Saturday, September 19, 1970: The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) / The Mummy's Curse (1944)

Synopsis: On a stormy night in the early 19th century, Mary Shelley (Elsa Lanchester), her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and their friend Lord Byron are discussing Mary’s just-completed novel Frankenstein. Lord Byron marvels that the ladylike Mary could have penned such a ghoulish tale. He eagerly describes the plot of the story, and we see a recap of the original film. Lord Byron concludes by wondering what might have taken place after the monster was destroyed in the burning windmill.

Mary then tells the men that she has indeed devised a continuation of the story, and she begins to narrate a tale that begins where the 1931 movie ends.

As the flames of the windmill fire begin to die down, the pitchfork-bearing mob disperses. But the father of the young girl who drowned in the first film remains. He refuses to accept that the monster is dead until he sees its charred bones, and he begins to pick through the ruins to find them. The floor of the windmill gives out from under him and he falls into a flooded chamber below. The monster (Boris Karloff) appears nearby, evidently having been saved by the water in this subfloor, and the enraged creature drowns the man. The creature climbs up out of the ruins to find the man’s wife searching for her husband, and the monster kills her as well.

As the creature wanders the countryside, Henry (Colin Clive) recuperates at home. He is sorry for what he has done, but still gets that crazy gleam in his eye when he talks about the god-like power he had briefly harnessed. One night he is visited by Dr. Pretorious (Ernest Thesiger), a “professor of philosophy” who was fired from Henry’s university "for knowing too much”.
Pretorius wishes to form an alliance with Henry in order to create a new race of artificially-created humans. Henry has the power to restore dead tissue to life, but Pretorius claims to have mastered an entirely different trick – he can create new life out of inert material. To demonstrate this he takes Henry to his home, where – in a very odd scene – he unveils a series of tiny people he has grown in glass jars.

Meanwhile, the public learns that the monster still lives. It is captured and hauled into the village, but it soon escapes, leaving a trail of destruction behind it. Later it happens upon the cottage of a blind hermit, who befriends the creature, teaching it to speak a little, and to appreciate the finer things in life – namely, smoking and drinking. But a couple of townsfolk come looking for the monster, and in the course of the monster’s escape the cottage is burned down.

Pretorious wants Henry to use his knowledge of reanimating cadavers in tandem with his own knowledge of building new tissue. His plan is to procure the body of a young woman and create for it a blank brain that Pretorius has constructed. With a female, the monster will be able to reproduce and start a new race. Henry is tempted by the possibilities, but racked with guilt and uncertainty.

The monster stumbles into a vast crypt just as it is being raided by Dr. Pretorious and his assistants. Pretorious is not afraid of the monster in the slightest, and offers it a drink and a cigar, which the monster greatly enjoys. He brings it back to Henry’s estate, knowing that if Pretorious cannot force Henry to bring the new woman to life , the monster can….

Comments: This is Horror Incorporated's second broadcast of Bride of Frankenstein, and watching it again I am struck by how overtly it wears its religious symbols. Mary Shelley insists in the very first scene that her book will be published when it is understood that she is teaching a moral lesson, not just telling a spooky story.

From there the movie follows the monster emerging from the ruins of the windmill and wandering the countryside. As in the first film, its rage and frustration is mitigated by its childlike innocence, and when it is trussed up and then hoisted into the air by the angry mob, the Christ-like visual is only momentary, far too brief to become cloying.

Just as the monster died for Henry's sins in the first movie, now it is forced to suffer for his sins again -- in spite of his promises to be good, we know that Henry is going to go back to his old ways with the help of our cinematic snake in the garden, Dr. Pretorious.

Henry quickly identifies Dr. Pretorious' methods as black magic, and Pretorious does not deny this; and in speaking about the homunculi he has created, he says his favorite is the Devil, and notes that it bears a strong resemblance to himself. "Sometimes", he says, "I have wondered whether life wouldn't be much more amusing if we were all devils -- no nonsense about angels and being good."

Keeping himself amused is a job Pretorious takes very seriously. He laughs at the sight of another homonculus, this one dressed as a bishop, shaking its finger disapprovingly as the other little creatures have a good time. It is apparent that what got the professor kicked out of University is the same sort of worldly knowledge that got Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden: the knowledge that God's meticulously ordered universe of arbitrary rules is, quite simply, a joke.

Horror films are by their nature conservative, even reactionary, and the chaotic Pretorious is held up as worse than Henry because Henry at least has the decency to agonize about his dark acts before he carries them out. For Pretorious, death and resurrection are, like life itself, the stuff of comedy. The man is so cheerfully amoral that we can't help but enjoy his company. Like Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost, he becomes the most interesting character by default -- everyone else is just so damned dull.

The impish Pretorius seems to embody Whale's sly sense of humor, which gets a bit more rope than it did in the first film. Pretorious' amusement at the sudden appearance of the monster in the crypt is perfectly done; and Dwight Frye's constant, nervous jabbering to himself is a brilliant touch. Una O'Conner offers the most blatantly slapstick bits in the movie, but they come at just the right moments, and never seem out of place.

Elsa Lanchester has got to enjoy the highest fame-to-screentime ratio in Hollywood history: she only played the Bride for a few moments, but they are unforgettable ones.

THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN can be found wherever fine monster movies are sold.

The Mummy's Curse

Synopsis: A construction crew is draining the swamps near a Louisiana village, and a number of men working on the project are nervous. There are tales of a mummy that roams the area at night, in the company of the Egyptian princess he carried into the swamp twenty-five years ago. Some of the locals dismiss it as the talk of superstitious yokels. Unfortunately, most of the guys working on the project are superstitious yokels.

Oh sure, the skeptics concede, we all know that a mummy did carry an Egyptian princess into the swamps, but that was a long time ago. You don't expect that sort of thing to get in the way of a federally-funded construction project.

An archeologist from the Scripps Museum named James Halsey (Dennis Moore) arrives on the site, bearing a letter that permits him to search the local swamps for traces of the mummy. Foreman Pat Walsh (Addison Richards) is annoyed by this sort of tomfoolery, but he must allow Halsey and his fez-wearing sidekick Ilzor (Peter Coe) to do as they please. The arrival of Halsey is not lost on Pat Walsh's beautiful daughter Betty (Kay Harding).

Almost immediately, mysterious mummy-related events begin to unfold. One of the workmen is found murdered, near an impression in the ground that is the same shape as a man -- as if a bulldozer had uncovered the body of a mummy.

Meanwhile, we learn that Ilzor is a member of the secret priesthood sworn to protect Princess Ananka*. He sets up shop in an abandoned monastery nearby, and aided by his henchman Ragheb (Martin Kosleck) revives the mummy Kharis.

Ilzor's plan is to use Kharis to track down Princess Ananka before Halsey does. But Ananka rises from the swamp and wanders into the village, suffering from amnesia. Her knowledge of ancient Egyptian artifacts impresses Halsey, who puts her to work on his archeological crew.

