Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935), The Wolf Man (1941) & The Invisible Man (1933) Reviews

I did a bunch of “my favorite horror movies” lists in October & one was My Top Ten Pre-1970 Horror Movies. I’d commented that it was shameful I’d seen so few to be able to make that list and had seen none of the classic “monster” movies such as Dracula, etc. So I was very happy when the Horror Channel in the U.K. showed a bunch of them over Halloween weekend. Thanks to the family for letting me watch half of them, too! I haven’t updated that list with these yet as I’m not sure where to place them at this point but figured that I should at least try to write a little something about these classics even though it’s after Halloween…

Dracula (1931)

Directed by Tod Browning

Based on Dracula (novel) by Bram Stoker & Dracula (play) by Hamilton Deane & John L. Balderston

Starring: Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Helen Chandler, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
The film stars Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, a vampire who emigrates from Transylvania to England and preys upon the blood of living victims, including a young man’s fiancée.

My Opinion:

I don’t know where to start with these “reviews” as I’ve not watched enough classic horror to be able to easily discuss them. I’ll say that Dracula was easily my favorite of those I watched Halloween weekend. Bela Lugosi was great as Count Dracula. Loved his look and the mood of the start of the film in his creepy old castle in the fog & full of cobwebs. The whole thing just said traditional “Halloween” to me, so that was great. A proper vampire movie! Also, I noticed it was directed by Tod Browning who did the movie Freaks, which I absolutely adore & think is a fantastic film that was ahead of its time. So I was eager to see another Browning film.

Vampires aren’t usually my favorite when it comes to the typical “Halloween” monsters. As far as these type of movies go, it seems to be the zombie ones I like the most (thanks, George Romero!). So I wasn’t necessarily expecting this to be my favorite (I thought it would be Frankenstein). But Lugosi was so good & I loved seeing all the “vampire rules” played out, which I admittedly know best thanks to The Lost Boys. No “death by stereo” in Dracula, though! Ha!

Am so glad I finally watched this. I want to see all the Hammer Horror now too to compare, especially Dracula! Am guessing that just has more heaving bosoms. They loved heaving bosoms in old English movies. So between this Dracula, Nosferatu & my beloved The Lost Boys, maybe I do love vampires after all. It’s made me want to revisit Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula now as well. Or… maybe even read the book! Maybe. I did read Frankenstein recently. We’ll see!

My Rating: 8/10

Frankenstein (1931)

Directed by James Whale

Based on Frankenstein (novel) by Mary Shelley & Frankenstein (play) by Peggy Webling & John L. Balderston

Starring: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Boris Karloff, Dwight Frye, Edward van Sloan, Frederick Kerr

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
Dr. Frankenstein dares to tamper with life and death by creating a human monster out of lifeless body parts.

My Opinion:

Unlike the rest, I do think I at least saw bits of this as a kid. I definitely remember the part with the girl. I forced myself to read this book during lockdown as I must admit I don’t read enough classics. Yes, I stick with Stephen King. I’m old, busy & tired. I’ll watch a serious film as it takes up less of my time but don’t have the energy to read War And Peace or some shit. Give me light entertainment for reading! I admit reading Frankenstein, with its 1818 language, was hard going. But I love the overall story. It’s damn good.

So I was expecting to like this movie the most but I think I ended up a bit disappointed as I didn’t realize how different it was from the book! I have no clue how close Dracula was to Stoker’s novel so that’s probably why I was able to just enjoy that movie as it is. Looks like Frankenstein was also partly based on a play adaptation? I was just kind of sad as I didn’t feel this movie captured the creature’s complex feelings & turned him into more of a monster while the flawed Victor Frankenstein character is hardly explored at all. But, hey – it’s a 1931 film. It’s still a horror classic & gave us the iconic “Frankenstein’s monster” look we now all associate with the character (which is also unlike described in the book). And I’ve now seen Boris Karloff in action as well as Bela Lugosi! It’s about time, I suppose.

My Rating: 7.5/10

The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935)

Directed by James Whale

Based on Premise suggested by Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Starring: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson, Elsa Lanchester, Ernest Thesiger, E. E. Clive

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Dr. Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.

My Opinion:

This was a bit of an odd one to me but I really liked that, combined with the first movie, we get a little more of the story from the book. Well, a little. We get a bit with the blind guy and I really liked that part of this movie. My favorite part of the book was when “the creature” hid in a family’s cottage for a very long time & sort of became fond of them & learned from them and the blind man in the movie was I guess a nod to that.

