The Karate Kid (1984 - 1994)

When looking at great martial arts films the likes of Tsui Harks Once Upon a Time in China, Jackie Chan in Drunken Master or even Wachowski’s The Matrix movies, those films showcase some of the best martial arts talent ever put to screen, but back in 1984 a smaller scale film simply called The Karate Kid captured the hearts and minds of many moviegoers.

 

The Karate Kid (1984)

The Karate Kid was one of those 80s films that came fully loaded; we have a student-mentor dynamic, a love story between two people from different classes and a high school bullying drama, and then when we look at the martial arts aspect of the story and how it's treated with a fair amount of respect and you've got yourself quite the solid feature film. In this film, we get a young "fish out of water" protagonist who must defend himself against great odds, in this case, a bunch of asshat teenager karate enthusiasts, but the film also has a nice little romance provided by a young Elisabeth Shue yet the true heart of the film is the relationship developed between the teenage boy and his mentor.

It should be noted that though the film is called The Karate Kid it's Pat Morita who elevates the film above your typical drama film, and sure, Ralph Macchio and Elisabeth Shue provide solid performances but it's Morita who is the heart of the film.

 

The Karate Kid Part II (1986)

Moving the story's setting from the United States to Okinawa was a clever way to avoid simply repeating themes from the original film while also allowing some fun "fish out of water" comedy, but the film does lose points for dispatching Elisabeth Shue in such a clumsy manner, and sure, these movies are clearly about the relationship between Daniel and Mr. Miyagi but to have Shue's character dismissed because she broke up with Daniel for a jock was just lame.

Once again Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita provide solid drama and their student-mentor chemistry pretty much moves into the full-on substitute father in this film, these two are just great together, what is a bit harder to swallow is the villain whose demands for an honour-killing rings pretty hollow as does the Deux ex machine storm that comes along to help resolve things, but even less believable is the secondary villain who simply exists so that Daniel can have a final showdown. Overall, an entertaining sequel but some of the plot mechanics are a little thin and some of the writing is a bit corny.

 

The Karate Kid Part III (1989)

With this third instalment, the franchise continues the strange formula of ditching characters from previous entries in favour of a new matrix. In the first sequel they ditched Daniel's mom and his girlfriend played by Elisabeth Shue, who was replaced by a Japanese girlfriend, and in this third film we are told that his girlfriend had "gone off to take a job dancing" and his mom only gets a brief cameo, but what is truly bizarre is that the plot of The Karate Kid Part III the Cobra Kai master John Kreese getting revenge of his life has turned to shit since the events of the first film yet he's barely in this film, what we do get is the introduction of a totally new villain who will get revenge on behalf of the Kreese character, which one must admit is rather bizarre. Then things get even worse as this villain is not just bad he's "I dump toxic waste for a living and laugh about it" level evil and has even less dimension than that of Snidely Whiplash from the Dudley Do-Right cartoons and the acting for this character is at an even higher level of awful.

Sadly, the plot and cartoon villainy on display is the least of this film's problems as Daniel LaRusso is now a complete asshat and spends most of the film badgering Mister Miyagi and generally fucking things up, and when he isn't making things worse he's whiny about his life. That Pat Morita is able to instill some sense of class into the proceedings is the only saving grace this film has and even the final karate tournament scene isn't able to save the picture as it's basically Daniel being really bad at fighting until getting a quick "Use the Force" speech from Miyagi and then sadly he's able to channel his inner badass.

Overall, this film was a slap in the face to anyone who had loved the previous films as it completely destroyed the character of Daniel LaRusso and did its best to tear apart the chemistry that Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita had developed and basically pissed on the ashes of the franchise.

 

The Next Karate Kid (1994)

In this fourth entry on the Karate Kid Franchise, we say goodbye to Ralph Macchio's Daniel LaRusso and hello to Hillary Swank's Julie Piece, a young woman with some serious anger issues who Mr. Mijagi does his best to guide towards finding inner peace while also teaching her such important tidbits as "Ambition without knowledge is like a boat on dry land." Who can argue with that?

While this isn't the best in the franchise it's clear that even this early on Hillary Swank was a much better actor than Ralph Macchio would ever be and she and Pat Morita worked really well together, with her leaning to waltz from Mr. Miyagi being a particularly sweet moment, but where the film stumbles is the rather bizarre conflict this entry tried to manufacture as no longer is there a simple problem with school bullies, instead, we have high school sexual predators to worry about - with Julie being a girl I guess they thought this was the female equivalent of bullying - yet that wasn't apparently enough as we also get Michael Ironside as the bizarre leader of a what appears to be a high school ROTC but who acts as if he's training the Hitler Youth. I love Michael Ironside but his level of screen villainy was way out of place for a teen drama and a little over-the-top, what with him ordering his students to commit murder because one kid didn't fear him, that said, it was nice to see Pat Morita kick his butt.

