Glen or Glenda (1953), Bride of the Monster (1955), The Black Sleep (1956), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) [The End]
Oh, Bela.
That’s it, then. That’s the way that Bela Lugosi went out. No lines in his last two films, and his last movie is widely considered the worst one ever made, and most of his scenes weren’t even him, and what a way for a career to “culminate”--making movies with Ed Goddamn Wood.
Bela Lugosi died broke, alone, in the dark, and frightened, a shadow of the man he had been. And yet--and yet--
Here I am, 50 years after his death, two days away from his 134th birthday. And not only have I just finished watching every movie he was ever in--well, those that still exist--but I’ve gotten other people to watch them, too. I’ve met people through him. It’s been 35 days since I started, and 60 movies later--I feel like I know him. What’s more, I know I’ll never forget him. And isn’t that a form of immortality?
I’m gathering my thoughts a bit. But I ended this the way it started with The Midnight Girl--me, alone in a darkened room. Silently watching the film unfold. Actually, I started watching Plan 9 by streaming it online with friends, and the stream crashed--like this is how it was supposed to end. (Or maybe I just have terrible luck and started the movie right before the site went down for maintenance, who knows.)
And I also ended it the way it started because it started with Plan 9.
See, I saw Dracula first. I fell in love with Dracula first. That was years and years ago, and it stuck with me, and Bela stuck with me, and I’ve always liked him. But that’s not why I started this.
I saw Plan 9 From Outer Space second. About...a year, year and a half ago. And I hated it, hated every second of it. But...Bela was there. Bela was there, and it took me a moment, but I knew him. I knew he was Dracula, and I knew he’d been stuck in the back of my mind for years. And I started wondering…
What was the progression there? You don’t just go from being Dracula to silently starring in Ed Wood B-roll. That’s not Point A to Point B, that’s Point A to Point Z. That’s a fascinating progression, and it’s an entire world of things and movies that I don’t know.
And so...I decided to know them. Intimately.
(I watched Dracula and loved it.
I watched Plan 9 from Outer Space and hated, hated, hated it, and decided I had to see more--especially of the strange, sad-looking old man. Decided right then and there to watch all of Bela Lugosi’s movies someday.)
And you know what? I’d do it again.
I’ll wrap this up properly sometime when it’s not the middle of the night.
For now--thank you. Thank you, dear reader, and thank you, Bela. It’s been a hell of a trip.
Voodoo Man (1944), Return of the Ape Man (1944), One Body Too Many (1944), Zombies on Broadway (1945), The Body Snatcher (1945), Genius at Work (1946), Scared to Death (1947), Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Old Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1951), Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952)
Oh, Bela.
Man. I didn’t…I didn’t feel good about any of these, really. I liked Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, which was positively a lot of fun. And I liked The Body Snatcher, but that was Karloff’s film, through and through. The rest, though–eurgh. (Although, I got very, very excited for Bela in COLOR!!!!)
I do have to say, though–lousy movies, the lot of them, and Bela gave everything he had for every single one of them. Bela Lugosi was in bad movies–he didn’t give bad performances. Which doesn’t really make them any easier to watch, but.
Anyway, I feel…bad? about this. It feels strangely…voyeuristic. Bela doesn’t look well at this point. He looks tired. Sick, and old, and tired. And I feel like doing this, I’ve been watching Bela’s life decline, slowly, steadily, sadly. Maybe I shouldn’t have done this. Maybe I should have just kept him eternally Dracula in my mind, eternally young and handsome and at the peak of his career. Don’t meet your heroes, I guess–and don’t ever watch them too closely.
Well. Anyway.
Bela has four years left to live, four more movies left to make.
As for me, I’ve got four movies left, three Ed Woods, and then I’m…done. Which is a weird feeling.
The Saint’s Double Trouble (1940), Black Friday (1940), The Devil Bat (1940), You’ll Find Out (1940), Invisible Ghost (1941), The Black Cat (1941), Spooks Run Wild (1941), The Wolf Man (1941), Black Dragons (1942), The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), The Corpse Vanishes (1942), Night Monster (1942), Bowery at Midnight (1942), The Ape Man (1943), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), Ghosts on the Loose (1943), The Return of the Vampire (1943)
Y’all. This 17-movie-long post contains my crisis of confidence.