But the mysterious young woman is troubled by strange dreams, and a string of murders has been occurring, the victims found with ancient mold clinging to their broken necks....

Comments: The Mummy's Curse was the last -- as well as the shortest -- entry in Universal's original mummy franchise. It premiered in December 1944, just six months after the previous entry in the series, The Mummy's Ghost (which Horror Incorporated hasn't yet broadcast).

This final effort is entertaining enough, but the seams are clearly starting to show, as more and more plot contrivances are thrown in with a shrug of the shoulders . In one of the more remarkable continuity lapses between sequels, Kharis, who had descended into a New England swamp at the end of the last picture, emerges from a Louisiana swamp at the beginning of this one. Aw, what the hell! A swamp's a swamp, right?

And what better way to start off a horror movie than with a cheerful little polka? Tinde Benthe, proprieter of the eponymous cafe, serenades the Louisiana day laborers with a ditty called "Hey You!". This is not, by the way, the morose Pink Floyd song of the same name.

As a public service, I have transcribed the lyrics in question:

Hey you, with the naughty eye

As you pass us by we just have to cry

Hey you -- yoo hoo!

When we see you smile in that sweet profile

We dream all the while of you

Hey you!

Did we meet again at the Place de la Madeleine in the rue Lorraine?

We two! And if you care for me

And be my sweet cherie

YOO HOO! I go for you!

The patrons don't all get up and walk out during this number, but let's admit it: entertainment options are presumably limited in the bayou.

Nevertheless, once things get rolling we have a pretty good time. Much of the action focuses on the travails of an amnesiac Princess Ananka, played here by Virginia Christine. You would have needed to see The Mummy's Ghost to know that she was in fact a woman named Amina Monsouri, an Egyptian college student imbued with the spirit of Princess Ananka. The role was originally played by Ramsey Ames, whom I wound up liking a good deal more than Christine. But then, you never get over your first Ananka, do you?

Martin Kosleck does a yeoman's job as Ragheb, the guardian of Ananka whose earthly desires proves to be his undoing (again -- the same fate befell previous Ananka guardians George Zucco in The Mummy's Hand, Turhan Bey in The Mummy's Tomb, and John Carradine in The Mummy's Ghost).

Interestingly, the song "Hey You!" was co-written by the movie's producer, a Hollywood jack-of-all-trades named Oliver Drake.

Drake started his career as an actor in silent westerns, eventually writing, producing and directing cheap oaters himself for the poverty row studios until TV pushed the genre out of the theaters. He wrote songs for his movies too, with titles like "On the Prairie", "Moonlight on the Painted Desert," and "Out On the Lone Star Trail."

Drake did a fair amount of TV late in his career. He directed his last film in 1974, an X-rated feature called Angelica: The Young Vixen. Presumably taking a lead from Son of Dracula, he was credited as Revilo Ekard.






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*They're doing a heck of a job, aren't they? Not only did they fail to protect the sanctity of the Princess' tomb, they are now mucking around in the Louisiana swamps after losing track of her for a quarter of a century.

Saturday, September 12, 1970: House of Frankenstein (1944) / The Frozen Ghost (1945)

Synopsis: In Neustadt prison, mad scientist Dr. Niemann (Boris Karloff) and his hunchbacked assistant Daniel (J. Carrol Naish) are unexpectedly freed when a wall of their cell collapses during a violent thunderstorm. The two happen upon Lampini's traveling horror show, which boasts as its main attraction the skeleton of Count Dracula. Neimann and Eric quickly murder Lampini and his driver and take their places. Niemann has been obsessed with proving the genius of Dr. Frankenstein and he sets out to the village where the Monster was created.

Niemann discovers that the skeleton of Dracula is authentic when he removes the stake that had been thrust through the vampire's heart. The skeleton promptly transforms into the Count (John Carradine).

Threatening to replace the stake if Dracula doesn't do his bidding, Niemann sends the vampire out to kill the three men who had him imprisoned: Strauss, Ullman and Hussman. Dracula kills Hussman but dies before he can dispense with the hated Strauss and Ullman.

Reaching the village of Vasaria, they encounter a band of gypsies. Seeing a gypsy woman Ilonka (Elena Verdugo) being abused, Daniel saves her and, smitten with her, asks her to join them.

Later, examining the ruins of Frankenstein Castle, Niemann and Daniel discover the frozen bodies of Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolf Man. Niemann realizes that the Monster can be revived, and he plans to place the Monster's brain in Lawrence Talbot's body; Talbot's brain in Strauss' body, and Ullman's brain in the Monster's body. But discovering that the Ilonka has fallen in love with Lawrence Talbot, Daniel wants his own brain placed into Talbot's body....

Comments: If this were Turner Classic Movies, and I were Robert Osborne, I would now be strolling toward you across a tastefully-appointed living room set, promising you a special evening of films starring Lon Chaney, Jr. and Elena Verdugo. Chaney and Verdugo appear in both of tonight's features, in analogous roles: Chaney as a guilt-ridden lone wolf, and Verdugo as a sweet, hapless young woman who vies unsuccessfully for his attention.

But TCM this isn't, and Robert Osborne I certainly am not. And if the person who programmed Horror Incorporated for the night of September 12, 1970 was even aware that two actors from House of Frankenstein would be seen later that night in The Frozen Ghost, we'll never know.

Perhaps it's unrealistic to ask for so much attention to detail. So let's chalk it up to coincidence, and give tonight's first movie a second look. I offered some notes on House of Frankenstein when it was first broadcast, and seeing it again hasn't improved my opinion of it.

I admire Boris Karloff's portrayal of Dr. Niemann, at least in the early going when he is a revenge-oriented fugitive scientist (which, of course, was exactly the character he played last week in The Invisible Ray). Later on, when he dons the white lab coat and decides to swap out brains like computer hard drives, his character becomes almost preternaturally boring. Meanwhile, Lon Chaney, Jr. seems unhappy with his billet and nearly gets lost in the jumble of this oddly-structured movie.

Actually, lots of things get lost; numerous characters enter and exit the film without their storylines ever intersecting, motivations shift around in order to conform to various plot demands, and in the end even the movie poster gives up and simply declares that House of Frankenstein is "History's Weirdest Household!".

No argument here. Imagine the fights over the bathroom each morning! Now that would have made an interesting movie.

I will give points to House of Frankenstein for its inventive finale, in which everyone manages to get killed in the last couple of minutes. You don't see efficiency like that from Hollywood anymore.

Elena Verdugo was a character actress whose dark complexion often landed her in "exotic" roles of various types. Like most of the roles afforded women in those days (well, in these days too) her character is essentially window dressing, but Verdugo projects an innocence that makes her a credible love interest for Daniel, and we feel sorry when she is killed off. Verdugo worked steadily through the 1940s and 50s, but found her greatest fame on television, where she played nurse Consuelo Lopez on the long-running series Marcus Welby, M.D.

