Bela Lugosi in Three Edgar Allen Poe Adaptations. (15.)
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)/ The Black Cat (1934.)/ The Raven (1935.) Directed by Robert Florey, Edgar G. Ulmer and Lew Landers. Out on a special 2-disc blu-ray edition as part of Eureka's Masters of Horror series. 189 mins total.
Three films featuring the cinema's most famous Bela; three classic 30's Universal horror pictures; three Edgar Allen Poe adaptation; two appearances by Boris Karloff, then history's most terrifying Boris. Hungarian Lugosi made his name as the definitive Dracula in the first sound version. These are some of the major films that cemented his stardom in the years immediately after.
I'll admit freely that my chief knowledge of Lugosi is the Bauhaus song; “undead, undead, Bela Lugosi's dead,” and Martin Landau's performance as him in Ed Wood. It's odd to see someone in action that you know primarily through parody and homage. He was the prototype suave, sleazy Eastern European creep. The image is now such a cliché he generally comes across as pretty harmless but there are moments when he is unexpectedly creepy and you wonder just how depraved his proclivities really go.
Murder in The Rue Morgue sees Bela in a double act with a monkey in mid 19th century Paris. Bela's Professor Mirakle is murdering women to get their blood to inject into the monkey, Erik, in order to …. er, yes what was the point again. (A recurring theme in these film is that the baddies never have coherent, cogent motivations for their terrors.)
The Poe element of the story is a locked-room mystery that is brushed over pretty quickly. Overall, the film is rather effective though what stays with you are the beautiful sets and painted backdrops of period Paris.
The Black Cat's opening titles, like all the films in this collection, proclaim that the film was “Inspired by the immortal Edgar Allen Poe story;” it inspired them to completely ignore it. This one is not even about a black cat. It's like giving Hitler a script credit for The Great Escape. It does have an unsettling opening scene in which the worst thing imaginable happens to a honeymooning couple on the Orient Express – the conductor comes in and says that due to a mix up another passenger has been booked into their private carriage. Oh, and it's Bela Lugosi. Go on, you try and small talk your way through that.
Anyway, the unfortunate couple ends up following Lugosi to his destination, which turns out to be Boris Karloff's modernist gaff in the country. Bela has unfinished business with Boris, dating back to the latter's betrayal of Hungary during the first world war and stealing Lugosi's bride. Karloff's flash house has been built over the graves of thousands of dead soldiers. The sense of these two people carrying around an enormous weight of guilt is well established.
There's a lot going on under the surface. Sadly sod all is happening on the surface – a lot of satanist nonsense that doesn't have a great deal of logic to it - but that subtext is rich.
The Raven was the film that caused horror movies to be banned in the UK. The film again has next to no link to the Poe piece it is named after, but there is a direct link to the author's work. Lugosi is the baddie this time (though Karloff still has top billing) whose evil motivation is that he is an Edgar Allen super fan. So much so that when he is slighted by the father of the young girl he desires, he invites her family and friends to his house to subject them to some Poe-inspired torture and torment.
The film is too silly to scare but you'd have to say that the premise is sadistic and disturbing in a way you don't expect of something in black and white from the mid-1930s.
Overall, this collection didn't particularly win me over to the charms of 30s Universal horror but I did enjoy seeing the films and sifting through some of the many extras on Eureka's splendidly packaged collection.
Extras
Murders in the Rue Morgue – Audio commentary by Gregory William Mank
Murders in the Rue Morgue - Alternative music score
The Black Cat – Audio commentary by Gregory William Mank
The Black Cat – Audio commentary by Amy Simmons
The Raven – Audio commentary by Gary D. Rhodes
The Raven – Audio commentary by Samm Deighan
Cats In Horror – a video essay by writer and film historian Lee Gambin
American Gothic – a video essay by critic Kat Ellinger
“The Black Cat” episode of radio series Mystery In The Air, starring Peter Lorre
“The Tell-Tale Heart” episode of radio series Inner Sanctum Mysteries, starring Boris Karloff
Bela Lugosi reads “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Vintage footage
New Interview With Critic And Author Kim Newman
PLUS: A 48-PAGE collector’s booklet featuring new writing by film critic and writer Jon Towlson; a new essay by film critic and writer Alexandra Heller-Nicholas; and rare archival imagery and ephemera.
