Bela Lugosi Filmography

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Many additions, subtractions and corrections have been made to Bela Lugosi’s filmography over the years as researchers have discovered new facts and previously unknown films. It is likely that future research will reveal more previously unknown film credits from Bela’s Hungarian and German periods. Currently, the most comprehensive and accurate filmography is the product of the meticulous research of Gary Don Rhodes, which was published in his Dreams and Nightmares (Collectables, 2007). This filmography was compiled using information from both Dreams and Nightmares and Gary’s previous Lugosi (McFarland & Company, 1997), both of which are my first point of reference whenever I want to check any details of Bela’s life and work.

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This page is divided into two sections. The first is a simple chronological list of Bela’s films, serials, shorts and newsreels. In the second section, the chronological listing is expanded to include, where available, credits, a synopsis, posters, lobby cards, stills, reviews and newspaper advertisements.

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The Films Of Bela Lugosi

Hungary

1917

• Leoni leo
• A régiséggyujto (The Antiquarian)
• Lili
• Álarcosbál (The Masked Ball)
• Az élet királya (The King of Life) aka Dorian Gray Arckepe / Dorian Gray

1918

• Nászdal (The Wedding Song)
• Tavaszi vihar (Spring Tempest)
• Kilencvekilenc (99)
• Küzdelem a létért (The Struggle for Life)
• Az ezredes (The Colonel)

Germany

1919

• Hypnose (Hypnosis) aka Sklaven fremden Willens (Slaves of a Foreign Will)

1920

• Der Tanz auf dem Vulkan (The Dance on the Volcano)
• Die Frau im delphin (The Woman in the Dolphin)
• Schrecken (The Terror) aka Der Januskopf (The Head of Janus)
• Johann Hopkins III (John Hopkins the Third)
• Der Sklavenholder von Kansas-City (The Slaveholder of Kansas City)
• Nat Pinkerton im Kampf (Nat Pinkerton in Combat)
• Das ganze Sein ist flammend Leid (The Whole of Being is a Flaming Misery)
• Die Teufelsanbeter (The Devil Worshippers)
• Der Fluch der Menschheit (The Curse of Man)
• Lederstrumpf (Leatherstocking)
• Die Todeskarawane (The Caravan of Death)

1922

• Ihre Hoheit die Tanzerin (Her Highness, the Dancer)

America and England

1923

• The Silent Command

1924

• The Rejected Woman
• He Who Gets Slapped (?)

1925

• Daughters Who Pay
• The Midnight Girl

1926

• Punchinello (short)

1928

• How to Handle Women

1929

• The Last Performance
• The Veiled Woman
• Prisoners
• The Thirteenth Chair

1930

• Such Men Are Dangerous
• The King of Jazz
• Wild Company
• Renegades
• Viennese Nights
• Oh, for a Man

1931

• Dracula
• Fifty Million Frenchmen
• Women of All Nations
• The Black Camel
• Broadminded

1932

• Murders in the Rue Morgue
• White Zombie
• Chandu the Magician
• Intimate Interview (short)

1933

• Island of Lost Souls
• The Death Kiss
• Night of Terror
• International House
• The Devil’s in Love
• The Whispering Shadow (serial)
• Hollywood on Parade #A8 (short)

1934

• The Black Cat
• Gift of Gab
• Return of Chandu (serial)
• Screen Snapshots #11 (short)
• The Hollywood Movie Parade (short)
• Black Cat Parade (newsreel)

1935

• Best Man Wins
• The Mysterious Mr. Wong
• Mark of the Vampire
• The Raven
• Murder by Television
• Mystery of the Mary Celeste
• San Diego Exposition Opened (newsreel)

1936

• The Invisible Ray
• Postal Inspector
• Shadow of Chinatown (serial)

1937

• SOS Coastguard (serial)

1939

• Son of Frankenstein
• The Gorilla
• Ninotchka
• Dark Eyes of London
• The Phantom Creeps (serial)

1940

• The Saint’s Double Trouble
• Black Friday
• You’ll Find Out
• Bela Lugosi Hypnotized (newsreel)

1941

• The Devil Bat
• The Invisible Ghost
• The Black Cat
• Spooks Run Wild
• The Wolf Man

1942

• Black Dragons
• The Ghost of Frankenstein
• The Corpse Vanishes
• Night Monster

1943

• Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman
• The Ape Man
• Ghost on the Loose
• Screen Snapshots (newsreel)

1944

• Return of the Vampire
• Voodoo Man
• Return of the Ape Man
• One Body Too Many

1945

• The Body Snatcher
• Zombies on Broadway

1946

• Genius at Work

1947

• Scared to Death

1948

• Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

1951

• Mother Riley Meets the Vampire
• Seeing Stars (Pathe newsreel)

1952

• Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla

1953

• Glen or Glenda
•  House of Wax Premiere (newsreel)

1955

• Bride of the Atom aka Bride of the Monster

1956

• The Black Sleep

1959

• Plan 9 from Outer Space
• Lock Up Your Daughters 

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Hungary

 1917

Leoni Leo

Star

Director: Alfréd Deésy

Screenplay: József Pakóts. Based on the novel Leone Leoni by George Sand.

Precise release date unknown.

Cast: Béla Lugosi, under the name of Arisztid Olt, (Leoni Leo), Lilla Bársony (Princess Zagarolo), Róbert Fiáth (Marquis Lorenzo), Lajos Gellért, as Viktor Kurd, (Róbert), Annie Góth (Juliette), Marel Rolla (Carmen), Gusztáv Turán (Mario)

Set in Venice, Sand’s novel is a tale of the madness of love. Seduced, abused and abandoned by the amoral Leone (Bela), Juliette’s (Annie Góth) love for him remains undying and forgiving. It is not known how closely the film followed the plot of the novel. No photographs of this film are available.

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A régiséggyujto (The Antiquarian)

Star

Cast: Béla Lugosi, under the name of Arisztid Olt

Precise release date unknown.

Bela’s role in this fictional short is unknown.

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Lili 

Star

Director: Mihály Kertész (Michael Curtiz)

Cinematography: Károly Vass

Screenplay: Jenő Faragó . Based on an operetta by Herve.

Design: István Szirontai-Lhorka

First screened at the Uraniá in Budapest during the week of October 21-28, 1917.

Cast: Iren Barta (Lili), Klára Peterdy (Nagymama/Lulu), Béla Lugosi, under the name of Arisztid Olt (Plinchard and Tabornok), Ila Lóth (Antoinin), Gusztáv Turán(Rene), Richard Kornai (Saint Hypothese).

Bela had a romantic role.

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Álarcosbál (The Masked Ball) -

Star

 Director: Alfréd Deésy

 Adapted from the Verdi opera Un Ballo in Masch.

First screened at the Uraniá in Budapest during the week of October 21-28, 1917.

Cast: Annie Góth, Béla Lugosi, under the name of Arisztid Olt, Norbert Dán (pictured with sword), Róbert Fiáth, Richard Kornai, Viktor Kurd.

Nothing is known of the plot of this film. Bela portrayed Rene, the secretary-govener.

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Az élet királya (The King of Life)

aka Dorian Gray / Dorian Gray Arcképe 

Star

Director: Alfréd Deésy

Screenplay: József Pakóts. Based on The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

First screened at the Uraniá in Budapest on October 23, 1917.

Cast: Norbert Dán  (Dorian Gray), Béla Lugosi, under the name of Arisztid Olt (Lord Harry Watton), Annie Góth (Princess Marborough), Ila Lóth (Sybil Vane), Kamilla Hollay (Hetti), Gusztáv Turán (Basil Hallward), Richard Kornai (The prince), Viktor Kurd

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1918

Nászdal (The Wedding Song)

Star

Director: Alfréd Deésy

Screenplay: Ignác Balla and Nándor Újhelyi from the story The Wedding Song.

First screened at the Corso in Budapest on February 27, 1918.

Cast: Béla Lugosi, under the name of Arisztid Olt (Paul Bertram), Klára Petendy, Irén Barta, Richard Kornai, Károly Lajthay.

Bela played Paul Bertram, a famous violinist. While on honeymoon, Bertram and his wife are attacked by Izau (Károly Lajthay), a pianist in love with Bertram’s wife. Bertram kills the pianist in a duel and flees to the forest, leaving his bride mistakenly believing that he has been killed by Izau. She has him arrested and imprisoned. They are reunited when Bertram reveals his true identity to her by playing a tune that he played to her on their wedding night.

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Tavaszi vihar (Spring Tempest)

Star

Director: Alfréd Deésy

Screenplay: László Békeffy

First screened at the Corso in Budapest on February 28, 1918.

Cast: Béla Lugosi, under the name of Arisztid Olt (Renner), Myra Corthy, Norbert Dán, Viktor Kurd, Alice Ronay, Aladar Fenyő.

No plot details of this film are available.

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99

Phoenix

Director: Mihály Kertész (Michael Curtiz)

Cinematography: István Eiben

Screenplay: Iván Siklósi, R.F. Foster

First screened at the Royal-Apolló on September 12, 1918.

Cast: Lajos Réthey, Jenö Balassa, Zoltán Szerémy, Béla Lugosi, under the name of Arisztid Olt, Cläre Lotto, Gyula Gál (The inspector), László Z. Molnár.

Bela’s role is unknown

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Küzdelem a Létért (The Struggle for Life)

aka A Leopárd (The Leopard)

Star

Director: Alfréd Deésy

Based on the play “La Lutte Pour La Vie” by Alfred Daudet.

First screened at the Mozgókép-Otthon in Budapest on July 16, 1918

Cast: Béla Lugosi, under the name of Arisztid Olt (Paul Orlay), Anna Góth, Klára Peterdy, Ila Lóth, Ferenc Virágh.

As Pul Orlay, Bela played a ruthless architect who ruins his lovers, a countess and a poor girl in order to further his career. At the height of his success, he is shot by the poor girl’s father.

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Az ezredes (The Colonel)

Phoenix

Director: Mihály Kertész  (Michael Curtiz)

Screenplay: Richárd Falk from a story by Ferenc Herczeg.

First screened at the Omnia in Budapest on Decenber 30, 1918

Cast: Béla Lugosi (the Colonel), Sándor Góth, László Z. Molnár, Károly Huszár, Géza Borosa, Árpád Latabár, Claire Lotto, Zoltán Szerémy, Bero Malay, Janka Csatai.

Bela, as the Colonel, is caught breaking into a millionaires house. In return for his freedom, the wealthy man asks him to steal a fortune back from his brother. The millionaires daughter subsequently falls in love with the Colonel.

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Germany

1919

Hypnose (Hypnosis) aka Sklaven fremden Willens (Slaves of a Foreign Will)

Eichberg Film

Director: Richard Eichberg

Cast: Lee Parry, Béla Lugosi (Professor Mors), Karl Halden, Violette Napierska, Margo Koehler, Gustav Birkholz

Drawing parallels with Du Maurier’s Trilby, Hypnose featured  Bela as the Svengali-like hypnotist Professor Mors. Upon its release, a realistic rape scene drew attention from the critics. 

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1920

Der Tanz auf dem Vulkan (The Dance on the Volcano)

Eichberg

Producer/Director: Richard Eichberg

Cinematographer: Joe Rive

Screenplay: Arthur Teuber

Cast: Béla Lugosi (Andre Fleurot), Lee Parry, Violette Napierska, Robert Sholz, Gustav Birkholz, Felix Hecht, Kurt Fuss

Bela played Andre Fleurot. Set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, the film tells the story of a dommed love affair. The story ends with both Lugosi and his love being killed in the heat of the revolution. Ten reels in length, the film was released in two parts – Sybil Joung (Sybil Young) and Der Tod des Grossfursten (Death of the Grand Duke). The American release was retitled Daughter of the Night. Long considered lost, a print of the American release version was discovered in the 1990s and subsequently released on DVD.

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Die Frau im Delphin (The Woman in the Dolphin)

Gaci Film

Director: Arthur Kiekebusch-Brenken

Cast: Emille Sannom, Magnus Stifter, Béla Lugosi (Tom Bill), Ernst Pittschau, Max Zilzer, Jacques Wandryck

With no prints currently available, Die Frau im Delphin is assumed to be a lost film. It was also released under the alternate title of Thirty Days on the Bottom of the Sea. 

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Schrecken (The Terror) aka Der Januskopf (The Head of Janus)

Liplow

Director: F.W. Murnau

Cinematographer: Karl Freund

Cast: Conrad Veidt, Margarete Schlegel, Magnus Stifter, Willi Kaiser-Heyl, Béla Lugosi, Margarete Kupfer.

When Conrad Veidt, as the kindly Dr. Warren, buys a figure of the two-face Roman god Janus, he finds himself changing into the evil Mr. O’Connor. After prostituting his own fiancee and killing a young girl, the doctor’s degenerate alter ego escapes arrest by taking poison. Bela portrayed Dr. O’Connor’s butler.

This was the first of two Murnau films which fell foul of the courts for infringing copyright. While his Nosferatu (1922) eluded the best efforts of Bram Stoker’s widow to have it consigned to oblivion, no prints of Schrecken, a poorly disguised adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, appear to have survived a courtorder to confiscate and destroy all prints. Subtitled Eine Tagodie am Rande der Wirlichkeit (A tragedy on the Border of Reality), the film was also known as Loves’s Mockery and Dr. Warren and Mr. O’Connor.

Conrad Veidt (right) as Dr. Warren and Bela (left) as his butler

Conrad Veidt (centre) as the evil Mr. O’Connor and Bela (left)

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Johann Hopkins III (John Hopkins the Third)

Dua

Stills courtesy of http://www.moviemonstermuseum.com/belalugosi2

Producer: Liddy Hegewald

Director: Wolfgang Neff

Cinematographer: Herrmann Saalfrank

Art Director: Franz Schroedter

Screenplay: Jane Bess

Cast: Curd Cappi (D.I. Winsor), Sybill de Bree, Fritz Falkenberg (Eddy Corvin), Harry Frank (Johann Hopkins), Frydel Fredy, Béla Lugosi, Ludwig Rex, Preben J. Rist (W.R. Turner George Corvin), Alfred Schmasow (Kommissar Sam), Lya Sellin (de schwarze Mary), Heinrich von Korff (Mat Bliß)

Very little is known of  Bela’s first film for Dua. Surviving stills show Bela as both a cowboy and an acordian-playing sailor.

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Der Sklavenhalter von Kansas-City (The Slaveholder of Kansas City)

Dua

Bela played George Corvin in his second film for Dua.

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Nat Pinkerton im Kampf

Dua Film

Director: Wolfgang Neff

Cast: Olaf Storm, Nestor Pridum, Marian Alma, Sybill de Bree, Béla Lugosi, E.V. Meghen.

Bela was cast as a gang leader in this, his third and final film for Dua. The film was released in two parts, with the second part being screened in 1921. Olaf Storm later appeared in F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh (1924) and Metropolis (1926), while Mariam Alma appeared alongside Conrad Veidt in The Student of Prague (1926).

Still courtesy courtesy of http://www.moviemonstermuseum.com/belalugosi2

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Der Fluch der Menschheit (The Curse of Man) – Eichberg Film

Director: Richard Eichberg

Cast: Lee Parry, Willi Kaiser-Heyl, Robert Scholz, Gustav Birkholtz, Reinhold Pasch, Margo Koehler, Béla Lugosi, Felix Hexht, Violette Napierska, Paul Ludwick.

Rejected by his lover, Bela, in the role of Maelzer, commits treason and attempts sabotage. He is electrocuted before the authorities can capture him.

The film was released in two parts, Die Tochter der Arbeit (The Daughters of Work) and Im Rausche der Millianden (In the Ectsay of Billions. During the shooting of the film Bela had an affair with co-star Violette Napierska. Bela had previous acted alongside Lee Perry in Slaven Fremdes Willen (1919). He would be reunited with Willi Kaiser-Heyl in his next film, Der Januskopf .

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Das ganze Sein ist flammend Leid (The Whole of Being is a Flaming Misery)

Munchener Lichtspielkunst AG

Bela’s role is unknown in this film.

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Die Teufelsanbeter (The Devil Worshippers)

Ustad

Producer: Ertugrul Moussin-Bey

Director: Marie Luise Droop

Based on a chapter from the novel Durch die Wüste (Through the Desert) by Karl May

Said to have premiered on January 2 1921 at Vaters Lichtspiele in Wurzburg, the first documented screening took place on January 24 1921 in Wilhelmsburg.

Cast: Carl de Vogt (Kara Ben Nemsi), Béla Lugosi, Meinhart Maur (Hadschi Halef Omar), Ilja Dubrowski, Tronier Funder (Officer of the Sultan)

The first of three films based on the desert adventure novels of  Karl May filmed by Ustad, but the third to be released, starring Carl de Vogt. Subtitled, “A film from the Orient in six chapters,” and set in the remote mountains of the Kurds, the film was a typical Karl May tale of high adventure featuring strange exotic rituals and human sacrifices. Upon its release, it was a commercial failure. Originally containing tinted scenes, the film is now considered lost.

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Der Fluch der Menschheit (The Curse of Man)

Eichberg

Bela played a character called Malzer. The film was released in two parts, Die Tochter der Arbeit (The Daughter of Labour) and Im Rausche der Milliarden (Intoxicated by Billions).

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Lederstrumpf (Leatherstocking)

Luna Film

Stills courtesy o f http://www.moviemonstermuseum.com/belalugosi2

Producer/Director: Arthur Wellin

Assistant Director: Kurt Rottenburg

Cinimatographer: Ernest Plhak

Production Designer: Erhard Brauchbar

Ethnographical Consultant: Carl Henkel

Screen play: Robert Heymann. Based on Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper

Cast: Emil Mamelok (Hawkeye the Deerslayer), Béla Lugosi (Chingachgook), Herta Heden (Judith Hutter), Gottfried Krause (Tom Hutter), Edward Eyseneck (Worley), Margot Sokolowska (Wah-ta-Wah), Frau Rehberger (Judith Hutter), Willy Schroeder (Hartherz), Her Sohnlein (Col. Munro), Heddy Sven (Cora Munro), Frau Wenkhaus (Alice Munro).

Bela plays Chingachgook, son of the chief of the Delaware Indian tribe and faithful friend of Hawkeye the Deerslayer (Emil Mamelok), who was raised by his tribe after being orphaned. The film was originally released in two parts – Der Letzte der Mohikaner (The Last of the Mohicans) and Wildtöter und Chingachgook (The Deerslayer and Chingachgook). For its 1923 American release, the film was edited down from twelve reels to five and retitled The Deerslayer.

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Die Todeskarawane (The Caravan of Death)

Ustad

Producer: Marie Luise Droop

Director: Josef Stein

Cinematographer: Gustave Preiss and Otto Stein

Screenplay: Erwin Báron and Marie Luise Droop (uncredited). Based on the 1892 novel Von Bagdad nach Stambul by Karl May

The film received its official premiere on November 18, 1920 in Dresden, but had already been shown two days previously in Hamburg.

Cast: Carl de Vogt, Meinhart Maur, Béla Lugosi

Subtitled, “A film of the southern sun in six chapters”, the film had Bela playing an Arab sheik pitted against European travellers in an adventure story set in the Sahara. The second of three films released by Ustad based on desert adventure novels by Karl May. Although Karl May’s widow praised the film, critics were unimpressed and it was a commercial failure. It is now considered lost. Both Carl de Vogt and Meibhart Maur appeared in Fritz Lang’s Spiders (1919). Carl de Vogt also appeared with Conrad Veidt in The Road of Death (1917), Meibhart Maur

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1922

Ihre Hoheit die Tanzein (Her Highness, the Dancer)

Eichberg

Bela’s role is unknown in this, his second film for Eichberg. Falling foul of the censors, the film was never released.

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America and England

1923

The Silent Command

Fox

Presented by William Fox

Director: J. Gordon Edwards

Screenplay: Paul Kelly. Based on a story by Rufus King

Cinematogrpher: George W. Lane

Running time: 91 minutes, later cut to 73 minutes

Copyright number LP19411, August 20, 1923

Cast: Edmund Lowe (Captain Richard Decatur), Bela (misspelt ‘Belo’ in the film credits) Lugosi (Benedict Hisston), Carl Harbaugh (Menchen), Martin Faust (Cordoba), Gordon McEdward (Gridley), Byron Douglas (Admiral Nevins), Theodore Babcock (Admiral Meade), George Lessey (Mr. Collins), Warren Cook (Ambassador Mendizabel), Henry Armetta (Pedro), Rogers Keene (Jack Decatur), J.W. Jenkins (the Decatur’s butler), Alma Tell (Mrs. Richard Decatur), Martha Mansfield (Peg Williams, a vamp), Florence Martin (Her Maid), Betty Jewel (Dolores), Kate Blancke (Mrs. Nevins), Elizabeth Mary Foley (Jill Decatur)

Bela plays  a member of a group of enemy agents intent on destroying the Panama Canal and the U.S. Navy’s Atlantic Fleet. Edmund Lowe as a naval officer, unbeknownst to the navy and his wife, goes undercover to thwart their planned sabotage. Made with the full support of the U.S. Navy, the film was released in September 1923 with colour-tinted scenes.

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Title lobby card

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The New York Times, September 5, 1923

The Screen

“The Silent Command,” which is the attraction at the Central Theatre, is an old-fashioned melodrama with the old school of acting. It is true that the film is dressed up to modern days, with a plot by spies to blow up the Panama Canal.

There are some interesting “shots” of vessels at sea, with water washing over the decks, and the bows of other warships plunging into the trough on a pretty windy day. There is also a prolonged fight between the spy and an American naval intelligence officer on board one vessel, and to a certain extent J. Gordon Edwards has pictured the exhaustion of the two men. But it is not convincing, as in several sequences the men are palpably not out of breath. There are other portions of the fight that are quite stirring.

“The Silent Command” is called a “romance glorifying the esprit de corps of the American navy,” taken from the story by Rufus King.

There is a woman spy in the case, with whom, under an oath of secrecy, a naval captain makes friends, forfeiting for the time being his comrades and his home, even being expelled from the United States Navy for the sake of the effect it will have on the spies. He is seen also being tried by court-martial, and in the sequence following his pseudo-disgrace he receives certain information to impart to the spies, so as to be able to work with them and find out every detail of what they are doing and who is involved in the great plot.

It would not be such a bad picture if, every time a man wanted to say how friendly he was with another, he did not put his hand on his pal’s shoulder. There is a great deal of acting by turning the pupils of the eyes back and forth. The villain, of course, turns his eyes at times into mere slits. The feminine spy embellishes her optics with plenty of make-up all around them, including the lashes. She opens her wicked blue eyes wide when carrying on an optical discussion with the villain at a distant table. The villain sips his wine and opens his big, dark eyes, surmounted by bushy brows. He pretends to flirt with the girl who is in his employ, and thus gets the hero into a scrap in a public restaurant where there are many naval officers. In the course of the fight Captain Decatur, the hero, punches a Rear Admiral. He has to do this in order to make the plot go and throw dust in the eyes of the espions.

There is nothing very subtle in this production, and it therefore keeps nobody guessing, for whoever heard of a hero being outwitted or slain by a lot of mere spies? The splashing waters, the uniforms and the sea pictures are very good.

The Panama Canal and Spies. THE SILENT COMMAND, with Edmund Lowe, Bela Lugosi, Carl Harbaugh, Martin Faust, Gordon McEdward, Byron Douglas, Theodore Babcock, George Lessey, Warren Cook, Henry Armetta, Rogera Keene and others. Adapted from the story by Rufus King. Directed by J. Gordon Edwards. At the Central.

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Edmund Lowe and Bela

1923 Herald

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The Register (Adelaide), February 14, 1924

YORK’S NEW FILM

“The Silent Command.”

Spectacular melodrama is “The Silent Command,” a William Fox production, which will be shown for the first time at the York Theatre on Saturday. The story has an appeal and a message. The opening scenes promise a “thriller,” and each succeding episode conveys a stronger realization of the promise. International intrigue is revealed as the main motive of the plot, and is handled with real power. There are scenes on the high seas and a fight in the wireless room of a vessel between the hero and the head of a band of international spies. Love episodes, of course, there are. A shipwreck, near the end of the picture, is the acme of realism. The acting of the cast is in keeping with the excellence of the production. Edmund Lowe as Capt. Richard Decatur, and Alma Tell, as Mrs. Decatur, head of the list of players. Martha Mansfield, Betty Jewel, Bela Lugosi, Carl Harbaugh, and Edward McEdward also do good work.

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1924

The Rejected Woman

Distinctive Pictures

Bela and Alma Rubens

Director: Albert Parker

Screenplay: John Lynch

Cinematographer: Roy Hunt

Art Director: Clark Robinson

Running time: 85 minutes

Copyright number LP20175, May 3, 1924

Cast: Alma Rubens (Diane Du Prez), Conrad Nagel (John Leslie), Wyndham Standing (James Dunbar), George Mac Quarrie (Samuel Du Prez), Bela Lugosi (Jean Gagnon), Antonio D’Algy (Craig Burnett), Leonora Hughes (Lucille Van Tuyle), Mme. Juliette La Violette (Aunt Rose), Aubrey Smith (Peter Leslie), Frederick Burton (Leyton Carter).

A convoluted story about two lovers (Nagel and Rubens) who overcome social prejudice and misunderstandings to cement their love. Released by the Goldwyn-Cosmopolitan Company in May 1924, the film enjoyed neither critical nor commercial success, despite the popularity of its two leads.

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He Who Gets Slapped

MGM

In the 1950s, Richard Sheffield, a teenage friend of Bela Lugosi, found two stills from He Who Gets Slapped in one of Bela’s scrapbooks. The photos showed what looked like Bela in clown costume and makeup. Richard did not ask Bela about the film, and no documentary evidence has yet been discovered to substansiate his participation in it. 

Could the clown on the left be Bela? This character has lengthy scenes with Chaney, and does at times bear a striking similarity to Bela. In another scene set in a lecture hall near the beginning of film, an actor dressed in evening clothes seated behind Chaney bears a strong resemblance to Bela.

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The New York Times, November 10, 1924

The Screen

The Clown’s Revenge

By MORDAUNT HALL.

At the Capitol this week there is a picture which defies one to write about it without indulging in superlatives. It is a shadow drama so beautifully told, so flawlessly directed that we imagine that it will be held up as a model by all producers. Throughout its length there is not an instant of ennui, not a second one wants to lose; it held the spectators spellbound yesterday afternoon, the last fade-out being the signal for a hearty round of applause. This celluloid masterpiece is Victor Seastrom’s picturization of Leonid Andreyev’s play, “He Who Gets Slapped,” which was presented before the footlights in January, 1922, with Richard Bennett in the principal rôle.

The more enlightened producers were enthusiastic over Mr. Seastrom’s “The Stroke of Midnight,” which was at the same time considered too depressing to be a financial success over here. Nevertheless, this and other productions caused the management of Goldwyn Pictures, Ltd., to engage this director to make pictures in California. Mr. Seastrom left his native heath, Sweden, and his first American-made production was Sir Hall Caine’s “Name the Man,” a lugubrious story filled with anachronisms. A friend of the director predicted at the time that, although he did not like “Name the Man,” Mr. Seastrom eventually would turn out a production which would startle the film world.

