Released in 1934, The Black Cat is unusual for a Universal Studios horror picture because it features none of their signature monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Mummy, or any monsters, at least no supernatural ones. However, The Black Cat does feature the biggest horror stars of the era, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff giving some of the best performances of their careers. The title card says the movie is “suggested by the immortal Edgar Allan Poe classic” but that claim is more than a stretch as the only thing the plot has in common with the Poe short story is the inclusion of a black cat in one scene. Fortunately, the story invented by screenwriter Peter Ruric and co-writer and director Edgar G. Ulmer makes for a superbly dark and creepy old-school horror picture.
While traveling on the Orient Express through Hungary on their honeymoon, newlyweds Peter (David Manners) and Joan (Julie Bishop) end up sharing a train compartment with Dr. Vitas Werdegast (Bela Lugosi), who is very polite but mysterious. They also share a carriage but after an accident Dr. Vitas takes them to the closest shelter, which happens to be his destination: the home of an “old friend,” Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff). We learn that Vitas and Poelzig are actually deadly enemies. During the Great War Poelzig betrayed their army, leading to a massacre and Vitas being sent to a prison camp where he says, “the soul is killed slowly.” Poelzig built an elaborate estate on the site of the massacre, kidnapped Vitas’s wife, whose body he keeps preserved in a glass case, and is now married to Vitas’s daughter. Poelzig is also a Satan worshiper and wants to use Joan in a ritual. In short, he is a very bad guy. It is no wonder why Vitas is so set on revenge. Vitas has also been driven mad from his time in the prison camp and is so set on getting vengeance that even learning that his daughter is still alive doesn’t alter his revenge mission.
The highlight of The Black Cat is watching Lugosi and Karloff duel, first with their words and later with their fists. Vitas and Poelzig have a strange respect for each other even though their hatred for each other permeates every scene. Karloff is excellent as the sinister and evil Poelzig. We first see him in silhouette and his tall, gaunt, and slender figure is used to great effect. Karloff’s lilting voice also adds an extra creepy layer to his dialogue. Lugosi gets to be the hero, sort of—anti-hero might be a better description. He has been so overwhelmingly wronged by Poelzig that he has your sympathies even though his plan is to horribly torture Poelzig. His main redeeming quality is that he wants no harm to come to Peter or Joan and goes out of his way to protect Joan (Peter proves to be superfluous, even misunderstanding Vitas’s rescuing Joan). As Vitas, Lugosi brilliantly delivers many wonderful and eerie speeches that do as much to create a chilling atmosphere as the setting and score.
Poelzig’s home is not a creepy gothic castle but a surprisingly modern looking estate. Peter describes it as a “nice, cozy, unpretentious insane asylum.” The lair where Vitas’s wife’s preserved body is kept and the satanic ritual is performed is a mix of dungeon and mad scientist’s lab. Vitas’s torture of Poelzig happens offscreen but still makes you squirm. The Black Cat was made before the puritanical Production Code heavily restricted the content and subject matter of all movies. With its plot dealing with violent revenge, torture, satanism, implied rape, and necrophilia, there’s little chance it could have been made after the code became strictly enforced. Because of this, The Black Cat still retains some surprising shock value even after nearly 90 years. This movie is not nearly as well known or widely seen Dracula (1931)or Frankenstein (1931),but it is as deserving of classic status, and in many ways it is the scarier classic horror movie.
The Black Cat airs on TCM on Halloween at 1:30 PM CT and is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.
This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, for the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Made only a few years into the sound era, the 1931 version
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, remains an entertaining and effective
horror film. This adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella stars the great
Fredric March as the good natured Dr. Jekyll and also the monstrous Mr.
Hyde. Even at this time, despite their success and even their artistic merits,
horror movies were produced as and thought of as B-pictures. However, March’s
performance is so undeniably good that he won Best Actor at the 5th
Academy Awards (tying with Wallace Beery for The Champ). Like Dracula
and Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
has so permeated the culture that whether you’ve seen any film version or not,
or read the novel or not, you are already familiar with the basic story.