Overall, The Next Karate Kid may have some serious structural problems with the script but any film with Buddhist monks bowling and "Karate Waltzing" can't help but be entertaining and watching Pre-Oscar Hillary Swank is a definite bonus, which makes this one an easy recommend.

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) – Review

The idea group of explorers entering a strange land only to discover that it’s inhabited by some sort of monster is as old as the genre itself, with RKO’s 1933 classic King Kong being the standard-bearer for such a story, but in 1954 Universal Pictures decided to add a final star in their line-up of Universal Monster with a creature that brought an aquatic element to the classic story of the Beauty and the Beast, they’d also add a new dimension to this horror offering as it came out during the 3D boom.

The genesis of the plot of Creature from the Black Lagoon dates back to the silent era, with 1925s The Lost World, where you’d find a group of adventurers travelling to a part of the world that has "never felt the hand of man." In this particular outing from Universal Pictures, we have the discovery of a fossil of a skeletal hand with webbed fingers by marine biologist Dr. Carl Maia (Antonio Moreno) and this leads to the formation of an expedition up the Amazon River to see if more of the fossil can be found. Making up this party is ichthyologist Dr. David Reed (Ricard Carlson), girlfriend and colleague Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams), fellow scientist Dr. Edwin Thompson (Whit Bissell) and their boss Dr. Mark Williams (Richard Denning), who is more financially motivated in his desires and is the closest this film comes to having a true villain.

 

“Whose says greed and good science don’t go and hand?”

White people traipsing all over the globe and getting into trouble has been a staple of the genre since almost the beginning time and Creature of the Black Lagoon brings forth such themes as pollution and the encroachment of so-called civilization on the natural world. The character of Dr. David Reed is a new breed of a scientist as he doesn’t fit into the “mad scientist mould” but, instead, is what one could call the “hero scientist” and it's these types of scientists who are the ones to solve such problems as pesky alien invaders or giant tarantulas, but even as heroic as David Reed is depicted in this film it’s really only in contrast to what a huge dick his boss, whose fate at the hands of the creature is pretty apparent from almost the first scene. Reed simply wants to study the creature while his boss is all for shooting the thing as soon as possible so that he can get back to his golf game, after some arguing he eventually settles for shooting him with a camera.

Question: How would you feel if someone waltzed into your home and started taking pictures?

Now, you can’t have a proper Beauty and the Beast story without the beauty and for that, Julie Adams fills the bill quite nicely, though one can question the attraction an amphibious creature would have towards a member of the genus Homo Sapiens, I personally can admit that Julie Adams’ beauty could possibly transcend the line between species and, to be fair, the Gill-man’s does seem awfully alone so this could simply be a case of “Any port a storm” but maybe that’s a little crass and, who knows, maybe the creature simply wanted to bring her back to his grotto to read her some poetry. Regardless of the Gill-man’s motivation towards Julie Adams, his killing of several members of the expedition was clearly justified as they are invaders and he was simply defending his home and himself.

 

Maybe he considered the girl to be compensation for damages.

Stray Observations:

• The opening narration starts with a quote from the Bible and then almost immediately dovetails into talking about evolution which must be the fastest one-eighty in film history.
• In keeping with jungle pictures everywhere, we hear the cry of kookaburra despite this film taking place in Brazil and not Australia, where the Kookaburra can be found.
• The Amazon River is known to have black water tributaries but what we see in this movie is not what one would call a lagoon, I guess The Creature from the Black Grotto didn’t have as nice a ring to it.
• The Gill-man is described as a Devonian life-form, but a clawed and bipedal amphibious creature doesn't resemble anything from that era.
• David Reed ponders the idea of the creature being from outer space, but actor Richard Carlson had already encountered them a year before in It Came from Outer Space so the odds of that are slim.
• Director Jack Arnold’s intent was to play upon the basic fear that people have about what might be lurking below the surface of any body of water, and the scene where the creature “mirrors” Julie Adams, as she swims above the Gill-Man, clearly inspired Steven Spielberg when he filmed Chrissie’s death scene in Jaws.

 

Julie Adams definitely had a better encounter with her aquatic menace.

With Creature from the Black Lagoon director Jack Arnold would usher in a new era for Universal Pictures and while the Gill-man is considered to be the last of the traditional Universal Monsters the film came out during the rise of 50s era science fiction film, where giant tarantulas and shrinking men would be sharing the screens with a variety of visitors from outer space, but what makes this particular film harken back to the classics of the 30s and 40s is that it gave us a rather sympathetic monster one whose actions of carnage and death are through no fault of their own. The creature itself is one of the best monster creations and the concept designs by Disney animator Milicent Patrick made the Gill-Man one of the most recognizable and unique entries in the Universal Monster line-up.

