Now, Voyager (1942)

**SPOILERS**

This is my second Davis-Rains-Henreid vehicle, having seen 1946's Deception not too long ago. Despite this one being more well-known and beloved--apparently the biggest hit of Bette Davis's career--I much prefer the former.

Deception had the nerve to let its stars be mean, which is what they excelled at, particularly Davis and Rains. The operatic bitchiness of Deception is far more enjoyable and believable (from the actors) than the muddled soap that is Now, Voyager.

It's of course gorgeously shot by director Irving Rapper, and the stars give the material their all. Davis has moments of genius. Her breakdown in the opening scenes as the dowdy spinster are startlingly vital, overbrimming with pent-up rage, first in her room with Rains and then when she lashes out at her provoking niece. Though Davis was often an uneven performer (for every iconic Margo Channing there's a tone-deaf attempt at classy camp in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte), she's never not magnetic. She's at her prettiest here once she has her magical Hollywood makeover, and her outfits, particularly the white cocktail gown on the ship, are breathtaking.

Why I can't find a decent shot of it, I'll never know.

 Paul Henreid as her martyred married lover is broodingly attractive, with dreamy eyes and oh that accent. They have good romantic chemistry. His dark warmth combined with her neurotic sensuality complement each other well.

And you've got to give Now, Voyager this: it crams in all the ingredients to make up your perfect '40s Freudian Psychodrama/Troubled Woman's Picture. Like I said, there's the Cinderella story of the spinster aunt turned world weary beautiful siren, the beyond belief monster mother (played to icy precision by Gladys Cooper), the sad extramarital affair set against the backdrop of exotic locales, smoking, impeccable hairstyles, self-sacrifice, florid dialogue ranging from confrontational speeches ("I didn't want to be born, you didn't want me to be born. It's been a calamity on both sides") to exchanges that sound profound and romantic but don't hold up under too much scrutiny ("Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars": wait, what? Are they the moon? Is Tina the stars? Are emotions the...galaxy?)

And believe me, it's fun seeing all these ingredients play out, but I wish Rapper could've found a smoother, more narratively concise way to gel them together. I felt like I was watching three separate movies, particularly because we don't see enough of the process that turned Charlotte from the moody bespectacled introvert to the lovely lady of mystery, or how she got from Point A. Sanitarium to Point B. Cruise ship. There was a disconnect at play that I never really recovered from, and watched the proceeding romance and foster parenting unfold like it were all a fantasy of Charlotte's. Apparently the plot follows Olive Higgins Prouty's novel unusually closely, possibly to a fault. Often the movie tries too hard to hit all the beats in the book, sacrificing a lot of coherence.

But really, again, the biggest crime is that we see our actors do and say things we don't particularly want them to say or do. Claude Rains's Dr. Jaquith is paper thin, frustrating because we sense Rains itching to chew up a little scenery. I kept waiting for his sinister ulterior motives, or for him to maybe become obsessed with Davis, dastardly in love with his Galatea that he broke out of her shell with his black magic psychiatry. That would of course be all messed up, and Rains certainly played that type of role over and over, such as in Deception, and pigeon-holing is never fun. But there's no denying he was so good at that type of refined smarm. It's somehow creepier watching him play an avuncular guy with good intentions. I will admit, he is tremendously affecting comforting Davis in her initial freakout scenes, but the action drops once his character fades from view and is relegated to the slightly concerned background player.

(Doctor Macro)

Davis does herself well in the cruise scenes when she falls in love with Henreid's character. She's in her element playing cynical, hardbitten elegant types who frighten even themselves with the depths of their passions.  Yet just as it seems there are three different movies going on, she plays three different characters, and she seems lost in the other two. She captures the simmering resentment in her dowdy scenes, but cannot capture the mousy insecurity, not with that brashly brittle voice of hers. Her third role, that of the unofficial caregiver of Henreid's daughter, requires her to be maternal and all-understanding. Davis hits too many false notes here, because maternal understanding is not her forte. She'd be more convincing were she allowed to employ some tough love and dispense nuggets of wisdom wrapped in wisecracking snark. But her scenes with the somewhat inept young actress Janis Wilson are leached of any humor, and too heavy-handed to be any fun. The two share some genuinely moving moments, yet I can't help but think I was watching the wrong leading lady for that particular job. Give me Baby Jane's screeching, sure, but don't give me a saccharine Bette Davis.

Therefore, the whole thing with Tina comes off as kinda creepy. Without Henreid's knowledge, Davis insinuates herself into her lover's daughter's life, becoming the child's sole support system. That is some bad psychiatry on Jaquith's part allowing her to take over so fully. Going camping with a child who's not yours like that, just the two of you, ain't legal, I don't think. And then you turn around and take her home with you. Y'know, after an okay from Jaquith. Yup.

(Again with the Doctor Macro)

Obviously I'm willing to cut a movie like this some slack; '40s psychodramas weren't particularly well known for their realistic grip on mental healthcare. But the Charlotte/Tina development is a little too rapidly jumbled over, with no real closure. So what, Tina just lives there now? I guess? And Charlotte and Jerry are gonna raise her together, but not stay romantically involved? And Tina's mom (another MONSTER but one we never see because screw her perspective) is totally fine with this because Tina was an accident anyways? Um.

I haven't posted here for awhile, and I'm actually kinda hesitant to make this my comeback review. I understand and appreciate that this is a favorite, and I don't want to come across like I'm ragging on an old standby. After all, Now, Voyager does have its truly enjoyable moments. On a visceral level, of course I got a thrill watching Davis stand up (with such classic Davis flair) to her wretched mother, and who doesn't love Davis's beautifully made up face that not even a cloud of smoke or glistening tears could disfigure, as she makes crazy eyeball love to Henreid? These moments are golden and shouldn't be callously passed over. Still, I wish the movie had more bite, more consistency. Dark Victory is next on my list, and who knows, it might be the perfect marriage of Davis's talent and high-class camp that I'm looking for.

P.S. The sooner I can forget the ham-handed attempt at humor with the Portuguese cab driver? The better.

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah! Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection Overview

"Spooky, scary. Boys becoming men. Men becoming wolves." 

