Classic Films in Focus: MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1932)

On paper, Universal's 1932 Murders in the Rue Morgue sounds terrific; it adapts a chilling story from Edgar Allan Poe, stars Bela Lugosi, and offers Expressionist cinematography by Karl Freund, complete with all the lurid sensibility that Pre-Code horror can provide. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't work as well in practice, especially for viewers who know and appreciate Poe's original tale. While Lugosi is truly terrifying as the menacing Dr. Mirakle, the picture suffers from a weak leading man, creaky monster effects, and too much deviation from its source material that also leads it into some extremely thorny issues regarding racist tropes. Fans of Pre-Code horror and/or Edgar Allan Poe might be willing to forgive some of its failings for Lugosi's sake, but overall this is a far less successful picture than stand-out classics like The Black Cat (1934) and Roger Corman's Poe cycle.

Lugosi plays a character who doesn't exist in the original tale, a mad scientist obsessed with proving evolution by injecting the blood of his captive gorilla into beautiful young women. His experiments have inevitably proved fatal to the women, but Dr. Mirakle blames the failure on the women's "impure" blood instead of his own mad theory. When the gorilla takes a particular shine to lovely Camille L'Espanaye (Sidney Fox), Dr. Mirakle plans to kidnap her as his next test subject, but Camille's suitor, Pierre Dupin (Leon Ames), rightly suspects the doctor of having sinister motives.  

Deviations from the source create more problems than opportunities here. Poe's tale focuses on the murders of two women and the clever detective, C. Auguste Dupin, an important forerunner of and inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Weirdly, the Universal picture isn't a detective mystery at all, even though Poe's story is widely considered the original example of the genre. Instead, Leon Ames plays a medical student named Pierre Dupin, who already knows who did it when his sweetheart, Camille, disappears and her mother's corpse is found stuffed up a chimney. Ames is not particularly effective in this role, and the problems are all the more noticeable because Pierre is such a ho-hum hero compared to Poe's brilliant detective. The locked room mystery of the short story gives way to a bizarre mad scientist plot that draws on deeply racist imagery about gorillas as substitutes for Black men and their supposed desire for White women. Mirakle's experiment is a thinly veiled take on miscegenation that results in the deaths of the women whose blood has been "contaminated" by that of the gorilla. None of this comes from Poe's story, in which a pet orangutan gets loose from its owner and cannot really be held responsible for its actions. On a more practical level, the gorilla who replaces Poe's orangutan is very obviously a guy in a bad gorilla suit, except during closeups, when he transforms into an actual chimpanzee. It's a jarring and absurd switch every time it happens, but the movie does it repeatedly, even recycling the same shot of the chimp pressing against the bars of its cage.

All of these problems detract from a fine performance by Lugosi, who certainly knows how to leer menacingly at an audience and deliver a chilling monologue. His face is by far the scariest thing in the movie; its signature feature is an impressive monobrow that sprouts over his trademark burning gaze. The Expressionist influence reaches it high point during the experiment scene with Lugosi's only onscreen victim, a kidnapped streetwalker played by Arlene Francis. Tied to a huge wooden X like a martyr or a witch at the stake, Mirakle's victim exposes a lot of pretty flesh and casts a striking shadow on the laboratory wall. When she dies as a result of his injections, he seems surprised, even though he has her positioned over a convenient trapdoor that drops her body directly into the river. These effective scenes connect Murders in the Rue Morgue to German Expressionist classics like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922) as well as better Universal horrors like Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), and The Mummy (1932), reflecting the influence of cinematographer and occasional director Karl Freund after his relocation from Germany to Hollywood.

Robert Florey, who directed Murders in the Rue Morgue, eventually moved to television work, but before that he directed the 1946 horror, The Beast with Five Fingers, starring Peter Lorre. Karl Freund also directed Lorre in another Expressionist horror feature, Mad Love (1935), and I would recommend either Lorre picture over Murders in the Rue Morgue. Leon Ames is much more in his element in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), A Date with Judy (1948), and Little Women (1949); Murders in the Rue Morgue was one of his first screen appearances, and it's not really his fault that he's miscast. Poe adaptations and loose retellings abound, with the most recent being the 2023 Netflix miniseries, The Fall of the House of Usher. Roger Corman, however, still reigns as the king of Poe on film, with Vincent Price as his star of choice. Start with Corman's House of Usher (1960) and proceed to Tales of Terror (1962) and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964) for a sample of their best efforts.

It's Alive! Touring the Kirk Hammett Collection

Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett is a dedicated classic horror and science fiction fan who is sharing his love for these movies through a touring exhibit of posters and other artifacts from his personal collection. "It's Alive! Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Art from the Kirk Hammett Collection" is currently on exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, where I caught up with it earlier this month for a delightful tour of gorgeous posters for some of of my all-time favorite films.

Hammett's collection features some amazing posters, including art for Frankenstein (1931), Island of Lost Souls (1932) Dracula's Daughter (1936), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), and dozens of other films. The exhibit organizes the posters by film, era, genre, or star so that groupings have a common theme of some sort, with the major monsters and stars getting special areas that focus on them. The displays also include some three dimensional items like props, costumes, and several of Hammett's custom horror themed guitars. Particularly fun are the excellent wax figures of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff wearing costumes from their films. The exhibit stages a number of items so visitors can take selfies with them, which makes the experience even more fun.

My sister and I were the first people to visit the exhibit on our morning at the ROM, which allowed us plenty of space to take photos and talk about the movies. A true classic horror enthusiast can easily spend an hour in the exhibit, but it's small enough to tour in about 30 minutes if you're pressed for time. During our visit the accompanying soundtrack was a Hammett instrumental cover of Blue Oyster Cult's "Nosferatu," which played with a video in the section displaying Hammett's guitars. Because the exhibit was empty when we arrived I could hear the creepy, familiar opening notes of the song perfectly, which cast a tingle of delicious dread over the whole exhibit.

If you're able to visit Toronto in the near future, the Kirk Hammett exhibit is absolutely worth the trip and the extra admission price. The exhibit will remain at the ROM until January 5, 2020. It will then move to the Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina and be available there from February 15 until May 17, 2020. If you can't get to the exhibit in person there's a gorgeous photo book of the collection available on Amazon for $20.97, which is a great deal compared to the amount you'd pay for it at one of the museum shops.

