survivor of a shipwreck. This survivor, Edward Parker, is headed for a nearby island but he gets into a beef with the captain and gets dumped into Moreau’s launch as it is transferring the animals to the island. When he arrives there, he notices that the island is inhabited by the strangest looking people imaginable. Most of them resemble apes in pants. Later on, when Parker walks out in the jungle he is accosted by a group of the natives and has to be rescued by Moreau. Moreau sounds a gong and the natives assemble and to the accompaniment of Moreau’s cracking bullwhip they recite their creed.

Moreau: What is the law?
Sayer of the Law (SOTL): Not to spill blood, that is the law. Are we not men?
Moreau: What is the law?
SOTL: Not to eat meat, that is the law. Are we not men?
Moreau: What is the law?
SOTL: Not to walk on all fours, that is the law. Are we not men?

Incidentally, The Sayer of the Law is Bela Lugosi but his face is so completely covered with fur that the only way to tell is by his unmistakable voice. Parker is confused by all that’s going on and in the next scene he hears agonized screams coming from Moreau’s laboratory. Breaking in he thinks he is witnessing Moreau vivisecting one of the natives without anesthesia. And now Moreau explains to Parker the truth about the natives. They are actually animals that Moreau has modified through biochemical and surgical modifications. The laboratory where Moreau performs these modifications is called by the patients, for obvious reasons, “the house of pain.”
Moreau uses a subterfuge to keep Parker from leaving the island because he wants to carry out an experiment on him. He has manufactured a woman out of a panther named Lota and he wants to test whether she reacts like a woman when brought into contact with a man, Parker. This experiment is a success until Parker notices that Lota’s fingernails have reverted to panther’s claws.
And just at this point Parker’s fiancée, Ruth, arrives at Moreau’s island to bring him home. But Moreau cancels his Lota plan and instead plans to test his male creatures by having one of them kidnap Ruth. When this plan is thwarted Moreau orders one of his creatures to murder the ship captain who is helping Ruth to free Parker. But when the creature realizes that Moreau has ordered him to break the law by spilling blood he goes before the assembly and tells them that the law is no more. And then they figure out that since the captain is like Moreau and since they can kill the captain then by the transitive law of monster logic, they can kill Moreau. And that’s just what they get ready to do. While Parker and Ruth are escaping out the back door to safety on the boat, the creature mob catches up with the whip wielding Moreau and back him into his compound. Finally, in desperation when he has reached the wall, he reminds them that they are at the house of pain. The Sayer of the Law makes one more imaginative leap and has the mob drag Moreau into his laboratory and using his own surgical instruments they gleefully vivisect him to the rousing accompaniment of his screams.
I get the feeling that Laughton enjoyed this part. He played the part with great verve. He endowed Moreau with humor and perverse curiosity in the details of his cruel experiments. And like all good mad scientists of the 1930’s he does mention to Parker that he knows what it’s like to be God.
From a special effects point of view, the creature costumes are pretty cheesy. More interestingly it does appear that certain of the actors playing creatures had facial and other anomalies that could not have been simulated. But even if the special effects were rudimentary this is an interesting plot. Moreau’s relationship with his creatures is nuanced. Their obvious investment in the concept of their humanity is pitted against the fear and hatred they feel toward their creator. Moreau is a cruel god but he is completely absorbed in the wonder of his ability to create people. He doesn’t realize his peril when he provides the forbidden fruit of knowledge to his creatures by breaking his own law and by demonstrating that regular humans are mortal. Good story, fun horror movie, good work by Laughton. Recommended.

Plan 9 from Outer Space – A Science Fiction Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Movie Reviews , , , , , ,

War Pig has staked out the schlock sci-fi movie review corner but I hope he won’t mind if I try my hand at the grand daddy of all bad sci fi movies.

Summarizing the plot of Plan 9 is absurd.  Aliens have become alarmed by Earth’s increasingly powerful weapons and try to contact us to warn us of our danger.  But allegedly, we refuse to acknowledge they are even there so they proceeded to attack us.  But the first eight plans are ineffective so that leads to “Plan 9,” namely, resurrecting the dead.  Now the resurrected dead are murdering the citizenry and generally causing trouble.  Finally, the police, an army officer and an airline pilot join forces to find the alien space craft and destroy it.

Yes, the plot is idiotic but that is the least ridiculous aspect of this movie.  Everything about this movie fairly screams mental illness.  The movie begins with an invocation by the Narrator, Criswell.  Criswell appears to be a lunatic with his bizarre vocal delivery, oddly jelled hair and bedazzled tuxedo.  He tells us this is based on a true story and the guilty will be punished and the innocent rewarded, whatever that means.

In the next scene we see what looks like amateur footage of a frail looking Bela Lugosi attending a burial.  Then he is killed (off camera by a car crash sound effect).  This was necessary because this was all the footage of Lugosi they had.  He died before the movie was made and the producer/director/writer/editor, Ed Wood used this existing footage to allow Lugosi’s name to be tacked on the film.  Now Lugosi and his pre-deceased wife (Vampira) rise from the dead and start attacking the living.  But the fact that Lugosi was really dead meant that someone else had to portray “the Old Man.”  Luckily Ed Wood’s wife’s chiropractor, Tom Mason was available.  The fact that he was a foot taller, years younger and looked nothing like Lugosi was easily overcome by having Mason stoop over, and hold his Dracula cape in front of his face during all his scenes.

Vampira is a hoot with her wide-eyed stare, stiff armed zombie shamble and divided cleavage get-up.  Eventually when gigantic wrestler Tor Johnson is killed by Vampira and zombified he joins the other two ghouls as they stalk the living and stumble around the set.