Karloff and J. Carrol Naish play off each other pretty well, and once again I have to give Karloff credit for his consummate professionalism -- you never get the feeling that he's bored or uninvolved in the action, even when he's playing a character that he's essentially played many times before.

Of course, Universal's Frankenstein franchise was on its last legs by this time, and the Monster, which had been played with great sensitivity by Boris Karloff in the first three features, had been handed off to other horror-film stars in successive entries. So indifferent were their performances that for this go-round the producers decided not to cast an actor in the role at all, and stuntman Glenn Strange stumbled around under the makeup. He was actually better than Lugosi and Chaney in this role, but of course that isn't saying much.

The Frozen Ghost

Synopsis: Alex Gregor (Lon Chaney, Jr.) is a successful stage hypnotist who's got it all: sold-out live performances, a national radio show and a knockout assistant named Maura (Evelyn Ankers), to whom he is engaged. Performing as "The Great Gregor", his act is to first put Maura in a trance, then have her read the minds of astonished audience members.

One night a loud-mouthed drunk heckles Gregor, who gamely invites the man up to the stage. Gregor offers to hypnotize the guy and have him answer questions from the audience, just as Maura did. But the drunk is uncooperative and as Gregor stares into his eyes he angrily wishes the man were dead. Instantly the drunk keels over -- stone dead!

Gregor is mortified and turns himself over to the police. But the coroner states that the man was a heavy drinker with a heart condition, and the death is ruled the result of natural causes.

This does not satisfy the morose mentalist, who spends the night walking the streets, muttering "Death....death!" over and over.

So distraught is Gregor that he breaks off his engagement with Maura. His manager George Keene (Milburn Stone), sensing his meal ticket needs a little R&R, urges Gregor to stay at a relaxing place in a remote area for a while, and Gregor accepts.

Inexplicably, everyone agrees that there's no place in the world more relaxing than a wax museum, and Gregor moves into Madame Monet's, which is a sort of mansion with living quarters upstairs and wax sculptures on the main floor. He gets to know the people living there: owner Valerie Monet is assisted by brilliant wax sculptor and freelance kookenheimer Rudi (Martin Kosleck), and Valerie's general dogsbody Nina (Elena Verdugo).

As the weeks go by Gregor begins to feel more himself again, but seems only dimly aware that young Nina has developed a crush on him. Finding out about this, Valerie Monet, who had been nursing a crush of her own, is furious. She and Gregor argue, and Monet suddenly collapses to the floor. Hours later, Gregor finds himself standing down by the waterfront, with no idea of how he got there. He learns that Monet has vanished, and that her scarf is in his coat pocket....

Comments: Let Carrie Fisher complain about being overshadowed by her famous parents. I suspect that Lon Chaney, Jr. had a worse time of it.

The legendary silent film star Lon Chaney had often told his son Creighton that the young man wasn't cut out for a career in film. After Chaney pere's death, Creighton began pursuing film roles in defiance of his father's wishes, but success eluded him. It wasn't until he reluctantly adopted the stage name of Lon Chaney, Jr. that he began to get noticed.

One can only imagine how that felt, to want to prove his father wrong, to prove that he could make it on his own merits, and yet need his father to get a leg up in the business. I suspect that all the success Lon Chaney, Jr. enjoyed never quite took the sting out of having to trade on his father's name in order to make that success possible.

And maybe it's my imagination, but I feel I can see that frustration in the man's performances -- and a good example is tonight's second feature, The Frozen Ghost. So far, we've seen four of the six Inner Sanctum mysteries. Our second feature tonight is a repeat of The Frozen Ghost which, like all the entries in this film series, stars Lon Chaney, Jr.

Inner Sanctum Mysteries run along a fairly predictable groove. Chaney portrays a decent, put-upon fellow, who at some point is accused of murder. The central mystery is whether or not Chaney's character is guilty.

There are other common elements to the Inner Sanctum films*. The protagonist is always successful, and young women always find him attractive, though he seems rather oblivious to it. In two of the films he breaks off his engagement with his fiancee because he assumes she is only going forward with it reluctantly; in two others, he has blackouts during which the victim is murdered -- blackouts that occur without benefit of alcohol, a blow to the head, or a history of such episodes.

Such a convenient blackout features prominently in The Frozen Ghost.

The movie begins with Alex Gregor's mentalist act. Well, it isn't his mentalist act. Gregor is a hypnotist, not a mentalist. See, what he does is hypnotize Maura, then she does the mentalist act. But it turns out that he can hypnotize anyone, and have them read minds.

At one point Gregor says that he's had his mental powers all his life. But how would he know, if he had to hypnotize someone to find out?

Well, it's kind of complicated. This is too bad, because his stage show is broadcast to a national radio audience. The announcer stands at stage left, murmuring a lugubrious play-by-play into the microphone:

ANNOUNCER

Now Gregor the Great is leading a member up to the audience up to the stage....he's going to place the man into a hypnotic trance....

GREGOR

Sir, please sit down and try to relax.

DRUNK CONTESTANT

You ain't gonna hypnotize me, ya two-bit Houdini!

GREGOR

Hold still, please! The process can't work if you're agitated!

ANNOUNCER

Remember, folks, Gregor the Great can't read minds, he hypnotizes people so that they can read minds....

DRUNK CONTESTANT

This is all a bunch of hokum, if you ask me!

GREGOR

Nobody asked you!

ANNOUNCER

This member of the audience appears to be inebriated and uncooperative....

If I were sitting at home listening to this, I'd probably be yelling, "Martha, for gosh sakes, what is this junk you're listening to? Ain't Duffy's Tavern on yet?".**

After the obnoxious drunk dies, Gregor is certain that he's responsible -- so certain that even after the coroner rules that the death was due to natural causes, he wanders the streets all night, muttering to himself that he's a murderer.

This seems a bit much, even for someone in show business, and when he breaks off his engagement with Maura (he doesn't want her to marry a murderer out of a misplaced sense of obligation) there's no escaping it: the guy is a serious drama queen.

This is supposed to set us up for a big payoff later. Gregor is unsure if he is really a murderer, and then he has a blackout and Valerie Monet disappears. We're supposed to wonder if Gregor really did it.

But it doesn't make any sense to wonder this, because Gregor's m.o. has already been established: he kills with his mind and then turns himself in to the police, whether they believe him or not. If he killed Valerie Monet with his mind, why would he then drag her body down to the waterfront and dispose of it, then blot out the memory? Wouldn't his overweening sense of responsibility prevent him from doing such a thing?

Oh well, Gregor is really just doing double duty here. He's both the protagonist and the red herring. It had to be that way: the Inner Sanctum Mysteries were pretty low-budget affairs.

