Such Men Are Dangerous (1930)



An especially weird melodrama, in which a wealthy but awkward man is too shy to even speak with his new wife on their wedding night, instead offering her gifts and money through his servant. The bride, feeling weird about the whole thing, runs off, driving the man to decide the problem was his looks and then fake his death, only to get plastic surgery and return into her life as someone else. Frankly, it's odder than it sounds here and doesn't play out well at all. Bela is the plastic surgeon. Why does the film spend twelve minutes of its run time on the kindly plastic surgeon who recalls a good deed the wealthy man once did for him? I have no idea.


Plot (0-5 points): The concept itself might have made for either great horror or great romance, but this film resides awkwardly between the two, is paced terribly, and doesn't seem to know where to focus its time and energy 2

Atmosphere (0-5 points): None at all. The sets are spartan, the camera angles boring with the exception of one special scene where the man first sees his new face 1.

Other Actors (0-3 points): Really nothing special here. 1

The Lugosi Factor (0-10 points): The first of many times Bela will play a kindly doctor (or a maniac who poses as a kindly doctor. Either way). While his role in the Thirteenth Chair reeked of Dracula, that's nowhere to be found this time around. He's sweet, compassionate, convincing, and seldom ever over the top. While I'm not sure what his character was ever doing taking up roughly twelve minutes of seemingly unnecessary film time, he steals the show as perhaps the only worthwhile performance in this thing 5

Overall: An intriguing concept executed all wrong with forgettable acting, awkward pacing and emphases, zero atmosphere, and twelve minutes of really good Bela Lugosi acting 9


Worth noting: the director and nine members of the crew were killed when two planes collided filming a scene on the last day of shooting.

Renegades (1930)



Sgt. Fury's Howling Commandos, only Rhett Butler is leading them, and Victor Fleming gives the whole thing the scope and dignity you'd expect of the director who will go on to make Gone With the Wind only nine years later. Lugosi is barely in this thing, but the film shines brilliantly without his help.


Plot (0-5 points): The characterizations, inner conflicts, themes and even symbolism are impressive as all heck. The film is both laugh out loud fun and remarkably poignant. 5

Atmosphere (0-5 points): Fleming appears to spare little cost in giving us a sense of sweeping locales and realism as we follow a band of deserters through the Moroccan desert, through forts and camps, never once doubting the grandeur and authenticity of the adventure. 5

Other Actors (0-3 points): The lovable band of renegades is perfectly cast and often feels like Nick Fury's Howling Commandos come to life. C. Henry Gordon plays a brilliant grumbling captain who holds to the rules and protocols with savage ferocity. However, the two leads, Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy, lack the complexity the script demands of them. Their scenes together, in particular, are utterly lacking in chemistry. 2

The Lugosi Factor (0-10 points): Bela appears in four scenes across nearly 90 minutes of run-time, and only gets a chance to speak more than four lines in one of them. As the bored, reckless, and impulsive Sheik who will ultimately become the film's nemesis, Lugosi tries his best to have fun with the role, playing a silly caricature mostly for laughs, but his choice to do an accent on top of the Hungarian accent he hasn't figured out how to drop is odd at best. Regardless, I enjoy him in the role, but we see too little of him for me to score this component favorably. 3

Overall: Very impressive film I'll likely return to again...but not for Bela. 15

Yes, but he was so...FUN in the one real scene they gave him

Well, here we are...


Dracula (1931)



The first true American monster film. Sure, the Phantom, the Hunchback, and Mr. Hyde had all made the silver screen prior to this, but they were just deformed people, not monsters. And while Edison's Frankenstein had been released 21 years earlier, it was a 14 minute short not seen by general audiences, and Edison had purposefully removed any horror elements from the story so as not to upset audiences, focusing instead on the psychological struggle of Dr. Frankenstein. For Americans, Dracula was their first real introduction into the cinematic supernatural, and Tod Browning did not disappoint.

More importantly to this thread, of course, this was the role that made Bela Lugosi's career. He'd already been playing this role on the stage for half a decade by this point, but the film made him a household name, while also creating a Hollywood legacy from which Bela could not escape (not that he really tried to). Again, ever since moving to Hollywood, Lugosi has been repeatedly typecast as a foreigner, first for his semi-exotic looks, and now (in the age of talking films) for his thick Hungarian accent. And that's what makes him perfect for this role -- Dracula is the ultimate cautionary story about immigrants, a paranoid fantasy of what happens when an immigrant has the money and class to confidently walk down the street, charm our daughters, and buy the house right next door. So Lugosi, having both class and a heavy accent, suits the role brilliantly even without the countless subtle decisions he makes to own the role completely.