Undoubtedly the story is half the battle with an accomplished director, and in “He Who Gets Slapped” Mr. Seastrom obviously realized that he had his great opportunity. He selected his cast with punctiliousness, choosing Lon Chancy, who will be remembered for his work in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and other films, to play the part of the heart-broken scientist who became a clown. Never in his efforts before the camera has Mr. Chaney delivered such a marvelous performance as he does as this character. He is restrained in his acting, never overdoing the sentimental situations, and is guarded in his make-up.

The first flash on the screen shows a clown twisting a colored ball, which gradually fades out into the figure of Beaumont, the scientist, gazing upon a revolving globe. There are many such clever touches in different chapters of this absorbing narrative which deals with the ultimate revenge of the scientist-clown, merely known as “He Who Gets Slapped,” on the man who stole the glory for his work and also his wife. You see the student arguing with Baron Regnard before a gallery of aged notables, and suddenly the nobleman slaps the scientist’s face. The old men rock in their mirth, and this, coupled with the loss of his wife, spurs the student to become a clown with a small traveling French circus. As the principal fun-maker, with a score of other painted-face clowns, he is seen making audiences roar with laughter by being slapped. At that time he had no thought of revenge, but one day he sees the Baron in a seat. The sight of what happened to him in front of the scientists comes before his eyes. One sees the clown fading into the gallery of wise old men, and then again the clowns are shown.

There is the dressing room of the circus, and the pretty daughter of an impecunious Count. The girl (Norma Shearer) soon falls in love with her partner in her riding act, Bezano (John Gilbert). The Count wants her to wed the Baron, and the scheming is discovered by He, the clown. He is weak in fistic encounters, so coolly arranges for a terrible death for the Count and the Baron. He loves the girl, Consuelo, too. She had stitched on his dummy heart night after night of the show. You see him move the lion’s cage up to the door of the little ante-room, which is all ready for a wine supper. Then he enters himself by another door, and in an encounter with the girl’s father heis stabbed by the Count’s sword-stick. He grips his breast tightly to stay the flow of blood, and gradually crawls toward the door, which has only to be opened to release the wild beast. There is wonderful suspense in this stretch, and one is stirred when one sees the startled lion spring through the open door.

Mr. Seastrom has directed this dramatic story with all the genius of a Chaplin or a Lubitsch, and he has accomplished more than they have in their respective works, “A Woman of Paris” and “The Marriage Circle,” as he had, what they did not have, a stirring, dramatic story to put into pictures.

Miss Shearer is charming as Consuelo, and Mr. Gilbert, who gave such an excellent account of himself in “His Hour,” is a sympathetic sweetheart. But the player who is entitled to honors only second to Mr. Chaney is Marc McDermott, who takes full advantage of the strength of his rôle. Tully Marshall is splendid as the scapegrace Count.

For dramatic value and a faultless adaptation of the play, this is the finest production we have yet seen.

The Clown’s Revenge.

He WHO GETS SLAPPED, with Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, John Gilbert, Tully Marshall, Marc McDermott, Ford Sterling, Clyde Cook, Harvey Clarke, Paulette Duval, Ruth King, Brandon Hurst and George Davis, adapted from Leonid Andreyev’s play, directed by Victor Seastrom; overture, “1812,” Tchalkovsky; “Fifth Anniversary of the Capitol”; ballet corps, “Dance of theHours”; “There Is No Death,” Geoffrey O’Hara. At the Capitol.

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1925

Daughters Who Pay

Banner Productions

Director: George Terwilleger

Screenplay: William B. Laub

Cinematographers: Edward Paul, Charles Davis, Murphy Darling

Running Time: 61 minutes

Copyright number LP21211, March 6, 1925

Cast: Marguerite De La Motte (Mary Smith/Sonia), John Bowers (Dick Foster), J. Barny Sherry (Foster’s Father), Bela Lugosi (Serge Oumanski)

With a title that appears to have no relation to the actual story, the plot has secret agent, Mary Smith (De La Motte) living a double life as the respectable Miss Smith on Sundays, and Sonia, a Russian cafe dancer, during the week. Smith must use both of her personalities to help her  bother when he is caught embezzling $10,000 from the millionaire father of Dick Foster (Bowers), one of Sonia’s admirers. After the successful capture of a gang of Russian spies, she is free to reveal her true identity and marry Foster.

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The Midnight Girl

Chadwick Pictures

Director: Wilfred Noy

Screenplay: Wilfred Noy and Jean Conover. Based on an original story byrrett Fort.

Cinematographer: G.W. “Billy” Bitzer and Frank Zukor

Running time: 67 minutes

Copyright number LP2125, March 17, 1925

Cast: Lila Lee (Anna), Bela Lugosi (Nicolas Harmon), Gareth Hughes (Don Harmon), Dolores Cassinelli (Nina), Charlotte Walker (Mrsuyler), Ruby Blaine (Natalie Shuyler), John D. Walsh (Victor), William Harvey (Nifty Louis), Sidney (Joe), Signor N. Salerno (Manager)

 

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1926

Punchinello (short)

Famous Lovers

Duncan Renaldo (left) and Bela

Director: Duncan Renaldo

Running time: 67 minutes

Cast: Duncan Renaldo (Punchinello), Ronda Rainsford, Bela Lugosi (Pierrot)

As Pierrot, Bela played Punchinello’s serenading rival for the affections of the pretty girl portrayed by Ronda Rainsford.

Punchinello was later re-released with an added music and narration as The Mask by Arts Pictures.

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1928

How to Handle Women aka Prince of Peanuts/The Prince of Knuts

Universal Studios

 Director: William J. Craft

Original story by William J. Craft and Jack Foley.

Adapted for the screen by Jack Foley.

Story supervision: Joseph F. Poland

Cinematography: Albert Demond

Titles: Arthur Todd

Editor: charles Craft

Running time: 60 minutes

Copyright number LP25372, June 12, 1928

Cast: Glenn Tryon (Leonard Higgins), Marion Dixon (Beatrice Fairbanks), Raymond Keane (Prince Hendryx), Robert T. Hains (Editor), Bull Montana (The Turk), Cesare Gravina (Tony), E.H. Herriman (Himself), LeSecretary), Mario Carillo (Count Olff), Violet La Plante (Stenographer), Bela Lugosi ( A bodyguard)

Reading Eagle, November 4, 1928

The Park Theatre

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1929

The Last Performance

Universal

Conrad Veidt

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The New York Times, November 4, 1929

A Sinister Magician

By MORDAUNT HALL

After the swarm of more or less noble song-and-dance men who have appeared on the screen since the launching of those plays, ‘”Broadway” and “Burlesque,” it is somewhat of a relief to find that the dominant figure of “The Last Performance,” a silent film now at the Little Carnegie Playhouse, is not a hoofer, but a sinister magician and hypnotist. This production, which was made some time ago by Dr. Paul Fejos at the Universal studio, was probably Conrad Veidt’s last performance in Hollywood before returning to work in Germany.

Dr. Fejos has handled his scenes with no small degree of imagination. They are not always as well photographed as one might hope for, but, due to the fantastic nature of the story, the occasional glimpses of the way in which the magician, Erik the Great, deceives the eyes of his audiences, Mr. Veidt’s clever acting and Mary Philbin’s captivating charm, this picture holds one’s attention. Moreover, the narrative is developed with a certain force and skill.

There are scenes back-stage and others depicting Erik facing his audiences. During the course of one sequence, Erik is perceived on the stage, hypnotizing a woman in a theatre box. But that has little to do with the tale, except to demonstrate Erik’s malignant influence over certain persons.

The gaunt magician falls in love with Julie, one of the assistants in his act. She is not yet 18 and Erik, believing that she reciprocates his affection, looks forward to celebrating her eighteenth birthday by giving a banquet at which he intends to announce the fact that he and Julie are to be married. Julie, however, becomes intensely interested in Mark Royce, a good-looking young fellow, who joins Erik’s act after being discovered in a destitute condition.

Then there is Buffo, a scowling chap who is presumed to be under Erik’s hypnotic influence part of the time. Erik the Great and his company travel from Europe to New York, where the magician arranges for Julie’s birthday dinner. Everything is ready, when the treacherous Buffo calls Erik’s attention to the sight of Julie in Mark’s arms.

Erik then arranges for what he calls his sword trick, which is the idea of a man being shut up in a trunk and then apparently being run through by a dozen swords. There are holes in the trunk through which to pass the blades of the weapons and, of course, the trunk opens at the back so as to permit the person selected to get into the trunk to make his way out before the swords are stuck through.

The act is put on at a New York theatre and Buffo gets into the trunk. The swords are eventually passed through the slots in the receptacle and then one by one, with a dramatic pause, they are withdrawn. As each weapon is passed to him Erik sticks it upright in the stage flooring. As he passes his fingers over the blade of the last sword he notices blood on his hand!

The trunk is opened and Buffo is found dead, one of the swords having passed through his heart. As Mark had stuck the swords through the holes in the trunk, he is arrested, and because it is learned by the police that he was not on good terms with Buffo, he is brought to trial for murder.

The dénouement is worked out in an interesting manner, even though it is far from credible. The last performance of Erik the Great takes place in the court room.

While some of the straight camera work is not up to scratch, there are a number of photographic feats that are quite effective. It is a picture that looks older than it really is, especially in the tinted portions, where one goes from an amber interior scene to an azure blue night in the open.

Leslie Fenton does well as Buffo and Fred MacKaye is sympathetic as Mark.

On the surrounding program are Chaplin’s old comedy, “One A. M.,” and an abstract film study known as “The Story of a Nobody.”

A Sinister Magician. THE LAST PERFORMANCE, with Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin, Leslie Fenton, Fred MacKaye, Gustav Partos. William H. Turner, Anders Randolf, Sam De Grasse and George Irving, based on a story by James Ashmore Creelman, directed by Dr. Paul Fejos; “The Story of a Nobody,” an abstract film study. At the Little Carnegie Playhouse.

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The Veiled Woman

Fox

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Prisoners

First National

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The Thirteenth Chair

MGM

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The Miami News, October 26, 1929

MYSTERY TALKIE ON MIDNIGHT SHOW

“The Thirteenth Chair,” all-talking mystery thriller, is to show at the Olympia theater midnight show tonight.

Strange camera angles, weird and fantastic shadows, embellishing a strange plot of murder, mystery and the supernatural – these are the means by which Tod Browning tells the newest tale of the fims. “The Thirteenth Chair,” a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s all-talking film version of the celebrated stage play.

“The Thirteenth Chair,” which comes to the Olympia theater tonight and plays Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, has taken the original stage play and its original star, Margaret Wycherly, and decked them in mysterious effects and fantstic ideas impossible within the limitatione stage. Uncanny photographic effects, augmented with screams in the dark and a brooding sense of the mysterious in the dialogue, have made thisture an entirely new form of mystery entertainment.

Margaret Wycherly plays the role of “Rosalie La Grange,” which she made famous on the stage in New York, and plays it in the same costume and manner as in her triumph before the footlights. Conrad Nagel, Leila Hyams, Holmes Herbert, John Davidson, Mary Forbes, Helene Millard, Moon Carroll, Clarence Geldert, Lal Chand Mehra and other screen and stage players have parts in the vivid mystery.

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The Miami News, October 27, 1929

“13th Chair” Plays Olympia

Another successful stage play has come to the talking screen. Just as “Madame X” set as new mark in screen technique, so does “The Thirteenth Chair,” Tod Browning’s all-talking film production of the Veiller mystery drama, set a new mark for mystery stories on the screen.

The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer thriller, now playing at the Olympia theater, is Browning’s debut as a director of talking pictures, and serves to introduce Margaret Wycherly, New York stage star, to the screen in the role she created on the speaking stage.

“The Thirteenth Chair” introduces fans to a new order in mystery drama, with ghosts, a ghastly crime, a bafflinng mystery, and a dramatic duel of wits between detectives and a spirit medium seeking to save her daughter from suspicion. While in the main the plot follows the original stage play, the uncanny effects and deft handling of the details make it a more vibrant story.

The romance is provided by Conrad Nagel and Leila Hyams, the latter as the suspected girl, and Nagel as her lover. Their love story runs throughout the entire structure of murder, the supernatural and the other grim elements of the mystery.

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Reading Eagle, October 30, 1929

CONRAD NAGEL AT LOEW’S

Mystery dramas have taken the place of the “all-girl” shows as relaxation for the tired business man, according to Tod Browning, director of “The 13th Chair,” the all-talking picture now at Loew’s.

Every day an increasing percentage of people find an outlet from business worries and nervous depression in the strange and novel atmosphere of the mystery film, which takes them out of their humdrum lives and transports them to one sations.

In the cast are Margaret Wycherly, playing the role which she created in the stage production; Conrad Nagel, Leila Hyams, Bela Lugosi, Mary Forbeoon Carroll, Helen Millard, and others.

The added attractions include Hal Roach all-talking comedy, “Lazy Days,” with the Our Gang Kids in a series of laughable incidents swung around a baby parade. There is also a Feliz , the Krazy Kat, comedy, now synchronized with sound the latest showing of the world’s news for the eye and ear on the Hearst Metrotone news reel. Included are pictures of the Edison jubilee dinner. Two screen acts are on the program. These include another appearance of Claude Doer and his saxophone ensemble, and Yoette Rugel, the Russian nightingale, singing three numbers.

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The Rochester Evening Journal and The Post Express, December 14, 1929

Seance Thrills Audience in Lowe’s Bill

SPECTRES of the spirit world make their first appearance in Tod Browning’s first all-talking picture, “The Thirteenth Chair,” adapted from the well known stage play by Bayard Veiller.

The new Netro-Goldwyn-Mayer mystery film will be shown, beginning tomorrow, at Loew’s Rochester Theater in connection with a strong bill of vaudeville that will feature Emile Boreo, the eminent European singer, who will ofer a series of French and Russian songs and several comic ims.

Fantastic camera angles, shadow effects, uncanny sounds, weird scenes of seances in which tables move and mysterious events occur give movienew sensation in this picture, it is claimed.

India furnishes a background for a sinister plot containing a murder, a struggle between mediums and detectives and other hair raising sequences. The principle role is effectively handled by Margaret Wycherly, who played the same part in the stage version.

Bela Lugosi, who created the role of “Dracula” on the stage, plays the detective, “Delzante,” of the Calcutta Secret Service. A romantic touch is given the uncanny picture by Conrad Nagel, as son of the Calcutta govenor, and Leila Hyams, as the daughter of the medium.ile boreo, who has appeared in a few of the leading vaudeville theaters in the country, in the headline position of the week’s vaudeville bill, has an important place in European musical circles.

In the second position on the vaudeville bill is an act called “SS Honeymoon,” which features Tom and Ray Romaine, who sing, dance and generally make merry. Odiva and Her Seals, an act that has been headlined in vaudeville for many years, and which has played the city on various occasions, wilven an important place on the bill.

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Lobby card

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Margaret Wycherly, Leila Hyams and Bela

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1930

Such Men Are Dangerous

Fox

Catherine Dale Owen and Warner Baxter

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Rochester Evening Journal, September 18, 1929

BAXTER WILL BE IN NEW GLYN PLAY

By LOUELLA O. PARSONS

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 18. – Tell me confidentially don’t you think the title “Such Men Are Dangerous” would be a lure to get the girls into the theater to see Warner Baxter. I think that it would. And that is what Winfield Sheehan thought when he bought the story frominor Glyn, who describes more sex in her novels than any other living writer and who, better still, sells her stories. Kenneth Hawks will direct Warner Baxter, and it is more than likely that Mary Duncan will have the feminine lead.

That reminds me that Mary Duncan is still with Fox, although she has been rumored out of the company more times than there are days in the year.

Who do you think will supervise this production? None other than our boy friend, Al Rockett, who it seems, has moved to the Fox lot. Al has gone to New York to look over plays and stories, and he will do his supervising when he returns from Manhattan.

Winnie Sheehan is sending others of the Fox people to New York, to get a little of the New York atmosphere. David Butler who has just signed a new contract with Fox, will also travel eastward.

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The Tuscaloosa News, March 7, 1930

GLYN ‘CRASHES’ INTO TALKIES IN ‘BAMA FILM

‘Such Men Are Dangerous’ Is Title of Production Coming Thursday

Intriguing to the Nth degree is the story with which Elinor Glyn “crashed” into the talkies. “Such Men Are Dangerous” is drama from beginning to end, and though there is some romance in it, it is not the kind of story that is usually associated with Mdme. Glyn.

Warner Baxter and Catherine Dale Owen, said to be the most beautiful blonde in pictures, play the featured roles. It is the strangest story of smart society that has ever been written.

Kranz, multi-,illionaire suave but hideous to look upon, purchased a bride as he would a new limousine. Lovely and young and attractive, she was unable to endure him – and fled away on her bridal night.

Vexed, he disappears from his luxurious airplane, and later, when given up as lost, he visits a famous plastic surgeon and has his features as well as his body completely remodeled.

The metamorphosis is so contrasting that when he reappears in society, bent on revenging himself on his wife, he is not recognized by her, nor any of his friends or servants. A handsome man of mystery, his one aim in life is to make a certain woman love him – then cast her off.

His determination for revenge, however, is forgotten when he again falls a victim of the charm and beauty of his wife, and he eventually becomes infatuated with her.

“Such Men Are Dangerous” is said to be Elinor Glyn’s masterpiece, and will be the feature attraction at the Ritz Theatre the  days of this week.

On the same program as added features are Noel Frances, a big, blond Ziegfeld mama, in the all talking farce, “Her Hired Husband,” and a Paramount Talkartoon, “Noah’s Lark”.

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Catherine Dale Owen and Hedda Hopper

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The New York Times, March 8, 1930

The Screen

By MORDAUNT HALL

To celebrate the third anniversary of the opening of the Roxy there are at that theatre this week a most interesting talking film and a series of brilliant stage contributions in which the fine hand of S. L. Rothafel is conspicuous.

The picture is called “Such Men Are Dangerous.” In the making of some of the air scenes for this production on Jan. 2 last, ten persons including the director, Kenneth Hawks, met death in a collision of flying machines over the Pacific. Warner Baxter, the featured player, and a man who doubled for him in a parachute leap were in a third machine far enough away from the accident not to be damaged. The pilot raced this machine back to the shore to summon rescuers.

There is in this film an exciting flash of Mr. Baxter’s double making a parachute jump from an airplane. It is an episode that not only recalls the tragedy of the film workers but also the mysterious death of the Belgian financier, Captain Alfred Loewenstein.

Mr. Baxter is first seen in a marvelous make-up, with a prominent aquiline nose and a heavy, pointed beard. He impersonates Ludwig Kranz, a man of immense wealth and great power. The opening scene is devoted to the pretentious marriage of Kranz and Elinor (Catherine Dale Owen). As the married couple are coming out of the church, a girl happens to remark on Kranz’s forbidding appearance. It is overheard by the bridegroom, who realizes that the girl was probably correct. That night Elinor runs away, leaving no reason for her disappearance. This causes Kranz to reflect further on his ugliness.

Kranz is an individual who makes up his mind quickly. He decides to seek revenge on his wife for humiliating him. He tells his secretary to have a drawing account of $100,000 in three banks in Europe in the name of Pierre Veillard. He then orders his airplane and goes forth on a journey alone. While flying the Channel, he, unseen by the pilot, fastens on a parachute and then leaps from the machine to the sea.

His disappearance is told with big headlines in the newspapers and the next thing the spectator knows is of his visit to Dr. Goodman, a famous plastic surgeon. Kranz, posing as Veillard, says that he wants his back straightened and his face improved. Can it be done? Dr. Goodman is reluctant to take the case. He is a humanitarian and believes first in attending to war cases. Kranz, however, offers him a check for £20,000 and Goodman decides that as this money can go toward helping many worthy people, he will undertake the case.

The next seen of Kranz is when his head is covered with bandages and, eventually, when he is thoroughly healed, he is the handsome Mr. Baxter. Dr. Goodman then returns to Kranz the £20,000 check, as he realizes that this patient is the man who had contributed most generously to his war work.

From then on until Kranz decides to uncover his identity to his wife, he is Pierre Veillard, a popular man with the women, and one who attracts even his own wife. Everything seems to have been given attention in this story except Kranz’s voice, which one might presume would be recognized. His eyes have been covered with double-lens spectacles, his chin with a beard and his upper lip with a heavy mustache, but the voice is the same, except that after posing as the fascinating Veillard his tones are cheery.

It is natural that Kranz’s nature should change with his improved appearance. He has a taste for everything in a lighter vein, including clothes. People no longer look in awe at him, but smile. In the old days the financier never experienced a wholesome smile in his direction.

This story was written by Elinor Glyn, and Ernest Vajda undertook to write the dialogue. Mr. Vajda has done exceedingly well with a minimum number of words.

Mr. Baxter gives a serious and highly effective portrayal of Kranz, who in the end is told by Elinor that his soul was uglier than his physiognomy. Catherine Dale Owen is lovely as Elinor. Albert Conti does capital work as Kranz’s secretary and Hedda Hopper makes the most of the part of Elinor’s grasping sister. Claude Allister is amusing as a hen-pecked husband, an extravagant type, but nevertheless a merry specimen. Bela Lugosi gives a sincere performance as Dr. Goodman.

Skin Deep. SUCH MEN ARE DANGEROUS, with Warner Baxter, Catherine Dale Owen, Albert Conti, Hedda Hopper, Claude Allister and Bela Lugosi, based on a story by Elinor Glyn, directed by the late Kenneth Hawks; “Laugh, Clown, Laugh,” with Harold Van Duzee; “Processional Religioso”; “In a Jasmine Garden,” with Beatrice Belkin and others; “An Anniversary Party,” with Patricia Bowman, the Roxyettes and others. At the Roxy Theatre.

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Warner Baxter

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The Tuscaloosa News, March 12, 1930

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The Tuscaloosa News, March 13, 1930

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The Tuscaloosa News, March 14, 1930

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The King of Jazz

Universal

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Bela and Paul Whiteman

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The New York Times, May 3, 1930

A Sparkling Extravaganza

By MORDAUNT HALL

John Murray Anderson’s initial contribution to the audible screen, “King of Jazz,” with the rotund Paul Whiteman, reveals this director to be a magician of far greater powers than one imagined, even from his stage compositions. This Technicolor potpourri of songs, dancing and fun is a marvel of camera wizardry, joyous color schemes, charming costumes and seductive lighting effects. The only adverse criticism to be offered is that some of the sequences are a little somber, but even in these stretches Mr. Anderson’s highly artistic and imaginative mind is constantly apparent.

It is one of the very few pictures in which there is no catering to the unsophisticated mentality, for all the widely different features are of a high order and yet one can readily presume that they will appeal to all types of audiences.

This “King of Jazz,” referred to as an extravaganza, is something to be expected only from a director well versed in motion pictures, and the wonder that it should be Mr. Anderson’s first film impresses one with the value of stage training in making vocalized films. For even in photographic tricks it is apparent in this picture that Mr. Anderson has ruled the roost. Also there is nothing imitative, all the various turns being blessed with originality. Dance numbers on the screen have invariably been tedious, but in “King of Jazz” they are never on the screen too long, and while they are on exhibition they are thoroughly diverting.

This sparkling piece of work has the audacity to commence with a remarkably clever cartoon series of jocose scenes telling how Mr. Whiteman wos crowned king of jazz. No sooner is that over than a giant Whiteman appears on the screen, and he is asked by Charles Irwin, the master of ceremonies, as to the whereabouts of the jazz king’s band. Mr. Whiteman has a small box, and he informs Mr. Irwin that the forty musicians are in it. The tiny men are produced from the box and mount the elaborate stand, and soon they assume the same proportions as the image of Mr. Whiteman. Several of the musicians are introduced individually, and finally there is presented an opulent number called “The Bridal Veil,” during the course of which Jeanette Loff is heard rendering a pleasing song. The charm of this number, like many of the others, reveals that Mr. Anderson has visualized the full possibilities of the camera in connection with his flights of fancy.

As each number vanishes from the screen there comes to view Whiteman’s huge scrapbook, another page of which is turned for the forthcoming feature. One of the witty interludes, as brief as some of Noel Coward’s scintillating shafts, shows Laura La Plante as a city editor of a sensational feminine newspaper. She wants alacrity from her staff. A girl reporter comes in and reports that a building in Forty-third Street has been burned to the ground. The city editor wants to know when it happened, and the reporter says: “Ten minutes ago.” Another reporter announces that a big bank has been robbed five minutes before. A third member of the staff dashes up to her chief, declaring: “Woman shoots her husband.” Miss La Plante requests to know when it happened, and the reporter, with a staying hand, says:

“Wait, listen.” And then a pistol report is heard!

John Boles, a far better John Boles than was seen in “Captain of the Guard,” sings something about a romance on the Rio Grande, and then there are dainty ballads from several girls. There is Jack White, who is described by Mr. Irwin as a “fellow of infiniate jest, but just a little nutty.” White sings a dream about a fish fight. The Brox Sisters also render a melody in a skit called “Bench in the Park,” and then follows an amusing parody called “All Noisy on the Eastern Front.”

An impressive conception of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” is set forth with much artistry. The primitive musical elements are registered by the rhythmic beating of a drum, and gradually this grows into the playing of jazz on the usual instruments.

If anything, the “Melting Pot” number, the last of the series, is the most elaborate and impressive of all. William Kent, a comedian who appears in all the skits and does exceptionally able work, receives the opportunity at this latter stage of events to recite a comic bit about his intense affection for two goldfish. It is something that has to be seen to be appreciated and it aroused gusts of laughter yesterday afternoon.

The climax to this beautiful and artistic series of scenes is the rendering of tunes and songs from many nations that are finally blended into a whole.

There is no sequence that isn’t worth witnessing and no performance that is not capable in this fast-paced picture.

Mr. Whiteman appears in person and conducts the orchestra. George Gershwin is also to be seen in the flesh, playing his “Rhapsody in Blue.”

A Sparkling Extravaganza. KING OF JAZZ, with Paul Whiteman, John Boles, Laura La Plante, Jeanette Loff, Glenn Tryon, Merna Kennedy, Kathryn Crawford, Stanley Smith, William Kent, Grace Hayes, Sisters G, the Brox Sisters, George Chiles, Jacques Cartier, Frank Leslie. Charles Irwin, the Russell Markert dancers and others, with songs and lyrics by George Gershwin, Mabel Wayne, Milton Ager and Jack Yellen, music score by Ferdie Grofe, directed by John Murray Anderson, produced by Universal Pictures Corporation. At the Roxy Theatre.

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The Pittsburgh Press, June 20, 1930

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Reading Eagle, June 22, 1930

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Wild Company

Fox

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The Miwaukee Sentinel, August 25, 1930

Motion Picture Reviews

By DAWN O’DEA.

STRAND – “Wild Company” is apreachment intended primarily for eyes and ears of modern parents.

It takes mother and dad severely to task for the shameful behavior h. When Johnny makes a misstep that involves him with the law, not Johnny but his incompetent pa and ma should be put behind bars.

This is an outmoded theme, but it is fairly attttractively served up and if it reaches the right ears it may do some good. Frank Albertson, a juvenile who is stepping right along, gives a believable picture of a wayward son. H.B. Warner’s father gets a bit too sloppily sentimental at the trial scene. Claire Mc Dowell is a restrained and sympathetic mother and George Fawcett has a good bit as the sermonizing judge.

This should have been called “Sins of the Parents.”