Neverthless, the much-maligned Lon Chaney, Jr. does a good job leading the cast, and Martin Kosleck steals every scene he's in as nutty wax sculptor Rudi. And as for Elena Verdugo -- well, this is her night, isn't it?

THE FROZEN GHOST hasn't been released on DVD, but VHS copies are available through Alibris

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*With the exception of Strange Confession, which was structured somewhat differently than the others.

**Implausible dialogue is simulated. You can hear Duffy's Tavern Thursday nights on this NBC Blue station. Consult your local listings for times and frequencies.

Interlude: Chiller

A fan of WPIX's creature feature Chiller created this -- it's a clever reconstruction of a mid-70's broadcast of the show, featuring The Crawling Eye (1958), a movie starring the supernaturally beautiful Janet Munro (oh, and Forrest Tucker was in it too).

The reconstruction comes complete with bumpers and commercials from the era.

Clever idea, eh? It's nicely done, too, but (if I may be a bit obsessive here) the commercials are from national ad campaigns which were unlikely to air late at night (at least here in the Twin Cities; perhaps in New York it was different). Horror Incorporated fans may recall spots for local advertisers -- TV dealers and waterbed retailers and heating & air conditioning installers.

If you remember any of them, let me know. For right now, I'll stick with the movies.

Saturday, September 6, 1970: The Great Impersonation (1935) / The Invisible Ray (1935)

The Great Impersonation

Synopsis: Austrian nobleman Baron Von Ragenstein (Edmund Lowe) has been banished to the wilds of Africa after killing a romantic rival in a duel . He is surprised to come upon his exact look-alike, Sir Edward Dominey, half-dead in the jungle.

Not only are the two identical in appearance, but their lives have gone on parallel trajectories: they had attended Oxford together, and Dominey has recently banished himself to Africa, after he too had been accused to killing a romantic rival. Now Dominey is a dissolute fellow, busily drinking himself to death. But a plan is already germinating in the Baron's mind.

It seems that since his exile, Von Ragenstein has been working for an international munitions manufacturer, one that wants to push the nations of Europe toward war. They have agents throughout mainland Europe and now need an agent in England, someone influential who can help ensure that the peace-loving Brits join the fray. Knowing that Sir Edward had once run for Parliament, Von Ragenstein decides to have Dominey killed and take his place in England.

Before long he shows up at Dominey Hall and easily passes himself off as Sir Edward. But his reception is a frosty one. Housekeeper Mrs. Unthank (Esther Dale) believes he killed her son Roger (Dwight Frye), though the body was never found. His wife Eleanor (Valerie Hobson) was traumatized by the alleged murder, which took place on their wedding day; moreover, she can still hear the ghost of Roger crying piteously in the night. Dominey Hall itself is in a state of decline and discord.

Everyone in the household is soon astonished by the "new man" that Sir Edward has become. He is no longer a drunken, boorish cad; he is courteous and attentive. He takes charge of the estate, engaging workmen to effect repairs on the dilapidated buildings and walls. He treats the servants with a decency they have not seen before. He even treats Eleanor well, showing her the affection that had always been denied her. Soon morale at Dominey Hall is high, and Eleanor is well on the road to recovery.

But the strange sobbing from Roger's ghost are still being heard in the house, and the Baron's lover Princess Stephanie (Wera Engels) visits Dominey Hall, and begins to suspect that he has fallen in love with Eleanor.

But then she learns that Edward Dominey wasn't killed in Africa, but escaped and might have made his way to England. So the question becomes: is this Von Ragenstein pretending to be Dominey, or Dominey pretending to be Von Ragenstein pretending to be Dominey?

Comments: I'm not entirely sure that The Great Impersonation can rightly be called a horror movie. Just what kind of movie we're dealing with is hard to pin down. Perhaps it's more easily defined by what kind of movie it isn't: it isn't a political thriller, isn't a Victorian melodrama, isn't a haunted-house film, isn't a propaganda film, and isn't a romance.

But like two earlier Horror Incorporated entries, The Black Room and The Man Who Lived Twice, The Great Impersonation cleverly plays with the idea of identity. By the end of the picture we find that we didn't know who Edward Dominey was any more than we knew who Von Ragenstein was. And unusually for a movie of this era, the answer is less pat than it first appeared.

After all, the man who ends up living in Dominey Hall couldn't really be Edward Dominey, the blue-blood drunk that everyone back home had learned to despise. Even if he had somehow managed to escape his captors and return to England, he would still be the same man he was -- the same moral coward who tormented his wife into the madhouse, who lied and cheated his way into exile, the same heel who decided once in Africa that the highball glass was the only thing worth living for.

Nor could he really be Baron Von Ragenstein, the cold-blooded and morally bankrupt shill for a crooked arms dealer, the man who would -- literally -- kill for the chance to get sent back to Europe.

Somehow, we have wound up with an amalgamation of the two; the doppelgangers have fused into one man, more than the sum of their parts. This is never explicitly stated; rather, the conclusion offers a daffy switcheroo that can't be taken seriously. It's only on reflection -- walking home from the theater, let's say -- that the real significance of The Great Impersonation sinks in.

Edmund Lowe is probably best known for playing the title role in Chandu the Magician (1932) and he specialized in playing smug, upper-crust types. I've written admiringly about Valerie Hobson's performances in two other movies released the same year as The Great Impersonation: Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Werewolf of London (1935); she is much more naturalistic than her contemporaries and she is a joy to watch here.

THE GREAT IMPERSONATION is available through Satellite Media Productions.

The Invisible Ray Synopsis: Renowned scientist Janos Rukh (Boris Karloff) demonstrates his newest discovery to a disbelieving group of savants, including Dr. Felix Benet (Bela Lugosi). In a somewhat surreal and complicated sequence, he reveals that all light and sound waves are preserved in space and time, and that looking back far enough he can see the moment millions of years ago in which a meteor containing an ultra-rare element called Radium X fell in southwestern Africa.

Radium X, as the name implies, is a souped-up form of radioactive material, possessing great potential for both healing and destruction. Somewhat baffled but convinced by his demonstration, the scientists join Rukh on an expedition to recover the meteorite. In Africa, Rukh works obsessively to unlock the secrets of Radium X.

Meanwhile, Rukh's beautiful young wife Diana (Frances Drake) begins to fall in love with another man on the expedition (Frank Lawton). Most of the party returns to Europe. Dr. Benet quickly discovers that Radium X, applied properly, can cure any physical ailment, and he uses it to heal the sick, though he assiduously credits Dr. Rukh with the element's discovery.

When Rukh returns home he learns of his wife's infidelity and of his rivals building new careers on his work. After receiving an accidental overdose of Radium X, Rukh discovers that his skin glows in the dark and that his touch can kill.

The overdose also seems to have left him deranged, and he decides to murder all those whom he believes have betrayed him, starting with the scientists who accompanied him on the expedition....

