Saturday & Sunday, April 29 &30, 2006

The Bela Lugosi Collection

     This is not the fancy-smancy Universal Dracula collection. No, this is a collection of OTHER universal movies that Bela was in during the 30’s and 40’s. Five cheap, short flicks showing off the Lugosi range. Which wasn’t very much. And it doesn’t include White Zombie, where he actually does a good job. Oh, that’s not to say that he doesn’t do a passable job, but it’s easy to see why he was never recognized as a great actor. He wasn’t.

Murders in the Rue Morgue – 1932

     Bela, with wild hair and eyebrows, wants to prove an ape is our ancestor in 1850’s Paris. The ape has more facial expression than Bela. Still, this isn’t a bad little movie. And it’s short enough that you don’t have time to get bored.

The Black Cat – 1934

     This is the first of movies that also costars Boris Karloff. But although you’d think this was based in some way on the Poe story of the same name, you’d be wrong. It has nothing to do with a cat walled up with a murdered wife. Instead, this is pretty stylistic thriller about revenge for war atrocities. Karloff is young, and very spooky looking, in a suave sort of way. When they’re both young, and in their prime, Karloff and Lugosi make an interesting team.

The Raven – 1935

     Once again, a Poe title, but the story doesn’t have anything to do with it, except that Lugosi quotes from the poem once. And Karloff plays a more “expected” role. This is a “mad scientist” yarn, with Lugosi collecting torture devices in his basement. Bela comes out of retirement to operate, and saves the life and career of a wealthy judge’s daughter, but then starts to fall for her himself. When she rejects him, and the judge tells him to lay off, he operates on Karloff, making him ugly, so that he can force him to do his dirty work. (You know, the old, I’ll fix you up if you just kill these people for me routine).

The Invisible Ray – 1936

     Here, Lugosi is a good guy, and Karloff is mad. Lugosi’s part isn’t as big as in the previous movies, and so I wondered why it was included in this, and other movies, like The Bat or White Zombie weren’t included. The glowing Karloff was a good effect for ’36, however. Radiation isn’t to be trifled with, kids. Also, I’ve noticed that in all these movies, in the credits, he’s not Boris Karloff, its just KARLOFF. Weird. Wonder why they did that? But in each of the three last movies, that’s the way it’s been in the final credits. Right below the little banner, “A Good Cast is Worth Repeating”.

Black Friday – 1940

     Man, I have no idea why they included this movie. Lugosi is a minor character, with only about 5 minutes of screen time. This is a Karloff vehicle all the way. It’s also a funny kinda flick. Seems that Boris has perfected brain transplants, but is surprised when the personality of the transplanted brain shows up in the new body. What, did he think that the personality lives in the liver? Guess they didn’t know too much about the brain back in 1940.

These are pretty good flicks. Most would be ripe for MSTing or horror hosting. They’d be especially good for horror hosting, since they’re all right around an hour. I guess these were all “B” movies. All of the movies were subtitled, but that was the only extra on both discs. Too bad. A commentary or two by film experts would have really added value to this set.

Three beers out of five.