The fabled "Happy Place" that insecure, downtrodden folks retreat to in times of stress very often takes cinematic form, not just eating form. When I was a wee shrub of eighteen and alone at college some years back, away from home for the first time and possessing the well-adjusted social skills of your average dark-dwelling cave fish, mine were full episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000  scrapped together from various YouTube channels. Then during one of my unemployed stints following graduation, I turned to old episodes of Hey! Arnold. Helga G. Pataki understands existential angst better than any Saturday morning cartoon character. In my  discombobulated teen years, The Big Lebowski was my mainstay.

I still turn to all of these various outlets on different occasions, sometimes when I'm blue, and other times when I'm simply in the mood for them because they're great.

One cinematic outlet--or series of outlets, I should say--that has pretty much always been there for me intermittently over the years, from very early pre-adolescence on, are the Universal Classic Monsters. They're misfits, like we all think we are especially when outgrowing childhood, but they're misfits with style, and with power. And in those very early '30s flicks, they seemed to exist in an otherworldly plane all their own, with a mish-mash of time and setting. You could ride a horse-drawn carriage through gothic 18th Century terrain, but still wear the saucy bobs and shorter skirts we associate with the '30s.

And so while suffering bravely through my current bout of unemployment, I decided the logical course of action was blowing almost $90 on the new Blu-Ray collection of the eight essential Classic Monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera, and Creature From The Black Lagoon.

I have no regrets.

(I've also been watching a lot of Roseanne.)

Inbetween my busy schedule of staring at the computer screen with my mouth open hoping jobs would magically appear and deciding between hot fudge sundaes or dignity, I watched all the movies in the set, and most (but not all) of the bonus features on each disc. I've seen these flicks all before, of course, but wanted them fresh in my mind before reviewing. Plus I spent a lot of money with my non-existent budget, so I better watch 'em all, at least once. I'm going to try gazing critically at these movies through the prism of my childhood idolatry, and see if I can be objective about these lumbering, psychopathic friends of mine.

First things first, the packaging sorta sucks. I hate the slidey-pocket deal, since I think it's easier for the discs to scratch and fall out (that's already happened a couple times. Is there no place for a budding film critic with butter fingers?).

As for the features on the discs, well...they're okay. I enjoyed most of them, but the problem is, they're almost all from Universal Home Studio's programs made some twenty years ago, and they feel a little dated in ways that, oddly, the movies themselves don't. I wish with the new collection we could get some new infotainment. I'll try going into more specifics with some of the features when I actually review the separate movies...this very instant!

DRACULA (1931)
dir. Tod Browning
Starring Bela Lugosi, Dwight Frye, Helen Chandler, Edward Van Sloan, David Manners

This was only my second viewing of Dracula, and although I was of course taken with Lugosi's Count, I realized for the first time how thoroughly Dwight Frye dominates the movie. Save for Frye and Lugosi, Dracula is not as thrilling as the other '30s movies here. The opening scenes at the castle are of course terrifically moody (although, why the armadillos? Why the tiny bee in its tiny bee-coffin?). The eerie, languorous pacing that matches the cadences to Lugosi's accented speech possess a unique courtly terror. Save for the scenes on the storm-ridden ship and Karl Freund's long tracking shot of Dr. Seward's asylum that culminates in Renfield's screams, no other sections of the movie match that early introduction to Dracula and his brides.

That isn't to say the rest of the movie is bad, and Carfax Abbey's set is mind-boggling, but this more than any of the other classic monster movies has the feel of the stage work that precedes it. Too much takes place in the stuffy drawing room in the Seward estate, and the useless buffoonery of David Manners as Jonathan Harker doesn't help. Manners, lord love 'im, was usually counted on as the biggest disappointment in the Universal Horror movies he was in. Perhaps he was useful for subversive directors like Browning and Freund to subtly hint that the ingenue--be it delicate Helen Chandler here or mysterious Zita Johann in The Mummy--isn't exactly rewarded with a life of sexy excitement for escaping the lustful paws of their monsters. It was either one way or the other: a degraded life of sensual slavery with the baddie, or an eternity of blandness with barely-there Davy. Hardly a fair choice.

Luckily, I don't think Manners was ever quite so insufferable again, and I was more charmed this time around by Chandler's ethereal spaciness than in my first viewing (where I tended to agree with Pauline Kael that Chandler's "too anemic" to attract a vampire). Edward Van Sloan makes a good, dependable Van Helsing, Herbert Bunson is an indifferent, stuffy Dr. Seward, and I enjoyed the outsized cockney caricature that was Charles Gerrard's Martin, up to a point.

But back to Frye: like I said, he dominates. He really pulls off something remarkable. His performance is immense, showstopping, and overwrought, yet he sells it so convincingly. At least to my untrained eye, there are no subtle tricks or shades he gives Renfield's madness, it's all played on a large, broad scale. Yet it's a heart-wrenching and giddy experience watching him, and there will never be another Renfield that touches him.

I do wish we could have had an early scene of Mina tending to Renfield at her father's asylum. That way she could have generated a little more interest in her character from the audience, and it would establish why Renfield is so preoccupied with protecting her in particular.

Dracula's disc has perhaps the best bonus feature, the Spanish version of the movie filmed at the same time on the same lot, but at night and with a Hispanic cast. I have to concur with critics that this is superior to the American version in dialogue and characterization, though it truly does not deviate too much from the original. However, save for Jose Soriano Voisca's more sensitive Dr. Seward (he seems actually concerned about his daughter, by Jove!) and the beautiful Lupita Tovar's more explicitly animalistic Eva, the casting falls a bit short. If only it were Lugosi in this version instead of the hammy Carlos Villarias, whose chief crime is a distinct lack of presence. Pablo Alvarez Rubio does a very respectable job as Renfield (his character is fleshed out far more satisfactorily here), but again, no one can touch Frye. And boy, oh boy, something about poor Jonathan Harker spells trouble. Barry Norton's Juan Harker is just about as helpless and foppish as Manners's.

The other features include, like on all the discs, little mini-documentaries on the making of the movie and interviews with actors like Tovar (still beautiful some twenty years ago, and presumably still beautiful now for a 103-year old). However, I haven't the heart yet to watch Lugosi: The Dark Prince. I'm sort of scared of falling into a deep depression if I do.

FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
dir. James Whale
Starring Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan, Frederic Kerr

There's still a bit of a stagy feel to James Whale's first foray into Universal Horror, but I think that can be blamed mainly on the lack of score, which makes some of the action come off overly stage-bound (Dracula might suffer similarly, though I haven't watched with Philip Glass's new orchestrations yet). However, because we are more often taken place to place, from Frankenstein's laboratory to the countryside, to the Frankenstein's rambling estate, to mountain rocks and windmills, Frankenstein feels more spacious and cinematic than Dracula.

The ensemble cast is, by and large, superior to Dracula's. True, not much can be done with John Boles or Mae Clarke, but they are the goody-goody, luckless exceptions. For Clarke, I think the problem lies mostly with the bland way Elizabeth's written. Clarke could act, as evidenced by her performance as Myra in Whale's version of Waterloo Bridge released the same year. For all Valerie Hobson's performance as Elizabeth in Bride of Frankenstein hinges mostly on switching back-and-forth from hysteria to haughtiness, at least the script gives her something to chew on; no such luck for Clarke here.

Sexy, sexy Colin Clive is smoulderingly intense as Frankenstein, far more alert and sinister than the more watered-down and battered version of Henry we get in Bride (part of why Henry might seem so tired and overwrought in the sequel was Clive's ever-deteriorating health and descent into alcoholism). While Frye is absorbing and entertaining in the role of the hunchbacked Fritz, he is not around long enough or given enough depth or sympathy to be as compelling as his Renfield. However, the shot of him pulling up his sock before heading upstairs is a delightful example of James Whale's idiosyncratic attention to character detail.

To accurately gauge the effect of Karloff in this film, try to place yourself as an audience member in 1931. There had never been anything like him on the screen before. Lon Chaney and Conrad Veidt brought heart to their monsters, but the silent medium provided a healthy distance between audience and character. While many cite Karloff's original monster as the last truly great silent monster due to his lack of speech, I disagree. It's in the muted whimpers, conveying such disoriented longing, combined with those fathomless eyes and sunken cheeks, that makes the Monster such a grotesque yet accurate depiction of our own inner monster-children.

Despite some all-round excellent yet sometimes static camera work from Arthur Edeson and Paul Ivano, and a vaguely cheeky script (fortelling the all-out cheekiness of Bride) by John L. Balderston, the success of Frankenstein can largely be attributed to three mad geniuses: James Whale, Boris Karloff, and the grim man who basically wore surgeon's smocks and would eviscerate you if you showed up late: Jack B. Pierce and his make-up. However, one of the features on Wolf Man is dedicated to Pierce, so I'll expound on him in a couple movies.

THE MUMMY (1932)
dir. Karl Freund
Starring Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, Edward Van Sloan, David Manners, Arthur Byron

This could in fact be technically the best movie of the bunch. Taking into account plot, mood, cinematography, and writing, Mummy really is superior, even in this decade when the genre was still considered somewhat serious art, and not childish B-Movie fare. The pacing is disarmingly sleepy, which historians Scott Essman, Steve Haberman, Bob Burns, and Brent Armstrong claim on the commentary track can bore a modern audience. Yet the tension and eroticism builds.

I've written extensively on the Mummy's character here, but I really want to re-emphasize the stoic romanticism in Karloff's portrayal of a mummy brought back to life, obsessed with bringing back his lost love Princess. Karloff's second Universal Monster is much more lyrical, romantic, intelligent, well-spoken, and deliberately cruel than his first, and you know watching that the Monster was not a fluke, and Karloff is a star.

The mini-docs reveal what a truly fascinating character Zita Johann was. I knew, of course, she had great presence and was incredibly beautiful, although a trifle owlish-looking at some angles--but, y'know, a beautiful owl. And I had read, of course, of her belief in reincarnation and that she would pray in her dressing room before each performance, willing the spirit of her character to possess her.

But she was also a ballsy dame. Karl Freund, for all that he creates such a spooky atmosphere, was apparently a bit of a pill. As this was his first time directing, he tried making relative newcomer Johann his scapegoat if anything went wrong. Thus on the first day of filming, he told her they would begin by shooting her nude from the waist up, telling her so in hopes she would fly off the handle and he could blame any mishaps on her diva-like behavior.

Instead, Johann shrugged and said, "Okay. If you can get it past the censors, I'm game." She also didn't hesitate to tell him to "move the damn camera" when he informed her the camera was in the wrong spot for the angle she wanted to be filmed in. She also once called on Irving Thalberg, asking "why he made such trash." His answer: "For the money, Zita."

Her confidence really shines through in the dual role of Helen and the revived spirit of Anck-es-en-Amon. She's one of the only horror heroines I can think of who saves her own damn self, and articulates just why she doesn't want to go along with her undead lover's plans. Johann's performance has a lot of weight, and a lot of mysticism that has nothing to do with acting; according to the featurettes, once or twice throughout she had out-of-body experiences, believing herself truly the long-dead fictional princess. One time she passed out and came to to the sight of Karloff's thickly wrinkled face looming over her, but the deep eyes with the charcoal lines around them were concerned, not mesmerizing: "Zita, darling, are you all right?"

Manners is still pretty dunderheaded, but I reiterate, nothing's more hysterical than his Jonathan Harker, goofing about in knickers.

THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933)
dir. James Whale
Starring Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart, William Harrigan, Henry Travers, Una O'Connor, E.E. Clive

James Whale really lets his wit fly this time, with generous help from his screenwriter, R.C. Sherriff (who also contributed to Whale's macabre comedy Old Dark House from the previous year). Invisible Man is in many ways a prelude to what Whale would bring to Bride of Frankenstein two years later, in its mix of comedy, light horror, and his usual British color. In Una O'Connor's hysterical crone wife of the innkeeper we see shadows of her hamtastic Minnie in Bride, and blustering E.E. Clive is on hand as, yet again, another incompetent, pompous constable. The exception to the fun is Henry Travers as Dr. Cranley. He's dreadfully wooden and ineffectual.

