50's Foreign Horror Part One

THE WHITE REINDEER
(1952)
Dir - Erik Blomberg
Overall: GOOD

The full-length debut from Finish director and cinematographer Erik Blomberg and staring his wife and co-scripter Mirjami Kuosmanen, The White Reindeer, (Valkoinen peura), is an occasionally idle yet beautifully photographed fairytale.  Set in Finland's Lapland, Blomberg indulges nearly every shot of frostbitten mountains and reindeer herders working in the frozen landscape wonderfully so.  Kuosmanen makes for an ideal ice queen who is both lovely and mysteriously threatening, plus the tribal soundtrack by Einar Englund creates a relentlessly tense atmosphere.  Though the current restoration of the movie only runs a mere sixty-eight minutes, the story based on Sámi shamanism and Finish mythology is too simple to remain properly engaging throughout.  There are enough captivating moments, but to be fair, they are also surrounded by monotonous ones.  The cold, desolate scenery is not enough to consistently maintain the bewitching spell otherwise apparent.  As a horror outing from a country that hardly if at all ever produced any especially in the 1950's though, it remains an assuredly recommendable curiosity.

LES DIABOLIQUES
(1955)
Dir - Henri-Georges Clouzot
Overall: GREAT

Almost unarguably the most famous French thriller ever produced was Les Diaboliques, Henri-Georges Clouzot's follow-up to the equally lauded The Wages of Fear.  Rare for its time and still for today, there is no dramatic musical score on hand and this ingredient alone could not possibly make the numerous, anxiety-mounting moments more perfect.  Sans a prolonged set up where the three main characters and their personalities are explicitly stated, nearly every proceeding scene is expertly hear-racing.  By the time the film indulges in its most straight-horror components, (namely the famous ending), few films of its kind truly deliver such dread quite as successfully.  Many of the plot points, (all adapted here from Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud's 1952 novel She Who Was No More), have been liberally re-textualized ever since, but the story itself actually takes a backseat to the mostly masterful presentation.  There are instances where Clouzot takes perhaps too much time building near-suffocating tension and it can be argued that the twist finale becomes obvious a few minutes too early, but the overall structure is so well done and the macabre details so memorable that the movie's reputation as a masterpiece is easily justified.

LE TESTAMENT DU DOCTEUR CORDELIER
(1959)
Dir - Jean Renoir
Overall: MEH

One of the very rare television movies in Jean Renoir's filmography, Le Testament du docteur Cordelier, (The Testament of Dr. Cordelier, The Doctor's Horrible Experiment, Experiment in Evil), is the writer/director's modernized interpretation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Working with such source material that had already been done to exhausting death by the late 50s, Renoir's take on it plays with the chronology of events somewhat, only revealing what any viewer already knows in the final act and then proceeding to retract with a series of flashbacks over a confessional recording.  Also, Renoir himself appears in the beginning in a mock-behind the scenes scenario where he arrives at a television studio to introduce the film, which serves no real purpose besides adding a couple minutes to the running time.  Jean-Louis Barrault's performance is acceptable, but his Hyde/Mr. Opale is too goofy most of the time, gyrating his shoulders along to the likewise inappropriate silly music accompanying some of his scenes.  The few transformation moments are pretty lackluster as well, a far, far cry in comparison from the utterly superb ones in the 1931version from paramount.

50's Horror Shorts

RETURN TO GLENNASCAUL
(1953)
Dir - Hilton Edwards
Overall: GOOD

Made during a break from the filming of Orson Welles' Othello by Irish actor Hilton Edwards who founded the Gate Theatre along with fellow thespian Micheál Mac Liammóir, (and both of whom appear in the aforementioned Othello), Return to Glennascaul is a traditional and mostly successful retelling of the vanishing hitchhiker urban legend.  Coincidentally, it is structured similarly to the radio play The Hitch-Hiker which was featured on The Orson Welles Show in 1941, Welles once again providing the narration here.  Though it is a flawed offering with an obnoxious harp score that blares out of nowhere every fifteen seconds or so, (and systematically breaking all tension by doing so), there is nevertheless a creepy, understated tone in place by Edwards.  Moments of humor do not truly emerge until the last minute or so, but the familiar story is just spooky enough elsewhere to carry it and seeing Welles in a rare horror offering in and of itself is rather a treat.

