shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Oct 25, 2020 9:09:31 GMT -5
#5: Suspense: A Cask of Amontillado (Television 1949) Many of Bela's TV and radio appearances are lost to history, and most that have survived in recorded form are relatively forgettable, but this episode of Suspense is something else entirely. In using Bela for an episode of a popular series equated with horror, especially in an episode adapting an Edgar Allen Poe classic, one would expect Bela to be typecast in the role of a creepy murderer or madman, but this is one of the few ever post-1930s Bela roles that invites him to portray a character entirely apart from the standard villain. If you're familiar with the Poe story, this episode takes a unique approach. It takes away the question of what made the main character (Montressor) want to kill the antagonist (Fortunado) by presenting this story as occurring in the wake of a fascist revolution in which Fortunado was a general. This was a topic of great personal interest to Bela, who fought the fascists in his own homeland before fleeing, and who continued to fight against them politically while in America. One has to assume that his personal familiarity with monsters like Fortunado informs Bela's unique perspective on his role. Bela is positively masterful here, balancing the ego, the hunger, the wickedness, and the benign, almost endearing helplessness of Poe's drunken antagonist all at once. Any other actor in this role would have overplayed the power Fortunado has over Montrssor in this adaptation, but Bela presents someone far more real and, therefore, a little scarier. I could see this guy getting swept into my living room in the wake of a revolution, helping himself to a beer in my fridge and casually hinting that he plans to murder me and marry my girlfriend while smiling all the same. If you've never seen this episode before (and, if you haven't, who could blame you?) I strongly suggest checking it out. While nowhere near the most fun nor the most creepy Bela performance, it's undoubtedly one of his strongest.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Oct 26, 2020 6:45:23 GMT -5
#4: Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) Beautiful, stylistic filmmaking, snappy dialogue, tons of loving homages to the horror genre from Dr. Moreau to Dr. Caligari and, best of all, one of Bela's finest roles of all time as Dr. Mirakle. He is eerie, brilliant, determined, tragic, perverse, and utterly full of range in the role. There are really only two problems with the film, preventing it from ranking in the #1 or #2 spot. The first is that Bela's character undergoes no kind of progression -- while Lugosi pours his heart and soul into the role, the character itself isn't on any kind of journey. He's written pretty much the same from beginning to end. The second is that, while the deaths in this film are horrific, they are in no way fun. There's no battle, no chase, no suspense, just a flat, brooding anxiety as opposed to well-orchestrated ebbs and flows in intensity. These two faults aside, this is a stunning film that doesn't get enough love in classic horror circles, and it easily ranks among Bela's top three performances of all time. Murders in the Rue Morgue is streaming free at the Internet Archive: archive.org/details/UniversalStudiosMonsters1932MurdersInTheRueMorgue
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 26, 2020 9:55:32 GMT -5
#5: Suspense: A Cask of Amontillado (Television 1949) I’ve listened to a lot of episodes of Suspense on the radio but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any TV episodes. As it’s only a half hour, I should be able to get to it on the next few days. It looks good! |
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 26, 2020 10:05:01 GMT -5
I’ve seen The Murders in the Rue Morgue a few times over the years and I remember liking it. But it’s been such a long time that I don’t remember much beyond Lugosi’s great hair, the hilarious gorilla suit and Arlene Francis hanging from the beams. I’m probably due to see it again.
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 26, 2020 13:00:29 GMT -5
I watched that Lugosi episode of Suspense this morning. Not bad for the So-Called Golden Age of Television! You didn't mention that Ray Walston is in it! My Favorite Martian and Mr. Hand himself!
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Oct 26, 2020 13:04:24 GMT -5
I watched that Lugosi episode of Suspense this morning. Not bad for the So-Called Golden Age of Television! It's officially the oldest television program I've ever seen. I was surprised how high quality the sets were in an age before most Americans owned a television set. |
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Post by shaxper on Oct 27, 2020 6:51:25 GMT -5
#3: The Black Cat (1934) This film marks one uniquely rare moment in time in which Universal seemed as hungry to have Bela in a lead role as Bela was to earn another leading role with them. Truly, this film must have been written to please Bela. He gets to play the good guy for once, gets to almost literally crucify Boris Karloff, the actor he accused Universal of favoring, and the entire film is about a tragic character returning to the Carpathian Mountains for the first time since being on the losing side of a popular revolution, a story that was too close to Bela's own tragic backstory to have been coincidental. Finally, Bela is given a film where he gets to play a multi-faceted protagonist and show off his range. Meanwhile, the energy between Lugosi and Karloff is unmistakable in their first cinematic face-off. It's surely what this film is best remembered for today. Karloff matches Lugosi almost literally step for step. The energy between them is unmistakable and priceless. I get the sense that Karloff understands his character a little less well than Lugosi does, but he still gives a tragic, beautiful flamboyance to it all that almost feels like a 1933 version of David Bowie. Additionally, this is one of the few horror films of the era in which the leading lovers are actually likable, less due to anything the script provides and more due to the efforts of David Manners and Julie Bishop, who both absolutely hold their own in contrast to these two icons of horror. Truly, everyone brings their best to this film, and it's likely why Universal went on to produce three more films pitting Bela against Boris Karloff (sadly, of which only The Raven made this list, though the Invisible Ray ranked in at #26). Most importantly to this list, it's an outstanding showcase for Bela's range and passion, as well as one of the very few post-Dracula films where he gets to play the good(?) guy. The Black Cat is streaming free at the Internet Archive: archive.org/details/PhantasmagoriaTheater-TheBlackCat1934948-2
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 27, 2020 7:02:55 GMT -5
I was taken to Kolgar, where the soul is killed.