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The Milwaukee Sentinel, August 25, 1930

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Renegades

Fox

Window card

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Rochester Evening Journal and the Post Express, November 10, 1930

Powerful Punch in ‘Renegades’ at Loew’s

ONCE IN the life of every who glories in being a man, there comes a time when idols fall, when ideals crumble, when a selfish desire to run away from commonplace duties and seek adventure in untrodden paths holds sway.

For men who have felt this urge – whether or not they have heeded it, there is a message at Loew’s Rochester this week. 

Renegades, that theater’s current film attraction, may have a thousand morals and it may have none. But it packs a powerful punch, this wild tale of three wilder young fellows, outcasts from civiliation apparently by choice, to whom nothing is sacred and everything fair game.

Plotted in parched wastes of the Sahara, the story is based on the age old war between the West and the East – the French against the Riff. It involves the inexplicable actions of the four soldiers of fortune who, because they fail to respect traditions of the French Foreign Legion, suffer from discrimination of superiors and suddenly find themselves shorn of honor and branded as deserters.

Warner Baxter plays Deucalion, French nobleman, leader of the outlawed quartet. Noah Beery, who’ll be remembered for his Sergeant Lejaune of Beau Gest, is cast in another heavy role – that of the German, Machwurth, Gregory Gaye, who did a British officer in Black Watch, plays Vologuine, the Russian.

Special laurels go to George Cooper, praised for his character work in Trail of ’98 and The Barkerides comedy relief in the portrayal of Biliox, Hoboken bootlegger and machine gun expert, who joined the legion when a district attorney back home became too quisitive.

Exotic Myrna Loy enacts Eleonore, the cosmopolitan adventuress, who wreaks havoc among the four and leads them at last into a death trap in which she herself is caught. A strange tale of love turned to hate is woven into the action of the play, to which Miss Loy contributes a lot. Few other women of the screen could have carried such an unusual assignment.

Victor Fleming’s eye for realism is apparent in the staging. Renegades is done on a grand scale, with troops of Arab cavalry, long colums of French infantry and huge fortress in the imposing panorama.

Everyone who ever yearned for daring adventure should see this one.

- R.W.W.

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Viennese Nights

Warner Brothers

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The New York Times, November 27, 1930

The Screen

A Vitaphone Operetta in Technicolor

By MORDAUNT HALL

Appealing musical compositions, agreeably sung and well played, compensate for imperfections in the dialogue and story of “Viennese Nights,” a Vitaphone operetta in Technicolor, which was offered last night by Warner Brothers at Warners’ Theatre. A few sequences may be a trifle slow, and when Alan Crosland, the director, indulges his fancy in imaginative episodes he frequently gives too much of it, but nevertheless this is a picture with virtues that decidedly counterbalance its shortcomings. In fact, when one harks back to some other film operettas this feature reveals marked progress.

In the program it is set forth that the story is based upon a romance written specially for the screen by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein 2d. It is a happy-go-lucky affair which at times recalls Jessie Fothergill’s novel “The First Violin,” and in the closing chapters it possesses incidents that suggest Noel Coward’s production “Bitter Sweet.”

It is primarily a musical entertainment, but at the same time one in which its none too novel narrative often captivates one’s interest. The fact that the characters suddenly give vent to their feelings in song and that they are occasionally accompanied by an unseen orchestra, does not worry one, because the singing is invariably satisfactory and the ballads are beguiling. Alexander Gray acts well and sings with an effect that is rarely heard from the screen. Vivienne Segal has at last her opportunity in this picture, for not only is her voice nicely recorded; but she looks far more attractive than she has in other cinema productions. This is especially marked in the penultimate scenes.

This romance begins in Vienna in 1880, when Otto, a budding composer; Franz, a young nobleman, and Gus, a comic individual, are beheld on the eve of joining their regiment. Later, when the troops return, Elsa goes to the balcony of her home and both Otto and Franz are captivated by this charming girl.

Hocher, Elsa’s father, at first appears to have a kindly nature, but subsequently he arranges matters so that Otto is led to believe that Elsa is in love with Franz. The composer imbibes too freely of wine and then makes a fool of himself and Elsa therefore cannot be blamed for choosing to become the bride of the philandering Franz.

The stupid Otto, instead of remaining a bachelor, marries a nagging woman who has no sympathy with music. This is stressed with a vengeance by Mr. Crosland, who depicts the tired Otto, eleven years later a second fiddler in the opera in New York, trying to compose music on a piano while his wife is volleying her disapproval from her bedroom and urging her husband to take a job in Gus’s highly successful pickle factory.

One night Franz and his wife attend the opera and Elsa recognizes Otto. After the performance she bids the musician ride in her carriage through the park, but although they both declare their love for each other she decides to accompany her husband back to Europe.

When a subtitle announced that forty years pass, the audience last night was rather amused. Soon one perceives Elsa as a gray-haired woman who is inveigled into going to listen to a new composer’s symphony played by a large orchestra. Otto’s son has also studied music. He succeeds where his father had failed. Elsa rises out of her wheel chair, after leaving her seat in the hall, and limps back to listen to the music because she hears a familiar theme composed by the unfortunate Otto.

Although Mr. Crosland lingers here and there on some pet idea, his direction is far superior to most of his pictures, and certainly infinitely superior to his recent contributions.

Mr. Hersholt gives his usual diligent care to his part. Mr. Pidgeon is fair in his rôle. Bert Roach is rather out of his element in such a story.

The Technicolor camera work is a little dark in some of the scenes, but it has its good points in others. In showing a butcher’s shop, the Technicolor camera men ought to beware of raw meat, for its tint is anything but real in a flash of this film. The glimpses of uniforms of officers and the gowns of women, however, benefit by this prismatic photography.

A Vitaphone Operetta in Technicolor. VIENNESE NIGHTS, with Alexander Gray, Vivienne Segal, Jean Hersholt, Walter Pidgeon, Louise Fazenda, Alice Day, Bert Roach, June Purcell and Milton Douglas, based on an original romance written for the screen by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein 2d, directed by Alan Crosland. At Warners’ Theatre.

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Rochester Evening Journal and Post, December 27, 1930

Colorful Film of Old Vienna at Capitol

By DAVID KESSLER

A BEAUTIFUL romance , set to charming music and lavishly staged, is “Viennese Nights,” the operetta on the Capitol screen this week. It is a picture that will send your memories kiting back pleasantly to a more leisurely and possibly colorful day.

Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II have written some of their most tuneful and stirring music for this picture. It is sung and played beautifully. The operetta, in fact, is of the “Blossom Time” type.

Perhaps I’m growing a bit sentimental. Whatever the cause, there were several times during the unfolding of this simple love story that a little lump worked its way into an unaccustomed part of my throat. It is just that sort of story.

Laid in gay Vienna and New York of the memorable 90′s, the story is more or less routine. You know the type. Beautiful daughter marries a baron when she really loves a struggling musician and then spends the rest of her life regretting it.

The scenes in old Vienna are especially charming. Songs are introduced at logical moments, giving the whole story good sequence. And what songs! You’ll be humming three or four of them for some time. “You Will Remember Vienna,” “Don’t Let Our Love Song Die,” “Here Are We,” and a stirring regimental somng are the particular hits. There is also an unusually symphonic arrangement of the “Love Song” played by a full symphony orchestra.

Although there have been better individual singing performances in previous films, “Viennese Nights” undoubtably has the greatest number of good singers I have heard in one picture. Vivienne Segal has the prima donna role. Alexander Gray sings the principal male part. Then there is Walter Pigeon’s resonant baritone and some excellent solo work by an unnamed baritone and contralto. The ensemble singinginfectious and spirited.

Bert Roach and Louise Fazenda essay the comedy, of which there is far too little. None of it is very funny. Alice Day and Jean Hersholt are the other principals.

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The Sydney Morning Herald, June 23, 1931

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The Calgary Herald, March 8, 1932

PALACE BRINGS BACK FAVORITE MUSICAL DRAMA

Because of insistant demand for a return, “Viennese Nights,” the Romburg-Hammerstein musical romance, will be shown at the Palace theatre for three days commencing Wednesday. The second feature will be “The Deceiver” featuring Ian Keith, Dorothy Sebastian and Lloyd Hughes.

The story of “Viennese Nights” is that of a young Austrian composer and musician who falls in love with the daughter of a cobbler in Vienna while he is on military service there. Her father has other ambitions for her and eventually she is married, not to her musician lover, but to a wealthy young count.

Years pass. The musician has married, but unhappily. w York, where he has gone to better his fortunes, he sees his old love, now at the Austrian embassy with her husband. They meet and plan to run away together. But she learns he has a son and will not permit him to leave the boy. They separate, this time forever. There is still a romance to come before the pictu

“The Deceiver” is a mystery story. The leading man of a theatrical troupe is mysteriously murdered. Any one of six persons in the cast might be guilty. One by one they are brought under superstition. The solution of the mystery is not given until the final moment.

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The Calgary Herald, March 10, 1932

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Oh For A Man

Fox

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Pittburgh Post-Gazette, September 13, 1930

By Louella O. Parsons

How mber seeing a gorgeous portrait of Alison Skipworth, painted when she was young, in Daniel Frohman’s apartment. He had seen Miss Skipwogirl in London and had been so intrigued with her beauty and charm that he had engaged her to come to America to play the lead in a Charles Frohman production. She was slim and young and devastating in her blonde beauty. She is older now and no longer slim, but withal, a wonderful actress. The portrait, I might add, was painted by her husband and given to Mr. Frohman as a memento. Miss Skipworth and Bela Lugosi have been signed for “Stolen Thunder” for Fox.

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Reading Eagle, December 17, 1930

JEANETTE MacDONALD IN COMEDY AT CAPITOL

From the tensely dramatic role of “Dracula,” in the stage play of that title, to the quiet mild role of a singing teacher in “Oh for a Man!” is a far leap for Bela Lugosi, eminent Hungarian actor, but he bridges the gap easily in the Hamilton MacFadden production for Fox film which features Jeanette MacDonald and Reginald Denny and now playing at the Capitol.

The Mary F. Wilkins’ story concerning a burglar a prima donna, with the burglar entering the prima donna’s apartment to steal her jewels and remaining to steal her heart.

Later the prima donna marries him.

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1931

Dracula

Universal

Jumbo lobby card

Lobby cards

 

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Bela by Joseph Grant for the Los Angeles Record, 1931

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New York Times, February 13, 1931

Bram Stoker’s Human Vampire

By MORDAUNT HALL

Count Dracula, Bram Stoker’s human vampire, who has chilled the spines of book readers and playgoers, is now to be seen at the Roxy in a talking film directed by Tod Browning, who delights in such bloodcurdling stories. It is a production that evidently had the desired effect upon many in the audience yesterday afternoon, for there was a general outburst of applause when Dr. Van Helsing produced a little cross that caused the dreaded Dracula to fling his cloak over his head and make himself scarce.

But Dracula’s evil work is not ended until Dr. Van Helsing hammers a stake through the Count’s heart as he lies in his native earth in a box.

Mr. Browning is fortunate in having in the leading rôle in this eerie work, Bela Lugosi, who played the same part on the stage when it was presented here in October, 1927. What with Mr. Browning’s imaginative direction and Mr. Lugosi’s makeup and weird gestures, this picture succeeds to some extent in its grand guignol intentions.

As the scenes flash by there are all sorts of queer noises, such as the cries of wolves and the hooting of owls, not to say anything of the screams of Dracula’s feminine victims, who are found with twin red marks on their white throats.

The Count is able to change himself into a vampire that flies in through the window and in this guise he is supposed to be able to talk to his victims, who are either driven insane or are so thoroughly terrified that they would sooner do his bidding that pay heed to those who have their welfare at heart. Martin, the keeper in the sanitarium in which an unfortunate individual named Renfield is under supervision, fires at the big bat with a shot gun, but, of course, misses.

To enhance the supernatural effect of this film there is a fog in many of the scenes. The first glimpses are of ordinary humans, but so soon as Renfield goes to the Transylvania castle of the Count, who lives on for centuries by his vampirish actions, there are bony hands protruding from boxes, rats and other animals fleeing, and corridors that are thick with cobwebs and here and there a hungry spider.

Most of the excitement takes place in Carfax Abbey and other places in England, the Count having traveled there to accomplish his blood-thirsty intentions. To start the grim work he causes all the ship’s crew to go insane and commit suicide, but his subsequent activities are not as fruitful as he anticipates.

Helen Chandler gives an excellent performance as one of the girls who is attacked by the “undead” Count. David Manners contributes good work. Dwight Frye does fairly well as Renfield. Herbert Bunston is a most convincing personality. Charles Gerrard affords a few laughs as Martin.

This picture can at least boast of being the best of the many mystery films.

Bram Stoker’s Human Vampire. DRACULA, with Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan, Herbert Bunston, Frances Dade, Charles Gerrard, Joan Standing, Moon Carroll and Josephine Velez, based on Bram Stoker’s novel, directed by Tod Browning; overture, “Rhapsody in Blue”; Movietone news real: “Hello, New York!” with Santry and Norton and others, including Leonide Masine and the Roxyettes. At the Roxy.

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The Washington Reporter, March 10, 1931

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Edmonton Journal, March 19, 1931

Footlight Glow

Capitol: “Dracula” rises out of the shadows of a dingy, musty old coffin in a rat-infested abbey to appear on the Capitol screen in a series of weird, mysterious and almost terrifying scenes. He rises again, a ghost of the dead past, to live in the shadows of the night, there to weild a supernatural power over hum and melts again into the mists of daybreak, leaving no tangible trace of his demonic carnage. Such is the powerful figure of Count Dracula, enacted in this dramatic picture by Bela Lugosi.

Would you be horrified to hear long drawn out howls in the night? Would the thought freeze you with terror if you had a premonition of evil about to crash over you? Would you fear this hypnotic maniac if you met him? All these are so realistic in “Dracula” that one grips the seat – or even the neighbor’s ars this dead terror of 500 years ago pounces swiftly and silently on his victims.

Yet, with this power tos serve him through his use of hypnotism, there is a calm, strong-willed professor who understands the great phenomena of this feared, and he seeks to destroy him. The dangers he faces with others to track Dracula to his coffin are crowded with dramatic situations and gripping adventiures that place you almost at the professor’s elbow as you see him finally face to face with the dreaded Dracula . . . and the professor wins! By all means you will go and see “Dracula”; you’ll be afraid to miss it now.

To give contrast to the program there is a Talkartoon and a snappy comedy captioned “One Yard To Go,” that will give you giggles aplenty to relieve you from the tense attituyou have taken. Fox movietone news is highly interesting to complete an excellent program at the Capitol for two days more – C.E.B.

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Reading Eagle, March 22, 1931

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Berkeley Daily Gazette, April 24, 1931

“DRACULA” WILL BE SEEN HERE MONDAY

One of the most famous of all actors on stage or screen would like to forget the character that made him famous! Audiences on Broadway were thrilled for more than two years by his artistry; millions of picture fans throughout the country are being fascinated by the startling impersonation he gives on the screen. But the character haunts him, and he never wants to play it again.

The actor is Bela Lugosi, and the character is Count Dracula in the most startling of all plays or pictures – “Dracula.” Bram Stoker, the famous English novelist, wrote it first as a novel – this terrifying narration of an “undead” being who rises from his grave at night and through his horrible influence brings death and suffering to his victims.

For more than a thousand nights, Lugosi played it in the theater. Then when the Universal Studios decided to produce the great story as a picture, Lugosi was the natural choice for the role he had made so famous on the stage.

At first, it was difficult to prevail upon him to appear on the screen. He had lived with the horrible vampire character so long on the stage that he wanted to forget, and how could he forget if he played it again on the screen.

But he finally consented, and for weeks at the Universal City studios while the picture was in production, he lived again the startling, fantastic role of Count Dracula. Those who have seen both play and picture assert that his impersonation for the film is even greater than his stage work.

But, now that the picture is finished and will be shown at the Fox California Theater for 4 days starting Monday, Lugosi says he will never play the role again.

Besides Lugosi, two other playes of the original stage cast appear – Edward Van Sloan and Herbert Bunston. In addition, there are many other favorites, including David Manners, Helen Chandler, Dwight Frye, Frances Dade, Charles Gerrard and Joan Standing. Tod Browning, creator of weird and unusual films, directed the picture.

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Kentucky Theatre, Lexington, 1931

The Capitol, “Bombay’s Leading Talkie House”, 1931

Keith’s Theatre, Baltimore, 1931

Rivoli Theatre, Matawan, New Jersey, 1931

Princess Theatre

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle (New Zealand), July 1932

Stills courtesy of  www.doctormacro.com

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Fifty Million Frenchmen

Warner Brothers

Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Queensland), January 6, 1931

Profitable Two Minutes

Two minutes work on Warner Bros’s. First National Vitaphone special, “Fifty Million Frenchmen,” netted £200 to Bela LUgosi, Hungarian actor. Only Lugosi, according to the casting director, fitted the role of the East Indian magician who enters towards the close of the piece. To secure his services, Warner Bros’s. First National guaranteed him a week’s salary of £200. When the picture was completed, he had worked a total of two minutes. “Fifty Million Frenchmen” is photographed entirely in technicolour.

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Women of All Nations

Fox

The New York Times, May 30, 1931

The Screen

War, Women and Wine

By MORDAUNT HALL

Those rivals in love and friends in war, Flagg and Quirt, who first came to light in the play, “What Price Glory?” are at it again in “Women of All Nations,” the current pictorial attraction at the Roxy. They are impersonated respectively by Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe, the players who figured in the same rôles in the film of “What Price Glory?” and also in that money-making meretricious production, “The Cock-Eyed World.”

This new contribution is reminiscent of “The Cock-Eyed World.” It has the same reprehensible sort of fun, which succeeded in provoking the much-desired gusts of laughter from an audience at the first showing yesterday afternoon. Messrs, McLaglen and Lowe are aided in their low comedy by El Brendel, who is a private in the marines, while Flagg and Quirt are top sergeants in the same force.

Raoul Walsh, director of “The Cock-Eyed World,” is also responsible for the far from subtle activities of this offering, which is one that will probably please those who liked its predecessor. It begins with flashes of the World War and then swings to the Panama Canal, where Quirt enjoys the satisfaction of escorting Flagg to the brig and locking him up. Following that, Flagg has his innings when he is a recruiting sergeant and Quirt endeavors to keep the wolf from the door by running a feminine beauty parlor. The place is raided and Flagg only considers saving Quirt from the police when the latter consents to liquidate an old debt and rejoin the marines.

In this film, the events take Flagg and Quirt, to Sweden, where the leathernecks are supposed to be on a good-will mission. Here the rivals encounter Elsa, a dainty blonde, but they also meet her sweetheart, Olaf, who proves himself to be more than an equal for Flagg, Quirt and Olsen (Mr. Brendel). Olaf in rage throws the three marines through a wall and, according to a later report from Elsa, he subsequently tore down the whole building, which gives a faint idea of the stuff of which this screen story consists.

In course of time the adventurers are beheld in Turkey, where they learn that Elsa has become a favorite of the much-feared Prince Hassam, whose wives are many. The ribald activities here are devoted partly to Flagg and Quirt climbing over a wall to visit Elsa; then their being hidden. Unknown to each other, in two different closets, while the ubiquitous Olsen is in a third.

Prior to the scenes in Turkey it might be stated that Flagg and Quirt go to Nicaragua, where a wall falls on Quirt, and when the zealous Flagg and his men succeed in rescuing him from the débris, all Quirt wants to know is what kept them so long.

It is a fractious tale with what might pass for Rabelaisian humor. Messrs McLaglen and Lowe do their best to serve it with what is wanted. The feminine contingent consists of Greta Nissen, Fifi Dorsay and Marjorie White. Bela Lugosi fills the part of the polygamist, Prince Hassam.

War, Women and Wine. WOMEN OF ALL NATIONS, directed by Raoul Walsh; produced by the Fox Film Corporation. At the Roxy. Sergeant Flagg . . . . . Victor McLaglen  Sergeant Quirt . . . . . Edmund Lowe  Elsa . . . . . Greta Nissen  Olsen . . . . . El Brendel  Fifi . . . . . Fifi Dorsay  Pee Wee . . . . . Marjorie White  Captain of Marines . . . . . T. Roy Barnes  Prince Hassan . . . . . Bela Lugosi  Stone . . . . . Humphrey Bogart  Kiki . . . . . Joyce Compton  Izzie . . . . . Jesse De Vorska  Leon . . . . . Charles Judels

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The Black Camel

Fox

Bela and cast members aboard the City of Los Angeles

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 3, 1931

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 3, 1931

HOLLYWOOD IN HAWAII AS FILM PARTY ARRIVES

More Than 40 Persons Here To Take Scenes For Talkie, ‘Black Camel’

A generous piece of Hollywood came to Honolulu today when a company of more than 40 moving picture people arrived on the City of Los Angeles to spend a week taking scenes for the production of Earl Derr Biggers’ “The Black Camel.”

Actors, directors, cameramen, sound technicians, scrip writers, “prop” men, and husbands or wives of members of the company made up the party.

Heading the company was Hamilton MacFadden, the young director who produced another of Biggers’ Charlie Chan tales, “Charlie Chan Carries On,” recentlu.

With William Fitzgerald, production manager, who arrived a week in advance of the party, Mr. MacFadden expects to look over prospective locations today and start “shooting” Saturday.

On the trip down the members of the company were by no means given a vacation, as scenes were taken for the picture on shipboard during the voyage, even on the morning of their arrival. Likewise, their stay here will be no holiday, as the short visit they are making will necessitate intensive work.

Playing the part of Charlie Chan, the infallible Honolulu detective, is Warner Oland, well known on the screen for his portrayals of sundry villainous characters, including that of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

According to Mr. Oland, the change of character from former “villain” poarts to the genial character odf Charlie Chan was welcome. He played the same role in “Charlie Chan Carries On.”

Another prominent member of the cast is Bela Lugosi, who created the role of Count Dracula in the stage production of that horror story by Bram Stoker, and who played the same role in the Universal picture of that play, which since its release has been breaking house records in mainland theatres. He will play the role of the crystal gazer in this picture.

Sally Eilers, who in private life is Mrs. “Hoot” Gibson, wife of the popular western picture star, will play the leading female role, that of Julie. She is accompanied by her  husband, who is not, however, a member of the company.

“Hoot” predicts “bigger and better” days for western pictures which, said, are increasingly popular.

The role of Sheila Fane, the actress whose murder forms the plot of the play, will be played by Dorothy Revier.

Miss Violet Dunn, who is the wife of Director MacFadden, will play the part of Anna, the actress’ maid.

Bernard Connell will be the beachcomber towards whom suspicion is directed in the murder. He has been letting his beard grow during the voyage.

Other members of the cast include Alphonse Eithie, Victor Varconi, Murray Kinnell, William Post and Robert Young.

Sam Wurtzul is assistant director, Ben Carre art director, William Sistrom Fox supervisor, and Philip Klein and Barry Conners, scrip writers, besides cameramen and other technical staff members.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 3, 1931

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Warner Oland and Bela

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Variety, July 7, 1931

THE BLACK CAMEL

Charlie Chan, the Chinese Sherlock Holmes of Earl Derr Biggers’ imagination, must be gathering a screen rep for himself by now. He’s an extremely interesting character while solving mystery plots and sprinkling comic epigrams on the dialog. And he always comes out on top. In “The Black Camel” Chan clears up a three-in-one murder. The killing of a femme film star on location in Honolulu is the plot’s hub. As a story, it’s interesting, with the film star stuff compounding the interest. Plus what might come through the Chan rep the picture will do moderate business. In the building-up process for the character Chan, Fox seems to have in Warner Oland an actor who can keep the role going indef. This ex-heavy makes the Oriental dick a man who can be watched often. Amidst the soft Hawaiian beach scenery this time two murders are committed. The third murder cleared up was the first, having occurred in Hollywood years before this narrative starts. The Hollywood victim was a director called Denny Mayo. It is brought out early that that Shelah Fane, the star, murdered Mayo, but who murdered Miss Fane later is the question. Most of the suspicion is directed at the star’s personal fortune teller, Tarneverro, and the next most at her ex-husband, an actor. The maid is directed into almost tipping her mitt at the start of the film, cut [sic] when the climax arrives, just before she’s nabbed, the girl is the least suspected member of the cast. That’s the usual way with mystery plots. When it’s not the maid, it’s the butler. “The Black Camel’s” butler is, of course, implicated too, having committed the other killing. He was in love with the maid, and he shot a beachcomber who knew too much. Cleverly directed, and as much as any mystery-satiated customer would suspect the maid and butler at the start, there’s enough plot development to switch anyone’s convictions. The maid angle is cleared up sensibly enough. She was Mayo’s widow. The fortune teller was Mayo’s brother. They were both on Shelah Fane’s trail to bring her to justice, but the girl couldn’t wait for justice to catch up. Bela Lugosi, the crystal peeker, and Victor Varconi as the first husband, are boys who can always look guilty under the right conditions, and in this instance the conditions are perfect between dialects and scowls. Sally Eilers and Dorothy Revier were capable of dolling up the South Sea scenery, which is all they were required to do. Otherwise no acting standouts. In that department the film is all Oland.

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Lobby cards

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Roxy Theatre Programme

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Bela and WarnerOland

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New York Times, July 6, 1931

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Bela, Sheila Fane  and Werner Oland

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Broadminded

First National

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1932

Murders in the Rue Morgue

Universal

Window cards

Publicity stills

Herald

Lobby cards

Newspaper ad

1948 re-release poster

1948 re-release lobby card

1959 Screen Gems still

Spokane Daily Chronicle, January 14, 1932

BELA LUGOSI TO STAR IN POE MURDER FILM

Bela Lugosi, who has won for himself an international reputation by first creating the role of Count Dracula on the stage and then bringing that astounding character to the screen, is now one of Hollywood’s outstanding stars. He is to appear next season in the film production of Edgar Allan Poe’s thriller, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

Born in Lugos, Hungary, October 20, 1884, the son of Baron Lugosi, a banker, Lugosi went to high school and the Academy of Theatrical Art in Budapest. At 20 he made his stage debut as Romeo in a Hungarian production of “Romeo and Juliet” and followed it with three years of Shakespearean repertoire, Ibsen and other classics. He played Armand in a modern Hungarian version of “Camille.”

Speaks Little English

Lugosi came to New York and in 1925 he appeared in his first English apeaking play, “The Red Poppy,” without having previously spoken more than a few words in English. His second Broadway appearance was in the leading role in “Arabesque” and this was followed by the lead in “Open House” and “The Devil in the Cheese.” His fifth performance was as Count Dracula in “Dracula” at the Fulton theater. After nearly two years in New York and in the east, Lugosi played eight weeks at the Biltmore theater, Los Angeles, and four weeks at the Music Box in Hollywood.

Lugosi is 6 ft. 1 inch tall, weighs 179 pounds, has dark blue eyes and dark brown hair. He is an accomplished musician and dancer and has a lyric barytone voice. Durinng the war he was a first lieutenant in the Hungarian infantry, serving two and a half years.

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The New York Times, February 11, 1932

After Edgar Allan Poe

A.D.S

“Murders in the Rue Morgue,” which was offered at the Mayfair Theatre last night, represents a collaboration between Edgar Allan Poe, Tom Reed and Dale Van Every. Poe, it would seem, contributed the title and the Messrs. Reed and Van Every thought up a story to go with it. For this synthetic blood curdler, with its crazy scientist and its shadowy ape, is not in any important respect to be confused with Poe’s ratiocinative detective story.

