LEGO Tribute to NOSFERATU (1922)

Happy Halloween! This year I decided to celebrate spooky season with a LEGO tribute to one of the greatest horror movies ever made, Nosferatu (1922). Max Schreck created an iconic character as the creepy, plague carrying Count Orlok, the film's replacement for Count Dracula (because they couldn't get permission to make an actual adaptation of Stoker's novel). While the setting here is not strictly faithful to the familiar shots of Orlok in the doorway, I felt that the rats and spiders helped to convey the mood of the picture (you can't have Nosferatu without rats!).

Just like a vampire, this great silent movie rose again from the dead after Stoker's estate demanded that the prints be destroyed, and we're lucky to be able to watch Nosferatu today. The original film was remade in 1979 (with Klaus Kinski), celebrated in song by Blue Oyster Cult in 1977, and parodied to great effect in the 2000 film, Shadow of the Vampire, with Willem Dafoe earning an Oscar nomination for his delightfully weird performance as Max/Orlok.

 

 

Classic Films in Focus: QUEEN OF BLOOD (1966)

With its lurid title and eerie opening credits, Queen of Blood (1966) promises a delirious sci-fi phantasmagoria that, sadly, it never delivers. Even Basil Rathbone and Dennis Hopper get bogged down in the picture's ponderous pace and refusal to pivot away from the pseudo-science that typically fills the slow parts of 50s and 60s science fiction films. It's a shame, too, because writer and director Curtis Harrington's ideas might have made for a truly unnerving narrative; the last third of the movie, with the predatory title character and her secret intentions, has a lot in common with Alien (1979), but you'll never worry about whether they can hear you scream in space when you're watching Queen of Blood.

Rathbone plays Dr. Farraday, the lead scientist for a space exploration group that mounts a rescue mission to Mars when an alien ship crashes there. Among the astronauts are alpha male Allan Brenner (John Saxon), his girlfriend, Laura James (Judi Meredith), and Paul Grant (Dennis Hopper). Once the astronauts locate the sole survivor of the alien wreck, they attempt to bring her to Earth, but the small crew gets smaller each day the alien stays on board. The remaining astronauts struggle to complete their mission without becoming the vampiric stranger's next meal.

Queen of Blood is set in the far future of 1990, where women finally get to be astronauts but still wear 60s hairstyles. Lots of references to moon bases and science are meant to show how far humans have come since 1966, but the movie is in no hurry to introduce its title character or even get its astronauts to Mars to look for her, and most of the scenes take place in small control rooms or the sterile, confined space of the rescue ship. The flashes we see of the aliens, who sport clear plastic crowns that look a bit like rabbit ears, are intriguing and vaguely disturbing, but they also remind us how deadly dull the humans are in comparison. It's never really clear if the aliens are the same species as the bloodthirsty queen; Dr. Farraday speculates about their intentions but doesn't give us solid answers. That ambiguity persists right to the end, when we're left with the distinctly unpleasant expectation that the humans are making a colossal mistake, but there's no effective build up of dread that would have given the ending a truly horrific punch.

The slow pace, closed spaces, and dry dialogue don't allow Basil Rathbone or the other actors to shine, and they rarely do anything except talk. Judi Meredith is more or less the lead as Laura James, and as the only woman Laura stands out among the very typical masculine characters who make up the rest of the crew. We don't get much sense of the individual personalities of the astronauts played by John Saxon, Dennis Hopper, Robert Boon, and Don Eitner, and as a result we don't really care if they live or die. When she finally does appear, the Queen of Blood, played by Florence Marly, has no lines and never even makes a sound, yet she still manages to be the most interesting character in the whole film. The male characters blithely assume that she isn't dangerous because she is so obviously female, and they treat her with patronizing kindness until they realize that she sees them as tasty snacks. Laura has to come to the rescue against this seductive predator, but it's a disappointing confrontation that wraps up much too quickly.

Curtis Harrington also wrote and directed Night Tide (1961), which handles its slow burn horror with more skill and gives young Dennis Hopper a more interesting role. For better late career performances from Basil Rathbone, see Tales of Terror (1962) and The Comedy of Terrors (1963). John Saxon, who is still working in 2018, is known for his appearances in the Nightmare on Elm Street series but can also be seen in Blood Beast from Outer Space (1965). You'll find both Saxon and Judi Meredith in Summer Love (1958). Be sure to note sci-fi icon and superfan Forrest J. Ackerman in a small role in Queen of Blood as Dr. Farraday's assistant.