I liked that Elsa Lanchester plays Mary Shelley, starting to tell more of her Frankenstein story, as well as The Bride in the title of the film. Didn’t know that, as I knew nothing whatsoever about this film beforehand. Again, it was great seeing The Bride & her also now truly iconic horror look. Love that crazy hairdo!

I also liked a super weird part of this movie in which a mad scientist guy has some tiny people in jars. In looking it up, I found they’re called “homunculi“. Fascinating! Here’s what it says at that Wikipedia link: “A homunculus is a representation of a small human being. Popularized in sixteenth-century alchemy and nineteenth-century fiction, it has historically referred to the creation of a miniature, fully formed human.” So that seemed silly at first but now I kind of love that bit. Fun film and, overall, I like the two of these movies together as one.

My Rating: 7/10

The Wolf Man (1941)

Directed by George Waggner

Starring: Claude Rains, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy, Patric Knowles, Bela Lugosi, Maria Ouspenskaya, Evelyn Ankers, Lon Chaney Jr.

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
Larry Talbot returns to his father’s castle in Wales and meets a beautiful woman. One fateful night, Talbot escorts her to a local carnival where they meet a mysterious gypsy fortune teller.

My Opinion:

Enjoyed this one as well, although I don’t really know what to say about this or The Invisible Man as I knew the least about these stories (but of course know the werewolf legend). Well, I know about werewolves thanks to An American Werewolf In London & the beginning of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, of course! Oh, and Teen Wolf. I’m so ’80s! Hey – did you know a guy in Teen Wolf flashes his penis at the end of that movie?

So, anyway – Yeah, I like werewolves almost as much as vampires when it comes to classic Halloween monsters so of course enjoyed this very straightforward werewolf story. Hairy guys are just a little less sexy than those bloodsuckers, I guess. Lon Chaney Jr. stars as the Wolf Man in this (I knew that thanks to Warren Zevon). So I’ve seen another classic monster movie & actor. Feel like I have a tiny bit more movie blog cred now! Wow – this was a pathetic review. Oh! I like the Silver Bullet movie too. God I’m so ’80s…

My Rating: 7/10

The Invisible Man (1933)

Directed by James Whale

Based on The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells

Starring: Gloria Stuart, Claude Rains, William Harrigan, Dudley Digges, Una O’Connor, Henry Travers, Forrester Harvey

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
A scientist finds a way of becoming invisible, but in doing so, he becomes murderously insane.

My Opinion:

I know the least about this story and, no, I’ve not read the H. G. Wells book. In all honesty, I think the 2020 movie was my first real introduction to this character (which I assume is very different from the book!). So I’d feel like an ass saying too much about this movie.

I enjoyed it but liked it a bit less than the more “classic monster” movies I watched Halloween weekend. I loved the special effects, though. I thought they were damn good for 1933! I know jack shit about filmmaking but, with all the stupid CGI these days that rarely moves me, I was more impressed by whatever probably super simple tricks they used in this movie to make this guy’s head, etc, invisible in some scenes. Brilliant! Way cooler than computer magic.

FYI – the star of this one is Claude Rains and, once again, I’m happy to finally see these actors in these iconic roles. And, hey – the old lady from Titanic, Gloria Stuart, is in this. Her heart will go on! God I suck at reviewing old movies. This was good, though. All of these were. I’m glad I finally saw them. Thanks, Horror Channel!

My Rating: 7/10

My Top Ten Pre-1970 Horror Movies

After doing two horror movie lists years ago (My Top Ten Horror Comedies & My Top Ten Body Horror Movies), I decided to do more this year to attempt to get all my favorite horror movies together.

I posted My Top Ten Foreign Language Horror Movies yesterday. Tomorrow will be My Top Horror Movies 1970-1999 then My Top Horror Movies Of The 21st Century.

I knew this Pre-1970 list would be interesting as I’ve not watched nearly enough classic horror. So I’ve listed all I could think of that I’ve seen. It’s embarrassing as I’m missing ALL the classic “monster” movies like Dracula, Frankenstein, etc etc (most of which will be on the Horror Channel this weekend in the U.K. FYI! I badly want to watch them all but no way will the family let me watch movies all weekend). I’ve seen one Vincent Price movie and NONE of the Hammer Horror stuff. Pathetic for a movie blogger!!