Dr. Henry Jekyll is a good natured doctor in London in the
late 1800’s. He is not a saint but is pretty close to it. Still, he
struggles with dark and unsavory impulses. He believes that every person has a
light and dark side and that through his scientific experiments he can separate
the two halves allowing the good half to live unburdened by the dark half. He
also believes that the dark half, once its urges are satisfied, will simply
fade away. While his fiancé is out of town with her father, Jekyll conducts his
dangerous experiment with results that are equally successful and
horrific.
The scenes of Jekyll transforming into Hyde are still
impressive and pack good shock value even after 90 years. In this version, Hyde
is manifested as an atavistic monster. His hair turns into thick wiry fur that
covers his body and his teeth become sharp fangs. This suggests that Hyde, the
dark side, embodies the animalistic origins of human nature. Jekyll makes his
transformation into Hyde by drinking a bubbling potion (a cliched image, but
satisfying to watch in a black and white 1930’s film). When he begins to
transform the camera holds a tight close up on March as he chokes, makes pained expressions, and heavy shadows and dark spots appear on his face. The camera
pans down to his transforming hands or swirls around the room and then reveals
the hideous face of Hyde. One of the best things that helps ground this horror
movie is that though Hyde has money and dresses like a gentleman, everyone is repulsed
and frightened by his monstrous inhuman appearance.
The unfortunate object of Hyde’s obsession is a poor, lower
class girl named Ivy (Miriam Hopkins) who Jekyll treated after she was
assaulted. She tries to seduce Jekyll and he puts up little defense to the
shock of his friend. The image of her leg swinging over her bed is
superimposed over the following scene of Jekyll making excuses for his natural
impulses. Her swinging leg fades slowly but never really leaves Jekyll’s
mind.
Ivy is cruelly tortured by Hyde both physically and
psychologically. He whips her back (offscreen) and torments her by reminding
her that he can find her at any time, no matter where she goes or what she
does. Hopkins, with her incredible performance as Ivy, is able to match
March as both Jekyll and Hyde. She plays Ivy not just as the damsel in a
horror movie, but as a victim of abuse. Despite the urging of her landlady, Ivy
refuses to leave town or go to the police. Hopkins portrays Ivy’s plight so
well that we understand her refusal to seek help. As the movie goes on, we find
that Jekyll is perhaps not such a good natured person after all since he takes
the potion voluntarily each night allowing himself to transform into Hyde and torture
Ivy. When his fiancé returns, he stops taking the potion only to find that now
Hyde can emerge whenever he wants.
The scenes of Hyde being chased by police have him leaping
over stairs or swinging on chandeliers; everyone’s capes flap wildly. The
ending is abrupt, which is typical of classic era films, especially horror
movies. This is a great film to watch on any Shocktober night with casual or
hardcore horror fans or classic film fans. This version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde was made by Paramount Pictures to compete with the success of
Universal’s Dracula and Frankenstein, also made in 1931. Without
a doubt it deserves to stand alongside these other horror classics.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde airs on TCM on Saturday, October 29th at 11AM CT.
This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, for the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 1: Vampire Night
"The vampire. He is still somewhere within this house."
If you’ve seen the Universal Studios 1931 classic Draculaenough times, consider the 1935 film Mark of the Vampire for a change of
pace. Many things about Mark of the Vampire are similar to Dracula,
beginning with the director and vampire: Todd Browning and Bela Lugosi, respectively. Aside
from Lugosi playing a vampiric count who lives in a castle, there is also the
character of the eccentric occult expert, Professor Zelin,
who is similar to Dracula’s Professor Van Helsing. As many similarities
as there are to Dracula, this is actually a remake
of the silent film London After Midnight, which Browning also directed. MGM was known for star studded prestige movies, not for horror
movies and with Mark of the Vampire they were no doubt trying to
recreate Universal’s success with the genre. This would explain the copycat elements, which are not as irksome as they might seem. Mark of the
Vampire is still very enjoyable and its entertainment value is its own.