THE TELL-TALE HEART
(1953)
Dir - Ted Parmelle
Overall: GOOD

The American version of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart released in 1953, (not to be confused with the British one, also a short), was this brief, highly stylized effort from animation studio UPA.  The production is splendid from top to bottom with narration by none other than James Mason who does a more than competent job of conveying the appropriate madness.  Bulgarian-born composer Boris Kremenliev's manic score deserves equal credit as does the primitive, heavily German Expressionism influenced animation and mostly blue, purple, and green color scheme by Paul Julian and Pat Matthews.  The short has deservedly been well-regarded enough all of these decades later to be preserved in the Library of Congresses National Film Registry and out of the many cinematic versions of the Poe source material, this is easily one of the most memorable.

INAUGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME
(1954)
Dir - Kenneth Anger
Overall: MEH

One of the more well known and influential of Kenneth Anger's avant-garde films was his explicit ode to Thelema, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.  Filmed at actor, salon host, and fellow occultist Samson De Brier's home, Anger re-edited and re-released the movie three different times, the original 1954 print running for thirty-eight minutes and featuring a full performance of "Glagolitic Mass" by Czech composer Leoš Janáček.  Featuring both De Brier, Anger, and a slew of other Aleister Crowley enthusiasts and actors playing another slew of random mythical gods, literary characters, and even Cesare from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, it is little more than a dialog-less, highly colorful, hedonistic magik party.  Unapologetically pretentious, monotonous, and slow, it still manages to be visually engaging at least and as fascinatingly bizarre as any of Anger's other works.

FINAL CURTAIN
(1957)
Dir - Ed Wood
Overall: MEH

Terrible, odd Ed Wood films are to be expected and the failed television pilot Final Curtain, (meant to be part of a proposed series called Portraits of Terror which logically was never picked up), assuredly qualifies as such.  From a technical standpoint, this is shot surprisingly competently with, (gasp), effective cinematography and an unflinching, spooky tone.  Well, at least the latter element is what was attempted.  One of the most prominent ingredients to any Ed Wood work is the man's obliviousness to pacing and the twenty-two minutes of Final Curtain feels like it is still going on.  Wood regular Duke Moore simply walks around an empty, dark theater while another Wood regular Dudley Manlove ridiculously narrates every possible detail of how he is trying to find the endeavor terrifying.  Of course nothing is remotely terrifying and virtually nothing at all happens the entire time either.  The strangeness naturally comes in how clearly Wood fails at what he was trying to achieve, but a boring movie is a boring movie so it is only really worth witnessing for the most fanatical enthusiast of the man's work.

TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN
(1958)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

An interesting, unlikely collaboration between Columbia Pictures and Hammer Studios, Tales of Frankenstein was to be a television series of twenty-six episodes, thirteen produced by each studio.  The deal fell apart even before the only entry was produced, with neither studio being able to agree on the look, tone, or direction of the proposed series.  Columbia who had already acquired the Universal horror catalog for syndication with their Shock Theater package naturally wanted to capitalize on the style of those movies while Hammer was already planning to launch their own reboots and wished for this project to be more akin to those.  The only result of the pairing was to be called "The Face in the Tombstone Mirror" and starts Anton Diffring as an effective Dr. Frankenstein to be sure, though he regrettably would never get to play the Baron again.  While the pilot is certainly interesting and even essential for classic monster movie purists due to its inception, it is also nothing very unique and only manages to wet ones appetite for what could have came in its wake with its highly formulaic presentation.

50's Vincent Price Part Two

HOUSE OF WAX
(1953)
Dir - Andre DeToth
Overall: GOOD

Probably the most career-affecting work in Vincent Price's career, the success of House of Wax ultimately sealed the deal in making the actor the go-to horror thespian for the next four decades.  A remake of the Michael Curtiz-directed Mystery of the Wax Museum and the first major studio color film to be made in 3-D, it has remained the most enduring and surpassed others which adapted the many conceptual bullet points that came in its wake.  Price was nearly always the highlight of any movie he appeared in and his revenge-seeking, wax figure-sculpting Professor Henry Jarrod is the type of classic, doomed horror movie character whose madness is made somewhat sympathetic while his actions are still assuredly appalling.  There are a few shots clearly designed for the 3-D format that are humorous to view normally and a spry Charles Bronson is equally amusing as the mute muscle Igor, though to be honest Mrs. Future Morticia Adams Carolyn Jones is hugely obnoxious as a gold-digging bimbo.  Best of all though is the heart-racing finale which is fantastic as are Price's creepy, Phantom of the Opera-esque murders.