Classic Films in Focus: THE BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960)

Peter Cushing returns to the role of Doctor Van Helsing for this sequel to Hammer's 1958 reinvention of the Dracula story, but, in spite of the title, Dracula never actually appears. Instead, Van Helsing combats a new undead menace and the relentless obstacle of the doctor's own terrible timing, which goes a long way to make a bad problem worse. While the absence of Christopher Lee's Count is lamentable, and Van Helsing's inability to be on time is maddening, The Brides of Dracula offers a smorgasbord of the usual Hammer delights, including buxom damsels, sublime Gothic ambience, and the perfectly serious performance of Cushing himself.

Van Helsing combats an outbreak of vampirism when the undead Baron Meinster (David Peel) escapes from bondage and turns his pretty young victims into fellow bloodsuckers. The Baron also exacts a terrible revenge on his mother, the Baroness (Martita Hunt), who had kept him a prisoner in the family castle to control his murderous appetite. Once on the loose, the Baron pursues the lovely Marianne (Yvonne Monlaur), who escapes from her first encounter with the vampire and is rescued by Van Helsing. Unfortunately, Marianne's next destination is a girls' school, where the Baron finds plenty of virginal flesh to feed his lust for blood.

The Baron is a younger, more talkative monster than Lee's Dracula, with a young man's energy to match. David Peel's fluffy blond coif and oversized fangs make him a bit silly, but he manages to wreak havoc just the same, especially because Van Helsing never manages to keep his promises to return before sundown and stake the latest vampire victim. We might forgive him for being late the first time, but by the second time he really ought to know better; both of the female vampires might have been dispatched before they ever woke up (which would have made for a much shorter movie but a less frustrating vampire hunter). It's not Cushing's fault that the script relies on his character to be incompetent in order to generate the titular brides, but I find it hard to accept that the one guy who ought to be on top of the problem doesn't seem to know what time the sun sets.

Van Helsing's chronic lateness allows the Baron to corrupt two young girls, first a villager and then one of Marianne's friends at the school. These "brides" run about in white nightgowns and flash their own extra-large fangs at Van Helsing, but they don't have much personality as vampires. Marianne is the only young woman who gets much to do, and she usually does exactly the wrong thing. She takes Van Helsing's instructions to forget what has happened to her so literally that she later becomes engaged to the Baron, not recognizing him as the monster she naively freed from his chains! More interesting, and more tragic, is the Baroness, who pays for hiding her unnatural son when he turns her into a vampire, too. Unlike the other victims, the Baroness retains her horror at her fate, and she welcomes Van Helsing's offer to set things right. Martita Hunt gives the standout performance of the picture in the role, showing the Baroness in a brief but tragic arc of complicity, guilt, contrition, and redemption.

In spite of its narrative flaws, The Brides of Dracula remains a great favorite among Hammer devotees, and many blog lists rank it as the best of the Hammer Dracula films. For the sake of comparison, watch Horror of Dracula (1958) and a couple of the later entries: Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), Scars of Dracula (1970), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), or The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974). Terence Fisher, who directed this outing, also headed up several of Hammer's other most memorable pictures, including The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Horror of Dracula, and The Mummy (1959). Cushing and his frequent costar Christopher Lee appear together in many of these films. You'll find Yvonne Monlaur in Circus of Horrors (1960) and The Terror of the Tongs (1961); Martita Hunt, meanwhile, should not be missed as Miss Havisham in the 1946 adaptation of Great Expectations.

Classic Films in Focus: FIEND WITHOUT A FACE (1958)

Atomic age hysteria fuels the British low-budget shocker, Fiend without a Face (1958), in which invisible vampire brain monsters rampage through a Canadian village near a U.S. Air Force base. The title of this picture seriously understates the glorious weirdness of its killer creatures, who lack limbs, heads, and bodies as well as faces, even after they stop being invisible. The best known human associated with the movie is American actor Marshall Thompson, who takes the lead as the heroic major fighting to stop the bizarre beings, but the chief attractions in Fiend without a Face are definitely its monsters and the mayhem they inflict. If you're a fan of 1950s creature features like The Blob (1958) or even Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), then Fiend without a Face is just the sort of guilty pleasure you'll love to indulge.