In my defence, though, I didn’t catch this stuff while growing up for some strange reason & I now have no disposable income to support this hobby. And I’m very against stealing movies so I slowly watch what I can if it becomes available to me at no extra cost. I need to get off the boring mainstream streaming services – They have a terrible selection, especially when it comes to horror or anything more than ten years old. So that’s my excuse!

So here’s my ranked list counting down to My Top Ten Pre-1970 Horror Movies:

Top Twenty:

20. Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962) (but really need to rewatch this)
19. The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
18. Repulsion (1965)
17. A Bucket Of Blood (1959)
16. Seconds (1966)
15. House On Haunted Hill (1959)
14. Cat People (1942)
13. Carnival Of Souls (1962)
12. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956) (could do with rewatching this too)
11. The Innocents (1961)

Top Ten:

10. TIE: Eyes Without A Face (1960) & Dead Of Night (1945)

9. Les Diaboliques (1955)

8. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

7. Nosferatu (1922)

6. M (1931)

5. The Birds (1963)

4. The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari (1920)

3. Psycho (1960)

2. Freaks (1932)

1. Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

Some I Need To Rewatch:
Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? (as mentioned above)
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (this too)
Village Of The Damned
Spider Baby
Gaslight
The Bad Seed

Freaks (1932) Review For The At The Circus Blogathon

I’m happy to be reviewing Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks for the grand finale of the At The Circus Blogathon hosted by Serendipitous Anachronisms & Crìtica Retrô. The first set of entries were posted a month ago but our hosts kindly agreed to a second round of reviews of movies with circus themes (which will be posted today, tomorrow & Wednesday so be on the lookout for more reviews from other bloggers!). I’m glad I didn’t miss my chance – I knew immediately that I had to grab the opportunity to review Freaks, a highly controversial & misunderstood film at the time of its release in 1932. Here’s my review…

Freaks (1932)

Directed by Tod Browning

Based on Spurs, 1923 short story by Tod Robbins

Starring: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Rosco Ates, Henry Victor, Harry Earles, Daisy Earles, Rose Dione, Daisy Hilton, Violet Hilton, Schlitzie, Josephine Joseph, Johnny Eck, Frances O’Connor, Peter Robinson, Olga Roderick, Koo Koo, Prince Randian, Martha Morris, Elvira Snow, Jenny Lee Snow, Elizabeth Green, Delmo Fritz, Angelo Rossitto, Edward Brophy, Matt McHugh

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB)
A circus’ beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.

My Opinion:

Unlike our blogathon hosts, I don’t have a lot of knowledge when it comes to films that are pre-1970 or so and I’d love to expand my knowledge. In reading a little about Freaks, I noticed it was called a “Pre-Code” horror film, which is a term I’d never even heard of as a movie blogger. Here’s the Wikipedia definition:

Pre-Code Hollywood refers to the brief era in the American film industry between the introduction of sound pictures in 1929 and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines in 1934, usually labeled, albeit inaccurately, as the “Hays Code”… As a result, films in the late 1920s and early 1930s included sexual innuendo, miscegenation, profanity, illegal drug use, promiscuity, prostitution, infidelity, abortion, intense violence, and homosexuality. Strong female characters were ubiquitous, in such films as Female, Baby Face, and Red-Headed Woman. Gangsters in films like The Public Enemy, Little Caesar, and Scarface were seen by many as heroic rather than evil.

Well, damn – this sounds like an awesome period! If I’m going to explore older films, I think I need to start with the Pre-Code ones. To grab one more thing from Wikipedia before I talk about Freaks in my own words, I’d like to share its opening paragraph about the film for anyone who may be unfamiliar with it:

Freaks is a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film in which the eponymous characters were played by people who worked as carnival sideshow performers and had real deformities. The original version was considered too shocking to be released and no longer exists. Directed and produced by Tod Browning, whose career never recovered from it, Freaks has been described as standing alone in a subgenre of one.

I like that quote – “Standing alone in a subgenre of one“. I think that’s pretty accurate as I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like Freaks. There are certain films that I personally think all true film-lovers (and movie bloggers) absolutely must see and Freaks is one of them.

I first saw Freaks years ago after seeing a documentary in which it was mentioned and thinking it sounded utterly fascinating. This movie is my type of thing – an originally misunderstood film that has achieved cult-status and is now finally, I think, recognized for its beauty. I’m sure many are at least somewhat familiar with the plot by now so I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that the film’s horror label comes not from the so-called “freaks” with their physical deformities but from the ugliness of the outwardly beautiful trapeze artist & her lover, who try to take advantage of them. I can absolutely understand, however, why this film was vilified in 1932 as its themes and the bravery of its statement on human nature are so far ahead of its time. This is back in the day when people with physical deformities were treated as nothing more than sideshow entertainment. I suppose it’s just as shocking to us nowadays to know that people were once treated like that as it was for a 1932 audience to be told that their sideshow entertainment had feelings no different than their own.

