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Universal Classic Monsters Marathon

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Again, I pretty much agree with Jrzag42. The humor of this movie did not work for me nearly as much as The Invisible Man which had me laughing out loud at times. The extended bit with the little people in glass tubes was especially strange and unfunny. Colin Clive and Boris Karloff return to their roles as Dr Frankenstein and his monster, and play the roles as well this time as before. Confusingly, Dwight Frye (who played Frankenstein's assistant Fritz in the first movie) also returns, but as a new character Karl, the assistant to the new antagonist Dr Pretorius. I enjoyed his performance as well, but it was weird to see him again. Una O'Connor, who played the pub owner's wife in The Invisible Man also appears here as a villager who meets the Monster as he emerges from the burning windmill. I have to say, I found her as annoying here as I did last night. As I said yesterday, the female performance up to now have been pretty poor, but Elsa Lanchester was excellent in her dual role as Mary Shelly and the Bride. As Jrzag42 said, the characterization of Shelly was bonkers and probably would have offended the real Shelly, but Lanchester was quite good in the role as it was written, and her performance as the Bride is I think as iconic as Karloff's as the Monster.

Since this movie picks up immediately where the first ends, and since both contain only parts of the original novel, I think they could actually be combined nicely into a single 2½ hour movie without cutting hardly anything. The only thing that would really need to be reworked would be finding a way to combine Dwight Frye's two characters, maybe by implying somehow that he had a change of heart about the project and betrays Frankenstein for Pretorius?
 
Werewolf of London (1935)
Now this was a weird one. While considered to be part of the Universal Classic Monsters movies, it is totally unrelated to the rest of the franchise. The werewolf makeup was designed by Jack Pierce, who also designed the Frankenstein makeup in 1931, and it does look very good. The transition is also a pretty impressive series of shots; the camera move in a long tracking shot, apparently at a constant speed, as Dr Glendon (the titular werewolf) walks through his house, but each time he passes through a door or behind a tall object he emerges slightly more wolf-like. It plays very smoothly and I didn't notice and jumps of the framing at any of the cuts. Great cinematography! Other than the makeup artist, the only tie to the main series is Valerie Hobson as Lisa Glendon (the doctor's wife), who also played Dr Frankenstein's wife. And apparently this movie was originally meant to star Boris Karloff as the Dr Glendon, but he was unavailable while filming Bride of Frankenstein, so he was recast with Henry Hull. Bela Legosi was also supposed to play Dr Yogami, but that role was also recast with Warner Oland for some reason. Both replacement actors do a fine job, but neither really captured me the way the other stars to date have. My guess is that audiences in 1935 felt the same way, and it would take another 6 years for Universal to make The Wolf Man. But more on that next week... Maybe knowing that this was more of a standalone movie than part of the series, but this has been my least favorite so far. Not a bad way to spend 75 minutes, but I don't think I'll be revisiting it a time soon. However, the soundtrack to this was the most engaging so far, with a far stronger musical score and lots of good Foley work. The dialogue also sounds a little clearer to me, but that could just be my imagination.
 
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Werewolf Of London (1935) - I found myself falling asleep during the second half, and I don't care enough to go back. I didn't care for the look of the werewolf, but the transformation sequences are really cool. Gotta agree that it's my least favorite. I was hoping that this would be a hidden gem, I never hear people talk about it, but it's just kinda bland.
 
I’m curious to see what you both think of Daughter of Dracula, it’s often thought of as a queer film.

After del Toro’s Dr. Frankenstein comes out, this would make for an interesting double feature marathon, of Universal films plus later modern releases

Frankenstein / Dr. Frankenstein

Dracula / Bram Stoker’s Dracula

The Mummy / The Mummy 1999

The Invisible Man / The Invisible Man 2020

The Wolf Man / An American Werewolf in London

Creature from the Black Lagoon / The Shape of Water
 
Regarding Werewolf of London, some considered it a poorer version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde that came out in 1931. Have you seen that? Fredric March’s performance actually scarred me. If I recall correctly, there’s a cut bit from the film of Hyde kicking/beating a child, that the studio deemed too disturbing
 
I haven't seen that version, but I have read the Robert Louis Stephenson novel, and the behavior of Mr Hyde is truly horrific.
 
Dracula's Daughter (1936) - I was really enjoying this, but once again I accidentally fell asleep. I'll try to go back and give this a proper review later.
 