Thompson plays Major Jeff Cummings, who works at the U.S. Air Force base just outside the bucolic Canadian town of Winthrop, where the locals are none too happy about the constant noise of planes and potential radiation generated by the military's atomic reactors. When villagers start dying under strange circumstances, the Canadians immediately blame the Americans, and Jeff tries to make peace with Barbara (Kim Parker), the attractive but understandably angry sister of the first victim. Jeff soon becomes convinced that Barbara's employer, Professor Walgate (Kynaston Reeves), is somehow connected to the deaths, but he's not prepared for the truth about the deadly creatures that Walgate's research has unleashed.

The acting in Fiend without a Face is better than that found in most pictures of its era and genre, although a lot of characters are only introduced in order to be killed off by the invisible monsters. The character types represented are familiar, including the practical soldier hero, the smart but feminine love interest, and the overreaching scientist, blinded to the consequences of his actions by his own ambition. Marshall Thompson and Kim Parker play their parts seriously but not woodenly, and they have a nice little romance brewing with moments of humor and humanity. Kynaston Reeves has some good scenes, too, as the aged professor slowly realizes his responsibility for the disaster and struggles to make things right. If the plot is frankly outrageous, and the monsters utterly impossible, the actors are at least good enough to keep the audience invested in the story and not overly conscious of the supremely nutty premise that drives the action forward.

Monster movies live and die, however, on the strength of their real protagonists, the creatures themselves, and Fiend without a Face offers some of the weirdest, most disturbing freaks of psychic science one could possibly imagine. For the first half of the movie they remain invisible, leaving us to deduce their natures from the clues they leave behind after each new attack. Special effects and some energetic acting from the victims offer hints about what the creatures are like and how they kill their prey; a farm couple is strangled, and an autopsy reveals that their brains and spinal cords have been sucked out through small holes in their heads. Later incidents provide new evidence, until the creatures get enough power to make themselves visible and horrify us with the full extent of their monstrosity. Thanks to Professor Walgate's imagination, they look like giant brains with spinal cords attached, and they move like sentient slugs, using tentacles to propel themselves and locate their targets. They ooze grotesquely when shot, and the finale turns into a brain slug bloodbath, with the surviving humans holed up in a house and surrounded by the persistent fiends. Their attack on the house prefigures the violent determination of the zombies in Night of the Living Dead (1968), but the vampire brains know how to cut the phone lines, which makes them even scarier. The brain slugs combine the grossest and most disturbing aspects of several different horror movie creatures, but it's hard to think of anything else quite like them in the genre's history. Where else are you going to get invisible atomic vampire brain slugs that leap on their victims to suck out their spinal cords?

Arthur Crabtree, who directed Fiend without a Face, started as a cinematographer; his other directorial efforts include Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) and a dozen episodes of the 1950s Ivanhoe TV series starring Roger Moore. Marshall Thompson starred on the TV series, Daktari, and also appeared in films like Battleground (1949), To Hell and Back (1955), and It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958). Look for character actor Kynaston Reeves in Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) and School for Scoundrels (1960). For more atomic monsters, try The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Them! (1954), and Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster (1955).

Classic Films in Focus: DRACULA'S DAUGHTER (1936)

Dracula's Daughter (1936) acts as a direct sequel to the 1931 Dracula, picking up mere moments after the earlier film ends. This time, however, the narrative focuses on Van Helsing (mysteriously altered to Von Helsing) and a new representative of the undead, the Countess Maria Zeleska, played with unearthly poise by Gloria Holden. Although its fame pales in comparison with that of the Lugosi picture, Dracula's Daughter offers an intriguing vision of feminine monstrosity, and it encourages us to pity the tragic fate of a beautiful woman enslaved by uncontrollable desires.

Edward Van Sloan reprises his role as the good doctor, who finds himself charged with murder for the deaths of both Renfield and Count Dracula. Unable to convince Scotland Yard of his sanity and his reasons for killing the Count, Von Helsing enlists the aid of his former student, Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger).  Meanwhile, Countess Zeleska arrives in London and begins preying on victims of her own with the help of her servant, Sandor (Irving Pichel). Jeffrey attracts the vampire's attention because she hopes that his skill as a psychiatrist can free her from her bloodthirsty curse, but her interest arouses the jealousy of Jeffrey's assistant, Janet (Marguerite Churchill), and of Sandor, as well.

