(1941)
Dir - George Waggner
Overall: MEH
The old dark house/treasure hunt thriller Horror Island is a rightfully obscure, B-level entry in Universal's Golden Era horror cannon. A lighthearted adaptation of Alex Gottlieb's short story "Terror of the South Seas", it is not as explicitly comedic as say Paramount's The Cat and the Canary remake from two years earlier, but it is in a similar vein and about half as spooky which is not saying much. It takes too long to get the ragtag bunch characters to the faux haunted island of the title in the first place and once they are there, a convoluted series of events takes place with minimal shocks and zero supernatural tomfoolery. The cast is made up of long forgotten bit players and the closest thing the movie has to a "monster" is some guy in a cape called The Phantom who shows up once or twice and then dies unceremoniously. Director George Waggner made this, Man Made Monster, (which was released on a double bill with it), and The Wolf Man all in the same year and each one of them was significantly better than the last.
(1942)
Dir - René Clair
Overall: GOOD
Though it had some production problems and a few individuals dropped out, Paramount's screwball comedy I Married a Witch still ended up as a solid and goofy starring vehicle for both Fredric March and Veronica Lake. An adaptation of Thorne Smith's novel The Passionate Witch, both Preston Sturges and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo left the project before its completion and March and Lake apparently got on poorly together, but they still manage to muster an ideal sense of chemistry as a disgraced politician and a two-hundred and ninety year-old, resurrected practitioner of the occult arts, respectfully. Lake is delightful as she endlessly annoys March until he falls under her spell, with Cecil Kellaway helping the buffoonery along as her also-witch father that has a more sinister yet equally playful agenda. As his second Hollywood production, French director René Clair balances ridiculous set pieces like a wedding singer who keeps bellowing away as the ceremony derails and newborn babies crying out the name of March's character. The tone is consistently silly which is as it should be and this would help pave the way for stuff like the Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie sitcoms two decades later.
(1944)
Dir - Erle C. Kenton
Overall: MEH
After the acceptable amount of success garnished from Universal's first monster mash-up Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, the following year's House of Frankenstein seemed the inevitable next step. Originally conceived as a project named Chamber of Horrors which was to feature more actors and more fiends, the concept was eventually streamlined to "only" have Lon Chaney Jr. returning as Larry Talbot/the Wolf Man, Western actor Glen Strange taking over as the Frankenstein monster, John Carradine stepping in as Count Dracula, Boris Karloff as a mad scientist, and J. Carrol Naish as his hunchbacked assistant. Genre regulars Lionel Atwill and George Zucco join in as well though they suffer the same fate as pretty much everyone else on screen in that the bloated series of subplots only allows for the usual crop of cliches to get recycled. Carradine is particularly wasted and easily makes the least intimidating Dracula thus far in screen history, though Karloff is a classy as the revenge-seeking villain. A derivative, overstuffed, and silly film by its very nature, it is nevertheless essential viewing for fans of both the personnel and characters involved.
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