Dracula's Daughter (1936)
A bit of a mixed bag for me. Let me first start by praising Gloria Holden's portrayal of Countess Marya Zaleska (aka Count Dracula's daughter). She gives the strongest performance of any woman to date in the franchise, and I'm feeling more certain that my suggestion a few days ago that the weak female performances are due to writing and directing. Unfortunately, this is often still the case 87 years later, and when we do get good roles for women in front of and behind of the camera, [some] people make all kinds of excuses for why those movies are successful (*cough* Barbie *cough*). I'm getting off topic, but I hope the trend of strong, competent women in this franchise continues. Anyway, back to the excellent cast: Edward Van Sloan is back yet again, this time reprising his role as Van Helsing. We also got a fun early appearance of Irving Pichel as Sandor, Zaleska's servant, before he was blackmailed as a Communist during the Red Scare of the 1940s. The rest of the cast is also quite good, but it could have been better if they'd been able to tie it in more with the original film. Otto Kruger is good as Dr Garth, but I would have preferred to have Herbert Bunston reprise his role as Dr Seward. The movie would also have been improved with a couple of brief cameos by Legosi and Frye as Dracula and Renfield rather than having them killed off-screen by Van Helsing. Originally, Lili was supposed to have been played by Jane Wyatt, which I would have loved to have seen as a Star Trek fan (she would later play Spock's mother in "Journey to Babel").

Ok wow, that was a lot of writing and I never even got to the plot. Other than the lame workaround to avoid cameos and a rehashing of the scene where they gave someone blood transfusions and then they died anyway, the plot was an interesting progression from the first film, and moves on in a much more intriguing way than Bride of Frankenstein. Zaleska is very much a unique character from her father. I do wonder what the message of the film is. Vampries are so often played sexually, and with the heavy lesbian undertones of this movie with the female vampire feeding on women (and just the lustful looks at all of those victims!), the character wanting to rid herself of her vampirism seems kind of like a "pray the gay away" desperation? Or maybe I'm reading too deeply into it? In the end, though, she remains a vampire, but is killed. And I don't know what to make of that at all. In any case, this movie really kept me engaged for the whole run time.
 
DetectiveStrange said:
Young Frankenstein... If I recall correctly, Brooks got the guy who made some of the original lab equipment in the Universal Frankenstein films to use the originals or make replicas for Young Frankenstein.
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Yeah, those are the original 1931 props being used!
Those props looked so great, they were used in movies all the way up to the 1980's! 50 years!
 
Ray Danger said:
Yeah, those are the original 1931 props being used!
Those props looked so great, they were used in movies all the way up to the 1980's! 50 years!
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Didn't he also have to bring some crew guys who knew how to do lighting for classic black and white film out of retirement?
 
addiesin said:
Didn't he also have to bring some crew guys who knew how to do lighting for classic black and white film out of retirement?
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That's possible.
I know the original guy was lighting it as a comedy- big n' bright. When he refused to do it like Brooks & Wilder wanted, he was fired.
I know they brought on someone who understood what they wanted, but I'm unsure if it was someone associated with old films.
Very well may have been though.
 
Son of Frankenstein (1939)
While we continue on with Boris Karloff as The Monster, Colin Clive doesn't return as Henry Frankenstein for this one, but is instead replaced by the equally excellent Basil Rathbone as his son Wolf. No mention is made of The Bride, who for some reason isn't just "sleeping" like The Monster. This movie also marks the appearance of Igor, played by Bela Legosi, who obviously made his debut in the franchise as Count Dracula. (Remember, Dwight Frye's characters in the previous two movies that are often confused with Igor are actually two separate characters Fritz and Karl.) Also a bit confusing, Lionel Belmore and Michael Mark who appeared in the first movie as Herr Vogel and Ludwig make appearances in this sequel as two new characters Emil Lang and Ewald Neumüller. Were there really so few actors in the 1930s that we had to recycle so much? And Edgar Norton appeared in Dracula's Daughter as Hobbs, a servant to one of the Scotland Yard inspectors, appears in this movie as Benson, a servant for the Frankensteins. I had never seen this movie before, and didn't realize that Inspector Kemp from Young Frankenstein was based on a real character from this movie, Inspector Krogh. While he is played as a tragic and respectable figure here, I can see why Mel Brooks decided to ham him up into a goofball in the parody. The only single line of his that was poorly delivered was "He's dead" when informing Frankenstein of Benson's murder. While the performances were all good, the script left me wanting. I like the idea of the torch being passed from father to son, and with the close bond shown between the young boy Peter and the Monster implying a future family connection (though wolf does kill him in a vat of sulfur by the end). And the drier humour (than that of Bride) played better for me. And I liked the general idea behind Igor, local villager who the people had turned against coming to the Monster as a friend and co-conspirator in revenge, but after seeing the personal growth of the Monster in Bride, I feel this movie would have been better suited to have taken place in between the first two movies, so that his friendship with the blind man and learning to speak could serve as a reformation in the third act, rather than regressing to befriend such an awful man as Igor. I also wasn't a big fan of the sci-fi "cosmic rays" into this story, replacing lighting as the source of life for the Monster, but that's just a minor quibble and I think it is a sign of the changing times from 1931 to 1939. And my final bit of criticsm actually applies to all of these old movies: After the climax, there is no denouement at all. Usually just one quick scene and then "The End".
 
