Saturday, October 31, 2020
Friday, October 30, 2020
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
5 of the Best Fashion Moments in "Dracula's Daughter" (1936)
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| Gloria Holden in Brymer |
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| Gloria Holden in Brymer |
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| Gloria Holden in Brymer |
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| Gloria Holden with Marguerite Churchill in Brymer |
Monday, October 26, 2020
#ManCrushMonday #MemorableSupportingActors Rondo Hatton
Rondo Hatton was a football and track star in his high school in Hillsborough, Florida. He was also named the "Handsomest Boy" in his graduating class. He had planned on joining the military even before WWI, fighting in the Mexican Border War and then in WWI where he was exposed to mustard gas which damaged his lungs when in the trenches outside Paris, France. Hatton was discharged and returned to Florida, becoming Tampa Tribune's sports writer.
At that same time, he developed acromegaly where his pituitary gland slowly deformed the soft tissues and bones in his face, hands, and feet leaving him deformed which was possibly caused by the mustard gas. But around the time he was covering the local filming of Henry King's "Hell Harbor," the director came up to him and offered him a role. Hatton and second wife Mabel Housh moved to Hollywood in 1936 and he was offered many small roles in huge films from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1939) and "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943). Universal had billed him as "the monster who needs no makeup." He was best known for playing the "Creeper" in "Pearl of Death" (1944) along with posthumously released "House of Horrors" and "The Brute Man" in 1946. Hatton would die after a series of heart attacks as a result of acromegaly on February 2, 1946.
Thursday, October 22, 2020
#Deathmatch #SilentFilmEdition "Nosferatu" (1929) vs. "Vampyr" (1932)
History
Prana-Film producer Albin Grau ignored the possible copyright lawsuit on his hands when he pressed forward with his "Dracula" adaptation "Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens" (1922). Germany was already one of the official signatories to the 1886 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. Bram Stoker's widow Florence Balcomb would not sell him the rights and the changes screenwriter Henrik Galeen made to the script were not enough even though the Dracula name was still included on some of the early versions. Stoker's estate filed suit, claiming the film an infringement even after the film debuted on March 4th, 1922 to successful reviews.
Grau was forced to declare bankruptcy and close his newly formed production company. All German copies of "Nosferatu" were promptly eradicated and destroyed although a few "were already in circulation throughout Europe and the British court was unable to track them down and destroy them (the surviving prints wound up in France, out of the jurisdiction of the British legal system)." (THE BOOTLEG FILES: NOSFERATU | Film Threat) It was easy for Stoker's estate to get a hold of the British and German copies thanks to cameraman Fritz Wagner Arno having shot with only one camera to save on costs.
Only one copy was sent to the U.S. and it helped that "Dracula" was already in the public domain largely in part to an error in the copyright notice. The U.S. was also not a signatory of the Berne Convention until 1989. But "Nosferatu" would premiere seven years later on June 3, 1929 at Brooklyn's Film Guild Cinema. The April 1929 issue of Theatre Guild Magazine would run an ad for the film calling it "inspired by from Dracula... a symphony in gray... moods macabre and mordant... a powerful psychopathic study of bloodlust..." (Nosferatu: History and Home Video Guide, Part 2 - Brenton Film)
Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times called "Nosferatu" "not especially stirring. It is the sort of the thing one could watch at midnight without its having much effect upon one's slumbering hours. [...] The backgrounds are often quite effective, but most if it seems like cardboard puppets doing all they can to be horrible on papiermache settings. [...] It is a production that is rather more of a soporific than a thriller. Max Schreck's movements as Nosferatu are too deliberate to be lifelike." Variety lauded F.W. Murnau as "a master artisan demonstrating not only a knowledge of the subtler side of directing but photography" and Max Schreck "an able pantomimist and works clocklike, his makeup suggesting everything that's goose pimply."
The American distributor, Film Arts Guild went out of business shortly after the release, leaving "Nosferatu" doomed to public domain status.
