Monthly Archives: October 2023

The Raven
Directed by Lou Landers
David Boehm “based on a poem by Edgar Allan Poe”
1935/US
Universal Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Dr. Richard Vollin: Torture waiting… waiting. It will be sweet, Judge Thatcher!

Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff team up for an enjoyable entry in the Universal horror pictures of this era.

Lugosi plays evil doctor Richard Vollin who is obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe, torture and death. Edmund Bateman (Karloff) who doesn’t appear until midway through, is a murderer who wants Vollin to give him a new face but becomes his unwilling dupe. When Lugosi becomes obsessed with a judge’s young daughter, things get really complicated.

Universal followed its successful pairing of Lugosi and Karloff in The Black Cat (1934) with this film. Karloff is very good as always and Lugosi hams it up until his character is scarier than Dracula’s. Always fun to see these two icons play off each other.

Like in Roger Corman’s The Raven (1963) this film doesn’t have anything to do with Poe’s poem other than that a character recites a stanza or two once in awhile. This version with Vincent Price, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre is also a lot of fun.

Fan trailer

Mystery of the Wax Museum
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Don Mullaly and Karl Erickson
1933/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Florence: [to her boss] I’m gonna make you eat dirt, you soap bubble, I’m gonna make you beg for somebody to help you let go. You may mean the world to your mother but you’re a…
[walks away without finishing her sentence]

I usually think comedy horror movies of the classic era fail but Michael Curtiz manages to pull off a movie that is both funny and scary.

Lionel Atwill plays a brilliant sculptor in wax who takes pride in his life-like creations. He’s not making money though and his evil business partner decides to start a fire for the insurance money. Poor Lionel is inside and the wax figures are all destroyed.

Segue to London and Lionel is trying to recreate his wax museum. His hands do not function however. Simultaneously, there is a string of murders and morgue robberies. Fay Wray plays a woman who greatly resembles Lionel’s Marie Antoinette. Glenda Farrell is Fay’s hot-shot reporter roommate who’s onto a hot story here.   Frank McHugh plays Glenda’s editor.

Made in two-strip Technicolor, this is a really fun movie. My favorite parts involved Farrell and McHugh.

It’s the same story as “House of Wax” with Vincent Price, which I might just have to revisit next.

Thirteen Women
Directed by George Archinbaud
Written by Bartlett Cormack and Samuel Ornitz
1932/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Police Sergeant Barry Clive: We want this woman. Her name’s Ursula Georgi. Half-breed type. Half Hindu, half Javanese, I don’t know. She’s living right here in this town. I want you to find her. Check every move she makes.
Mike – the Detective: There are one million, two hundred and thirty-eight thousand and forty-eight people in Los Angeles, and you want only one woman? Cinch!

Carrying on with my Pre-Code horror series with this one. It’s actually more of a thriller – with few thrills.

Myrna Loy, who was still in her exotic vixen phase at the time, plays Ursula Georgi, a half-caste with hypnotic powers. She manipulates her swami astrologist lover into making dire predictions of the fates of twelve women. Predictions that all come true. With Irene Dunne as the most sensible of the woman and Ricardo Cortez as a detective.

I always enjoy watching these stars but the film isn’t anything I will go back to.

Actress Peg Entwistle jumped off the H in the Hollywood sign to her death two days after this film’s release, making her the first person to do so.

Island of Lost Souls
Directed by Earle C. Kenton
Written by Waldemar Young and Philip Wylie from a novel by H.G. Wells
1932/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Dr. Moreau: Mr. Parker, do you know what it means to feel like God?

This Pre-Code classic gives the Universal monster films a run for their money and wins.

Sailor Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) had been on his way to Apia to meet his fiancée (Leila Hyams).  He was then washed overboard and picked up by a cargo boat carrying both animals and deformed humans to an uncharted island.  Parker gets in a dispute within the captain and is thrown overboard onto the waiting skiff on the cargo’s owner Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton).

The good doctor is not too happy to have a witness to his gastly experiments with evolution in the House of Pain.  He gets a fiendish idea linking Arlen and the most advanced of his creations and the story gets even scarier.  With an unrecognizable Bela Lugosi as the Sayer of the Law (“Are we not men?”).

This is a true horror classic with a timeless performance by Charles Laughton as the sadistic and polymorphously perverse Dr. Moreau. Also features an unrecognizable Bela Lugosi as The Sayer of the Law. This the kind of movie that asks you to imagine the worst and it is both horrifying and icky.  I’m quite sure it could not have been made after the enforcement of the Code.  Recommended.

Missing title track

The Old Dark House
Directed by James Whale
Written by Benn W. Levy from a novel by J.B. Priestley
1932/US
IMDb page
Universal Pictures
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Rebecca Femm: No beds! They can’t have beds!
Horace Femm: As my sister hints, there are, I’m afraid, no beds.

James Whale was definitely on a winning streak.

A group of travelers is forced to take shelter in a terrible storm and finds themselves in the title abode among the strangest family imaginable. With a boffo cast including: Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Melvyn Douglas, Ernest Thesinger, Raymond Massey, Gloria Stewart, Lillian Bond, and Eva Moore.

I adore this movie! It is just the perfect amalgam of thrills and wit. The screenplay and all the performances are spot on. Have a potato! The Criterion Channel is featuring a Pre-Code Horror collection this month and there are some great selections to dip into.  This film is also available for free on YouTube.