This is also the first Universal Monster movie that lacks that stagy feel, as the gimmick of an invisible man demands that we get to see him commit his evil hi-jinks in all sorts of different settings: an inn, a village, a country road, a field, a house, a barn in the snow, etc. The stable of aforementioned character actors, with their wildly varying social positions and dialects, also contributes to the feeling that more of England is involved than a lab and a drawing room.

Yet for all that Invisible Man is a wonderfully cohesive and respected picture, perhaps it is not as beloved on as wide a scale as Whale's two Frankenstein movies because at the center of its cynical charade of biting dialogue and idiotic villagers, the monster is not a misunderstood giant with the mind of a child, but really just a colossal dick. Sort of like Dracula! This certainly isn't a drawback or flaw, since Rains is so endlessly entertaining for a man we can't see, but we do lose some pathos when the persecuted monster is gleefully malicious and deserving of punishment.

Not that there aren't attempts to give him sympathy, and they don't all fail. So we don't think he's just a homicidal maniac who struck out with the greatest cover a crook ever chanced upon, we're told that the chemicals he used have the unfortunate side-effect of insanity, and he was overall a pretty amiable man of science before the unfortunate transparence business. We're also given luminously beautiful Gloria Stuart as his misty-eyed fiancee, his one soft spot. Although Stuart's character is a little wet, Rains is at his most moving and sympathetic when with her, while still maintaining his creeping insanity.

It's a shame Invisible Man isn't quite in the same pantheon of immortality as Frankenstein or Dracula, because Rains gives a performance just as worthy of note. With only his voice he conveys malevolent cunning and believable madness, yet touches such sensitive shades when in the scenes I've mentioned with Stuart. He's having a madcap ball, yet never forgets the intense evil that's been thrust into him by his own character's thoughtless ambition. All in all, due in great part to Rains's urbane monster and Sherriff's intelligent script, this is certainly the most sophisticated of the movies here, rivaled only by Mummy.

Now You See Him: The Invisible Man Revealed is the best mini-doc in the set, combining biographical info on Whale with further details about his career and insight into the truly remarkable effects that went into turning Rains invisible (psst: lots of it involved standing in front of the set with everything covered in a black velvet).

THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935)
dir. James Whale
Starring Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive, Ernest Thesiger, Valerie Hobson

While Dr. Praetorius is certainly urbane wit personified, I don't include Bride of Frankenstein in that tie between Invisible Man and Mummy for most sophisticated. It's too madcap, too campy, too parodic, too wildly disjointed and damn weird to be exactly sophisticated, per se.

Yet Bride works, doesn't it?

You could say no wrong about this movie to me in my early years. This was my movie. Just read my review here of the 1986 Bride with Sting and Jennifer Beals if you don't believe me. However, even though I still flinch when I hear it criticized (just as we do when even our most eccentric family member is ragged on by an outsider), I admit now that Bride of Frankenstein is not flawless. In fact, when it comes to coherent storyline and consistent characterization, I'd venture to say The Mummy and Invisible Man are the technically superior movies.

The varying settings are wonderful, including that forest the historians in the documentaries are infatuated with, those great, long branchless telephone pole trees and the light show on the tower's rooftop toward the end. But like I said, all the flurrying action and locations give the film a disoriented feel. Sometimes--though rarely--the humor falls a trifle flat. An early example of what modern moviemakers still haven't figured out, just because you have the ability for a certain special effect doesn't mean you should use that special effect; I speak obviously of Praetorius's little people in their jars, which I think is a total misfire. Embarrassingly bad humor and, again, disjointed.

Yet all in all, this is the most sheerly entertaining movie of its monster genre; possibly one of the most entertaining movies of all time.

Like Invisible Man, Bride escapes the confines of early monster movie staginess not only through a variety of sets and colorful townfolk, but through the magnificent score by Franz Waxman running through the entire movie. No one who watches forgets the Bali Hai-esque refrain for the eponymous Bride, and the haunting buoyancy it gives the action.

Very few could argue that the best scenes, maybe apart from the Monster's rehabilitation with the blind man, are those of the Bride's creation. In the original Frankenstein, the limited budget gave only a glimpse of the process creating the Monster, though the glimpse we got was effective enough. But here we feast on all sorts of ridiculous doo-dads, including but not limited to the cosmic diffusors, cosmic rays, and the bandaged Bride on her platform in the sky as kites explode around her, Waxman's heartbeat score pounding throughout. The lighting on Clive and Thesiger  as they watch from below in the lab gives them hollowed, ghoulish shadows under the cheekbones, highlighting their mutual descent into devilish god-like mania.

Bride also has the advantage of the most fluid ensemble acting of the movies thus far, slightly ahead of Invisible Man even. Gone is any stuffy staginess; even Gavin Gordon's R-rolling Lord Byron is hammy in a less stage-bound and more all-out operatic fashion. And you know what? Screw all you detractors, I love the hell out of Una O'Connor's Minnie. Maybe she just touches that soft spot I have for hysterical morbid old bats, but I adore her. "Insides is always the lahst to be consyewmed."

The three performers that truly elevate this movie to heights far above ordinary camp and ordinary horror are Karloff as a now haltingly speaking Monster, Thesiger as Praetorius, and Elsa Lanchester as The Bride. They each symbolize the different emotional aspects at play throughout: Theisiger evil, campy flamboyance, Karloff poignancy and heart, and Lanchester stylistic romanticism.

They're each slightly askew: Karloff may be the heart of the film, but he murders and growls like a beast; Theisiger may be a mad scientist, but he's awfully urbane and sarcastically detached for someone driving the plot, and Lanchester is beautiful, but in an unconventional, unearthly, elfin way, with Nefertiti'd lightning hair and long upward slashes for eyebrows. Obviously Lanchester is my personal live-through-her fixation (read more on that here), and I admit that's probably because she's the only major monster female we have to relate to in this early genre--although keep in mind, I haven't yet seen Dracula's Daughter. Though on screen for a pitifully short amount of time, even with her cameo as Mary Shelley in the beginning, Lanchester's bright, jerky performance helped cement this movie permanently into my consciousness, and that's why Bride of Frankenstein remains one of the best.

