Hollywood Legends of Horror
412 min. / B&W & Color / 1.37:1 / DTS HD-MA 2.0 MONO / SDH
Film Masters Blu-ray $59.99
Available from Movie Zyng
Just about the nicest Halloween present you can get or receive is this compilation of Blu-rays previously produced separately by Warner Archive and now gruesomely packaged together in one spectacular cost-efficient collection.
While horror films of the 1930s and ‘40s were produced by every studio and independent producer, the most beloved titles are the output of Universal. Neither Jack Warner nor Louis B. Mayer seemed to have much use for the genre, making their few forays into the fiendish field all the more interesting. Six of the Warners/First National or MGM titles are gathered here, beautifully restored and with plenty of extra material to sweeten the sinister celluloid. Here’s a capsule of each.
Doctor X
Warner Bros. / First National (1932) Dir. Michael Curtiz
76 min. / 1.37:1 / Color & B&W
In the dawning of the sound era, Warner Bros. signed a contract with Technicolor (then using the so-called “2-strip” method) and their first horror offering using ghoulishly green color was an adaptation of the Broadway spook show Doctor X, with the horror toned down and the comedy dialed up to broaden the film’s box office appeal.
The "Moon Killer" is grabbing his victims throughout Manhattan and then apparently, well, eating them. Suspicion falls on Dr. Xavier's clinic, so Dr. X brings his doctors to his suburban mansion for a series of "blood pressure" experiments, to reveal which is the actual killer. The reporter follows them (oddly, in a horse-drawn carriage, just like Dracula) and romances the daughter while Dr. X's experiments scare the (would-be) funny maid and result in the death of one of the suspects.
Lionel Atwill is the doctor, Fay Wray (particularly lovely) is the daughter, Lee Tracy is (awful as) the reporter (did he ALWAYS play a wisecracking reporter?) and the film was a big hit and Warners went on to make Mystery of the Wax Museum, a great movie and available separately.
Michael Curtiz directed, and the sets are impressive, but the script is not really worth the effort poured into the production.
Million-dollar dialog:
"Gentlemen, I am now turning on the 100 million ampere, high-frequency coil. Your pulses are connected with the magnetic rotators, and each variation of your heartbeat reaction is amplified 4,000 times. The rotor of the electro-static machine is connected in multiple series with a bank of glass-plate condensers, and the discharge causes irradiations to the thermal tubes, which in turn indicates your increased pulse rate and nerve reactions. We can proceed now."
Bad idea: When a killer is on the loose in your house (and has had the opportunity to build his own secret laboratory with hidden passages and secret rooms), don't handcuff everybody to chairs bolted to the floor. Makes it hard to flee, you know.
With Technicolor prints expensive, a simultaneously-shot B&W version of Doctor X was also released, and for decades that was the only print viewable, but the color version was discovered in Jack Warner’s private vault after his death, restored, and it looks sensational. The B&W version is included here as an extra, along with two commentary tracks, a restoration reel, the B&W trailer, and a wonderful 27-min. retrospective of the three horror films of Michael Curtiz (The Walking Dead with Karloff being the other one).
Rating: Two pumpkins (out of four)
The Return of Doctor X
Warner Bros. / First National (1939) Dir. Vincent Sherman
62 min. / B&W / 1.37:1
Early 1939, and Son of Frankenstein is a, you should excuse the expression, monster hit for Universal and you're Jack Warner and you've got Boris Karloff under contract for one more film. A short story is purchased about a guy who's draining the blood of hapless victims to get materials for his experiments in creating synthetic blood; he brings an executed convict back to life, a mad scientist in his own right, to help him. There’s talk of getting Bela Lugosi into the picture, too.
Now, ALL that makes sense. A no-brainer. Good job, Mr. Warner, we see why YOU run this studio, J.L. Get you another coffee, sir?
That is, of course, not exactly the movie we have under discussion here today. Something happened. Nobody seems to know what, but Karloff was put into a spy picture and, of all people, Humphrey Bogart inherited this role.