Dracula's Daughter - A solid sequel, I think I generally enjoyed it more than Bride Of Frankenstein (although it lacked the same high points). From the opening I was hoping Van Helsing would be the main character, but he's quickly reduced to a supporting role. I feel like the ending happened too quick, I looked away for a second and suddenly she's dead. I started watching this a couple days ago of course, and finished it today, so I already forget some of the earlier stuff to talk about.

Son Of Frankenstein - When does this take place? I assumed the first movie took place around the time it was made. Now I'm wondering if the first film takes place in the past, or if this takes place in the future. I wasn't expecting such a time jump. Anyways, this might just be my favorite Frankenstein thus far. It's much longer, giving it more time to breathe and develop a more compelling story. It feels more modern, closer to the '40s films I've seen (is it inappropriate to compare this to Citizen Kane? Not that they're necessarily similar, it's just my main frame of reference for the 40s). The monster doesn't get as much characterization as in Bride unfortunately. It's nice to finally put a face to the name of Basil Rathbone, who I've of course heard of in the context of Sherlock Holmes.

I shouldn't have skipped yesterday. I don't have it in me to watch Invisible Man Returns tonight, and tomorrow I'll be getting home late. I hate to be a day behind. Hopefully I'll be back on track by the end of the week.
 
Jrzag42 said:
When does this take place? I assumed the first movie took place around the time it was made.
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There are too many anachronistic things going on to ever define what era these films are supposed to be happening in.
Some of what we see in the original Frankenstein is of it's time, but many things seem to be much older than that.
I love this mish-mash of eras in the Universal Monster movies. It creates a time that never existed.
 
The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
Quick cast notes: The star of the movie is a young Vincent Price, though we only see him on screen toward the end of the movie. We have two returning actors from the franchise, but no returning characters: Forrester Harvey is playing Ben Jenkins (he played Herbert Hall, the innkeeper in the original) and Nan Grey is playing Helen Manson (she played Lili in Dracula's Daughter). As with Dracula's Daughter, I think the movie could have been improved with a few changes in casting. Although John Sutton does a fine job as Frank Griffin, the brother of the original Invisible Man, and for some reason the one who knows how to make the invisibility serum in this movie, I think it would have been better instead to have carried over Dr Cranley (the Invisible Man's mentor and the father of his fiancée). The invisibility effects were as well done here as the first time around, though they've lost a bit of their charm after having seen them in action just a few days ago, and nothing here really breaks new ground past the original. Still, the mystery plot was engaging and the story movies along at a good clip, not overstaying its welcome with a tight 81 minute run time.
 
Jrzag42 said:
Son Of Frankenstein - When does this take place?
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If you think the setting in that one is confusing, just wait until you get to the sequels to "The Mummy's Hand". Each one is set a decade or more after the previous. I think the last one is set in the 1990s or so if you add up all the time jumps.
 
The Invisible Man Returns - The name is stupid, the invisible man hasn't returned, it's a new unrelated invisible man. Boy I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder. 0/10.
Just kidding. This movie was pretty solid, not as good as the first but not bad. This movie elevates the Invisible Man from evil monster, to vengeful antihero, more in the spirit of Darkman. Vincent Price was totally unrecognizable (his face at the end, and his voice; obviously not referring to the fact that he's invisible). I had a bad day, and I worried that I'd automatically hate whatever I watch today, but I managed to enjoy this plenty. Man I really hope the other IM films don't let me down.
 
I was really busy today and didn't have time to watch The Mummy's Hand. Jrzag42, do you want to try to catch up or should we both just pick up with that movie tomorrow?
 
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