Not much stands out in the features, save for another mini-doc about the making of the film in question. I really wish Miss L. could have gotten a mini-doc all her own like the other monster actors, but limited screen time does that to you, no matter how great those eight minutes are.

THE WOLF MAN (1941)
dir. George Waggner
Starring Lon Chaney Jr., Evelyn Ankers, Claude Rains, Maria Ouspenskaya, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy, Bela Lugosi

I had a bit of a hard time truly warming to this one for awhile, partly because I consider Werewolf in London a far superior and overlooked film. I've also had my share of objections to Lon Chaney Jr.'s schlubbiness as lead Larry Talbot, though the fact he resembles Huckleberry Hound does sound appropriate for the role. However, I've been able to reconcile that my issue lies not really with Chaney as an actor--he does have some fine, touching moments here, and gets even better in the sequels--but instead with what his Average Joe unexcitement symbolizes: the loss of stylized enthrallment found in monster movies of the '30s to the more hokey B-Picture mentality going into the '40s and onward. Wolf Man is a rather transitional film in this regard.

The setting and cinematography are still fantastic, the thick fog machines memorably drowning the forest scenes in a sense of dread as the black trees stand ominously throughout. So the mood and look are right, but overall the casting is Hollywood at its blandest. No one's really bad, but save for Maria Ouspenskaya and Bela Lugosi in his short but pivotal scenes, there's no one to bring anything of weight to the proceedings. Ralph Bellamy as a British constable? Ralph Bellamy? Evelyn Ankers is certainly something to look at with her soft-focused features, shiny lips, eyes, and jewelry, but while competent, she too lacks excitement. And although Claude Rains's presence is always welcome and he does class up the joint, he looks as if he knows he doesn't have much to do and doesn't quite know what to do with that knowledge.

Chaney's casting as everyman Larry Talbot signifies that American producers and audiences were willing to relate to foreigners like Karloff up to a point, so long as Karloff plays a foreign monster to begin with. But for someone normal who trips unknowingly into an uncontrollable trap that ruins his average, harmless life, Americans want someone unfailingly, well, American in the role. Thus Larry, though born to an important, titled family in England, is conveniently abroad through most of his life, and is returning as much a Yank as any apple pie.

Despite that we're meant to relate to Larry as a good man before his tragic lupine encounter, I can't quite get over my initial repugnance to how he's introduced to us. He leers at Ankers through a telescope, pushes his presence on her, and really doesn't give a crap she's engaged, and it's all supposed to be charming and macho, especially in the twee English setting. However, this gives way to another reading of the plot, a reading I like better than the simplistic, Hitchcockian "sometimes bad things happen to good people" trope: Larry's already got the behavior of a wolf, and this is what comes of it (Bela Lugosi's werewolf howls and attacks a woman just as Chaney leans in for a kiss with Ankers).

So certainly there are many elements that work here, and I don't want to sound like I'm ragging on Wolf Man. Ouspenskaya in particular is spectacular as the gypsy mother of Lugosi, so battered down over the years with grief she's numb to it. Her otherworldly tones speak her sorrow far more than a million recitations of the "wolfbane" poem could. And Jack B. Pierce's makeup was never more effective. His Wolf Man face is a triumph. He perfected what he wasn't allowed to fully do in Werewolf of London thanks to star Henry Hull's vain reticence. The jutting lower jaw with its protruding fangs, combined with the fur-covered face and narrow snout transform Chaney so completely it really is terrifying. The snout is so obviously unreal with its button nose that it should jar, but instead it adds such a grotesque flourish we're convinced that out of all the monsters, the Wolf Man would evoke the most visceral terror if encountered in those woods in the deep of night.

As I mentioned earlier, in his featurette we learn more about Pierce's career, which sadly went downhill eventually. So devoted was he to the old-fashioned elbow-grease approach that he didn't take to the modern habit of prosthetics and special effects; thus he was booted out unceremoniously, relegated to less prestigious work on Mister Ed and such wretched Z-Movies as The Brute Man (why was he needed for that one? Poor Rando Hatton really didn't need makeup, did he?). Still, what a legacy, and Wolf Man to me is his crowning achievement.

The other major fact I learned from the featurettes was that Wolf Man screenwriter Curt Siodmak basically invented our modern understanding of the werewolf. He not only wrote the original Wolf Man, but the sequels Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and House of Frankenstein, expanding on a mythology we take for granted as lore but that he actually created: the full moon, the silver bullets, the entire wolfbane poetics. There's some theory that as a persecuted Jew who fled from Nazi Germany, Siodmak wrote in the ever-present pentagram on a werewolf victim's hand as a symbol for the Star of David that forever had to be visible on Jewish citizens in the Ghettos. The descent of ordinary men like Larry Talbot into a bestial mania mirrored the ordinary youth of Germany suddenly transformed and brainwashed into Hitler Youth. Another interesting reading, though how conscious Siodmak himself was of his real-life terror seeping into his screenplays about wolf monsters is unknown (maybe this is where Rob Zombie got his inspiration for his faux-trailer Werewolf Women of the S.S. in Grindhouse?).

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1943)
dir. Arthur Lubin
Starring Claude Rains, Susanna Foster, Nelson Eddy, Edgar Barrier

It goes without saying that Phantom feels the least like a Universal Monster movie, and is rightly dwarfed by the far superior '20s version with Chaney, Sr. The movie is entertaining, but certainly not in the bracing, tightly compelling way Bride of Frankenstein is. Phantom is an oddity because it doesn't fit neatly into either category of the other movies in this set: the auterish '30s nightmare-scapes, or the less mature but more boisterous B-fare of the '40s on. By focusing more on the music, the opulent Opera House set from the original Chaney movie, the weak comedy, and the blazing technicolor, Phantom feels much more like a big-budget, all-expense MGM costume extravaganza than a Universal horror movie.