Note: For years Universal make-up artist Bud Westmore took sole credit for the creation of the monster but, in fact, it was a group effort with Milicent Patrick’s concept designs being the key to its success, with the bodysuit then constructed by Jack Kevan and the sculpted head by Chris Mueller Jr. which all went towards bringing the Gill-Man to life.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also point out the other two people responsible for the Gill-Man and that would be Rico Browning, who wore the suit for the swimming sequences, while Ben Chapman portrayed the Gill-man for any scenes where the creature roamed above the water. These two gentlemen did an excellent job in breathing life and pathos into this persecuted creature and I would place the Gill-Man up there with Frankenstein’s Monster in the pantheon of sympathetic creatures who were tormented solely due to the fact that they were different. In conclusion, Universal’s Creature of the Black Lagoon gave us one of the more iconic members of the Universal Monsters franchise and this film practically birthed a whole new genre of man-against-nature monster movies.

Note: In 2017 Guillermo del Toro released his own take on this classic tale with his film The Shape of Water, which took the relationship between a woman and a Gill-Man to a whole new level.

Phantom of the Opera (1943) – Review

There have been many adaptations of Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, from Lon Chaney’s brilliant silent version in 1925 to Andrew Llyod Webber’s Broadway musical smash, but in 1943 Universal Pictures took their own shot at this classic tale, just so they could add another star in their line-up of Universal Monsters, this one with Claude Rains as the disfigured maestro obsessed with a beautiful girl.

Aside from a masked man running around the Paris Opera House, and his obsession with a young soprano, there isn’t much similar to that of Gaston Leroux’s novel and what we see in this film, at best, this film can be called a “loose adaptation” of the source material. This 1943 movie follows the trials and tribulations of violinist Erique Claudin (Claude Rains) who is dismissed from his job once it is discovered that one of his hands is suffering from arthritis, unfortunately, Claudin had been anonymously spending his twenty years' worth of earnings on singing lessons for the beautiful Christine Dubois (Susanna Foster), who he has been secretly devoted to all those years, and now he can’t even pay the rent for his crummy apartment.

 

“I did what?”

After a tragic misunderstanding that leads to him murdering a music publisher, revolving around a piece of music that Claudin had composed and had hoped its publishing would allow him to continue funding Christine’s lessons, this "mix-up" not only results in the murder but Claudin also gets a face full of acid and has to flee for his life. This may seem bad at the outset, because who likes really acid burns, but it does land him a nice place in the sewers, one that is located conveniently below the opera house and thus give him easy access to the beautiful Christine. Meanwhile, Christine has her own problems in the form of two rival suitors, Police Inspector Raoul Dubert (Edgar Barrier) and the Opera’s chief baritone Anatole Garron (Nelson Eddy), but neither of these two chuckleheads realized that Christine had already placed them both in the Friend Zone.

 

A very lopsided love triangle.

Having stolen a prop mask, and the master keys to the opera, Claudin begins to orchestrate his plan of turning his beloved Christine into a star and if he has to drug and murder the opera’s prima donna (Jane Farrar) more's the pity for her and for else anyone who stands in his way. Sadly, this is where the film drops the ball because at no point does Claude Rains come across as any kind of dangerous menace and the film's director, Arthur Lubin, fails to deliver even a modicum of suspense – the Phantom sawing away at the grand chandelier comes across as more tedious than actually suspenseful – and all the “spooky” thrown shadows and whirling of opera capes are unable to lift the proceedings beyond the pedestrian, and the key reason for this is in the mistaken attempt in making Claudin sympathetic monster. The Erik found in Gaston Leroux’s novel was a disfigured torturer and his obsession with Christine was quite frightening, while the Phantom as portrayed by Claude Rains comes across more like a psycho stage mother rather than that of a creature of darkness and evil.

 

They do both have a thing against chandeliers.

Some of this stems from the original draft revealing that Claudin was actually Christine’s father and that he had abandoned her and her mother to pursue his passion for music, but the studio found this led to a very “incestuous theme” and would have left audiences wondering just what kind of relationship did Claudin hope to have with his daughter. Needless to say, that element was rightfully axed but it did make for a very unfocused villain whose muddled motivations cause the whole last act of the movie to feel unfinished and the ending to be rather anti-climatic. When the big moment comes, and Christine rips off the Phantom’s mask, we are left experiencing a decidedly “So what?” ending, as this big reveal has no emotional impact and the make-up provided by legendary artist Jack Pierce is so underwhelming that the film’s "Big Moment" is completely undercut but its mildness.

 

He looked better as The Invisible Man.

