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Universal Classic Monsters Marathon

Son Of Dracula - What a misleading title, worse than Invisible Man Returns! The poster and opening credits call Chaney's character Dracula, and even when the character pretends to be Count Alucard there's no mention of him pretending to be Dracula's son. This movie never acknowledges the previous films, and I think we even see a character reading the Dracula novel at one point. It's best to consider this its own thing set in its own continuity, unless it gets referenced again in later films. I eventually warmed up to Chaney as the Count, but Dracula really acts completely different from previous films. All in all it was okay, but I'd rather just watch the original Dracula again.
 
Son of Dracula (1943)
Lon Chaney, Jr. rounds out his monster résumé having appeared now as the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy Kharis, and now Count Dracula. I don't understand why Universal went all-in on this guy. Other than playing the rather dull Larry Talbot, which I don't think too much of a performance, he's been a real letdown in every movie. Our other returning cast this time is just Evelyn Ankers as Claire (she also played the original Elsa Frankentein), and J. Edward Bromberg as Professor Lazlo (who we also saw last night in Phantom and back in Invisible Agent). Speaking of Lazlo, his line about the last remaining member of the Dracula family being killed in the 19th Century I think means that this movie isn't a sequel to the original or Daughter, since they both clearly take place in the 20th Century. Adding to the nonsense of this movie, they really lean heavily on Alucard being Dracula spelled backwards, and after showing us on screen several times, they then do the reveal verbally too and act like it's a big reveal! At 80 minutes, this movie was almost as much of a slog as the remake of Phantom, but without the great cinematography to keep me even slightly interested. The only thing I really liked about this entry in the series was the new transitions we got to see of Dracula turning into a bat (I think it was just two 2D cutouts of a bat profile and Chaney's profile set 90 degrees apart on a spindle, turned in front of the camera ), and of Dracula coalescing out of smoke (which actually was a pretty good fade effect). Perhaps the strangest thing about this film was the decision to move the location from Europe to New Orleans. This whole movie just confuses me, and I wish I could have 80 minutes of my life back.
 
asterixsmeagol said:
I don't understand why Universal went all-in on this guy.
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I don't know the full story, but at least part of it has to do with his name being marketable. His father was famous, and by using his fathers name they could draw a crowd. Lon Chaney Jr isn't his real name, it's Creighton Chaney. I instinctively want to be cynical and assume that Universal didn't really care about Chaney Jr and exclusively cared about capitalizing on his father's legacy, but surely there has to be more to it? The image of early hollywood in my mind based on what I've read and heard is just very bleak.
 
I can believe Universal's trick of billing him as Lon Chaney" and not "Lon Chaney, Jr" would have worked once, but not this many times!
 
Jrzag42 said:
The image of early hollywood in my mind based on what I've read and heard is just very bleak.
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Yeah, it's never been a kind place.
Early ideas about what made a successful film a hit were often strange & my beloved Universal Monsters series fell prey to all the idiocy & greed of their time, just as most horror series always have.
There are good films ahead though...
 
The Invisible Man's Revenge - Another solid Invisible Man movie. Better than the previous two in my opinion. It takes almost half an hour before he becomes invisible, but I didn't care because I was invested in the plot. The darts scene was a real highlight for me, it's silly and probably not needed but it's fun. The idea of the Invisible Man needing blood to turn visible is consistant with the end of Returns, but here it's only temporary and he needs to kill for the blood. It's neat and would be great setup for a slasher. The need for blood is compared to Dracula, and I'm unsure whether it's another reference to the novel or if it's referring to him in-universe. It's interesting having a version of the character who is unstable from the beginning rather than as a side effect of the invisibility. There isn't any real connection to the previous films, the protagonist has the same family name but it's never addressed. It could easily be viewed as a frustrating rehash, but I personally dig it.
 
The Mummy's Ghost - I just put this on in the background and didn't really pay attention. I don't have any interest in these mummy movies anymore.
 
