Happy Halloween: Hell's Bells from Silly Symphonies (1929)

TCM Movie: "Mark of the Vampire" (1935)

"Mark of the Vampire" (1935) was the first Tod Browning remake that involved the man himself. Five years earlier, MGM producer Irving Thalberg called for a remake of "The Unholy Three" (1925) which had been the second film out of the ten Browning made with star Lon Chaney. Chaney reprised his role as Professor Echo but was directed by Jack Conway before passing away of a throat hemorrhage seven weeks after its release. But Thalberg wanted to capitalize on MGM's contribution to horror in the style of Universal's "Dracula," so he handed the project over to writers Guy Endore and Bernard Schubert. This time, Browning would return from Universal to redirect his own film, but without the man who he worked so well with. Makeup artist Bill Tuttle remembered "if the crew didn't do something right, Browning would grumble: 'Mr Chaney would have done it better." (Bojarski. The Films of Bela Lugosi. 1980)

But the ensemble, including Chaney's previous star in "Dracula" Bela Lugosi and Lugosi's onstage protege Carroll Borland, were completely in the dark when it came to the ending of the film they were shooting. Browning withheld the ending for as long as he could. "When [Borland] and Bela found out on "The last day" that they were only playing actors, they were disappointed. Both found it "absurd"[...] The last pages inserted into the final shooting script, dated January 18, seem to prove that the cop-out conclusion was not revealed until the end of the production." (Lennig. The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi. 2010) Browning even rejected an alternate ending with an additional Endore and/or Schubert even offered where Lionel Barrymore's Professor Zelin receives a telegram from the vaudeville actors apologizing for not making their train on time for the castle assignment.

"Mark of the Vampire" finished shooting mid February 1935 but wasn't released until late April. 15 or 20 minutes were mysteriously cut. Even a few deleted scenes involved "large South American bats" which a contemporary New York Times news item pointed out that the government ordered the deportation or killing of after the film was finished. The "old crone" (Jessie Ralph) is scared off by a bat in the cemetery before returning to her "tumbledown, weather-beaten shack" where she abuses her "thin... albino daughter" for letting her cauldron of herbs burn too long. In another scene, Barrymore's Professor Zelin examines a sleeping bat that might be a vampire. "He straightens up and brings his head on a level with the bat -- stands there, studying it... Slowly the little beady eyes of the bat open -- and stare at the Professor ... he stares back at the bat ... its eyes blazing ... The pupils of his eyes dilate -- then grow filmy. Slowly his head moves forward -- nearer the bat ... The Professor's face draws slowly closer and closer -- as if drawn by some hypnotic power ... Professor: 'I wish I knew! Could it be!'"

Browning's newest vampire film was released April 26, 1935, earning a profit of $54,000. Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times moralized "let it be enough merely to add that, for all its inconsistencies, "Mark of the Vampire" should catch the beholder's attention and hold it, through chills and thrills, right up to the moment when the mystery of the vampires of Visoka is solved. Like most ghost stories, it's a lot of fun, even though you don't believe a word of it." The Motion Picture Herald lauded "This is a picture which should give the 'horror' fans all they want. It's full of shrieks and screams, gasps and shudders. The stuff commonly supposed to change red blood to ice water starts right at the beginning; a little slowly, perhaps, as the explanatory groundwork is being laid.

Nearly a month later, Dr. William J. Robinson wrote into the New York Times with "a dozen of the worst obscene pictures cannot equal the damage that is done by such films as The Mark of the Vampire. I do not refer to the senselessness of the picture. I do not even refer to the effect in spreading and fostering the most obnoxious superstitions. I refer to the terrible effect that it has on the mental and nervous systems of not only unstable, but even normal men, women and children. I am not speaking in the abstract; I am basing myself on facts. Several people have come to my notice who, after seeing that horrible picture, suffered nervous shock, were attacked with insomnia, and those who did fall asleep were tortured by the most horrible nightmares. In my opinion, it is a crime to produce and to present such films. We must guard not only our people's morals -- we must be as careful with their physical and mental health."