One of my favorite scenes is where the flying saucers make their appearance.  Jeff Trent is an airline pilot.  He and his copilot are in the cockpit (or actually in a room with a curtain over the door).  They’re sitting on folding chairs and instead of the control yoke in front of him, each man has a piece of wood shaped like nothing in particular sticking out of the floor.  When they look out the window, we see three flying saucers that are pretty obviously wobbling on strings.

When the army counter attacks against these alien craft, we get to see a man in a military uniform, standing in a room, looking through binoculars as stock WW II footage of a rocket launcher unloads on something.  Now the flying saucers head back to their space station where the aliens provide an update to their leader.  And we find out about the earthlings’ bad manners in not acknowledging that the aliens even exist.

I won’t go into all the absurdities that crowd the whole length of this dopey masterpiece of schlock but I’ll cut to the climax.  The heroes enter the flying saucer and interrogate the saucer captain Eros and he tells them that the reason that he is killing earthlings is because “you’re stupid, stupid!”  So, he gets in a shouting match with Jeff Trent and eventually a fist fight.  And when Trent punches Eros and he bumps into a table with what looks like the guts of a 1930s vacuum tube radio on it, the radio bursts into flames and eventually burns the saucer and causes it to explode.  Now we return to Criswell who tells us what we’ve seen is based on fact but follows up by saying, “Can you prove it didn’t happen?”

Ed Wood must have known how awful this movie was but you can see that he lavished loving attention on some of the details like the credits.  The acting is abysmal when it isn’t non-existent.  The special effects are what you’d expect from a grammar school film maker.  Basically, this is a freak show.  But I have to confess that I can watch this about once every five years and enjoy it.  I recommend that every fan of 1950s science fiction movies watch it at least once in his life.

Universal Classic Monster Movies – An OCF Classic Movie Review – Part 2 – Dracula

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Movie Reviews , , , , , ,

Re-posted from October 2017

 

Dracula is the King of Monsters.  He is obviously royalty.  He has all the trappings.  His castle, his formal evening attire, even his diction and good manners.  He is called Count Dracula in the Universal film but his legend descends from a real prince.  Vlad III (the Impaler) was ruler of Wallachia in present day Romania.  He was called Dracul (Dragon) for his defense of Christians against the Turks but his cruelty against just about anyone he came in contact with was legendary.  The legend of the vampire (nosferatu) is central European in origin and goes back very far into the imagination of primitive people huddling in the dimly lit hovels and fearing the long winter nights for all the real and imagined terrors that lurked right at their doorsteps.

Bram Stoker took this legacy and created a gothic novel that followed the conventions of his time and populated it with upper class British characters right down to the damsel in distress and the square jawed leading man ready to save her from a fate literally worse than death.  It cried out for a stage adaption and of course it got it.  And then some.  Several productions were launched and in 1927 a company opened the play in the United States.  And interestingly enough three of the lead male parts reprised their roles in the Universal film, Bela Lugosi as Dracula, Edward van Sloan as Dr. Van Helsing and Herbert Bunston as Dr. Seward.

Let’s now look at the film.  What are its chief characteristics?  It’s an early talkie.  The sound is not perfect.  Whether an artifact of the age of the prints used or of the original production there is considerable background noise.  The sets for the most part are the studio versions of city streets and upper class drawing rooms.  The sets used for the village and castle in Transylvania are unconvincing but highly evocative.  My one pet peeve with Castle Dracula is that while showing all the creatures crawling around in the cellar we are given a good look at some armadillos.  These are New World creatures and what they would be doing in central Europe is very hard to imagine.  The set for Carfax Abbey is equally entertaining and in fact is probably built on the set for Castle Dracula used earlier.

With respect to the actors, they are exaggeratedly and understandably stagey.  After all, most of them were stage actors.  They exaggerate their words and gestures to such an extent that sometimes it appears to a modern audience as parody.  This is probably the result of both the stage and silent film legacy of most of the cast.  Probably the most entertaining performance is given by the Cockney Orderly who watches over the madman Renfield.  He is an exaggerated lower-class everyman who adds comic relief and a really terrible accent to the film.

And finally the special effects.  At one point, Renfield looks out the window of the stage coach he is travelling in to Castle Dracula and sees a bat flying above the horses.  It is hard to minimize how laughably pathetic it looks to anyone used to the magic that CGI can perform today.  I think the strings are actually visible, but maybe it was just my scornful imagination.  There is at least one more bat flyby in the film and it doesn’t improve over the first.  ‘Nuff said.

Okay, now I’ve run down everything about the film.  It sounds like a hot steaming mess.

 

Well, it is and it isn’t.  All that I’ve said is true.  But it still remains an entertaining experience.  It is a time capsule of what our great grandparents looked on as theater.  The British basis of what was considered civilized and urbane is on display.  And you can see the tension between reason and science on the one hand and the instinctual and irrational forces at work in the universe.  And it’s interesting to note how young women are the weak point in the rational structure being undermined by the powers of darkness.  Really the story isn’t that different from our own morality tales about the dissolution of the world of light into the abyss.  It’s only different in that it has a happy ending.  Today the forces of darkness would win and we would cheer them because of how cool they dress.  And the characters get to mouth some very entertaining lines.  In one exchange between the main protagonists Dracula declares in his best Transylvanian English, “You are wise for one who has not lived even one lifetime, Van Helsing.”  For me that’s worth the price of admittance right there.