Von Helsing provides a link between the two stories, and Edward Van Sloan is once again very convincing as the wise vampire hunter, but Dracula's Daughter really concerns itself much more with its title character and other new arrivals on the scene. Because of the earlier film, it takes less time to explain the back story and the habits of the vampire, so the movie is able to pack all of its action into a tight running time of just 71 minutes. Most of that focuses on the Countess' growing obsession with Dr. Garth, who is already engaged in a prickly, contentious courtship with his assistant, but the movie takes time out for a few attack scenes and a poignant funeral pyre for Dracula. We see visual and thematic links to the earlier story, as well, with the Countess rising from her coffin and avoiding mirrors and crosses.

All of the actors acquit themselves well, but the movie really belongs to Gloria Holden, whose exotic beauty commands the screen in frequent closeups lit from beneath to emphasize her unnatural nature. Unlike Dracula, the Countess longs for a normal life and yearns to escape her monstrous urges. She hopes at first that her father's death will liberate her, but a test of her will soon shows that her appetite for human blood remains unabated. She cannot help being what she is, but the darkness inside her is too powerful to resist. The camera registers the subtle struggle of her conflicting urges in shots that often show only the Countess' eyes, in which Sandor claims he can see death. Throughout the picture, she is a complex character, never reduced to mere monstrosity. Like the goddess Kali, she embodies contradictions. The Countess is an artist who creates and a killer who destroys. She is a woman who yearns for love and a predator who must devour. Holden invests her with grace and a sense of tragic grandeur, making us wish it that was not already a century too late to save her from her fate.

Be sure to note Hedda Hopper in a small role as Lady Esme and lovely Nan Grey as Lili. Lambert Hillyer, who directed Dracula's Daughter, was a silent film veteran who also made The Invisible Ray (1936) and dozens of B Westerns. Gloria Holden appears in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), The Corsican Brothers (1941), and The Eddy Duchin Story (1956). Look for Otto Kruger in Treasure Island (1934), Saboteur (1942), and High Noon (1952). Although he's quite menacing as Sandor, Irving Pichel is probably better remembered today as the director of more than 30 pictures, including The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and Destination Moon (1950).

Classic Movies and EVERYDAY MONSTERS

This weekend I got my short story collection, Everyday Monsters, posted on Amazon Kindle, where it now awaits the lavish praise of at least a dozen readers, not including my mother, who doesn't want me to become too conceited by thinking that I might be "all that." Everybody knows that short stories don't sell, but being obsessed with classic horror and shows like The Twilight Zone I wrote them anyway. A word of warning to you classic horror fans out there - this is the kind of thing that is liable to happen to you if you watch too much Boris, Bela, and Lon, not to mention too many episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Anyway, the seven stories in the collection represent a strange melange of influences from classic movies, literature, and my studies of feminist theory in graduate school. Here's a breakdown of some of the references and allusions in each story, which I hope will inspire at least three more people to go over to Amazon and have a look at the book itself.

"The Spinsters" - I have to be coy here to avoid spoiling the big twist, but I can say that there's a lot of Arsenic and Old Lace informing the characters of Louisa and Letitia. They're also based on my real-life dotty old aunts, Birdie and Sis, who were absolutely weird enough to fuel an entire career for any writer. I love wacky old ladies, especially in movies; I adore Una O'Connor, Hermione Gingold, Dame May Whitty, and all of their cinematic sisters. In this story, the little old ladies rule.

"Desiccated" - The Mummy and other later films often depict the protagonist's love interest as the mummy's reincarnated sweetheart, but in this story I do away with the male characters and let the heroine and the Ancient Egyptian princess become the focal characters. Margot definitely has a connection to Princess Ahmesahura, but their encounter has more complicated consequences than a simple substitution. Margot is also something a movie buff, since the horrible kids she has to chaperone remind her of The Omen, and she recognizes the encased mummy as a familiar figure from old films.

"Hoodoo Man" - Classic horror fans will immediately recognize that Cleophas Legendre has appropriated his surname from Bela Lugosi's character in White Zombie, which also informs the way that the zombies themselves are handled. These are classic zombies, not the Romero brain-eaters. I really admire the short fiction of Alice Walker and Eudora Welty, and I hope their influence comes through, but this story is particularly inspired by Zora Neale Hurston's "Sweat." It's also about the blues, especially Nina Simone's fantastic rendition of "I Put a Spell on You."