C. Auguste Dupin, that brilliant analyst of clues and motives, has become, if you please, a romantic medical student. Camille L’Espanaye, for whom Poe imagined such a grotesque fate, is a beautiful ingenue who keeps company with Dupin. There is a Dr. Mirakle who frowns savagely into test tubes in his laboratory near the Seine and snatches girls off the streets for his experiments. Thereafter he drops them into the river through a trapdoor, whence by a devious route they turn up in a morgue—a real nineteenth century morgue.

If it is inevitable that Dr. Mirakle should eventually cast his eye upon the lovely Camille, it is also inevitable that Dupin should arrive out of the crooked Paris streets in time to rescue the lovely Camille from a fate in Dr. Mirakle’s laboratory that is at least as grotesque and certainly more absurd than Poe ever imagined. The crowning spectacle of the ape clambering over the Paris roofs with the unconscious Camille on its arm brought some irreverent squeals from last night’s audience.

What it is that Bela Lugosi, who fills the rôle of Dr. Mirakle, is trying to prove with his blood tests remains to the end a matter of conjecture. The entire production suffers from an overzealous effort at terrorization, and the cast, inspired by the general hysteria, succumbs to the temptation to overact. Miss Sidney Fox and Leon Waycoff are the romantic leads and Bert Roach supplies some tepid comedy. The name of the actor who played the part of the ape is not divulged.

MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s story; directed by Robert Florey; a Universal Picture. At the Mayfair. Dr. Mirakle . . . . . Bele Lugosi Camille L’Espanaye . . . . . Sidney Fox Pierre Dupin . . . . . Leon Waycoff Paul . . . . . Bert Roach Prefect of Police . . . . . Brandon Hurst Janos, the Black One . . . . . Noble Johnson The Morgue Keeper . . . . . D’Arcy Corrigan The Mother . . . . . Betty Ross Clarke

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White Zombie

Amusement Securities Corporation

Poster

Lobby cards

The New York Times, July 29, 1932

The Screen

Beyond the Pale

L.N

Necromancers waved their sinister hands from the screen of the Rivoli yesterday and tried to hynotize blondes into killing their boy friends. A legion of individuals, with deceased minds but alert bodies, threw butlers into subterranean streams. Eagles screamed and vultures carried on a terrific caterwauling all around a mountainous castle. And half way through the picture that inspired all these things an actor wistfully remarked:

“The whole thing has me confused; I just can’t understand it.”

That was, as briefly as can be expressed, the legend for posterity of “White Zombie.” Charity—still the greatest of the trilogy—suggests that the sentence be allowed to stand as comment. To go on would lead only to a description of why the eagles screamed, and that would prove very little, indeed, in the orderly scheme of life. There was, in short, no great reason. Nor was there, to be candid, much reason for “White Zombie.” The screen, shuddering slightly, can go on; it can forget, it can be a Zombie, too.

The idea of the picture is that in Haiti there are individuals who dig up bodies, invest them with motive power but not with intelligence, and set them to work. They make good servants. They can carry off blondes without getting ideas in their heads, which helps in these mad days. When they have served their fell purposes, moreover, they can walk off high cliffs and out of the picture. But not the necromancers; they must be shoved over, off and out.

Of the cast, Bela Lugosi plays the chief part—that of the lad who has the power to turn corpses into automatons. Madge Bellamy is the blonde, John Harron the young man in the affair and Robert Frazer a sort of semi-tropical villain. All the actors have strange lines to say, but appear to enjoy saying them. Those given to Mr. Harron seem, on retrospection, to be the most fantastic—if a superlative of any sort is allowable in a discussion of “White Zombie.”

“Not that,” he says at one point. “Better death than that.”

Yes, indeed, much better. Beyond the Pale. WHITE ZOMBIE, based on a story by Garnett Weston; directed by Victor Halperin; a Halperin production; released by United Artists. At the Rivoli Theatre. Murder Legendre . . . . . Bela Lugosi Madeline Short . . . . . Madge Bellamy Dr. Bruner . . . . . Joseph Cawthorn Charles Beaumont . . . . . Robert Frazer Neil Parker . . . . . John Harron Driver . . . . . Clarence Muse Silver . . . . . Brandon Hurst Pierre . . . . . Dan Crimmins Chauvin . . . . . John Peters Von Gelder . . . . . George Burr McAnnan

Herald

Stills

Madge Bellamy

1938 re-release pressbook

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Chandu the Magician

Fox

The New York Times, October 1, 1932

A Radio Marvel

A.D.S.

This is hocus-pocus week at the Roxy, where most of the photographic tricks known to Hollywood have been assembled to startle and confound the enemies of Chandu. Under the persuasive eyes of the quondam magician of the radio, good English rifles crumple and turn into snapping vipers, ropes up-end themselves in the air, souls rise out of bodies and bodies absent themselves out of their clothes. For Chandu—Edmund Lowe in Oriental dress—is an adept in the mystic arts of the Yogi, and not all the powers of darkness, abetted by tear gas, poison, trapdoors, collapsible dungeon floors and the great mad Roxor himself, can prevail against those eyes.

On the radio the nightly recital of Chandu’s adventures contrived, in the well-remembered manner of Pauline and Elmo the Mighty, to open with an escape from an impossible dilemma and to close with a plunge into a more impossible one. Not unexpectedly, this screen version has the same clutter of climaxes from which the great Chandu emerges every five minutes with the same facility. The result is whooping entertainment for the children and a series of naïvely juvenile escapades for the grown-ups.

Roxor, a baleful character whose behavior may be described with the simple information that Bela Lugosi plays the part, is a madman who wants to possess himself of a death ray and destroy the world. The ray is the invention of a certain Robert Regent, traveling in Egypt with his family. Chandu, an adventurer turned Yogi, shows up in time to prevent the annihilation of the entire family and to battle Roxor all over Egypt in the process of saving the world from extinction. Although Chandu, like a good Yogi, is indifferent to all earthly things, his indifference does not keep him from loving and ultimately wedding the Princess Nadji, another imperiled damsel.

In one episode Chandu is manacled, bundled into a weighted coffin and dropped to the bottom of the Nile, whence he rises safely after a sufficiently harrowing struggle. Herbert Mundin, as the drunken and gullible orderly of the mystic, provides some badly needed humor. Mr. Lugosi’s familiar tactics of terrorization seem overstated. Irene Ware, a newcomer, makes a charming juvenile as the Princess.

A feature of the stage show is an effective arrangement of Kol Nidre, rendered by William Robyn and a large chorus. “Box o’ Tricks” and “Dance Away the Night” are the other stage pageants. CHANDU THE MAGICIAN, from the radio serial by Harry A. Earnshaw, Vera M. Oldham and R. R. Morgan; directed by Marcel Varnel and William C. Menzies; produced by the Fox Film Corporation. At the Roxy. Chandu . . . . . Edmund Lowe Princess Nadji . . . . . Irene Ware Roxor . . . . . Bela Lugosi Albert Miggles . . . . . Herbert Mundin Robert Regent . . . . . Henry B. Walthall Abdullah . . . . . Weldon Heyburn Dorothy . . . . . Virginia Hammond Betty Lou . . . . . June Vlasek Bobby . . . . . Nestor Aber

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Intimate Interview (short)

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1933

Island of Lost Souls

New York Times January 13, 1933

Charles Laughton as a Mad Scientist in a Pictorial Conception of an H.G. Wells Story.

By Mordaunt Hall.

Charles Laughton, who portrays Nero in Cecil B. De Mille’s “The Sign of the Cross” is cast as a mad scientist in “Island of Lost Souls,” a very free translation of H. G. Wells’s book, “The Island of Dr. Moreau.” In this picture, which is now at the Rialto, Mr. Laughton assuredly has ample opportunity to spread terror among audiences, for as Dr. Moreau his aim is to convert wild animals into creatures that walk and talk like human beings.

Although the attempt to horrify is not accomplished with any marked degree of subtlety, there is no denying that some of the scenes are ingenously fashioned and are, therefore, interesting. The general effect of the film is enhanced greatly by Mr. Laughton’s urbane impersonation. The ghoulish surgeon is for the most part calm and earnest in his strange activities, but when he leads the way to his house on the small mysterious island, he wields a whip on the hideous muttering group of creatures, explaining to a refugee from a ship that he learned to crack the big whip in Australia. In one sequence the ape-like creatures are asked several times by Dr. Moreau, “What is the law?” And they reply: “Not to eat meat; are we not men? Not to run on all fours. Not to gnaw the bark off trees. Not to spill blood.”

There is a suggestion of “Frankenstein” and also something akin to “Emperor Jones” in this ghastly affair. The ape-men look upon the white-clad Moreau, with a pistol strapped to his wrist, as the one who made them, the one who heals them and the one who runs the House of Pain. Dr. Moreau’s greatest triumph is Lota, who is referred to as the Panther Girl. She is docile, and Moreau introduces her to Edward Parker, the survivor of a shipwreck. The insane surgeon has reason one day to believe that the wild animal in Lota is returning despite his scientific treatment.

The story reminds one of “Emperor Jones” when the muttering ape-men hear that Dr. Moreau has drawn blood and because he has broken the law set down among them, they decide to take him to the so-called House of Pain—the place where Moreau performs his operations and the mere mention of which had hitherto made them cringe and mutter with fright. The hairy creatures whom Moreau had given the power of limited speech and had taught to walk on two legs, dispose of their master in his own chamber of horrors.

Needless to say there is little sympathy for this demoniacal scientist. However, as it as a melodrama that hopes to make one’s blood curdle, but only hopes, one can be thankful that the ape creatures permit the best actor in the tale to survive until nearly the end.

Richard Arlen portrays Parker acceptably. Arthur Hohl does quite well as Moreau’s agent, Montgomery. Kathleen Burke with a weird make-up interprets the rôle of Lota. Leila Hyams is attractive and quite satisfactory as the girl Parker is engaged to marry.

ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s book, “The Island of Dr. Moreau”; directed by Erie Kenton; a Paramount production. At the Rialto. Dr. Moreau . . . . . Charles Laughton Edward Parker . . . . . Richard Arlen Ruth Walker . . . . . Leila Hyams Lota . . . . . Kathleen Burke Montgomery . . . . . Arthur Hohl Captain Davies . . . . . Stanley Fields Hogan . . . . . Robert Kortman M’Ling . . . . . Tetsu Komai Ouran . . . . . Hans Steinke Gola . . . . . Harry Ekezian Samoan Girl . . . . . Rosemary Grimes Captain Donahue . . . . . Paul Hurst American Consul . . . . . George Irving Leader of the Ape-Men . . . . . Bela Lugosi

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The Death Kiss

The New York Times, February 5, 1933

By MORDAUNT HALL.

A Murder Mystery.

WITH its new policy of low prices and vaudeville in lieu of special stage presentations, the Seventh Avenue Roxy drew great crowds last week. The screen offering was “The Death Kiss,” which, although it is somewhat staccato in its dialogue and movement, at least affords a decided surprise in the closing sequence.

There are several other surprises in the course of this feature, and at the outset one sees persons in an automobile discussing killing a man and then one hears shots and perceives a victim fall. It turns out to be the acting of a scene for a motion picture, with the confident director in his camp chair. He grumbles about the death scene, telling the actor that he spins too much and it does not look real. A second later it is discovered that the actor playing the part of the man who is supposed to die actually has been shot. He is dead and the spinning was his last histrionic effort. This much happens in the opening sequence, and from then on the interest is kept up, even though somewhat mechanically, until the climactic episode, when the identity of the individual responsible for the shooting of one actor and the poisoning of another is revealed.

The picture has a group of efficient players, including Adrienne Ames, David Manners, Bela Lugosi, Alexander Carr, Vincent Barnett and Barbara Bedford.

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Night of Terror

Lobby cards

Still courtesy of  http://www.moviemonstermuseum.com/belalugosi2

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International House

Lobby card

New York Times, May 27, 1933

Wild Fan.

A.D.S.S.Z.

At the Paramount they are dispensing humor by the shot-gun method, and it should be said at once that “International House” has some direct hits. In a mad scenario the new film finds a generous amount of space for such diverse comics as W. C. Fields, Stuart Erwin, Burns and Allen and Stoopnagle and Budd, with a corner for Peggy Hopkins Joyce to dig gold in. Measured in laughs, this potpourri of unrelated talents is surprisingly good.

A Chinese of questionable genius brings most of the cast to the “International House” with his announcement of an invention which combines the best features of the radio and television. Bela Lugosi, with the sinister eyes, is on hand to represent Russia at the demonstration. Mr. Erwin, acting for an American company, has a talent for catching childhood diseases, and when he comes down with the measles the “International House” is quarantined. George Burns and Gracie Allen are the house doctor and nurse, occupations which let them run through their hilarious dialogue at any given moment.

How W. C. Fields, whose destination is Kansas City, finds his way into this lunatic ménage in a helicopter is something that cannot possibly matter after the picture has started on its unsteady course. With his regal and somewhat beery manner, his precious silk hat, his frozen face and his unlit cigar, he keeps his audiences in perpetual roars. His athletic argument with the hotel clerk, which brings most of the “International House” thundering about his ears, is the funniest thing in the picture, unless it be his clandestine rendezvous with Miss Joyce in her boudoir.

Doctor Wong’s demonstrations of his great invention permit the introduction of such radio entertainers as Rudy Vallee, Cab Galloway and Baby Rose Marie. To Mr. Vallee falls the only really inept episode in “International House,” and that is the fault of the script. Although the writing is uneven, a great deal of it is funny, and it is of particular help to Mr. Fields and to Burns and Allen.

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE, based on a story by Lou Heifetz and Neil Brant; music and lyrics by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin; directed by Edward Sutherland; a Paramount production. At the Paramount. Peggy Hopkins Joyce . . . . . Peggy Hopkins Joyce Professor Quail . . . . . W. C. Field Tommy Nash . . . . . Stuart Erwin Carol Fortescue . . . . . Sari Maritza Dr. Burns . . . . . George Burns Nurse Allen . . . . . Gracie Allen General Petronovich . . . . . Bela Lugosi Dr. Wong . . . . . Edmund Breese Sir Mortimer Fortescue . . . . . Lumsden Hare Hotel manager . . . . . Franklin Pangborn Herr von Baden . . . . . Harrison Greene

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The Devil’s in Love

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The Whispering Shadow (serial)

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Hollywood on Parade #A8 (short)

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1934

The Black Cat

1934 trade advertisement poster for the retitled British release

Swedish poster

The New York Times, May 19, 1934

Not Related to Poe

A.D.S.

The acknowledgment which the producers of “The Black Cat” graciously make to Edgar Allan Poe seems a trifle superfluous, since the new film is not remotely to be identified with Poe’s short story. A clammy and excessively ghoulish tale of hi-jinks in a Hungarian horror salon, it describes, with appropriate hysteria, the curious behavior of a gentleman named, if the program spelling can be trusted, Hjalmar Poelzig. Hjalmar (Boris Karloff with a black cloak and a triangular hair cut) is the leader of a cult of devil worshippers. He usually carries a black cat up his voluminous sleeve because his enemy, Dr. Verdegast, rolls his eyes and froths at the mouth when he sees black cats, and that suits Hjalmar.

It seems that Dr. Verdegast (Bela Lugosi) has come back from a dungeon cell to claim his wife and child. Hjalmar has the wife in a glass case downstairs with his collection of embalmed beauties. He has married the daughter. Now it seems, too, that a young American novelist and his beautiful wife have had an accident and are spending the night as Hjalmar’s guests. Hjalmar needs a maiden for the mystic midnight rites. The novelist’s wife is elected after a symbolic chess game between the two enemies. If one may whisper that, near the end there is a big scene in which the mad doctor pegs Hjalmar to the wall and goes to work with his scalpels to flay the wicked hide off the mystic one, a prospective audience can get a pretty fair idea of what the scenario writers have put into “The Black Cat.”

As for the cats, they hardly stay in front of the camera long enough to give the title a good workout, because the doctor is always pegging away at them with knives and automatics. The staging is good and the camera devotes a proper amount of attention to shadows and hypnotic eyes. There are also some good workmanlike screams from the various imperilled beauties. But “The Black Cat” is more foolish than horrible. The story and dialogue pile the agony on too thick to give the audience a reasonable scare. David Manners and Jacqueline Wells are Hjalmar’s guests.

The Park Central Revue, making its first Broadway appearance, is on the Roxy’s stage. Teddy Bergman, Wesley Eddy and his “Gang,” and the Foster dancing girls are among the entertainers.

THE BLACK CAT, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s story; directed by Edgar Ulmer; a Universal production. At the Roxy. Hjalmar Poelzig . . . . . Boris Karloff Dr. Verdegast . . . . . Bela Lugosi Peter Alison . . . . . David Manners Joan Alison . . . . . Jacqueline Wells Karen Poelzig . . . . . Lucille Lund Majordomo . . . . . Egon Brecher Maid . . . . . Anna Duncan Car steward . . . . . Herman Bing Train conductor . . . . . Andre Cheron Train steward . . . . . Luis Alberni

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Gift of Gab

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Return of Chandu (serial)

The New York Times, April 15, 1935

At the Criterion

F.S.N

Our 10-year-old great-grandson informed us that “Return of Chandu,” featuring Bela Lugosi, has been playing the neighborhood houses in serial form. It seems all too likely. Mr. Lugosi and his magic ring, which permits him to vanish into thin air, much to his enemies’ dismay, saves an Egyptian princess from the sacrificial altar of a sinister Eastern cult. Elementary melodrama, my dear Watson.

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Screen Snapshots #11 (short)

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The Hollywood Movie Parade (short)

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Black Cat Parade (newsreel)

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1935

Best Man Wins

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The Mysterious Mr. Wong

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Mark of the Vampire

The New York Times, May 3, 1935

At the Rialto and the Mayfair

F.S.N.

Horror being a precious commodity in the cinema and a potent lure to the box-office, it is not altogether surprising this week to discover that two Broadway houses—the Mayfair and the Rialto—have avidly laid claims to the same picture. Its name is “Mark of the Vampire” and it manages, through use of every device seen in Dracula and one or two besides, to lay a sound foundation for childish nightmares. Even the adults in the audience may feel a bit skittery at the sight of two or three vampires, a bevy of bats, a herd of spiders, a drove of rodents and a cluster or two of cobwebs, not forgetting the swarm of fog.

The undead, which is the professional name for the zombies of the piece, have chosen the tiny village of Visoka in Czechoslovakia for their depredations this time. There is a ruined castle whose sole tenants are believed to be the vampires, Count Mora (Bela Lugosi in private life) and his red-lipped daughter, Luna (Carol Borland). One night Sir Karell Borotyn is found dead, the telltale marks on his throat, his body drained of its blood.

“Vampires!” wail the villagers. “Murder!” insists Inspector Neumann. Lionel Barrymore drops in to become Professor Zelen, savant and delver into the occult. He scatters bat-thorn (also known as wolf’s claw) about the place to keep the vampires away, but soon it is apparent that Sir Karell’s daughter and her fiancé are being unwilling blood donors to the earth-bound spirits.

To go further into the story would be unfair to Tod Browning, director of the piece, and its authors, Guy Endore and Bernard Schubert. Let it be enough merely to add that, for all its inconsistencies, “Mark of the Vampire” should catch the beholder’s attention and hold it, through chills and thrills, right up to the moment when the mystery of the vampires of Visoka is solved. Like most good ghost stories, it’s a lot of fun, even though you don’t believe a word of it.

MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, from a story by Guy Endore and Bernard Schubert; screen play by the Messrs, Endore and Schubert; directed by Tod Browning; produced by E. J. Mannix for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Professor Zelen . . . . . Lionel Barrymore Irene Borotyn . . . . . Elizabeth Allan Count Mora . . . . . Bela Lugosi Inspector Neumann . . . . . Lionel Atwill Baron Otto . . . . . Jean Hersholt Fedor . . . . . Henry Wadsworth Dr. Doskill . . . . . Donald Meek Midwife . . . . . Jessie Ralph Jan . . . . . Ivan Simpson Chauffeur . . . . . Franklyn Ardell Maria . . . . . Leila Bennett Annie . . . . . June Gittelson Luna Mora . . . . . Carol Borland Sir Karell Borotyn . . . . . Holmes Herbert Innkeeper . . . . . Michael Visaroff

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The Raven

The New York Times, July 5, 1935

The Screen

“The Raven,” With Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, Is a Horror Film in More Sense Than One

F.S.N.

Suddenly there came a tapping As of some one gently rapping —

But there will be no gentle rapping from this corner of the curious photoplay, “The Raven,” which Universal, with amazing effrontery, describes as having been inspired by two Edgar Allan Poe classics, “The Raven” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.”

A hybrid harder to describe than Boris Karloff’s newest make-up, the Roxy’s current tenant should have no difficulty in gaining the distinction of being the season’s worst horror film. Not even the presence of the screen’s Number One and Two Bogymen, Mr. Karloff and Bela (Dracula) Lugosi, can make the picture anything but a fatal mistake from beginning to end.

If you are as curious as we were to see how the movie makers would combine “The Raven” and “Pit and Pendulum”—using Karloff and Lugosi in the process—you may be interested to learn that what Poe suggested to the script boys was a story about a mad surgeon. The chap—Mr. Lugosi—had read Poe so thoroughly that he had gone whacky, kept a stuffed raven (no, Mr. Karloff does not play the raven) on his desk for luck and built a torture room in his cellar.

When the father of the young woman he would espouse refuses to give his blessing, the surgeon invites all the principals to a house party and then, cackling ghoulishly the while, tries out his torture machines. If it had not been for Mr. Karloff—this time with a dead eye, a slack mouth and few other cute touches—the death rate would have been terrific.

Of course, it must be said that Lugosi and Karloff try hard, even though, both being cultured men, they must have suffered at the indignity being visited upon the helpless Edgar Allan. But if “The Raven” is the best that Universal can do with one of the greatest horror story writers of all time, then it had better toss away the other two books in its library and stick to the pulpies for plot material.

The stage show presents Herman Timberg, Tip, Tap and Toe, a dancing trio; the Digatanos, the Gae Foster girls and Freddie Mack’s orchestra.

THE RAVEN, suggested by Edgar Allan Poe’s poem; screen play by David Boehm; directed by Louis Friedlander; a Universal production. At the Roxy. Bateman . . . . . Boris Karloff Dr. Vollin . . . . . Bela Lugosi Jean Thatcher . . . . . Irene Ware Jerry Halden . . . . . Lester Matthews Judge Thatcher . . . . . Samuel Hinds Mary . . . . . Inez Courtney Geoffrey . . . . . Ian Wolfe Colonel Grant . . . . . Spencer Charters Harriet . . . . . Maidel Turner Chapman . . . . . Arthur Hoyt

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Murder by Television

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Mystery of the Mary Celeste

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San Diego Exposition Opened (newsreel)

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1936

The Invisible Ray

The New York Times, January 11, 1936

At the Roxy

F.S.N.

Time marches on. When last we saw Mr. Karloff he was the tragic monster trapped in the tumbling masonry of Frankenstein’s mountain laboratory. Now, according to the Roxy’s “The Invisible Ray,” Karloff has restored the laboratory to its former state and, subleasing it from Frankenstein, has become a scientist on his own. More than that, he has discovered a new element—Radium X—which can blast a boulder at fifty paces or heal the lame, the halt and the blind at ten.

As the story unreels, you realize that this is just another case of a man’s manager bringing him along too fast. It is no wonder Karloff’s mind cracks under the strain. Becoming poisoned with the new element and acquiring the deadly property of killing everything he touches, he decides to rid the earth of his wife, her lover, the woman whom he suspects fostered their romance and the two scientists who revealed Radium X to the world.

Universal, which seems to have a monopoly on films of this sort, has made its newest penny dreadful with technical ingenuity and the pious hope of frightening the children out of a year’s growth. There is evidence, too, that Carl Laemmle wanted to say “boo” to maturer audiences. In a printed foreword is the legend, “That which you are now to see is a theory whispered in the cloisters of science. Tomorrow these theories may startle the universe as a fact.” Boo right back at you, Mr. Laemmle!

THE INVISIBLE RAY, from a story by Howard Higgin and Douglas Hodges; screen play by John Calton; directed by Lambert Hillyer; a Universal production. Dr. Janos Rukh . . . . . Karloff Dr. Benet . . . . . Bela Lugosi Diane Rukh . . . . . Frances Drake Ronald Drake . . . . . Frank Lawton Sir Francis Stevens . . . . . Walter Kingsford Lady Arabella Stevens . . . . . Beulah Bondi Mother Rukh . . . . . Violet Kemble Cooper Briggs . . . . . Nydia Westman Headman . . . . . Danell Haines

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Postal Inspector

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Shadow of Chinatown (serial)

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1937

SOS Coastguard (serial)

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1939

Son of Frankenstein

The New York Times, January 30, 1939

‘Son of Frankenstein,’ With Boris Karloff, Seen at the Rivoli

No use beating around the razzberry bush: if Universal’s “Son of Frankenstein,” at the Rivoli, isn’t the silliest picture ever made, it’s a sequel to the silliest picture ever made, which is even sillier. But its silliness is deliberate—a very shrewd silliness, perpetrated by a good director in the best traditions of cinematic horror, so that even while you laugh at its nonsense you may be struck with the notion that perhaps that’s as good a way of enjoying oneself at a movie as any. It must have been all the actors themselves could do, in this day and age, to keep straight faces—always excepting poor Boris Karloff, of course, who couldn’t laugh through all that make-up even if he tried.

For “Son of Frankenstein” is a chip off the old Doc, the most horrible horror picture you ever saw—at least since “The Bride of Frankenstein” (which was a sequel to “Frankenstein”). Imagine, if you can, a picture so tough that Basil Rathbone plays a sympathetic part in it, so mean you feel sorry for Lionel Atwill, so ghastly that Bela Lugosi is only an assistant bogyman. If you can imagine all this, then it is possible that you may have a pale, partial conception of Frankenstein, fils. It is such a picture that—if Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley had suspected the mere possibility of it—she might have consigned that first mild manuscript to the flames, in sheer diffidence. For our part, we’re rather glad she didin’t.

Anybody who’d like a nice, unsunny place to be haunted in couldn’t do worse than rent Castle Frankenstein for the season. Such a paradise of low, brow-bursting beams! Such a number of enchanting secret doors and passageways! Such endless miles of corridors rendered fascinating by skiddy turns, pneumoniac draughts and sudden, breakneck stairways! Such lovely views of the countryside, which combines the picturesque features of the Bad Lands of South Dakota with the rustic charm of the brimstone beds in and around Vesuvius. With a pit of boiling sulphur in the basement and Bela Lugosi living there as a combination monster-nurse and janitor, what could be cozier?

Yes, sir, Castle Frankenstein is the showplace of the neighborhood. At dinner in the great hall Josephine Hutchinson seems justified in remarking to Basil that the front-door knocker “gets on her nerves,” inasmuch as each stroke is equivalent to the Independence Day explosion in San Francisco. When the butler fails to show up and Mr. Rathbone (who thinks he has got the monster safely hidden out in the “lab,” as he calls it, of all things) inquires about him, the second man matter-of-factly explains: “He took a tray to the baby in the nursery, sir, and we haven’t seen him since.”

No, by George, you couldn’t beat Castle Frankenstein for the purposes you have in mind—as a place to be haunted in, that is—and it certainly ought to be available cheap, considering what happened to the last tenants. It must be quite a problem to heat, though.

SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, from a screen play by Willis Cooper; directed and produced by Rowland V. Lee for release by Universal. At the Rivoli. Baron Wolf von Frankenstein . . . . . Basil Rathbone The Monster . . . . . Boris Karloff Ygor . . . . . Bela Lugosi Krogh . . . . . Lionel Atwill Elsa von Frankenstein . . . . . Josephine Hutchinson Amelia . . . . . Emma Dunn Peter von Frankenstein . . . . . Donnie Dunagan Benson . . . . . Edgar Norton

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The Gorilla

The New York Times, May 28, 1939

The Screen

‘The Gorilla,’ With the Ritz Brothers, Patsy Kelly and Lionel Atwill, Opens at the Roxy

Twentieth Century-Fox has not, we regretfully report, enhanced the standing of the comic muse, nor has it contributed much to the enjoyment of patrons of the Roxy this week, through its comedy treatment of the ancient Ralph Spence chiller tersely titled, “The Gorilla.” The Ritz Brothers—Harry, Jimmy and Al—are there to supply a note of hilarity to the supposedly eerie proceedings, but even their antic buffoonery is not equal to the task. The real comedian of the show, strangely enough, is a gentleman named Art Miles (he’s the gorilla) who pops up every so often emitting strange noises and thumping his hairy chest—courtesy of the prop department—in the best Tarzan tradition.

As for the story—well, its the old one about the country gentleman who receives threatening notes from an unknown source signed “the gorilla.” Midnight is the hour of his (Lionel Atwill) doom and the Ritzes arrive at the scene an hour or so before to see that he is properly protected, they, of course, being private detectives. From this point on things begin to happen. People like Anita Louise and Patsy Kelly shriek themselves hoarse; Mr. Atwill disappears, the Ritz brothers disappear (one by one), Bela Lugosi appears out of the nowhere; secret panels in the walls open and close; flashes of lightning illuminate gloomy rooms.

It’s all supposed to be either very funny or shockingly thrilling, depending how you look at it. We couldn’t see it either way.

THE GORILLA, as adapted by Rian James and Sid Silvers from the play by Ralph Spence; directed by Allan Dawn; produced by Darryl F. Zanuck for Twentieth Century-Fox. At the Roxy. Garrity . . . . . Jimmy Ritz Harrigan . . . . . Harry Ritz Mulligan . . . . . Al Ritz Norma Denby . . . . . Anita Louise Kitty . . . . . Patsy Kelly Walter Stevens . . . . . Lionel Atwill Peters . . . . . Bela Lugosi Stranger . . . . . Joseph Calleia Jack Marsden . . . . . Edward Norris Seaman . . . . . Wally Vernon Conway . . . . . Paul Harvey The Gorilla . . . . . Art Miles

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Ninotchka

Garbo and Bela

The New York Times, November 10, 1939

The Screen In Review

‘Ninotchka,’ an Impious Soviet Satire Directed by Lubitsch, Opens at the Music Hall

By FRANK S. NUGENT

Stalin won’t like it. Molotoff may even recall his envoy from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. We still will say Garbo’s “Ninotchka” is one of the sprightliest comedies of the year, a gay and impertinent and malicious show which never pulls its punch lines (no matter how far below the belt they may land) and finds the screen’s austere first lady of drama playing a dead-pan comedy role with the assurance of a Buster Keaton. Nothing quite so astonishing has come to the Music Hall since the Rockefellers landed on Fiftieth Street. And not even the Rockefellers could have imagined M-G-M getting a laugh out of Garbo at the U.S.S.R.’s expense.

Ernst Lubitsch, who directed it, finally has brought the screen around to a humorist’s view of those sober-sided folk who have read Marx but never the funny page, who refuse to employ the word “love” to describe an elementary chemico-biological process, who reduce a Spring morning to an item in a weather chart and who never, never drink champagne without reminding its buyer that goat’s milk is richer in vitamins. In poking a derisive finger into these sobersides, Mr. Lubitsch hasn’t been entirely honest. But, then, what humorist is? He has created, instead, an amusing panel of caricatures, has read them a jocular script, has expressed—through it all—the philosophy that people are much the same wherever you find them and decent enough at heart. What more could any one ask?

Certainly we ask for little more, in the way of thoroughly entertaining screen fare, than the tale of his Ninotchka, the flat-heeled, Five-Year-Plannish, unromantically mannish comrade who was sent to Paris by her commissar to take over the duties of a comically floundering three-man mission entrusted with the sale of the former Duchess Swana’s court jewels. Paris in the Spring being what it is and Melvyn Douglas, as an insidious capitalistic meddler, being what he is, Comrade Ninotchka so far forgot Marx, in Mr. Lubitsch’s fable, as to buy a completely frivolous hat, to fall in love and, after her retreat to Moscow, to march in the May Day parade without caring much whether she was in step or not.

If that seems a dullish way of phrasing it, we can only take refuge in the adventitious Chinese argument that one picture is worth a million words. Mr. Lubitsch’s picture is worth at least a few thousand more words than we have room for here. To do justice to it we should have to spend a few hundred describing the arrival of the Soviet delegation in Paris where they debate the merits of the Hotel Terminus (a shoddy place) and the Hotel Clarence where one need push a button once for hot water, twice for a waiter, thrice for a French maid. Would Lenin really have said, as Comrade Kopalski insisted, “Buljanoff, don’t be a fool! Go in there and ring three times.”

We should need a few hundred more to describe the Paris tour of Ninotchka, under Mr. Douglas’s stunned capitalistic guidance; the typically Lubitsch treatment of a stag dinner party, with the camera focussed on a door and only the microphone capable of distinguishing between the arrival of a cold meat platter and that of three cigarette girls on the hoof; the Moscow roommate’s elaboration of the effect of a laundered Parisian chemise upon the becottoned feminine population of an entirely too-cooperative apartment house.

For these are matters so cinematic, so strictly limited to the screen, that news print cannot be expected to do justice to them, any more than it could do full justice to Miss Garbo’s delightful debut as a comedienne. It must be monotonous, this superb rightness of Garbo’s playing. We almost wish she would handle a scene badly once in a while just to provide us with an opportunity to show we are not a member of a fan club. But she remains infallible and Garbo, always exactly what the situation demands, always as fine as her script and director permit her to be. We did not like her “drunk” scene here, but, in disliking it, we knew it was the writer’s fault and Mr. Lubitsch’s. They made her carry it too far.

We objected, out of charity, to some of the lines in the script: to that when Ninotchka reports: “The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians”; and to that when the passport official assures the worried traveler she need not fret about the towel situation in Moscow hotels because “we change the towel every week.” But that is almost all. The comedy, through Mr. Douglas’s debonair performance and those of Ina Claire as the duchess and Sig Rumann, Felix Bressart and Alexander Grannach as the unholy three emissaries; through Mr. Lubitsch’s facile direction; and through the cleverly written script of Walter Reisch, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, has come off brilliantly. Stalin, we repeat, won’t like it; but, unless your tastes hew too closely to the party line, we think you will, immensely.

NINOTCHKA, adapted by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and Walter Reisch from an original screen story by Melchior Lengyel; directed by Ernst Lubitsch for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At the Radio City Music Hall. Ninotchka . . . . . Greta Garbo Count Leon d’Algout . . . . . Melvyn Douglas Duchess Swana . . . . . Ina Claire Iranoff . . . . . Sig Rumann Buljanoff . . . . . Felix Bressart Kopalski . . . . . Alexander Granach Commissar Razinin . . . . . Bela Lugosi Count Rakonin . . . . . Gregory Gaye Hotel Manager . . . . . Rolfe Sedan Mercier . . . . . Edwin Maxwell Gaston . . . . . Richard Carle

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Dark Eyes of London

The New York Times, March 25, 1940

The Screen

‘The Human Monster,’ Featuring Bela Lugosi, at the Globe, Latest Horror Picture

By B.R. CRISLER

Even connoisseurs of the horror film will doubtless be constrained to admit that nothing quite so consistently horrid as “The Human Monster,” at the Globe, has ever befallen this hapless city. Brooded over by the batlike spirit of Bela Lugosi, it comes like an evil visitation compared to which the hunch-backs of Notre Dame (first and second string); the two Doctors Jekyll and Messrs. Hyde, and both King Kong père and fils are about as intimidating as Ferdinand the Bull. To begin with, all Mr. Lugosi has to do is to look at people and they either get hypnosis or cramps from laughing. Our personal reaction was more hysterical than horrified, but that’s a matter of taste.

Up to now, the most popular screen grotesqueries have had a certain lightness of touch; when Quasimodo, for instance, was beaten by knouts in the cathedral square, the camera mercifully averted its lens, or gave the streaming blood the merest glance, purely for verificative purposes. Not so “The Human Monster,” in which not only is Wilfred Walter more unglamorous than even Charles Laughton as the hunchback, but is totally blind in the bargain. Consequently, his homicidal technique is the more deliberative and, so to speak, stately, giving the camera plenty of time to dwell with sadistic relish on the more recherché details of his method of doing his victims in. But Jake, as the Monster is more familiarly known, is just a stooge, a sort of shipping clerk for Bela, who does a wholesale business in select and artistic submersions.

Bela, in fact, covers the waterfront with highly insured clients (he solicits insurance in his spare time) and so annoys Scotland Yard with this marine Blitzkrieg of bodies that even the conservative Yard is compelled to assign its brightest inspector (Hugh Williams) to the case. A pretty, blond daughter of one of the victims, who floats a loan with Bela and then goes floating down the Thames himself, is mixed up very attractively in the matter, and there are numerous incidental people who give a good if sometimes barely intelligible account of themselves, as is sometimes the wont of English actors. In fact, if the British accent gets much worse, they will soon have to provide incidental titles for America.

THE HUMAN MONSTER, directed by John Argyle, screen play by Patrick Kirwin, Walter Summers and J. F. Argyle, based on “The Dark Eyes of London” by Edgar Wallace; produced by Mr. Argyle for Monogram Pictures. At the Globe. Dr. Orloff . . . . . Bela Lugosi Inspector Holt . . . . . Hugh Williams Diana Stuart . . . . . Greta Gynt Lieut. O’Rielly . . . . . Edmon Ryan Jake (The Monster) . . . . . Wilfred Walter Grogan . . . . . Alexander Field Dumb Lew . . . . . Arthur E. Owen Secretary . . . . . Julie Suedo Henry Stuart . . . . . Gerald Pring Walsh . . . . . Bryan Herbert Policewoman . . . . . May Haliatt The Drunk . . . . . Charles Penrose

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The Phantom Creeps (serial)

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1940

The Saint’s Double Trouble

The New York Times,  February 13, 1940

The Screen

Simon Templar Has a Twin in ‘Saint’s Double Trouble’ at the Rialto – “Seige,” a Record of Warsaw

One of the more obvious differences between “Penrod’s Double Trouble,” which we remember from a few seasons back, and “The Saint’s Double Trouble,” which we remember from the Rialto yesterday, is that Penrod and his double were played by the identical Mauch twins, while the Saint and his double are played by the identical George Sanders. As both the Saint and the murderous rogue who is such a ringer for the Saint, Mr. Sanders manages to look so much like himself under all circumstances that his resemblance is not merely uncanny but uncommonly amusing. What could be more jolly (and we prefer no answer) than seeing Mr. Sanders-as-the-Saint-impersonating-Mr.-Sanders-as-the-Boss confronted by Mr. Sanders-as-the-Boss impersonating-Mr.-Sanders-as-the-Saint? As the lad in the next row said, “Ain’t he the spittin’ image of himself, though.”

It’s fair fun, anyway, no less through the penny-shocker adventures of Leslie Charteris’s raffish hero as he lifts the smuggled diamonds from the less-deserving rogues who stole them, than through the sentimental duty-dodging of Detective Fernack, who likes the Saint too much to bring him to book. We hope, though, that this one schizophrenic flier ends Simon Templar’s double trouble; it isn’t his iniquity we admire so much, but his uniquity.

Also on the Rialto’s bill is a one-reel documentary, “Siege,” filmed in Warsaw by Julien Bryan during the days immediately preceding the city’s surrender. It is a grim and somber record of war’s effect on the civilian population, narrated matter-of-factly, photographed simply, objectively. Mr. Bryan just happened to be there, just “happened” to remain after the government, the war correspondents and the other photographers had gone. His film is almost a pictorial diary, beginning while there still is some little hope for the city, watching that hope crushed when the weary file of soldiers straggles back from the front and settling into a fearful, bewildered, hopeless period of waiting in the bomb-torn, shell-riddled, fire-swept ruin that was Warsaw. Not entertainment this, but first-rate camera reportage.

THE SAINT’S DOUBLE TROUBLE, screen play by Ben Holmes based on a story by Leslie Charteris; directed by Jack Hively; produced by Cliff Reid for RKO Radio. At the Rialto. The Saint . . . . . George Sanders The Boss Anne . . . . . Helene Whitney Fernack . . . . . Jonathan Hale Partner . . . . . Bela Lugosi Behlen . . . . . Donald MacBride Limpy . . . . . John F. Hamilton Professor Bitts . . . . . Thomas W. Ross Monk . . . . . Elliott Sullivan

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Black Friday

British trade show poster

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San Jose News, April 26, 1940

Bela Lugosi, Karloff Have Starring Roles In New Horror Film

“Black Friday,” heralded as the newest idea in horror pictures, with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in the starring roles, came to the Padre Theater today.

Different from previous horror films both in story and technique, “Black Friday” finds both the stars and their supporting players appearing without the “weird” makeup effects they have used in the past.

A trail of murder unique on the screen is started by Karloff, who as a famous surgeon performs a daring operation by transplanting part of the brain of a criminal into the brain of a quiet little college professor.

Stanley Ridges, celebrated character actor, plays the difficult role of the professor whose dual brain transforms him at times into a ruthless killer.

The supporting cast includes such well known players as Anne Nagel, Anne Gwynne, James Craig, Edmund McDonald, Virginia Brissac, Paul Fix and Ray Bailey.

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You’ll Find Out

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The New York Times, November 15, 1940

The Screen

Kay Kyser at the Roxy

You have really got to be fond of Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge band in order to get any pleasure out of the show at the Roxy this week. For the professor demeritus and his boys (and girl) moved in there yesterday to appear not only on the stage in one of their quiz sessions, but also upon the screen in RKO’s “You’ll Find Out.” In the former, they’re on their own and consequently responsible for their actions; but in the latter they’re all mixed up with a lot of movie actors and a plot, so it’s hard to say who should take the blame.

For “You’ll Find Out” is one of those silly shudder-comedies, in which Mr. Kyser and his hep cats appear as the innocent bystanders who naturally become involved in an eerie attempt at murder in a forbidding old Massachusetts house. They have, it develops, arrived there to play at a deb party, but Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre have arrived before them, determined to bump off the guest of honor and—ah-ha!—obtain her inheritance. So the party is quite a cozy shindig, with seances and mysterious accidents and occasional renditions by the band to keep it properly confused.

Apparently the script writers were scared out of their wits by their own ideas, for the dialogue and plot developments indicate that little was devoted to them. With three of the most calculating villains vis-a-vis Mr. Kyser in one film, you would think that something more original than shrieks in the night and sliding panels and hidden passageways could have been contrived to confound them. Some of the incidents are amusing, mainly because of Mr. Kyser’s frightened-rabbit attitude when in the midst of them. But, on the whole, the picture is just routine and dull.

YOU’LL FIND OUT, screen play by James V. Kern; based on a story by Mr. Kern and David Butler; produced and directed by David Butler for RKO-Radio. At the Roxy. Kay Kyser . . . . . Himself Professor Fenninger . . . . . Peter Lorre Judge Mainwaring . . . . . Boris Karloff Chuck Deems . . . . . Dennis O’Keefe Prince Saliano . . . . . Bela Lugosi Janis Bellacrest . . . . . Helen Parrish Aunt Margo . . . . . Alma Kruger Jurgen . . . . . Joseph Eggenton Ginny Simms, Harry Babbitt, Ish Kabibble, Sully Mason.

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The Franklin Theatre, Nutley, New Jersey

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The Milwaukee Sentinel, December 6, 1940

Reviews of the New Films

Hollywood Horror Men Give Kay Kyser a Workout in Warner Film

By ‘BUCK’ HERZOG

“You’ll Find Out”

When Hollywood horror men and a band leader tangle in a motion picture, there’s certain to be a great deal of unusual screen fun. In

“You’ll Find Out,” currently at the Warner theater. Kay Kyser portrays the hot rhythm hero of the show, matching his cunning, despite his fears, with the terrifying manifestations of Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Bela Lugosi.

It doesn’t seem cricket that the frail Kyser should almost single handed knock bad man Karloff for a loop, send scarey Lugosi to the cleaners with a left hook, and outsmart the smart villain Lorre. But that’s what he does and that’s why “You’ll Find Out” contains a lot of fun.

The story is a silly affair, mixinhg night club numbers with spooky melodramatic devices such as secret passage ways, automatic doors, electric contraptions and whatnots. Kyser and his bandsmen journey to a big suburban house to play at the twenty-first birthday party of the girl who is fond of his agent (Dennis O’Keefe). They become involved in a homicidal attempt to do away with the girl which by screen magic Mr. Kyser is able to foil.

The musical numbers offered with interludes by Ginny Simms, Harry Babbitt, “Ish Kabibble” and Sully Mason, all familiar figures to radio listeners, are above par. Particularly engaging is Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge which is presented at the beginning of the piece. “Ish Kabibble” seems to me to be good enough to remain in pictures as a comic. The villains of the piece are customarily villianous and being old hands at the game, overplay with a real professional flourish. While Dennis O’Keefe and Helen Parrish have little to do in the opus, they make a pretty enough romantic couple.

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Sheetmusic for “I’d Know You Anywhere”

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Bela Lugosi Hypnotized (newsreel)

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1941

The Devil Bat

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The Invisible Ghost

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The Black Cat

The New York Times, April 26, 1941

At the Rialto

A.W.

The Rialto is following tradition this week in celebrating a quarter of a century of purveying movies to the public with a new screen-and-squeal item. “The Black Cat,” a comedy thriller suggested by a Poe-short story. “The relationship between the two is microscopic. A tale more slow than sinister, it has all the ingredients of conventional horror melodrama. What with four murders, a score of sliding panels and all the other necessary macaber settings, the horror generally fails to chill. Blame it on the stock plot, which is concerned with the machinations of many relatives and retainers to gain control of the estate of an aged ailurophile, who is murdered early in the picture.

Broderick Crawford and Hugh Herbert, as a friend of the family and a dealer in antiques, respectively, deliver the sparse comedy lines, while Cecilia Loftus (as the cat loving cause of it all), Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard and Bela Lugosi are properly menacing. And, of course, there is a black cat—in fact, there are droves of cats, vari-colored and yowling fit to raise the dead. But they never do.

THE BLACK CAT: original screen play by Robert Lees, Fred Rinaldo, Eric Taylor and Robert Neville; suggested by the story by Edgar Allan Poe; directed by Albert S. Rogell for Universal Pictures. Hartley . . . . . Basil Rathbone Mr. Penny . . . . . Hugh Herbert Hubert Smith . . . . . Broderick Crawford Eduardo . . . . . Bela Lugosi Abigail Doone . . . . . Gale Sondergaard Elaine Winslow . . . . . Anne Gwynne Myrna Hartley . . . . . Gladys Cooper Henrietta Winslow . . . . . Cecilia Loftus Margaret Gordon . . . . . Claire Dodd Stanley Borden . . . . . John Eldredge Richard Hartley . . . . . Alan Ladd

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Spooks Run Wild

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The Wolf Man

The New York Times, December 22, 1941

The Screen

T.S.

Universal, which must have a veritable menagerie of mythological monsters, all with an eye on stardom and a five-year contract, is now sponsoring the debut of its latest pride and joy, “The Wolf Man” at the Rialto. Perhaps in deference to a Grade-B budget it has tried to make a little go a long way, and it has concealed most of that little in a deep layer of fog. And out of that fog, from time to time, Lon Chaney Jr. appears vaguely, bays hungrily, and skips back into mufti. Offhand, though we never did get a really good look, we’d say that most of the budget was spent on Mr. Chaney’s face, which is rather terrifying, resembling as it does a sort of Mr. Hyde badly in need of a shave. Privately, and on the evidence here offered, we still suspect that the werewolf is just a myth.

Well, so for that matter is Santa Claus—though this is no time to be saying it. But the fact is that nobody is going to go on believing in werewolves or Santa Clauses if the custodians of these legends don’t tell them with a more convincing imaginative touch. And that is precisely where the wolf man is left without a paw to stand on; without any build-up either by the scriptwriter or director, he is sent onstage, where he, looks a lot less terrifying and not nearly as funny as Mr. Disney’s big, bad wolf. Sharing his embarrassment

are Maria Ouspenshaya, Claude Rains, Bela Lugosi, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy and Evelyn Ankers—who under more nonchalant circumstances would be referred to as a “sterling” cast. Most of them look as though they wished they had a wolf-skin to jump into—any old wolf-skin, so long as it was anonymous.

THE WOLF MAN, original screen play by Kurt Siodmak; directed by Gearge Waggner and produced by Universal. At the Rialto. Sir John Talbot . . . . . Claude Rains Dr. Lloyd . . . . . Warren William Captain Paul Montford . . . . . Ralph Bellamy Frank Andrews . . . . . Patric Knowles Bela . . . . . Bela Lugosi Twiddle . . . . . Forrester Harvey Maleva . . . . . Maria Ouspenskaya Jenny . . . . . Fay Helm Gwen Conliffe . . . . . Evelyn Ankers Charles Conliffe . . . . . J. M. Kerrigan The Wolf Man . . . . . Lon Chaney

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1942

Black Dragons

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The Ghost of Frankenstein

The New York Times, April 4, 1942

The Screen

That Monster’s Back

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

Don’t look now, gentle reader, but Frankenstein’s monster is loose again. Out of that deadly bed of sulphur into which he was last seen to plunge, Universal has hauled the foul creature and set him to roving once more on the scabrous screen of the Rialto in a film called “The Ghost of Frankenstein.” Gorgons, hydras and chimeras dire! Aren’t there enough monsters loose in this world without that horrendous ruffian mauling and crushing actors? For that, as a matter of fact, is about all he does in this film, except to submit to an operation whereby the sinister Dr. Lionel Atwill removes the brain from Bela Lugosi and pops it into him.

To be sure, the replenished monster is being consumed by fire when we see him last, but the thought that he may yet return for further adventures with his body and Lugosi’s sconce fills us with mortal terror. That is the most fearful prospect which the picture manages to convey. That Monster’s Back

THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, screen play by W. Scott Darling; from an original story by Eric Taylor; directed by Erle C. Kenton; produced by George Waggner for Universal Pictures. At the Rialto. Dr. Ludwig Frankenstein, . . . . . Sir Cedric Hardwicke The Monster . . . . . Lon Chaney Jr. Dr. Theodore Bohmer . . . . . Lionell Atwill Erik Ernst . . . . . Ralph Bellamy Ygor . . . . . Bela Lugosi Elsa . . . . . Evelyn Ankers Cloestine . . . . . Janet Ann Gellow Dr. Kettering . . . . . Barton Yarborough Martha . . . . . Doris Lloyd Chief Constable . . . . . Leyland Hodgson Russman . . . . . Olaf Hytten Magistrate . . . . . Holmes Herbert

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The Corpse Vanishes

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Night Monster

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1943

Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman

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The Ape Man

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Ghost on the Loose

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Screen Snapshots (newsreel)

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1944

Return of the Vampire

The New York Times, 29, 1944

The Screen

Any Blood Donors?

B.C.

Need we say more about a picture called “The Return of the Vampire” than just that—plus the fact that Columbia made it and it opened at the Rialto yesterday? Are you still interested? All right, we’ll tell you that Bela Lugosi rises again from the grave to go about sucking transfusions from the throat of a beautiful girl in the dark of night, while mists rise around the English mansion and dogs howl mournfully on the hill. But his accomplice, a hairy-faced man-beast (Matt Willis) proves his undoing in the end. This monster gets religion or something and turns the vampire into dust with a crucifix. Thus the forces of good triumph over evil and we all can feel much better—until next time.

Any Blood Donors?

THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE; screen play by Griffin Jay; additional dialogue by Randall Faye; based on an idea by Kurt Neumann; directed by Lew Landers; produced by Sam White for Columbia Pictures. At the Rialto. Armand Tesla . . . . . Bela Lugosi Lady Jane Ainsley . . . . . Frieda Inescort Nicki Saunders . . . . . Nina Foch John Ainsley . . . . . Roland Varno Sir Frederick Fleet . . . . . Miles Mander Andreas Obry . . . . . Matt willis Professor Saunders . . . . . Gilbert Emery Elsa . . . . . Ottola Nesmith Lynch . . . . . Leslie Dennison Gannet . . . . . William C. P. Austin

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Voodoo Man

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Return of the Ape Man

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One Body Too Many

The New York Times, November 25, 1944

The Screen

Beyond the Limit

B.C.

Comedy cut-ups in an old house, with Jack Haley playing owl with a “hot” corpse over which a gang of heirs-apparent are wrangling viciously, form the low and tasteless substance of Paramount’s “One Body Too Many,” which came yesterday to the Rialto, where such pictures have a way of getting by. Except for Mr. Haley’s bleats and shivers, which are amusing for their droll despair per se, this picture is a wretched exhibition of trashy film construction and clowning. There is a limit to so-called comedy business projected through proximity with the dead, a limit to charnel-house buffoonery. And “One Body Too Many” breaks it. Beyond the Limit

ONE BODY TOO MANY; an original screen play by Winston Miller and Maxwell Shane; directed by Frank McDonald; produced by Pine and Thomas for Paramount. At the Rialto. Albert Tuttle . . . . . Jack Haley Carol Dunlap . . . . . Jean Parker Larchmont . . . . . Bela Lugosi Attorney Gellman . . . . . Bernard Nedell Matthews . . . . . Blanche Yurka Henry Rutherford . . . . . Douglas Fowley Mona . . . . . Dorothy Granger Jim Davis . . . . . Lyle Talbot Kenneth . . . . . Lucien Littlefield Estelle . . . . . Jessica Newcombe Margaret . . . . . Maxine Fife The Professor . . . . . William Edmunds

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The Advocate, October 22, 1948

ACTOR’S ACROBATICS

In the making of a comedy-mystery film, such as Parmount’s “One Body Too Many,” the star is required to perform sundry and diverse acrobatics. Jack Haley. Who stars with Jean Parker and Bela Lugosi, actually did the following things in a day’s work on the picture, and lived to work another day –

He doubled for a corpse, climbing into a real coffin.

He ran up and down a hallway wearing only a Turkish towel.

He was hit over the head with a revolver butt.

He fell through a trap door, dropping six feet.

He sat down in a collapsible chair which realistically collapsed.

He jumped off a ten-foot ladder on to a none-too-thick floor pad.

He was dunked in a fishpond filled with cold water – and he swallowed a goldfish.

In addition to Jean and Bela, Haley has a supporting cast comprising  Lyle Talbot, Douglas Fowley, Maxine Fife and Lucien Littlefield.