 

"Mark of the Vampire" will be shown on TCM at 1:15 AM CST/2:15 AM EST

#FridayShort #HalloweenEdition Cobweb Hotel (1936)

#WomanEmpowermentWednesday #HalloweenEdition Ardel Wray

Ardel Wray was born on October 28th, 1907 in Spokane, Washington to two stock theater actors who separated when she was young. She spent most of her childhood living with her maternal grandparents while mother, actress Virginia Brissac (best known playing James Dean's grandmother in "Rebel Without a Cause"), worked. Ardel came to live with Brissac and her new husband, director John Griffith Wray, once settling in Los Angeles in 1915. After a few odd jobs after high school, including being a model for costume designer Howard Greer and trying then dropping out of the University of California, Wray worked as a staff writer for Carl Laemmle Jr at Universal. From Universal, Wray moved to the story department at Warner Bros then Fox in 1936 then ended up settling at RKO in 1938. 

Wray would help with RKO's Young Writers' Project, which was designed to identify and cultivate talent at the studio. It's possible that producer Val Lewton found Wray through the project or through editor and eventual director Mark Robson. Her first assignment was to deliver a "workable script" about zombies. Wray was inspired by a story written by Ohio journalist Inez Wallace which would end up becoming "I Walked With a Zombie." It would be her most famous contribution. Outside of writing many of Lewton's films including "Bedlam" and "The Isle of the Dead," Wray also wrote the seventh installment of the Falcon detective series and an unfortunately shelved but original Blackbeard A-movie. 

When she signed a contract with Paramount in the beginnings of the McCarthy era, she was asked into an office and asked to point to names on a list of communist sympathizers, Wray declined and her credit on "Bride of Vengeance" (1949) was removed and she was released from her contract. According to her estate records and family history, she "described the person she met with as nervous and "obviously embarrassed" [...] at one point offering whispered advice that "They've already been named, dear - you won't be hurting anyone." She wouldn't be pointing a finger to a name she didn't know and her relationship with Dalton Trumbo was over a decade old and possibly generated by gossip. She was put on the "graylist," ruined her relationship with her mother, and lost her career in movies for 12 years until starting to write for television. To support her daughter, Wray fact-checked and novelized films for newspapers and was a reader in various studio story departments. Wray was forced to retire after her eyesight started to fail and after cataract surgery and recovery, she officially retired in 1972. She would pass away of breast cancer on October 14, 1983 and Wray's ashes were scattered at sea. 

#ManCrushMonday #MemorableSupportingActor #HalloweenEdition Dwight Frye

Dwight Frye was best known as a comic actor on stage and the silent screen before being nicknamed as "The Man with the Thousand-Watt Stare" and "The Man of a Thousand Deaths" with his portrayals as madmen in horror movies. He is best known as the insane Renfield in Tod Browning's "Dracula" (1931).

Frye was born in 1899 in Salina, Kansas to farmers, but with their surname spelled without an "e," and moved to Denver Colorado at a young age. At age 9, Frye had ambitions to be a concert pianist, having started playing at a young age until having been bit by the bug when he performed in his high school theater production of "The Honeymoon." To soothe his highly religious parents' nerves of his acting ambitions after having graduated, Frye worked at a business firm while being trained by Douglas Fairbanks's acting teacher Margaret Fealy. Fealy gave him a leg into the business by contacting Denver's Denim Stock Company's manager and he was immediately hired. His first role was in "The Man from Mexico" in June 16, 1918 and toured until he found himself in New York doing Vaudeville. Frye joined the Colonial Theater Troupe in 1922 which gained him a Broadway contract and eventually on the list of the 10 Best Stars of Broadway. In 1925's "Puppet," Frye performed his first villainous role and was considered to be one of the first to unconsciously use Method acting.

Hollywood didn't come calling, but Frye moved to Los Angeles after the stock market crashed and started in the theater instead. The decision paid off and he received his first screen credit in 1930's "The Doorway to Hell." He would be cast as the realtor-turned-madman "Renfield" in "Dracula" (1931) which he immediately sank his Method teeth into. The success of the film led to even more character roles in "The Maltese Falcon" (1931) and "Frankenstein," where he played a hunchbacked assistant to the doctor. He continued to do theater in New York and touring the East Coast while coming back to Hollywood for his already typecasted character actor career which wore on him considerably. His character Karl in "Bride of Frankenstein" had less screen time due to edits for the running time and the budding production code. With "Son of Frankenstein," Frye's small part was completely cut, having to resort to a night job as a tool designer at the Douglas aircraft company to make ends meet. His last horror film was "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman" (1943). In 1943, Frye was able to pick up a role as Woodrow Wilson's secretary of war in Fox's color biopic "Wilson," but had a heart attack in a bus aisle after taking his family to a double-bill show of "A Lady Takes a Chance" and "Sherlock Holmes Faces Death" at the Pantages Theater on November 7, 1943. Frye passed away just before getting to the hospital at the age of 44. On his death certificate, his occupation was listed as a tool designer.