"Mama Doll" - I wanted to include stories about different kinds of oppressed characters finding some poetic justice through supernatural events, and I really liked the idea of the golem as a monster that we don't see that often. Carlita is a young Hispanic girl thrown into a corrupt foster care system, but her own creativity and will to live make her a surprisingly strong character. My sister and I used to make doll people like this one when we were kids; once we even hid my sister inside one and put her on the porch, where she came to life and terrified trick-or-treaters reaching for the bowl of candy in her lap.

"This is Not a Life" - Forbidden Planet is one of my favorite science fiction movies because of the way it revises Shakespeare's The Tempest as a Freudian fable, and I play with some of those ideas here, too. Isolated on his island paradise, William Prosper has mastered science that certainly looks like magic; instead of a daughter he has his wife, Perdita, who gets her name from The Winter's Tale. There's some Heart of Darkness going on, as well, plus a shout-out to Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I saw a Magritte exhibit in Montreal many years ago, and those trippy images seemed like the perfect complement to this story.

"Morning Comes After the Storm" - I used to teach Robert Browning's "Porphyria's Lover" all the time, and the ending always bothered me. Browning is intentionally ambiguous, but this story reveals what I like to imagine happening next. The dog recalls the beloved pet of Browning's wife, Elizabeth Barrett, who was already a famous poet when Browning started writing fan mail to her. You might say I'm recasting Browning's story according to the workings of Poe's universe. Hopefully that works.

"The Exorcism of Wendell Grove" - I love funny ghost stories like The Ghost Goes West (1935) and The Canterville Ghost (1944). Even Blackbeard's Ghost (1968) makes me laugh. This story is meant to be fun rather than scary, like riding The Haunted Mansion at Disney World, but it still pursues the theme of poetic justice. Frederica Island is inspired by St. Simons Island, in coastal South Georgia. I don't know what actual ghosts they have there, but the story includes a Southern belle, a slave woman, freaky poltergeist twins, gentleman duelists, a drunken frat brother, and a pirate.

Here's the link to the ebook in case you're one of those three people!

Classic Films in Focus: THE RETURN OF DOCTOR X (1939)

Before The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942) made him a certified leading man, Humphrey Bogart often played heavies, but The Return of Doctor X (1939) takes him into even stranger territory as a villain who also happens to be one of the undead. This otherwise routine horror programmer directed by Vincent Sherman becomes something unique in the annals of Hollywood history thanks to Bogart’s performance, which shows him more at home in the horror genre than one might suspect. For fans of the iconic star or those interested in the evolution of the movie vampire, The Return of Doctor X merits a viewing, but its thrills mostly depend on the bizarre spectacle of the beloved Bogie in his ghoulishly pallid disguise.

Bogart plays Marshall Quesne, the mysterious assistant of the prominent blood specialist Dr. Flegg (John Litel). When a famous actress (Lya Lys) inexplicably recovers from being murdered, the doctor is consulted about the case by dogged reporter Walt “Wichita” Garrett (Wayne Morris) and junior physician Mike Rhodes (Dennis Morgan). A second murder deepens the plot, and the two young men begin to think that Dr. Flegg and his strange associate know more about the deaths than they’re saying. Their investigation uncovers the incredible truth but also endangers the life of Mike’s new love interest, Joan (Rosemary Lane), a pretty nurse whose blood type matches that of both of the murder victims.

Technically, Bogart’s character is just a supporting role, but his subsequent fame and his intense performance make him the player to watch. Wayne Morris is genial but rather mild as the reporter, especially in comparison to Lee Tracy, who plays the same type of character in the original Doctor X (1932). Although they make credible leads in other pictures, Dennis Morgan and Rosemary Lane just don’t have that much to do as the obligatory romantic pair, and they’re consistently less interesting than the creepy characters. Lya Lys has some effective scenes as the undead Angela Merrova, while John Litel really looks the part of the dangerously obsessed academic in his goatee and monocle, but from the moment he first turns up Bogart really steals the movie. We first see him, with his white-striped hair and deathly pallor, in full mad scientist garb, weirdly accompanied by a white rabbit cradled in the crook of his arm. He looks like the long-lost grandfather of Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd. In just a few moments on screen Bogart manages to convey both the menace and the pathos of his character, who describes both himself and the rabbit as “victims of circumstance.”