According to director Sherman (who provided feature commentary for the DVD in 2006, only weeks before his death at age 99), Bogart was already associated with the project when he came aboard (true; Karloff had just wrapped up his final Warners film). Jack Warner wasn't enthused about B-movie horror films (true). Producer Bryan Foy, in charge of the studio’s B-unit, assigned this project to Mr. Sherman, who'd never directed a film before, and the budget was low, even for Warners and featured a cast of names that wasn't going to impress anybody (no offense to Wayne Morris, Lya Lys, John Litel, or Dennis Morgan, naturally).
So, since we’re speculating, here’s my guess: We know that Karloff was forced to take a 50% salary cut on his Warners contract when the so-called "horror film ban" came about, closing the British territory and narrowing the U.S. market (even Universal wasn’t making monster films from 1936-1938); by putting him in a horror show, Warners would've had to double his salary, and that they were unwilling to do. Now THAT makes the most sense of all to me, see? Mystery solved. To my satisfaction, anyway.
And, so, on to the film we've got, which features Bogie third-billed in the opening credits and top-billed in the trailer and closing credits (one assumes he would've bribed Jack Warner to keep his name off this thing altogether).
Feisty reporter Wayne Morris stumbles across the corpse of Lya Lys and splashes it all over the front page; when Ms. Lys then strolls into the editor's office, Morris is pounding the pavement (1930s-speak for out of a job). He grabs doctor pal Dennis Morgan and nurse pal Rosemary Lane and they investigate, as another corpse pops up (white, pasty, and this time, dead for keeps). The trail leads to John Litel as Dr. Flegg and his assistant, a white, pasty-faced Doctor Xavier, played by - not Bela or Boris - Bogart, petting a white rabbit (but not calling him George).
Million-dollar Dialog:
"The day is coming when man will be able to control blood, and when the time does arrive, will be able to control - his destiny!" - Doctor Flegg
The film ends with a shoot-out on a rooftop, just to remind you that you're watching a Warner Bros. production. Oh, and speaking of the ‘Dead End’ Kids, by the way, Huntz Hall plays the office boy, and even gets to sing. What a surprise.
This is a likeable film, the pasty corpses look quite creepy, and director Sherman - who'd go on to be quite a reliable director, of course - says he played up the humorous stuff (but not overwhelmingly so) and encouraged the cast to have fun with their parts. I think he did a good job and gave us a well-made, interesting movie that should've cast anybody in Hollywood other than Bogart as Doctor X. Take him out of here, and instead of a rotten Bogart film you've got an excellent B-Warners horror. See what a thin line there is in Hollywood?
Another great print, the old DVD commentary track is ported over, there are a pair of vintage Warner Bros. cartoons, and don’t miss the theatrical trailer: it’s FULL of deleted scenes, including the death of a character that occurs off-screen in the finished film.
Three pumpkins out of four.
Mark of the Vampire
MGM (1935) Dir. Tod Browning
60 min. / B&W / 1.37:1
An old rich fellow's been murdered, and there are two holes in his neck and his blood isn't anywhere that is easy to locate. Inspector Lionel Barrymore thinks it's a vampire; Inspector Lionel Atwill thinks that's a bunch of hooey. Meanwhile, Count Mora (Mr. Bela Lugosi, ladies and gentlemen) has a festering gunshot wound in his temple and lurks about in the fog and darkness, silently hand gesturing and ordering his young daughter Luna (Carroll Borland, who looks and acts like Vampira) to go bite people; unlike many screen vampires, Luna can actually sprout great big bat's wings and fly, the unfortunately too-brief scene everybody remembers from this film (I speak for all of you when I say that). Jean Hersholt and Donald Meek contribute to the fun. Elizabeth Allen is the leading lady, and what a 1935 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her: besides this, she was in David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities!
This being an MGM production, it's of course a handsomely mounted film, and the shock aspect is undeniable: Bela and Carroll LOOK great, and their lair is a gem, out Dracula-ing Dracula's castle by a long shot, with big black beetles by the hundreds, real bats mixed in with the ones on wires, an inquisitive possum, and very realistic fake spiders, the memory of which must've caused Bela to shake his head sadly when he was faced with the stupid pipe-cleaner cootie bugs years later in The Phantom Creeps. Luna's flying scene is a "WHAT THE HELL! Did I really just see that?!?!?" moment, and don't miss the trailer: there's an alternate take of the scene from another (better, in my opinion) angle. Barrymore, of course, is excellent.