After an aristocrat is found murdered with two holes on his
neck, both his friend and his doctor believe he has been killed by a vampire
but Inspector Neumann (Lionel Atwell) believes something else is at play. When
the aristocrat’s daughter, Irena (Elizabeth Allan), seems to be the next victim, the eccentric
Professor Zelin (Lionel Barrymore) is called in to help. It takes a while for Zelin to enter the
story (just like Van Helsing in Dracula) but once he does it is clear
that Lionel Barrymore is the real star and he becomes the movie’s driving force.
There is not much “action” in the modern sense but Barrymore’s dialogue delivery
conveys an urgency that creates its own kind of excitement. Most people today
know Lionel Barrymore as mean, old, corrupt Mr. Potter from Frank Capra’s It’s
a Wonderful Life, so it’s interesting to see him as a take-charge hero.
Unlike Dracula, the vampires (Lugosi as Count Mora
and Carroll Borland as his “daughter” Luna) are more side characters with the story’s
focus on the human characters. Lugosi approached the role of Count Mora as a
different take on his signature Dracula. Count Mora is nearly completely silent
and comes across as more of a monster, lacking the sinister allure of Lugosi’s Dracula.
There is plenty of old-fashioned spooky atmosphere thanks to
the frightened villagers, the sets, especially the abandoned castle where Count
Mora and Luna reside, and fog, lots and lots of fog. Of course, many of the
effects are dated (fake bats have never looked good in any era), but they are
just what you want to see in a horror movie from the 1930’s.
There is a plot twist late in the film which might cause
some eye rolls or frustration but it works in large part because it still leads to a satisfying conclusion. Also, it is a trick played on one particular character, not the
audience, and helps solve the mystery. Like many classic era horror movies, Mark
of the Vampire is just over an hour long but packs in so much it feels like
a full-length feature.
Mark of the Vampire airs on TCM Tuesday, October 20th at
7:45AM CT.
I used to scour the Turner Classic Movies schedule each month for upcoming films that I couldn’t miss and post the highlights here for your reading and viewing pleasure! It’s been a few...years, but who’s counting? (All listed times are Eastern Standard, check your local listings or TCM.com for actual air times in your area. Each day's schedule begins at 6:00 a.m.; if a film airs between midnight and 6 a.m. it is listed on the previous day's programming schedule.)
After a delayed start, it is finally award season in Hollywood, which means it's time for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming. Each day in April features films which were Academy Award winners or nominees and the films are being shown from A to Z, ending with Best Foreign Language Film winner Z on May 1. Coincidentally this was the gimmick in 2017, which was the last time I blogged about 31 Days of Oscar. By the way, if you don't have cable, you can stream films on the TCM app, but they don't stay available for very long after the air date, or usually find the films to stream or rent through other platforms. Here are my top picks for the month:
I was happy to see that TCM has included several movies from the 2000s in this year’s 31 Days line-up. The canon of classic films is not a fixed list; it should always be re-evaluated and refreshed as new art is made. Carol was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, but notably not Best Picture. Director Todd Haynes combines the lush elegance of a Douglas Sirk melodrama with contemporary storytelling in this romantic drama about a shopgirl and a housewife drawn to each other, but restricted by 1950s conventions.
“Gaslighting” has become a ubiquitous buzzword in the last few years. But how many people have actually seen the film that gave us that term? Technically, “gaslighting” means when someone lies to you so that you begin to doubt your own sanity and then you can be committed to an asylum and your tormentor can steal your aunt’s jewels. Ingrid Bergman won Best Actress for her performance as a woman driven mad. The film received seven nominations in total, including Best Picture, which it lost to Going My Way. Keep an eye out for a young Angela Lansbury in her first film role as Bergman’s maid, she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination.