Links to Check Out
Dwight Frye | Stuff You Missed in History Class

Deathmatch: "The Wolf Man" (1941) vs. "Werewolf of London" (1935)

History

Assistant producer Robert Harris had an idea. 4 years after 1931's "Daughter of the Dragon" which he barely got a listed credit for, there had to be a sales pitch he could sell to Universal in order to be hired. There had not been many movies about werewolves except for Universal's attempt at the indigenous legends in the 1913 silent "The Werewolf" which had gone up in flames during the 1924 East Coast Vault fire. Whether Harris may or may not have known about the Henry McRae silent, there was a decent chance that a lot of the popular myths of the Universal monster had been decided on either during his job interview or once screenwriter John Colton started writing the script.

What ended up becoming "Werewolf of London" built its legs on the made-up folklore that lycanthropy can be transmitted by a bite or scratch as well as the fact that a victim can involuntarily be transformed under the full moon. Before, many legends suggested a person could become a werewolf through being cursed or making a pact with the devil. But Colton wrote a solid screenplay and the heavy hitters of horror were immediately considered. But Bela Lugosi was in the middle of shooting "Mark of the Vampire" (1935) and Karloff was already scheduled to shoot "The Bride of Frankenstein" (1935). Thankfully, Harris was able to take from his "Daughter of the Dragon" cast and hired Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan himself. Warner Oland was hired to play the mysterious Dr. Yogami for $12,000 a week. Stage and film veteran Henry Hull would be cast as the Dr. Wilfred Glendon instead of Karloff and was reunited with his "Great Expectations" director Stuart Walker and makeup artist Jack Pierce. Hull ended up being paid $250 more than Karloff, who was making $2500 for the first Universal sequel.

Left: Preliminary Jack Pierce Makeup on Henry Hull
Right: Final Makeup for Hull by Jack Pierce

As a stage actor of the early 1900s, Hull was no stranger to applying his own makeup and had known Jack Pierce's work, considering it a little more outlandish for his tastes. "The makeup Pierce planned resembled his later "Wolf Man" design for Lon Chaney Jr. Henry felt, with such extreme makeup, the audience would not be able to make the connection of the doctor, as the werewolf. Pierce refused to alter his concept for the transformation. Since Henry felt strongly about this "Jekyll & Hyde" style performance, he met with Universal president, Carl Laemmle. A memo from Laemmle to Pierce confirmed the makeup was to be toned down. The "widow's peak" hairline was Hull's idea and gave the creature a more demonic look. Jack Pierce's pride was injured. The makeup artist did not want any photos taken of him making up Henry as the "Werewolf of London." (HENRY HULL AND JOSTEPHINE HuLL IT'S IN THE BLOOD!) Sound mixing also blended Hull's own howl with the sound of an actual timber wolf which was never used in any other werewolf movie since.

"Werewolf of London" premiered May 13th, 1935 at the Rialto Theater a week before it was demolished. Maybe it came out too soon after Rouben Mamoulian's explosive box office hit "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1931) and "Werewolf" flopped at the box office. "In the vein of "The Invisible Man,"" wrote Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times, "the picture races along in its presentation of the tragic spectacle [...] Designed solely to amaze and horrify, the film goes about its task with commendable thoroughness, sparing no grisly detail and springing from scene to scene with even greater ease [...] Granting that the central idea has been used before, the picture still rates the attention of action-and-horror enthusiasts."