Things are getting…rough, for old Bela. The movies are getting duller, blander, worse by the year, and Bela’s roles get smaller and less important as we go. And, I gotta say, there was a moment–during The Corpse Vanishes, which I had to watch the MST3k version of because oh my god–when I went, “wait, why am I even doing this in the first place?” Then, the moment mostly passed, and I settled back into this rhythm of grey-toned B-movies that have begun to run together.
But still–why AM I doing this? Out of an appreciation for Bela as an actor, mostly. No small part because I’ve made it this far and I will NOT give up now. It’s something to occupy my time. But…those are just surface-level answers. I’m watching it for a feeling, a feeling that is still too nebulous to put into words.
See, sometime during this mess of movies, I watched Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein for the first time. (I’m a bad horror fan. I know. I also know that I’m very tempted to watch all of Boris Karloff’s movies next, but will not, because of the following.) Now, these were good movies. They weren’t just good, they were amazing–and Karloff can blow my socks off just as much as Bela can. But they didn’t leave me wanting. When I watched Dracula for the first time, I was overcome. It was so beautiful! So eerie, so haunting, so awe-striking. I watched it rapturously and it sank its teeth into me and I haven’t been able to shake it. And part of it was the ambience, the music, the scenery–but mostly, it was Bela. Dracula gave me a feeling that I can neither describe nor forget. Frankenstein…didn’t.
Like, sure, I’m willing to acknowledge that Karloff may have been the better actor (although a good portion of that is due to the language barrier). But–and I’m no expert on him, not in the slightest–he always, in what I’ve seen in him, has this element of dispassion to him. A distance between himself and the audience. And Bela doesn’t. He is intense, he burns with an incandescent brightness, he’s all sharp edges and barely-hidden rage. Karloff may have been the better actor, but Bela is so much more fun to watch.
And that’s why I’m doing this.
This mass of movies wasn’t all awful, by the way. Actually, only a couple of them were Awful-awful, most were just Boring-bland. The Devil Bat, I really enjoyed. Bela as the world’s most suspicious-acting mad scientist is my favorite thing. You’ll Find Out was very silly, but in a fun way. The Wolf Man was genuinely good–and now I like Lon Chaney Jr, too. The Ghost of Frankenstein, same.
And I’m currently watching Return of the Vampire–and I feel like I should hate it. I feel like it should feel cheap and stale and plagiaristic. But, god, the sight of Bela in full vampire attire, striding through a soundstage cemetery like there hasn’t been 12 minutes between then and Dracula, let alone 12 years–it’s wonderful. This movie is Spooky, and charming, and I love it.
Doing this has been good for me. It hasn’t been good for my GPA, or my social life, and there are about a hundred other, more productive things I could spend my time doing. But even so--it’s been good.
It’s good for me to have something to work on, and work towards--even such a silly goal as this. It’s good for me to have routine. It’s good for me to have something I can write about and discuss with people. I’ve actually started conversations with several people I’ve never met, just by dint of being Really Into Bela Lugosi. It’s been good for my mental state. And it’s been good for me because I am, at heart, a creature of consumption: I love movies. I love TV shows. I love books. I love music. I love taking all this media in, and when I find something I really love, I gorge myself on it.
Anyway, this is where I stand:
This is what’s left of his filmography for me (I’m about halfway through You’ll Find Out, and have watched Plan 9 previously).
I’m definitely gonna be a little sad to see him go.
Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Gorilla (1939), Ninotchka (1939), The Dark Eyes of London (1939)
Bela continues to astonish me.