The title may sound generic, but this charming and warm story of British civilian life during WWII will stick with you. Told through the eyes of a young boy, the film is based on writer-director John Boorman’s own experiences during the London blitz. The film received five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, but did not win any awards; in fact it lost in almost every category to that year’s big winner, The Last Emperor.
Omaha-born Alexander Payne is one of my favorite contemporary filmmakers. His films - including Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways - depict familiar, everyday people with biting dark humor. Nebraska is no exception as the story of a cantankerous elderly man and his adult son on a road trip to collect sweepstakes winnings. While several of Payne’s films have earned Oscar nominations, 2013’s Nebraska received the most with six. Surprisingly, it did not win in any category, though lead actor Bruce Dern and Phedon Papamichael’s black and white cinematography were certainly top contenders that year.
This film about a dancer torn between a devotion to her art and a desire for a conventional life was the 10th collaboration of the celebrated filmmaking team of director Michael Powell and producer Emeric Pressburger. It was nominated in Best picture and four additional categories, winning much-deserved awards for the art direction and the score. It is visually dazzling, particularly the ballet sequences starring real-life ballerina Moira Shearer. Anton Walbrook, a favorite character actor for Powell & Pressburger is also particularly good as Lermontov, the impresario who gives Shearer’s character her big break.
If you’ve never seen this one, set the DVR, get the app, whatever you need to do - just watch it. This atmospheric post-WWII noir follows an American investigating a friend’s suspicious death in Vienna. Though Orson Welles gets all the memorable lines, this is really a Joseph Cotten film. Cotten came to Hollywood with Welles as a member of Welles’ Mercury Theatre Company and after a large supporting role in 1941’s Citizen Kane, Cotten transitioned into a successful, decades-long movie career (including a role 1944’s Gaslight). The film received nominations for direction and editing, but the striking cinematography garnered the film’s only win.
This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 5: French Horror Night: “My face frightens me. My mask frightens me even more.” Eyes Without a Face
There’s a good argument that the 1960 French film Eyes Without a Face is more of a thriller with horror elements than an all-out horror movie. However you classify it, Eyes Without a Face is a peculiar film with haunting imagery. Since its addition to the Criterion Collection and late-night airings on TCM, it has become almost like required viewing for fans of classic horror and international horror films. Eyes Without a Face could qualify as “arthouse horror,” or "elevated horror," but watching it isn’t like doing homework. Eyes Without a Face is its own brand of horror.
After a car accident disfigures Christiane (Edith Scob), her father, Dr. Genessier (Pierre Brasseur), a renowned plastic surgeon, fakes her death and keeps her locked away at their country estate. He makes her wear an expressionless white mask and conducts experimental surgeries to restore her face. Dr. Genessier is acting entirely on his own wishes, not his daughter's; he mentions briefly that he is responsible for the accident that maimed her. Dr. Genessier’s loyal and murderous assistant, Louise (Alida Valli), preys on young women to lure to the chateau for the doctor to use in his experiments. Christiane wants none of this, but she is a prisoner in her own home.
There are elements of body horror in Eyes Without a Face though it is not as graphic or explicit as the modern era films of David Cronenberg or Guillermo Del Toro. However, there is a prolonged scene of surgery where a girl’s face is removed that is graphic and gross. It is not played for sensation but coldly and clinically without any background music and very few cuts. The horror of the scene comes from its context. There is nothing sadistic to the surgery, Dr. Genessier is just doing his work. The final moments of the film are filled with eerie and creepy imagery beautifully shot in stark black and white.