Classic Films in Focus: THE BLACK CAT (1934)

For a horror film that actually shows very little, The Black Cat (1934) manages to suggest a great deal, and the result is a story that works on the imagination long after the brief picture has ended. Director Edgar G. Ulmer crams this small, dark package with surreal images and grotesque crimes only hinted at and glimpsed in snatches, which makes them all the more disturbing to the astute viewer. Like most films "suggested" by Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, The Black Cat has little to do with the original text, but it spins a narrative gruesome enough to fascinate classic horror fans, and the performances of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi help to make the movie an enduring cult favorite among Universal horror's devotees.

Lugosi plays Dr. Vitus Werdegast, who meets a young American couple on an ill-fate rail journey through Hungary. Newlyweds Peter and Joan Alison (David Manners and Julie Bishop, credited as Jacqueline Wells) find their new companion strange, but their misgivings only grow when a bus accident forces them to join Werdegast as the house guests of Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff). Werdegast and Poelzig have a history that makes them bitter enemies; their conflict rapidly becomes deadly, with the honeymooners caught in the middle of their bizarre struggle over the mysterious fates of Werdegast's wife and daughter.

The Black Cat marks the first screen pairing of Karloff and Lugosi, who would go on to make eight films together in all. Both were top horror stars already, and Universal clearly realized that putting them together would double the picture's appeal. Their roles offer them a little deviation from the parts that they had most recently played, but each is still very much in the vein of his overall screen persona. Karloff, talkative, urbane, and utterly perverse, is the ultimate villain of the piece, but Lugosi's doctor is sinister and vengeful enough that Peter and Joan are right to shy away from him, even if he hopes to save them from Poelzig's satanic schemes. Evenly matched, neither can conquer the other without sacrificing himself; the inevitable finale of rampant destruction is a scene Poe himself might well have approved, with undertones of "The Fall of the House of Usher" in the explosive collapse of Poelzig's modernist temple of death. Knowledge of the ending in no way spoils the picture, for doom has been written on these characters' brows from the moment they first appeared, and our only uncertainty is whether the Alisons will make it out to tell their tale of bloodcurdling revenge.

Coming at the very end of the Pre-Code period, The Black Cat gets away with material that would never have gotten into theaters a year or two later, and it still contains enough shock value to get the attention of a jaded modern viewer. Poelzig is a sadist, a murderer, and the leader of a satanic cult; he embalms the corpses of his dead wives and keeps them on display in glass cases hidden beneath his cosmopolitan home. The women are suspended in midair, a grisly collection of blonde butterflies in white gowns. Poelzig has also committed a strange form of incest by first marrying Werdegast's wife and then marrying his daughter (Lucille Lund). Murders and violent deaths abound, but we also see Poelzig plot to sacrifice Joan on his satanic altar, and the climax reveals more horrors that we're glad we never witness in too much detail. Beneath these terrors lies the grim history of Hungary itself; Poelzig's house is built on the site of a bloody massacre from World War I, and Werdegast blames his nemesis for the deaths of thousands as well as his own family's destruction. Viewers in 1934, especially in Europe, would have remembered that conflict better than we do today, but its violence echoes through the eerie menace of the picture. Ulmer and Lugosi had both been born in Austria-Hungary, which collapsed when the war ended in 1918, so it's not surprising that the tragic back story of the picture depends so heavily on the atrocities of that conflict.

Most horror fans will recognize David Manners from his roles in other Universal horror films, including Dracula (1931) and The Mummy (1932). For more of Karloff and Lugosi together, see The Raven (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939), and The Body Snatcher (1945). Jacqueline Wells started appearing as Julie Bishop in the 1940s and went on to star in Northern Pursuit (1943), Westward the Women (1951), and a number of other films, mostly Westerns and war dramas. Edgar G. Ulmer is best remembered today for The Black Cat and the 1945 noir favorite, Detour, but he also made The Strange Woman (1946) and The Man from Planet X (1951).

 

Classic Films in Focus: FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943)

Universal Studios enjoyed so much success with its various monsters that the temptation to make endless sequels and combinations of characters proved too tempting, and movies like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) appeared in large numbers throughout the 1930s and 40s. Of course, the quality of these pictures declines in direct proportion with their quantity, but fans of classic horror enjoy them as much for their flaws as for their virtues. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man plays mostly as a direct sequel to the 1941 film, The Wolf Man, and it features Lon Chaney's Larry Talbot/Wolf Man character far more than it does Frankenstein's monster. While it lacks the narrative coherence of the original film, it does offer a second encounter with some wonderful characters, and the cast brings together an impressive cadre of classic horror's most reliable stars.

The plot resurrects Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) four years after his assumed death. Talbot, distraught at being alive and cursed by lycanthropy again, eventually makes his way to the home of Dr. Frankenstein, in the hope that the infamous doctor can end his eternal life. Unfortunately, the doctor is dead, and Larry finds and revives the monster (Bela Lugosi) instead. The unfortunate village near Frankenstein's castle falls prey to the depredations of both werewolf and monster, prompting panic and a rising mob, while Larry's doctor, Frank Mannering (Patric Knowles), and the attractive Baroness Elsa Frankenstein (Ilona Massey) struggle to bring Larry and the monster to a peaceful end.

The plot fails to resolve itself, probably because Universal wanted to keep its monsters alive for additional sequels, and editing decisions cut much of Lugosi's role out of the final version of the picture. Technically speaking, the only Frankenstein in the film is Elsa, who is actually the granddaughter of the original mad scientist and the daughter of his son, who had taken up the family vocation in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942). Frank Mannering ends up being the doctor who must face the temptation of controlling life and death, and he never gets insane enough to be much fun.

Chaney continues to imbue Larry Talbot with tragic pathos, and his transformation scenes are really quite good, better even than those seen in the original film. Rejoining him on his journey to Frankenstein's castle is Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva, and she makes the movie worth watching all by herself. Dwight Frye has a small role as one of the villagers (you'll miss him if you aren't watching for him), and Lionel Atwill, another regular in the genre, plays the reasonable town mayor. Lugosi, sadly, has little to do; many of the scenes featuring the monster are really stunt doubles, and the monster's limited screen time makes him merely a minor character, despite the title's implication to the contrary.

I can't tell you why Patric Knowles ends up playing two different characters named Frank between The Wolf Man and this film, but it makes for a rather odd sense of deja vu if you watch both movies in rapid succession. Maybe he just makes a perfect foil to Chaney, or perhaps director Roy William Neill wanted to bring back as many of the original film's cast as possible. Even Chaney's beloved German Shepherd, Moose, who played the role of the wolf in the original movie, makes a brief appearance in the sequel. Chaney himself would bring Larry Talbot back for more suffering in House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945), and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). You can see more of Maria Ouspenskaya in Love Affair (1939), Waterloo Bridge (1940), and Dance, Girl, Dance (1940). Roy William Neill's directorial credits include many Sherlock Holmes adventures with Basil Rathbone, but he also directed Black Angel (1946).