Plot (0-5 points): The plot is the weakest part of the original novel. All the excitement happens at the start, the scenes in England are nowhere near as compelling, and our protagonist (Harker in the novel) is too weak and clueless to be of any use in the advancing of the plot. The stage play and subsequent film make some very clever alterations to tighten up the plot and give Van Helsing the role of protagonist, but they still suffer from the largest problem from the original story -- nothing beats those first scenes in Castle Dracula. Try as I may, I find myself getting tired of the film after the first twenty one minutes when we move to London, and laboriously bored ten minutes later once we moved to the setting of Seward's Sanitarium and then pretty much get trapped there for the remainder of the film. This is harder yet because of the amazing job Browing does of bringing Castle Dracula to life. How can you take us from such a vivid backdrop, full of terror, and then transplant us to a high society drawing room where Dracula and Van Helsing are more concerned with insulting and publicly exposing each other than...ya know...fighting and living/dying. It's DULL. 2

Atmosphere (0-5 points): Karl F**king Freund. That's all you really need to say. Those brilliant tracking shots he first mastered with 1924's The Last Laugh, the sense of pacing and of German Expressionism he brings to the whole thing! Plus brilliantly authentic looking creepy Castle Dracula sets and so much smoke! Not much can be done for the tedious drawing room scenes that dominate the second half of the film, but Freund brings what atmosphere he can when we get open windows, as well as scenes in bedrooms and outdoors. 4.5

Other Actors (0-3 points): Dwight Frye is an utter triumph. I follow his film career with nearly as much enthusiasm as I follow Bela's. Edward Van Sloane is a tremendously gifted actor but, in the same inexplicably way that I adore Bela even when he's doing a terrible job, I can't stand Van Sloane even when he's brilliant. He's so...mechanical and inhuman. Ironic in this film, really. And I absolutely don't care for the other members of the cast, but that's less their fault and more the fault of what the script leaves them to work with. 2

The Lugosi Factor (0-10 points): Anyone who thinks Lugosi pulls this off on the strength of his class and accent alone really needs to watch these films along with me to get the full context. He is so ALIEN here...so utterly inhuman in a way he's never been previously and (I don't think) ever will be again. Sometimes, when he says his lines with an inappropriate inflection, it's tempting to chalk it up to Bela not understanding the words he is reciting. Except he has now been playing this role on and off for five years, and he's been learning more and more English at the same time. Thus, when he says a line with the absolutely wrong inflection, it's supposed to sound weird. When the talking stops, and there are awkward silences, it's supposed to feel weird. This is the first ever talking monster on the silver screen, after all. Bela does this amazing job of playing a totally civilized and cultured man about town in front of the Sewards, and then playing a totally different, far more alien role behind bedroom doors. Those little lines with the off inflections are a bridge between those two facets -- a reminder that this guy isn't exactly what he appears to be.

Sure, there are moments where Bela hams it up too far. The line where I almost always laugh is

"And after you deliver the message,
you will remember nothing,
I now say

...Obey."

Did he HAVE to emphasize the rhyme??



But still, he's a total gem in this role. It's not my favorite Bela role, but he does absolutely nail it, and I'm not sure someone else playing the role with this same script could do half as well. Speaking of which, I've still yet to see the Spanish version (though I own it). 9.5



Overall: 18

I actually enjoy the film throughout when I watch it with the Phillip Glass score (an option on most DVD versions). It intensifies the atmosphere and energy in those drawing room scenes. But I felt the need to watch/review the film as it was originally done this time around.

Incidentally, the youtube clip you posted of the Mirror Scene is using that score.



It's a GREAT moment. Except WHY does Van Helsing reveal what he knows to Dracula? And WHY does Dracula admit it and invite Seward to listen to Van Helsing's explanation once he's gone? I don't understand these characters.




I totally agree. Different Draculas for different times. The Terrence Fischer/Christopher Lee version seemed to delight in subverting expectations at every turn (they could teach Rian Johnson a thing or two!), and so Lee's Dracula makes the most sense in that context. He comes off as such a surprisingly ordinary businessman at first, and then becomes inhuman as the film progresses. Bela's job was to do the opposite: begin creepy and foreign, grow familiar and human once introduced to civilization.

Yeah. I could never choose.

And then there's Max Schrek as well!

Dracula (Colorized)







Enjoy shaxper

Women of All Nations (1931)




(I swear, he isn't giving the middle finger!)

A hyper-glorified look at life in the Marines before the U.S. was even a world super power. It's hard to believe this was the third film in a series, as its mostly just two frienemies competing with each other as they chase girls at every port. Bela is barely in this one, but his part is unforgettable and totally justifies the rest of the time I wasted watching this outdated, chauvinistic bore of a film. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to see Bela Lugosi in his absolute prime, looking dashing, sultry, and fit, dressed like a foreign prince, and meowing like a cat, look no further. Who knew he could so easily discard that noble dignity he always carries in favor of slapstick humor...or that he'd do it so well?



Plot (0-5 points): This just isn't my kind of film. The genre is a dinosaur by this point, annihilated by the comet of equal rights and the realization that serving in the military isn't always so great. I do give the film credit for introducing a positive Jewish main character (really surprising for 1931!), as well as for taking one scene to depict the actual horrors of war as the troops are called to Nicaragua, see the suffering, and nearly lose one of their own. But, all the same, this film was an absolute chore to push through, and I skipped forward liberally. 2

Atmosphere (0-5 points): Exotic locales and good use of close up shots. That's really it. This film clearly wasn't trying to be art. 2

Other Actors (0-3 points): Some good comedic actors. They were certainly funnier than the script. 2

The Lugosi Factor (0-10 points): I said it all above. The man was HILARIOUS here, playing the kind of role we were never going to see again post-1931. The only reason I won't give this a ten is that he only got a few minutes of screen time. 8

Overall: A surprisingly rewarding viewing experience. I'll come back to one particular scene again and again, but the film's overall score isn't going to place it anywhere near a top ten. 14