Like Wolf Man, Phantom suffers from a uniformly unexciting cast. Nelson Eddy certainly has presence as the heroic but fatuous baritone, but is so wholesome yet somehow skeezy you feel a little icky watching him and equally wholesome-yet-somehow-skeezy Edgar Barrier ogle fresh-faced, eighteen-year-old Susanna Foster's Christine. Foster herself has an impressive set of pipes and I like the level-headed, career-oriented spunk writers Samuel Hoffenstein, Eric Taylor, Hans Jacoby and John Jacoby give her character, which is rare for most Christines. Foster has carriage and is likable in a Glinda the Good Witch way, but she was obviously moulded in the Deanna Durbin/Jeannette MacDonald nice-girl school of actress singers, so we get none of the breathless, haunted mania that the ethereally frizzy-haired Mary Philbin lent Christine in the Chaney Phantom. We feel no terror or possession from Foster, since she is never under the Phantom's spell and is only in peril in the film's last minutes.

So again, as in many a supporting role throughout his career, Claude Rains steps in as the Phantom to carry the thing. Rains is enormously effective, and brings a sickly realism to his Erique Claudin's madness. Unfortunately Rains pulled some Hull-esque nonsense, dictating he did not want a full treatment of makeup. So poor Pierce had to settle on something that looked like a half-cooked steak covering one portion of Rains's face in the big reveal.

If the dynamic between the Phantom and Christine here seems ickier than usual--even ickier than Eddy and Barrier's attentions--that's because in the original scenario the writers wanted Christine to be Claudin's long-lost daughter he's been caring for from afar. Studio execs ultimately and rightly judged this inclusion too incestuous, yet wrongly directed the writers to simply take out this revelation while leaving the rest of the screenplay intact. What remains is definitely a fatherly vibe from Rains as he speaks mad words of what we can now only interpret as romantic love to young, apple-cheeked Foster.

Because of the war muddling copyright laws, many of the "operas" we see are cobbled together from works by Tchaikovsky and the like. Marta is a real opera, though, so don't worry. I know that was troubling you.

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954)
dir. Jack Arnold
Starring Julie Adams, Richard Carlson, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, Nestor Paiva, Whit Bissell, Ricou Browning (uncredited), Ben Chapman (uncredited)

Full-on sci-fi B-Movie. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but boy, does this one drag in long stretches. Creature has the feel of an MST3K episode, since the majority is pompous, self-righteous white scientists expounding on the morals and ethics of science vs. men wanting to kill the shit out of things. That's just what MST3K movies at unfortunately their best often are. We also have present  MST3K vets like Richard Denning as the mean blond guy and Nestor Paiva, of the Load from Mole People fame. And I know I've heard that damned musical sting that accompanies almost every shot of the Gill Man--bwah-bwah-bwaaaaaaah!--in more than one Universal-International movie MST3K showcased. In fact, the sequel Return of the Creature actually was an episode.

The direction by Jack Arnold is mostly static, and perhaps appropriately the only big thrills go on underwater. The first time we see the Gill Man full-on, suddenly shooting up from the bottom of the screen watching the divers explore his watery domain, is pretty classic. And the shots of his scaly legs as he wanders silently around the boat are pretty chilling--you're uncomfortable and frightened on behalf of injured Whit Bissell when he sees the Gill Man's face through the porthole, Bissell helplessly trapped in bed and wrapped in bandages.

Yet there's no getting away from the fact the movie feels too episodic. We're basically watching the long process of concerned milky-white guys in swim trunks come up with faux-scientific ways to trap the monster, escape from him, and engage in testy debates about whether they should just go ahead and kill ol' Fish Face. Oh, and every once in a while Julie Adams is in peril.

If I sound too down on this movie, it's because this episodic, plodding pace seems stitched together too lazily, which Universal started doing too often around this time. Their philosophy apparently became, why bother creating something truly new when there are so many unique tidbits from earlier films we can pick and choose from? Why compose an original score when there's a whole library of monster music at our disposal? Why not pad out the scenes with a few innocuous shots from previous movies (I noticed this last night when I watched The Invisible Ray for the first time--many of the laboratory shots are taken from The Bride of Frankenstein. So I guess they'd been doing this since 1936.)? It all feels too hacked together, with no interest in character development. This was the first movie where I really had absolutely zero interest in the characters other than the monster, and even the Gill Man fails to generate nearly as much interest as the Frankenstein Monster, Wolf Man, and the like, save for his bitchin' costume.

And that costume is pretty ridiculously fabulous. Gill Man is the only monster in this set not created by Jack B. Pierce, and in a way the suit symbolizes everything Pierce rejected that got him canned: rubber and prosthetics that take away any human aspect to the face. And while they should have taken out the fake eyes in the land shots and allowed an eerie human gaze to peek out, the new makeup/costuming department creates a truly unique, disturbing, and still sympathetic monster in the Gill Man suit.

The featurettes were interesting enough, especially hearing about the uncredited Ricou Browning and Ben Chapman  who played the Gill Man in water and on land, respectively. A lot of time is devoted to the sequels, that got tawdrier yet more sympathetic to the Gill Man as they went along.

******

Like I said, I have no regrets purchasing this set.  I wish the features were more up-to-date, and I hope that someday Blu-Ray's quality can be more compatible with other lowly DVD players. Yet I love my monsters; I love the fantastical figures plopped down into a stylized, art deco reality, with the fog machines, brassy scores, and iconic performances therein. You can read as many socially framed schools of theory you'd like into these twisted tales, but at the end of the day, it's fun form of escapism. Always.

While late 2012/early 2013 hasn't been great  for me employment-wise, it's been pretty cool where monsters are concerned. I had a blast in October when I won tickets from the very generous Millie at ClassicForever to the Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein double feature TCM hosted in theaters nationwide. Hope they do that again this year. When all else fails, there are monsters.

So let me conclude this tribute with a relevant nod to the dearly departed 30 Rock:



 Play us out with the full version, Tracy and Donald Glover:

Happy Valentine's Day, I guess? Too bad I can't find that "Monster Mash"/Valentine's Day Simpsons clip! Can't have everything, unfortunately. But monster movies will do for now.

Great What-Ifs: Far From The Madding Crowd starring Vivien Leigh

Shame-faced at calling myself an English Major after failing to read certain classics, I made it a priority this summer to at least read some great literature I hadn't before, in between job hunting. And as always, I was more successful on that front than in actually securing something that could make me money. Feh. But anyways! Stop being bitter, you guys.