I’ve never seen anyone so...much as him. He’s huge, and powerful, and the second he steps into the frame your attention isn’t just drawn to him, it’s stuck to him, and to hell with everyone else. He exists beyond the boundaries of the screen--a presence like that can’t be confined to just four corners. You can’t miss him, and you can’t forget him. A tall, slim, dark specter with a piercing gaze and an undeniable, inescapable charm, who doesn’t occupy space so much as he possesses it, who doesn’t slip into character as much as he molds the character in his own image. A man like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Guys. Son of Frankenstein is really, really, really good, and just as I think I’ve seen everything Bela has to offer he surprises me again. (And, my god, I can watch him and Karloff in anything.) I love movies--I’ve always loved movies, and I’ve always known it--but I didn’t know I could love them like this. I didn’t know they could be like this. I didn’t know just watching someone act could make my heart and soul soar like this.
I ascribe too much significance to him, perhaps. I don’t care. He is a star, after all--present tense. His name is carved in concrete to prove it, and he’s been passed down for nearly a hundred years, and at this point he’s more myth than man (and I feel like he would be okay with that.)
(The Dark Eyes of London was good. Son of Frankenstein was great. Ninotchka was fucking beautiful.)
Aaaand that finishes up the 1930s. I’m at about the exact halfway point of this journey. I can’t believe it.
A look back: my favorites so far have been The Black Cat, Dracula, Island of Lost Souls, Son of Frankenstein, The Thirteenth Chair, and fuck all y’all I really liked The Whispering Shadow and The Return of Chandu.
I’ve also gotten my hands on some Bela biographies--including one about Bela and Boris, and I’m really, really excited. It’s strange to approach it like this--watch all the movies, then learn about the man. But it just makes things more...mysterious. Mysterious and elegaic and a little bittersweet.
Up next: the last full decade of films. Stay tuned.
Postal Inspector (1936), Shadow of Chinatown (1936), S.O.S. Coast Guard (1937), The Phantom Creeps (1939)
I swear, I mean to be writing these more often. (I am so tired.) Also, even though I’ve already watched Son of Frankenstein, The Gorilla, and Ninotchka, pushing them to the next post because I’ve got Things to Say.
Anyway! The 1930s are winding down. Three serials in a row, yikes. Even so, I’m still really, honestly, genuinely enjoying myself. More and more I’m feeling like this was the right decision for me. A good way to spend my time? Maybe not. The best thing I could be doing right now? Definitely not. Fun as hell? Absolutely.
We start this post with an oddity. Postal Inspector, a strangely charming, baffling film. I definitely didn’t expect to be so fond of it--a...musical? comedy/romance/mystery/I don’t know what. It was a jumble of genres, a real Frankenstein’s monster of a film, but...not as bad as it sounds? And, also, feat. Bela as a sleazy Mexican (?) nightclub owner who gets up to some supervillain shit. God damn, I love and hate his typecasting in equal measures.
Hey! So! Shadow of Chinatown! Was definitely a thing.
And SOS Coast Guard...shit, dude. Watching just one serial, no matter how good, just takes it out of me. Watching one after another--especially, well, these… Anyway, I don’t know if it was particularly good or particularly bad. All I know is that I could feel myself forgetting it even as I watched it. Ask me for a summary, go ahead--I could not, for the life of me, tell you what this serial was about. And trust me, I know I sat through the whole thing. Trust me.
And The Phantom Creeps also wormed its way into my heart. A note--I watched the MST3K version of the first three episodes. It’s not cheating. (I also watched the film version as opposed to the serial version of Shadow of Chinatown. That’s probably cheating. I also sat through both The Black Camel and Mysterious Mr Wong, so I don’t particularly care.) And it felt a little...strange? Like, a shift in perspective. Lemme try to explain.
I’ve been watching all of these films alone, or mostly alone--there’s a big difference between sitting on the couch next to someone and watching a film, and streaming it online with the barriers of keyboard and screen between you. And watching them alone, setting out on this endeavor alone, has made it all feel strangely...intimate. Alone in my room, in near-darkness, with just the soft haze of my laptop screen to keep me company. It makes you get swept up in things, get carried away, take things a little more seriously. Enter MST3K, and enter loud, joking company, enter jokes with not just an undercurrent but a riptide of sarcasm and insincerity. It’s fun, and it’s good--but suddenly I felt very self-conscious of what I’m doing.