Classic Films in Focus: THE BLACK CAT (1941)

Like many of the old dark house pictures of its era, The Black Cat (1941) relies upon an offbeat mixture of comedy and horror, zipping from gasps to giggles like a cheerily macabre carnival ride. For some horror purists, the goofier elements of these films repel, but it's easy to imagine a throng of matinee youngsters reveling in the quick turns and reversals that The Black Cat provides. You never know if a secret door will open to horrors or hilarity, and therein lies the appeal of the whole genre. Though it's not to be confused with the earlier and generally better regarded 1934 film of the same name, the 1941 outing does offer a delightful cast of character actors, including Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Gale Sondergaard, Broderick Crawford, and a young Alan Ladd.

Broderick Crawford stumbles through the proceedings as Gil, an eager opportunist looking to arrange the sale of the Winslow estate and earn the affection of lovely Elaine (Anne Gwynne), one of the prospective heirs. After Gil turns up with loopy furniture dealer Mr. Penny (Hugh Herbert), the residents of the house experience a series of shocks, starting with the suspicious death of estate owner Henrietta Winslow (Cecilia Loftus). As the heirs squabble over Henrietta's will, more strange events unfold, with secret passages and an ominous black cat helping a killer eliminate anyone who gets in the way.

The plot strongly resembles those of The Cat and the Canary (1927) and The Old Dark House (1932), although it has very little to do with the Edgar Allan Poe story from which it and the 1934 picture draw their titles. Its chills rely mostly on a mysterious killer who sneaks through the house using a maze of secret passages, but Gale Sondergaard is by far the scariest of the regular residents as the creepy housekeeper, Abigail. The camera angles highlight the weird angles of her face and her leering eyes to great effect, and she certainly knows how to milk the role for every bit of the audience's attention. Cecilia Loftus also benefits from creative camera work when she first appears onscreen; her eyes freakishly exaggerated by the thick spectacles she wears, she looks more like a creature from another world than a frail old lady with a harmless love for cats. Sadly, the film's most famous actors don't enjoy as much opportunity to demonstrate their talents. Basil Rathbone's Montague Hartley is a cad, but not an especially frightening one, and he doesn't really have enough to do, while Bela Lugosi's hairy groundskeeper is mostly deployed to rattle Gil and create confusion. Alan Ladd plays the sort of role one expects Elisha Cook, Jr. to fill, a minor part but fraught with anxiety and accusation. One year later he would appear in This Gun for Hire (1942) and become a true cinema star.

The comedy elements are hit or miss, with Broderick Crawford generally likable as Gil but Hugh Herbert laying it on much too thick with his trademark schtick. If you like his antics you'll love him here, but his character thwarts the action right up to the last moment, and he's too dense to understand the climactic life-or-death situation. Gil, however, manages to straddle the two genres, even though his efforts to unmask the killer repeatedly land him in ludicrous mishaps. It's an unusual role for Broderick Crawford, who would go on to win an Oscar for Best Actor in All the King's Men (1949). Here he gets to be comedian, amateur detective, and romantic lead all at once, sneezing helplessly at the omnipresent cats but persisting in uncovering the truth even when everyone else derides his claims. Crawford's Gil functions as the reliable, all-American everyman at the center of the unpredictable action; even if the assembled cast is awash in red herrings - which it certainly is - we know we can depend on Gil to be the good guy all the way through, and if he sometimes gets goofy that only serves to make him more familiar and reassuring. Lee Tracy serves a similar if more streetwise function in Doctor X (1932), and Bob Hope covers the same territory in The Cat and the Canary (1939) and The Ghost Breakers (1940).

Director Albert Rogell made over one hundred movies but never became well known; his other pictures include Li'l Abner (1940) and In Old Oklahoma (1943). For more of Broderick Crawford, see Larceny, Inc. (1942),  Black Angel (1946), and Born Yesterday (1950). Gale Sondergaard won Best Supporting Actress for Anthony Adverse (1936), but be sure to catch her in The Mark of Zorro (1940) and The Letter (1940), as well. If you go for Hugh Herbert's comedy style, can find him in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), Hollywood Hotel (1937), and There's One Born Every Minute (1942).

Classic Films in Focus: THE BODY SNATCHER (1945)

Adapted from a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Body Snatcher (1945) is yet another example of producer Val Lewton’s genius for turning out elegant, literate horrors on a shoestring budget. This period tale of grave robbers in 19th-century Scotland benefits from the direction of Lewton protegee Robert Wise and the presence of genre icons Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, but the psychological effect of The Body Snatcher also hinges on a particularly memorable performance from Henry Daniell as a physician whose Faustian bargain with the resurrection man brings about his own undoing. Like most of the Lewton films for the RKO horror unit, The Body Snatcher eschews gore to revel in suggestion, but there is no shortage of unseen awfulness to stir the dark corners of the viewer’s imagination.

Karloff plays the title character, Cabman Gray, who drives a carriage for hire when he isn’t digging up corpses. Gray’s chief client is Dr. McFarlane (Henry Daniell), who loathes Gray but has too much history with him to escape the body snatcher’s power. When McFarlane takes on medical student Fettes (Russell Wade) as his assistant, he draws the young man into the dark side of Victorian medicine and exposes him to Gray’s machinations. Soon Gray begins providing corpses for McFarlane without waiting for them to die of natural causes, and McFarlane realizes that only one course of action will ever release him from Gray’s relentless grip.

Karloff and Daniell dominate the screen as two men who both hate and need one another, tied together by a past that evokes the lurid history of the notorious real life Edinburgh murderers Burke and Hare. Karloff plays Gray as a smiling villain who uses his friendly, obsequious manner to pacify his victims and disarm his enemies, which makes his outbursts of violence all the more shocking. Early in the film, he brutally kills a faithful little dog guarding its young master’s grave, so we understand the sort of outrageous cruelty of which he is capable. His opposite is Daniell’s McFarlane, mockingly called “Toddy” by Gray, who cannot smile even at those he really cares about, including his housekeeper, Meg (Edith Atwater), who is also secretly his wife. Gray is utterly, even gleefully, evil, while McFarlane is a man whose better nature has been corrupted by his involvement with the body snatcher’s trade.

