A few from October.

Island of Lost Souls (1932), directed by Erle C. Kenton. This is an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), with Charles Laughton as the redoubtable Doctor. Wally Westmore’s makeup work stands out in this one. The film also stands as one of the most devastating examinations of colonial brutality and hubris that we have. Moreau remarks at one moment on the feeling of being God. His macabre scientific quest to make animals human results in the House of Pain, and in a set of rules that include not letting blood and not eating meat. Moreau rules his island by fear, with his snapping whip and pistol. This is Paramount’s entry into the early 1930s horror sweepstakes, and it has elements of White Zombie of the same year and Frankenstein from the year earlier. The creation of the island jungle with peering faces between the fronds is impressive. The film’s only soundtrack consists of the howls and screams and groans of pain we hear from the creatures the bad doctor vivisects. This is a chilling portrait of the evil of power-hungry colonialists. Charles Laughton is smarmy and sinister. His creation of Lota, the Panther Woman, is his greatest achievement, or so he thinks. The presence of Lota allows for the film to suggest libidinous acts, forbidden attraction, and so on and so on. We also have Bela Lugosi, barely recognizable beneath his facial hair, hirsute beyond excess. “Are we not men?” he intones as only Bela Lugosi can intone.

 

House of Dracula (1945), directed by Erle C. Kenton. The opening scene of this film shows a bat flying toward the window of a bedroom in which a fetching female sleeps uneasily. The bat hovers outside the window, and then morphs into a tall gentleman in tails and a top hat. This is Dracula (John Carradine). My first though was – where did the top hat come from? This silliness sets up a film filled with silliness. Not only does Dracula make an appearance, so too do Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein’s monster. Instead of Igor, the assistant with the humped back, we have Nina (Jane Adams), Dr. Edlemann’s assistant with the humped back. Those familiar with the horror films of the 1930s might also recognize Jekyll and Hyde in the character of Dr. Edlemann (Onslow Stevens). The plot, such as it is, has Dracula and the Wolf Man seeking the aid of Dr. Edlemann; both say they wish to be cured of the curse that plagues them. Dracula, however, really just wants to seduce the fetching female he saw in the film’s first scene. This is Miliza (Martha O’Driscoll), the doctor’s nurse. The local town’s people are a ragged lot eager to burn things. Then there is the stalwart Police Inspector Holtz (Lionel Atwill). The gang’s all here, and having fun. I neglected to credit Lon Chaney, Jr. as Larry Talbot and Glenn Strange as Frankenstein. This is the final installment in Universal’s cycle of horror films that began so well with Frankenstein and then Dracula, both in 1931.

 

The Undying Monster (1942), directed by John Brahm. If you are looking for a film with atmosphere, an atmosphere dripping with dread, an atmosphere expressive of uncanny things, then this is the film for you. The first of three ‘horror’ films Brahm made for 20th-Century Fox in the forties, The Undying Monster is a werewolf story with more interest in place and people than in the werewolf itself. Lucien Ballard’s sharp contrast cinematography, lighting, and low angles give the film an expressionistic look as good as we have. Clearly, Fox was setting out to rival the horror films coming from Universal Studios, and in Brahm they found the director who could deliver the goods. Darkness pervades the action, darkness and starkness. The plot involves an old family curse (ho-hum) and we have the requisite large mansion by the sea with mysterious butler and housekeeper, a suspicious doctor, a police detective from London who knows a thing or two about science, his sidekick who here is (unconventionally) a lively woman who thinks she knows a thing or two about the occult. Then we have the brother and sister whose family suffers the curse. The mixture may be familiar, but the execution (if I may) is most satisfying. This is a good film to begin the October festival of film.

 

The Lodger (1944), directed by John Brahm. First made in 1926 by Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger visits us again in this 1944 feature directed by Brahm. The Hitchcock film has the famous glass ceiling/floor through which we see the Lodger pacing restlessly in his room above stairs. The Brahm, film has the gothic effects of labyrinthine streets, wet and foggy, and canted angles with harsh lighting, reflections and shadows. The expressionistic sensibility here is impressive, as we would expect from Brahm. The story is a fictional account of Jack the Ripper, told mostly from the Ripper’s point of view. The staging is elaborate. Complete with dance numbers fronted by Merle Oberon, the female lead who becomes the centre of Mr. Slade’s (the Ripper’s) attention. This is a monster movie without a monster in the sense of a creature such as a werewolf or a vampire or a mummy or a homemade creature. What is stunningly effective is the end of the film when Mr. Slade finds himself cornered with his back to a large window that leads out to the river Thames. With knife in hand, eyes wide and piercing with fear and rage, Mr. Slade confronts his adversaries as they crowd closer to him. Here the seemingly mild-mannered gentleman reveals the beast in him without the benefit of special makeup. As many have pointed out, this film blends the later Hammer Horror atmosphere with Psycho, ten to fifteen years before the Hammer films began to appear and before Hitchcock’s famous thriller. Laird Cregar as Mr. Slade manages to be powerful, sensitive, beastly, gentlemanly, attractive, and repulsive. This is a masterful performance. Cregar made just one more film before dying at the age of 30.

 

Hangover Square (1945), directed by John Brahm. A slim Laird Cregar plays classical composer/pianist George Harvey Bone in his final film. Made to follow the success of Cregar’s previous film, The Lodger, this film has many of the same actors and offers a similar period atmosphere. Whereas water is the important element in The Lodger, fire takes the prominent role here. Mr. Slade in The Lodger finds water soothing, inviting, and restful; indeed, he takes his final rest in the Thames. George Bone, on the other hand, uses fire to burn away his frustrations, to release his libidinous energy. Both films play with scandalous (for the time, anyway) sexuality and fire and water offer clues to this sexuality. In Hangover Square we also have the road works with the deep trench and the Guy Fawkes bonfire (40 feet high, if I remember correctly) as reminders of the workings of the id. Like many films made in the mid 20th century, Hangover Square takes an interest in the workings of the mind. In other words, Freud and his talking cure play a role here. Cregar, as always, is impressive, if somewhat gaunt. Linda Darnell is suitably irritating as the vamp who sucks Mr. Bone’s creative energy until he has one of his ‘fits.’ The two films Brahm made with Cregar are all worth viewing for the performances, the mis en scene, and the ambiance of terror.

 

Tarantula (1955), directed by Jack Arnold. During the 1930s Universal Studio has the famous five: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and The Invisible Man. During the 1950s, Universal had Jack Arnold. Arnold made some if the best creature and horror films  of that decade, and Tarantula is one of them. Perhaps not as impressive as The Incredible Shrinking Man or The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Tarantula nevertheless has clever special effects and a story that resonates. The story foregrounds population growth (rather funny given the location of the story in small town Arizona), and the possibility of food shortage to feed the burgeoning number of people on the planet. Professor Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll) has concocted a nutrient that causes animals to grow at an accelerated pace. Of course, one of these animals, a tarantula, escapes and goes on a rampage in the Arizona desert. Mayhem ensues until Clint Eastwood flying a jet equipped with napalm arrives to sort things out. Along the way, we have a country doctor who suspects strange goings on in the desert (John Agar as Dr. Matt Hastings), and a young woman scientist who assists Professor Deemer (Mara Corday as Stephanie ‘Steve’ Clayton). Finally, we have three cases of acromegalia in humans, including the good Professor. The film has quite an effective opening with a man wandering the desert. When he turns to the camera, we see a distorted face. The film is about acromegalia or giantism run wild. It is also not a film for those with arachnophobia.