While Robert Florey was directing "The Murders of the Rue Morgue" (1932), he wrote a treatment entitled "The Wolf-Man." Barely influenced by the 1913 silent, this werewolf tale was about Kristoff who was stolen when he was young and suckled by a she-wolf in the Perollean Alps. When he grows up, Kristoff ends up becoming a werewolf. Florey had hoped Boris Karloff could star in the film, but pre-code Universal was concerned about the scene where Kristoff transforms while in a church confessional worrying that it would upset Catholics. The treatment was completely abandoned until Universal asked Curt Siodmak to write something completely new. According to Siodmak, "I was given the title and a deadline: seven weeks for the screenplay." ("The Wolf Man": Universal's King Beast - Force Fed Pollution)

Siodmak happily researched European werewolf myths that "Werewolf in London" had missed, also taking the opportunity to interjecting the psychological aspects of Freudian theory he was already learning for himself into his script. But his first draft, known as "The Larry Gill Script," was incredibly different than what ended up becoming Lon Chaney Jr.'s vehicle. Instead, the American Larry Gill comes to Wales to install Sir John's new telescope with no connections to the town or the people. This draft was much more psychological in never showing the transformations, but switching to a first person POV through the camera and seeing everything through his eyes.

What was originally titled "Destiny" began shooting on October 27, 1941 and wrapped November 25th of the same year. Jack Pierce was finally able to use his preliminary Hull makeup on the child of horror royalty, Lon Chaney Jr. "The [transformation] scene was shot with three separate cameras that were in a triangle pointed to Chaney. A head rest was placed behind Chaney to stabilize his head. In front of each of the cameras was a piece of frosted glass. For each scene, Pierce would put down makeup and then an artist would draw an outline of Chaney's head. After the cameras took their shot, Chaney would be allowed to move around while the crew adjusted. When they came back, the cameras would line up Chaney's head to match the outlines on the frosted glass, Pierce would make his adjustment, the cameras would take their shot and the outlines would be changed. This would go on until the entire sequence was filmed." But for all the effort in the transformation scenes and the early mornings, the actor and his makeup artist did not like one another that much.

Art director Robert Boyle created the forest scenes with trees and stumps found on Universal's back lot, which were painted black and coated with glycerin. "When they filmed different scenes, the crew would simply move the trees and stumps around and film from a different angle." But the fog was a problem all by itself, being a thick smelly substance that cast and crew found it difficult to breathe around. Evelyn Ankers had completely passed out when out of shot when they filmed the ending scenes.

"The Wolf Man" premiered December 9, 1941 in Los Angeles and opened across the United States three days later. The film critics were ruthless and unforgiving, but the numbers at the box office said differently raking in over a million even in the days following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. "The Wolf Man is a compactly-knit tale of its own kind," Variety attempted diplomatically, "with good direction and performances by an above par assemblage of players, but dubious entertainment. [...] Young Chaney gives a competent performance both straight and under makeup for the dual role." T.S. from The New York Times was just as cynical. "Perhaps in deference to a Grade-B budget it has tried to make a little go a long way, and it has concealed most of that little in a deep layer of fog. And out of that fog, from time to time, Lon Chaney Jr. appears vaguely, bays hungrily, and skips back into mufti. Offhand, though we never did get a really good look, we'd say that most of the budget was spent on Mr. Chaney's face, which is rather terrifying, resembling as it does a sort of Mr. Hyde badly in need of a shave."

"Whoever is bitten by a werewolf and lives becomes a werewolf... Instinctively seek [ing] to kill the thing he loves best"

"Werewolf of London" begins in Tibet, where botanist Wilfred Glendon is attacked while on the hunt for the mariphasa plant. Thankfully, he gets his specimen, but he does get scratched during the scuffle. He encounters another botanist Dr. Yogami once back in London who tells Glendon they have met before while in Tibet. Yogami warns him that his scratch has been caused by a werewolf and that Wilfred will end up becoming one too. Thankfully the mariphasa is a temporary antidote, but the English botanist does not believe him until he almost transforms himself, but applies the mariphasa which also seems to bloom only by moonlight. Later that same night, Wilfred fully transitions and assaults his wife's socialite aunt while trying to find his wife, but comes back to his laboratory to discover all of the growing blossoms gone and one not fully blossomed.