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1945

The Body Snatcher

The New York Times, May 26, 1945

The Screen

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

There was eerie business on the screen of the Rialto Theatre yesterday, where “The Body Snatcher” held forth. This new gloom-lodger, though not as nerve-parlyzing as the performers might lead you to expect, has enough suspense and atmospheric terror to make it one of the better of its genre. Boris Karloff, sporting a days-old beard, is in there pitching with ghoulish delight as an Edinburgh cabbie, circa 1830, whose hobby is snatching people out of their graves, and Bela Lugosi, surprisingly unsinister for a change, works industriously to achieve fame as a blackmailer.

A long time ago Robert Louis Stevenson supplied the plot in a short story about the difficulties medical men had in procuring cadavers for scientific study, and RKO has taken the exhumation up from there for less noble purposes. “The Body Snatcher” is certainly not the most exciting “chiller-drama”—the Rialto has often done much better—but it is somewhat more credible than most and manages to hold its own with nary a werewolf or vampire! But then, with Karloff on the prowl, what chance would a blood-thirsty hobgoblin stand?

At the Rialto THE BODY SNATCHER; written for the screen by Philip MacDonald and Carlos Keith; based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson; directed by Robert Wise; produced by Val Lewton for RKO-Radio Pictures. Gray . . . . . Boris Karloff Joseph . . . . . Bela Lugosi MacFarlane . . . . . Henry Daniell Meg . . . . . Edith Atwater Fettes . . . . . Russell Wade Mrs. Marsh . . . . . Rita Corday Georgina . . . . . Sharyn Moffett Street Singer . . . . . Donna Lee

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Zombies on Broadway

The New York Times, April 27, 1945

By BOB CROWTHER

The Rialto, which has housed its fair share of the “living dead,” has added to its cinema roster with “Zombies on Broadway,” a farcical departure on a very old theme. Despite all the mystic charades and scientific claptrap, this minor comedy item about a couple of press agents who are forced to produce a real zombie for the opening of a night club called “The Zombie Hut,” comes up with very few laughs. Bela Lugosi, glaring as evilly as any of the zombies he creates, is the scientific genius behind all the goings on, while Alan Carney and Wally Brown are the frenzied main stem drum-beaters in search of an ambulant corpse. Those lads and RKO’s scenarists no doubt were trying real hard but “Zombies on Broadway” is no laughing matter.

At the Rialto ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY; screen play by Lawrence Kimble; adaptation by Robert E. Kent; from an original story by Robert Faber and Charles Newman; directed by Gordon Douglas; produced by Ben Stoloff for RKO Radio Pictures. Jerry Miles . . . . . Wally Brown Mike Strager . . . . . Alan Carney Professor Renault . . . . . Bela Lugosi Jean La Danse . . . . . Anne Jeffreys Ace Miller . . . . . Sheldon Leonard Gus . . . . . Frank Jenks Benny . . . . . Russell Hopton Joseph . . . . . Joseph Vitale Professor Hopkins . . . . . Ian Wolfe Douglas Walker . . . . . Louis Jean Heydt Kolaga . . . . . Darby Jones

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1946

Genius at Work

Lobby Cards

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1947

Scared to Death

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1948

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Billboad poster

British poster

1956 re-issue poster

1956 re-issue poster

Swedish poster

Spanish poster

Yugoslavian 1970s re-issue poster

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1948 lobby cards

1956 re-issue lobby cards

The New York Times, July 29, 1948

The Screen

That One Laugh

B.C.

Most of the comic invention in “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” is embraced in the idea and the title. The notion of having these two clowns run afoul of the famous screen monster is a good laugh in itself. But take this gentle warning: get the most out of that one laugh while you can, because the picture, at Loew’s Criterion, does not contain many more.

That is to say, the situations which the wags at Universal have contrived for their two untiring comedians in this assembly-line comedy are the obvious complications that would occur in a house of horrors. Costello, the roly-poly and completely susceptible one, shudders and shakes in standard terror to behold the assembly of ghouls—which includes not only the monster but Count Dracula and the Wolfman. Abbott, prevented from seeing the creatures until near the end, scoffs and snorts at his partner from behaving so curiously. After a thorough exhaustion of this play on frustration and fright, the story is brought to a climax with the intended transference of a brain. Whose brain is tagged for what monster we leave you to surmise. That One Laugh

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, original screen play by Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo and John Grant; directed by Charles T. Barton; produced by Robert Arthur for Universal-International Pictures. At Loew’s Criterion. Chick . . . . . Bud Abbott Wilbur . . . . . Lou Costello Lawrence Talbot . . . . . Lon Chaney Dracula . . . . . Bela Lugosi Monster . . . . . Glenn Strange Sandra Mornay . . . . . Lenore Aubert Joan Raymond . . . . . Jane Randolph Mr. McDougal . . . . . Frank Ferguson Dr. Stevens . . . . . Charles Bradstreet

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1951

Mother Riley Meets the Vampire

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Seeing Stars (newsreel)

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1952

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla

Los Angeles Daily News, Friday May 30, 1952

“Kiddies Greet Bogey Man with Smiles”

They’re not afraid of Bela Lugosi

By Erskine Johnson

GUYS AND DOLLS:  Let it never be said that Bela (Dracula) Lugosi, the screen’s boogey man, is No. 1 on the kiddies hate parade. Bela is right up there with Roy Rogers as an idol for the bubble gum set.    

“It’s fantastic,” Bela grinned on the set of “Bela Lugosi Meets the Gorilla Man” in which he’s playing another mad scientist role-this time turning people into gorillas!     

“You’d think the kids would be scared to death of me. But they’re not. Every time I meet one, it’s ‘Hey Bela, you’re the boogey man. Make some funny faces.’ Really, the kids love me.”    

There only one cross Bela bears over his merchant of menace character which started 20 years ago when he stepped out of romantic roles and played Dracula. “Every time I get into a cab-and this is without exception-the driver looks at me and says, ‘Aren’t you Boris Karloff?”

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St. Petersburg Times, June 13, 1952

LOUELLA IN HOLLYWOOD

Producer Touchy About Imitation Of His Stars

By LOUELLA O. PARSONS

HOLLYWOOD – (INS) The comedy team of Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell is so much like Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis that trouble may be a-brewing. Hal Wallis says he is waiting to see “Bela Lugosi Meets the Gorilla Man,” in which the boys do a turn. If they imitate Dean and Jerry, Hal will take legal action.

Jack Broder, who has the boys under contract, says Sammy Petrillo can’t help looking like Jerry Lewis, and that Jerry once had him on a TV show as a gag. He says Mitchell is much shorter than Dean, but he has a good voice and may resemble the good looking Martin.

“If we feel they are doing an imitation,” said Hal, “we’ll stop them.”

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1953

Glen or Glenda

Los Angeles Times, February 17, 1953

LUGOSI TO APPEAR AS WEIRD SCIENTIST

by Edward Schallert

That veteran portrayer of mysterious scoundrels and whatnot, Bela Lugosi, will soon be visible on the screen again in a weird science fiction subject called “Transvestite,” which concerns the transformation of men into women in their apparel and other outward manifestations but which does not deal with any sex issue. Its sponsor, Edward D. Wood Jr., declares it has no relation to a case much spotlighted in the news. Lugosi will be the mastermind in the science phase of the picture, which is said to incorporate much symbolism. Others in the cast are Dolores Fuller, whose fiance falls under the Lugosi influence,  while Lyle Talbot will be seen as a police inspector and Tim Farrell as a psychiatrist. Roles of the victims are minor. The film is being finished at the Jack Miles studio.

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House of Wax Premiere (newsreel)

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1955

Bride of the Atom aka Bride of the Monster

American newspaper, September 15, 1952

New shivers and shudders, as well as another picture for Bela Lugosi, are assured through “Atomic Monster,” to be produced by Alex Gordon, British filmmaker in Hollywood. This Lugosi feature will go into work in six weeks.

Lugosi previously appeared for producer Gordon in “Vampire Over London” which was made in England and recently did “Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla” for Broder.

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1956

The Black Sleep

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1959

Plan 9 from Outer Space

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Lock Up Your Daughters

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Kuzdelem a létért (The Struggle for Life)

aka A Leopárd (The Leopard)

Star

Director: Alfréd Deésy

Based on the novel by Alphonse Daudet

First screened at the Royal-Apollo in Budapest on September 12, 1918.

Cast: Béla Lugosi (Pál Orlay), under the name of Arisztid Olt, Anna Góth, Klara Peterdy, Gusztáv Turán, Ila Lóth, Péter Konrády.

As Pál Orlay, Bela porteayed a ruthless architect who ruins his lovers, a countess and a poor girl in order to further his career. At the height of his success, he is shot by the poor girl’s father.

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*          *          *

Az Ezredes (The Colonel) – Phoenix Company

Director: Mihály Kertész  (Michael Curtiz)

Screenplay: Richárd Falk from a story by Ferenc Herczeg.

Cast: Béla Lugosi, Sándor Góth, László Z. Molnár, Károly Huszár, Géza Borosa, Árpád Latabár, Claire Lotto, Zoltán Szerémy, Bero Malay, Janka Csatai.

Bela, as the Colonel, is caught breaking into a millionaires house. In return for his freedom, the wealthy man asks him to steal a fortune back from his brother. The millionaires daughter subsequently falls in love with the Colonel.

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1918

Küzdelem a Létért (The Struggle for Life) – Star Company

Director: Alfréd Deésy

Based on the play “La Lutte Pour La Vie” by Alfred Daudet.

Cast: Béla Lugosi, under the name of Arisztid Olt, Anna Góth, Klára Peterdy, Ila Lóth, Ferenc Virágh.

Bela plays  Orlay, a ruthless architect who ruins his lovers, a countess and a poor girl in order to further his career. At the height of his success, he is shot by the poor girl’s father.

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Kilenckilenc (Ninety-Nine) – Phoenix Company

Director: Mihály Kertész (Michael Curtiz)

Cinematography: István Eiben

Screenplay: Iván Siklósi, R.F. Foster

Cast: Lajos Réthey, Jenö Balassa, Zoltán Szerémy, Béla Lugosi, under the name of Arisztid Olt, Cläre Lotto, Gyula Gál (The inspector), László Z. Molnár.

Bela plays an inspector who employs various disguises to catch a thief.

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Az Élet királya (The Royal Life) – Star Company 

Director: Alfréd Deésy

Screenplay: József Pakóts. Based on The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Cast: Norbert Dán  (Dorian Gray), Béla Lugosi, under the name of Arisztid Olt (Lord Harry Vatton), Annie Góth (Princess Marborough), Ila Lóth (Sybil Vane), Kamilla Hollay (Hetti), Gusztáv Turán (Basil Hallward), Richard Kornai (The prince), Viktor Kurd

Bela’s final Hungarian film was retitled Dorian Gray Arcképe or The Picture of Dorian Gray when released outside of Hungary.

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Germany

1919

Slaven Fremdes Willen (Slaves of a Foreign Will) – Eichberg Film

Director: Richard Eichberg

Cast: Lee Parry, Béla Lugosi, Karl Halden, Violette Napierska, Margo Koehler, Gustav Birkholz

Drawing parallels with Du Maurier’s Trilby, Slaves of a Foreign Will featured  Bela played a Svengali-like hypnotist. Upon its release, a realistic rape scene drew attention from the critics.  

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1920

Nat Pinkerton – Dua Film

Director: Wolfgang Neff

Cast: Olaf Storm, Nestor Pridum, Marian Alma, Sybill de Bree, Béla Lugosi, E.V. Meghen.

Bela was cast as a gang leader in this, his first of two films for Dua Film. Olaf Storm later appeared in F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh (1924) and Metropolis (1926), while Mariam Alma appeared alongside Conrad Veidt in The Student of Prague (1926).

Still courtesy courtesy of http://www.moviemonstermuseum.com/belalugosi2

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Der Fluch der Menschheit (The Curse of Man) – Eichberg Film

Director: Richard Eichberg

Cast: Lee Parry, Willi Kaiser-Heyl, Robert Scholz, Gustav Birkholtz, Reinhold Pasch, Margo Koehler, Béla Lugosi, Felix Hexht, Violette Napierska, Paul Ludwick.

Rejected by his lover, Bela, in the role of Maelzer, commits treason and attempts sabotage. He is electrocuted before the authorities can capture him.

The film was released in two parts, Die Tochter der Arbeit (The Daughters of Work) and Im Rausche der Millianden (In the Ectsay of Billions. During the shooting of the film Bela had an affair with co-star Violette Napierska. Bela had previous acted alongside Lee Perry in Slaven Fremdes Willen (1919). He would be reunited with Willi Kaiser-Heyl in his next film, Der Januskopf .

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Der Januskopf (The Head of Janus) – Liplow Film

Director: F.W. Murnau

Cinematographer: Karl Freund

Cast: Conrad Veidt, Margarete Schlegel, Magnus Stifter, Willi Kaiser-Heyl, Béla Lugosi, Margarete Kupfer.

When Conrad Veidt, as the kindly Dr. Warren, buys a figure of the two-face Roman god Janus, he finds himself changing into the evil Mr. O’Connor. After prostituting his own fiancee and killing a young girl, the doctor’s degenerate alter ego escapes arrest by taking poison. Bela portrayed Dr. O’Connor’s butler.

This was the first of two Murnau films which fell foul of the courts for infringing copyright. While his Nosferatu (1922) eluded the best efforts of Bram Stoker’s widow to have it consigned to oblivion, no prints of Der Januskopf, a poorly disguised adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, appear to have survived a courtorder to confiscate and destroy all prints. Originally subtitled Eine Tagodie am Rande der Wirlichkeit (A tragedy on the Border of Reality), the film was also known as Schrecken (The Terror), Loves’s Mockery and Dr. Warren and Mr. O’Connor.

Conrad Veidt (right) as Dr. Warren and Bela (left) as his butler

Conrad Veidt (centre) as the evil Mr. O’Connor and Bela (left)

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Die Frau im Delphin (The Woman in the Dolphin) – Gaci Film

Director: Arthur Kiekebusch-Brenken 

Cast: Emille Sannom, Magnus Stifter, Béla Lugosi, Ernst Pittschau, Max Zilzer, Jacques Wandryck

With no prints currently available, Die Frau im Delphin is assumed to be a lost film. Also released under the alternate title of Thirty Days on the Bottom of the Sea, the film reunited Bela with his Der Januskopf co-star, Magnus Stifter. 

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Die Todeskarawane (The Caravan of Death) – Ustad Film, Droop & Co.

Producer: Marie Luise Droop

Director: Josef Stein

Cinematographer: Gustave Preiss and Otto Stein

Screenplay: Erwin Báron and Marie Luise Droop (uncredited). Based on the 1892 novel Von Bagdad nach Stambul by Karl May

Cast: Carl de Vogt, Meinhart Maur, Béla Lugosi

Cinematographer: Ernest Black

Subtitled, “A film of the southern sun in six chapters”, the film has Bela playing an Arab sheik pitted against European travellers in an adventure story set in the Sahara. The second of three films released by Droop based on desert adventure novels by Karl May. The third, Die Teufelsanbeter (The Devil Worshippers), also featured Bela. Although Karl May’s widow praised the film, critics were unimpressed and it was a commercial failure. The film received its official premiere on November 18, 1920 in Dresden, but had already been shown two days previously in Hamburg. It is now considered lost. Both Carl de Vogt and Meibhart Maur appeared in Fritz Lang’s Spiders (1919). Carl de Vogt also appeared with Conrad Veidt in The Road of Death (1917), Meibhart Maur

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Lederstrumpf (Leatherstocking) – Luna Film

Stills courtesy o f http://www.moviemonstermuseum.com/belalugosi2

Producer/Director: Arthur Wellin

Assistant Director: Kurt Rottenburg

Cinimatographer: Ernest Plhak

Production Designer: Erhard Brauchbar

Ethnographical Consultant: Carl Henkel

Screen play: Robert Heymann. Based on Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper

Cast: Emil Mamelok (Hawkeye the Deerslayer), Béla Lugosi (Chingachgook), Herta Heden (Judith Hutter), Gottfried Krause (Tom Hutter), Edward Eyseneck (Worley), Margot Sokolowska (Wah-ta-Wah), Frau Rehberger (Judith Hutter), Willy Schroeder (Hartherz), Her Sohnlein (Col. Munro), Heddy Sven (Cora Munro), Frau Wenkhaus (Alice Munro).

Bela plays Chingachgook, son of the chief of the Delaware Indian tribe and faithful friend of Hawkeye the Deerslayer (Emil Mamelok), who was raised by his tribe after being orphaned. The film was originally released in two parts – Der Wildtöter und Chingachgook (The Deerslayer and Chingachgook) and Der Letzte der Mohikaner (The Last of the Mohicans).  For its 1923 American release, the film was edited down from twelve reels to five and retitled The Deerslayer.

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Die Teufelsanbeter (The Devil Worshippers) – Ustad Film, Droop & Co.

Producer: Ertugrul Moussin-Bey

Director: Marie Luise Droop

Based on a chapter from the novel Durch die Wüste (Through the Desert) by Karl May

Cast: Carl de Vogt (Kara Ben Nemsi), Béla Lugosi, Meinhart Maur (Hadschi Halef Omar), Ilja Dubrowski, Tronier Funder (Officer of the Sultan)

The first of three films based on the desert adventure novels of  Karl May filmed by Ustad Film, but the third to be released, starring Carl de Vogt. Subtitled, “A film from the Orient in six chapters,” and set in the remote mountains of the Kurds, the film was a typical Karl May tale of high adventure featuring strange exotic rituals and human sacrifices. Said to have premiered on January2 1921 at Vaters Lichtspiele in Wurzburg, the first documented screening took place on January 24 1921 in Wilhelmsburg. Like its predecessor, Die Todeskarawane (The Caravan of Death), it was a commercial failure. Originally containing tinted scenes, the film is now considered lost.

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Johann Hopkins III (John Hopkins the Third) – Dua Films

Stills courtesy of http://www.moviemonstermuseum.com/belalugosi2

 Producer: Liddy Hegewald

Director: Wolfgang Neff

Cinematographer: Herrmann Saalfrank

Art Director: Franz Schroedter

Screenplay: Jane Bess

Cast: Curd Cappi (D.I. Winsor), Sybill de Bree, Fritz Falkenberg (Eddy Corvin), Harry Frank (Johann Hopkins), Frydel Fredy, Béla Lugosi, Ludwig Rex, Preben J. Rist (W.R. Turner George Corvin), Alfred Schmasow (Kommissar Sam), Lya Sellin (de schwarze Mary), Heinrich von Korff (Mat Bliß)

Very little is known of Bela’s second film for Dua Film. Surviving stills show Bela as both a cowboy and an acordian-playing sailor.

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1921

Der Tanz auf derm Vulkan (The Dance on the Volcano) - Eichberg Films

Producer/Director: Richard Eichberg

Cinematographer: Joe Rive

Screenplay: Arthur Teuber

Cast: Béla Lugosi, Lee Parry, Violette Napierska, Robert Sholz, Gustav Birkholz, Felix Hecht, Kurt Fuss

Bela plays a Prussian aristocrat in his final German film. Set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, the film tells the story of a dommed love affair. The story ends with both Lugosi and his love being killed in the heat of the revolution. Ten reels in length, the film was released in two parts – Sybil Young and Der Tod des Grossfuerstens (The Death of the Grand Duke). The American release was retitled Daughter of the Night. Long considered lost, a print of the American release version was discovered in the 1990s

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 America and England

1923

The Silent Command – A Fox Picture

Presented by William Fox

Director: J. Gordon Edwards

Screenplay: Paul Kelly. Based on a story by Rufus King

Cinematogrpher: George W. Lane

Running time: 91 minutes, later cut to 73 minutes

Copyright number LP19411, August 20, 1923

Cast: Edmund Lowe (Captain Richard Decatur), Bela (misspelt ‘Belo’ in the film credits) Lugosi (Benedict Hisston), Carl Harbaugh (Menchen), Martin Faust (Cordoba), Gordon McEdward (Gridley), Byron Douglas (Admiral Nevins), Theodore Babcock (Admiral Meade), George Lessey (Mr. Collins), Warren Cook (Ambassador Mendizabel), Henry Armetta (Pedro), Rogers Keene (Jack Decatur), J.W. Jenkins (the Decatur’s butler), Alma Tell (Mrs. Richard Decatur), Martha Mansfield (Peg Williams, a vamp), Florence Martin (Her Maid), Betty Jewel (Dolores), Kate Blancke (Mrs. Nevins), Elizabeth Mary Foley (Jill Decatur)

Bela plays  a member of a group of enemy agents intent on destroying the Panama Canal and the U.S. Navy’s Atlantic Fleet. Edmund Lowe as a naval officer, unbeknownst to the navy and his wife, goes undercover to thwart their planned sabotage. Made with the full support of the U.S. Navy, the film was released in September 1923 with colour-tinted scenes.

Title lobby card

The New York Times, September 5, 1923

The Screen

“The Silent Command,” which is the attraction at the Central Theatre, is an old-fashioned melodrama with the old school of acting. It is true that the film is dressed up to modern days, with a plot by spies to blow up the Panama Canal.

There are some interesting “shots” of vessels at sea, with water washing over the decks, and the bows of other warships plunging into the trough on a pretty windy day. There is also a prolonged fight between the spy and an American naval intelligence officer on board one vessel, and to a certain extent J. Gordon Edwards has pictured the exhaustion of the two men. But it is not convincing, as in several sequences the men are palpably not out of breath. There are other portions of the fight that are quite stirring.

“The Silent Command” is called a “romance glorifying the esprit de corps of the American navy,” taken from the story by Rufus King.

There is a woman spy in the case, with whom, under an oath of secrecy, a naval captain makes friends, forfeiting for the time being his comrades and his home, even being expelled from the United States Navy for the sake of the effect it will have on the spies. He is seen also being tried by court-martial, and in the sequence following his pseudo-disgrace he receives certain information to impart to the spies, so as to be able to work with them and find out every detail of what they are doing and who is involved in the great plot.

It would not be such a bad picture if, every time a man wanted to say how friendly he was with another, he did not put his hand on his pal’s shoulder. There is a great deal of acting by turning the pupils of the eyes back and forth. The villain, of course, turns his eyes at times into mere slits. The feminine spy embellishes her optics with plenty of make-up all around them, including the lashes. She opens her wicked blue eyes wide when carrying on an optical discussion with the villain at a distant table. The villain sips his wine and opens his big, dark eyes, surmounted by bushy brows. He pretends to flirt with the girl who is in his employ, and thus gets the hero into a scrap in a public restaurant where there are many naval officers. In the course of the fight Captain Decatur, the hero, punches a Rear Admiral. He has to do this in order to make the plot go and throw dust in the eyes of the espions.

There is nothing very subtle in this production, and it therefore keeps nobody guessing, for whoever heard of a hero being outwitted or slain by a lot of mere spies? The splashing waters, the uniforms and the sea pictures are very good.

The Panama Canal and Spies. THE SILENT COMMAND, with Edmund Lowe, Bela Lugosi, Carl Harbaugh, Martin Faust, Gordon McEdward, Byron Douglas, Theodore Babcock, George Lessey, Warren Cook, Henry Armetta, Rogera Keene and others. Adapted from the story by Rufus King. Directed by J. Gordon Edwards. At the Central.

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Edmund Lowe and Bela

1923 Herald

The Register (Adelaide), February 14, 1924

YORK’S NEW FILM

“The Silent Command.”

Spectacular melodrama is “The Silent Command,” a William Fox production, which will be shown for the first time at the York Theatre on Saturday. The story has an appeal and a message. The opening scenes promise a “thriller,” and each succeding episode conveys a stronger realization of the promise. International intrigue is revealed as the main motive of the plot, and is handled with real power. There are scenes on the high seas and a fight in the wireless room of a vessel between the hero and the head of a band of international spies. Love episodes, of course, there are. A shipwreck, near the end of the picture, is the acme of realism. The acting of the cast is in keeping with the excellence of the production. Edmund Lowe as Capt. Richard Decatur, and Alma Tell, as Mrs. Decatur, head of the list of players. Martha Mansfield, Betty Jewel, Bela Lugosi, Carl Harbaugh, and Edward McEdward also do good work.

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1924

The Rejected Woman – Distinctive Pictures

Bela and Alma Rubens

Director: Albert Parker

Screenplay: John Lynch

Cinematographer: Roy Hunt

Art Director: Clark Robinson

Running time: 85 minutes 

Copyright number LP20175, May 3, 1924

Cast: Alma Rubens (Diane Du Prez), Conrad Nagel (John Leslie), Wyndham Standing (James Dunbar), George Mac Quarrie (Samuel Du Prez), Bela Lugosi (Jean Gagnon), Antonio D’Algy (Craig Burnett), Leonora Hughes (Lucille Van Tuyle), Mme. Juliette La Violette (Aunt Rose), Aubrey Smith (Peter Leslie), Frederick Burton (Leyton Carter).

A convoluted story about two lovers (Nagel and Rubens) who overcome social prejudice and misunderstandings to cement their love. Released by the Goldwyn-Cosmopolitan Company in May 1924, the film enjoyed neither critical nor commercial success, despite the popularity of its two leads.

*          *          *

He Who Gets Slapped – MGM

In the 1950s, Richard Sheffield, a teenage friend of Bela Lugosi, found two stills from He Who Gets Slapped in one of Bela’s scrapbooks. The photos showed what looked like Bela in clown costume and makeup. Although the clown on the left of Chaney in the still below does appear to bear a resemblance to Bela, Richard did not ask Bela about the film, and no documentary evidence has yet been discovered to substansiate his participation in it.  

Could the clown on the left be Bela?

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The New York Times, November 10, 1924

The Screen

The Clown’s Revenge

By MORDAUNT HALL.

At the Capitol this week there is a picture which defies one to write about it without indulging in superlatives. It is a shadow drama so beautifully told, so flawlessly directed that we imagine that it will be held up as a model by all producers. Throughout its length there is not an instant of ennui, not a second one wants to lose; it held the spectators spellbound yesterday afternoon, the last fade-out being the signal for a hearty round of applause. This celluloid masterpiece is Victor Seastrom’s picturization of Leonid Andreyev’s play, “He Who Gets Slapped,” which was presented before the footlights in January, 1922, with Richard Bennett in the principal rôle.

The more enlightened producers were enthusiastic over Mr. Seastrom’s ”The Stroke of Midnight,” which was at the same time considered too depressing to be a financial success over here. Nevertheless, this and other productions caused the management of Goldwyn Pictures, Ltd., to engage this director to make pictures in California. Mr. Seastrom left his native heath, Sweden, and his first American-made production was Sir Hall Caine’s “Name the Man,” a lugubrious story filled with anachronisms. A friend of the director predicted at the time that, although he did not like “Name the Man,” Mr. Seastrom eventually would turn out a production which would startle the film world.

Undoubtedly the story is half the battle with an accomplished director, and in “He Who Gets Slapped” Mr. Seastrom obviously realized that he had his great opportunity. He selected his cast with punctiliousness, choosing Lon Chancy, who will be remembered for his work in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and other films, to play the part of the heart-broken scientist who became a clown. Never in his efforts before the camera has Mr. Chaney delivered such a marvelous performance as he does as this character. He is restrained in his acting, never overdoing the sentimental situations, and is guarded in his make-up.

