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Boris Karloff in "Frankenstein" Photo: moviesmedia.ign.com
Halloween is a natural (if not supernatural) time to take a quick look at the legacy of Universal Studios on the institution of the horror movie. If MGM dominated the movie musical, and Warner Brothers dominated the gangster movie, Universal dominated the horror movie. Pity horror movies, like Rodney Dangerfield, seldom get much respect.
Universal started making creepers in the twenties with “The Man of a Thousand Faces”, Lon Chaney. Chaney was a master at makeup, and did his own for silent classics like “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “The Phantom of the Opera”. Universal fully intended to continue to showcase Chaney in the sound era, marketing him as “The Man of a Thousand Voices” as well. Chaney only made one talkie, “The Unholy Three”, in which he provided some five different character voices, before his death from lung cancer in 1930. Had he lived longer, Chaney almost certainly would have been one of the few silent movie stars to carve out a career in talkies.
In 1931, Universal produced two of the truly iconic horror movies: “Frankenstein” and “Dracula”. “Frankenstein” was directed by James Whale and starred Colin Clive as Dr. Henry Frankenstein (who’s named “Victor” in the novel), Edward Van Sloan and longtime obscure character actor Boris Karloff as the monster. “Dracula” was directed by Todd Browning and starred Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, a role he’d played with great success on Broadway. Edward Van Sloan also appears in the movie, as the original Professor Van Helsing.
Both movies are wonderfully moody productions. Universal’s resident makeup whiz, Jack Pierce, created the character makeup for Karloff in “Frankenstein”, and since then that’s what Frankenstein’s Monster looks like to most people, period. The makeup was a dull greenish-gray which photographed as dead white on black and white film. Lugosi’s Hungarian accent was genuine, and his pronunciation of “I never drink…vine…” has likewise influenced what almost everyone thinks the character sounds like ever since.
Bela Lugosi in "Dracula" Photo: listverse.files.wordpress.com
Karloff played the monster again in two sequels, “Bride of Frankenstein”, one of the few sequels to arguably surpass the original, and “Son of Frankenstein”, in which a somewhat manic Basil Rathbone plays a Frankenstein descendant who inherits the family home, and monster. Lugosi plays Ygor, the hunchbacked lab assistant who had been “Fritz” the hunchbacked lab assistant in the first two movies and had been played by Dwight Frye. (Frye was also Renfield in “Dracula”.) It has been long-rumored that the film was shot in color and only released in black and white and frankly, the production design, markedly different from the first two films, shows the sort of simple backgrounds common in early color films. It’s possible the film was shot in color and released in black and white either for economic reasons, or because the monster looked green and the brass thought it looked silly. “Son of Frankenstein” is largely the model for Mel Brooks’ classic homage “Young Frankenstein”.
In contrast, although Lugosi remained under contract to Universal for years and made tons of horror movies for them, there were surprisingly few sequels to “Dracula” and he wasn’t in any of them. A Spanish language version of “Dracula” was shot by director George Melford with Carlos Villarias in the title role on Browning’s sets at night, while Browning shot during the day. The Spanish version has become available in recent years, and many critics consider it superior both in terms of mood and eroticism. The Melford crew had the advantage of seeing Browning’s dailies, and were apparently determined to best it.
The nineteen thirties saw a lot more “Frankenstein”, with and without Karloff, “The Mummy” (with Karloff) and some Edgar Allan Poe “adaptations”, two of which, “The Raven” and “The Black Cat”, costarred Karloff and Lugosi.
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Production art for "The Wolfman" Photo: (c) Universal Studios 2010
In 1941, Universal produced “The Wolf Man” with Lon Chaney, Jr. as Lawrence Talbot, an innocent man who turns into a werewolf through no fault of his own. The movie was extremely popular, and despite having been killed in the first film’s climax, Talbot rose from the dead and mixed it up with Frankenstein’s monster (this time played by Bela Lugosi) in “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” in 1943. “The Wolf Man” returned again in “House of Frankenstein” and “House of Dracula”, all-star game movies featuring Glenn Strange as Frankenstein’s monster, Chaney as the Wolf Man and John Carradine as Dracula. “House of Frankenstein” also starred Karloff as a generic mad scientist, finally getting into a “Frankenstein” movie without the grueling heavy makeup.
Possibly because the real life horrors of World War II dampened the enthusiasm of movie audiences for cinematic horror, the popularity of Universal’s trademark monster movies began to wane as the decade came to a close. However, Bela Lugosi returned, for the only time on screen, as Dracula in “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein”, an extremely successful comedy in 1948. Lon Chaney also reprised his Lawrence Talbot role, and Glenn Strange returned as Frankenstein’s monster. The horror veterans let Abbott and Costello handle the funny business and played their roles straight. The result was one of the most family-friendly Halloween movies ever made, and the film was a huge hit.
Science fiction was bigger in the fifties, and Universal cashed in with “The Creature From the Black Lagoon”, which also cashed in on the current popularity of 3D. The movie spawned a couple of sequels, the first of which, “Revenge of the Creature”, was also made in 3D.
Towards the end of the decade, the English company, Hammer Studios, began remaking the “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” properties in Eastmancolor with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. “Curse of Frankenstein”, made in 1957, was starkly different from the Universal version. Apart from being in color, and far more gruesome than movie audiences were used to, the Jimmy Sangster script and Peter Cushing’s urbane, chilly performance provided a Frankenstein far removed from Colin Clive’s anguished character. This Frankenstein seemed to have little interest in the betterment of mankind, and was a sociopathic, womanizing murderer to boot. In sequels he’s also an occasional rapist. Nonetheless, Hammer’s writers seemed to notice that there was little sense in the Universal plot device of different scientists continually attempting to revive a monster who hadn’t worked out all that well the last time around. The Hammer “Frankenstein” series has Cushing returning as the scientist trying to build a better monster. The results are usually no better, but the story makes more sense. Lee appeared as the Creature in the first movie, and quickly moved on to bigger roles with Hammer. The Christopher Lee “Dracula” movies were extremely popular, if even more formulaic than the “Frankenstein” series. Someone spills blood on Dracula ashes, he comes back, bites busty starlets and then the hero finds a new way to off him at the end.
Universal has been trying to cash in on its classic monster characters in recent years with varying degrees of success. Stephen Sommers completely reimagined “The Mummy” for them, with huge success. Universal then set him loose on the rest of its characters, resulting in the messy “Van Helsing”. Sommers went on to do the surprise hit “GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra” for Paramount, and is said to be prepping a sequel and a “Tarzan” remake. Universal has a highly touted, though much-delayed remake, “The Wolfman” (which is now one word instead of two) coming out in February 2010, starring Benicio del Toro as Lawrence Talbot, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving. Joe Johnston, who directed “The Rocketeer”, “Hidalgo” and “Jurassic Park III”, and who is prepping “The First Avenger: Captain America” for Marvel Studios, directed.
Which all goes to show you can’t keep a good monster down. Couldn’t resist.
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