The next full moon, Wilfred kills an innocent woman in the zoo. Wracked with guilt and scared of losing his wife to her childhood sweetheart, he rents a room in an inn and locks himself in. Once wolfed out, he escapes and kills while in his laboratory, the third mariphasa blossom finally blooms. Glendon catches Yogami in the act of stealing the blossom and wolfs out again, set on killing the doctor, but the creature is far more focused on "seek [ing] to kill the thing it loves best."

Lawrence Talbot comes back to his home country of Wales to his estranged father after discovering his brother had died. He immediately becomes enamored with a girl (Evelyn Ankers) who works in her father's antique shop and somehow manages to buy a walking stick with a silver wolf on its head although with designs on flirting with her. Larry manages to convince Gwen to come with him to get their fortune told by the Romany who entered the town that day. Gwen invites a friend to come with her instead and who ends up being killed by a Romany werewolf (Bela Lugosi), but Larry tries to intervene but gets scratched before killing Bela the Gypsy. Bela's mother warns Larry that he too will turn into a werewolf while the law enforcement have lesser supernatural suspicions that he simply killed a human.  

Talbot tragically transforms, but doesn't remember anything of the night before. He continues to be wracked with guilt of slowly reemerging memories while everyone around him suspects his sanity. His father, Sir John (Claude Rains) even goes to the lengths of tying him to a chair while the police are looking for who is supposed to be the guilty party, but Larry wolfs out and escapes into the forest. There he finds Gwen and attacks her until his own silver walking stick bludgeons him by the hands of his own father. 

Deathmatch Round

Both movies signify their respective decades perfectly. "Werewolf of London" follows in the vein of earlier Universal films like "Frankenstein" (1931) in the lengths men go in the name of science versus faith and wanting to know more about the scientific world of what makes life, life and death, death. Wilfred Glendon is a victim to this like Henry Frankenstein and even Doctor van Helsing in "Dracula" (1931) and pays for it, making the transformation into a werewolf heartbreaking and yet painfully self aware all at the same time. "Thanks... Thanks for the bullet" Glendon is able to speak as the werewolf melts away from his body, "It was the only way... In a few moments now... I shall know why all this had to be." It's a far more purposeful werewolf story against the fine outlandish Greek tragedy that is 1941's "The Wolf Man" where Larry Talbot just tumbles in on the werewolf legend and simply rides along with it.

"The Wolf Man" is also a product of its time in a far more accidental vein paralleling the sequence of events that brought America into the great mess that was World War 2. It's also very much a "monster movie" versus the first Universal wave that was unconsciously affected by the reacting or coinciding with immigrants both in front and behind the camera. The "monster movie" as a genre only had 2 goals in mind. Seat-filling and box office. It doesn't matter how paper thin the quality which explains Larry Talbot tumbling in onto the situation scene after scene without a lot of character development except for his reacting to inner torment. But Lon Chaney Jr.'s ability to draw the audience in is truly a feat alongside the talents of his costar the great Claude Rains. The script does suffer from splotches of previous drafts, the telescope scene out of the complete blue, it is very much a character-driven movie than a fantastic plot like "Werewolf of London" which never quite gets the suffocating Browning/Freund post-Weimar treatment "Werewolf" truly deserved.

Essentially, it's a toss-up, but Jack Pierce's work on "Werewolf of London" is mountains better and creepier.

Links to Check Out
AND YOU CALL YOURSELF A SCIENTIST! - Werewolf of London (1935)

TCM Movie: #SilentEdition "Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens" (1922)

During the winter of 1916, German soldier Albin Grau served where he had described as "a vermin-extermination commando" remote village in Serbia. He was told during his tenure by an old Serbian farmer about his father who had been buried without sacraments and haunted the village as a vampire. The farmer even showed the 32-year-old soldier his father's 1884 disinterment papers which explained the body was discovered completely preserved except for two front teeth now protruding over the lower lip and how the prefect ordered the corpse to be staked through the heart.

In 1921, the occultist and artist formed the production company Prana Film with Enrico Dieckmann with the intent to produce primarily supernatural-inspired films. Gothic Romanticist Henrik Galeen, already a veteran of the genre with "Der Student von Prag" (1913) and "Der Golem, wie er in die Welt Kam" (1920), was immediately hired to adapt the epistolary novel. But Germany was one of the original signatories to the 1887 Berne Convention, which ensures that "every production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever the mode or form of its expression" must be protected. Stoker's widow Florence Balcomb wouldn't allow the film to be made, so Galeen made many name and detail changes. Count Dracula became Count Orlok, Harker became Hutter, and "vampire" was changed to an archaic Romanian word "nosferatu" which Stoker believed the word to mean "not dead" or "undead." The setting had been changed from England to Germany and the Count is killed by sunlight than simply weakened. Grau and Dieckmann also hired F.W. Murnau as director who was also a WW1 veteran.