RETURN OF THE FLY
(1959)
Dir - Edward Bernds
Overall: GOOD

With the always steadfast allure of franchising off of a successful property looming over them, 20th Century Fox make the best of losing The Fly producer/director Kurt Nuemann who had died only a month after said film was released with Return of the Fly.  Also, no more DeLuxe color process as this one was done more affordably in black and white.  The only saving grace it truly has beyond just theater goers who are anxious to see more of the titular half man/half insect monster was Vincent Price reprising his supporting role as François Delambre, though he is actually bedridden for a solid chunk of the proceedings after getting shot halfway through.  The script by Three Stooges director Edward Bernds does a reasonably acceptable job of concocting something similar yet unique enough with the limited ingredients on hand, throwing in a backstabbing lab assistant and a police man/bug hunt into the mix.  The film cannot hope to one-up or even stand toe-to-toe with its predecessor though since elsewhere it is undeniably a weaker version of the same story and set pieces.  Still, it is a harmless and enjoyable effort for what it is.

THE BAT
(1959)
Dir - Crane Wilbur
Overall: MEH

Not one of the stronger Vincent Price-stared vehicles, The Bat was the forth film adaptation of the Mary Roberts Rinehart novel-turned-stage-play The Circular Staircase.  A murder mystery done in a lighthearted and often campy manner yet never embracing its potential kookiness, the whodunit plot line is messy and kind of dull.  This does not help the occasionally silly performances from being as enjoyable as they otherwise would be, with Price in a somewhat smaller, underwritten role and Agnes Moorehead not taking anything too seriously in the actual lead.  Since the storyline is rather tripe, none of the set pieces come off as very interesting either.  It is mostly several excitable women cooped up in a house while a guy with a mask and claws for no reason keeps evading everyone over multiple days with more people being found dead and the same handful of characters standing around discussing it ad nauseam.  There is also something about money being hidden somewhere.  By the time the title villain is unmasked, it is not much of a mind-blowing reveal and in fact rather easily foreseeable.  Too many bland problems is the long short of it really.

50's Vincent Price Part One

THE MAD MAGICIAN
(1954)
Dir - John Brahm
Overall: GOOD

Somewhat of a companion piece to the previous year's House of Wax, (which was also in 3D and stared Vincent Price, though each was made by a different studio, Columbia in this case), The Mad Magician is not as strong or as memorable, but not altogether a failure by any stretch.  Plausibility is indeed an issue as Price's stage magic inventor Gallico the Great with the use of elaborate masks and in disguising his voice manages to easily fool a number of people, (including an entire theater audience), into believing he is a different person despite the obvious difference in height and the fact that the people that he is masquerading as are proven to have identical fingerprints by the police.  Though it takes a laughably long time for his murderous schemes to get uncovered, Price excels of course as the title character, only going overboard as necessary as he was consistently able.  The film is paced briskly enough as well and has an appropriately macabre enough finish, though the very last scene is admittedly a bit dated and hokey.

THE FLY
(1958)
Dir - Kurt Neumann
Overall: GOOD

Remade famously and superiorly of course by David Cronenberg almost three decades later and launching two lesser sequels of its own, the initial The Fly still maintains a lauded reputation.  Visually, it is notable with chief cinematographer Karl Struss making excellent use out of widescreen, CinemaScope camerawork and the DeLuxe Color process embellishes the elaborate laboratory equipment which rather vividly comes to life.  Vincent Price in a supportive role is assuredly ham-less, but his presence in anything is always appreciated.  German director Kurt Neumann helps concoct a good amount of subtle, unnerving scenes like a disintegrated cat meowing in the spooky ether, David Hedison's hooded, post-experiment gone awry scientist's cold, mysterious mannerisms, and of course the finale "Help me!" caught in a web spectacle which could have easily come off as ridiculous in a less controlled, tone-steady production than this.  Naturally, The Fly has been so iconic as a sci-fi horror film for so long that it is unfortunately rather impossible to pack any genuine surprises or tension with a modern viewing, but it is no less of an exemplary work in the genre and still well deserving of its prestige.