Carl Theodor Dreyer had a critical success but a financial disaster in "La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc" (1928), and the breach of contract law suit against his production company Société Générale de Film wasn't helping much either after they wrongly cut the film as to not offend Catholic viewers without his consent. But Dreyer had one more film to be financed, but it ended up dropped which led to his wanting to work outside of the studio system. But French film studios were technologically behind with the coming of sound films and Dreyer chose to go to a more progressively learned England to study sound film.
While in England, he met fellow Dane, writer Christen Jul. He also read over thirty mystery stories while in London, finding "a number of re-occuring elements including doors opening mysteriously and door handles moving with no one knowing why." Dreyer called on Jul's talents and together, they decided to write a film about vampires which Dreyer considered "fashionable things at the time" and that "we can jolly well make this stuff too." He and Jul drew elements from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's short story collection In a Glass Darkly, specifically the live burial from "The Room in the Dragon Volant" and female vampires from "Carmilla." But a title was a little more difficult to generate, Dreyer possibly titling it "Destiny" then "Shadows into Hell."
Upon returning back to France for casting, Dreyer met Baron Nicolas de Gunzberg, a Dutch aristocrat, through artist and writer Valentine Hugo. Gunzberg agreed to finance "Vampyr" in return for playing the lead role, Allan Grey when the original backing fell through. He would be credited under the psuedonym Julian West when his family argued against his becoming an actor. Dreyer would also hire many of his crew from "La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc" including cinematographer Rudolph Maté and art director Hermann Warm.
It was up to Dreyer's assistant to provide some scouting which Dreyer and Maté also contributed in. His instructions to his assistant was to find "a factory in ruins, a chopped up phantom, worthy of the imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Somewhere in Paris. We can't travel far." While finding a suitable mire for the doctor to die in, the crew found a mill where there were white shadows moving around the windows and doors. The film's ending changed from the doctor dying in a swamp to suffocating under milled flour. Everything was shot on location, Dreyer believing by "lending the dream-like ghost world of the film as well as allowing them to save money by not having to rent studio space."
Production started in the spring of 1930 at Courtempierre France and lasted over a year. Other locations included Senlis and Montargis outside of Paris. The scenes in the chateau were shot in April and May 1930 which also housed cast and crew during filming. Also being financed by the German studio Tobis-Klangfilm, Dreyer shot each scene in German, French and English. "The Baron de Gunzberg recalls: "Each scene was shot three times for the French, English and German versions whenever there was any dialogue involved. It was shot silent with all of us mouthing the words. The sound was put in later at the UFA studios in Berlin, as they had the best sound equipment at that time."" (Vampyr (1932) - Turner Classic Movies) Gunzberg would also recount that Dreyer insisted filming exterior scenes at dawn because "the light gave the best effect of sundown."
"Vampyr"'s style had changed from what Dreyer described as a "heavy style" but changed when Maté showed him a shot that came out fuzzy and blurred. "We had begun shooting on the film," Dreyer explains, "- starting with the opening scene - and after one of the first screenings of the rushes we noticed that one of the takes was gray. We wondered why, until we realized a false light had been projected on to the lens. We thought about that take, the producer, Rudolph Mate and I, in relation to the style we were looking for. Finally, we decided that all we had to do was deliberately repeat the accident. So after that, for each take we arranged a false light by directing a spotlight hung with a black cloth on the lens." Many other shots were inspired by Spanish Romantic painter Francisco Goya and the sounds of animals in the film were created by professional imitators.
Filming was completed in the middle of 1931 and premiered in Berlin on May 6, 1932 when the studio wanted America's "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" (1931) to be released first. The audience booed which led Dreyer to cut several more scenes after the first showing. When it premiered in Paris in September at a new cinema on the Boulevard Raspail, "New York Times reporter Herbert L. Matthews wrote, "It is a hallucinating film which either held the spectators spellbound as in a long nightmare or else moved them to hysterical laughter."" (THE BOOTLEG FILES; VAMPYR | Film Threat) When Vienna audiences were denied their money back during the Italian premiere, a riot broke out that led to the police having to restore order with nightsticks. Dreyer would not attend "Vampyr"'s premiere in Copenhagen in March 1933. The film would premiere in the U.S. on August 14, 1934 under the title "Not Against the Flesh." The film was a financial failure.