Shooting started during July 1921 and its first shots were exteriors in Wismar. It was shot entirely on location in Wismar and Lubeck, the Transylvanian scenes shot in northern Slovakia. Oarava Castle and Starhad Castle posed as Orlok's estate. But Grau and Dieckmann couldn't afford the usual two required cameras (one negative serving local use and another for international distribution) and cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner only had one to operate throughout all of "Nosferatu." Murnau followed Galeen's very thorough screenplay and marginalia concerning cinematography, but also rewrote 12 pages and is attributed to the ending and the vampire mythos of being killed by the sun. He even went as far to prepare sketches for ideal shots and even using a metronome to control the actors' paces.

"Nosferatu" premiered March 4th, 1922 at the Marble Hall of the Berlin Zoological Gardens. Grau and Dieckmann had promoted the screening and the festivities that began and ended the film for months before its premiere. "Das Fest des Nosferatu" started at 8 pm after a speech made by Max Schreck himself. "Next, immediately preceding the screening, was the curtain raiser, a projected, written prologue by Kurt Alexander, based on the premise of the "Prelude in the Theatre" which commonly introduces stagings [...] Over this, the Otto Kermbach Orchestra played the overture to Heinrich Marschner's Romantic opera, "Der Vampyr" (1826). During the screening itself, the orchestra was conducted by Hans Erdmann to his specially composed accompaniment, Fantasich-romantische Suite. Following the screening was a solo performance by Berlin State Opera dancer Elisabeth Grube to The Serenade, another Erdmann composition. Guests had been asked to attend wearing suitable costume for the grand finale of the night, a Biedermeier-themed masquerade ball, which continued until 2am." (Nosferatu: History and Home Video Guide, Part 2 - Brenton Film) "Nosferatu's" theatrical premiere was 9 days later at Berlin's Primus-Palast and a single original print was already going overseas for American distribution.

J - S from Berlin's Film-Kurier called "Nosferatu" "a story from the childhood days of earthy poetry and fantasy, something completely unreal and fairytale-like. Things do not all happen as we are accustomed to things; they are simply presented to us as a counterpart of original literary attempts, even though these attempts may have been repeated again and again in a stylistically advanced time. From this results the critical assessment of the work: it was that almost infantile mood world to pour images that we can not experience inwardly, but can only contemplate contemplatively, as if from a higher point of view, from the greatest distance and without any excitement of the heart." RW from the Berlin Stock Exchange was a little harsh. The force and power of the film is not so much in its dramatic action as in the ghostly, the nerves whipping. Because the plot is more epic - without the inner compulsion of a victim [...] And when a pure woman surrenders voluntarily to the vampire and holds him until the first cockcrow, the curse can be solved. Here lies the flaw of the film, the psychological touches only loosely, but not embraces and soul motifs takes too casual. Anyone can be in an unusual movie."

After the successful premiere, Bram Stoker's estate immediately sued "Nosferatu" as a copyright infringement as some of the early drafts and shooting scripts still had the Dracula name attached to it despite all of the changes Galeen made to the final script. Florence Stoker won her court case and all copies were declared to be destroyed and were promptly eradicated save for that single America-bound print.

"Nosferatu" will be shown on TCM on October 24th at 4:45 AM EST/3:45 CST

Cool Links to Check Out

Dracula vs. Nosferatu: A True Copyright Horror Story - Plagarism TodayEnable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
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#FirdayShort #HalloweenEdition Alfred Hitchcock Interview (1949)

#WomanEmpowermentWednesday #HalloweenEdition Gene Tierney as Lucy Muir in "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1947)

Lucy Muir is a widowed single mother on the mission to get out of her mother-in-law's house. Lucy finds herself in the seaside town of Whitecliff looking at a house that she immediately discovers is haunted by the spirit of a sea captain who supposedly killed himself. She doesn't care what anyone in the town says about the infamous house and buys it. Eventually Lucy must choose between being alone in love with the ghost of the sea captain or marry a man who she believes to be unmarried.