This is a good film to watch with someone that doesn’t like horror movies but wants to watch something spooky. It is totally unlike anything resembling a conventional horror movie. There are no pop-up scares. The villains are not especially devilish or sadistic. The climax where Christiane finally takes agency of her own fate is played low-key. There is a detached feeling between the film and its macabre subject matter. It also has the structure of a mystery/thriller though we the audience know every angle of the story. Christiane’s fiancé believes she is still alive and detectives are on the case of the missing girls, but these elements are in the far background.
Eyes Without a Face straddles the thriller and horror genres and also the classic and modern film eras. The unsensational, almost documentary-like approach to the story and characters lean towards the trends and style of the French New Wave being pioneered at the time by Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. The score, however, is firmly rooted in the older era of filmmaking and feels too jaunty at times for what is happening on screen. The Criterion Collection, dedicated to highlighting notable classic and modern films, has few horror films in its library. I'm glad this is one of them.
This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 1: Classic Horror Night “That Dr. Gogol is 100% crazy!” Mad Love
The classic 1935 horror film Mad Love (not to be confused with the gen-x romantic drama starring Drew Barrymore and Chris O’Donnell) is a weird, wild film and a very creepy one too. Watching it today, you wonder how a film like this made it past the strict and puritanical Production Code, which policed the subject matter and content of films during the classic era.
This 68-minute movie has two horror premises playing out simultaneously. 1) Yvonne, an actress in a Grand Guignol type theater, retires to marry Orlac, a promising pianist and composer, much to the dismay of her obsessive fan, the brilliant surgeon, Dr. Gogol. Dr. Gogol’s obsession with Yvonne goes from unhealthy to creepy to dangerous. 2) After Orlac’s hands are badly damaged in a train accident, Dr. Gogol performs a hand transplant, giving him the hands of a recently dead murderer. Orlac, unaware of the transplant begins to think he is going mad when his hands seem to act on their own and throw knives with great precision. Instead of telling Orlac the truth, Dr. Gogol decides to feed Orlac’s paranoia. Once Orlac is arrested or committed, then Dr. Gogol believes he will be able to have Yvonne.
Peter Lorre, in his American movie debut, gives a great performance as the fiendish Dr. Gogol. Though Yvonne and Orlac are the protagonists, Lorre is the clear star and dominant screen presence. He is plenty creepy and menacing, but his performance even elicits some sympathy too. We see Dr. Gogol’s sympathetic and malicious sides at the same time in an especially creepy and well-staged scene where he talks to his evil side in a mirror. Lorrie is also completely bald as Dr. Gogol; it is a small touch, but it makes him seem extra creepy. Though Yvonne gives up her career to be married and becomes a damsel in distress, she is not a passive character and Frances Drake’s performance gives her some depth. Colin Clive, famous for playing the frantic Dr. Frankenstein in James Whale’s 1931 Universal monster classic, plays Orlac. He brings some of that same frantic energy to the scenes of Orlac troubled and panicked by his sudden violent impulses.
Mad Love’s director, Karl Freund, was a notable cinematographer that worked on films such as All Quiet on the Western Front, Metropolis, and Sunrise, a film whose cinematography is visual poetry. Mad Love would be his final film as a director, but he would continue to work as a cinematographer and win an Oscar for his work on The Good Earth (1937). With his background as a cinematographer, Freund has a keen eye for powerful, effective visuals. This isn’t limited to effects shots or horror imagery: a close up of Lorre looking at Yvonne is as creepy and sinister as any horror image. The Grand Guignol theater is a treasure trove of macabre sights. Scenes of Dr. Gogol talking to the wax statue of Yvonne and playing music to it are unsettling, not just because of the content but also the way they are staged. The most powerful and shocking image in Mad Love, perhaps in any horror movie of the 1930’s, is of Dr. Gogol appearing to Orlac disguised as the beheaded killer whose hands Orlac now has. He is draped in black with a toothy, sinister smile and wears a neck brace where his head has been “reattached.” He shows Orlac his metallic hands as proof. It is a frightening and disturbing scene.