Guys. These aren’t great movies. Some of them are (and most of those have Boris Karloff in them). For the most part, though, these are crummy movies with hackneyed plots, bad acting, and general B-movie blandness, and the only reason they still survive today (and the only reason I’m watching them) is because of the presence of Bela Lugosi.
You know what, though?
I’m okay with that. I’m okay with enjoying (or not enjoying) these crummy movies. I’m okay with the fact that Bela is the best thing in most of them by miles and miles. I’m okay with the fact that these films are long since past the point of obscurity, that they’re now little more than faded memories imprinted on celluloid, that most people have never heard of them, don’t care if they have, and make fun of them if they care enough to watch.
Because, look--this isn’t about all that. It’s about Bela, and it’s about me, and it’s about exploring these memories--other peoples’ memories--in whatever quiet, stolen moments I can get. It’s about film projected on a screen 80-some years ago, about a theater full of people, living and loving and laughing and real--and it’s about today, about pixels on a screen and me, alone, curled up in bed.
Anyway, there’s a point to this, but I’ve long since lost it.
The Return of Chandu (1934), The Mysterious Mr. Wong (1934), Mark of the Vampire (1935), Phantom Ship (1935), The Raven (1935), Murder by Television (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936)
First, an apology--I’m getting slow with this, due partially to the fact that I’m in my third year of college and Halloween is picking up at the party store I work at and oh god my body has ceased to metabolize nutrients and I think I just consume stress at this point.
Second, a note--I’m ostensibly about a third of the way through this project, about 20 movies down and about 40 minutes to go. Things are settling into a rhythm--a little monotonous, perhaps, but not in a bad way. It’s 1935, and everything is played out in shades of grey, and it’s comforting, in a way--like peering through a window into a time capsule, moments frozen in the past. (1935 is the year my grandmother was born. The Wizard of Oz is still 4 years away. WWII is just becoming imminent.) It’s like another world, as far removed from me now as John Brown and Frederick Douglass were from them. (Third, this one might be more about me than Bela. Oop.) And yet--it doesn’t feel that way? In some ways, I can feel myself acclimating to it all--I’ve been watching Bela’s movies almost exclusively since I started, and where at first things were Weird and Old, now they’re...not? They make sense, now, and it’s nice.
It’s a creature comfort, honestly. I can dress it up any way that I like, but at the end of the day, it’s something to come home to. Like a hot shower and a big sweater. The movies are grey and rhythmic, and they make sense in a simple way, and Bela Lugosi is always there, and--not that this isn’t already blatantly obvious--honestly? I just really, really like the guy. He takes these limp, bland, tepid movies, and gives them a pulse--gives them life.
And right now, I could really use some life. This year has been and is being rough on me, mentally and emotionally and psychologically. I don’t have much right now--but I’ve got movies. I’ve got these movies. And I guess it sounds pretty sad, yeah? But they make me feel better. I’m miserable, and I spend a lot of time sleeping and not enough time showering, and things usually feel like a lot more trouble than they’re worth--
And enter Bela Lugosi. Honestly. He makes movies feel like they’re supposed to. He makes things feel bigger and more dramatic and more exciting--there’s an undefinable aura about him. And even when he’s the villain, which he usually is, you find yourself rooting for him. And, 20-some movies in, he’s becoming familiar. Something you don’t realize until you watch the same actor over and over and over again--you get to know them. They become like an old friend. And Bela has been a very kind friend to me so far.
The Return of Chandu was positively delightful. I think I really like the Chandu stories. And Bela! Was the hero! He saved the day and beat the bad guy and got the girl! I’m so very, very sad this is the first (and only, so far) heroic role he had. He’s so damn good at it. He’s friendly and charming and compassionate and brave. And, like, I joke as much as the next guy about how evil and menacing he is, and maybe he is, but more likely I’ve just been trained my whole life to associate him--the accent in particular--with Evil and Bad Guys and Murder. Watching him as the protagonist wasn’t just enjoyable, it felt deserved. Like he was collecting his dues for years of supporting characters and vaguely foreign villains. Like. Guys. We all wronged Bela Lugosi, wronged him horribly. That’s on all of us.