Comments: When I first embarked on the Horror Incorporated Project, I knew there would be days like this. I knew there would be repeat broadcasts of movies, and I knew that some of the movies would be clunkers. And I spent some time thinking about how to handle that.

My pledge to you (well, you weren't there, but it was to you) was to watch every movie on the schedule, in order, just as if I was watching Horror Incorporated each week. Didn't matter if I'd seen the movie before. I wouldn't cheat and throw a note up saying, yep, saw this on December 20 -- though of course I did, and you can read the review here.

I decided I'd try to have something new to say about repeated films, try to find some angle I hadn't examined before. And so far, I've been able to keep that up. But I am sorry to say that The Invisible Ray didn't wear very well on a second viewing, and I found it difficult to say anything new. So instead, I decided to build a drinking game around the alleged romance between Frances Drake and Frank Lawton, two of the most unconvincing screen lovers you are likely to come across.

But even in this modest goal I was frustrated. There wasn't a catchphrase repeated often enough to warrant a drinking game, but I did find myself seeing everything Diana said as a double entendre. This might be due to the faintly suggestive tone she used to deliver every line, or it might be that I just have a dirty mind.

Well, why not both? Here's Diana and Ronald, witnessing the great scientists preparing to unlock the mysteries of the universe:

Ronald

All this makes a man like me feel quite small and useless.

Diana

Oh, but you've entered uncharted places too!

[That's what she said!]

And here's Diana returning to her tent in the jungle:

Diana

Bring me three boys for a safari!

[That's what she said!]

This dreary romantic subplot mostly takes place during the movie's Africa-based second act. But on this viewing I must admit that Diana and Ronald do step aside in the lively third act, which takes place in Paris and involves a glow-in-the-dark Boris Karloff taking loony revenge on everyone whom he thinks has betrayed him -- which is, of course, just about everyone. Karloff certainly isn't afraid to go over the top in this effort, and his death scene -- where he literally disintegrates in midair -- is quite spectacular.

If I ever receive a lethal dose of radium X and find that I can both glow in the dark and kill with a touch of my hand, I'll keep asking myself, What would Boris Karloff do? And then I'll do that. Just letting you know in advance.

THE INVISIBLE RAY can be found on the Universal DVD set The Bela Lugosi Collection. It's available on Amazon.

Saturday, August 29, 1970: The Mummy's Hand (1940) / Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

The Mummy's Hand

Synopsis: Archeologist Steve Banning (Dick Foran) and his sidekick / comic relief Babe Jenson (Wallace Ford) are down on their luck in Cairo. Unable to secure funding for their expeditions, they are preparing to return to America by steamship. But by chance Banning finds a broken pot at a bazaar that seems to indicate the location of the tomb of ancient Egyptian princess Ananka -- a remarkable find, should it prove to be true.

Taking it to the Cairo Museum, Banning's discovery is verified as authentic by museum curator Dr. Petrie (Charles Trowbridge). Unexpectedly, though, the influential Professor Andoheb (George Zucco) declares that the pot is a fake.

Professor Andoheb knows perfectly well the pot is authentic. But he's pulling double duty -- not only is he the recognized expert on Egyptian artifacts, he is also the high priest of a secret order, chosen to guard the sanctity of Princess Ananka's tomb.

Banning and Jenson are discouraged, but by chance they meet an American stage magician (Cecil Kelloway) who agrees to bankroll their dig. What's more, the magician has a beautiful daughter (Peggy Moran) who insists on coming along on the expedition.

Using the map on the pot as a guide, the expedition unearths a tomb - but it is not Princess Ananka's tomb. Rather, it's the tomb of Kharis. Unlike most mummies, Kharis has a job -- he is Princess Ananka's last line of defense. And it isn't long before Andoheb shows up at the site, to bring the mummy to life with a potion of tana leaves, and instruct it to kill all those who would dare defile the tomb of the princess....

Comments: Unlike its contemporaries Dracula and Frankenstein, The Mummy (1932) had no direct sequels. Rather, eight years passed before the release of The Mummy's Hand, a movie which might best be described -- in modern studio parlance-- as a "reboot" or "reimagining" of the original. None of the characters from the first film appear or are referenced in this one. Even though footage from the first film is used, and a forbidden-love subplot is borrowed, Kharis, not Im-Ho-Tep, is the titular mummy; Princess Ananka stands in for Ankes-en-Amon; the Scroll of Thoth disappears, replaced by the device of the tana leaves; and instead of the somber Whemple family, we have two archeologists so light-hearted that one can imagine them being played by Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. (Well, I did imagine it; and spent the first third of the movie wondering if they were about to break into song or do their grating patty-cake routine with Andoheb's goons.)

Perhaps the most radical change is the concept of the mummy itself. Ardeth Bey was shown to be physically frail, incapable of doing much of anything as a mummy, even an ambulatory one. Passing himself off as a modern Egyptian, his main weapon was hypnotic control. In The Mummy's Hand, Kharis is more like a traditional zombie: largely unaware of its surroundings and incapable of reason. It is almost entirely under Andoheb's control, a slave to the tana leaf potion which is always placed, like so many dog treats, in the tents of the men it is ordered to kill.

The Mummy's Hand is clearly a lesser movie than its predecessor, but in spite of some glaring plot holes (why would the ancient Egyptians festoon pots and medallions with a map to a forbidden tomb?) it is still quite lively and entertaining.

Dick Foran is a passable though undistinguished lead, and Wallace Ford (whom you may remember from the goony Night of Terror) wears out his welcome rather quickly. Peggy Moran is supposed to be the love interest here, but she spends most of the time looking sour, marking time until she needs to be rescued in the third act.

All three characters are rather unceremoniously disposed of in The Mummy's Tomb, but that still lies in the future. For now, we can admire the work of Cecil Kelloway, who plays the Great Solvani with infectious enthusiasm; and that old smoothie George Zucco, whom you may remember as the love-sick professor from The Mad Ghoul. And Tom Tyler does as well as one can expect wrapped in bandages, with his eyes blacked out frame-by-frame in each of his mummy close-ups.

Ladies, perhaps you've dated better-looking guys. I admit he needs to work on his personal hygiene. But he's from a good family and he's very loyal.

THE MUMMY'S HAND can be felt via the DVD collection The Mummy: The Legacy Collection, which can be purchased on Amazon.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

Synopsis: Two grave-robbers enter the family crypt of the wealthy Talbot family, looking for an expensive watch and ring left on the body of young Lawrence Talbot, a.k.a. the titular Wolf Man. As the full Moon peeks through the windows, the thieves are puzzled to find Talbot's body covered with wolfs-bane. They clear it off and begin searching for the ring. Suddenly, a hand reaches up from the coffin to grab one of the unfortunate thieves....