The first flash on the screen shows a clown twisting a colored ball, which gradually fades out into the figure of Beaumont, the scientist, gazing upon a revolving globe. There are many such clever touches in different chapters of this absorbing narrative which deals with the ultimate revenge of the scientist-clown, merely known as “He Who Gets Slapped,” on the man who stole the glory for his work and also his wife. You see the student arguing with Baron Regnard before a gallery of aged notables, and suddenly the nobleman slaps the scientist’s face. The old men rock in their mirth, and this, coupled with the loss of his wife, spurs the student to become a clown with a small traveling French circus. As the principal fun-maker, with a score of other painted-face clowns, he is seen making audiences roar with laughter by being slapped. At that time he had no thought of revenge, but one day he sees the Baron in a seat. The sight of what happened to him in front of the scientists comes before his eyes. One sees the clown fading into the gallery of wise old men, and then again the clowns are shown.

There is the dressing room of the circus, and the pretty daughter of an impecunious Count. The girl (Norma Shearer) soon falls in love with her partner in her riding act, Bezano (John Gilbert). The Count wants her to wed the Baron, and the scheming is discovered by He, the clown. He is weak in fistic encounters, so coolly arranges for a terrible death for the Count and the Baron. He loves the girl, Consuelo, too. She had stitched on his dummy heart night after night of the show. You see him move the lion’s cage up to the door of the little ante-room, which is all ready for a wine supper. Then he enters himself by another door, and in an encounter with the girl’s father heis stabbed by the Count’s sword-stick. He grips his breast tightly to stay the flow of blood, and gradually crawls toward the door, which has only to be opened to release the wild beast. There is wonderful suspense in this stretch, and one is stirred when one sees the startled lion spring through the open door.

Mr. Seastrom has directed this dramatic story with all the genius of a Chaplin or a Lubitsch, and he has accomplished more than they have in their respective works, “A Woman of Paris” and “The Marriage Circle,” as he had, what they did not have, a stirring, dramatic story to put into pictures.

Miss Shearer is charming as Consuelo, and Mr. Gilbert, who gave such an excellent account of himself in “His Hour,” is a sympathetic sweetheart. But the player who is entitled to honors only second to Mr. Chaney is Marc McDermott, who takes full advantage of the strength of his rôle. Tully Marshall is splendid as the scapegrace Count.

For dramatic value and a faultless adaptation of the play, this is the finest production we have yet seen.

The Clown’s Revenge.

He WHO GETS SLAPPED, with Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, John Gilbert, Tully Marshall, Marc McDermott, Ford Sterling, Clyde Cook, Harvey Clarke, Paulette Duval, Ruth King, Brandon Hurst and George Davis, adapted from Leonid Andreyev’s play, directed by Victor Seastrom; overture, “1812,” Tchalkovsky; “Fifth Anniversary of the Capitol”; ballet corps, “Dance of theHours”; “There Is No Death,” Geoffrey O’Hara. At the Capitol.

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1925

Daughters Who Pay – Banner Productions

Director: George Terwilleger 

Screenplay: William B. Laub

Cinematographers: Edward Paul, Charles Davis, Murphy Darling

Running Time: 61 minutes

Copyright number LP21211, March 6, 1925

Cast: Marguerite De La Motte (Mary Smith/Sonia), John Bowers (Dick Foster), J. Barny Sherry (Foster’s Father), Bela Lugosi (Serge Oumanski)

With a title that appears to have no relation to the actual story, the plot has secret agent, Mary Smith (De La Motte) living a double life as the respectable Miss Smith on Sundays, and Sonia, a Russian cafe dancer, during the week. Smith must use both of her personalities to help her  bother when he is caught embezzling $10,000 from the millionaire father of Dick Foster (Bowers), one of Sonia’s admirers. After the successful capture of a gang of Russian spies, she is free to reveal her true identity and marry Foster.

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The Midnight Girl

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1926

Punchinello (short)

Duncan Renaldo (left) and Bela

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1928

How to Handle Women

aka The Prince of Knuts

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1929

The Last Performance

Conrad Veidt

The New York Times, November 4, 1929

A Sinister Magician

By MORDAUNT HALL

After the swarm of more or less noble song-and-dance men who have appeared on the screen since the launching of those plays, ‘”Broadway” and “Burlesque,” it is somewhat of a relief to find that the dominant figure of “The Last Performance,” a silent film now at the Little Carnegie Playhouse, is not a hoofer, but a sinister magician and hypnotist. This production, which was made some time ago by Dr. Paul Fejos at the Universal studio, was probably Conrad Veidt’s last performance in Hollywood before returning to work in Germany.

Dr. Fejos has handled his scenes with no small degree of imagination. They are not always as well photographed as one might hope for, but, due to the fantastic nature of the story, the occasional glimpses of the way in which the magician, Erik the Great, deceives the eyes of his audiences, Mr. Veidt’s clever acting and Mary Philbin’s captivating charm, this picture holds one’s attention. Moreover, the narrative is developed with a certain force and skill.

There are scenes back-stage and others depicting Erik facing his audiences. During the course of one sequence, Erik is perceived on the stage, hypnotizing a woman in a theatre box. But that has little to do with the tale, except to demonstrate Erik’s malignant influence over certain persons.

The gaunt magician falls in love with Julie, one of the assistants in his act. She is not yet 18 and Erik, believing that she reciprocates his affection, looks forward to celebrating her eighteenth birthday by giving a banquet at which he intends to announce the fact that he and Julie are to be married. Julie, however, becomes intensely interested in Mark Royce, a good-looking young fellow, who joins Erik’s act after being discovered in a destitute condition.

Then there is Buffo, a scowling chap who is presumed to be under Erik’s hypnotic influence part of the time. Erik the Great and his company travel from Europe to New York, where the magician arranges for Julie’s birthday dinner. Everything is ready, when the treacherous Buffo calls Erik’s attention to the sight of Julie in Mark’s arms.

Erik then arranges for what he calls his sword trick, which is the idea of a man being shut up in a trunk and then apparently being run through by a dozen swords. There are holes in the trunk through which to pass the blades of the weapons and, of course, the trunk opens at the back so as to permit the person selected to get into the trunk to make his way out before the swords are stuck through.

The act is put on at a New York theatre and Buffo gets into the trunk. The swords are eventually passed through the slots in the receptacle and then one by one, with a dramatic pause, they are withdrawn. As each weapon is passed to him Erik sticks it upright in the stage flooring. As he passes his fingers over the blade of the last sword he notices blood on his hand!

The trunk is opened and Buffo is found dead, one of the swords having passed through his heart. As Mark had stuck the swords through the holes in the trunk, he is arrested, and because it is learned by the police that he was not on good terms with Buffo, he is brought to trial for murder.

The dénouement is worked out in an interesting manner, even though it is far from credible. The last performance of Erik the Great takes place in the court room.

While some of the straight camera work is not up to scratch, there are a number of photographic feats that are quite effective. It is a picture that looks older than it really is, especially in the tinted portions, where one goes from an amber interior scene to an azure blue night in the open.

Leslie Fenton does well as Buffo and Fred MacKaye is sympathetic as Mark.

On the surrounding program are Chaplin’s old comedy, “One A. M.,” and an abstract film study known as “The Story of a Nobody.”

A Sinister Magician.
THE LAST PERFORMANCE, with Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin, Leslie Fenton, Fred MacKaye, Gustav Partos. William H. Turner, Anders Randolf, Sam De Grasse and George Irving, based on a story by James Ashmore Creelman, directed by Dr. Paul Fejos; “The Story of a Nobody,” an abstract film study. At the Little Carnegie Playhouse.

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The Veiled Woman

 

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Prisoners

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The Thirteenth Chair

Lobby card

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1930

Such Men Are Dangerous

The New York Times, March 8, 1930

The Screen

By MORDAUNT HALL

To celebrate the third anniversary of the opening of the Roxy there are at that theatre this week a most interesting talking film and a series of brilliant stage contributions in which the fine hand of S. L. Rothafel is conspicuous.

The picture is called “Such Men Are Dangerous.” In the making of some of the air scenes for this production on Jan. 2 last, ten persons including the director, Kenneth Hawks, met death in a collision of flying machines over the Pacific. Warner Baxter, the featured player, and a man who doubled for him in a parachute leap were in a third machine far enough away from the accident not to be damaged. The pilot raced this machine back to the shore to summon rescuers.

There is in this film an exciting flash of Mr. Baxter’s double making a parachute jump from an airplane. It is an episode that not only recalls the tragedy of the film workers but also the mysterious death of the Belgian financier, Captain Alfred Loewenstein.

Mr. Baxter is first seen in a marvelous make-up, with a prominent aquiline nose and a heavy, pointed beard. He impersonates Ludwig Kranz, a man of immense wealth and great power. The opening scene is devoted to the pretentious marriage of Kranz and Elinor (Catherine Dale Owen). As the married couple are coming out of the church, a girl happens to remark on Kranz’s forbidding appearance. It is overheard by the bridegroom, who realizes that the girl was probably correct. That night Elinor runs away, leaving no reason for her disappearance. This causes Kranz to reflect further on his ugliness.

Kranz is an individual who makes up his mind quickly. He decides to seek revenge on his wife for humiliating him. He tells his secretary to have a drawing account of $100,000 in three banks in Europe in the name of Pierre Veillard. He then orders his airplane and goes forth on a journey alone. While flying the Channel, he, unseen by the pilot, fastens on a parachute and then leaps from the machine to the sea.

His disappearance is told with big headlines in the newspapers and the next thing the spectator knows is of his visit to Dr. Goodman, a famous plastic surgeon. Kranz, posing as Veillard, says that he wants his back straightened and his face improved. Can it be done? Dr. Goodman is reluctant to take the case. He is a humanitarian and believes first in attending to war cases. Kranz, however, offers him a check for £20,000 and Goodman decides that as this money can go toward helping many worthy people, he will undertake the case.

The next seen of Kranz is when his head is covered with bandages and, eventually, when he is thoroughly healed, he is the handsome Mr. Baxter. Dr. Goodman then returns to Kranz the £20,000 check, as he realizes that this patient is the man who had contributed most generously to his war work.

From then on until Kranz decides to uncover his identity to his wife, he is Pierre Veillard, a popular man with the women, and one who attracts even his own wife. Everything seems to have been given attention in this story except Kranz’s voice, which one might presume would be recognized. His eyes have been covered with double-lens spectacles, his chin with a beard and his upper lip with a heavy mustache, but the voice is the same, except that after posing as the fascinating Veillard his tones are cheery.

It is natural that Kranz’s nature should change with his improved appearance. He has a taste for everything in a lighter vein, including clothes. People no longer look in awe at him, but smile. In the old days the financier never experienced a wholesome smile in his direction.

This story was written by Elinor Glyn, and Ernest Vajda undertook to write the dialogue. Mr. Vajda has done exceedingly well with a minimum number of words.

Mr. Baxter gives a serious and highly effective portrayal of Kranz, who in the end is told by Elinor that his soul was uglier than his physiognomy. Catherine Dale Owen is lovely as Elinor. Albert Conti does capital work as Kranz’s secretary and Hedda Hopper makes the most of the part of Elinor’s grasping sister. Claude Allister is amusing as a hen-pecked husband, an extravagant type, but nevertheless a merry specimen. Bela Lugosi gives a sincere performance as Dr. Goodman.

Skin Deep.
SUCH MEN ARE DANGEROUS, with Warner Baxter, Catherine Dale Owen, Albert Conti, Hedda Hopper, Claude Allister and Bela Lugosi, based on a story by Elinor Glyn, directed by the late Kenneth Hawks; “Laugh, Clown, Laugh,” with Harold Van Duzee; “Processional Religioso”; “In a Jasmine Garden,” with Beatrice Belkin and others; “An Anniversary Party,” with Patricia Bowman, the Roxyettes and others. At the Roxy Theatre.

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Sunday Times (Perth), October 19, 1930

HOYTS REGENT CINEMA

“Such Men Are Dangerous”

Owing to the non-arrival of one of the feature films which should have been presented at Hoyts Regent yesterday, it was necessary to substitute “Such Men Are Dangerous.”

Presented by a superb cast, headed by Warner Baxter and Catherine Dale Owen, the all-talking sophisticated drama, based on Eliror Glyn’s charming and fascinating story, proved thoroughly enjoyable.

Baxter handles a most difficult role in masterful style, giving polish to the best part he has ever enjoyed in an all talking picture, and that is saying a great deal when one recalls his “Cisco Kid” of “In Old Arizona.”

Miss Owen gives an even more convincing performance than she did in “His Glorious Night” with John Gilbert. Her work is brilliant throughout, and her beauty and charm add much to her characterisation of the bride who deserts her husband.

The portrayal of the meddling sister is in the hands of Hedda Hopper, who in sophisticated roles has few equals in pictures. Claude Allister, in a “Lord Algy” role, Albert Conti, as the suave secretary, do their work well. Bela Lugosi portrays the role of a plastic surgeon in his usual finished manner.

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The King of Jazz

Bela and Paul Whiteman

The New York Times, May 3, 1930

A Sparkling Extravaganza

By MORDAUNT HALL

John Murray Anderson’s initial contribution to the audible screen, “King of Jazz,” with the rotund Paul Whiteman, reveals this director to be a magician of far greater powers than one imagined, even from his stage compositions. This Technicolor potpourri of songs, dancing and fun is a marvel of camera wizardry, joyous color schemes, charming costumes and seductive lighting effects. The only adverse criticism to be offered is that some of the sequences are a little somber, but even in these stretches Mr. Anderson’s highly artistic and imaginative mind is constantly apparent.

It is one of the very few pictures in which there is no catering to the unsophisticated mentality, for all the widely different features are of a high order and yet one can readily presume that they will appeal to all types of audiences.

This “King of Jazz,” referred to as an extravaganza, is something to be expected only from a director well versed in motion pictures, and the wonder that it should be Mr. Anderson’s first film impresses one with the value of stage training in making vocalized films. For even in photographic tricks it is apparent in this picture that Mr. Anderson has ruled the roost. Also there is nothing imitative, all the various turns being blessed with originality. Dance numbers on the screen have invariably been tedious, but in “King of Jazz” they are never on the screen too long, and while they are on exhibition they are thoroughly diverting.

This sparkling piece of work has the audacity to commence with a remarkably clever cartoon series of jocose scenes telling how Mr. Whiteman wos crowned king of jazz. No sooner is that over than a giant Whiteman appears on the screen, and he is asked by Charles Irwin, the master of ceremonies, as to the whereabouts of the jazz king’s band. Mr. Whiteman has a small box, and he informs Mr. Irwin that the forty musicians are in it. The tiny men are produced from the box and mount the elaborate stand, and soon they assume the same proportions as the image of Mr. Whiteman. Several of the musicians are introduced individually, and finally there is presented an opulent number called “The Bridal Veil,” during the course of which Jeanette Loff is heard rendering a pleasing song. The charm of this number, like many of the others, reveals that Mr. Anderson has visualized the full possibilities of the camera in connection with his flights of fancy.

As each number vanishes from the screen there comes to view Whiteman’s huge scrapbook, another page of which is turned for the forthcoming feature. One of the witty interludes, as brief as some of Noel Coward’s scintillating shafts, shows Laura La Plante as a city editor of a sensational feminine newspaper. She wants alacrity from her staff. A girl reporter comes in and reports that a building in Forty-third Street has been burned to the ground. The city editor wants to know when it happened, and the reporter says: “Ten minutes ago.” Another reporter announces that a big bank has been robbed five minutes before. A third member of the staff dashes up to her chief, declaring: “Woman shoots her husband.” Miss La Plante requests to know when it happened, and the reporter, with a staying hand, says:

“Wait, listen.” And then a pistol report is heard!

John Boles, a far better John Boles than was seen in “Captain of the Guard,” sings something about a romance on the Rio Grande, and then there are dainty ballads from several girls. There is Jack White, who is described by Mr. Irwin as a “fellow of infiniate jest, but just a little nutty.” White sings a dream about a fish fight. The Brox Sisters also render a melody in a skit called “Bench in the Park,” and then follows an amusing parody called “All Noisy on the Eastern Front.”

An impressive conception of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” is set forth with much artistry. The primitive musical elements are registered by the rhythmic beating of a drum, and gradually this grows into the playing of jazz on the usual instruments.

If anything, the “Melting Pot” number, the last of the series, is the most elaborate and impressive of all. William Kent, a comedian who appears in all the skits and does exceptionally able work, receives the opportunity at this latter stage of events to recite a comic bit about his intense affection for two goldfish. It is something that has to be seen to be appreciated and it aroused gusts of laughter yesterday afternoon.

The climax to this beautiful and artistic series of scenes is the rendering of tunes and songs from many nations that are finally blended into a whole.

There is no sequence that isn’t worth witnessing and no performance that is not capable in this fast-paced picture.

Mr. Whiteman appears in person and conducts the orchestra. George Gershwin is also to be seen in the flesh, playing his “Rhapsody in Blue.”

A Sparkling Extravaganza.
KING OF JAZZ, with Paul Whiteman, John Boles, Laura La Plante, Jeanette Loff, Glenn Tryon, Merna Kennedy, Kathryn Crawford, Stanley Smith, William Kent, Grace Hayes, Sisters G, the Brox Sisters, George Chiles, Jacques Cartier, Frank Leslie. Charles Irwin, the Russell Markert dancers and others, with songs and lyrics by George Gershwin, Mabel Wayne, Milton Ager and Jack Yellen, music score by Ferdie Grofe, directed by John Murray Anderson, produced by Universal Pictures Corporation. At the Roxy Theatre.

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Wild Company

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Renegades

Window card

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Viennese Nights

The New York Times, November 27, 1930

The Screen

A Vitaphone Operetta in Technicolor

By MORDAUNT HALL

Appealing musical compositions, agreeably sung and well played, compensate for imperfections in the dialogue and story of “Viennese Nights,” a Vitaphone operetta in Technicolor, which was offered last night by Warner Brothers at Warners’ Theatre. A few sequences may be a trifle slow, and when Alan Crosland, the director, indulges his fancy in imaginative episodes he frequently gives too much of it, but nevertheless this is a picture with virtues that decidedly counterbalance its shortcomings. In fact, when one harks back to some other film operettas this feature reveals marked progress.

In the program it is set forth that the story is based upon a romance written specially for the screen by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein 2d. It is a happy-go-lucky affair which at times recalls Jessie Fothergill’s novel “The First Violin,” and in the closing chapters it possesses incidents that suggest Noel Coward’s production “Bitter Sweet.”

It is primarily a musical entertainment, but at the same time one in which its none too novel narrative often captivates one’s interest. The fact that the characters suddenly give vent to their feelings in song and that they are occasionally accompanied by an unseen orchestra, does not worry one, because the singing is invariably satisfactory and the ballads are beguiling. Alexander Gray acts well and sings with an effect that is rarely heard from the screen. Vivienne Segal has at last her opportunity in this picture, for not only is her voice nicely recorded; but she looks far more attractive than she has in other cinema productions. This is especially marked in the penultimate scenes.

This romance begins in Vienna in 1880, when Otto, a budding composer; Franz, a young nobleman, and Gus, a comic individual, are beheld on the eve of joining their regiment. Later, when the troops return, Elsa goes to the balcony of her home and both Otto and Franz are captivated by this charming girl.

Hocher, Elsa’s father, at first appears to have a kindly nature, but subsequently he arranges matters so that Otto is led to believe that Elsa is in love with Franz. The composer imbibes too freely of wine and then makes a fool of himself and Elsa therefore cannot be blamed for choosing to become the bride of the philandering Franz.

The stupid Otto, instead of remaining a bachelor, marries a nagging woman who has no sympathy with music. This is stressed with a vengeance by Mr. Crosland, who depicts the tired Otto, eleven years later a second fiddler in the opera in New York, trying to compose music on a piano while his wife is volleying her disapproval from her bedroom and urging her husband to take a job in Gus’s highly successful pickle factory.

One night Franz and his wife attend the opera and Elsa recognizes Otto. After the performance she bids the musician ride in her carriage through the park, but although they both declare their love for each other she decides to accompany her husband back to Europe.

When a subtitle announced that forty years pass, the audience last night was rather amused. Soon one perceives Elsa as a gray-haired woman who is inveigled into going to listen to a new composer’s symphony played by a large orchestra. Otto’s son has also studied music. He succeeds where his father had failed. Elsa rises out of her wheel chair, after leaving her seat in the hall, and limps back to listen to the music because she hears a familiar theme composed by the unfortunate Otto.

Although Mr. Crosland lingers here and there on some pet idea, his direction is far superior to most of his pictures, and certainly infinitely superior to his recent contributions.

Mr. Hersholt gives his usual diligent care to his part. Mr. Pidgeon is fair in his rôle. Bert Roach is rather out of his element in such a story.

The Technicolor camera work is a little dark in some of the scenes, but it has its good points in others. In showing a butcher’s shop, the Technicolor camera men ought to beware of raw meat, for its tint is anything but real in a flash of this film. The glimpses of uniforms of officers and the gowns of women, however, benefit by this prismatic photography.

A Vitaphone Operetta in Technicolor.
VIENNESE NIGHTS, with Alexander Gray, Vivienne Segal, Jean Hersholt, Walter Pidgeon, Louise Fazenda, Alice Day, Bert Roach, June Purcell and Milton Douglas, based on an original romance written for the screen by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein 2d, directed by Alan Crosland. At Warners’ Theatre.

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 Oh For A Man – Fox

Reading Eagle, December 17, 1930

JEANETTE MacDONALD IN COMEDY AT CAPITOL

From the tensely dramatic role of “Dracula,” in the stage play of that title, to the quiet mild role of a singing teacher in “Oh for a Man!” is a far leap for Bela Lugosi, eminent Hungarian actor, but he bridges the gap easily in the Hamilton MacFadden production for Fox film which features Jeanette MacDonald and Reginald Denny and now playing at the Capitol.

The Mary F. Wilkins’ story concerning a burglar a prima donna, with the burglar entering the prima donna’s apartment to steal her jewels and remaining to steal her heart.

Later the prima donna marries him.

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1931

Dracula – Universal

Jumbo lobby card

Lobby cards

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Bela by Joseph Grant for the Los Angeles Record, 1931

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New York Times, February 13, 1931

Bram Stoker’s Human Vampire

By MORDAUNT HALL

Count Dracula, Bram Stoker’s human vampire, who has chilled the spines of book readers and playgoers, is now to be seen at the Roxy in a talking film directed by Tod Browning, who delights in such bloodcurdling stories. It is a production that evidently had the desired effect upon many in the audience yesterday afternoon, for there was a general outburst of applause when Dr. Van Helsing produced a little cross that caused the dreaded Dracula to fling his cloak over his head and make himself scarce.

But Dracula’s evil work is not ended until Dr. Van Helsing hammers a stake through the Count’s heart as he lies in his native earth in a box.

Mr. Browning is fortunate in having in the leading rôle in this eerie work, Bela Lugosi, who played the same part on the stage when it was presented here in October, 1927. What with Mr. Browning’s imaginative direction and Mr. Lugosi’s makeup and weird gestures, this picture succeeds to some extent in its grand guignol intentions.

As the scenes flash by there are all sorts of queer noises, such as the cries of wolves and the hooting of owls, not to say anything of the screams of Dracula’s feminine victims, who are found with twin red marks on their white throats.

The Count is able to change himself into a vampire that flies in through the window and in this guise he is supposed to be able to talk to his victims, who are either driven insane or are so thoroughly terrified that they would sooner do his bidding that pay heed to those who have their welfare at heart. Martin, the keeper in the sanitarium in which an unfortunate individual named Renfield is under supervision, fires at the big bat with a shot gun, but, of course, misses.

To enhance the supernatural effect of this film there is a fog in many of the scenes. The first glimpses are of ordinary humans, but so soon as Renfield goes to the Transylvania castle of the Count, who lives on for centuries by his vampirish actions, there are bony hands protruding from boxes, rats and other animals fleeing, and corridors that are thick with cobwebs and here and there a hungry spider.

Most of the excitement takes place in Carfax Abbey and other places in England, the Count having traveled there to accomplish his blood-thirsty intentions. To start the grim work he causes all the ship’s crew to go insane and commit suicide, but his subsequent activities are not as fruitful as he anticipates.

Helen Chandler gives an excellent performance as one of the girls who is attacked by the “undead” Count. David Manners contributes good work. Dwight Frye does fairly well as Renfield. Herbert Bunston is a most convincing personality. Charles Gerrard affords a few laughs as Martin.

This picture can at least boast of being the best of the many mystery films.

Bram Stoker’s Human Vampire.
DRACULA, with Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan, Herbert Bunston, Frances Dade, Charles Gerrard, Joan Standing, Moon Carroll and Josephine Velez, based on Bram Stoker’s novel, directed by Tod Browning; overture, “Rhapsody in Blue”; Movietone news real: “Hello, New York!” with Santry and Norton and others, including Leonide Masine and the Roxyettes. At the Roxy.

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Berkeley Daily Gazette, April 24, 1931

“DRACULA”　WILL BE SEEN HERE MONDAY

One of the most famous of all actors on stage or screen would like to forget the character that made him famous! Audiences on Broadway were thrilled for more than two years by his artistry; millions of picture fans throughout the country are being fascinated by the startling impersonation he gives on the screen. But the character haunts him, and he never wants to play it again.

The actor is Bela Lugosi, and the character is Count Dracula in the most startling of all plays or pictures – “Dracula.” Bram Stoker, the famous English novelist, wrote it first as a novel – this terrifying narration of an “undead” being who rises from his grave at night and through his horrible influence brings death and suffering to his victims.

For more than a thousand nights, Lugosi played it in the theater. Then when the Universal Studios decided to produce the great story as a picture, Lugosi was the natural choice for the role he had made so famous on the stage.

At first, it was difficult to prevail upon him to appear on the screen. He had lived with the horrible vampire character so long on the stage that he wanted to forget, and how could he forget if he played it again on the screen.

But he finally consented, and for weeks at the Universal City studios while the picture was in production, he lived again the startling, fantastic role of Count Dracula. Those who have seen both play and picture assert that his impersonation for the film is even greater than his stage work.

But, now that the picture is finished and will be shown at the Fox California Theater for 4 days starting Monday, Lugosi says he will never play the role again.

Besides Lugosi, two other playes of the original stage cast appear – Edward Van Sloan and Herbert Bunston. In addition, there are many other favorites, including David Manners, Helen Chandler, Dwight Frye, Frances Dade, Charles Gerrard and Joan Standing. Tod Browning, creator of weird and unusual films, directed the picture.

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Kentucky Theatre, Lexington, 1931

The Capitol, “Bombay’s Leading Talkie House”, 1931

 

 Keith’s Theatre, Baltimore, 1931

 

Rivoli Theatre, Matawan, New Jersey, 1931

Princess Theatre

 Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle (New Zealand), July 1932

 

Stills courtesy of  www.doctormacro.com

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Fifty Million Frenchmen

Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Queensland), January 6, 1931

Profitable Two Minutes

Two minutes work on Warner Bros’s. First National Vitaphone special, “Fifty Million Frenchmen,” netted £200 to Bela LUgosi, Hungarian actor. Only Lugosi, according to the casting director, fitted the role of the East Indian magician who enters towards the close of the piece. To secure his services, Warner Bros’s. First National guaranteed him a week’s salary of £200. When the picture was completed, he had worked a total of two minutes. “Fifty Million Frenchmen” is photographed entirely in technicolour.

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Women of All Nations

The New York Times, May 30, 1931

The Screen

War, Women and Wine

By MORDAUNT HALL

Those rivals in love and friends in war, Flagg and Quirt, who first came to light in the play, “What Price Glory?” are at it again in “Women of All Nations,” the current pictorial attraction at the Roxy. They are impersonated respectively by Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe, the players who figured in the same rôles in the film of “What Price Glory?” and also in that money-making meretricious production, “The Cock-Eyed World.”