THE TINGLER
(1959)
Dir - William Castle
Overall: GOOD

William Castle's most famous gimmick, (in his second and final collaboration with Vincent Price and third with screenwriter Robb White), was the Percepto! one used in The Tingler whereas Castle had a number of vibrating devices installed on select seats in larger theater venues showing the film across the country.  Though its lasting legacy may owe its greatest debt to said stunt, it holds up well enough as an actual movie despite its consistent ridiculousness.  This comes almost exclusively from the sketchy plot which has some of the laziest character behavior and Hollywood science "logic" ever brought to celluloid.  The macabre set pieces involving hallucinatory LCD-induced experiences are a hoot though and the story line is so consistently irrational to the point that whether or not you are laughing at it or with it is ultimately irrelevant.  Price himself gets to trip balls in one memorable scene and also gets to break the forth wall no less than three times near the end to further rev up the camp value.  Castle and Price's previous outing The House on Haunted Hill was a masterpiece for both parties, but there is enough admirably fun qualities in The Tingler to make it an amusing if comparatively lesser project nonetheless.

40's Vincent Price

THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS
(1940)
Dir - Joe May
Overall: GOOD

Universal had a rather consistent knack for at least solid initial sequels to their most beloved "classic monster" films and The Invisible Man Returns is no exception.  Though it cannot fairly be expected to compare to James Whale's eccentric and paramount, initial The Invisible Man, B-movie director Joe May manages to keep a consistent tone with a dash of appropriate humor here or there, a strong emphasis on the special effects which hold up better than most from the Golden Age of Hollywood, clever set pieces throughout, and the good sense to let Vincent Price in his first lead stretch out his acting muscles in an understandably challenging role.  Price's Sir Geoffrey Radcliffe loses the audience's sympathy just as Claude Rains' Dr. Jack Griffin had in the 1933 original, but as opposed to Rains who was bananas from the second we meet him, Price stays on the side of sanity here and the film even ends on a pleasantry that Whale's version could never allow.  The series would take a detour into straight, screwball comedy with the follow-up The Invisible Woman, (also released in 1940), and then spy territory with 1942's The Invisible Agent, but the juice was still flowing stronger here.

THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES
(1940)
Dir - Joe May
Overall: GOOD

As an immediate follow up to The Invisible Man Returns, (which utilized the services of both Vincent Price and Austrian-born contract director Joe May), Universal's The House of the Seven Gables was the second film adaptation of the Nathanial Hawthorne novel of the same name.  Budgeted as a B-movie to cash in on Universal's current horror resurgence after a triple bill of Dracula, Frankenstein, and Son of Kong successfully played at a New York theater, (thus convincing the studio to once again return to genre filmmaking), the movie is in fact not a horror film at all.  In this infantile stage in his film career, Price was only dabbling in the genre that would eventually make him legendary, but this can still be seen as an interesting staring vehicle for the actor with enough horror tie-ins to entice enthusiasts.  Jack Pierce did the aging makeup on both Price and co-star Margaret Lindsey and the story would be remade yet again with Price as one of the segments in the straight horror offering Twice-Told Tales.  As a melodrama, the performances are strong though and the re-worked story that differs significantly from the source material weaves intentional anti-materialism and left-wing ideas into it.

SHOCK
(1946)
Dir - Alfred L. Werker
Overall: MEH

This somewhat D-rent thriller from B-movie director Alfred L. Werker has a spry, thirty-five year old Vincent Price as a distinguished doctor who resorts to fiendish activity out of selfish desperation and the results are pretty ham-fisted overall.  This has more to do with Shock's script that treats unrealistic psychological jargon and, well, shock treatment more seriously than it deserves, making the more melodramatic outbursts seem that much more silly.  Anabel Shaw as the stock, "delusional" woman revs up the camp, but otherwise the cast keeps their wits about them, including Price who was not prone to his more memorable, heightened performances at this early stage in his career yet.  Werker stages a few suspenseful moments such as an early nightmare sequence and a set-piece involving a random, ultimately unimportant and deranged patient escaping from his room.  Still, the film does not really gain any momentum and mostly revolves around characters exchanging the same information over and over again between each other.  While it is not as clever as it lets on, it is not entirely forgettable either and there is enough present for Price fans alone to find alluring.

40's Horror Shorts

THE TELL-TALE HEART
(1941)
Dir - Jules Dassin
Overall: GOOD

This is another cinematic re-telling of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, this time by Alfred Hitchcock's assistant and future blacklisted director Jules Dassin.  Serving as Dassin's debut, it is an appropriately moody and psychologically tense interpretation of the source material.  Joseph Schildkraut's unnamed character is on the verge of snapping from the very first shot of him and once he does, the tone is kept tightly wound.  Dassin's atmospheric use of lighting and sound, (and perhaps even more importantly, silence), show a clear nod to his old boss Hitchcock.  The film has also been compared to Citizen Kane which was only about a month old when this was released.  Poe's story would continue to get remade a fair multitude of times, but this one serves as the first legitimately strong one.