Later, a Cardiff policeman finds a man lying unconscious on the street in the dead of night, the apparent victim of an assault. At the hospital the next day, Dr. Frank Mannering (Patric Knowles) is shocked to discover that his patient -- on whom he had just operated hours earlier -- is now conscious and talking. The man says he is Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr) and does not know how he came to be in Cardiff. Checking Talbot's story, the police discover that Lawrence died four years earlier. That night, the full Moon rises over the hospital, and Lawrence changes into a werewolf. He takes to the streets of Cardiff, attacking a policeman. The next morning, Talbot declares that he committed a murder during the night and asks for the police. Thinking the man has lost his marbles, Dr. Mannering has him put in a straitjacket. He then goes with the local chief of police to the Talbot family crypt, trying to determine if the man in his hospital room is really Talbot; sure enough, they find the coffin empty. When he returns to Cardiff he finds that Talbot has somehow shredded the straitjacket with his teeth and escaped.

After a long search Talbot finally catches up with the Gypsy camp of Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya). Talbot knows that death is the only way he can be free of the curse, but Maleva tells him the only chance he has to die is to visit the guy who has harnessed the powers of life and death: the notorious Dr. Frankenstein. The two travel by horse-drawn wagon to Vasaria, the hometown of Dr. Frankenstein. Disappointed to find that Dr. Frankenstein is long dead, Talbot and Maleva decide to look around the ruins of the castle in hopes of finding Dr. Frankenstein's diary, which purportedly holds "the secrets of life and death".

Alas, a full Moon rises (again), Talbot turns into the Wolf Man (again), wreaks a good deal of havoc, falls through an opening near the castle and awakens (as Talbot again) in an icy underground chamber adjacent to the castle, where he finds Frankenstein's monster (Bela Lugosi), frozen like a TV dinner....

Comments: We last saw Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man back on December 13, and seeing it again I was struck by what a polished, economical little movie it is. It's usually lumped in with the monster rallies House of Dracula and House of Frankenstein. But it more closely resembles the Frankenstein sequels we've watched in recent weeks -- Ghost of Frankenstein in particular.

We've previously kicked around the idea that Ludwig in Ghost of Frankenstein was the sensible kid in the family -- seen by his family as a slacker because he didn't want to possess god-like power. In Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man the slacker in question is young Elsa Frankenstein. She clearly feels nothing but shame for her family's transgressions against nature. But because she is not trained as a scientist, there is nothing she can do about it*.

Nothing, that is, until she meets Frank Mannering, a doctor who not only understands Henry Frankenstein's notes, but who also understands the moral arguments for disassembling the monster.

A romance is clearly budding between Elsa and Frank, but when Elsa discovers Frank is trying to juice the monster up rather than destroy it, the look of betrayal in her eyes is palpable. Conned again, our Elsa -- she thought she'd found someone who could help her to atone for her family's crimes, and look where it got her. Grandpa would have loved this guy.

At the end of the movie she allows herself to be wrapped up in Frank's brawny arms and led away from the ruined castle (amusingly, the same castle gets destroyed at the end of every picture) and what we are left with is a woman who has resigned herself to yet another abusive relationship.

The lovely Ilona Massey plays Elsa, and I had no trouble buying that she is a baroness. Massey did very little film work outside of this picture, and that's a shame; I would have loved to see what sort of range she had as an actress.

It's great to see Maria Ouspenskaya classing up the joint as Maleva, but I still have not forgiven Patric Knowles for The Strange Case of Dr. RX. The less said about Bela Lugosi in this one, the better.

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN can be purchased on DVD (in a disc that also includes House of Frankenstein) through Amazon.com. Amazon now has an on-demand option as well -- you can rent the movie for 24 hours for $2.99, and purchase for $9.99.

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*Elsa is identified as the granddaughter of Henry Frankenstein, and the daughter of another monster-building member of the family. I'm guessing she is Ludwig's daughter, since she mentions growing up in Vasaria.

Saturday, August 22, 1970: Dracula (1931) / The Murders In The Rue Morgue (1932)

Dracula

Synopsis: Renfield (Dwight Frye), a young attorney from London, arrives at a small Carpathian village. His fellow travelers are staying in the village overnight but he insists on continuing on to the castle of a local nobleman, Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi).

The villagers turn pale at the very mention of the name, and beg him not to go. But Renfield is there on business, and insists on completing his journey.

After an unnerving trip to the castle, Renfield finally meets the count, who signs documents to complete his purchase of Carfax Abbey in England. It is to England, Dracula says, that he will go the very next morning.

Later, a ship drifts into an English harbor, all aboard her dead -- save for Renfield, who is now a stark, raving lunatic.

Several crates from the ship are delivered to Carfax Abbey. From one of them emerges Count Dracula, who soon insinuates himself into London society, befriending Dr. Seward, owner of the Seward Asylum where Renfield is confined. The asylum is, we learn, next door to Carfax Abbey. Dracula meets Dr. Seward's daughter, Mina (Helen Chandler); her fiancee Jonathan Harker (David Manners), and their friend Lucy (Frances Dade).

Meanwhile, a string of bizarre murders has caught the interest of Dr. Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan), an unorthodox scientist and student of the occult. Two small puncture wounds, he finds, were on the necks of each victim, including young Lucy.

When Mina relates a dream of a man coming into her bedroom and biting her neck, Seward is surprised to see that Mina has been hiding two small puncture wounds herself. But Van Helsing is not surprised. He insists that a vampire is attempting to make Mina its slave by visiting her over a series of subsequent nights.

Mina can only be protected, he says, by locking her in her room, and sealing the windows with wolfbane and crucifixes, which vampires find repellent.

Meanwhile, Count Dracula pays a visit to the Seward home, and Van Helsing quickly realizes that Dracula himself is the vampire they seek. A battle of wits ensues, with Van Helsing battling Count Dracula for Mina's very soul....

Comments: Last week marked Horror Incorporated's first journey into the realm of the double feature. This week we have the first movie to be broadcast a second time. Or the show's first journey into the realm of the rerun, if you want to be that way about it.

So we get a second look at Todd Browning's 1931 masterpiece. I talked about the film itself when it was first broadcast in November, but as long as we are revisiting it, perhaps we should take a moment to talk about the film's music.

Dracula, famously, doesn't have a music score. In the early days of talkies it was widely believed that a score would distract and confuse audiences, since they wouldn't be able to tell if the music they were hearing was supposed to be ambient sound. So Dracula only has two music cues: we hear a bit of Swan Lake during the opening credits, and some ambient music from the opera that Dracula attends.

(That cue from Swan Lake, by the way, was used in a lot of these Universal Pictures from the early 1930s. In fact we hear it over the credits of tonight's second feature, The Murders In the Rue Morgue).

In 2000 composer Philip Glass wrote a complete score for Dracula, which was recorded by the Kronos Quartet. I was lucky enough to see a screening of the film with a live performance of the new music. It was an interesting experience; while I'd seen the movie a number of times, I'd never seen it with a score or with an audience.