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)/ The Black Cat (1934.)/ The Raven (1935.) Directed by Robert Florey, Edgar G. Ulmer and Lew Landers. Out on a special 2-disc blu-ray edition as part of Eureka's Masters of Horror series. 189 mins total.
Three films featuring the cinema's most famous Bela; three classic 30's Universal horror pictures; three Edgar Allen Poe adaptation; two appearances by Boris Karloff, then history's most terrifying Boris. Hungarian Lugosi made his name as the definitive Dracula in the first sound version. These are some of the major films that cemented his stardom in the years immediately after.
I'll admit freely that my chief knowledge of Lugosi is the Bauhaus song; “undead, undead, Bela Lugosi's dead,” and Martin Landau's performance as him in Ed Wood. It's odd to see someone in action that you know primarily through parody and homage. He was the prototype suave, sleazy Eastern European creep. The image is now such a cliché he generally comes across as pretty harmless but there are moments when he is unexpectedly creepy and you wonder just how depraved his proclivities really go.
Murder in The Rue Morgue sees Bela in a double act with a monkey in mid 19th century Paris. Bela's Professor Mirakle is murdering women to get their blood to inject into the monkey, Erik, in order to …. er, yes what was the point again. (A recurring theme in these film is that the baddies never have coherent, cogent motivations for their terrors.)
The Poe element of the story is a locked-room mystery that is brushed over pretty quickly. Overall, the film is rather effective though what stays with you are the beautiful sets and painted backdrops of period Paris.
The Black Cat's opening titles, like all the films in this collection, proclaim that the film was “Inspired by the immortal Edgar Allen Poe story;” it inspired them to completely ignore it. This one is not even about a black cat. It's like giving Hitler a script credit for The Great Escape. It does have an unsettling opening scene in which the worst thing imaginable happens to a honeymooning couple on the Orient Express – the conductor comes in and says that due to a mix up another passenger has been booked into their private carriage. Oh, and it's Bela Lugosi. Go on, you try and small talk your way through that.
Anyway, the unfortunate couple ends up following Lugosi to his destination, which turns out to be Boris Karloff's modernist gaff in the country. Bela has unfinished business with Boris, dating back to the latter's betrayal of Hungary during the first world war and stealing Lugosi's bride. Karloff's flash house has been built over the graves of thousands of dead soldiers. The sense of these two people carrying around an enormous weight of guilt is well established.
There's a lot going on under the surface. Sadly sod all is happening on the surface – a lot of satanist nonsense that doesn't have a great deal of logic to it - but that subtext is rich.
The Raven was the film that caused horror movies to be banned in the UK. The film again has next to no link to the Poe piece it is named after, but there is a direct link to the author's work. Lugosi is the baddie this time (though Karloff still has top billing) whose evil motivation is that he is an Edgar Allen super fan. So much so that when he is slighted by the father of the young girl he desires, he invites her family and friends to his house to subject them to some Poe-inspired torture and torment.
The film is too silly to scare but you'd have to say that the premise is sadistic and disturbing in a way you don't expect of something in black and white from the mid-1930s.
Overall, this collection didn't particularly win me over to the charms of 30s Universal horror but I did enjoy seeing the films and sifting through some of the many extras on Eureka's splendidly packaged collection.
Extras
Murders in the Rue Morgue – Audio commentary by Gregory William Mank
Murders in the Rue Morgue - Alternative music score
The Black Cat – Audio commentary by Gregory William Mank
The Black Cat – Audio commentary by Amy Simmons
The Raven – Audio commentary by Gary D. Rhodes
The Raven – Audio commentary by Samm Deighan
Cats In Horror – a video essay by writer and film historian Lee Gambin
American Gothic – a video essay by critic Kat Ellinger
“The Black Cat” episode of radio series Mystery In The Air, starring Peter Lorre
“The Tell-Tale Heart” episode of radio series Inner Sanctum Mysteries, starring Boris Karloff
Bela Lugosi reads “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Vintage footage
New Interview With Critic And Author Kim Newman
PLUS: A 48-PAGE collector’s booklet featuring new writing by film critic and writer Jon Towlson; a new essay by film critic and writer Alexandra Heller-Nicholas; and rare archival imagery and ephemera.