The specific circumstance that dictates Quesne’s fate makes The Return of Doctor X intriguing as a blend of the scientific hubris of Frankenstein and the bloodlust of Dracula. Dr. Flegg uses manipulation of the blood, plus his own invention of a synthetic substitute, to bring the dead back to life; unfortunately, his patients must have a constant supply of new blood to replenish their systems. Although the vampires of this story require transfusions rather than exposed necks, the murder victims end up drained of their blood just the same. While Angela and Quesne both have the pale faces, cold flesh, and strange manner typical of the 1930s screen vampire, their monstrosity is born of science, not the supernatural. Neither of them chooses to become what they are, yet they cling to their unnatural lives with grim determination. Later movies, like Near Dark (1987) and Blade (1998), would further explore the idea of vampirism as a matter of hematology, but in this picture the theme is yoked to the overreaching ambition of a scientist determined to play God. Near the end of the movie, Flegg, the Victor Frankenstein of this narrative, predictably laments, “My experiments have turned into madness. I’ve created a monster.” We understand that his intentions were the very best, but perhaps he ought to have expected this outcome when he chose a crazed scientist executed for child murder as his test subject.

The Return of Doctor X is only nominally a sequel to the 1932 film, Doctor X, which stars Lionel Atwill as the title character. The 1939 movie was the directorial debut of Vincent Sherman, who went on to make Mr. Skeffington (1944), Adventures of Don Juan (1948), and The Damned Don’t Cry (1950). See more of Humphrey Bogart’s heavies in The Petrified Forest (1936), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), and The Oklahoma Kid (1939). Wayne Morris also stars with Bogart in Kid Galahad (1937) and with Dennis Morgan in Bad Men of Missouri (1941).

The Return of Doctor X is currently available for streaming on Warner Archive Instant.

Strange Stuff on Warner Archive Instant

Last night I picked a double feature of freakish fare from the streaming catalog at Warner Archive Instant. I'm intentionally seeking out more obscure classic horror films in the hopes of getting a collection of reviews together by the fall of this year, but last night's movies were so unusual that it might take me a few days to figure out what to say about them in a full-length review format.

Now, Warner Archive Instant devotes a whole category to Mondo/Cult films, so they like the weird stuff, but these picks came from the regular Horror section. I don't know how long they'll stay in the current lineup, but if you want to revel in the bizarre spectacles described below then head on over to the Instant site and check them out there.

When Killer Iguanas Attack!

First up was The Show (1927), a Tod Browning silent starring John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, and Renee Adoree. The human actors are all great in this creepy melodrama set in a Budapest carnival, but they have a scene-stealing costar in the large iguana who stands in for a venomous Gila monster. Seriously, the iguana attack scene near the end was so funny I almost fell off the couch. My howls of laughter attracted the attention of the my daughter, who then wanted to see the scene for herself. We ended up replaying it twice. Watching Lionel Barrymore locked in a closet with an angry iguana is one of those priceless moments of movie-watching only a classic film fan can really appreciate. The rest of the movie is menacing, tragic, and possessed of a weirdness typical of Browning's sensibility, but the iguana scenes are the ones you'll remember.

The Demon Bogart of Fleet Street?

My next feature was The Return of Doctor X (1939), which really doesn't have anything to do with the original Doctor X (1932) but does offer the one and only appearance of Humphrey Bogart in a horror movie. Through the whole movie I kept wondering, "Why is Humphrey Bogart dressed up like Sweeney Todd?" Actually, that question ought to be, "Why is Sweeney Todd dressed up like Humphrey Bogart?" since Bogart did it almost 70 years before Johnny Depp. I'm not the first person to notice the resemblance, either. Jim Emerson posted about it in 2007, when Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street made its debut in theaters. If you have ever wondered what Bogie would look like as a pale-faced, blood-lusting vampire, here's your chance to find out. The Return of Doctor X is by no means a great movie, but I had a lot of fun watching it, and Bogart's first appearance - cuddling a bunny?! - is quite the spectacle.

Now that you know I'm on the prowl for unusual or lesser-known horror classics, feel free to send me some suggestions! In the meantime, I'll be checking out The Cyclops (1956), The Hypnotic Eye (1960), and Frankenstein 1970 (1958) on the Warner site.

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: THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES (1974)

The basic idea of this later Hammer production from director Roy Ward Baker is patently ridiculous. The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) might just as well have been called Kung Fu Dracula, representing as it does a mash-up of the successful Hammer formula and the Hong Kong martial arts genre as realized by the Shaw Brothers. It’s a crazy movie propelled by a crazy concept, but its nuttiness is a large part of its appeal, even if it’s a minor entry in the Hammer canon of vampire films.