Ironically enough, I found Glass' cues to be rather intrusive and distracting, though I had no complaint about the music itself. Seeing it with an audience, though, was a terrific experience. I suspect many of the people at Northrop Auditorium had never seen the movie before; or, at least, hadn't seen it for a very long time.

The audience was pretty good-natured, but poor old Bela Lugosi's stagey mannerisms came in for some derisive laughter and snickering. The biggest laugh of the night came from the rubber bat appearing outside the window of the Seward house, clearly jouncing up and down on the end of a wire. And I'm willing to bet that there was not a single member of the audience who found a single moment of the movie frightening.

When I get my time machine finished, I'll be sure to stop off in 1931 and see Dracula in a movie theater there (I'll try to find one of the lavish movie palaces of the era; I've always wanted to visit one). Seeing it with a less-jaded audience, I figure, will be a wholly different experience. Apparently, it was considered quite horrifying in those days.

Watching these old movies on television diminishes their impact somewhat, but I still like to think that watching them late at night, with the wind howling outside and the rain pelting against the windows, is as atmospheric as anything you'd experience in the theater. So the broadcast TV era afforded a different experience from the cinematic era, though -- at times -- it could be a deliciously spooky one.

Dracula can be found on the Universal DVD set Dracula: The Legacy Collection. But you may also want to check out the first digitally restored DVD release, which included the new Philip Glass score. You can find it here.

The Murders In the Rue Morgue

Synopsis: Medical student Pierre Dupin (Leon Waycoff) is at a carnival with his beloved Camille L'Espanaye (Sidney Fox). They enter the exhibit of Dr. Mirakle (Bela Lugosi) who has a gorilla named Erik. Mirakle claims to be able to speak Erik's ancient simian language, then goes on to talk about his personal theories about evolution. At the end of his presentation he urges Camille to come closer to Erik, but when she does so Erik lunges at her, grabbing her and stealing her bonnet. Dr. Mirakle apologizes and tells her that if she gives him her address, he'll send her a new one. Pierre is suspicious and tells her not to do so.

But Mirakle will not be deterred. He has Camille followed and gets her address anyway.

Meanwhile, the police are baffled by a series of prostitute killings, and we learn Dr. Mirakle is the culprit. Picking up streetwalkers and bringing them home, Mirakle injects them with gorilla's blood, with the stated intention of finding out the "true connection" between humans and apes. But the blood of prostitutes is "dirty", according to Mirakle; he needs a woman with pure blood. And so he plots to kidnap Camille and use her to prove his theory of human - ape kinship....

Comments: The stories of Edgar Allan Poe are justifiably famous, but they tend to be long on atmosphere and short on plot. For this reason, films based upon them take plenty of liberties. We’ve already seen what Hollywood did with The Raven and The Black Cat; and tonight we get to see what they make of “The Murders In the Rue Morgue”.

Like a lot of adaptations this one comes off better if you’ve never read the story it’s based upon. Understandably, a lot of changes had to be made in translation. But this adaptation is particularly distressing because it throws out everything that made the short story interesting and memorable.

That story – widely credited as the first detective tale – was published in 1841. It describes how a brilliant, penniless young man named C. Auguste Dupin solves a sensational double homicide that has baffled the Paris police department. The circumstances surrounding the murders are what we would describe today as a classic “locked-room” mystery: two women are found dead in their home, one nearly decapitated and the other beaten and strangled, her body pushed up the chimney by an enormously strong assailant. The door is locked from the inside, and the only windows the killer could have escaped from are nailed shut, also from the inside.

Dupin solves the mystery simply by applying his keen, disciplined mind to the problem, identifying and rejecting irrelevant clues and logically working his way through the facts until he arrives at the correct solution. That an amateur easily, almost effortlessly, solves this “insoluble” mystery is one thing. That he does so basically as a lark is quite another, and it makes C. August Dupin one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters in literature.

But for the screen adaptation, the writers felt it was necessary to dismantle the elaborate puzzle-box that Poe had constructed and sand down the rough edges from their protagonist. Camille L’Espanayle is no longer one of the two murder victims. She has been pulled from the chimney, brought back to life, and transformed into Dupin’s girlfriend. Dupin (inexplicably renamed Pierre) is now a poor medical student, rather than an eccentric bohemian.

And the screenwriters, needing an antagonist, dreamed up a character named Dr. Mirakle, played with scenery-chewing zest by Bela Lugosi, an actor who was still basking in the success of the previous year's Dracula. Mirakle's motivations are shaky throughout -- he seems to find Camille herself alluring, yet also wants her blood for his experiments proving human-ape kinship. This all figures (or is supposed to figure, somehow) into his theories of evolution. That Darwin's On the Origin of Species would not be published until 1859 is apparently ignored. And why not? Mirakle's motive doesn't make sense anyway.

Lugosi is at least amusing as Dr. Mirakle; the same cannot be said, unfortunately, for the other principles. Leon Waycoff's Dupin is an insufferable and ineffectual dullard, only a pale shadow of Poe's creation. Diminutive leading lady Sidney Fox is certainly cute, but sweetness seems to be the only quality she can project.

As for Erik the gorilla, we get a man in a suit for the distant shots, and a chimpanzee for the close-ups. Movie audiences in 1932 were apparently much more forgiving in those days.

The Murders In the Rue Morgue can be found on the Universal DVD set The Bela Lugosi Collection. It's available on Amazon.

Saturday, August 15, 1970: The Mummy (1932) / The Face Behind the Mask (1941)

The Mummy

Synopsis: On a 1921 expedition to Egypt, archeologist Sir Joseph Whemple (Arthur Byron) and his team have unearthed a sarcophagus containing a mummified body, and near it a small ornate casket. Expert on the occult Dr. Muller (Edward Van Sloan) notes that the mummy did not have its internal organs removed before burial, as was customary in ancient Egypt; furthermore, hieroglyphs on the inside of the sarcophagus that were meant to ensure life after death had been chiseled off. From this Muller deduces that their subject had been buried alive as punishment for some act of sacrilege.

From an inscription upon the casket, the archeologists learn that it contains the legendary Scroll of Thoth. This is the scroll that Isis was said to have used to raise Osiris from the dead, and it bears a warning: any who dare to read it will fall prey to a horrible curse. Whemple and his assistant Ralph Norton (Bramwell Fletcher) are eager to proceed, but Muller warns them not to. As Muller and Whemple discuss the matter outside, Norton opens the scroll and begins to read aloud. The mummy comes to life, takes the scroll from a now-hysterical Norton, and disappears into the night.

Ten years later, Whemple's son Frank (David Manners) is taking part in another Egyptian expedition. This one meets with little success until a mysterious Egyptian named Ardeth Bey (Boris Karloff) appears at the site, offering to show the men the way to the lost tomb of Princess Ankes-en-Amon.