The rest of the characters serve to react to the two protagonists and their ongoing conflict. Russell Wade, handsome but rather bland as Donald Fettes, must avoid repeating his teacher’s fate, and he also provides a muted romantic subplot with an attractive widow (Rita Corday) who has brought her crippled daughter (Sharyn Moffett) for treatment by Dr. McFarlane. The little girl, Georgina, adds some sentiment to the story with her plight, but she also brings irony in her childish obsession with Gray’s white horse, which otherwise functions as a symbol of death. Edith Atwater plays Meg to great effect, investing her with tragic resignation to the fate of the man she loves. Lugosi, oddly enough, has only a few scenes as Joseph, McFarlane’s servant, but his presence pays off with an opportunity to see him and Karloff together in one memorable, violent meeting.

Be sure to appreciate the beautiful singing voice and chilling fate of Donna Lee as the blind street girl, whose encounter with Gray is a quintessential moment of Lewton horror. For another collaboration between Val Lewton and Robert Wise, see Curse of the Cat People (1944), or try The Haunting (1963) for Wise’s most famous work in the horror genre. Karloff and Lugosi can be found in many Universal horror films both separately and together; see both of them in The Black Cat (1934), The Invisible Ray (1936), and Son of Frankenstein (1939). Career villain Henry Daniell has more memorable roles in The Sea Hawk (1940), The Great Dictator (1940), and Jane Eyre (1943); although not primarily a horror actor, Daniell did return to the genre for several episodes of the Boris Karloff television series, Thriller. For different tales of the resurrection men and their ghastly work, you might try more recent pictures like I Sell the Dead (2008) and Burke and Hare (2010), but it's also a frequent theme in the series of Frankenstein films.

Classic Films in Focus: THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE (1944)

This Columbia production directed by Lew Landers puts Bela Lugosi back into a vampire’s cape and fangs, but The Return of the Vampire (1944) is not exactly a success when it comes to following up on the iconic Dracula (1931). Despite a number of inspired elements, the film fails with its two most visible characters, the vampire and his werewolf lackey, and in a horror film that’s a problem that simply can’t be ignored. Still, Lugosi fans will probably want to see The Return of the Vampire just for more of the actor’s burning eyes and sinister accent, and at just 69 minutes long it’s easy enough to sit through if you can put up with one of classic horror’s worst werewolf attempts.

Lugosi rises from the grave as Armand Tesla, a vampire who is first defeated in 1918 by Dr. Walter Saunders (Gilbert Emery) and Lady Jane Ainsley (Frieda Inescort). Decades later, during the bombing of World War II, Tesla is revived when German shells reveal his coffin. He reclaims his werewolf servant, Andreas (Matt Willis), and sets out for revenge against Lady Jane by threatening her son, John (Roland Varno), and his fiancee, Nicki (Nina Foch).

There are a lot of things to admire in this film, beginning with the progressive casting of a female scientist as the vampire’s opponent. Frieda Inescort is completely credible as the courageous and intelligent Lady Jane, and it’s interesting to note that the story never sexualizes her struggle with Tesla at all. Is she too old or too practical for such ploys? At any rate, the vampiric seduction focuses entirely on the innocent young Nicki, whom Tesla first attacks when she is just a little girl, and lovely Nina Foch has some good scenes wandering about under Tesla’s seductive mind control. The movie also uses the World War II backdrop well, with the vampire hunt complicated by constant bombing and the monsters finding plenty of places to hide in the damaged ruins of the city. The cemetery scenes offer plenty of fog and spooky atmosphere, and the idea of Tesla assuming the identity of a scientist fleeing Nazi Germany is also a timely touch.

The monsters themselves, however, disappoint, especially the lackluster werewolf. We never understand how Tesla transforms Andreas into a werewolf in the first place; who knew that lycanthropy was a result of hypnosis? The makeup for the wolf man lacks originality, and Andreas never manages to be scary, partly because he talks and acts like a regular person in full werewolf form. He’s really just a hairy Renfield, without Dwight Frye’s manic madness. Lugosi doesn’t have much to do as Tesla; he mostly stands in doorways and whispers hypnotically at people from offscreen. In the scenes where he pretends to be Dr. Bruckner, there’s really nothing sinister about him at all, and even rising from his coffin he seems too solid and ordinary to be a terrifying ruler of the undead. Given Lugosi’s performances in other films, the fault here lies with the material he is given, not with the actor himself, but this is certainly not the place to start watching Lugosi’s work.

Lew Landers (as Lewis Friedlander) also directed Bela Lugosi in The Raven (1935); for Lugosi’s more memorable films, see Dracula (1931), White Zombie (1932), and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). You’ll also find the horror icon in smaller roles in Island of Lost Souls (1932), The Wolf Man (1941), and The Body Snatcher (1945). Frieda Inescort appears in Pride and Prejudice (1940), The Letter (1940), and A Place in the Sun (1951). Nina Foch went on to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Executive Suite (1954); see more of her in My Name is Julia Ross (1945) and An American in Paris (1951).

Classic Films in Focus: CHANDU THE MAGICIAN (1932)

In the 1930s, Chandu the Magician was a popular radio program with a supernatural twist that lent itself to eerie sound effects, replete with the creaking doors, ringing bells, and ominous footsteps that made such programs so delightfully spine-tingling for their listeners. The movie version sought to take advantage of the original’s popularity with audiences, but it also had to translate the spooky chills into a visual medium, no small task considering a plot that involves astral bells, hypnotism, and hallucinations as well as exotic locations. Happily, Chandu the Magician (1932) manages to deliver quite a thrilling ride for viewers, thanks to inventive direction by William Cameron Menzies and Marcel Varnel. If Edmund Lowe is a bit stiff as the title hero, the special effects and sense of adventure go a long way to make up for it, but the real treat here is a deliciously evil performance by Bela Lugosi as a madman bent on controlling the world.

Lowe plays Frank Chandler, better known as Chandu the Magician, a white man who has acquired the mental powers of the Hindu yogi as well as their taste in headgear. Chandu leaves India for Egypt to defend the world and his sister’s family against the maniacal Roxor (Lugosi), who hopes to take over the planet by means of a giant death ray invented by Chandu’s brother-in-law, Robert Regent (Henry B. Walthall). Roxor will stop at nothing to gain knowledge of the ray, and Chandu finds himself, his family, and his lovely friend Princess Nadji (Irene Ware) in constant peril from Roxor’s countless lackeys and spies.

