The Old Dark House

When dealing with films from the early 1930s, even classics, what you get is a crap-shoot. It was a time when the art of film making was still in its infancy, and it varied from director to director just how well the process was actually understood. Many films were shot in ways that just seemed slightly off, and the editing was often sloppy. A great example of an otherwise good film marred by this is The Black Cat, which was little more than a filmed stage play.

On the flip side, there were films that seemed well ahead of their time. Most of the classic Universal Monster films fall into this category, with Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy showing visual skills equivalent to movies that came out at least two decades later. These are probably the films we’re most likely to see today.

The Old Dark House seems like a strange hybrid of these, giving it a possibly unintentional surreal feel that makes it truly terrifying to behold. I don’t want to discount the possibility that the film itself may have deteriorated with time. Either way, it’s the film I watched that I have to review, and the poor sound quality and odd lighting, in a film that’s otherwise competently shot and edited, works perfectly to create fear.

The movie is set off when a couple, Phillip and Margaret Waverton (Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart), and a veteran traveling with them named Penderel (Melvyn Douglas), are forced by a storm to take shelter in a large house. I’m not entirely sure why Mr. Penderel was with them, as he doesn’t seem especially familiar with them. My best guess is he was supposed to be a hitch-hiker. I’m not sure what to make of him personality-wise either, as the opening scene makes him out to be somewhat shell-shocked, using humor to cover it up, while the remainder of the movie portrays him as quite suave.

The house is home to the Femm family, and they’re “greeted” by elderly siblings Horace and Rebecca (Ernest Thesiger and Eva Moore). Their interactions are truly hilarious. Rebecca is an old nag with selective hearing who keeps repeating the same things over and over again, while Horace is an utter coward. They’re served by a hulking mute named Morgan, (Boris Karloff, going through a period of his career when he was briefly type-cast as hulking mutes).

During dinner, the guests are joined by Sir William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton) and his “friend” Gladys (Lillian Bond). Honestly, these characters deserve a film to themselves. This was among the last of the pre-code films, and they likely would have been presented as much more villainous if the movie had been made a few years later.

Sir William comes from a humble background, but his wife passed away after being jilted by members of High Society. Sir William pledged to become rich solely to gain the money and power needed to ruin the people he blamed for his wife’s death, and for the most part has succeeded. We’re told quite openly that Gladys is a showgirl, and the two have no shame about their casual relationship. She, while fond of him, wants his money, and he simply wants her for momentary affection. When she finds herself falling in love with Penderel, he has no objection, although he thinks she’s “mad” for falling in love with a penniless man.

During the storm, Morgan becomes drunk and frees the third Femm sibling, Saul (Brember Wills), who had been locked in the attic due to his pyromania. There’s a very strong build-up to Saul, with appropriate tension as the characters scramble around in utter fear. The character himself is quite affable. I’m not entirely sure if it’s an act, or if his madness is compulsion rather than malice. I prefer to think the latter, as it makes the story far more tragic. He claims that Morgan beats him, and that his siblings killed a fourth child, Rachael, and locked him away to conceal the truth. I wouldn’t put any of this past them.

The movie ends, predictably enough, with Saul setting fire to the house, but he’s stopped with surprising efficiency. Morgan seems to sober up enough to sadly cradle Saul’s body and carry it up the stairs. Whether Saul dies, or is simply knocked unconscious, is left ambiguous. If he does die, he’s the only casualty of the film, which either way has an amazingly low body-count by modern standards. It’s awe-inspiring just how much tension they can get without a single death.

This movie is tense, and definitely worth the hour and twelve minutes. On a final note, seeing Melvyn Douglas in this was awesome, since I had to review The Changeling for my 100 Scariest Movie Moments reviews. Seeing the actor still working 48 years later, just a year before his death, creates a truly astounding contrast.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #27 Frankenstein

I’ve made it my goal in each of these reviews to give at least some description of the plot, rather than simply assume that my readers already know it. And so, I will follow through with that intention. However, for anyone who doesn’t know the plot of at least the movie Frankenstein through pop cultural osmosis, I must ask the question: How in the Hell are you literate enough in English to be able to read this?

Frankenstein tells the story of Henry Frankenstein (Victor in the book, but the events are so wildly different from what happened in the book that there’s little need for comparison), who robs graves for body parts in order to create a humanoid creature, thus unlocking the secrets of life. Unlike The Wolf Man, which was never especially controversial relative to other horror films of its day, Frankenstein was considered absolutely shocking to the sensibilities of 1931.

The most famous line is unquestionably “It’s alive! It’s alive!” But among movie buffs, the line immediately following those words has taken on an almost equal degree of fame… “In the name of God! Now I know what it’s like to be God!” This line was in the 1931 original release, but was cut out of subsequent releases due to the adoption of the Hayes Code forbidding such blasphemy. For decades the line was thought lost, but thankfully, some time ago, the original audio tracks were found.