Stray Observations:

• The legend of the “Opera Ghosts” seems to have formed over just a couple of days since Claudin murdered the publisher and thus it comes off as rather rushed and forced.
• The Phantom drugs a glass of wine, which prima donna drinks during a performance, but such a glass wouldn’t have had any actual liquid in it and the singer would simply mime taking a drink.
• Even though the setting of this movie is an opera house the opera numbers run on way too long, especially considering the movie is barely over an hour and a half long.
• Christine’s music teacher had informed Claudin that she wasn’t quite ready for the big time but when she gets her big break, a few days later, she brings down the house, so was the teacher lying to bilk more money out of Claudin?
• Franz Liszt comments that “So many crimes have been committed in the name of music” and I haven’t a bloody clue as to what he’s talking about. I know some singers have been accused of murdering a song but is that really a crime?
• If your plan is to lure the Phantom out of hiding during a performance maybe don’t pick an opera where three-quarters of the cast is wearing masks.
• For a middle-aged man with arthritis, Erique Claudin is a surprisingly capable murderer, and that he is able to take on the Parisian police is pretty impressive as well, which begs the question, “Did getting splashed with acid give him super strength?”

 

That would explain how he got a piano down into the sewer.

Of all the Universal Monsters it is the Phantom who fell to the wayside when it came to sequels, even though other monsters perished at the end of their respective films and returned it didn't stop those franchises would – Claude Rains' character died in The Invisible Man but that didn’t stop the studio from releasing four sequels – and even though Hammer films would launch another remake in 1962 the story of the Phantom would never achieve franchise status. What is quite apparent is that cinematically speaking not one version of the Phantom has come close to achieving what Lon Chaney had delivered back in 1925, and this was quite apparent when Claude Rains took on the role in 1943 as the actor refused to engage in any kind of elaborate make up and thus he looks more like a man suffering from a severe birthmark rather than the living skull as described in Gaston Leroux's novel.

 

Lon Chaney’s make-up is simply unparalleled.

The 1943 Phantom of the Opera does have one element that sets it apart from the other Universals Monsters and that would be the fact that it was shot in technicolour, but while this did lead to the film winning an Oscar for art direction it was not enough to bring this production out from under the shadow of the 1925 silent film version, and if almost two decades of improvements in filmmaking couldn't do any better than this tepid affair then one must look to the studio for dropping the ball on this outing. I will credit Claude Rains for trying to bring a little nuance to this tragic figure but between the film's interminable opera numbers and comedic banter between the rivals of Christine, there isn’t enough here to recommend this to anyone but a Universal Monster completist.

The Wolf Man (1941) – Review

“Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, and the autumn moon is bright” with those immortal words Universal Pictures would launch another horror franchise that would rival that of its contemporary cousins Dracula and Frankenstein, but where The Wolf Man differs from those two would be in its lack of literary roots.

In 1935 Universal Pictures released a horror film titled Werewolf of London, which dealt with a botanist being afflicted with lycanthropy, but six years later it would be overshadowed by The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney Jr. in a film that would cement the werewolf as one of Universal's key monsters. Written by Curt Siodmak, this horror entry would be like 1932’s The Mummy as it would not be based on any piece of classic literature thus giving the screenwriter a freer hand when it came to making stuff up, in fact, most of the werewolf lore we know of today was actually created by Siodmak for this film. The plot is fairly basic, with prodigal son Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) returning to his ancestral home in Wales after the recent death of his brother and where he is greeted by his father Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains) who is happy to see that his wayward son is eager to become the new heir apparent.

 

“You’re my son, seriously? I wonder if I have any of that invisibility formula left.”

After a little sightseeing, via the use of his father’s telescope, Larry visits a local antique shop and meets the beautiful Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers) who runs the shop along with her father, apparently, this place also deals in irony because while perusing the shop Larry purchases a walking stick that is decorated with a silver wolf's head, which will later save his life when he’s attacked by a gypsy turned werewolf (Bela Lugosi), but it will also end his life when his own father uses it to kill him, after he himself had become the Wolf Man. You don’t find shops like that anymore. The film is loaded with atmosphere, where fog constantly shrouds the forest floor, and the cast of characters provides everything one could want out of a horror movie; you’ve got the skeptical doctor (Warren William) who thinks Larry’s just having a mental breakdown, rather turning into a furry beast, and there is Colonel Montford (Ralph Bellamy) who is the local Chief Constable and the one trying to make sense out of the murders that continue to pile up.

 

“There’s been a murder, and someone’s responsibility!”