Chandu the Magician plays more or less as a horror story because of Bela Lugosi’s presence and the constant threats of sexual violence and torture set against the creepy backdrop of an Egyptian tomb. Fans of adventure stories, however, will notice the beats of that genre as part of the film’s makeup, as well. The set pieces, like the Hindu temple and the slave market, are meant to transport and excite the viewer with their exotic spectacles, and they succeed admirably. The special effects include duplicate versions of Chandu that appear and disappear, guns that change into snakes, ropes that hang in midair, and miniature versions of the boozy sidekick, Miggles (Herbert Mundin), that materialize to taunt him whenever he takes a drink. In between there are plenty of extreme closeup shots of Chandu’s hypnotic eyes and the frozen gazes of his victims.

The performances in the film are a mixed bag, but overall they work well enough to keep the picture interesting. Edmund Lowe, a leading man of the period who had previously played a magician in The Spider (1931), is not really unearthly enough to be credible as a mystic hypnotist, but he looks good in the disguises and has a hearty, masculine presence that works better with the adventure aspect than the supernatural one. Irene Ware puts her beautiful eyes to good use as the love interest, but Virginia Hammond and June Lang (credited as June Vlasek) don’t have a lot to do as the other women except to project the occasional terrified reaction shot. Herbert Mundin has several funny bits as the comic relief, and Henry B. Walthall holds his own as the captive inventor of the death ray, although it’s puzzling why a man with his strong moral convictions would create such a thing in the first place. Bela Lugosi, however, rules the cast with his terrific performance; this is really one of the best places to see him, freed from the distracting makeup and costumes of his more famous roles. In Chandu he looks slim, menacing, and full of sinister energy, and he gets plenty of dialogue to play with, too. He has so much screen presence that the studio got rid of Lowe and cast Lugosi as Chandu in the subsequent films.

For more of William Cameron Menzies’ work in this vein, try Things to Come (1936) or Invaders from Mars (1953). He won two Oscars as an Art Director, for The Dove (1927) and Tempest (1928). Marcel Varnel also directed Oh, Mr. Porter! (1937) and Convict 99 (1938). Give Edmund Lowe another look in Dinner at Eight (1933) and Dillinger (1945). You might recognize Herbert Mundin as Much in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and you’ll find Henry B. Walthall in more than 300 films, including The Birth of a Nation (1915), Wings (1927), and A Tale of Two Cities (1935). For more of Bela Lugosi, start with Dracula (1931) and then move on to Mark of the Vampire (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939), and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), which are just a few of his many memorable screen appearances.

Classic Horror for Halloween

Halloween is the perfect time to enjoy classic horror from cinema's early days. These movies make great ambience enhancers during your annual costume party, but they're also good choices for an October evening's main entertainment. Here are ten horror classics to get you in the spirit for Halloween. Look for them on streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, or Hulu.

Nosferatu (1922) - F.W. Murnau's silent and unofficial adaptation of Stoker's famous novel packs plenty of visual thrills. Max Schreck's hideous Count Orlok is still considered the scariest movie vampire by many film fans.

Dracula (1931) - Bela Lugosi stars as the iconic count in Tod Browning's very loose adaptation, but Dwight Frye steals the movie as the doomed madman Renfield. Edward Van Sloan also creates a definitive interpretation of the Van Helsing character.

Frankenstein (1931) - Boris Karloff creates the popular face of the man-made monster in James Whale's stylish treatment of Shelley's classic novel. Be sure to follow up with The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), featuring Elsa Lanchester as the iconic monster's mate.

The Mummy (1932) - Karl Freund directs as Karloff once again establishes an icon in this tragic story of eternal love. Fans of the 1999 treatment by Stephen Sommers absolutely need to see this original version to appreciate the later director's love for his source material.

The Wolf Man (1941) - George Waggner helms this production with Lon Chaney, Jr., as the title character; Bela Lugosi also appears as the gypsy werewolf who passes his curse to the unlucky Larry Talbot. Don't miss excellent performances from Claude Rains and Maria Ouspenskaya in the supporting roles.

Cat People (1942) - Under the auspices of Val Lewton, Jacques Tourneur directs this elegant variation on the werewolf theme, with Simone Simon as the tortured heroine. The swimming pool scene is justly regarded as one of the finest moments in classic horror history.

Edith Scob stars in Eyes without a Face (1960).

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) - This screwball comedy from Frank Capra is a Halloween staple for those who prefer lighter fare; Cary Grant stars as a newlywed whose dotty old aunts turn out to be homicidal maniacs. Look for Peter Lorre in a hilarious turn as the plastic surgeon who makes Mortimer Brewster's murderous brother (Raymond Massey) look like Boris Karloff!

Night of the Demon (1957) - Another Jacques Tourneur outing, this British horror classic stars Dana Andrews as a scientist who doubts the existence of the supernatural, even when he himself becomes its target. Peggy Cummins also stars, but Niall MacGinnis steals the picture as the sinister Dr. Karswell.

Eyes Without a Face (1960) - This French masterpiece from Georges Franju delivers dreamlike horror as a guilt-ridden surgeon tries to replace his daughter's hideously disfigured face by stealing replacements from other young women. Edith Scob stars as the disfigured heroine, with Pierre Brasseur as her obsessed father and Alida Valli as his faithful accomplice.

The Haunting (1963) - Robert Wise's terrifying adaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel offers plenty of thrills without the gore for those who like their horror on the psychological side. Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn star as the unfortunate visitors who rouse the house's malevolent spirit.

Looking for even more classic horror? Check out all of the posts under the "horror" label, including full-length reviews of most of these films. You'll also find plenty of classic horror films in my book, Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching, now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com.

An earlier version of this article originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Classic Films in Focus: MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935)

Like Dracula's Daughter (1936), Mark of the Vampire (1935) plays out as a kind of semi-sequel to Dracula (1931), even though this Tod Browning picture was made for MGM rather than Universal. The movie reunites Browning with his Dracula star, Bela Lugosi, but it also stocks the screen with a bevy of other memorable stars, including Lionel Barrymore, Jean Hersholt, Lionel Atwill, and Donald Meek. The film suffers from plot holes made worse by the studio's decision to cut several scenes, and today it is not nearly as well known as its iconic predecessor, but fans of the horror genre and classic star watchers will find Mark of the Vampire interesting enough because of its cast and the ways in which it looks back at the 1931 original.

The story revolves around the murder of Sir Karell (Holmes Herbert), who is found drained of blood with two small marks on his neck. The locals blame two vampires, Count Mora (Bela Lugosi) and Luna (Carroll Borland), who are said to haunt the neighborhood castle. When Sir Karell's daughter, Irena (Elizabeth Allan), and her suitor, Fedor (Henry Wadsworth), are also attacked, an occult expert (Lionel Barrymore) is called in to hunt down the undead creatures, but the truth is both stranger and more earthly than it first appears.