While the movie is visually unimpressive by modern standards, which is to be expected of a film from that era, the themes are still shocking, and Colin Clive (the Doctor) and Boris Karloff (the Monster) both give excellent performances. I can hardly claim them to be my favorite interpretations of the characters, simply because the 1994 adaptation Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein exists and dealt far more directly with the source material. But to compare their performances to such an incredibly different movie seems a bit unfair.

It is unquestionably a testament to the quality of the movie that after all these years it still remains creepy. You really believe that this is a man insane enough to play around with life and death simply to satisfy his own morbid curiosity, as well as with his own innocent but dangerous creation. I feel like there’s a comparison to Re-Animator to be made here, but that would be almost like comparing Saving Private Ryan to 300.

I have mixed feelings about the ending; specifically, the decision by the studio to reshoot so that Henry survived being thrown from a windmill by the Monster. On the one hand, the ending itself is obviously tacked on. They couldn’t even get Colin Clive to return for the reshoots, so they just shot a scene of several people standing outside his bedroom talking about his recovery. However, it did open up the door for Bride of Frankenstein, which is the true thematic completion of the original story, giving the monster dialogue and exploring the concepts of scientific ethics even more deeply than the original film did.

Hilariously though, Bride of Frankenstein also has a tacked-on ending in which the Monster, having decided to destroy both himself and the primary antagonist for that film, allows Doctor Frankenstein to escape with his bride. For that ending, I have no excuse. The monster had rationally reached the conclusion that not only should he be destroyed, but so should everyone who was remotely involved in his creation... except, apparently, for the man who created him!

That said, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein are both beautiful films, deserving of their place in cinema history.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #68 The Black Cat

Reviewing The Black Cat makes me think of Michael Bay. Not in terms of how similar they are, but in terms of how different. The Black Cat was made in 1934, a time when film was still relatively new. I doubt there was a single person responsible for the production of this film who grew up saying they wanted to make movies for a living. And as a result, the tools of the trade had not been fully developed. That’s not to say that the filmmakers did a bad job, and there are some good shots. However, much of the movie feels like a stage play that was filmed. Although the only thing I find to be outright bad is the editing, which is often quite sloppy by even the standards of Dracula; a film that preceded this movie by three years.

Compare that with Bay, who grew up not only with film, but grew up with movies made by people who grew up with film. After three or four generations, directors like Bay now know exactly how to film and edit every shot to get a reaction from the audience, even in the complete absence of story and character.

So, in watching The Black Cat, I’m uncertain of precisely how to grade it. Even if I go purely by the acting, I know that I’m watching performers who’d not yet fully realized that they didn’t need to emote more for the people in the back row. This is particularly true when watching Bois Karloff, who has an incredibly strong screen presence.

The movie’s awkwardness with the conventions of film does work to its advantage for its introduction. Rather than framing the entire set-up within the expectations of the horror genre, the introduction could have led to almost any story. It’s simply a casual meeting on a train, and the horror comes from the events that follow that meeting.

Beyond that point, the movie is a story of ideas rather than blood splatter. Horror legends Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff are brought together by this film, probably the best remembered of the handful of movies they did together. Lugosi plays a Doctor by the name of Vitus Werdegast, and Karloff a Satanist named Hjalmar Poelzig. Fifteen years earlier during the First World War, Poelzig arranged to have Werdegast sent to a concentration camp, from which he had finally been released. But while Werdegast was out of the way, Poelzig had married his wife, raised his daughter, (presumably) killed his wife, and then married his now grown daughter (both wife and daughter are played by Lucille Lund).

Obviously, under normal circumstances, this film would be all of five minutes long as the two men attempt to kill each other, so the story throws in a complication. Two honeymooners, Peter and Joan (David Manners and Julie Bishop), are on the train with Werdegast, and Joan is injured. Werdegas takes them both to Poelzig’s house, and they pose as friends. Werdegast wants to keep them out of the crossfire, and Poelzig wants to sacrifice Joan to Satan, so he must avoid scaring her off. Meaning that for the moment, they must both be civil. On top of which, Poelzig also lies, saying that Werdegast’s daughter is dead before he arrives. Werdegast later finds out that Poelzig killed Karen after he arrived, hammering in his sense of failure at protecting her.

The plot is fairly complex for a one hour running time, but the scene that is most remembered, and rightfully so, is the scene in which Lugosi skins Karloff alive. I’m not going to deny that this scene is impressive. However, I find what came before it far more impressive. Both Lugosi and Karloff do an excellent job of portraying two men with the barest concealment of their rage. The most intense scene between the two to be the chess scene earlier in the film, when they play for the safety of the honeymooners.

Overall, if you like old films, then this is a classic that should be watched more than it is. So, I strongly recommend it.