#ManCrushMonday #HalloweenEdition Karl Freund's 6 Most Beautiful Horror Shots Of His Career

"Dracula" (1931)

"Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt" (Berlin: Symphony of a Great City) (1927)

"Metropolis" (1927)

"Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1932)

"Dracula" (1931)

Metropolis (1927)

#RemakeThis #HalloweenEdition "Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley

Universal Pictures acquired the film rights to "Frankenstein" on April 31, 1931, but it was not the "Frankenstein" what many people believe to be as Mary Shelley's masterpiece. Technically, Universal Pictures acquired the rights to an unproduced American stage adaptation by John L. Balderston (who also composed the stage version of "Dracula") adapted from the British stage play by Peggy Webling. "Dracula" screenwriter Garrett Fort wrote the first draft almost immediately, believing that Robert Florey would direct and Dracula himself, Bela Lugosi, would play Doctor Frankenstein. The initial vision involved that Victor, now Henry, would have more screen time against The Creature who was reduced to something even less than Shelley's Creature. Carl Laemmle Jr. decided that Lugosi should play The Creature instead.

Lugosi did some test makeup footage which made "Junior" "laugh[...] like a hyena" when he saw it and the otherwise pre-Method Method actor was furious. He was cited to have said "I was a star in my country and I will not be a scarecrow over here!" This was a legitimate and perhaps almost a prophetic concern. Some sources say he quit, others both Florey and he was fired, receiving the consolation prize of the B-picture "Murders of the Rue Morgue."

James Whale was brought from England and to take his pick of anything that fascinated him. He immediately grabbed "Frankenstein" and hired Francis Edward Faragoh to cut back on the Doctor's part. The Creature doesn't even speak except for a litany of grunts whereas Shelley's learns to speak and educates himself in defiance over his maker. Screenwriter John Russell also has a credit for the idea that Fritz would drop the "normal" human brain and resorted to taking the other criminal one instead. Variety would describe one of Universal's first horror films as "exploitat[ive], which dwells upon the shock angle, is also a puncful asset with hair-rising lobby and newspaper trumpeting."

Harry Treadaway as Victor Frankenstein

Rory Kinnear as The Creature

Domhnall Gleeson as Captain Robert Walton

Mia Wasikowska as Elizabeth Lavenza

Kyle Soller as Henry Clerval

Jason Isaacs as Alphonse Frankenstein

Links to Check Out
‘Frankenstein’: James Whale’s Macabre Take on One of the Most Sympathetic Characters Ever Created in the World of English Letters | Cinephilia & Beyond

TCM Movie: The Seventh Victim (1943)

Screenwriter Dewitt Bodeen believed he had a hit in his first draft of "The Seventh Victim." It was going to be about an orphaned girl from Los Angeles who discovers she's going to be killed by a serial killer. But while researching his next script for "The Curse of the Cat People," he got a call from his producer, Val Lewton. "When you come back you're going right on to a new story for the Seventh Victim because we discarded the one you originally wrote and I've already put Charles O'Neal on it and you'll be working with him." (Bansak, Edmund G. Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career) But it was the next letter that seemed to be a more impossible request. "See if it's possible for you to get to a devil-worshipping society meeting."

"So I got to one through RKO because they had a marvelous office here in New York. I went to them and said, is there any chance of me going to a devil-worshippers' meeting and they started laughing, but they called back and said, yes, it had been arranged. But I would have to go under a pseudonym. The society would be glad to have me but I wouldn't be able to say anything -- just sit there and observe. [...] They were mostly old people and they were casting those spells while they knitted and crocheted. A bunch of tea-drinking old ladies and gentlemen sitting there muttering imprecations against Hitler. I made use of the evidence in that the devil worshippers in The Seventh Victim were very ordinary people who had one basic flaw, an Achilles heel which has turned them against good and towards evil."