One of the books I absolutely fell in love with was Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd, which is well known for being one of his only cheerful books--as in, cheerful for a Thomas Hardy novel. There's still death, destruction, and heartache, but you actually don't feel like your soul has been sucked out by some sci-fi leech/vacuum hybrid by story's end. A quick, inadequate summary: pretty girl named Bathsheba. Turns down nice guy Gabriel. She inherits a farm. She's a kickass womyn, not taking no guff. Except she isn't that kickass; she can't run the farm without Gabriel. Hires him, he's head shepherd. Bathsheba drives Mr. Boldwood, elegant next-door neighbor, mad with the love-crazies. She herself is driven love-crazy by dashing man-whore Sgt. Frank Troy. Oh, it's in Wessex, the fictional English county in pretty much all of Thomas Hardy's books. Lots of colorful commentary from farm workers. There's sweeping romance and bloated sheep having to be poked in the tummies to breathe.

It's great! But I have as yet to see a filmed version that's really blown me away. The 1967 film was a huge disappointment, except for Peter Finch's bang-up job as Boldwood (and poor, nuttier-than-a-can-of-cashews Boldwood is my favorite part of Crowd, so his performance did go a long way toward redeeming the movie for me). The 1997 BBC version was okay, but the casting was iffy. Like I hear with Dark Shadows, however, little rumors tell me there will be a new cinematic version out sometime in the nearish future. I've toyed with the idea of casting that one in my head, a fond hobby of mine, and you'll probably see it often here. But because I love classic movies and vintage stars so much, I figured, hey! Why not cast a version with the actors from yesteryear, by golly? The production values back then and the more overt acting styles would better fit the epic, romantic mood Hardy establishes. I'm helped in this noble endeavor by something I read on a message board once: Vivien Leigh was once signed on to play Bathsheba in a version that was dropped for unknown reasons. Well. That sucks. I would have loved, adored, and eaten up with a spoon any version with Vivien Leigh in it. True, she'd basically just be playing an English country-girl version of Scarlett, but who freaking cares? It's Vivien. In Far From The Madding Crowd. I'm sold!

So, let's cast this imaginary movie filmed sometime in the forties, and...why don't we just cast the five principal leads, since it would take a whole plethora of old-timey character actors to portray all the local color in the thing? Here we go, gang! C'mon, Scoob!

Vivien Leigh as Bathsheba Everdene

There's no way this is not perfect. Now, I admit that I'm more than a little biased when it comes to Vivien. She's just my favorite actress, is all. I like to put on my fancy film buff pants and go, "I knew she was the greatest actress ever from the moment I saw her in A Streetcar Named Desire when I was only a little kid," thus sticking it to folks who know her primarily as Scarlett O'Hara. But while that's all very true, I didn't really become actively addicted to her until middle school, when I, like many privileged, white, ignorant brats before me, became simultaneously addicted to Gone With The Wind. But I do still maintain that her Blanche is probably the greatest performance I've ever seen. I'll probably post more on that some other time. HOWEVER: why's she perfect for Bathsheba in particular?

Well, like I said, it's a no-brainer. Beautiful? Check. The ability to play a petulant brat who means well, but is mired down by her ambitions and vanity? Double check. Dark-haired?! YES, CHECK. Sorry, but that's what really pissed me off with the '67 flick: Julie Christie, aka Blondie McBlonderson, as Bathsheba? No no no. Look, I'm not one of those book traditionalists who flies off the handle if a character's physiology deviates slightly; after all, Vivien's eyes are blue, while Bathsheba's should be brown. But Bathsheba's hair color is a freakin' plot point in one scene, for cryin' out loud. Christie was so miserably miscast.

Even though I compared the idea of Vivien's Bathsheba to an English version of Scarlett, I actually look at her performance in That Hamilton Woman as definitive proof that she would, no doubt, own the role of Bathsheba. In that film she starts out as a giddy little social climber, motivated in equal parts by misplaced love for an unseen rich git and a desire to lead a finer life than that of a chorus girl. Later, after earnestly falling in love and realizing what a shallow lie her life is, she becomes more jaded and wise, more melancholy. And she plays both these facets of Lady Hamilton's character flawlessly--I'd even venture to say it's a technically better performance than Scarlett, though few portrayals can ever touch the fiery charm she achieved in Gone With the Wind. But her ability to play both young/frisky and staid/wise is vital to playing Bathsheba accurately, since Bathsheba has far more of a conscience than Scarlett ever did, though she makes similar mistakes.

Robert Mitchum as Gabriel Oak

"His height and breadth would have been sufficient to make his presence imposing, had they been exhibited with due consideration....He was at the brightest period of masculine growth, for his intellect and his emotions were clearly separated...."

           --Thomas Hardy on Farmer Oak

Ol' Bobby Mitchum is another of my favorites. He was wildly versatile. He could chill you to the bones in Cape Fear and The Night of the Hunter, but it's his gentler, subtler, and more stoically rustic work in The Sundowners and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison that convinces me he would be the ideal Gabriel, maybe the book's one truly morally conscientious character. I couldn't help myself: he's who I pictured almost immediately I started reading, and there he stayed in me head. He's stoic, physically imposing, good looking but not conventionally gorgeous, and just watch the way he looks at Deborah Kerr in Mr. Allison: without making a big fuss, his eyes register painful, frustrated, steadfast adoration, combined with determination to help his lady out no matter what the cost. But nooooo, stupid Kerr had to be a stupid nun, ruining everything! Dumb bint.

Only qualm I have is his ability to pull off an English accent. How'd he handle an Irish brogue, people who have seen Ryan's Daughter?

George Sanders or Claude Rains as Mr. Boldwood

I know in my first post I cast my vote solely in Sanders' favor for this role, but that's simply because he's my current cinematic fixation, thanks to my wee brain's tendency toward perseveration. However, Claude Rains was my initial choice when reading the book (y'see, I hadn't yet watched Village of the Damned, the film that really sparked my Sanders mania). Why? Well, first, watch Notorious. Then watch the 1943 Phantom of the Opera. Then read Hardy's description of Boldwood here: "If an emotion possessed him at all, it ruled him; a feeling not mastering him was entirely latent. Stagnant or rapid, it was never slow.  He was always hit mortally, or he was missed." Now apply that to a portrait of a refined, middle-aged, elegant bachelor whose frigid indifference to women is turned upside-down into a consuming obsession by a flighty girl's practical joke, and you have the ideal role for Claude Rains, what-ho.