Reviews were just as brutal. "Whatever you think of the director Charles [sic] Theodor Dreyer," a critic from the New York Times wrote, "there's no denying that he is 'different.' He does things that make people talk about him. You may find his films ridiculous--but you won't forget them. Although in many ways [Vampyr] was one of the worst films I have ever attended, there were some scenes in it that gripped with brutal directness."
When Dreyer asked about the intention of the film at the Berlin premiere, he replied that he "had not any particular intention. I just wanted to make a film different from all other films. I wanted, if you will, to break new ground for cinema. That is all. And do you think this intention has succeeded? Yes, I have broken new ground."
You Have Hurt Yourself ... Your Precious Blood! The Blood! The Blood!
In 1838, realtor employee Thomas Hutter is sent to a castle in the Carpathian Mountains where he sells a Wisborg property to the strange and rat-like Count Orlok. Despite the warnings he receives on his way there, Hutter is continually creeped out by Orlok's appearance and demeanor towards his accidentally cutting his thumb. The fact that Orlok is also fascinated with his wife, Ellen, doesn't help much either. Within days, he is abandoned at the ruins and the strange Count is on his way to his new home in Wisborg. Hutter ends up making his escape through a tall window and is knocked unconscious, then taken to a nearby hospital.
Ellen has been prone to trance-like states since Hutter's departure and continues to get worse under the watchful eye of family friends. But the whole town ends up victim to a plague associated to a sudden influx of rats since the schooner carrying Orlok docks. Hutter recovers from his injuries and is on his way home where people are dying left and right and doctors struggle to understand and cure the plague.
With Hutter home, Ellen recovers enough to go through his things and discovers a book of vampires he is given while on his travels. Determined to save her husband, Ellen takes matters into her own hands.
Allan Gray is traveling to particularly nowhere when he arrives at a Courtempierre inn. Once he settles in for the evening, he is visited by the apparition of an old man who gives him a square package which is wrapped with paper and signed "to be opened upon my death." As if Gray was under a spell, he takes it and leaves the inn. Shadows guide him to a castle; Gray also discovering an old woman and the village doctor as he is taken from the castle to a manor.
When he looks around the manor, he finds that same old man who gave him the package murdered by an unseen assailant through a window. Gray rushes towards him, but neither he or the manor's servants can save him. The servants insist he stay the night and Gray meets the youngest sister, Gisele. The oldest, Leone, is ill despite the both of them discovering her walking outside just as Gisele started talking about her. They rush out to bring her back in, but find Leone unconscious and bitten. This seems to prompt Gray's memory and goes into his things for the package. The package contains a book entitled "Vampyrs" explaining what they are and how they are to be killed.
The old man Gray met on his way to the manor is revealed to be the village doctor comes to the manor the next day to check on Leone. When the doctor insists she needs a blood transfusion, Gray ends up offering his services. He wakes up in a daze but realizes danger. Running into Leone's room, he finds the doctor attempting to poison the oldest daughter and the youngest is nowhere to be found. He chases the doctor back to the castle and rescues Gisele. But the male servant of the manor has found Gray's book and is ready to take matters into his own hands with or without Gray's help.
Death Match
Between "Nosferatu" and "Vampyr," it's a total toss-up. The both of them are beautiful films between Murnau's metronome-directed direction of his actors and "Vampyr"'s use of mixing silent film with sound and passive surrealism. But when you really look at the differences, there is a distinct separation between the two films: bow does a filmmaker make a surrealistic horror film to watch versus a surrealistic horror film that can be felt.
"I wanted to create a waking dream on screen," Dreyer once explained about "Vampyr," "and show that horror is not to be found in the things around us but in our own subconscious." He achieves this through his often described dreamer male lead, Allan Gray, who wanders from adventure to adventure and from continuity error to another. After saving Gisele from the doctor, it's as if an episodic "Allan Gray Adventure" skips its end credit sequence and the character finds himself walking into frame in a graveyard where the servant is digging up Marguerite Chopin's grave knowing she is the vampire at fault for Leone's illness. The editing is clipped from adventure to adventure and yet that inconsistency is the point in a surreal "waking dream" -- it's much more psychologically titillating that doesn't necessarily frightens but heightens and that's something, I hate to say, "Nosferatu" somewhat lacks.