Peter Cushing returns to the role of Professor Van Helsing, who has traveled to China in search of Asian vampires. With his son, Leyland (Robin Stewart), and an adventurous, wealthy widow (Julie Ege) in tow, Van Helsing sets off with a family of Chinese warriors to find a remote village plagued by deformed bloodsuckers. Dracula (John Forbes-Robertson) has already found out about this nest of vampires and has taken the form of a Chinese visitor (Shen Chan) in order to take over the undead army of the vampires and their victims. Inevitably, Van Helsing and the warriors must engage in a desperate battle with their demonic adversaries to put a stop to Dracula’s predation.

Christopher Lee is absent in the role of the bloodthirsty count, but it doesn’t really matter since Dracula spends most of the movie disguised as Kah. The plot might just as well have dispensed with Dracula entirely and focused on the unfamiliar and more promising territory of the Chinese vampires, who are markedly different in appearance and behavior from their European cousin. Van Helsing shows some interest in the cultural variations between Eastern and Western vampires, and we do see that the Buddha works just as well as the Christian cross when it comes to holy symbols. Unfortunately, we don’t learn nearly enough about the Chinese vampires. The undead attackers might be hopping vampires, but the film doesn’t bother to discuss them or their unique place in vampire mythology. It’s a shame, too, because the different vampires help to distinguish this installment from the stale retreads of the same old formula that Hammer had been using for far too long.

On the plus side, we have Cushing still playing Van Helsing with conviction and gravitas, looking very elegant in his tailored suits and adventure gear. Hammer gets to put quite a bit of female bosom on display and kill off a large cast of supporting characters in an orgy of gory excess, both elements that endear the studio to its many fans. The kung fu scenes are great fun, with David Chiang and Szu Shih both giving especially energetic performances. The movie also takes a decidedly liberal attitude toward interracial romance, and the location shooting in Hong Kong freshens up the whole atmosphere. These are sufficient attractions to keep Hammer devotees entertained throughout, especially if they’re also fond of the iconic kung fu pictures produced by the Shaw Brothers during their long and glorious career.

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is by no means the best of the Hammer pictures, but if you find the premise entertaining you'll enjoy the film. Roy Ward Baker also directed Moon Zero Two (1969), The Vampire Lovers (1970), and Scars of Dracula (1970). For other Van Helsing performances from Peter Cushing, see Horror of Dracula (1958), The Brides of Dracula (1960), and Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972). See kung fu classics from the Shaw Brothers like Five Fingers of Death (1972), Shaolin Temple (1976), and The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) to get a better feel for the genre and its style.

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: THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST (1945)

Streaming services like Netflix Instant make a lot of obscure classic movies available for the first time in years, but often one watches them only to confirm the reasons they fell into obscurity in the first place. Director Lesley Selander’s 1945 film, The Vampire’s Ghost, comes as a pleasant surprise, then, as an example of an obscure, low-budget picture that actually tells an interesting and entertaining tale. Its unique setting and muted tone, along with an original story by Leigh Brackett, help it to age better than many of its peers, and The Vampire’s Ghost also offers one of cinema’s most remarkably underplayed vampiric characters in John Abbott’s immortal Elizabethan, a very different vampire from any of his more famous bloodsucking kin.

The story focuses on an African community of natives and English transplants, where numerous odd murders have the jungle drums talking. Roy (Charles Gordon) and his fiancée Julie (Peggy Stewart) find the events unsettling, but only Roy learns their true cause. Webb Fallon (John Abbott), a mysterious bar owner who has recently arrived in the area, is really a centuries old vampire, cursed to live forever on the blood of his victims. Roy falls under Fallon’s control even as Julie becomes the lonely vampire’s new obsession. With the natives in turmoil, Roy must break free of the creature’s power in time to save Julie from joining the ranks of the undead.

Webb Fallon is a curiously quotidian monster, who uses his own unremarkable appearance as a tiger uses its stripes. He is very English, short, and rather frail, wearing sunglasses during the day and complaining of a “touch of malaria.” He wears no cape, and he definitely does not sparkle. The actor John Abbott might seem like the last man on earth to play a credible vampire until we see his mesmerizing eyes. There his power reveals itself, as he bends first Roy and then Julie to his will.