There are also some great moments of levity that do not clash with the horror plot. Dr. Gogol’s housekeeper/landlady is a daffy old woman with a parrot on her shoulder. Keeping a wax statue of an actress is just one of Dr. Gogol’s eccentricities that she gossips about. When she is drunk and sees the real Yvonne she says, “What are you doing out?” and drags her to Dr. Gogol’s apartment. There is also a persistent reporter wanting to profile Dr. Gogol. He actually helps the police instead of blocking them. When he hears Dr. Gogol’s scheme he says, nonchalantly, that it’s an old trick. It’s worth noting that Yvonne also figures out Gogol’s plan very quickly.
Like all films of the classic era, Mad Love has no closing credits making the ending feel abrupt and adding to the movie's odd tone. This a bizarre and surprising movie that has not lost its shock value over the decades. There is no gore or blood, so someone squeamish could watch this, or even a hardened horror fan, and still be shocked, frightened, and thoroughly entertained on any Shocktober Night.
Mad Love airs on TCM on Friday, October 30th at 4:15PM CT.
This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas.
Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the
month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 10: Werewolf Party Night! “It’s the she-wolf herself!”
Good werewolf movies are hard to find, so even a decently
made, entertaining movie that may, or may not, have a werewolf is quite welcome.
Made by Universal in 1946, She-Wolf of London took a different approach
to the Universal Monster movie. The heyday of the Universal Monster movies (Dracula,
Frankenstein, The Mummy, and their many sequels) began in the early 1930's and now was on the
decline. The monsters were already meeting each other, though they wouldn’t
meet Abbott and Costello until the 1950’s. Thanks to producer Val Lewton, RKO
was the big name in horror movies. Lewton’s approach to horror was nearly
the opposite of the Universal model. His films were more psychological often
only hinting at the supernatural, emphasizing mood and atmosphere over
monsters. She-Wolf of London was almost certainly made to compete with
the RKO Val Lewton horror pictures. Like Lewton’s Cat People or I
Walked With a Zombie, She-Wolf of London takes a sensational title and
delivers something more than just a monster movie. Though admittedly, She-Wolf
of London doesn’t match the substance or quality of the better RKO Lewton
movies, it is still a solid and entertaining mystery and thriller.
Set in London during the early years of the 20th
century, She-Wolf of London centers on Phyllis Allenby (June Lockhart),
the sole living descendant of a wealthy family with a dark history. She lives
with her cousin Carol (Jan Wiley), and stern aunt, Mrs. Winthrop (Sara Haden), who
became the guardian of Phyllis and caretaker of the the Allenby estate after Phyllis’s parents died. Now
Phyllis is about to be married to a wealthy lawyer, Barry (Don Porter), but she
worries that the Allenby curse is now affecting her. The family dogs bark at
her angrily and constantly. She has dreams of turning into a wolf and wakes up
with her hands covered in dirt and blood.
The next morning, Carol reads
newspaper reports of night time attacks by a wolf in the nearby park. We also
see the family dogs escape at night, presenting the possibility that Phyllis
might not be responsible for the attacks. Mrs. Winthrop isn’t much
comfort or help and won’t let Barry visit Phyllis. Detective Latham (Lloyd Corrigan) believes that the animal attacks are being done by a werewolf,
specifically a female werewolf. He is not exactly comic relief, but he does not
come across as especially sharp either. He simply has a hunch based on witness reports
that he believes is worth pursuing, even if it is outlandish.
Don Porter gets top billing over June Lockhart though she is
clearly the main character and even Carol and Mrs. Winthrop have bigger role
than him, or at least more interesting ones. Barry is a pretty dull hero. There
is not much to him aside from being a decent man and good fiancé. Lockhart
gives a good performance as the distraught Phyllis; she has big, wide eyes great
at conveying worry and anxiety. She is just on the cusp of a nervous breakdown
but never goes into shrieking hysterics, drawing out her anxiety and fright.