And what murders are these? While trying to save a local girl (Fay Helm) from a wolf attack Larry kills the creature with his walking stick, that aforementioned “lucky” purchase, but when the body of a dead gypsy is found at the scene of the crime, instead of a wolf, he becomes a suspect, but being that Larry is of the local nobility such accusations are but on the backburner. Let's see, a rich guy getting special treatment from the law, yeah, that checks out. That Colonel Montford lets him keep the “murder” weapon is a bit odd, but hey, what are the chances of it being used to kill again? As mentioned, most of the werewolf lore found in this movie is the product of Curt Siodmak’s fertile mind, such as a person becoming a werewolf through a bite and the idea that the only way to kill a werewolf is with a silver bullet, as well as the video of werewolves and their victims being marked with pentagrams. To aid in such delivery we have the character of Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya), the gypsy whose cursed son Bela started the whole ball rolling, and she is the one that informs poor Larry that he’s doomed, just as her son was.

 

“Is there any way to get a refund on that curse?”

Stray Observations:

• I find the idea of a werewolf terrorizing the English countryside more believable than the idea that Claude Rains and Lon Chaney Jr. could be even remotely related, let alone father and son.
• We are introduced to our tragic protagonist as he uses a telescope to peek into the window of a lovely young woman, so our hero is a Peeping Tom. Are we supposed to want him to be bitten by a werewolf?
• If you made a drinking game where you took a drink every time someone quoted the werewolf poem, you’d probably get alcohol poisoning.
• When looking at his son’s pentagram-shaped wound, Sir John Talbot states, "That scar could be made by almost any animal." And I must ask, exactly what kind of animal in the natural world leaves a pentagram-shaped scar?
• Bela Lugosi’s gypsy transforms into a full dog-like wolf, but Larry transforms into a bipedal “wolf-man” when bitten and no explanation is given for this difference. Was the werewolf bite Larry got not deep enough to result in a full transformation?
• We are told that a werewolf transformation occurs “When the wolf-bane blooms and the autumn moon is bright” but we never do see the Moon in this movie. Maybe it was hiding behind clouds and its diffused rays were what caused Talbot’s half-assed transformations.

 

Who said romance is dead?

The make-up provided for the monster was provided by legendary make-up artist Jack Pierce, whose six-hour job of turning Lon Chaney Jr. into The Wolf Man was truly impressive, but without Chaney’s heart-wrenching performance as the tragically doomed Larry Talbot this film would not be nearly as memorable and if not for Curt Siodmak’s invented script Universal’s The Wolf Man may have become just another Werewolf of London instead of becoming this iconic fountain of ideas to which many future werewolf films were birthed.

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) – Review

It’s hard to believe that at one point in time a sequel to a successful feature film was not a foregone conclusion, hell, these days some franchises refuse to die, yet long before it was fashionable Universal Pictures kicked this concept into overdrive with their series of gothic horror movies and created what today we would call a Cinematic Universe, but what makes Bride of Frankenstein such a unique animal is that it’s a film that is often cited as being better than the original, and how often does that happen?

The funny thing about Bride of Frankenstein is that director James Whale had no interest in helming a sequel to Frankenstein, believing he had "squeezed the idea dry" with the original, but following the success of Whale's The Invisible Man, producer Carl Laemmle, Jr. realized that Whale was the only possible director for Bride and worked his magic to lure the reticent director back for this project and thus history was made. The film does have a rather odd opening, as we are quickly introduced to Percy Shelley (Douglas Walton) and Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon) on a stormy night where we find them praising Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Elsa Lanchester) for her story of Frankenstein and his Monster. I find this structural conceit to be a tad odd, simply for the fact that we have a sequel that opens with characters stating that what we witnessed in the previous film was a fictional story and that this entry is Mary Shelley simply regaling us with further installments of Frankenstein's adventures, stating that “It's a perfect night for mystery and horror. The air itself is filled with monsters.”

 

“I’ll also be playing the part of the Bride.”

Where the original film followed the basic story of a man defying God, with his hubris leading to disaster, the sequel is a much more complex animal and both Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and the Monster (Boris Karloff) are fleshed to a surprising degree, which is not the case in most sequels, in fact, almost everything about this film is grander than the original and much of that is due to the studio actually increasing the budget, something that is rarely done with sequels during this time period, and with the cinematography of John J. Mescall and the art direction of Charles D. Hall one cannot deny that, visually speaking, this is a superior entry but not just of the Frankenstein franchise but of the entire Universal Monsters universe as well, yet it’s James Whale’s artful direction that truly elevated this film far above its contemporaries.

 

“My dear, I believe we have birthed a monster in more ways than one.”

The plot of Bride of Frankenstein takes a few elements from Mary Shelley’s book that didn’t make it into the first film, the creature's encounter with a blind hermit (O.P. Heggie) and its desire for Frankenstein to provide him with a mate were both left out of the first film but pop up here, yet James Whale takes those elements and spins his own bizarre web with the introduction of Frankenstein's former mentor Doctor Septimus Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), who wishes for Henry to help him create a female version of the Monster. It’s the character of Doctor Pretorius who becomes the film’s chief villain, with the Monster either off running amok in the village or later being used as “the stick” to get Frankenstein to go forward with their experiments, wherein the book, it was the Monster who demanded his maker deliver him a mate and then murdered off several members of Frankenstein’s family to help motivate the good doctor, that is not the case here.

