As Halloween looms before us, I've decided to scrawl down a few of my favorite horror movies starring my favorite horror actor, Bela Lugosi to share with the class. I am not a big fan of what passes for horror films in these days of torture porn. But I love the classic films from the 20's, 30's and 40's; the black and white dreamy fairy tales of a bygone age. The subject matter is still pretty gruesome when you actual stop and consider the components of the plot you are watching, but it's far more restrained and enriching than anything that passes for terror these days. They were usually shot far more creatively too since the censors kept them from showing so much. Restraint bred creativity.
I was first turned onto to these classic tales back in elementary school when I happened upon a series of books by Ian Thorne, each slim volume chronicling the different horror films broken down into subject - Dracula films, Frankenstein films, King Kong films, Mad Scientists, etc. Then the magic of home video helped me at last watch the films I'd been reading so much about. Lon Chaney Sr. and Bela Lugosi were my favorite actors from all these films, but Lugosi stands out with more actual horror titles to his name. Chaney, though only now remembered for a handful of horror films, actually made far, far more dramas than horror. So here are a few of Lugosi's best. If you haven't watched much in the way of classic horror, hopefully this will help get your butt onto the couch and get them through Netflix.
Dracula (1931)
This was the first horror film I saw as a child. I can still remember the excitement I felt after finally trailing down a copy at our local video store when I was in the 4th or 5th grade. I had read about the film over and over in the little monster film books by Ian Thorne that I repeatedly checked out from our school library, pouring over the black and white pictures and soaking up all the atmosphere that seemed to ooze from every torn page. They were fairy tales to me, not horror, even darker Brother's Grimm tales and just as poetic. So I could barely contain myself when I found the vhs copy. I even remember crawling all over the easy chair in antsy anticipation as I waited for the copyright warning to end and the film to begin, hoping that it wasn't going to be too scary, hoping that watching it during the day would keep nightmares at bay. I needn't have worried. Dracula was too dated to be scary even to a 10 yr old, but it WAS fascinating.
The first 15 minutes are still genuinely creepy, even 80 years after the film was released. Dark, atmospheric, there is no musical score. Only a chilling silence with the fizzles and pops of old films which add character. Every once in a while a lonely wolf howl or squeak of a bat will lunge out and make the silence even more frightening, like a dream stalking it's victim, ready to pounce. Lugosi's performance is still powerful - the first time you are introduced to him, he has just awoke from his undead sleep and is silently walking through the crypts of Castle Dracula. No words. Only his magnetic eyes and the squeaking of rats. Great stuff. I think the first 15 minutes can easily stand up to anything made today for atmosphere and creepiness. Mythic.
But once the story leaves Transylvania it all goes down hill. The script from there on out follows the stage play version of the classic tale, NOT the book by Stoker. The Great Depression prohibited much money being spent on a horror film when Universal's CEO didn't like them in the first place. This was before horror films became a regular staple of the studio system. Most "horror" films from the 20's were actually mysteries where the "supernatural" element was explained away at the end. Somewhat like an early Scooby-Doo. Dracula was the first to not have the vampire turn out to be a person in disguise. Its producers were taking a real chance on whether the public would be open to watching a film about such outlandish superstitious creatures. So it was not given much money compared to other films Universal was making at the same time.
As a result, the 2nd half of the film feels like a filmed stage play. It has a few iconic moments but it really drags on pacing, the lack of music now becomes a hindrance, and most of the actors and lines are forgettable. The two romantic leads are pretty lousy in fact. Helen Chandler as Mina is the most bloodless and annoying damsel in distress of all Universal horror films.
BUT... Lugosi and Dwight Frye as the madman Renfield make it worth watching. Lugosi is still the best Dracula ever put on film and Frye is still the best Renfield ever put on film. His maniacal laughter and crazed eyes looking up at the camera from the hold of the death ship is burned forever in my mind.
Edward Van Sloan sets a high bar for all Van Helsings that would come on down the bloody road. He is more than a match for Lugosi's elegant satanic lover.
So, I would still highly recommend Dracula for lovers of vampires and horror, just to see where it all began - and for that first 15 minutes of pure mythic Gothic atmosphere that spawned all the vampire movies made since. If you are a fan of film history and classic horror like me, you won't be disappointed.
White Zombie (1931)
White Zombie was one of Lugosi's first films after Dracula. It's a bleak fairy tale of Haitian Voodoo preying upon Purity and Innocence. Lugosi plays the aptly named Murder Legendre, a plantation owner who turns his enemies into undead slaves as grist for his sugar mill. Zombies, before Night of the Living Dead, were actually creatures of Haitian slave folklore. Voodoo masters could supposedly use magic or drugs to transform their victims into shuffling, mindless slaves. They could sometimes be dead but most of the time they were just brain dead victims with brains fried by drugs but still physically alive and very susceptible to suggestion. The brain eating corpse of modern day Zombie fiction didn't come about until the 1960's.