One supposes that despite the luridness and failure of Freaks, MGM figured a remake of the successful Lon Chaney vampire film London after Midnight, with Barrymore and Lugosi playing the two roles that were both essayed by Chaney in the original, was a safe bet. If there's a problem here, it's trying to make a 1927 film in 1935; explaining away all the supernatural goings-on as parlor tricks just seems sillier-than-silly now. The flat ending is a let-down, no two ways about it, and, well, to be kind, let's just say "the pacing is off" on this film and leave it at that. Even though it's less than 61 minutes long, there are too many times you'll go, "GET ON WITH IT!" Supposedly, the initial Browning cut was closer to 80 minutes, but much was shorn by the studio, including a lot of comic relief and the explanation of why Lugosi has a gunshot wound on his temple (suicide being a no-no in the Code era, naturally).
Bonus material includes commentary by one of our favorites, Kim Newman, along with Stephen Jones; a Crime Does Not Pay short; and an MGM cartoon.
Three Pumpkins.
The Mask of Fu Manchu
MGM (1935) Dir. Charles Brabin
68 min. / B&W / 1.37:1
If you want to find truly villainous Karloff roles, you typically have to look in his gangster films; most of his so-called horror films feature Boris as a sympathetic character who goes astray (or is stitched together that way). This sympathy goes a long way to explaining his popularity, but if you want to see him in good old-fashioned boogeyman mode, The Mask of Fu Manchu is a great place to look.
In the initial year following the release of Frankenstein, Karloff had been busy, with no less than seven films in circulation before his second big horror role, in The Old Dark House. He also followed the footsteps of his predecessor, Lon Chaney, from Universal over to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Boris must’ve realized that after all the years of bit part toil, he was a Star. He throws himself into Mask of Fu Manchu, an adaptation of the Sax Rohmer novel, with so much relish that it’s pure camp to view these days, but must’ve been strong stuff back in 1932.
A British expedition is after the fabled sword of Genghis Khan, and they’d better hurry, because the vicious Dr. Fu Manchu (a Harvard man!) wants it too, and kidnap and torture are but two of his methods for obtaining his ultimate goal: the complete destruction of the occidental race. Well, not the ENTIRE race; as Dr. Manchu puts it, the plan is to “Kill the white man and take his women!” He also enjoys torture, including strapping some poor schmuck under a giant ringing bell and tossing some other shmoe onto a teeter-totter over an alligator pit, and by the way, nobody on my side of the street can claim the film isn’t racist and uncomfortable along with being sexy and exciting.
The cast is one of the best Karloff would ever work with, including Myrna Loy as what he calls his “ugly and insignificant” daughter. If you want to split hairs, the film is not great; apparently, original director Charles Vidor was sacked after principle photography was well underway, with a resulting change in direction to beef up the fantasy elements. Also, Boris and Myrna are sorely missed during the stretches they’re off-screen. That said, it’s good ol’ rip-roaring fun, moves briskly, is lavish by 1930s horror standards, and presents Boris at his evil best. The Old Dark House was released in October 1932, followed quickly by this in November and The Mummy in December. That three-month period cemented his reputation as Hollywood's #1 horror star.
The Mask of Fu Manchu is good, clean, dirty fun. Myrna gets rather orgasmic during the whipping scenes ("Faster! Faster!") and Boris' first appearance, magnified in some sort of a giant lens, is a classic. Easily our favorite film in this set. Bonus material includes excellent commentary by Greg Mank and a pair of vintage cartoons.
Four pumpkins out of four.
Mad Love
MGM (1935) Dir. Karl Freund
68 min. / B&W / 1.37:1
(This review written by my late friend, Tim Bittner.)
The great Peter Lorre is Dr. Gogol, a brilliant surgeon smitten with beautiful actress Yvonne Orlac; the good doctor has seen all fortysomething of Yvonne's performances in a play about torture (well, being Peter Lorre, of course he would) and the doc really seems to dig the scene where she’s branded with a hot iron. He constantly sends her flowers, and after the last performance, shows up in her dressing room and professes his unyielding desire for her. She is married, however, to famous concert pianist Stephen Orlac, and you can tell that if she wasn't married to Stephen, she would not be interested in Gogol, because he gives her the heebie jeebies (as well as giving plenty of them to us, the viewers, too).