I've had some personal issues come up this week so I haven't had time to catch up, and I've instead fallen even further behind. To add insult to injury I had watched about 90% of The Invisible Man's Revenge on Friday and written most of my review while I was watching, but my computer decided to install updates overnight and closed my browser, erasing what I wrote. So, starting over...

The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944)
This is another confusing sequel/reboot situation. For some reason, the protagonist (antagonist?) Robert Griffin is played by Jon Hall, who also just played the protagonist Frank Griffin in Invisible Agent. While that Griffin was the grandson of the original invisible man, this one is apparently unrelated. And although he was made invisible with a serum again, this time it's administered by the new character of Dr. Drury. I don't necessarily mind the movie being a standalone reboot (like we just had in the confusingly named Son of Dracula, but I don't think it was a good idea to cast the same star! As always, we have quite few other returning actors, most notably Evelyn Ankers (the elder Elsa Frankenstein and Claire Caldwell, one of the daughters in Son. Other than the weird reboot choices, I thought the movie was actually pretty good, but it took too long to get to the actual invisibility, which doesn't even get mentioned until over 30 minutes into the 77 minute run time. And as with many sequels/reboots (here and elsewhere), I'm left wondering what the point was. It doesn't seem to have added anything new that the original didn't already do as well or better. They tried a few new invisibility effects, with Griffin butting water and flour on his face to show the contours of the "invisible" face, but the ghosting effects on the invisibility aren't done quite as well on this movie and he's already a little visible to the camera when he does these two shots, so the effect is greatly diminished. Maybe it was meant to show the Griffin's hubris, but when he just explains everything about the blood transfusions and his motives and justifications for killing, it really just felt like lazy writing to get to the conclusion faster. One funny point, at one point I though Griffin told Dr Drury that he was "bullshitting", which really surprised me for a 1944 movie! But I backed up and turned on subtitles and it turned out he said "boasting". I also did like the little nod to Dracula with the theory that he was drinking the blood.
 
The Mummy's Ghost (1944)
Like Tomb, this is an actual sequel, with Lon Chaney Jr, Frank Reicher, and George Zucco reprising their roles as the mummy Kharis, Prof. Norman, and the high priest Andoheb. We even got continuity with Emmett Vogan playing the coroner again! John Carradine, who played the inventor of the invisibility serum in Revenge, plays Yousef Bey, the new henchman of the priest. They don't say it out loud, but I assume he was meant to be related to Mehemet Bey from Tomb. This time instead of using clips from the previous movies, the just had Norman describe the plot of the last two movies to his class. Like before, I think for the most part the cast was pretty good, with the exception of Chaney. His version of the mummy just stumbles around so slowly, and never feels like a threat. And unlike the slow shambling zombies of the (not yet produced) Living Dead series, there's no chance of other people getting turned and adding to the threat by numbers. All you have to do to escape this mummy is walk at a normal pace out of the room. Even closing the door should stop this idiot in his tracks. It makes no sense that anyone gets killed by him. At least as we get further into the franchise, the female characters get better. They're still not nearly as well developed as the male characters, and I don't think any of this movies have yet passed the Bechdel test, but they're getting less bad in that respect. But they do still have a strange tendency to faint and get abducted by the mummy. Unfortunately, they're still casting white people in every role. As I said, Carradine is playing an Egyptian man, and Spanish-English actress Ramsay Ames is playing the Egyptian Amina/Ananka. One question I had (which I should have raised in my review of Tomb and which I did raise for Son of Dracula, was why we are in America? I don't understand how the mummy could have gotten here. Did I miss something? I totally get why Jrzag left this on in the background. It's not particularly engaging. I have to admit that I kind of zoned out at the end and was taken by surprise by "The End" popping up on my screen. I had to back up and re-watch the last 5 minutes again, though even on second (or first-and-a-half) viewing, it still felt pretty abrupt. I guess they hit their 60-minute mark and decided it was good enough and didn't need an actual conclusion. And that's even by the standards of this whole franchise where movies seem to just stop! Other than the original Mummy movie (which as a reminder is a different mummy), I've been disappointed with this whole series.
 