But Sanders shouldn't be discounted yet. He's not as obvious a choice as Rains, no, but don't let his caddish ways mislead you. Actually, he could take that ruthless, careless front of his and use it to his performance's advantage, illustrating just how deeply Bathsheba uproots Boldwood's life. Sanders is refined and elegant, and he can play obsessive. Don't believe me? Watch a strange little flick called Summer Storm. He does exactly this; plays a thoughtless but respectable cad until Linda Darnell shoots seductive glances at him through sooty lashes and YOWZA. Brother gets it bad. I feel like a louse saying this, but even in the midst of my admiration for the man, I had no idea he could act so damn well. I was mostly infatuated with his attitude, his man-about-town, rakish persona. But this movie schooled me. Schooled me good. There's a particularly unsettling scene where he drowns his sorrows in a pub/cafe/cabaret type thing after Darnell gives him the cold shoulder, and he gets so sloshed George Sanders actually lets loose! Only in a really demonic, scary way! Someone begins singing some sentimental twaddle that starts hitting too close to home, and his eyes blaze and he shakes in his seat. So he abruptly stands and fumbles his way to the stage, trying to rouse everyone into a more chipper chorus. Then he stops short, staring at his reflection in a large mirror, where he sees, cruelly, what a mook he's become. He's fallen so far from the dignified dandy he was at the start of the picture that his fury just builds and explodes, and he hurls his drink at the glass, shattering it.

That's Boldwood-type manic behavior right there. Trust me.

(I'd also direct you to 1952's Ivanhoe as further proof that Sanders could play unrequited, desperate love well, but nobody should have to sit through that turd. No actor came out well in that, save maybe Liz Taylor. And I forgive no movie that makes our Sanders parade around in baby blue tights and wear a bright auburn wig and mustache. Yeah, we get it, it's technicolor! We've seen it before, don't blind us! And don't get me started on that idiotic helmet with the weird bird tacked on it that he wears in the jousting scene. Nonsense.)

But if you really can't get away from the cad thing, there is another role he and some guy named Archie Leech could contend for....

George Sanders or Cary Grant as Sgt. Frank Troy

Why do I believe Sanders has the ability to play both the proper, repressed Boldwood and the n'er-do-well ladykiller Troy? Because Sanders has always reminded me in equal parts, both physically and in his manner, of a tiger and a penguin, that's why. And he can play both the ferocious predator and tuxedoed bird interchangeably. He'd make a very slick Sgt. Troy, and his age in the 1940s might have been a wee bit more appropriate for Troy than for Boldwood. While Boldwood is only supposed to be forty, an older actor--say, fiftyish?--might better capture the age gap between he and Bathsheba on film (besides, in this my little fantastical version filmed in the '40s, Vivien would already be in her late 20s/early 30s. You might need an older actor to play her Boldwood). However, a part of me can't help but think that Troy is too predictable a role for Sanders, and he might be sorely tempted to fall back on tricks he's played before.

That's why I prefer Grant. He was chiseled out of his bad guy role in Suspicion, and while he played a similar role in 1932's Madame Butterfly (above), I don't think he ever tackled an all-out cad once he became uber-famous. And because Grant is so innately likable, Troy's few soft moments would be more believable, and keep his character from traveling too far into one-dimensional, dumbass jock territory. Just as Sanders often played the Sanders role, so did Grant play the Grant role: a happy-go-lucky hottie who casually gets the girl while ultimately doing no harm. A character like Troy who's mostly a dick but has a few surprisingly redeeming qualities would give Grant an opportunity to flex his skills outside of his usual type. Would he be capable of playing not only a despicable scum-bag, but also a poor schlub sobbing while trying weakly to plant flowers on the grave of a certain character? Maybe we could have gotten a good taste of just how far Grant's range as an actor extended. Plus, he's handsome and jaunty, and just as pretty as Vivien. They'd make a good onscreen match.

Joan Fontaine as Fanny Robin

Remember I mentioned Troy's soft spots? Dear, pathetic Fanny Robin is one of them, though the softness she inspires in him is fickle and rather faint. She's a housemaid at Bathsheba's farm who loves Troy despite the fact he's Troy, and tries eloping with him in the beginning. Under hilariously lame circumstances, that's stalled, and before they can try again....

Joan Fontaine is an actress familiar to anyone who reads the fabulous Self-Styled Siren, where Fontaine is a frequent favorite. I doubt producers in the '40s would have been keen for Fontaine to jeopardize her prim, delicate English rose image by playing a working-class, uneducated, fallen girl like Fanny, though by far Fanny is the most innocent and delicate character in the novel. That's precisely why I think Fontaine would be so effective in the role. She was so enchanting as the shy second Mrs. DeWinter in Rebecca that I honestly believe her performance there could be the most touching display of timidity I've ever seen on screen. This gift of hers, playing fragile girls realistically and adorably, would make Fanny's plight all the more poignant. Can you imagine that sweet, nameless girl from Rebecca half dead on the rural streets of the English countryside, struggling down endless roads in the rain to get to a hospital, helped only by clutching the coat of a passing dog? If that image wouldn't strike straight to the hearts of indulgent housewives in '40s movie theaters, I don't know what would.

 Like I said, there are a menagerie of other roughneck extras hanging out in the book, and it would take stronger powers than even my majestic ability to babble on and on to cast each one. However, we're talking about the Golden Age of Hollywood, and in the Golden Age of Hollywood, when you need a likable character actor to play a blustering farm hand, you'd most likely get in touch with this guy:

 Thomas Mitchell as Jan Coggan

You like sprawling epics, the kind you'd only see in full, corny, wonderful detail way back when, in the tradition of William Wyler's Wuthering Heights and that one movie about the Old South that chick Leigh was in? Then I'd recommend reading Far From the Madding Crowd. It's about as close as you can get to that sweepy feeling in classic novel format.

And after you've read it, you can answer the question nagging me now, and will keep me sleeping only fitfully tonight:

Who the heck could have played Liddy Smallbury in those days?