You’ll probably wish that more screen time were devoted to the captivating Adele Mara, who plays the dancer, Lisa. Fallon speaks of her vampiric resurrection, but it would have been better to see it for ourselves. Mara would have made a fabulous vampire seductress with her dark tresses and intense, exotic beauty. Her dance number, however, remains a highlight of the picture. The ending lacks panache and might have made a better use of its villain’s inevitable demise, although the death cult temple makes a provocative setting. Despite such shortcomings, the story packs plenty of entertainment into a very compact 59 minutes of running time.

Lesley Selander directed mostly B Westerns, although writer Leigh Brackett helped shape real classics like The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959), and even The Empire Strikes Back (1980). You might recognize John Abbott’s refined English accent as the voice of Father Wolf in Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967), but he also appears in Mrs. Miniver (1942), Humoresque (1946), and Gigi (1958). Charles Gordon made few other films, but Peggy Stewart, still alive and well in 2012, has appeared in dozens of Westerns and television programs, including The Office. See more of the gorgeous Adele Mara in You Were Never Lovelier (1942), The Inner Circle (1946), Wake of the Red Witch (1948), and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949).

Thanks to my friend, horror expert Jonathan Lampley, for recommending The Vampire's Ghost as another classic horror movie worth watching! Check it out for yourself on Netflix Instant, where I hope it will remain available at least through the end of the Halloween season.

LEGO Monster Fighters: Making AFOL Dreams Come True

2012 is turning out to be a banner year for LEGO themes, with LORD OF THE RINGS and SUPER HEROES already taking shelves by storm and several new series of the hot minifigure line making their debuts. Still, the best new line for the AFOL crowd might well be MONSTER FIGHTERS, a horror themed collection with obvious connections to classic movie monsters as well as a decidedly steampunk sensibility.

MONSTER FIGHTERS brings a lot to the table. The monsters themselves are solid updates of the previous monster minifigures released in the STUDIOS collection and minifig series. The new ghosts, for example, are especially welcome and feature some neat little details that make them more interesting overall than earlier versions. Additional zombie figs are sure to delight collectors who missed out on them in the original series of minifigs, bringing AFOLs that much closer to full cast recreations of Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Other great monsters include the Swamp Creature, Mummy, Vampyre, Vampyre Bride, Monster (and accompanying Crazy Scientist), and the improved Werewolf with Wolverine style claws for greater An American Werewolf in London gore.

The fighters provide some long-desired accessories, including a fabulous bowler hat, a dashing epee, and some excellent steampunk body parts like a mechanical leg. I would personally like to thank whoever had the inspired idea to name one of the fighters Rodney Rathbone, an obvious homage to Basil Rathbone, who starred in a large number of horror movies in addition to playing Sherlock Holmes. The other fighter characters include Major Quinton Steele, rocking an updated variation on earlier British explorer figs, and the much-appreciated heroine Ann Lee, whose name evokes horror star Christopher Lee. As a group they're a good mix of classic Universal, Hammer, Corman, and 80s style horror characters, giving fans the opportunity to create a lot of interesting scenarios in their MOCs.

Unlike the LOTR sets, female figs are included in this collection, which merits several points of favor from the Virago. Ann Lee is even featured in a reasonably priced set, although the really glorious Vampyre Bride is only found in a high-end set. We'll also be getting a Zombie Bride later on this year, when the zombie set finally appears in the US. Thank you, LEGO, for not having the only female character be a victim this time! I doubt it will pacify the angry bloggers and media types who got riled up over LEGO FRIENDS, but Ann Lee is exactly the kind of female character I want to see more of in LEGO themes (hey, LEGO - EOWYN! - hint, hint!). I know as a female AFOL I represent an incredibly tiny niche, but it's nice to have characters like Ann Lee turn up in affordable sets in high profile roles. It makes me feel like LEGO cares about my business and the geek girl market in general.

The vehicles in the collection are a little hit or miss, but the parts in them can easily be cannibalized to make more interesting and less clunky cars. I admit that the vehicles are often my least favorite part of a LEGO theme, which explains my greatly cooled interest in STAR WARS sets. The MONSTER FIGHTERS line does a better job including play set structures and scenarios, with the $180 Haunted House due out this fall as the highlight of the collection. The bricks in the sets include some very handy pieces, especially for castle and town builders, and the glow-in-the-dark bricks are especially cool.

I admit that I'm hoping to see a lot more MONSTER FIGHTERS before the line is discontinued. So far, 2012 has been one of the best years yet for the AFOL community in terms of new themes that really attract our interest. Keep it coming, LEGO!

And How Would You Like Your Vampire Today, Sir?

Just a funny doodle about vampires...