Mysterious Mr Wong--I thought The Black Camel was Yikes. That wasn’t Yikes. This, though...this was Yikes.
Mark of the Vampire was okay. Most of it I just spent a little bored, but the end was decent. Even if it spent most of its time trying so so hard to be Dracula But Not. And even if Bela only had, like, one line. I’m a sucker for him as a bloodsucker, I guess.
(”This vampire business, it has given me a great idea for a new act. Luna, in this new act I will be the vampire. Did you watch me? I gave all of me. I was greater than any real vampire!” Such shameless pandering, but it still got to me, man. What a great way of putting it. In the end, greater than any real vampire, indeed.)
Phantom Ship was pleasantly atmospheric. It was...weird, yeah, and boring, but so spooky! Bela was wonderful and god, guys, I will never tire of watching him overact. And? He held a cat in this one. <3
The Raven--I won’t ever get tired of watching him opposite Karloff, I think. They’re really just so fantastic together. I went on a ramble about this to someone. I’m gonna try to summarize it and also make it...coherent. Basically: Star Trek, yeah? I’m going somewhere with this, I promise. So, okay. Star Trek is about people. It’s a drama that just happens to be set in space. The entire point is that it could happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime, that it’s not the external circumstances that shape these characters’ lives and choices, but the characters themselves. It’s about the characters, and it’s about people, and it’s about you and I. A gross simplification, to be sure. And one that’s probably only accurate for me. But, here’s the point--Bela Lugosi is Star Trek! He doesn’t make you care about the plot. I mean, he does, but that’s usually tangential. Bela Lugosi makes you care about Bela Lugosi, about the character he’s playing. He makes you want to know more about them, gives them depths that often the surface-level writing they were given ignores. He is compelling, charming, magnetic. His great strength lies in his characters. And that strength is multiplied when he’s given good people to work off of. Karloff is one of those people.
My point is that I really loved this movie.
Anyway.
Moving on.
I was watching Murder By Television when I started writing this post, actually. Between classes, lying down on a couch in a silent study room, half-dozing off. Not out of boredom! I liked this one. Dozing off more out of comfort--and exhaustion, I’ll admit. This movie was the moment when I started grasping the true shape of what I’m doing--not the reasons why, but what exactly I’m doing. I can’t quite describe it, not yet--I haven’t watched nearly enough films to do that. But suffice it to say--this movie had everything, from weird, wooly, vaguely magical 1930s technology to a Plot Twist Secret Twin. Movies don’t all have to be Great Cinema, ya na. They can just be fun. Sometimes I prefer them to be fun. Fun and goofy and a little cheap. Like, damn, my favorite movie of all time is 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I’m fully aware of how awful that makes me sound right off the bat. But if I’m watching a movie just to relax and have fun, I won’t watch that. I’ll watch Back to the Future or The Night Stalker or, hell, an episode of MST3K. This movie wasn’t great, but it felt so good. And Bela continues to be a little bit Jack Cassidy.
Hey, so here’s the thing about The Invisible Ray. I was drunk when I watched it. Like, stupid drunk. And I know what happened in it, but… I don’t know. Boris Karloff was glowing in the dark and Bela Lugosi had a stupid damn goatee and, man. It was weird?? Like, to the point where the sober friend I was watching it with even paused and went, “wait, what?” But still. Lugosi and Karloff. I can’t hate that.*
(*I’m gonna immediately regret making that statement, aren’t I?)
Island of Lost Souls (1932), The Whispering Shadow (1933), Night of Terror (1933), The Black Cat (1934), Gift of Gab (1934)
Hey! I’m still here. Still alive. I’m just, y’know, busy.
And I’m, what, 12 days into this, and I’ve already given up on writing about these movies individually. This isn’t a movie review blog, not really, and forcing myself to write something standalone for each movie is just silly.
So, here. Here’s a jumble of thoughts about the last five movies I watched. (Well, last four. I’m not counting the Gift of Gab. Bela had one line and it was a stupid fuckin’ movie. There. There’s my review.)
I figured it out.