When learning of this film, I did hesitate to watch it as I was afraid it would be exploitative and that made me very uncomfortable. Freaks was indeed banned in the UK for 30 years due to being “exploitative” but, again, I think the film was just massively misunderstood for years while people still lived in a time where they feared the unknown and anything “different” that they had no control over without the advances in medicine, prosthetics, etc that we have today. So I’m sorry if anyone does feel differently but I don’t find this film exploitative (at least, not in its final form – the ending was changed massively from its original release, which apparently no longer exists but sounds like it was actually changed for the better as the original cast its stars in a much more negative light at the end).

From what I’ve read, director Tod Browning had joined a travelling circus so did have knowledge of that lifestyle and the people interviewed for a documentary I saw on the film have commented that it was quite an accurate portrayal of the circus way of life. I’ve always had a fascination with that lifestyle as it seems like such a foreign way of life compared to the humdrum, office drone existence most of us lead so I’ve often gravitated toward circus-themed books & movies. I think Browning made a beautiful film about a lifestyle he’d experienced and, judging from the film, he must have had a strong affection for it. He captured the camaraderie between the circus performers that I’ve always assumed exists (?) but, like most of us, will never fully understand or experience. I’d love to think that, while shunned by society, the circus performers in the era of Freaks at least felt like part of a family within the circus in the way this film portrays.

The existing cut-down version of this film is very short (only 64 minutes) but we get to know all the characters very well in this time. I love how Browning somehow managed to focus on several individual stories (such as a marriage, a baby being born, various romances, etc) in between the main overall story involving evil trapeze artist Cleopatra marrying a lovestruck Hans for his money. It shows you just how much movies suck nowadays – these days we often spend two hours watching meaningless effects and leave knowing very little about even the main characters.

I should point out that, though the film demonizes some of the (for want of a better word) “normal” people, we have a lovely romance between one of the clowns and a lady named Venus (I’m not actually sure what she does in the circus. Hmm…). These two care about our title characters & treat them no differently than anyone else so it’s even more ridiculous that this film was so reviled at the time as, had it made everyone seem evil and without compassion, I could almost understand why audiences would be angry. But, in reading the IMDB trivia for Freaks, it turns out that some people working at MGM protested at having to eat lunch with the cast so those with the worst physical deformities were set up with a tent outside so they could eat separately. Appalling behavior – no wonder the world clearly wasn’t ready for this movie’s message. This is why it’s a shame that, also according to IMDB trivia, scenes such as this one were shortened:

According to the screenplay, the scene in which Madame Tetrallini introduces the wandering land-owner to the performers frolicking in the woods ran quite a bit longer. It included additional dialog that endeavored to humanize the so-called freaks. She tells him they are “always in hot, stuffy tents – strange eyes always staring at them – never allowed to forget what they are.” Duval responds sympathetically (clearly the stand-in for the viewing audience), “When I go to the circus again, Madame, I’ll remember,” to which she adds, “I know, Monsieur – you will remember seeing them playing – playing like children… Among all the thousands who come to stare – to laugh – to shudder – you will be one who understands.”

Summary:

Freaks is a movie that was, understandably, very misunderstood at the time of release in 1932 but I hope it will continue to be discovered by serious film fans. Its message of acceptance is timeless (and seems especially important in this current wretched year we’re having – it feels like we’ve gone back in time to 1932 in all the wrong ways). It’s beautiful & heartbreaking and shows the true ugliness of which humanity is capable. Its marriage banquet scene, in which the “freaks” declare the beautiful trapeze artist as “One of us! One of us! We accept you! Gooble Gobble!” is an all-time classic (and often referenced, such as in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street). The ending is, admittedly, quite a shock. In that regard, I can see why audiences were so angered at the time and this is a rare occasion where it sounds like some changes to a film were actually for the better (I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen this but the re-cut ending finishes on a slightly better note for our heroes). Is the ending offensive? No more so than the way in which society treated people who were different in the old days. I think the ending is perfect and this is a great film that, sadly, had to wait several decades for society to catch up to it.

My Rating: 8.5/10