Top-billed Lionel Barrymore doesn't actually make his appearance in the film until twenty minutes in, but his Professor Zelen takes over the Van Helsing role, played by Barrymore as a sort of old time politician with lots of posturing and self-conscious gestures. If he hams it up a bit too much, at least it helps him hold the screen against Hersholt, Atwill, and Lugosi, all of whom are far more interesting than the story's dull romantic leads. The scene stealer of the bunch, however, is newcomer Carroll Borland, who looks terrific with her pale face, staring eyes, and flowing white shroud. Her attacks on Irena recall J. Sheridan Le Fanu's predatory Carmilla and provide some of the best images of the picture.

Despite the effective Gothic atmosphere and unusual vampire effects that Browning builds up in the first part of the film, he ultimately opts for a Radcliffean model of Gothic narrative that reveals the appearance of the supernatural as mere facade. While that allows for a smirking coda of comedy with Lugosi and Borland, it also creates huge problems with the logic of the events that have already occurred. Viewers will end up asking a lot of questions that simply have no answers, although some of them, perhaps, were addressed in the missing scenes that MGM cut out. Why, for example, does Count Mora sport a ghastly wound on his temple? How do the vampires fly in and out of second story rooms? At least the ending does help us understand why a household under attack from supposed vampires keeps opening all of its windows and doors at night.

Mark of the Vampire is no masterpiece, certainly, but at only 60 minutes long it repays the time spent on it with an entertaining look at some truly iconic Hollywood stars. For more of Browning's work with Lionel Barrymore, see The Devil-Doll (1936). You'll find Barrymore and Hersholt in both Grand Hotel (1932) and Dinner at Eight (1933). Lionel Atwill, a genre regular, turns up in horror classics like The Vampire Bat (1933), Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), Son of Frankenstein (1939), and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). See more of Bela himself in White Zombie (1932), The Wolf Man (1941), and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

The Kiss that is the Kill: Sex and Death in Three Classic Vampire Movies

The youthful fans of Twilight and True Blood might like to believe that they have cornered the market on the sexy vampire trade, but attractive bloodsuckers have been haunting the silver screen for quite a long time. Long before Edward Cullen and Bill Compton thrilled the hearts of today's Gothic heroines, the undead were making love to and war against humanity in a wide variety of films. Back in the 1980s, we had some great examples of the sexy vampire in The Hunger (1983), The Lost Boys (1987), and Near Dark (1987), but even these movies are relative newcomers to the vampire canon. Here is a sampling of classic movies that highlight that enduring connection between blood and lust.

Nosferatu (1922)

Max Schreck's Count Orlok is definitely not sexy, unless you long to date the fabled Bat Boy of traditional tabloid fodder, but this landmark silent horror film from director F.W. Murnau nonetheless teems with sexual undertones. Ignore nominal hero Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim); the principle struggle takes place between the vampiric count and the ethereally good Ellen (Greta Schroder), who must willingly give herself to the monster in order to save Hutter and, presumably, the world.

The sexuality of Orlok's conflict with Ellen becomes clear in the final attack scene, but watch the way that Ellen, drawn by a psychic connection to her husband, first reacts to Orlok's menace, even from across the far reaches of the ocean. Her goodness is the equal opposite force that stands against Orlok's evil, and thus the two are bound together in a kind of danse macabre, elaborating once more the ages old allure of the figure of Death and the Maiden. Murnau, borrowing liberally from Stoker's novel, is keenly aware of all this deeper imagery, which gives his treatment its unique appeal. From her white gown to her lovely neck and huge, liquid eyes, Ellen is the very embodiment of imperiled femininity, at once the sacrifice and the salvation of men, and toward this flame the Count is drawn as surely as the destructive moth, only to be destroyed in turn.

Nosferatu tops many horror film lists as the greatest horror picture of all time, but don't expect it to be scary by modern standards. Instead, think of it as a prelude for things to come, as an artistic suggestion of that which later films will make explicit, and decide which method possesses the greater aesthetic power. Still, that iconic shadow moving on the wall of Ellen's stairwell strikes its own kind of fear, a delicious thrill that comes when we know that the creatures of the dark are closing in. The girl lies helpless in her nightgown, the bed becomes the grave, and the monster leans close for the kiss that is the kill. What could more sensual than that?


Dracula (1931)

Bela Lugosi's performance as Count Dracula has defined the image of the vampire for generations since, from the widow's peak hairstyle to the infamous cape in which Lugosi insisted on being buried. Is Lugosi's Dracula scary? Not really, and there are certainly places where the film shows its age. However, his hypnotic power over the women who encounter him underscores the essentially sexual appeal of the vampire. That famous stare, and the visible attraction that the women feel toward him, pulse with dangerous seductive energy. Both Lucy and Mina fall prey to that energy and are transformed by it into sexualized monsters of desire. Watch the scene in which the enthralled Mina seduces Harker out on the balcony; her eyes light up, her lips purse, and she leans in close almost quivering with anticipation. One has to wonder if even a restored Mina can be happy with a man like Harker after this interlude of passion.

Even more interesting is the sexualized nature of Dracula's power over Renfield; the attack on Renfield near the beginning of the film plays out very much as a homoerotic rape sequence, in which the female vampires are waved away from the unconscious man so that the Count himself may feed on him. Renfield spends the rest of the film driven mad by desires which cannot be fulfilled; unlike the women, he cannot become wholly united with the Count, and thus he suffers with a terrible and exquisite longing that ought to delight the most ardent sadomasochist. Of all the characters in the film, I think Renfield is the most frightening and the most pitiable; he is the quintessential victim of unrequited desire, with Dracula cruelly stringing him along until his services are no longer required.

Despite the title, the film plays fast and loose with Stoker's novel, using the stage play version instead for much of its material. Director Tod Browning created a more enduringly frightening picture with Freaks (1932), but Dracula still stands as a classic moment in vampire movie history.

Dracula's Daughter (1936)

Dracula's Daughter plays out as a direct sequel to the 1931 film, with the first several minutes of the movie catching the audience up on what has gone before. Edward Van Sloan returns to the role of vampire killer Van Helsing, which gives the sequel an added sense of continuity from the first picture, although director Tod Browning has been replaced by Lambert Hillyer this time out.