The period setting gives the story several elements that
create an eerie fantasy atmosphere. Costumes, horse drawn carriages, foggy
roads and woods lend this movie a visual style. Fog and shadows obscure the attacks which adds to the atmosphere
and saves on special effects. This may not be the straight up horror werewolf
movie you would expect from the classic era of Universal, but it works as a
mystery and thriller and effectively uses the possibility of the supernatural
to create tension and suspense and atmosphere. This is definitely a less well-known
horror movie from the classic era but I’ll count it as one of the better
werewolf movies.
This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas.
Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the
month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Throughout the 1940’s, the movie studio RKO released a
series of low budget horror hits that despite their exploitative titles (Cat
People, Isle of the Dead, Curse of the Cat People) were films
of first-rate quality and substance. These films were developed and overseen by
producer Val Lewton, who has the rare distinction of being a producer seen as
an auteur (or author) by modern film critics and historians. The best of Val
Lewton’s RKO horror films were his collaborations with director Jacques Tourneur, including I Walked With a Zombie.
You won’t find any flesh eating ghouls in this zombie movie.
Before George Romero’s landmark film Night of the Living Dead in 1968, a
zombie was a dark myth of the Voodoo religion. Specifically, a zombie was a
person that had been put in a deathlike trance, buried, dug up, and then
continued in a trance as a slave to the Voodoo priest that performed the
“resurrection.” This is the type of zombie the characters in I Walked With a
Zombie are confronted with.
Betsy (Frances Dee) travels to the island of St. Sebastian
in the West Indies to take a job as a private nurse. She moves in to the
Holland family sugar plantation and becomes friendly with Tom Holland (Tom Conway) and
his half-brother Wesley Rand (James Ellison), though the brothers are at odds. Her
patient is Tom’s wife, Jessica, who is in a perpetual catatonic trance and
wanders the plantation at night. As Betsy tries to understand Jessica’s illness,
she uncovers dark secrets about the Holland family.
The Val Lewton RKO horror movies emphasized atmosphere over
visual scares, though there are naturally a few of those in I Walked With a
Zombie. The titular scene of Betsy walking with Jessica through the cane
fields coming across eerie markers like a hanging dead animal and a skull in the
dirt is accompanied only by the sound of wind. The possibility of the
supernatural looms over the characters, but
this film delves more into the psychological effects of superstition. Betsy is
a in a new and exotic land with customs and beliefs strange to her; her lack
of familiarity puts her on edge. Perhaps the creepiest scene is also the
unlikeliest. When trying to wake Wesley at a bar patio, a street musician sings a melancholy calypso ballad of the Holland
family while walking slowly towards Betsy. Then he includes her in the ballad.
It’s easily the creepiest use a calypso song in a movie and also a clever way
to deliver exposition. The beautiful Film Noir-like use of light and shadow
further adds to the eerie atmosphere of every scene.
Slavery is at the heart of the Voodoo zombie myth. I
Walked With a Zombie is aware of this and deals indirectly with the
lingering effects of slavery, albeit only for the white descendants of the
slaveowners. A black carriage driver tells Betsy how the Holland family brought
“the long ago fathers and long ago mothers of us all” to the island, “chained
to the bottom of the boat.” The figurehead of that slave ship rests in the
center of the courtyard of the Holland estate, an ever present and morbid
reminder of the family’s past. It’s interesting that when Tom Holland says that
the slave ship brought “our people” to the island, he is referring to
his family as well as the slaves.
The central theme of I Walked With a Zombie is a
simple one: things are not what they seem. When Betsy is admiring the beauty of
the sea, Tom tells her with a resigned melancholy: “Those flying fish, they’re
not leaping for joy, they’re jumping in terror. Bigger fish want to eat them.
That luminous water, it takes its gleam from millions of tiny dead bodies. The
glitter of putrescence.” Voodoo is not dangerous; it is just a religion that
can be used for good or evil. The zombie is a victim, not a monster. The harm
to Holland family was done not by the natives; it was done by the Hollands themselves.