Just when you wonder where all this is going, the husband (Colin Clive) is injured in a train derailment, and his artistic hands are mutilated, so his wife turns to Dr. Gogol, who just happens to be a hand transplant expert, for help. The deranged doctor agrees, but he transplants the hands of a knife-throwing killer onto the pianist and suddenly we realize we are watching an adaptation of The Hands of Orlac!
Lorre is creepy as hell as the love-struck doctor; nobody does looking deranged any better. Colin Clive runs around screaming, "My hands, they're alive, they're alive!" (Okay, I made that part up.)
Okay, thanks Tim, I’m back, with a question: What is it with MGM horror films? They're all... what's a good word? How about “tasteless”?I mean, I LIKE old horror films and I don't like the MGMs (except for Fu Manchu, as mentioned above). This film is stylish, well-directed, interesting, and yet... cold and tacky and icky. Maybe because there's nobody to root for? Maybe because poor Colin Clive, drinking himself into an early grave, resembles a human skeleton? Maybe because Lorre is just TOO creepy? Maybe because there's no real action until the end, when he shows up in that genuinely bizarre get-up with the chrome-plated hands and neck brace? Maybe because we're supposed to buy Edward Brophy as a knife-wielding serial killer(!?!?). I dunno. I don't DISLIKE this film, and it's clearly not a BAD movie, but there's something inherently dislike-able about it.
Million-dollar Dialog
"I, a poor peasant, have conquered science! Why can't I conquer love?"
Another not-to-be-missed trailer, with Mr. Lorre relaxing at home while a pretty fan calls him up to breathe heavily while she tells him how much she enjoyed him in M and The Man who Knew Too Much. And speaking of breathing heavy, where the hell was the censor when Lorre is going all orgasmic while Miss Drake onstage is burned somewhere in her nether regions by a red-hot poker? Commentary by Dr. Steve Haberman might tell us.
MGM gathered the star of M, the director of The Mummy, and the writer of Frankenstein (John Balderston) but I think they had such disdain for horror films that they had no idea how to make one that was really good and not just disturbing.
Perverse and Icky; two and a half pumpkins.
The Devil-Doll
MGM (1936) Dir. Tod Browning
79 min. / B&W / 1.37:1
And we close the set with an oddball movie from a period in which horror films weren't very horrifying. Tod Browning returns and the advertising really hits this as a new Unholy Three; Lionel Barrymore even duplicates Lon Chaney's old lady character oin that film.
Lionel and a scientist pal escape from Devil's Island; the pal drops dead, but not before he shows Lionel what he'd been working on pre-incarceration: a machine that turns people into itty-bitty tiny things that will do your bidding for you. Lionel takes the machine and heads to Paris, where he uses it to wreak revenge on the bankers who framed him and sent him to prison. Meanwhile, he pines for his daughter, Maureen O'Sullivan, who had to do whatever movie MGM told her to do, obviously. And Lionel Barrymore looks as much like a 17-year inhabitant of Devil's Island as you look like Victor Mature.
Million-dollar Dialog, trying to explain the murders going on:
"Probably just some religious fanatic. The city's full of them around Christmas."
The special effects are terrific when they're full-sized actors on a set full of giant stuff (including some things that seem to be left over from Laurel & Hardy's Brats) and not so good when optical effects are used.
Notes:
The actress playing Lionel's mum (Maureen's grandma) was five years older than Lionel.
If you look fast, you'll see Darla Hood and Billy Gilbert.
This is based on a novel called Burn Witch Burn, which is no relation to the movie Burn Witch Burn, which was based on the novel Conjure Wife.
Not Tod Browning’s crowning achievement in the art of movie horror, but The Devil-Doll is weird and unusual enough and only pathetic if you think of what could’ve been achieved with this and Mark of the Vampire had Chaney lived long enough to make them. Bonus material here includes two cartoons, expert commentary by Dr. Haberman (whose given name is wrong in the menu for this disc, whoops) and friend, plus the trailer and a couple of those great old cartoons.
Two pumpkins out of four.
Summary
All of the restorations are gorgeous, the bonus material is terrific, the films are enjoyable for horror fans and unforgettable for Karloff and Lorre aficionados, and you can’t beat the price for this, one of the great Halloween releases of the decade.