"Nosferatu" has its roots in the occult, Albin Grau already being an established member of the Fraternis Saturni under the name of Master Pacitius. Grau and Enrico Dieckmann created Prana Film with the plan to produce mostly supernatural and occult-inspired films whose symbols are often displayed throughout the film which grounds the film mostly in a Christianized "other," making it "scary" yet rooted for '30s viewers.
While nightmarish and beautifully moody, "Nosferatu" is not entirely in the realm of the surreal but the fantastical being the unofficial adaptation of "Dracula." We are watching than feeling and reacting to our observing this world of horror in front of us that has a rat plague and a vampirish aristocratic Count and a mad boss of a realty company with an affinity for bugs and spiders. Its photography will always be stunning and the acting purposefully slow and off-kilter, but "Nosferatu" will always be a pillar in the Expressionist genre no matter what kind of viewer you are.
It really just matters of what kind of horror movie you're in the mood for for the night.
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
TCM Movie: White Zombie (1932)
"The earliest press mention of White Zombie was likely the January 6, 1932, Hollywood Reporter comment that the Halperins had leased office space at Universal Studios to get their film "Zombie" underway. Whether they were aware of the preproduction of the Broadway play Zombie is unknown, but many readily thought the play was a natural for the screen." (Rhodes. White Zombie: Anatomy of a Horror Film. 2001.)
10 days after the Broadway play "Zombie" premiered, the Motion Picture Herald "claimed that "Zombie ...will soon find its way into celluloid. Representatives ... are ... negotiating for screen rights." But director Victor Halperin and producer Edward Halperin didn't have a script yet and the budget was just as ambiguous from being anywhere between $50,000 to $62,500 after having divested from Liberty Films to Phil Goldstone Productions. But as to if producer Phil Goldstone or the Halperin brothers had to or didn't ask permission for "Zombies"'s rights for the screen is even less ubiquitous.
"As a Chicago Tribune article that spring made clear, "Cinema Rights to Plays Bring Petty Prices." The press seemingly did not suggest the Halperins stole or appropriated the idea of zombies from Webb's play. Perhaps the only question to have arisen was one posed by The Hollywood Reporter. Immediately after discussing White Zombie, the trade asked "What producer, strapped for a suitable title on a finished film, appropriated one from a play which had been submitted and then found out he would have to pay a century for its use--and is it worth it?" The comment seems to point to White Zombie, but if so the answer to the question "Is it worth it" would have to be a resounding "no." After all, the word "zombie" had appeared both in Seabrook's book The Magic Island [the first time the word had appeared in popular culture] and as the title of 1929's unproduced play Zombi [sic]."
"While it is entirely possible that [producer George] Sherwood or [screenwriter Kenneth] Webb or both contacted the Halperins, no evidence exists of a lawsuit. Not only did no mention of legal action appear in the movie trade publications or theater magazines, absolutely no pertinent legal documents exists in the New York City area. This is key, because any lawsuit actually heard before a court with regard to Amusement Securities (ASC, partial financiers of White Zombie) or Halperin Productions as defendants would had to have occurred in New York City; a later, 1936 court case made that fact quite clear. Secondarily, the same 1936 case covered in detail the legal history of White Zombie, as well as any trademarks or rights to the word "zombie"; it makes no mention of any legal encounter between ASC."
Phil Goldstone ended up being a great help in not only securing Madge Bellamy as "White Zombie"'s female lead (her salary being $5,000) in the attempt of reviving her career, but also choosing pre-made set pieces from an array of Universal horror films and the interiors from RKO-Pathe's "The King of Kings" (1927) as well as Bronson Canyon for zombie crowd shots through a graveyard. Carl Axcelle and Jack Pierce of Universal designed the zombie makeup.