From its title, I Walked With a Zombie seems like a silly exploitation
film, but it is a genuine horror classic made with exquisite talent on and off
screen. This Lewton/Tourneur film is not as well-known as their signature film Cat People, but is easily of the same quality. Its moody and eerie atmosphere
hold up solidly, as do the performances, and will make for a great Shocktober
night.
This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas.
Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the
month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some scary movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 2: Classic Horror Night “We accept her, we accept her. One of us, one of us. Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble.”
The cult classic horror film Freaks remains as
controversial today as when it was first released in 1932. The film was so
reviled, even by MGM, the studio that produced it, that it effectively killed
the career of director Todd Browning, who only a year before directed the
horror classic Dracula. Browning had directed Dracula for
Universal, so MGM production chief Irving Thalberg wanted him to create a
horror hit for MGM and gave him complete creative freedom. No one expected anything
like Freaks.
It should be made clear upfront that Freaks is a
horror movie because of its murder/revenge plot, not because of its cast of
real-life circus sideshow performers with disabilities. The film opens with a
circus barker introducing a new sideshow “freak.” He explains that she was once
a beautiful trapeze artist, but she violated the code of the “freaks”: offend
one, and you offend them all. The plot centers on Hans (Harry Earles), a
wealthy little person, who becomes totally infatuated with Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), a beautiful trapeze performer. He leaves Frieda, his fiancé, for
Cleopatra, who is only interested in his money. In fact, she plots with the circus
strongman, Hercules, to kill Hans. When Hans becomes suspiciously ill
immediately after the wedding, his fellow sideshow performers plot revenge
against Cleopatra and Hercules.
Though Freaks is a Pre-Code film (made before movies
were subject to extremely strict, puritanical censorship), 30 minutes of footage
was ordered cut by MGM studio head Louis B, Mayer, who hated the film, leaving
the final runtime at just over an hour. Some of the scenes cut were deemed too
shocking or disturbing, like the fate of the strongman, who is castrated and
becomes part of the sideshow as a soprano singer. No one knows for sure the
content of the rest of the cut scenes, but it is likely they were just more
scenes of the lives of the sideshow performers. As it is, most of Freaks
focuses on the close-knit sideshow community, with the murder/revenge plot
kicking in only in the final act.
It may be only an hour long, but Freaks takes its
time building characters and giving them inner lives. We spend a little time
with each member of the sideshow, allowing some to show off their act. The most
memorable act has to Randion “The Living Torso” lighting his own cigarette despite
not having any limbs. The conjoined twins Violet and Daisy get along well, but
Daisy’s fiancé and Violet do not, leading to some amusing moments. The most
famous scene from Freaks is their tradition of “The Loving Cup.” After
Hans and Cleopatra’s wedding, the sideshow members take turns drinking champagne
from a large bowl while chanting “We accept her, we accept her.” When it is
Cleopatra’s turn to drink from the bowl she reveals her true nature and disgust
for them.
This was likely the first time that people with disabilities
were actually cast in a Hollywood production. Some of the performers later
expressed regret at being in the movie or ended up hating the film. Unfortunately,
during production the disabled performers were treated nearly as poorly as
their characters in the movie. Wallace Ford as Phroso the clown and Leila Heims
as Venus the seal trainer, the only able-bodied circus performers that are kind
to the sideshow performers, received top billing though they are more
supporting players. Worst of all, the disabled performers were not allowed to
eat at the studio cafeteria since their appearance might upset the other MGM
staff, so they had to eat outside under a tent set up just for them.
Freaks will likely always be controversial—does it have
sympathy for its subjects throughout, or does it squander that sympathy by having
them be violent and vengeful? The final scene seems like it was tacked on as an
attempt to give the movie a happy ending. It only half works. This is a dark
film but also a very interesting one deserving of classic status.