 

What’s better than one mad scientist, why two of course!

While Doctor Pretorius tries to cajole Frankenstein into returning to his unorthodox experiments, with blackmail being hinted at, the Monster itself wasn’t having that grand of a time. As if barely surviving being trapped in a burning windmill wasn’t bad enough the creature soon finds himself being chased by an angry torch-bearing mob, again, and though they do manage to briefly capture and incapacitate the Monster he is soon off and running again while leaving death and destruction in its wake.  This is when he runs into the aforementioned blind hermit and the tone of the film takes a dramatic shift, now, in the previous film the Monster was an inarticulate creature that blindly struck out at any perceived threat, but for the sequel, much to the consternation of actor Boris Karloff, who thought the Monster should remain mute, we get a wonderful scene between the creature and this hermit that shows them as two souls simply looking for friendship in a world that has no place for either of them. This empathetic moment is crucial in the development of the Monster as it is the tearing apart of this brief friendship that is the catalyst for the rest of the film, because if he hadn’t had this fleeting moment of solace then he would never have fallen under the influence of Pretorius.

 

The original odd couple.

Aside from Karloff’s more rounded portrayal of the Monster, it is the character of Doctor Pretorius that stands out as one of the key reasons this film is so well remembered as not only is he clearly an analogue of director James Whale, both being outcasts in a world they feel at odds with, but he allows the film to diverge into more of that “dark whimsy” that Whale loves so much. Even Henry Frankenstein finds Pretorius to be a bit much to take, stating that his work is nothing like his own “This isn’t science, this is more like black magic” but when push comes to shove, and with Henry's wife Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson) being kidnapped by the Monster to ensure his cooperation, the movie arrives at its earthshattering climax with the creation and the birth of the Monster’s mate (Elsa Lanchester). Needless to say, things don’t go as planned and it’s fair to say that the Monster doesn’t take rejection all that well.

Note: Despite Elsa Lanchester as the Bride having very little screen time her sharp birdlike movements and angry swanlike hisses, along with Jack Pierce’s amazing make-up and iconic hairdo, have made this character more memorable than the countless monsters that followed.


Stray Observations:

• The deaths at the hands of the Monster are mostly self-defence or accidental but the movie opens with him killing the parents of poor Maria, the little girl he had tossed in the lake to drown in the previous film, and that’s pretty damn cold.
• The way that The Monster easily breaks chains and bashes down prison doors I question how the mob was able to capture him in the first place.
• As much as a love the works of James Whale I fail to understand his love for the comedic stylings of Una O’Connor.
• Dr. Pretorius attempts to blackmail Frankenstein into helping him, by threatening to expose his involvement in the creation of the Monster and thus being culpable for the subsequent deaths, but later two hunters seem well versed in the creature’s origins and Frankenstein’s hand in it.
• Karl, the murderous lab assistant, is played by Dwight Frye who also played Frankenstein’s previous assistant, who died at the hands of the Monster in the previous film, and this makes one wonder if they were supposed to be related.
• Of all the Universal Monsters the Bride is the only one to not have blood on her hands, that is unless you count the breaking of the Monster's heart and his subsequent enraged killing of himself and that of Dr. Pretorius and his Bride.

 

And this is why arranged marriages are never a good idea.

James Whale’s sequel to his own Frankenstein is a cinematic achievement whose impact on Universal Pictures and the horror genre itself cannot be overstated, with its bold cinematography and expressionistic art direction this film is a visual work of genius, and it pulls in the viewer in such a way that you never want to leave this bizarre world of dark shadows and even darker villains. From Boris Karloff’s tortured performance as the Monster to Whale’s dark and twisted storytelling Bride of Frankenstein will forever be known as one of the greatest sequels of all time and one of the best horror films ever made.

The Invisible Man (1933) – Review

Along with Jules Verne, author H.G. Wells is considered by many to be one of the fathers of science fiction, but when looking at The War of the Worlds or The Time Machine it’s clear that though those stories fell under the umbrella of science fiction there were elements of horror as well, from the octopus-like creatures from Mars to the cannibalistic Morlocks the time traveller had to contend with, and thus it should be a surprise to no one that Universal Studios would turn to the works of H.G. Wells to provide more fodder for their growing horror line-up.