But the Halperin brothers offered the role of Haitian plantation master "Murder" Legendre to Bela Lugosi directly which he immediately accepted. "The actor later said that they bid $500 for his services (Other figures range from $800 to $1,000). Afraid to leave space for yet another rival and always anxious to play a leading role--he was also broke, as usual--Lugosi accepted Halperins' offer. In fact, after Frankenstein, he seemingly never said no." (Lennig. The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi. 2010.) Lugosi would model his portrayal of Legendre on a prior role he played in Richard Eichberg's German film "Sklaven Fremdes Willens" (Slave of a Foreign Will) (1919) as Professor Mors who places a young woman he is infatuated with under hypnosis then rapes her.
"White Zombie" was shot in only 11 days in March 1932 and premiered at the Rivoli Theater in New York City on July 28, 1932. It received a mixed box office reception, but proved a great financial success for an independent film.
L.N. at the New York Times quotes one piece of dialogue as being ""The whole thing has me confused; I just can't understand it." That was, as briefly can be expressed, the legend for posterity of "White Zombie." Charity--still the greatest of the trilogy--suggests the sentence be allowed to stand as comment. To go on would lead only to a description of why the eagles screamed, and that would prove very little indeed, in the orderly scheme of life. There was, in short, no great reason. Nor was there, to be candid, much reason for "White Zombie."" Variety felt "its atmosphere of horror is well sustained and sensitive picture-goers will get a full quota of thrills," but added that although Lugosi "gives an exceptionally good performance," the film is "not quite up to Broadway." But the New York World Telegram was ruthless in its review. "As entertainment as it is nil. . . . White Zombie is such a potpourri of zombies, frightened natives, witch doctors, leering villains, sinister shadows, painted sets and banal conversation on the black magic of the island that the actors of necessity just move along. There are, however, moments when they get a chance to act. But the less said about the better."
White Zombie will be playing on Turner Classic Movies at 11:00 AM CST Friday, October 30th.
Friday, October 16, 2020
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
#WomanEmpowermentWednesday Anna Lee as Nell Bowen in "Bedlam" (1946)
As a protege of Lord Mortimer, Nell Bowen has fallen into being concerned with the human relations and treatment at St. Mary's of Bethlehem Asylum (a fictionalized version of Bethlem Royal Hospital) after an acquaintance of Mortimer's falls to his death when he tries to escape. She goes head to head with the apothecary general Master George Sims personally after discovering how the patients at the asylum are being treated. When she brings in Whig politican John Wilkes to help reform the asylum, Mortimer and Sims gets nervous and committs her to St. Mary's. But once Nell gets used to the horrible state of the patients, she prevails through nursing them physically and emotionally although Sims comes up with another idea to keep her mouth shut.
Monday, October 12, 2020
#ManCrushMonday 8 of Boris Karloff's Finest Horror Moments
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| The Old Dark House (1932) |
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| The Mummy (1932) |
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| Bride of Frankenstein (1935) |
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| The Mummy (1932) |
Thursday, October 8, 2020
TCM Movie: The Ghoul (1933)
As King Kong premiered at New York's Radio City Music Hall and Roxy Theater the evening of March 2, 1933, Boris Karloff was on a plane to catch the S.S. Paris there partly to make the second British horror film "The Ghoul" and partly to escape Hollywood. His relationship with Universal continued to be a torrid one between his acquired back injuries while playing The Creature in "Frankenstein" (1931) and his current issues attempting to raise his weekly salary from $750 to $1,000 during the depths of The Depression. Universal balked, yet surprised the actor with his transportation but was unable to give him expenses to spend other than $12 they accumulated from emptying the pay phones on the Universal lot.
"It was a perilous flight, the plane eluding Frankenstein-like lightning in a stormy night sky. It arrived late in New York, so a tugboat had to deliver Boris and Dorothy to the already set-sail Paris. On board they found actor crony James Gleason and his wife (Gleason himself en route to a film in London) and had a wonderful trip -- enjoying an on-board screening of the three Barrymores in Rasputin and The Empress, charging everything and arriving in England, as Dorothy put it, "with a spectacular bar bill."
[...]