I think I did, at least.
I figured out why I’m doing this.
Back up--
I really enjoyed all of these movies. I enjoyed them immensely. True, Island of Lost Souls had Bela only tangentially, and in heavy makeup at that. But...it was still an incredible movie? The Whispering Shadow, he was great and I had so much fun. Night of Terror, he was great and I was entranced. The Black Cat--
That’s when I got it. That’s when it hit me.
Because The Black Cat is...a movie. That’s it. It’s not a great movie, on its own. It’s not a bad movie. It functions, and for what it’s worth, it functions very well. The plot is threadbare, true, and most of the characters are more afterthoughts than anything, and none of that matters.
It doesn’t matter for two reasons: Bela Lugosi, and Boris Karloff. But we’re here for Bela.
Because this movie isn’t, at heart, a movie; it’s a vessel. A vessel for their performances. And what performances!
I have never been so drawn into a movie. I have never been so entranced, so utterly swept up to the point of actually talking to my screen, like an old person yelling at a football game. It was absolutely magical. Because it terrified me! Every second of that movie brought something new to make me cringe or shake or groan. By the time I got to the final scenes, I was inches away from my screen, chewing anxiously on the inside of my lip, tuning everything out around me.
And it wasn’t the movie that did that. It was the actors. It was Bela. My god, I knew he was a good actor. That’s part of why I did this--I knew he was good enough that I could watch him over and over and over again. I knew he was a good actor, but I didn’t know he was this good. And watching the skinning scene, watching him move across the screen, manic and mad and like a man possessed, I understood. I understood myself, my motivations.
Bela Lugosi was a fine actor. And more than that, he was an experience. He doesn’t exist only in two dimensions, film projected in a dark room. He doesn’t exist as pixels on a screen. He sticks with you, and follows you home, and comes back to you late at night when you can’t sleep and shadows move in the corners of your bedroom, out the corners of your eye. He refuses to be forgotten. Bela Lugosi’s dead, but he’s still immortal.
And that’s the crux of the matter.
Bela Lugosi, at his best, is the best.
And not the best in any technical sense, because that’s not the point. He’s the best where it counts--in your heart, your soul, in the most visceral ways possible. Karloff may have always gotten top billing, but Bela Lugosi has teeth, and he can reach through the screen and take you with him.
And, even if he weren’t the best--he’s so very nice to watch.
So, the end of it is this: I’m having a lot of fun, and Bela continues to surprise me. I’m glad, and a little smitten.
This is long and rambling but I’m a little buzzed, and halfway through The Return of Chandu--and I have Feelings about that, as well--so I’ll leave you here. See you in a bit.
Wow, guess who completely skipped this movie? Writing about it, I mean. Man. Note to self: don’t get 7 movies behind on my writeups again.
Anyway--this movie was a lot of fun? I mean, it was so clearly a kids’ movie. And the plot wasn’t all that imaginative. But, holy hell, watching Bela chew all that scenery as a supervillain bent on world domination--seriously, he makes Shatner look subdued and even-keeled.
(Also, listen, all-black is a very good look on him, jussayin.)
This movie was so much fun. I mean, again, not a very “good” movie, but screw that. I really enjoyed myself, despite myself. Especially coming off White Zombie.
You know what? I hated this movie. I hated this movie, and I hate mysteries, and I hated David Manners’ stupid smug face, and I couldn’t wait for this to be over. It’s not even that it’s a bad movie--it’s not, not really, it’s just so far out of my tastes that I couldn’t help but hate it. God. What a boring waste of an hour and ten minutes. Even Bela being in a good part of this movie, and doing very well at it besides, didn’t make it worth it. Ugh.
Once again: Makeup artists, you don’t have to do a whole lot to make Bela Lugosi look evil. The angry unibrow is completely unnecessary. He is evil enough on his own, trust me.