When a rather stupid young couple come to Haiti to be married by a mysterious benefactor, Charles Beaumont, the wife quickly becomes the lustful focus of both Beaumont and Legendre.
Beaumont makes a deal with the devil to make her his own and Legendre makes her the White Zombie of the film. The not too subtle subtext is that she will be a sex slave for one of them if she isn't rescued by her love. But Beaumont soon learns he has bit off more than he can chew with Legendre and it's up to a bumbling missionary to save everyone from becoming the zombie servants of the satanic voodoo master.
Island of Lost Souls (1932)
I was asked by a friend what my favorite horror film of all time was. After mulling it over a bit, I came to the conclusion that it was a battle between this film and the 1925 film version of the Phantom of the Opera. But I think Island of Lost Souls wins by just a hair because it's a sound production and has such fantastic one liners.
Island of Lost Souls is an adaptation of H.G. Wells' classic scifi horror novel, The Island of Dr. Moreau. This is by far the best film adaptation. The other two, the most recent with Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando, are pretty lame.
The movie follows Wells' basic story line of a man trapped upon the island of the mad scientist, Dr. Moreau, played in a wonderfully over the top performance by Charles Laughton. In order to give evolution a helping hand, Moreau is using surgery to mold animals into humans. It proves a horrifically painful process, more torture than science. The beast flesh proves too stubborn though and all his experiments have failed.
Even the more successful ones begin falling back into their previous animal natures. He lords it over the failed experiments like a god, devising commandments for them to follow and repeat like a mantra: "Not to spill blood, that is the law, are we not men?" "HIS are the hands that heal, HIS are the hands that make, HIS is the House of Pain...." The poor creatures are headed up by a very hairy Bela Lugosi who gives a great performance as the Speaker of the Law. You can hear the howling wail of a chained animal in his voice when he speaks of the House of Pain, the birthplace of all Moreau's creations. So the maniac doctor lords it over his island as a god, in a tongue in cheek mockery of organized religion, until a shipwrecked sailor comes ashore and upsets his diabolical little cosmos...
H.G. Wells hated this film but I think it's one of the very best adaptation of any of his books. Maybe THE best. It really captures the revolting horror of Wells' novel while also veering off into left field with gleeful one liners masterfully delivered by Laughton's chubby little satanic Moreau. Laughton's skill really creates some of the best moments in all horror films with his performance here. The subplot of Moreau trying to force the shipwrecked sailor, and later that sailor's fiancee, to mate with the more advanced of the animal creatures, is both zany, frightening, and touching when you see the panther woman struggle with becoming human and the womanly emotions that come along with that experience. It's the love that dawns in her animal heart that eventually saves the day. The sets, lighting, makeup and cinematography are all superb.
Recently restored and easily available on dvd and bluray, I highly recommend you do what you can to watch this nightmarish tale of an inhuman surgeon creating man in his own bestial image.
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)
"A lady in....distress?" - Dr. Mirakle
Dracula might have catapulted Lugosi to fame but his portrayal is stiff and shuffling compared to the melodramatic scenery chewing in this puppy. And I love to watch Lugosi chew some scenery!
Murders in the Rue Morgue is loosely based on the classic short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It's pretty much the first modern detective story. Sherlock Holmes and other famed detectives would draw their inspiration from Poe's protagonist - C. Auguste Dupin. However, other than including the incredibly violent murder that Poe dreams up, the film bears little resemblance to the original story. But what a wild and gloriously twisted revision it is!
Lugosi stars as the sinister and wild haired Dr. Mirakle, a scientist who travels about in carnivals with the ape Erik in tow, trying to spread the gospel about Evolution. It is gradually revealed throughout the film that his great obsession is to blend the blood of Apes with the blood of Mankind to prove their mutual ancestry. Though it never comes right out and says it, essentially the film is about a mad scientist trying to hook his ape buddy up with an unwilling human female. Bestiality is still pretty taboo - imagine how taboo this was in 1932! But first he has to make sure the human female's blood is pure. Scientifically this makes no more sense than trying to breed an ape with a woman anyway, but I guess in this film apes can only cross-species procreate with virgins. At least that seems to be the message as Dr. Mirakle kidnaps prostitute after prostitute only to find their wombs useless - their blood "black as their sins." The women all die of shock and blood poisoning, so down through a trap door into the river you sluts go! Of course now the virginal damsel in distress must be saved by her medical student lover, Dupin, from a fate worse than death in the arms of a very hairy Casanova. And over all this insane tableau, the malevolent face of Lugosi leers with voyeuristic glee.
Film historian Gregory Mank describes Bela's performance as "Satan playing Shakespeare." I couldn't describe the performance any better. It's probably my favorite character of Lugosi's. Creepy, driven, lascivious, yet still capable of treating his ape companion with empathy, and capable of agonizing over the women he has had to murder to feed the juggernaut of Science. Bela owns this movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment