The next installment in this series is what I consider to be one of the very best horror films ever made: The Bride of Frankenstein.
I also want to mention that I have taught this novel, Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus several times at both Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA and the Department of Graduate and Continuing Education at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA.
It is also interesting that the sequel The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) to Universal Studio’s Frankenstein (1931) is a far better film and more faithful adaptation to Mary Shelley’s classic Gothic novel than was the original movie. James Whale directed and Carl Laemmle Jr. produced this film.
(Richard Rothwell, 1840)
The movie opens with a sequence in which Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley appear, which is a nod to the summer of 1816 in which the three writers shared time together and decided to writer ghost stories. Mary Shelley’s contribution was a short story about a young doctor who reanimated a corpse, and which she later expanded into the famous and deeply important novel. In this scene, Mary explains that the story did not end, as shown in the first movie, with the death of the creature in the burning windmill.
Whale imbues this film with both highly religious symbolism, as when the creature is captured and tied to what looks like a crucifix and to references to important sections from the book. The creature famously finds a friend in the blind man, who is able to befriend the creature because he cannot see his deformities. This is a clear reference to stereotyping and bigotry.
In the novel, the Creature demands that Frankenstein create a mate for him, so that his loneliness can be alleviated. In this film, Elsa Lancaster, who also plays Mary Shelley in the opening scene, plays the bride. But as would be expected, it does not go well when she rejects the Creature’s advances, and he says the powerful line, “We belong dead.”
As with Frankenstein, there is a heavy influence of German Expressionism in the cinematography.
Jack Pierce again did the famous makeups, and Boris Karloff starred again as the Creature.
(https://commons.wikimedia.org)
This movie was successful financially and critically. It is, in my opinion, a cinematic masterpiece!
If any of you have interest either in horror or cinema, this is a film that you should see.
The movie that I will discuss in this installment is Frankenstein. This 1931 film was directed by James Whale and produced by Carl Laemelle, Jr. Universal Studios was following up its huge success with Dracula earlier in the year, so this film seemed like a natural choice to make.
While the title and characters come from the 1818 Mary Shelley novel, it is a loose adaptation of the text. Interestingly, the sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein, is a much more faithful treatment of the novel than this first film. This movie, one of the most important in horror film history, introduces Boris Karloff as the Creature. Karloff gives an impressive performance as the lost and lonely being who is unsure of who he is and his place in the world. This sounds like so many teenagers and young people, and while frightening, Karloff also gathered empathy from viewers in his nuanced performance.
Bela Lugosi had been offered the part of the creature but apparently turned it down because of its lack of speaking lines. Lugosi made a terrible career choice, because Karloff would supplant him after this film’s success as the top box office star and would continue to dominate Lugosi’s subsequent film career.
The movie is powerful and atmospheric and is highly influenced by the artistic movement German Expressionism that had a stylistic impact on cinema especially in the 1920s and 1930s. Whale used large Gothic structures in the set and deep slashing shadows in creating the atmosphere of the film.
Jack Pierce designed the Creature’s distinctive makeup, which was an ordeal to apply and remove from Boris Karloff each day before and after filming. It is a work of design masterpiece, but it is completely different from the Creature’s appearance in the novel.
For those familiar with the novel, it is significant that not only the Creature’s appearance but also his personality and level of intelligence are vastly different from that of the character from the book. In Mary Shelley’s work, the creature is one of the narrators and is both intelligent and self-educated. Both of those characteristics are missing from the inarticulate and not very bright film Creature. This kind of vastly different portrayal of characters and themes is something that is, unfortunately, typical of many horror films, or should I say, many film adaptations of books. That, however, should be the topic of another post.
The film was very successful financially for Universal Studios. It is also considered by many cinema historians and critics to be one of the most important films made. It spawned numerous sequels and parodies, not limited to movies. From Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein to the character of Herman Munster in The Munsters to Young Frankenstein, the story of Victor Frankenstein and his creation have been fertile ground for satire and spoofing.
If you have not seen Frankenstein, then you should. I recommend it highly.
I am very proud to host this post for the newly released anthology, Distant Flickers featuring 8 excellent authors. Please check out this excellent book!
~ 8 Accomplished Authors
~ 10 Memorable Stories
~ Compelling Characters at a Crossroads
~ What Choices Will They Make?
The emotive stories in this anthology take readers to the streets of New York and San Francisco, to warm east coast beaches, rural Idaho, and Italy, from the early 1900s, through the 1970s, and into present day.
A sinister woman accustomed to getting everything she wants. A down-on-his luck cook who stumbles on goodness. A young mother who hides $10 she received from a stranger. The boy who collects secrets. A young woman stuck between youth and adulthood. Children who can’t understand why their mother disappears.
The distinct and varied characters in Distant Flickers stand at a juncture. The loss of a spouse, a parent, a child, oneself. Whether they arrived at this place through self-reflection, unexpected change, or new revelations—each one has a choice to make.
Title: Distant Flickers: Stories of Identity & Loss
Genre: Short Story Anthology
Universal Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/-distantflickers?format=all
Link: https://vimeo.com/751438828
Link: https://vimeo.com/753604128/2839b7b9e4
Opening Paragraph
“Idaho Dreams”
by Joyce Yarrow
Cora would never have admitted this to Damien, but there were times when she missed Seattle so much that traces of salt air flowed through her nostrils and she heard a faint ferry horn in the distance. On such mornings the interminable blue sky of Idaho threatened to drive her mad and she was haunted by the blurred faces of old friends. Oh, to be able to return to bygone haunts like the Zeitgeist Cafe, where she took breaks from teaching aerobics at the fitness center near King Station.
Excerpt:
Opening Paragraph
“Idaho Dreams”
by Joyce Yarrow
Cora would never have admitted this to Damien, but there were times when she missed Seattle so much that traces of salt air flowed through her nostrils and she heard a faint ferry horn in the distance. On such mornings the interminable blue sky of Idaho threatened to drive her mad and she was haunted by the blurred faces of old friends. Oh, to be able to return to bygone haunts like the Zeitgeist Cafe, where she took breaks from teaching aerobics at the fitness center near King Station.
(www.wikipedia.org)
When I first considered doing an examination of my favorite horror movies, I thought that going decade by decade would be sufficient, but I realized that some periods have far more excellent films than others. A simple examination of 2-4 movies from the 1930s will not work, so I am going to look at one film at a time for that decade. I will begin with Dracula, a film I love, and which I have taught in college classes such as Literature and Film and Gothic and Horror at both Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA and Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. I also hold the novel to be an excellent and very important book.
Dracula, made in 1931, and released for Valentine’s Day–a nice touch–was a huge success and established Bela Lugosi as a top box office star. This production was itself based on the very successful theatrical play Dracula by Hamilton Deane and James Balderston. Stoker’s novel did not see great success during his life, but after his death and the success of the play, it became one of the best selling novels of the 20th Century–worldwide.
Carl Laemmle Jr, capitalized on the story’s growing popularity and produced the movie. Tod Browning, who had directed Lon Chaney Sr. in several movies, directed this piece. This film is highly atmospheric with a Gothic set and influenced by German Expressionism. Lugosi was brilliant with his authentic Hungarian accent and menacing presence. His performance and voice set the standard for the image of Dracula and vampires for decades to come. Dracula was a sensation and terrified people; today’s audience would probably find it slow and not at all frightening, but that reflects our jaded views that have been glutted with gore as the staple ingredient of contemporary horror. This film depended on story telling, atmosphere, and acting. The film’s success created an era of classic horror films through the 1930s and part of the 1940s with Universal studios leading the way.
Additionally, Dracula is generally accepted by most film critics as one of the best horror films made. I certainly consider it to be one of the best and most important.
It is an interesting and little known detail of film history that in addition to the English language version, Universal also made a Spanish language film at the same time. The two films shared the same sets, and the same basic scripts, but with different actors and a different director: George Melford directed, and Carlos Villarías stared as Dracula. While not as well known, an argument can be made that this is a better film than the more established English language version. If you ever have the opportunity to see it, I recommend that you do.
In this post, I will continue my series on favorite horror films, now focusing specifically on movies of the 1920s.
Another brilliant horror movie of the 1920s is Robert Weine’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari — The German title is Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari — (1920). The plot of the film centers on a mad scientist, Dr. Caligari, a hypnotist, played by Werner Krauss, who exploits a sleepwalker, Cesare, played by Conrad Veidt, to commit murder. It is one of the earliest horror movies and ushers in a decade of greatness in film-making, especially in German cinema.
(http://cinewiki.wikispaces.com)
The true power of the film is in its cinematic style, that of German Expressionism, which is based on the artistic movement of the same name. German Expressionism uses sharp angles, deep shadows, heavy use of darks and lights, and distorted forms to explore the psychological impact of visual images. In this art, the world is often not as it seems to be, and the artists explore distortions that lurk under the surface of apparent normalcy. What is perceived is often deeply disturbing and challenging.
“The Prophet” Woodcut by Emil Nolde: 1912
Weine employs these revolutionary cinematic techniques to disorient, frighten, and interrogate the audience. Cesare is a common man, forced by an arrogant authority to become a murderer, which is clearly a commentary on the dark forces at play in Europe in the early parts of the 20th Century, some suggested by contemporary writers. As Weine suggests, the mass of people in Europe would, in the coming decades, be manipulated into creating the horror of Nazism and the Holocaust. I am not claiming that Weine somehow could see into the future, but that he perceived the traumas occurring in Europe, and those distortions appear in his film. Like Weine, other writers, such as Franz Kafka, also saw such coming disturbances.
While only some of Franz Kafka’s brilliant and disturbing literary works had been published at this point–“Metamorphosis” (1915)– is the best example, Kafka’s treatment of the darkness and alienation in society could be an influence on this movie. While it is not certain, I believe it is the case. Regardless of if this is true or not, Weine creates a deeply disturbing movie, one that maintains its power to this day, one that I recommend for all lovers of film.
October is one of my favorite months of the year for several reasons: it is the true beginning of Autumn weather, my birthday is this month, and so is my favorite holiday–Halloween!
This month, I will do two series that fit well with the spirit of Halloween: favorite Horror movies and favorite Horror novels! I will have already begun horror novels, so now it is time for horror movies.
I have been a fan of horror movies since I was a child. I grew up watching Universal movies from the 1930s and 1940s being shown on various themed TV shows with horror hosts. As an adult, my love for these films has not waned; in fact, it has grown and helped to feed my scholarly interest in film. I use these films in some of the classes I teach in college, both at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA and Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.
Several films, in particular, stand out to me from the 1920s. Two starred Lon Chaney Sr., the Man of a Thousand Faces, and were made by Universal Studios.
The first film is The Hunchback of Notre Dame, (1923) based on the Victor Hugo novel, and it is an extraordinary piece of cinema that stands up today. It was a very expensive production at the time. Estimates range in the $1,250,000 to $1,500,000 range. Given the year, that is a huge sum of money.
The movie accurately reflects Hugo’s examination of the capacity of human beings to be intensely cruel to each other and of the abuse of power by those in positions of authority. This film is a critique of the misuse of power by those in authority, the capacity of humanity to be cruel, and of unquestioning acceptance of the order of the day. It is a piece of art whose message still resonates today, nearly one hundred years after it was made.
Wallace Worsley directed the film, and Lon Chaney Sr. gave a magnificent performance as Quasimodo. It is also important to remember that Mr. Chaney created all of his own makeups. If all you know of this story is the Disney version, you need to see this production. I would consider it one of the best and most important films ever made.
The second film with Lon Chaney Sr. is The Phantom Of The Opera, and I will cover that movie in another post.
I have ready many books over the course of my life, and books have become a central part of who I am. I read books for pleasure, for study, and for examination. I teach books in my literature classes at Lehigh University and Muhlenberg College, I write about them in scholarly work, and I write novels. As I was considering the topic for this post about Gothic and Horror novels, I knew almost immediately which book I should begin with.
I have spoken of Dracula before in a series about books that have influenced me the most, but in this series, I will focus on those that are Gothic and Horror, which is fitting, given the upcoming holiday of Halloween.
So many come to mind and are possibilities for discussion; among these novels are Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Carmilla, The Shining, Interview With The Vampire, and many others. I hope to cover these and other books during this series.
Today, I will focus on Dracula and what its influence on me was and is. This was one of the first Gothic novels I had read, and its power caught me immediately. I was a youngster, probably 12 years old, when I first read this novel, and I was drawn to the images of dark castles, terrible villains, and the supernatural. This book helped to set me on a path both of study and writing from that point to today. That I love Gothic is still clear, because not only do I teach Gothic literature, but also I write it.
Dracula, however, had a much deeper impact on me that simply the horror aspect; I was drawn to the idea of the need for good people to oppose evil. It is a theme that, on the surface, might seem simplistic, but a person need only look at the history of the 20th Century into our contemporary time to see that evil does exist, especially in the form of people who would oppress, torment, exclude, and bully others. Of course, I am not making an argument that the supernatural evil in this novel exists, but that human evil certainly does. The Nazis demonstrated that human horror in its full capacity, and Putin continues to show that face of human evil.
In this book, a fellowship of human beings is created, and they decide to fight a creature, an ancient vampire, that is far more powerful than anything they could have imagined, and they do so at the risk of their lives. This act of defending others, even if the people do the battle are put at risk, became a central part of my ethos. There will always be those who would bully and oppress others, and they must always be opposed. While in early high school, Dracula helped to form that idea in my mind.
Dracula is a far more complex book than many in the academic world give it credit for being, and it is one that I recommend highly. If you have not yet read Stoker’s brilliant book and you love horror, then you should read it!
Are there any horror novels that you love? I would certainly enjoy hearing from you.
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