You know, this is…this is not a great movie. Oh, it’s a hell of a lot of fun, that particular blend of mediocrity and easy mockery, and I would love to just sit back and get drunk and riff the shit out of this one with some friends. But on its own, watching it alone and dozing off during the particularly slow scenes…yeah, it’s not great. First of all, these characters are some of the stupidest motherfuckers. Like, when Bela Lugosi, white Haitian voodoo master, convinces, I don’t even remember his name, to poison the drink of this woman he’s in love with and turn her into a zombie. Then, after doing so, this dumbshit and Bela Lugosi get into an argument, and this dumbshit willingly drinks something Bela Lugosi gives him, and guess what? Gets turned into a zombie. Dude, you deserved that shit, okay. And the acting–damn, I half-believed all of the actors were zombies. (With the exception of Bela Lugosi–why did you have to pick such awful movies, you were such a good actorrrrrrrrrrr, I scream unceasingly into the void.) Although, one thing I noticed that absolutely fascinated me--Bela Lugosi absolutely does not move his body like a normal human being. He doesn't walk like a normal person, or talk like a normal person, and I swear to god at one part he sat on the arm of a wooden chair, bracing himself against the other arm. He's such a wonderful actor to watch. Crap movie, tho.
Okay, admittedly, The Murders in the Rue Morgue was never my favorite Poe story. (What can I say, I’m not a fan of mysteries.) And honestly, I hardly remember what happened in it. That doesn’t matter, because I’m 100 percent certain this movie has almost nothing to do with the original story.
That’s okay! Again, Bela Lugosi in a starring antagonist role, and it’s wonderful, god, I missed having him in more than a couple scenes. Makeup department went a little overboard, though. He looks like a cotton swab.
But anyway! I also enjoyed this film. It was so...eerily ambient? The sets almost made it feel like a play. The editing and directing were dreamlike at times, in a good way; in the same way that 50 Million Frenchmen felt like a chaotic, jumbled dream, this felt like a calm, if unsettling, one. It was a really pretty movie, is what I’m getting at. And I liked it. I can see how it might not be a “good” movie--but the most enjoyable movies are very rarely “good” ones. Anyway. A+ to this one.
(Listen, I’m sick. I’m not even sure that I’m writing coherent sentences right now.)
Okay, ignoring the great big gaping hole of yikes-ness that this movie emerges from, it was pretty enjoyable? And!!! Bela has more than a cameo appearance in this!
This movie just underlines my thesis statement from earlier (what, Such Men Are Dangerous, right?)-- that Jack Cassidy is Bela Lugosi. Listen, this movie actually kind of plays out like an old-timey yellowface episode of Columbo. The detective wanders around, playing dumb, picking up clues, and--bam! He’s got the murderer! Although, a more apt comparison would be, like, Last Salute To The Commodore. Not my favorite episode of Columbo, but Columbo nonetheless.
We, as the audience, don’t know who the murderer is in this film. In all honesty, I was convinced it was Bela’s character. I mean, he’s a menacing guy, yeah? All I’m saying is that if somebody I know gets murdered, I’d probably blame the Hungarian-accented fake psychic, too. Also, the movie clearly wanted us to think he was the murderer. And he doesn’t help his case! Hiding evidence, lying about his past, acting generally suspicious and murder-y…
What I’m saying is oh my god he’s exactly Jack Cassidy in any given episode of Columbo, except Bela wasn’t actually the murderer.
Okay. I’m gonna shut the hell up about Columbo now.
Some unrelated notes: Dwight Frye!!!!! Oh my goodness, what a tiny little dear. Once again, he is a damn fine actor. And! There was another Hungarian actor in this movie! I actually switched tabs and went, huh, either Bela’s voice sounds way different all of a sudden, or somebody’s doing a Bela Lugosi impersonation. Turns out, it was neither! Just some other Hungarian guy!
Women of All Nations is a movie that just plain doesn’t care about its audience.
(Wikipedia tells me it’s a sequel. I stubbornly refuse to believe that seeing the first movie would make this one any more understandable or enjoyable.)
It begins in media res--very in media res. I don’t know who these characters are and, after spending about five minutes with them, I don’t care who they are. I just want this awful mess of a movie to be over and done with.