Despite the return of Van Helsing and the appearance of romantic leads Otto Kruger and Marguerite Churchill, the movie really belongs to the title character. Gloria Holden plays Countess Marya Zaleska, a beautiful woman whose eyes are full of death. The gender reversal of the vampire in this film makes for some very interesting sexual subtexts, especially when the gorgeous monster seduces and attacks other women. A victim tally reveals that the Countess actually goes after equal numbers of men and women, but the scenes with her two female victims are by far the more provocative and the more elaborate. Watch her move in for the kill on the helpless and partially undressed Lili (Nan Grey) early in the picture; Lili is so young, so fresh, so delicious with her smooth cheeks and her full, soft lips. We cannot blame the Countess for wanting to devour her.

In contrast to the cheap, sensationalist title, Dracula's Daughter is a surprisingly elegant film, one that suggests real tragedy in the person of its central character. The Countess longs to be human and live a normal life; she yearns for love and companionship. The man she hopes will help her proves singularly useless, and she succumbs to the monstrous urges that have driven her for over a century already. Despite her bloody appetite, she never looks like a monster, nor even like a traditional vampire. She seems more an angel of death, a marble cemetery statue come to life. Her beauty and misery render her a more complex and sympathetic character than her Transylvanian father, and this portrayal of the vampiric character proves a foretaste of things to come in later films. John Landis' Innocent Blood (1992), for example, clearly has a lot in common with Dracula's Daughter.

If you're still thirsty for more blood-soaked seduction, try The Vampire's Ghost (1945), Horror of Dracula (1958), Blood and Roses (1960), and Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972).

An earlier version of this article originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Classic Films in Focus: SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939)

After the success of Frankenstein (1931) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), it’s not really a surprise that Universal would continue the series with a third film, although Son of Frankenstein (1939) takes us forward in time to the next generation of the famously doomed family. Boris Karloff returns as the iconic creature, this time in company with Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, and Lionel Atwill, all of whom create memorable characters in their respective roles. Although it is not as well-known as the first two films, partly because of the departure of James Whale as director, this third movie is a worthy entry in the series that also boasts one of Lugosi’s more entertaining performances as the living dead man, Ygor.

Many years after his father’s death, Baron Wolf von Frankenstein (Rathbone) and his family return from England to the ancestral home, much to the dismay of the local villagers, who believe that the son will bring back the horrors of his father’s time. Soon enough, Wolf encounters the mangled Ygor (Lugosi), who leads him to the comatose but living creature (Karloff) and encourages him to restore it to its former power. Hoping to vindicate his father’s work, Wolf revitalizes the monster with predictably disastrous results, while Inspector Krogh (Atwill) struggles to protect the baron’s family from threats both within and without the walls of their estate.

Rathbone makes an elegant and interesting Frankenstein, a man torn between his family’s past and future. On one side he has his lovely wife (Josephine Hutchinson) and his curly-mopped young son (Donnie Dunagan) to think about and defend, but on the other he feels drawn by his father’s legacy and an overwhelming desire to continue and validate the dead man’s work. As he sinks deeper into the fatal project, he becomes increasingly unhinged, and Rathbone delivers a particularly manic performance in the final scenes. Karloff doesn’t really have that much to do as the monster, but Lugosi creates a fantastic character in the menacing, broken-necked Ygor; variations of the figure would become an integral part of later Frankenstein stories, and Lugosi deserves credit for making such a strong impression, even though Dwight Frye had originated a similar character under the name of Fritz in the original Whale film. Lionel Atwill also has a memorable role as the one-armed police inspector, whose bizarre movements are copied almost exactly by Kenneth Mars in Young Frankenstein (1974). The film creates a very suggestive connection between Inspector Krogh, who lost his arm to the creature when he was a small child, and Frankenstein’s own young son, Peter.

Director Rowland V. Lee might not be as brilliant as James Whale, but Son of Frankenstein still possesses a very effective visual style. The Gothic scenery is wonderfully evocative of the German expressionist tradition in silent horror, with interiors that recall The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922). Long shadows cut across oversized arches and cold, angular rooms, giving the Frankenstein home all the warmth and charm of an echoing tomb. The Baroness is struck by the character of her new home from the very start, and we understand why she eventually admits to feeling afraid all the time even though she has no idea of the lumbering horror her husband’s house conceals.

You’ll find both Karloff and Atwill in House of Frankenstein (1944), although Glenn Strange takes over the role of the creature. See more of Karloff in The Mummy (1932), Bedlam (1946), and The Comedy of Terrors (1963). Lugosi, best known for Dracula (1931), also appears in The Wolf Man (1941), The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). Don’t miss Basil Rathbone’s performances in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and The Mark of Zorro (1949); he is also remembered today for his many screen appearances as Sherlock Holmes.

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Classic Films in Focus: ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932)

H.G. Wells’ disturbing tale of vivisectionist horror has been adapted for film several times, but the 1932 version of The Island of Dr. Moreau, titled Island of Lost of Souls, stands out for its chillingly effective performances and its sexually charged subtext. Directed by Erle C. Kenton, this Paramount production is not as well known today as contemporary Universal classics like Dracula (1931) or Frankenstein (1932), but the three movies have much in common, and Kenton’s picture holds its own against both of those iconic peers. In fact, Island of Lost Souls surpasses many other horror movies of the 1930s by retaining its ability to shock, frighten, and unnerve a modern audience, especially if they are paying attention that what is really going on.

The story follows the perpetually unlucky Edward Parker (Richard Arlen), who survives a shipwreck only to be cast ashore on a mysterious island by the unscrupulous captain whose ship picked him up.  The ship has delivered a cargo of exotic animals to the island, along with Mr. Montgomery (Arthur Hohl), who turns out to be the right hand man of the island’s master, Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton). Parker soon discovers the inhuman nature of Moreau’s secret research, which puts his life in danger, but the arrival of his fiancée (Leila Hyams) at the head of a rescue party brings even more peril as Moreau sets his beast men loose upon the intruders. 

The monsters, of course, are the characters to watch. They are a fascinating menagerie of horrors, with teeth, fangs, and crooked limbs that suggest their weird origins as creatures very different from men. As Lota, the loveliest of the lot, Kathleen Burke convincingly inhabits the liminal space between predatory panther and island Eve, with beautiful but wild, unnatural eyes that watch Parker’s every move. Horror icon Bela Lugosi grins madly as the leader of the island’s bestial man; you might not even recognize him beneath all that hair. Charles Laughton, however, is the scariest monster of them all as the sadistic, obsessed Dr. Moreau, a man who wants nothing more than to mate his creatures with real human beings and see what results. Laughton plays the role with surprising restraint, but watch his eyes and the way they light up madly when he talks about his obscene work. 