"The Seventh Victim" really was shaping out in Val Lewton's favor even before the newer draft was written. His last creation "I Walked with a Zombie" (1943) had taken a percentage of the box office, which was a rarity for B pictures usually being rented at a flat rate, thanks to the success of his very first production in "Cat People" (1942).  After a meeting with Charles Koerner and other RKO executives, he was awarded a promotion to make "A" pictures and Bodeen and O'Neal wrote the script with "A" in mind. But giving Canadian assistant-editor Mark Robson his directorial debut really messed things up for Lewton, but he kept to his word giving the kid a break. RKO gave him the ultimatum between the "A" picture and Robson and Lewton was back doing "B" movies on a shoestring budget with supplied schlocky titles.

Shooting began May 5th, 1943 to May 29th in RKO Gower Street in Los Angeles and Lewton took as much advantage of the pre-established sets like he had done in his last three films. The remains of "The Magnificent Ambersons" was used at the beginning as the Highcliffe boarding school where Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter, whose stage name was created by Lewton himself) discovers her sister has gone missing and her tuition hasn't been paid in months. Mary leaves Highcliffe for New York City to find Jacqueline but finds her cosmetics business in the hands of her business partner and no one knows where she has gone. Mary meets Jacqueline's psychiatrist, a remarkably living Dr. Judd from "Cat People," and discovers that her sister was a part of a Satanic cult she had outed during one of their sessions. Somehow the Palladists found out and Jacqueline will become the seventh victim condemned to death since the founding of the cult for revealing their existence.

But "The Seventh Victim" was written with an A budget in mind and four vital scenes were deleted at the expense of keeping under the 75 minute mark as per the contract with RKO. Mary admits "it would be easier of Jacqueline were dead" to Gregory Ward when he visits her at the daycare center where she works. It is referenced at the beginning of a later scene where Mary's supervisor says to her "Aren't you the popular one? You've a visitor again." Two more scenes highlight Judd's investigation on the Palladists in visits to the amputee pianist Natalie Cortez. In the first scene they discuss philosophy and Cortez admits why she became a Palladist. "Life has betrayed us. We've found that there is no heaven on earth, so we must worship evil for evil's sake." In Judd and Cortez's second meeting, the psychiatrist tries to worm his way into the cult although unintentionally reveals that Jacqueline is staying with Mary at the rooming house which makes it easy for the Satanists to kidnap their seventh victim. When Judd and Hoag confront the Palladists, the scene went even longer in the reciting of the Lord's Prayer.

In the scene that follows Jacqueline's suicide and what is meant to be the ending, Mary, Gregory and Jason all gather at the Dante restaurant. Mary and Gregory leave together in their happy ending, but Jason still sits before the mural of Dante and Beatrice and talks to himself. "I am alive, yet every hope I have is dead. Death can be good. Death can be happy. If I could speak like Cyrano ... then perhaps, you might understand."

"The Seventh Victim" was released August 21st, 1943 and was copyrighted five days later. It opened on September 17 at the Rialto Theater in New York City. The promotions department of RKO barely did anything for the film except for offering a suggestion to theater owners. "On a table in your lobby, display a statue, a bust and a head of a woman. Whereever the skin shows on the statue, mold small spots out of chewing gum or candle grease to resemble goosebumps. Place a card nearby reading 'Even this marble developed goosebumps after seeing The Seventh Victim." (Bansak, Edmund G. Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career)

A South Carolinian cinema proprietor was disappointed with the movie. "We must have been the eighth victim; patrons walked out. Business poor. Some of the kids would not sit through it." A theater employee in Scotia, California said it was "without the doubt the most unsatisfactory picture we have any recollection of." Bosley Crowther of the New York Times felt "The Seventh Victim" "might make more sense if it was run backward." Variety also did not feel much more for it. "A particularly poor script is the basis for the ills besetting this mystery melodrama. Even the occasional good performance can't offset this minor dualer." Thankfully, Kate Cameron of the New York Daily News was a little more forgiving. "The suspense created in the beginning of "The Seventh Victim" And the sinister atmosphere which envelops some of the characters in the story are the principal assets" but comes down on Jean Brooks's performance as Jacqueline as "giv[ing] no hint of the scintillating personality Jacqueline is supposed to possess, nor does she adequately intimate the terror and fear which she is supposed to labor."


"The Seventh Victim" will be shown on Turner Classic Movies October 10th, 2019 at 9:45 pm CST/10:45 EST