FRAIDY CAT
(1942)
Dir - William Hanna/Joseph Barbera
Overall: GOOD

Besides being the first Tom and Jerry short to feature a horror theme, Fraidy Cat is also the forth over all from the duo as well as the first that featured Tom's trademark yelp, as well as the very politically incorrect character Mammy Two Shoes getting attacked by said feline for the first time.  Featuring a parody of the radio program The Witch's Tale in which Tom spooks himself out while listening to it and thereby opening up the opportunity for Jerry to ghoulishly fuck with him, it is full of relatively tame violence as well as fun set pieces like a vacuum cleaner and a white nightshirt being mistaken as a supernatural entity.

FIREWORKS
(1949)
Dir - Kenneth Anger
Overall: GOOD

Known occultist and openly gay filmmaker Kenneth Anger's debut Fireworks was made independently and mostly in his parents house with a 16 mm Bell & Howell camera that he had received as a birthday gift.  Considered the first US film with a deliberate and unmistakable gay narrative, it fairly stretches the boundaries of what could be considered "horror", but the tag can arguably be applied due to some rather shocking violence and gore for the time, as well as Anger himself being an Aleister Crowley disciple who would regularly weave elements of Thelema into his works.  It is as avant-garde as they come, with some borderline ridiculous imagery such as a lit roman candle sticking out of someone's crotch, Anger's head being turned into a Christmas tree, arbitrary religious symbolism, shirtless men flexing, and nostrils being fingered to the point of gushing blood.

THEY CAUGHT THE FERRY
(1948)
Dir - Carl Theodore Dreyer
Overall: GOOD

A road safety film commissioned by the Danish government, De nåede færgen, (They Caught the Ferry), was based on a short story by Nobel Prize winner Johannes V. Jensen.  One of a number of shorts that Carl Theodore Dreyer made in between Två människor and Ordet in order to pay the bills, the director allegedly was not very found of making such fare for an easy paycheck, compared to his much lauded full-length works.  That being the case, he still gets plenty of mileage, (har, har), out of the concept of a guy and his gal on a motorcycle who are in quite a hurry.  The majority of the movie is a tension-fueled race down country roads with captivating camera work that gets up close and personal with both the bike and its passengers while moving.  The macabre finale is fitting with a mysterious representation of Death emerging, providing the inevitable outcome for the impatient motorists.

40's British Horror Part Two

THE GHOST TRAIN
(1941)
Dir - Walter Forde
Overall: MEH

Director Walter Forde had previously directed an adaptation of Arnold Ridley's play The Ghost Train in 1931, revisiting the exact same material again ten years later.  This version is systematically ruined by the atrociously obnoxious and unfunny Arthur Askey who garnishes the most screen time endlessly pestering every other character and never once saying or doing anything even remotely amusing.  He even bursts into a spontaneous song at one point, Satan help us.  There are other problems with the movie besides its erroneous lead casting choice.  Being a dated comedy, the first hour is excruciatingly dull, with an entire train station full of people going around in circles complaining about being there while Askey does everything in his power to make all of them want to punch him in the mouth.  Finally after what seems like an eternity, things start getting a wee-bit hair-rasing and interesting, only for the supernatural elements to of course be proven as a red herring with a very abrupt ending.

THINGS HAPPEN AT NIGHT
(1947)
Dir - Francis Searle
Overall: MEH

An adaptation of the stage play The Poltergeist by Frank Harvey, (who also wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps amongst others), Things Happen at Night has an innocent enough premise and execution, but is not particularly funny or spooky in any adequate measures.  Revolving around an insurance agent and a ghost hunter trying to rid an uppity, posh household of a mischievous spirit whose most fiendish crimes are levitating vases and furniture, cackling and closing doors, and possessing their privileged daughter into getting kicked out of school for pulling pranks, we are hardly talking about malevolent, evil forces here.  Being of a lighthearted nature is fine, but the humor is dull and the characters are just kind of huffy and puffy, "Now listen here good fellow" stereotypes who are rather interchangeable for the most part.  Since the stakes are never raised above harmless, supernatural tomfoolery, (which also would have been an accurate title for the movie), and you are only going to laugh if the occasionally silly musical cues trick you into doing so, it all quickly gets mundane.