James Whale was once again tasked with bringing a literary classic to life and with his adaptation of H.G. Wells's novel The Invisible Man he was not only able to give the world a truly dark and terrifying villain but also a film with an equally dark sense of humour. Like the novel, the movie opens with a heavily clad stranger arriving at a village pub, his face hidden entirely by bandages except for a prosthetic nose, this man is scientist Dr. Jack Griffin (Claude Rains) whose experiments in invisibility have proved successful but have also set him a dark megalomaniacal path. In the book, Griffin’s madness stemmed more from the effect of being cut off from society, not that Griffin was all that stable an individual to begin with, but in the movie, his old boss Dr. Cranley (Henry Travers) reveals that the chemical monocane, a key ingredient to the invisibility formula, was later revealed in an experiment to have driven the subject mad.

Science Note: An invisible person would be completely blind as light would pass right through the retina without resistance, so unless your invisibility was based on a magic ring like in The Hobbit or the Cloak of invisibility in Harry Potter, don’t count on being able to see where you’re going.

One element that is quite visible in this movie, while also being quite absent in the novel, is the love interest of Griffin’s fiancée Flora Cranley, (Gloria Stuart), whose sole purpose seems to be in wringing her hands in distress about her missing fiancé. To quote Carl Denham from the 1933 production of King Kong, the reason for the inclusion of such a character is simple “Because the public, bless 'em, must have a pretty face” and it should be noted that the character of Flora is very similar to that of the fretting fiancée in Frankenstein, James Whale’s previous venture into horror, and this film also tosses in a rival suitor for some rather unnecessary romantic tension, in the form of Dr. Arthur Kemp (William Harrigan), of which a similar character also appeared in Frankenstein. In the book, Kemp was just a former acquaintance from medical school, who Griffin plans to enlist as a secret confederate in his mad plot, describing a plan to use his invisibility to terrorize the nation.  While Kemp serves this purpose in the movie, as well as the forced love triangle, it is rather unnecessary and goes nowhere. In fact, Kemp lives in the book but is brutally murdered in the movie, so once Griffin is killed by the police poor Flora is left with no one.

Effects Note: The practical effects created by John P. Fulton to have objects float about as if being moved by an invisible man are quite impressive, unfortunately, optical effects were still in the early stages and thus scenes depicting empty shirts and pants dancing about were not always effective.

Aside from the very impressive practical effects developed by Fulton what really sells this movie is the performance of then-unknown actor Claude Rains, whose mesmerizing voice is so captivating that we get both a sense of manic madness as well as calculating evil in every dulcet tone, and for an actor whose onscreen performance, sans bandages, can be numbered in seconds, this performance is truly memorable. Speaking of memorable performances, James Whale was a director who loved to lace the darkness of his pictures with a liberal dose of comedy and in this film that came from a wide variety of character actors. most notable of these would be the innkeeper’s wife, played by Una O’Connor, whose shrieking hysterics I personally could have done without.

 

I’d rather poor Kemp had lived, and Griffin had killed her instead.

Stray Observations:

• Kemp states that “He meddled in things men should leave alone” which could practically be a bumper sticker for science fiction films of this period.
• I like that the village constable quickly realizes, “He’s invisible, that’s what’s the matter with him, if he gets the rest of his clothes off, we won’t catch him in a thousand years” which is a fairer depiction of law enforcement than what you usually get in these types of films.
• Griffin is killed because he leaves shoe prints in the snow, but that would have required him to find invisible shoes. We should have seen bare footprints in the snow.
• As monsters, Dracula and Frankenstein may have reached legendary iconic stature but as effective killers, they pale in comparison when put next to the Invisible Man, who in this film has a total body count of 122 victims. Even modern horror icons, like Jason Voorhees, would have a hard time matching that kill count.

 

“In your face, Krueger!”

James Whale’s The Invisible Man may not have had as great of an impact as the likes of Dracula or Frankenstein but when it came to the Golden Age of Horror, it did spawn a fair amount of good sequels and Claude Rains’ depiction of the ultimate murderous madman is still as chilling and gripping today as it was back in 1933, not to mention the fact that this film is still the most faithful adaptation of the H.G. Wells story to date.

The Mummy (1932) – Review

When one thinks of the horror figure of “The Mummy” the image of a shambling figure wrapped in bandages, lurching slowly towards you, is what normally comes to mind - your basic horror monster only easier to escape from - but that wasn’t the case at all back in 1932 when legendary actor Boris Karloff traded in bolts in his neck for Egyptian cotton, because in this film the public was treated to a truly menacing character, one with his own dark agenda.