I’m gonna be honest, this movie had absolutely zero of my attention during most of it. The Benadrul had kicked in by now, and it kinda runs together with 50 Million Frenchmen in that it was, for the most part, bland and unappealing. The jokes don’t just fall flat, they never make it off the ground in the first place, and for the love of god what is with the creepiness towards women in these movies?
Listen. I want to do more than just whine about these movies. I do! But Bela Lugosi was only in this one for a couple of scenes, playing, ahh, an Arab™. and most of his lines were him meowing and oh god what have I gotten myself into?
(Note: these next few movies were all viewed in rapid succession, and their respective posts written a couple days later, also in rapid succession. Relying on my increasingly illegible and intermittent notes taken under the influence of a lot of allergy medicine, here.)
50 Million Frenchmen is a movie that proceeds like a fever dream. I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t? Listen, I took a lot of Benadryl before I watched it. And I gotta say, this was way past the tipping point of “worth watching an awful movie because Bela Lugosi is in it”, because Bela Lugosi was in it for about ten seconds, and “random cameo Bela Lugosi appearance” does not help the sense that this is some weird dream, and at some point I realized that I might just be Mystery Science Theater-ing...myself. Forcing myself to watch a lot of, let’s be honest here, Not Great movies, for some vaguely defined ~scientific~ purpose. Except instead of robot friends to help me riff on the movie, it’s just me, alone, mumbling incoherently into my pillow at 1 am.
(Hey, I took some more Benadryl before writing this, too!)
The point is. The point is. The point is that everyone in this movie behaves like an alien wearing human skin. It’s goddamn uncanny. The character interactions are just south of making any sense. Motivations and purpose aren’t just ill-defined, they’re damn inexplicable. Everybody talks like a 1930s stereotype. (”Yeah, see?”) Nobody even moves normally! This movie is so high-energy, bouncing between “kinda funny” at times to “really not” the rest of the time. According to its Wikipedia page, this movie was a musical at one point, and then they cut all the songs out because nobody cared about musicals, and the non-musical cut is the only print that survives. Jeez. I guess I should be thankful? I like musicals. I don’t know if I’d like that musical.
(On a sidenote: one of my hastily scribbled notes, reads simply, in all caps: “THIS DUDE’S LAUGH MAKES ME FUCKING MURDEROUS.” And it DOES.)
Watching this one was like a breath of fresh air, an oasis in the middle of a desert.
There’s not a whole lot I can say about this film that hasn’t already been said, honestly. It’s beautiful and eerie and haunting and wonderful, it’s the first Bela Lugosi movie I ever saw, it gave me a weird lifetime Thing for vampires. It’s stunning, a film that doesn’t unfold so much as it builds to a crescendo, that progresses as a ball rolling slowly down a hill and gradually picking up speed.
And again, I am amazed at the subtlety. Particulary of Bela and Dwight Frye’s performances. It should be cheesy. It should be goofy and laughable and fake spooky, but it’s not. Any other actor, in that high-collared cape, hands extended like claws, leaning over a woman’s neck to drink her blood, would have been laughable. But Bela cuts a dark, imposing figure--razor sharp and rage-filled beneath a calm, suave exterior--feeling much less an actor in costume than Dracula in a man suit.
Of course, all this has been said time and time again, in better, more articulate ways than I can manage. So, this is what I’ll say--
Dracula was my first Bela Lugosi movie. Not the one that inspired this project, not entirely, but still. I must have been--what, twelve? thirteen?--at the time, and I’d never seen anything quite like it, or anyone quite like him. An actor so commanding, so sinister, so eerily seductive. And the movie wasn’t as scary as it was unsettling, and somehow that was worse. (The night after I watched it for the first time, I dreamt about vampires, about fangs pressed to my throat and I couldn’t run away, couldn’t scream, couldn’t even move.)
And then I think about it in a more meta sense--Bela Lugosi’s Dracula wasn’t just the archetypal vampire, he was the prototypical vampire. Even just the name conjures him up in your mind--pale white; slicked back hair; high-collared black cape; the particular tone and cadence of his voice, dripping with a Hungarian accent.
Bela Lugosi made Dracula immortal. And Dracula did the same for him.