The archeologists are skeptical, but astonished when it turns out that Ardeth Bey was right -- the tomb, undisturbed for 3,700 years, is precisely where the Egyptian said it would be.

Later, the contents of Ankes-en-Amon's tomb are on display in the Cairo museum, and Ardeth Bey returns -- this time staring, hour after hour, at the mummified body of the princess herself. After the museum closes, he kneels beside the mummy's display case. Reading from the Scroll of Thoth, he attempts to raise Ankes-en-Amon from the dead. He does not succeed, but without intending it, his incantations have an effect on a family friend of Dr. Muller, the young half-Egyptian Helen Grovener (Zita Johann). Helen is strangely drawn to the Cairo Museum. Soon it becomes clear that Helen carries the reincarnated spirit of Ankes-en-Amon, the woman for whom Ardeth Bey suffered unspeakable torment 37 centuries earlier. When Ardeth Bey realizes this, he becomes determined to revive the memories Helen carries of her past lives, and thus reclaim a love that death itself could not extinguish....

Comments: Horror Incorporated inaugurates its double-feature format in grand style tonight, with one of the great films of the Universal horror canon.

Most Hollywood films are quickly forgotten, but like its titular character The Mummy has endured the ravages of time and the changes in fashion, and comes away looking pretty good. It is still being watched and appreciated 80 years after its release.

And deservedly so. This is a movie that features a tense, intelligent script, a great performance by Boris Karloff, and a superb German-expressionist look courtesy of director Karl Freund.

The Mummy isn't what most people think of as a standard-issue mummy movie. There are no scenes of a man wrapped in bandages chasing people around. Rather, this first foray into mummy lore essentially retells the story of Dracula: a powerful undead creature tries to ensnare an innocent woman's soul, but is foiled by a modern expert in the occult. In both films David Manners plays the young woman's love interest; and in both films Edward Van Sloan plays the paranormal expert.

These coincidences weren't intentional, or at least not at first; there was no hint of them in the early drafts of the script (which was then titled Cagliostro) by Nina Wilcox Putnam and Richard Schayer. It wasn't until John Balderston was brought in to rework the story that the elements from Dracula were introduced, and little wonder -- Balderston had previously adapted Dracula for the screen, from a stage play by Garett Fort.

In spite of the similarities in story, the movie never comes across as a Dracula knock-off. Willy Pogany designed some stunning Egyptian sets for the film, and the Jack Pierce makeup for Boris Karloff is remarkable. Freund's careful choices in camera and lighting lend a brooding atmosphere that prevents the stagebound feel to which Browning's film eventually succumbed.

Zita Johann and Edward Van Sloan bring enormous credibility to their respective roles. Johann is particularly effective in her final scene, when she has finally recalled her past life as Ankes-en-Amon, and implores the goddess Isis to free her from Ardeth Bey's grotesque obession.

But it is Boris Karloff's performance as the sinister Ardeth Bey that really makes this movie go. Karloff manages to imbue his character with both an air of physical frailty and psychological menace.

In the early 1930s Carl Lamaelle, Sr. worried that the horror pictures were tasteless fare, and not the sort of thing that Universal Studios should dabble in. But he couldn't argue with the money these movies brought in. Nevertheless it is to Lamaelle's credit, and Universal's, that the studios' horror output wasn't dreck thrown out for shock value. In the main, these were solidly-crafted pictures, and sometimes -- as on this occasion -- they were great ones as well.

THE MUMMY is part of the DVD set The Mummy: The Legacy Collection, and is available through Amazon.com.

The Face Behind the Mask

Synopsis: Immigrant Janos Szabo (Peter Lorre) is fresh off the boat from Hungary. He's a nice guy, and on his first day in America he befriends a police detective named Jim O'Hara (Don Beddoe). O'Hara recommends a cold-water flat nearby that he can stay at. Before the day is out, he lands a job as a dishwasher, and he is sure that before long he will be able to find work as a watchmaker. Janos is thrilled at all America has to offer, but that night tragedy strikes: his apartment building catches fire and his face is hideously disfigured.

Even though he is a skilled watchmaker and machinist, Janos now finds he can't get a job anywhere because of his grotesque appearance. Soon he falls in with a friendly thief named Dinky (George E. Stone). Janos is reluctant to pursue a life of crime, but when Dinky becomes ill, Janos takes a safecracking job in his stead.

It turns out that Janos excels at crime, and when he discovers that he can get a detailed rubber mask made of his old face, he is determined to get the money it takes to have it made. When the mask is completed it gives Janos a waxy, heavy-lidded appearance, but women no longer scream when they see him.

Soon Janos is the leader of Dinky's gang, but when he becomes involved with Helen Williams (Evelyn Keyes), a beautiful and good-hearted blind woman, he is determined to quit the gang and lead an honest life. The only problem is, his new friends would rather see him dead than let him go....

Comments: The Face Behind the Mask is a bit like the character of Janos Szoba himself: earnest, eager, willing to work hard, and grateful for any good will that comes its way. Its biggest flaw is that it can't make up its mind -- we're never sure just what sort of movie this is supposed to be. Noirish thriller? Weepy melodrama? Shakespearian tragedy?

Or is it a message film, advocating an end to restrictive immigration laws? It seems that way, at least at first. Title cards suggest that the film is set before passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, which had imposed strict quotas on the number of immigrants from various countries. The quotas were designed to limit the number of Jews, Italians, eastern Europeans, and other "undesirable" elements entering the U.S.

More likely, though, the titles served as an acknowledgement of current events in 1941, namely the plight of European immigrants desperate to escape the predations of the Nazis. In that light the happy-go-lucky Janos might have come across as a bit frivolous.

In the film's first scene Janos bubbles over with enthusiasm at the prospect of becoming an American. "She is beautiful!" he cries, seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time, as a few notes of "My Country 'Tis of Thee" creep into the soundtrack. He is eager to learn English, eager to work any job, eager to become, in Craig Ferguson's words, an "American on purpose". To modern audiences this is decidedly corny stuff, but the movie's heart is in the right place, upended only by the jarring shifts in tone.

While an inspiring immigrant's tale might include a tragic setback -- such as disfigurement in a fire -- as an obstacle for the protagonist to overcome, success as an underworld kingpin is probably not what most people think of as living the American dream.

The Man Behind the Mask is nevertheless a near-perfect showcase for the talents of Peter Lorre, who handles the transition from naive immigrant to embittered vagrant to, finally, criminal mastermind with such skill that we are able to overlook the improbable turns in the screenplay and just enjoy the ride.

Strong performances help the movie rise above the uncertainty of the script. George E. Stone as Dinky and Evelyn Keyes as Helen both add a great deal to the proceedings.



THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK is available through Sinister Cinema.