Riding high on the success of James Whale’s Frankenstein, Universal Pictures were quick to get their latest star Boris Karloff into another horror film as quickly as possible, sequels were yet to become the next big thing so Carl Laemmle Jr. commissioned story editor Richard Schayer to find a novel that was the based on Egyptian-themed horror, hopefully, to capitalize on the public’s interest in Tutankhamun's tomb and the Curse of the Pharaohs, but Thayer found none and it became up to screenwriter John L. Balderston to find the core of what would become The Mummy. What horror fans today may find surprising is the complete lack of the title character shambling around in full Mummy regalia, Boris Karloff’s onscreen time as “The Mummy” is barely a couple of minutes and he’s never seen walking let alone shambling, but the awakening of the mummy, the doomed high priest named Imhotep (Boris Karloff), by a team from the British Museum, led by Sir Joseph Whemple (Arthur Byron) and aided by Egyptian occult expert Dr. Muller (Edward Van Sloan), and it is a truly terrifying moment, so terrifying that the one witness to the event was driven mad.

 

I could see this encounter giving anyone pause.

The movie then jumps ahead ten years to introduce us to the film’s romantic lead in the form of Sir Joseph’s son Frank (David Manners), who has followed in his father’s footsteps with a career in archeology, despite his father’s refusal to return to Egypt after the events of the film’s prologue. We find Frank and his partner Professor Pearson (Leonard Mudie) planning to call the whole expedition off, having found nothing but a few Egyptian trinkets, but before you can say “Get me the Scroll of Thoth” a mysterious Egyptian historian named Ardeth Bey (Boris Karloff) informs them that he has a good idea as to where to find the tomb of the princess Anck-su-namun. The tomb is found, fully intact and loaded with treasures, but the enigmatic Ardeth Bey disappears only to make an appearance later at the Anck-su-namun exhibit at the Cairo Museum. where he seems strangely interested in the mummified remains of the Egyptian princess, much to the consternation of Sir Joseph and his son.

 

“Now see here, don’t give me any of that lost reincarnated love stuff.”

An astute viewer should have no problem noticing certain similarities to Tod Browning’s Dracula, which also had John L. Balderston as a screenwriter, as we not only have an undead villain using mind control to enthrall a beautiful woman, and in this case, it is Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann) a half-Egyptian woman who turns out to be the reincarnated Princess Anck-su-namun, and Edward Van Sloan’s portrayal of Egyptian occult expert Doctor Muller is only one step away from his depiction of Doctor Van Helsing in Dracula. Ardeth Bey wants to turn Helen into a living dead, like himself, which is exactly what Dracula had planned for poor Mina Seward.  Now, the biggest difference is the fact that neither Dr. Muller nor the film’s male protagonist, the excessively bland Frank Whemple, saves the day because in the end Helen is actually spared her sacrificial fate by the intervention of goddess Isis, whose statue strikes down Ardeth Bey and turns him to dust.

 

A very literal Deus ex machina, if you will.

Stray Observations:

• The placard in the Cairo Museum for the exhibit of Princess Anck-su-namun states that “All objects in this room are from her unplundered tomb” it should have actually stated, “Unplundered until the British got their grubby hands on it.”
• That Ardeth Bey can command Sir Joseph’s Nubian servant simply because he is a descendant of a race that was once enslaved by the Egyptians is just a tad racist.
• Ardeth Bey has a scrying pool so that he can spy on Sir Joseph and locate the Scroll of Toth, a device dating back to ancient Egypt and Persia, a pool that provides hi-def pictures and even utilizes modern editing techniques.
• The villainous Mummy predates Christianity by a considerable amount of time, thus a Christian cross won’t work as it would with vampires, so Dr. Muller provides our hero with an amulet of Isis for protection against the dark forces.
• The idea of ancient evil finding a “modern” woman who turns out to be his reincarnated love was later adopted by Francis Ford Coppola for his take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

 

“Did I mention I crossed oceans of time for you?”

While the film’s plot has more than a few passing similarities to Tod Browning’s Dracula one can’t help but admire the work Boris Karloff put into this character to pull off what was both a sympathetic and terrifying antagonist, having been mummified alive for trying to revive his dead love he kills everyone who gets in the way of his bringing back his lost love, which just so happens to involve the brutal murder of her current incarnation. True love is a bit dark and nasty here. Then there is the impressive make-up provided by Universal’s monster maker Jack Pierce whose work really shines here and even though Karloff in full Mummy make-up is all but too brief the look of Ardeth Bey’s dried papyrus skin is even more effective in my opinion and downright frightening at times.

It should be noted that those images of mummies shambling across the moors actually stem from the many sequels that followed, none of which include the character of Imhotep, nor do those sequels star Boris Karloff and as fun and entertaining as those follow-up films were they never quite captured the horror or pathos of the original film, one that was expertly helmed by Dracula cinematographer turned director Karl Freund. Universal’s The Mummy stands out as one of the more interesting “tragic love stories” in the Universal Monster Canon, with Karloff once again being the most charismatic and interesting character on screen and it’s a shame that he never returned to the role, surely being turned to dust couldn’t possibly stop the likes of Karloff the Uncanny.