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The House of Frankenstein (1944)
This should have been a great movie. It should have been the Avengers of the Univeral monster movies. But it's not. It brings an all-star cast and an all-star monster lineup, though because they've been double-dipping on actors this whole time, there's some mixing up of who plays who. I would say that Boris Karloff is probably the protagonist, but since he didn't want to play Frankenstein's monster anymore (having ceded the role to Chaney in Ghost), he comes back as the new mostly makeup-free Dr. Gustav Niemann. But because Chaney is busy playing the Wolf Man, the Monster is played here by Glenn Strange, who only had one small role in the franshise previously as a farmer in The Mummy's Tomb. He also played a ripoff character in a B-Movie called The Mad Monster, which I assume is why Universal offered him this role, and while he doesn't play it quite as well as Karloff did, he's still much better than Chaney was. We also get Count Dracula, but again Bela Lugosi didn't want to reprise the rolse, and had previously ceded the role to Chaney in Son, but as I said Chaney was already cast so he's played here by John Carradine (seen recently in Revenge and Ghost), and like the Monster, Carradine doesn't play the role quite as well as Lugosi had, but he's miles above the boring performance Chaney gave us in Son. Remember when I said I was lad the Frankenstein castle was destroyed so we wouldn't ever have to go back ther? Whoops. Apparently even though we saw it explode, it's still ok after all. This movie does seem to be a sequel to Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, and carries over the same version of those two monsters, but the version of Dracula seen here seems to be different from both the original Lugosi version (whose final demise we saw in Daughter) and the Chaney version (who we saw destroyed in Son). They do carry over some stuff from those movies, though, like the hypnotic ring from Daughter and bat transformation from Son. I've mentioned before seeing some of the inspiration for Young Frankenstein, and this movie introduces the hunchbacked assistant Daniel, who helped to influence the character design (and maybe the accent?) of YF's Igor. On to the plot of this movie, such as it was. Why does it just so happen that the new Frankenstein replacement happens upon the actual skeleton of Dracula? And why does Dracula agree to hang out with this guy? Who cares, the movie needs it to happen. How is there a frozen cavern below the ruined castle? (Again, I should have asked this in my previous review of Meets.) How does it stay frozen even with all of that water rushing through it? Whatever, who cares? We're just here to have some fun and you have to check you sense of disbelief at the door. Was this movie good? No. But was it redeemed by the acting and set design? Also no. But I loved it anyway. Maybe I've just been worn down by so many mediocre movies lately, but I really enjoyed this awful movie. So not the Avengers it should have been, but better than the Dawn of Justice it could have been! Maybe on par with Age of Ultron? I don't know, I'm losing the thread on this analogy now. Hopefully I'm in this good of a mood for the upcoming House of Dracula, which I expect is also going to be terrible.
 
House Of Frankenstein - Frankenstein's Monster doesn't get to do anything until the very end. The Wolf Man is the most prominent monster here, maybe call it something like "The Wolf Man In The House Of Frankenstein"? I don't know. The title isn't as misleading as say, Son Of Dracula, but the movie definitely doesn't live up to the title. If it weren't for Chaney, I'd probably be let down by this film. I knew that the monsters weren't going to interact much, but Dracula truly doesn't add anything and shouldn't be here. You know, when I saw Boris Karloff's name in the credits, I assumed he was the monster. I didn't realize he played the doctor until the end credits. The hunchback is listed on the poster as if he's one of the monsters we're supposed to care about.
Movie was enjoyable, not nearly as great as Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man.
 
I couldn't believe how little Dracula did! I was expecting some kind of twist at the end where he saved the Wolf Man or was the one responsible for killing the Monster (again), but nope. Larry just gets shot and the Monster just wanders into quicksand with the doctor, The End.
 