The humans can be a bit dense at times. Do they really think that the locals are just ugly, hairy natives of the island? They are, however, necessary to the plot, both as spectators who provide an outsider’s view of events and as potential victims for Moreau’s most ambitiously horrific plans. Parker’s fiancée, Ruth, is particularly important, since her arrival makes Lota’s wooing of Parker himself unnecessary. Moreau realizes that his beast men, already torn by a storm of unstable urges, will abduct and rape Ruth with only the slightest encouragement. Moreau cares only for the results of such an experiment; can his creations procreate with a human being? Astute viewers will shudder in horror and disgust at this prospect, which invests the whole story with a deeper and more lingering sense of menace. Even more terrible is the final scene, in which Moreau’s miserable creations exact a just but awful vengeance on their maker. 

Rejected by more than a dozen US censor boards and banned outright in Great Britain, Island of Lost Souls also displeased H.G. Wells, but it remains the best adaptation of his story more than 75 years later. The 1977 and 1996 versions of The Island of Dr. Moreau both fail to live up to its standard.  For more from director Erle C. Kenton, try The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), House of Frankenstein (1944), and House of Dracula (1945). The great Charles Laughton also stars in Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), and Witness for the Prosecution (1957). Look for Leila Hyams in another shocking horror classic from the same year, Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932). 

You can rent or buy Island of Lost Souls on DVD from the Criterion Collection. Their version also includes some great interviews with Rick Baker and other genre notables about the making and legacy of the film.

Classic Films in Focus: WHITE ZOMBIE (1932)

Some years ago I attended an academic panel on zombie films that made White Zombie (1932) sound like one of the most fascinating examples of the genre ever to be released, and I duly put the film on my "must-see" list. Sadly, the analysis offered by the panel was better than its source material, as sometimes happens when a particularly talented scholar takes a fancy to a rather mediocre text. White Zombie is not the quintessential classic zombie film, nor does it measure up to the level of Val Lewton's I Walked with a Zombie (1943), but there are some gems in its mixed bag, especially for those who really adore the performances of Bela Lugosi.

The plot hinges on the unrequited love of Monsieur Beaumont (Robert Frazer) for the lovely Madeleine (Madge Bellamy). Beaumont lures Madeleine and her intended husband, Neil (John Harron), to his estate in Haiti with promises of friendship, but secretly he hopes to steal the heroine away from her beloved. When his efforts fail, he enlists the aid of diabolical witch doctor Legendre (Bela Lugosi), a deal with the devil that Beaumont soon comes to repent, since Legendre's only way of solving problems it to turn people into zombies. Neil teams up with the local missionary, Dr. Bruner (Joseph Cawthorn), to uncover the treachery committed by Beaumont and the black magic perpetrated by Legendre, and various scenes of suffering, horror, and poetic justice ensue. The whole thing was filmed in just eleven days, using sets leftover from other movies, including Dracula (1931), and the speed with which the picture was literally thrown together accounts for the thinness of its plot and many of its other weaker points.

The weakest aspect is the appeal of Madeleine's true love, Neil. Harron's performance is silly and stiff, and he doesn't really do much except stumble around and cry out for his lost bride. Honestly, the plot could have worked just fine without him, since the more competent Dr. Bruner drives all of the real heroism. If Madeleine's love for Neil is meant to be an example of amor vincit omnia - "love conquers all" - then it fails to convince its audience of it, which is a serious fault indeed. Nosferatu (1922) had managed a much more compelling depiction of the idea a decade earlier, and without the benefit of sound, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) had also effectively conveyed romantic pathos in a silent horror film, so White Zombie ought to have been able to do more with its persecuted lovers, too. The scenes that focus on the young couple tend to drag because of this lack of depth, and that makes the entire opening of the film rather slow, since the lovers get the bulk of the attention for the first several minutes.

Other aspects of the film could also be better. White Zombie is considered important because it is the original zombie movie, but the zombies themselves need to be given more thoughtful emphasis. More could have been done with the enslaved zombie workers, whom we see only briefly at work in the sugar mill, and more could have been made of the six former enemies who make up Legendre's personal zombie guard. There are great stories behind each of those characters' fates, and the dialogue at one point suggests that they might one day redeem their souls and tear Legendre to pieces, but no fulfillment of this tantalizing idea develops, since the zombies are all made to drown themselves by the missionary in order to weaken Legendre's power. That scene creates a terrible problem for the alert viewer because Dr. Bruner has already said that the zombies are not really dead, and Madeleine can be rescued from her zombie state, so drowning the zombie guards starts to look suspiciously like murder. It would have been more consistent to kill all the zombies, Madeleine included, or to save them all, but the picture seems to want to have it both ways.

The movie is not, however, a total wash, and there are reasons for its cult status among certain horror fans today. Robert Frazer's performance as the jealous, tormented Beaumont is quite good, especially in the later scenes, where he writhes in agony as Legendre slowly transforms him into yet another zombie slave. He is a complicated, multi-faceted character, whom we both abhor and pity over the course of the story. Madge Bellamy's Madeleine is as lovely as a moth in her trailing gauzy gowns, and we can see why all of the men, Legendre included, desire her, even in her zombie state. The best moments, though, belong to Bela, and really I think he's more menacing here than he is in Dracula. Legendre is more alive, more thoroughly masculine than the vampiric count, and Lugosi plays him with delightfully horrible expressions that fully convey the villain's sadistic, demonic nature. If anything, we need more of him in the movie, and he ought to have a better death scene, preferably one that brings to fruition that warning about the zombies tearing him to pieces.

Despite its flaws, White Zombie is an educational experience for the patient student of horror history, and it makes for an interesting comparison with other early horror films, particularly with Dracula, which suffers from some of the same problems but enjoys far more fame and glory as its legacy. The well-known heavy metal band led by Rob Zombie liked the movie so much that they named themselves after it, and scores of zombie movies that came afterward can trace their heritage back to it. Those who want to see it without investing any money in it will be glad to know that White Zombie is in the public domain, which means that legal versions of the entire film can be watched on the internet for free.

See more of the great Bela in Island of Lost Souls (1932), The Black Cat (1934), Son of Frankenstein (1939), and The Wolf Man (1941), and don’t miss his wonderful performance in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). Director Victor Halperin is obscure today, but he did helm Supernatural (1933), starring Carole Lombard and Randolph Scott.

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.