THE MONKEY'S PAW
(1948)
Dir - Norman Lee
Overall: MEH

This lackadaisically-paced adaptation of the well-known W.W. Jacob short story The Monkey's Paw was the first sound version to still exist.  Produced by the long-defunct, low-budget production company Butcher Empire Films and only running sixty-four minutes, director Norman Lee and "associate director" Barbara Toy, (both of whom are also credited with the screenplay), stage a few evocative and eerie set pieces, the final, supernatural one being particularly strong.  Unfortunately the bulk of the film is uneventful though, introducing a number of characters speaking about the mysterious talisman of the movie's title, then handing it off to other characters with no one actually using the thing until way into the third act.  So little transpires that the budgetary issues become too apparent as it is mostly a series of rudimentary dialog transactions made worse by the fact that some of the actor's accents are troublesome to understand.  The source material would become a staple of horror cinema, either getting directly adapted or inspiring numerous other works in later decades, but this particular version is barely worth taking notice of.

40's British Horror Part One

THE DOOR WITH SEVEN LOCKS
(1940)
Dir - Norman Lee
Overall: MEH

The second British film adaptation of an Edgar Wallace novel to find release in the United States, (the first being The Dark Eyes of London with Béla Lugosi the previous year), The Door with the Seven Locks is an exhaustively meandering thriller mystery that neither thrills or cleverly mystifies.  Released as the much more misleading Chamber of Horrors overseas, the film makes frequent attempts to be amusing with quippy dialog and a handful of vibrant, fun characters, but the plot is outrageously boring.  It is probably not a good sign when your villain is literally falling asleep as he is finally explaining his unnecessarily complex master plan in the finale and good luck having any interest in the chain of events that transpire before it anyway.  The actors are competent enough, but there are no memorable faces anywhere and the performances do not have much of a chance to transcend the lackluster material even if there was.  It does not commit any atrocious crimes, but it is almost immediately forgettable.

THE NIGHT HAS EYES
(1942)
Dir - Leslie Arliss
Overall: MEH

Unmistakably, The Night Has Eyes, (Terror House, Moonlight Madness, the latter being the most appropriate title), has the proper trappings of a Gothic horror mystery; one that perhaps Roger Corman would have tackled two decades later had it been based off of an Edgar Alan Poe writing.  The soundstage sets are seeped in fog, there is a mysterious castle that is routinely surrounded by swampy, slimy moors, an even more mysterious, anti-social recluse living there, conniving housekeepers, secret rooms, and a murder enigma looming over everything.  It forgoes going into any supernatural terrain, (as close as it may tread), but as a story built almost entirely on a having suspenseful mood, it never really delivers due to small be they detrimental shortcomings.  James Mason's cynical and ultra-moody war veteran/composer is staggeringly unlikable, so two women falling in love with him in a year period, (both almost immediately upon meeting him), seems melodramatically stupid.  Likewise, the ending while plenty gaudy, comes off as kind of random and lazy.  It gets a bit plodding during the second act as well, lingering around either unpleasant or unintelligent characters exchanging identical dialog over and over again.

THE QUEEN OF SPADES
(1949)
Dir - Thorold Dickinson
Overall: GOOD

Filmed a number of times previously in the silent era, Thorold Dickinson's The Queen of Spades was the first sound film adaptation of the Alexander Pushkin short story of the same name.  While it drops an intriguing flashback early on, the middle of the story continues to progresses a bit slowly one could argue.  Though it takes nearly the entire running time for the supernatural elements at least to become paramount, the inevitable finish is remarkably tense and spooky.  This is do to Dickinson's occasionally flashy direction, Otto Heller's equally inventive cinematography, and Austrian-born stage actor Anton Walbrook's continuously troubling performance as a working class soldier thoroughly obsessed with the cursed magic that will grant him immediate fortune.  Considered lost for decades, it was finally rediscovered in 2009, making it one of the more sought-after works in Dickinson's comparatively small filmography which includes only nine directorial efforts in nearly twenty years.

40's Boris Karloff Part Two

THE APE
(1940)
Dir - William Nigh
Overall: MEH

Boris Karloff's final contractual obligation to Monogram Pictures, The Ape is a pretty lousy yet typical low-rent effort from the Poverty Row studio to bow out on.  Directed by William Nigh who likewise helmed the Mr. Wong entries with the actor and co-scripted by Curt Siodmak, (The Wolf Man), it is dull from frame one to frame last with no inspired set pieces and a ridiculous plot that is lazily explained.  Karloff keeps it together of course, but he seems old and tired.  Even though he manages to pull off some genuine emotion during his final scene, it is also absurd enough conceptually as to undermine it, making the whole affair just come off as silly.  Based off a play by Adam Hull Shirk, nearly every element of the source material was abandoned and whether a more faithful adaptation would have made the movie remotely interesting is something left to ponder.  "Guy walking around in a primate costume" horror movies are usually impossible to take seriously to begin with so it is not like one can expect too much of anything here.

THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES
(1940)
Dir - Nick Grinde
Overall: GOOD

Following up The Man They Could Not Hang was the next collaboration between Boris Karloff and director Nick Grinde for Columbia pictures, The Man with Nine Lives.  Though the science presented in the script is about as logically sound as a Bugs Bunny cartoon, the direction stock, and the performances one-note and bland, Karloff is a captivating exception at least.  The nuances he brings to playing yet another fiercely determined, good-natured "mad doctor" where he is genuinely menacing one second and mentally sound and sympathetic the next without delving into any melodramatic mannerisms is what separates him from practically any other actor that could have been here instead.  The story pushes the boundaries of what kind of empathy the audience can feel for a man who legitimately murders a number of people while still coming out a hero of sorts, not to mention the believably that is stretched by such a merry ending.  Yet it is all played in a calculated and controlled manner that does not come off as arbitrary.  It may ultimately ask too much of the viewer, but for a B-movie with a heart of gold and an actor of Karloff's caliber in the title role who is on top of his game, it gets a pass.

THE BOOGIE MAN WILL GET YOU
(1942)
Dir - Lew Landers
Overall: MEH

Ending his Columbia Pictures contract with a comedy based rather shamelessly off of Arsenic & Old Lace, (which he was appearing in on Broadway at the time of shooting), Boris Karloff lampoons his typecast mad scientist persona in The Boogie Man Will Get You.  While Karloff proved himself fully capable of handling comedy as admirably as he did horror, he got so few chances to do so throughout his career that this makes Boogie Man a worthwhile watch in and of itself.  That said, it is actually a non-intoxicated, exuberant Peter Lorre who chews up the most scenery and delightfully so.  Every other aspect of the movie though is incessantly sloppy and moronic.  Just as many jokes and slapstick pratfalls fail to deliver any laughs as they do provide any actual chuckles and the plot convincingly seems like it is being made up on the fly.  It can be recommended for the two horror icon actors present who would of course work together two decades later in The Comedy of Terrors and The Raven, (both far funnier and better films), but this early pairing is charmingly absurd enough, unmistakable warts and all.

40's Boris Karloff Part One

BEFORE I HANG
(1940)
Dir - Nick Grinde
Overall: GOOD

Immediately following The Man They Could Not Hang and The Man with Nine Lives, director Nick Grinde and Boris Karloff wrap-up their collaboration with Before I Hang, one of several films that the iconic horror actor made with Columbia Pictures.  Playing a brilliant scientist for the umpteenth time and counting, Karloff carries the movie with a performance that ranges from soft and caring benevolence to tightly wound fury, and his character remains wholly sympathetic the whole way through.  Edward Van Sloan makes an appearance as well, poorly trying to disguise his noticeable accent, (even though he was actually born in Minnesota), but elsewhere the cast is sufficient if not memorable.  The screenplay is not particularly strong, but it ultimately does not have to be as its highly unscientific cliches act as mere placeholders for Karloff to shine.  Without such an actor of his class and caliber present, the film would most likely cease to even remotely amaze, but as it stands, it is a solid enough sixty-two minutes to experience for the Karloff enthusiast.

THE DEVIL COMMANDS
(1941)
Dir - Edward Dmytryk
Overall: MEH

Fusing seances, liberal loads of wacky laboratory props, creepy old houses, a conniving female sidekick, a dumb brute to act as muscle, and even an angry mob for good measure, Boris Karloff's only film released in 1941 The Devil Commands checks off many of the horror tropes of the day.  At this point, Karloff had played warmhearted yet tortured mad scientists enough times that you would imagine he could simply phone it in or at the very least ham it up a bit out of sheer boredom.  Yet here, he still steadily steers away from camp as much as ever, remaining respectable from beginning to end.  There are a few atmospheric set pieces with effective cinematography from Allen G. Siegler and earlier on it seems like the script might have a few intriguing ideas up its sleeve.  Unfortunately though, it becomes stuck in a loop where the desperate plight of Karloff's doctor never really culminates.  His isolation and dependence on a cold and manipulative medium who drops her entire business on a dime to shack up with him for years seems even more implausible than the silly, Hollywood-logic science experiments that are underway.