"Back in England for the first time since his 1909 exile, Boris enjoyed a major star reception, was too excited to sleep, took in the theatre and clubs, charmingly gave autographs to the crowds that pursued him, and, after all of these years, visited his brothers -- all distinguished members of the consular service. One of Boris's favorite stories for the rest of his life was how he dreaded a photographer's requesting a picture of him with his siblings at a London reception. Instead of deeming such a thing beneath their dignity, the Pratt brothers ("pleased as three boys!" recalled Karloff) all posed before a fireplace, excitedly arguing as to where each should stand.
""No sooner was the picture taken than all three brothers began to inquire how soon they would secure prints, and by the time I was in a positive glow of relief. A film actor had been received in the British diplomatic circles and made good!"" (Mank. Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration. 2009)
Karloff was Guamont's production-director Michael Balcon's only choice to play Professor Henry Morlant in the screen adaptation of the Frank King-Leonard J. Hines novel. Balcon had been put in charge of both Gaumont and Gainsborough Pictures, giving the higher brow productions to Gaumont and the lower to Gainsborough.
But producing "the second British film to deal with horrific themes" (The Ghoul (1933) - Articles - TCM.com) had advantages with the networking Balcon already had with the currently bankrupted German studio UFA GmbH after having sent a young Alfred Hitchcock there in 1925 for him to learn German Expressionist techniques. He would end up hiring many German immigrants onto his production team including the Austrian Director of photography Günther Krampf who had worked as a cameraman on F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" (1922) and G.W. Pabst's "Pandora's Box" (1929). Art director Alfred Junge and makeup man Heinrich Heitfield would also be added to the crew yet the director of "The Ghoul" ended up going to the American director Thomas Hayes Hunter who had been living in London since 1927.
The film was shot at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush and was allocated a budget just over £30,000. But between the excessive demands from Krampf and Junge, the film came in under £40,000. It was released in London August 7th and then in the U.S. November 25th to lukewarm reviews. The New York Times described "The Ghoul" as "a newsreel of a Sunday school picnic would have been more thrilling." (BFI Screenonline: Ghoul, The (1933))
Karloff returned to Hollywood in June of 1933 to find his weekly salary was raised to $1,250 and an agreement was made with Universal allowing him to work outside of the horror genre and with other studios. Universal would call him back yet again in 1934 for his first collaboration with fellow horror actor Bela Lugosi in "The Black Cat."
"The Ghoul" would be screened multiple times up until 1938, the reels being considered lost as of the 1940s.
"In 1969, collector and horror film historian WIlliam K. Everson located a murky, virtually inaudible nitrate subtitled copy, Běs in Czechoslovakia. Though missing eight minutes of footage, it was thought to be the only copy left. [...] In the 1980s, a disused and forgotten film vault at Shepperton Studios was discovered behind a stack of wood. This was cleared and yielded the dormant nitrate camera negative in perfect condition. The British Film Institute took in The Ghoul, new prints were made and the complete version aired on TV on Channel 4 in the UK." (The Ghoul - UK, 1933 - reviews - MOVIES and MANIA)
The Ghoul will be playing on TCM Friday, October 9 @ 7:00 CST
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
#RemakeThis: The Mummy's Curse (1944)
With over 5 credited and uncredited screenwriters assigned to "The Mummy's Curse," the film was already fated for inconsistencies. In the Universal world, "...Curse" would have been placed in the 1990s but not set in New England where Imhotep (now Kharis) had dragged Princess Anaka's body into a swamp in the first movie back in 1932. 25 years later, the swamp is now drying out in Louisiana in the late 1960s. With the use of prior footage of Karloff and Tom Tyler in the title role, the Mummy character ends up being played by three different actors in one movie. These things have been attributed to the low box office numbers and moderate to poor reviews.
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| Doug Jones as Kharis The Mummy |
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| LaKeith Stanfield as Dr. James Halsey |
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| Maya Hawke as Betty Walsh |
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| Nina Dobrev as Princess Ananka |
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| Julia Stiles as Pat Walsh |
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| Amr Waked as Dr. Ilzor Zandaab |
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| Dhafer L'Abidine as Ragheb |