Vitus... you are mad.
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Post by shaxper on Oct 28, 2020 6:21:14 GMT -5
#2: Phantom Ship (1935) Often overlooked because it isn't exactly a horror film, The Phantom Ship remains one of Bela's finest acting roles, as well as one of the strongest films he appeared in. Finally given a complex character to work with, Bela does not disappoint. He truly earns pathos for his character while also wearing a cloak of mystery about him, and man does he deliver when all the cards are down by the close. As for the plot itself, the crew of a ship is gradually being picked off, one after the other, and they are running out of time to determine who the murderer is. There's a surprising amount going on in this film, every subplot finds a resolution, and (if you pay enough attention) there is clear motive behind every one of the killings. The film was cut for time, and thus we need a few more minutes of falling action to better understand our villain and arrive at a less forced resolution at the close, but the plot still worked far more than it didn't. A very very strong film that deserves more recognition among Lugosi fans, even if it doesn't fall neatly in the traditional horror genre. After all, there's still a body count. The Phantom Ship is streaming free on Youtube:
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 28, 2020 8:19:09 GMT -5
The original British title is “The Mystery of the Mary Celeste” and I always thought it was weird they changed it for American audiences. I don’t think it’s that obscure in America. I remember my mom telling me about the Mary Celeste when I was a kid, 15 or 20 years before I heard of the Lugosi movie.
I’ve seen it a few times, great movie. Lovely sepia tones! It’s much different from the usual Lugosi fare, filmed more like a low-key disaster movie than anything else.
Hee hee. This reminds me of that sketch about the Mary Celeste from the Dave Allen at Large show.
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Post by shaxper on Oct 28, 2020 8:43:42 GMT -5
The original British title is “The Mystery of the Mary Celeste” and I always thought it was weird they changed it for American audiences. Technically, they are not the same film, as Mystery of the Mary Celeste was a longer film and is now considered lost. Phantom Ship is not just retitled for American audiences, but also recut. I truly wish someone would rediscover and remaster the original film, as Phantom Ship is clearly missing a few key plot points. You can fill in the blanks yourself, but it would be nice to see the full thing. |
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Post by shaxper on Oct 29, 2020 9:30:51 GMT -5
#1: White Zombie (1932) White Zombie often gets discounted for being an orphaned film found in cheap anthologies along with your standard Poverty Row fair, but this is actually a first class production that had to have cost a fortune. The Halperin brothers, looking to launch a cinematic empire, forked over enough money to get Bela Lugosi starring in this film right after Dracula, rented out a myriad of presumably costly Universal sets and backdrops, and hired on a cinematographer who really knew how to emulate Karl Freund (who was under contract with Universal at the time). Arthur Martinelli channels Karl Freund beautifully, imitating his breath-taking tracking shots, outdoing his lighting on numerous occasions, innovating with eerie eyes that pop out at you unexpectedly from the dark background, and making most shots worthy of oil paintings. In fact, I'd argue the sugar mill sequence is one of the finest moments in the entire history of American cinema. Speilberg could learn something from it. Our lead lovers are perhaps more obnoxious than the script calls for them to be, and both the lead zombie and witch doctor are so unintentionally comical as to break the spell of an otherwise genuinely creepy film, but Robert Frazier owns his role as the Faust-like tormented figure at the center of all this, Joseph Cawthorn manages to pull off a kinder, friendlier, comical grandpa of a Van Helsing figure as a means of alleviating some of the film's suspense, and (though he only gets two scenes) Clarence Muse is outstanding as the shaken stagecoach driver who sets the tone for the film. It's a surprisingly complex tale for the time and genre, rich with backstories that are implied to extend further than the script is willing to discuss, carefully based on the "research" of Haitian tribes published in William Seabrook's The Magic Island (1929), and based more on the story of Faust than anything, with a privileged but bored millionaire teetering the line between villain and hero as Lugosi plays the tempting devil, dangling unimaginable power before him that inevitably comes with unspeakable consequences. It's a deep film once you wrap your head around the idea that the romantic leads are supposed to be obnoxious together. It's what makes us sympathize with the shadowy true protagonist of the film, willing to sacrifice everything in order to get the woman of his dreams away from the guy that is all wrong for her and into his own embrace, regardless of cost. Truly, there are only two flaws in the entire script: 1. The scene with the Witch Doctor is entirely unnecessary, and 2. the priest's "Have you got a match?" running gag wasn't funny the first time and certainly feels like overkill by the fifth. But most important of all, this is truly Bela's finest role. He utterly shines as the sinister, yet cavalier and playful embodiment of pure evil. He's cool, fun, and oh so eloquent. Though best remembered for Dracula, he played many of those scenes with a stilted woodenness that utterly worked, and yet it pales in comparison to the gallant panache, style, and humor we get from Bela as Murder Legendre here. Is it the BEST Bela film? Perhaps, if you can get past the obnoxious lead lovers and the blackface witchdoctor with the shrill voice. Is it the BEST Bela role? Undoubtedly. White Zombie is streaming free on Youtube: /div]
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