I know you’re just sticking to Universal, but if you are interested in taking a slight detour…..

1943’s Paramount release Return of the Vampire is the closest you’d get to a Dracula sequel starring Bela Lugosi and it does have a Wolf Man in it. He doesn’t go by Dracula, but there’s no doubt he’s playing the classic count. If anything, it kind of does provide a loose motivation why Talbot is desperately trying to find Dracula in Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein.
 
The Mummy's Curse - It was fine, I found the first half mildly entertaining before I fell asleep for the rest.
 
Jrzag42 said:
The Mummy's Curse - It was fine, I found the first half mildly entertaining before I fell asleep for the rest.
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Oh the Mummy movies...
I dig the og. Great mood, great Karloff & great lines. ("Do you have to open graves to find girls to fall in love with?")
The Mummy's Hand also has some great mood & those EYES.
After that? I pass until 1999...
For some Mummy fun, check out the band The Mummies. GREAT stuff.
MusicEd921 said:
I know you’re just sticking to Universal, but if you are interested in taking a slight detour…..
1943’s Paramount release Return of the Vampire is the closest you’d get to a Dracula sequel starring Bela Lugosi and it does have a Wolf Man in it.
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Great movie.
 
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House of Dracula - I had a long day, I fell asleep once again near the end of this one. I generally enjoyed what I saw, but I was a bit confused. It acknowledges House Of Frankenstein, but there's no explanation for Wolfy surviving the silver bullet. These movies seem to alternate between the wolf being able to be killed via silver, and him being unable to die entirely. What is Dracula's motive here? At first I thought him wanting to be cured was dumb, then it was revealed to be a ruse, but...why? Was it all just to target the doctor, or was it solely to get closer to the doctor's assistants? I like the look of Carradine's Dracula, but he unfortunately wasn't given the best material.

I forgot to mention before, but my collection features House Of Frankenstein twice, on two different discs. A waste of disc space that could've been used for Spanish Dracula or the original Phantom Of The Opera.
 
@hbenthow Oh yeah. Love Hammer horror.
I didn’t mention it as we’re talking Universal, but really, I don’t care much for that one either… 😬
 
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She-Wolf Of London - There isn't much I can say without spoiling the twist, and this movie is obscure enough that I feel it's still worthwhile to perserve the twist. What I will say is that this is not a simple rehash of previous werewolf films like it may seem. It's not the best movie or anything, but for me it was more enjoyable than Werewolf Of London or any of the Mummy movies. I just really dug the twist.
 
I had hoped to catch up some this week, but life's been a mess and I haven't had time, and I'm actually further behind now than I was on Sunday. I'm not sure I'm actually going to be able to finish all 31 of these movies in the month unless I can find some time this weekend to sit down and power through them.

The Mummy's Curse (1944)
This movie was trash. Even though it's a direct sequel to the previous movies, the only actor to continue in his role is Chaney as Kharis. Amina/Ananka is also back, but Ramsay Ames has been replaced by Virginia Christine. Clocking in at 60 minutes, this is the shortest movie of the month, and even then they could barely come up with enough crap to meet the hour run time that they must have been obligated to hit. There's a full 5 minute scene of some lady singing in a bar before the plot starts at all, and then after a couple of minutes to introduce the new characters and tell us that the Mummy somehow got dug up out of the swamp (which appears to be drained?), we jump back into a pointless recap of first three movies, including the same stock footage we've already seen at least twice before of Kharis getting sentenced to death. We're a full 20 minutes into the movie before anything starts to happen. When the plot does get going, Princess Ananka has somehow come back to life too, but I don't think she got any leaf juice so who knows why. I really can't even comment on the rest of the story, because there really isn't one, and we end up in exactly the same place as the last one. I absolutely hated this movie and I'm glad the series is over, but I am looking forward to Abbott and Costello making fun of it next week.
 
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