THE CLIMAX
(1944)
Dir - George Waggner
Overall: MEH

Originally planned as a sequel to Universal's own Claude Rains-stared, color remake of The Phantom of the Opera from the previous year, The Climax in turn bares no narrative resemblance to it and merely uses the same opera house sets and actress Susana Foster in a virtually identical role.  Director George Waggner who had delivered marvelously on the seminal The Wolf Man four years prior handles the material decently enough, but sadly the story here which is based very loosely if at all off of Edward Locke's play of the same name is weak in comparison to Phantom.  This includes Boris Karloff's villainous antagonist Dr. Friedrich Hohner who comes off as underwritten and ultimately uninteresting in the process.  While Karloff is admirably fine as always, the plotting is a bit monotonous and the musical numbers are frequent and long enough to clash with the horror elements that end up feeling forced.  It is admirably produced, but overall forgettable in too many other regards.

30's Bela Lugosi Part Two

CHANDU THE MAGICIAN
(1932)
Dir - William Cameron Menzies/Marcel Varnel
Overall: MEH

Based on the radio play of the same name which was broadcast while the film was produced, Chandu the Magician is a highly silly, melodramatic adventure yarn with Bela Lugosi in a textbook villain role.  Lugosi would actually play Chandu himself, (that rare moment where he was the hero), in the twelve part film serial The Return of Chandu which would begin getting released in various formats a mere two years later as well.  Here, he gets to chew the scenery as a one-dimensional megalomaniac who wants to use a death ray to wipe out most of the population while enslaving the rest.  The childish, cartoony plot is not limited to Lugosi's mad Egyptian Roxor's grand, unnecessarily thwarted James Bond villain schemes; it is all full of predictable set pieces, over the top dialog, stupid henchmen, arbitrary magical powers granted to Edmond Lowe's fabulously mustached title-Yogi, and unfunny comic relief in the form of his useless, alcoholic servant Miggles, (Herbert Mundin).  From a technical standpoint though, directors William Cameron Menzies and Marcel Varnel utilize a boatload of then impressive visual tricks, special effects, camera movements, miniatures and the like.  It is all pretty damn hokey otherwise.

NIGHT OF TERROR
(1933)
Dir - Benjamin Stoloff
Overall: WOOF

Bela Lugosi returns with a turban in Night of Terror, (He Lived to Kill, Terror in the Night), one of the more laughably atrocious entries in his filmography.  It is truly a shame that a mere two years after his breakout turn in Universal's seminal Dracula, Lugosi was in enough financial troubles to accept a roll in such preposterous nonsense.  Surprisingly distributed by Columbia Pictures even though it has all of the hallmarks of a Poverty Row joint, there is an "Oh lawd, I is scared!" racist comic relief character, a rich white woman who does an impression of him, an unfunny wiseguy hero who stalks and forcibly makes out with a female who vocally rejects him because isn't that charming and hilarious, a seance for absolutely no reason, and a guy who buries himself alive in an unattended grave because science experiments, all while a maniac is picking people off on his property.  Lugosi's part is thankfully minor, but he still somewhat embarrasses himself while overacting against a cast of people either doing the same thing or not acting at all.  This includes the token black guy who cannot stop stuttering because isn't that funny and adorable too?

THE DARK EYES OF LONDON
(1939)
Dir - Walter Summers
Overall: MEH

Another dull entry into Bela Lugosi's catalog where he had already been well typecast as a mad villain, The Dark Eyes of London, (released as The Human Monster in the U.S. the following year), was a British production from the bit players Monogram Pictures.  Though Lugosi is typically enjoyable and gets to stretch out somewhat in a dual roll that is rather easily spotted even though his voice is dubbed, the plot offers little suspense and more steady boredom than it can afford.  Based on the novel of the same name by Edgar Wallace, (a prolific enough novelist who died earlier that decade while writing the initial script treatment for King Kong), Lugosi's Dr. Orloff's scheme is not particularly fleshed out, coming off more insulting that he is not caught partaking in his fiendish shenanigans sooner than he is.  Norwegian actress Greta Gynt makes for an occasionally interesting scream queen, but elsewhere the cast is consistently bland, including Wilfred Walter as a murdering, deformed, and stock servant.  For the Lugosi completest, he gets enough screen time to warrant a viewing, but otherwise it is staunchly forgettable.