This new contribution is reminiscent of “The Cock-Eyed World.” It has the same reprehensible sort of fun, which succeeded in provoking the much-desired gusts of laughter from an audience at the first showing yesterday afternoon. Messrs, McLaglen and Lowe are aided in their low comedy by El Brendel, who is a private in the marines, while Flagg and Quirt are top sergeants in the same force.

Raoul Walsh, director of “The Cock-Eyed World,” is also responsible for the far from subtle activities of this offering, which is one that will probably please those who liked its predecessor. It begins with flashes of the World War and then swings to the Panama Canal, where Quirt enjoys the satisfaction of escorting Flagg to the brig and locking him up. Following that, Flagg has his innings when he is a recruiting sergeant and Quirt endeavors to keep the wolf from the door by running a feminine beauty parlor. The place is raided and Flagg only considers saving Quirt from the police when the latter consents to liquidate an old debt and rejoin the marines.

In this film, the events take Flagg and Quirt, to Sweden, where the leathernecks are supposed to be on a good-will mission. Here the rivals encounter Elsa, a dainty blonde, but they also meet her sweetheart, Olaf, who proves himself to be more than an equal for Flagg, Quirt and Olsen (Mr. Brendel). Olaf in rage throws the three marines through a wall and, according to a later report from Elsa, he subsequently tore down the whole building, which gives a faint idea of the stuff of which this screen story consists.

In course of time the adventurers are beheld in Turkey, where they learn that Elsa has become a favorite of the much-feared Prince Hassam, whose wives are many. The ribald activities here are devoted partly to Flagg and Quirt climbing over a wall to visit Elsa; then their being hidden. Unknown to each other, in two different closets, while the ubiquitous Olsen is in a third.

Prior to the scenes in Turkey it might be stated that Flagg and Quirt go to Nicaragua, where a wall falls on Quirt, and when the zealous Flagg and his men succeed in rescuing him from the débris, all Quirt wants to know is what kept them so long.

It is a fractious tale with what might pass for Rabelaisian humor. Messrs McLaglen and Lowe do their best to serve it with what is wanted. The feminine contingent consists of Greta Nissen, Fifi Dorsay and Marjorie White. Bela Lugosi fills the part of the polygamist, Prince Hassam.

War, Women and Wine.
WOMEN OF ALL NATIONS, directed by Raoul Walsh; produced by the Fox Film Corporation. At the Roxy.
Sergeant Flagg . . . . . Victor McLaglen
Sergeant Quirt . . . . . Edmund Lowe
Elsa . . . . . Greta Nissen
Olsen . . . . . El Brendel
Fifi . . . . . Fifi Dorsay
Pee Wee . . . . . Marjorie White
Captain of Marines . . . . . T. Roy Barnes
Prince Hassan . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Stone . . . . . Humphrey Bogart
Kiki . . . . . Joyce Compton
Izzie . . . . . Jesse De Vorska
Leon . . . . . Charles Judels

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The Black Camel

Bela and cast members aboard the City of Los Angeles

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 3, 1931

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 3, 1931

HOLLYWOOD IN HAWAII AS FILM PARTY ARRIVES

More Than 40 Persons Here To Take Scenes For Talkie, ‘Black Camel’

A generous piece of Hollywood came to Honolulu today when a company of more than 40 moving picture people arrived on the City of Los Angeles to spend a week taking scenes for the production of Earl Derr Biggers’ “The Black Camel.”

Actors, directors, cameramen, sound technicians, scrip writers, “prop” men, and husbands or wives of members of the company made up the party.

Heading the company was Hamilton MacFadden, the young director who produced another of Biggers’ Charlie Chan tales, “Charlie Chan Carries On,” recentlu.

With William Fitzgerald, production manager, who arrived a week in advance of the party, Mr. MacFadden expects to look over prospective locations today and start “shooting” Saturday.

On the trip down the members of the company were by no means given a vacation, as scenes were taken for the picture on shipboard during the voyage, even on the morning of their arrival. Likewise, their stay here will be no holiday, as the short visit they are making will necessitate intensive work.

Playing the part of Charlie Chan, the infallible Honolulu detective, is Warner Oland, well known on the screen for his portrayals of sundry villainous characters, including that of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

According to Mr. Oland, the change of character from former “villain” poarts to the genial character odf Charlie Chan was welcome. He played the same role in “Charlie Chan Carries On.”

Another prominent member of the cast is Bela Lugosi, who created the role of Count Dracula in the stage production of that horror story by Bram Stoker, and who played the same role in the Universal picture of that play, which since its release has been breaking house records in mainland theatres. He will play the role of the crystal gazer in this picture.

Sally Eilers, who in private life is Mrs. “Hoot” Gibson, wife of the popular western picture star, will play the leading female role, that of Julie. She is accompanied by her  husband, who is not, however, a member of the company.

“Hoot” predicts “bigger and better” days for western pictures which, said, are increasingly popular.

The role of Sheila Fane, the actress whose murder forms the plot of the play, will be played by Dorothy Revier.

Miss Violet Dunn, who is the wife of Director MacFadden, will play the part of Anna, the actress’ maid.

Bernard Connell will be the beachcomber towards whom suspicion is directed in the murder. He has been letting his beard grow during the voyage.

Other members of the cast include Alphonse Eithie, Victor Varconi, Murray Kinnell, William Post and Robert Young.

Sam Wurtzul is assistant director, Ben Carre art director, William Sistrom Fox supervisor, and Philip Klein and Barry Conners, scrip writers, besides cameramen and other technical staff members.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 3, 1931

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Warner Oland and Bela 

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Variety, July 7, 1931

THE BLACK CAMEL

Charlie Chan, the Chinese Sherlock Holmes of Earl Derr Biggers’ imagination, must be gathering a screen rep for himself by now. He’s an extremely interesting character while solving mystery plots and sprinkling comic epigrams on the dialog. And he always comes out on top. In “The Black Camel” Chan clears up a three-in-one murder. The killing of a femme film star on location in Honolulu is the plot’s hub. As a story, it’s interesting, with the film star stuff compounding the interest. Plus what might come through the Chan rep the picture will do moderate business.
In the building-up process for the character Chan, Fox seems to have in Warner Oland an actor who can keep the role going indef. This ex-heavy makes the Oriental dick a man who can be watched often.
Amidst the soft Hawaiian beach scenery this time two murders are committed. The third murder cleared up was the first, having occurred in Hollywood years before this narrative starts. The Hollywood victim was a director called Denny Mayo. It is brought out early that that Shelah Fane, the star, murdered Mayo, but who murdered Miss Fane later is the question.
Most of the suspicion is directed at the star’s personal fortune teller, Tarneverro, and the next most at her ex-husband, an actor. The maid is directed into almost tipping her mitt at the start of the film, cut [sic] when the climax arrives, just before she’s nabbed, the girl is the least suspected member of the cast. That’s the usual way with mystery plots. When it’s not the maid, it’s the butler. “The Black Camel’s” butler is, of course, implicated too, having committed the other killing. He was in love with the maid, and he shot a beachcomber who knew too much.
Cleverly directed, and as much as any mystery-satiated customer would suspect the maid and butler at the start, there’s enough plot development to switch anyone’s convictions. The maid angle is cleared up sensibly enough. She was Mayo’s widow. The fortune teller was Mayo’s brother. They were both on Shelah Fane’s trail to bring her to justice, but the girl couldn’t wait for justice to catch up.
Bela Lugosi, the crystal peeker, and Victor Varconi as the first husband, are boys who can always look guilty under the right conditions, and in this instance the conditions are perfect between dialects and scowls. Sally Eilers and Dorothy Revier were capable of dolling up the South Sea scenery, which is all they were required to do.
Otherwise no acting standouts. In that department the film is all Oland.

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Lobby cards

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Roxy Theatre Programme

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Bela and WarnerOland

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New York Times, July 6, 1931

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Bela, Sheila Fane  and Werner Oland 

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Broadminded

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1932

Murders in the Rue Morgue

New York TimesMarch 27, 1931

Poe Story to Be Filmed

Edgar Allen Poe’s story, “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” will be brought to the screen by Universeason, Carl Laemmle announced yesterday. It will be the third of a series of horror films, the first of which was “Dracula.” The second is “Frankenstein.”

Window cards

Publicity stills

Herald

Lobby cards

Newspaper ad

1948 re-release poster

1948 re-release lobby card

1959 Screen Gems still

Spokane Daily Chronicle, January 14, 1932

BELA LUGOSI TO STAR IN POE MURDER FILM

Bela Lugosi, who has won for himself an international reputation by first creating the role of Count Dracula on the stage and then bringing that astounding character to the screen, is now one of Hollywood’s outstanding stars. He is to appear next season in the film production of Edgar Allan Poe’s thriller, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

Born in Lugos, Hungary, October 20, 1884, the son of Baron Lugosi, a banker, Lugosi went to high school and the Academy of Theatrical Art in Budapest. At 20 he made his stage debut as Romeo in a Hungarian production of “Romeo and Juliet” and followed it with three years of Shakespearean repertoire, Ibsen and other classics. He played Armand in a modern Hungarian version of “Camille.”

Speaks Little English

Lugosi came to New York and in 1925 he appeared in his first English apeaking play, “The Red Poppy,” without having previously spoken more than a few words in English. His second Broadway appearance was in the leading role in “Arabesque” and this was followed by the lead in “Open House” and “The Devil in the Cheese.” His fifth performance was as Count Dracula in “Dracula” at the Fulton theater. After nearly two years in New York and in the east, Lugosi played eight weeks at the Biltmore theater, Los Angeles, and four weeks at the Music Box in Hollywood.

Lugosi is 6 ft. 1 inch tall, weighs 179 pounds, has dark blue eyes and dark brown hair. He is an accomplished musician and dancer and has a lyric barytone voice. Durinng the war he was a first lieutenant in the Hungarian infantry, serving two and a half years.

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The New York Times, February 11, 1932

After Edgar Allan Poe

A.D.S

“Murders in the Rue Morgue,” which was offered at the Mayfair Theatre last night, represents a collaboration between Edgar Allan Poe, Tom Reed and Dale Van Every. Poe, it would seem, contributed the title and the Messrs. Reed and Van Every thought up a story to go with it. For this synthetic blood curdler, with its crazy scientist and its shadowy ape, is not in any important respect to be confused with Poe’s ratiocinative detective story.

C. Auguste Dupin, that brilliant analyst of clues and motives, has become, if you please, a romantic medical student. Camille L’Espanaye, for whom Poe imagined such a grotesque fate, is a beautiful ingenue who keeps company with Dupin. There is a Dr. Mirakle who frowns savagely into test tubes in his laboratory near the Seine and snatches girls off the streets for his experiments. Thereafter he drops them into the river through a trapdoor, whence by a devious route they turn up in a morgue—a real nineteenth century morgue.

If it is inevitable that Dr. Mirakle should eventually cast his eye upon the lovely Camille, it is also inevitable that Dupin should arrive out of the crooked Paris streets in time to rescue the lovely Camille from a fate in Dr. Mirakle’s laboratory that is at least as grotesque and certainly more absurd than Poe ever imagined. The crowning spectacle of the ape clambering over the Paris roofs with the unconscious Camille on its arm brought some irreverent squeals from last night’s audience.

What it is that Bela Lugosi, who fills the rôle of Dr. Mirakle, is trying to prove with his blood tests remains to the end a matter of conjecture. The entire production suffers from an overzealous effort at terrorization, and the cast, inspired by the general hysteria, succumbs to the temptation to overact. Miss Sidney Fox and Leon Waycoff are the romantic leads and Bert Roach supplies some tepid comedy. The name of the actor who played the part of the ape is not divulged.

MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s story; directed by Robert Florey; a Universal Picture. At the Mayfair.
Dr. Mirakle . . . . . Bele Lugosi
Camille L’Espanaye . . . . . Sidney Fox
Pierre Dupin . . . . . Leon Waycoff
Paul . . . . . Bert Roach
Prefect of Police . . . . . Brandon Hurst
Janos, the Black One . . . . . Noble Johnson
The Morgue Keeper . . . . . D’Arcy Corrigan
The Mother . . . . . Betty Ross Clarke

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White Zombie

Poster

Lobby cards

The New York Times, July 29, 1932

The Screen

Beyond the Pale

L.N

Necromancers waved their sinister hands from the screen of the Rivoli yesterday and tried to hynotize blondes into killing their boy friends. A legion of individuals, with deceased minds but alert bodies, threw butlers into subterranean streams. Eagles screamed and vultures carried on a terrific caterwauling all around a mountainous castle. And half way through the picture that inspired all these things an actor wistfully remarked:

“The whole thing has me confused; I just can’t understand it.”

That was, as briefly as can be expressed, the legend for posterity of “White Zombie.” Charity—still the greatest of the trilogy—suggests that the sentence be allowed to stand as comment. To go on would lead only to a description of why the eagles screamed, and that would prove very little, indeed, in the orderly scheme of life. There was, in short, no great reason. Nor was there, to be candid, much reason for “White Zombie.” The screen, shuddering slightly, can go on; it can forget, it can be a Zombie, too.

The idea of the picture is that in Haiti there are individuals who dig up bodies, invest them with motive power but not with intelligence, and set them to work. They make good servants. They can carry off blondes without getting ideas in their heads, which helps in these mad days. When they have served their fell purposes, moreover, they can walk off high cliffs and out of the picture. But not the necromancers; they must be shoved over, off and out.

Of the cast, Bela Lugosi plays the chief part—that of the lad who has the power to turn corpses into automatons. Madge Bellamy is the blonde, John Harron the young man in the affair and Robert Frazer a sort of semi-tropical villain. All the actors have strange lines to say, but appear to enjoy saying them. Those given to Mr. Harron seem, on retrospection, to be the most fantastic—if a superlative of any sort is allowable in a discussion of “White Zombie.”

“Not that,” he says at one point. “Better death than that.”

Yes, indeed, much better.
Beyond the Pale.
WHITE ZOMBIE, based on a story by Garnett Weston; directed by Victor Halperin; a Halperin production; released by United Artists. At the Rivoli Theatre.
Murder Legendre . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Madeline Short . . . . . Madge Bellamy
Dr. Bruner . . . . . Joseph Cawthorn
Charles Beaumont . . . . . Robert Frazer
Neil Parker . . . . . John Harron
Driver . . . . . Clarence Muse
Silver . . . . . Brandon Hurst
Pierre . . . . . Dan Crimmins
Chauvin . . . . . John Peters
Von Gelder . . . . . George Burr McAnnan

Herald

 

Stills

Madge Bellamy

1938 re-release pressbook

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Chandu the Magician

The New York Times, October 1, 1932

A Radio Marvel

A.D.S.

This is hocus-pocus week at the Roxy, where most of the photographic tricks known to Hollywood have been assembled to startle and confound the enemies of Chandu. Under the persuasive eyes of the quondam magician of the radio, good English rifles crumple and turn into snapping vipers, ropes up-end themselves in the air, souls rise out of bodies and bodies absent themselves out of their clothes. For Chandu—Edmund Lowe in Oriental dress—is an adept in the mystic arts of the Yogi, and not all the powers of darkness, abetted by tear gas, poison, trapdoors, collapsible dungeon floors and the great mad Roxor himself, can prevail against those eyes.

On the radio the nightly recital of Chandu’s adventures contrived, in the well-remembered manner of Pauline and Elmo the Mighty, to open with an escape from an impossible dilemma and to close with a plunge into a more impossible one. Not unexpectedly, this screen version has the same clutter of climaxes from which the great Chandu emerges every five minutes with the same facility. The result is whooping entertainment for the children and a series of naïvely juvenile escapades for the grown-ups.

Roxor, a baleful character whose behavior may be described with the simple information that Bela Lugosi plays the part, is a madman who wants to possess himself of a death ray and destroy the world. The ray is the invention of a certain Robert Regent, traveling in Egypt with his family. Chandu, an adventurer turned Yogi, shows up in time to prevent the annihilation of the entire family and to battle Roxor all over Egypt in the process of saving the world from extinction. Although Chandu, like a good Yogi, is indifferent to all earthly things, his indifference does not keep him from loving and ultimately wedding the Princess Nadji, another imperiled damsel.

In one episode Chandu is manacled, bundled into a weighted coffin and dropped to the bottom of the Nile, whence he rises safely after a sufficiently harrowing struggle. Herbert Mundin, as the drunken and gullible orderly of the mystic, provides some badly needed humor. Mr. Lugosi’s familiar tactics of terrorization seem overstated. Irene Ware, a newcomer, makes a charming juvenile as the Princess.

A feature of the stage show is an effective arrangement of Kol Nidre, rendered by William Robyn and a large chorus. “Box o’ Tricks” and “Dance Away the Night” are the other stage pageants.
CHANDU THE MAGICIAN, from the radio serial by Harry A. Earnshaw, Vera M. Oldham and R. R. Morgan; directed by Marcel Varnel and William C. Menzies; produced by the Fox Film Corporation. At the Roxy.
Chandu . . . . . Edmund Lowe
Princess Nadji . . . . . Irene Ware
Roxor . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Albert Miggles . . . . . Herbert Mundin
Robert Regent . . . . . Henry B. Walthall
Abdullah . . . . . Weldon Heyburn
Dorothy . . . . . Virginia Hammond
Betty Lou . . . . . June Vlasek
Bobby . . . . . Nestor Aber

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Intimate Interview (short)

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1933

Island of Lost Souls

New York Times January 13, 1933

Charles Laughton as a Mad Scientist in a Pictorial Conception of an H.G. Wells Story.

By Mordaunt Hall.

Charles Laughton, who portrays Nero in Cecil B. De Mille’s “The Sign of the Cross” is cast as a mad scientist in “Island of Lost Souls,” a very free translation of H. G. Wells’s book, “The Island of Dr. Moreau.” In this picture, which is now at the Rialto, Mr. Laughton assuredly has ample opportunity to spread terror among audiences, for as Dr. Moreau his aim is to convert wild animals into creatures that walk and talk like human beings.

Although the attempt to horrify is not accomplished with any marked degree of subtlety, there is no denying that some of the scenes are ingenously fashioned and are, therefore, interesting. The general effect of the film is enhanced greatly by Mr. Laughton’s urbane impersonation. The ghoulish surgeon is for the most part calm and earnest in his strange activities, but when he leads the way to his house on the small mysterious island, he wields a whip on the hideous muttering group of creatures, explaining to a refugee from a ship that he learned to crack the big whip in Australia. In one sequence the ape-like creatures are asked several times by Dr. Moreau, “What is the law?” And they reply: “Not to eat meat; are we not men? Not to run on all fours. Not to gnaw the bark off trees. Not to spill blood.”

There is a suggestion of “Frankenstein” and also something akin to “Emperor Jones” in this ghastly affair. The ape-men look upon the white-clad Moreau, with a pistol strapped to his wrist, as the one who made them, the one who heals them and the one who runs the House of Pain. Dr. Moreau’s greatest triumph is Lota, who is referred to as the Panther Girl. She is docile, and Moreau introduces her to Edward Parker, the survivor of a shipwreck. The insane surgeon has reason one day to believe that the wild animal in Lota is returning despite his scientific treatment.

The story reminds one of “Emperor Jones” when the muttering ape-men hear that Dr. Moreau has drawn blood and because he has broken the law set down among them, they decide to take him to the so-called House of Pain—the place where Moreau performs his operations and the mere mention of which had hitherto made them cringe and mutter with fright. The hairy creatures whom Moreau had given the power of limited speech and had taught to walk on two legs, dispose of their master in his own chamber of horrors.

Needless to say there is little sympathy for this demoniacal scientist. However, as it as a melodrama that hopes to make one’s blood curdle, but only hopes, one can be thankful that the ape creatures permit the best actor in the tale to survive until nearly the end.

Richard Arlen portrays Parker acceptably. Arthur Hohl does quite well as Moreau’s agent, Montgomery. Kathleen Burke with a weird make-up interprets the rôle of Lota. Leila Hyams is attractive and quite satisfactory as the girl Parker is engaged to marry.

ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s book, “The Island of Dr. Moreau”; directed by Erie Kenton; a Paramount production. At the Rialto.
Dr. Moreau . . . . . Charles Laughton
Edward Parker . . . . . Richard Arlen
Ruth Walker . . . . . Leila Hyams
Lota . . . . . Kathleen Burke
Montgomery . . . . . Arthur Hohl
Captain Davies . . . . . Stanley Fields
Hogan . . . . . Robert Kortman
M’Ling . . . . . Tetsu Komai
Ouran . . . . . Hans Steinke
Gola . . . . . Harry Ekezian
Samoan Girl . . . . . Rosemary Grimes
Captain Donahue . . . . . Paul Hurst
American Consul . . . . . George Irving
Leader of the Ape-Men . . . . . Bela Lugosi

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The Death Kiss

The New York Times, February 5, 1933

By MORDAUNT HALL.

A Murder Mystery.

WITH its new policy of low prices and vaudeville in lieu of special stage presentations, the Seventh Avenue Roxy drew great crowds last week. The screen offering was “The Death Kiss,” which, although it is somewhat staccato in its dialogue and movement, at least affords a decided surprise in the closing sequence.

There are several other surprises in the course of this feature, and at the outset one sees persons in an automobile discussing killing a man and then one hears shots and perceives a victim fall. It turns out to be the acting of a scene for a motion picture, with the confident director in his camp chair. He grumbles about the death scene, telling the actor that he spins too much and it does not look real. A second later it is discovered that the actor playing the part of the man who is supposed to die actually has been shot. He is dead and the spinning was his last histrionic effort. This much happens in the opening sequence, and from then on the interest is kept up, even though somewhat mechanically, until the climactic episode, when the identity of the individual responsible for the shooting of one actor and the poisoning of another is revealed.

The picture has a group of efficient players, including Adrienne Ames, David Manners, Bela Lugosi, Alexander Carr, Vincent Barnett and Barbara Bedford.

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Night of Terror

Lobby cards

Still courtesy of  http://www.moviemonstermuseum.com/belalugosi2

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International House

Lobby card

New York Times, May 27, 1933

Wild Fan.

A.D.S.S.Z.

At the Paramount they are dispensing humor by the shot-gun method, and it should be said at once that “International House” has some direct hits. In a mad scenario the new film finds a generous amount of space for such diverse comics as W. C. Fields, Stuart Erwin, Burns and Allen and Stoopnagle and Budd, with a corner for Peggy Hopkins Joyce to dig gold in. Measured in laughs, this potpourri of unrelated talents is surprisingly good.

A Chinese of questionable genius brings most of the cast to the “International House” with his announcement of an invention which combines the best features of the radio and television. Bela Lugosi, with the sinister eyes, is on hand to represent Russia at the demonstration. Mr. Erwin, acting for an American company, has a talent for catching childhood diseases, and when he comes down with the measles the “International House” is quarantined. George Burns and Gracie Allen are the house doctor and nurse, occupations which let them run through their hilarious dialogue at any given moment.

How W. C. Fields, whose destination is Kansas City, finds his way into this lunatic ménage in a helicopter is something that cannot possibly matter after the picture has started on its unsteady course. With his regal and somewhat beery manner, his precious silk hat, his frozen face and his unlit cigar, he keeps his audiences in perpetual roars. His athletic argument with the hotel clerk, which brings most of the “International House” thundering about his ears, is the funniest thing in the picture, unless it be his clandestine rendezvous with Miss Joyce in her boudoir.

Doctor Wong’s demonstrations of his great invention permit the introduction of such radio entertainers as Rudy Vallee, Cab Galloway and Baby Rose Marie. To Mr. Vallee falls the only really inept episode in “International House,” and that is the fault of the script. Although the writing is uneven, a great deal of it is funny, and it is of particular help to Mr. Fields and to Burns and Allen.

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE, based on a story by Lou Heifetz and Neil Brant; music and lyrics by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin; directed by Edward Sutherland; a Paramount production. At the Paramount.
Peggy Hopkins Joyce . . . . . Peggy Hopkins Joyce
Professor Quail . . . . . W. C. Field
Tommy Nash . . . . . Stuart Erwin
Carol Fortescue . . . . . Sari Maritza
Dr. Burns . . . . . George Burns
Nurse Allen . . . . . Gracie Allen
General Petronovich . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Dr. Wong . . . . . Edmund Breese
Sir Mortimer Fortescue . . . . . Lumsden Hare
Hotel manager . . . . . Franklin Pangborn
Herr von Baden . . . . . Harrison Greene

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The Devil’s in Love

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The Whispering Shadow (serial)

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Hollywood on Parade #A8 (short)

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1934

The Black Cat

1934 trade advertisement poster for the retitled British release

Swedish poster

The New York Times, May 19, 1934

Not Related to Poe

A.D.S.

 The acknowledgment which the producers of “The Black Cat” graciously make to Edgar Allan Poe seems a trifle superfluous, since the new film is not remotely to be identified with Poe’s short story. A clammy and excessively ghoulish tale of hi-jinks in a Hungarian horror salon, it describes, with appropriate hysteria, the curious behavior of a gentleman named, if the program spelling can be trusted, Hjalmar Poelzig. Hjalmar (Boris Karloff with a black cloak and a triangular hair cut) is the leader of a cult of devil worshippers. He usually carries a black cat up his voluminous sleeve because his enemy, Dr. Verdegast, rolls his eyes and froths at the mouth when he sees black cats, and that suits Hjalmar.

It seems that Dr. Verdegast (Bela Lugosi) has come back from a dungeon cell to claim his wife and child. Hjalmar has the wife in a glass case downstairs with his collection of embalmed beauties. He has married the daughter. Now it seems, too, that a young American novelist and his beautiful wife have had an accident and are spending the night as Hjalmar’s guests. Hjalmar needs a maiden for the mystic midnight rites. The novelist’s wife is elected after a symbolic chess game between the two enemies. If one may whisper that, near the end there is a big scene in which the mad doctor pegs Hjalmar to the wall and goes to work with his scalpels to flay the wicked hide off the mystic one, a prospective audience can get a pretty fair idea of what the scenario writers have put into “The Black Cat.”

As for the cats, they hardly stay in front of the camera long enough to give the title a good workout, because the doctor is always pegging away at them with knives and automatics. The staging is good and the camera devotes a proper amount of attention to shadows and hypnotic eyes. There are also some good workmanlike screams from the various imperilled beauties. But “The Black Cat” is more foolish than horrible. The story and dialogue pile the agony on too thick to give the audience a reasonable scare. David Manners and Jacqueline Wells are Hjalmar’s guests.

The Park Central Revue, making its first Broadway appearance, is on the Roxy’s stage. Teddy Bergman, Wesley Eddy and his “Gang,” and the Foster dancing girls are among the entertainers.

THE BLACK CAT, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s story; directed by Edgar Ulmer; a Universal production. At the Roxy.
Hjalmar Poelzig . . . . . Boris Karloff
Dr. Verdegast . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Peter Alison . . . . . David Manners
Joan Alison . . . . . Jacqueline Wells
Karen Poelzig . . . . . Lucille Lund
Majordomo . . . . . Egon Brecher
Maid . . . . . Anna Duncan
Car steward . . . . . Herman Bing
Train conductor . . . . . Andre Cheron
Train steward . . . . . Luis Alberni

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Gift of Gab

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Return of Chandu (serial)

The New York Times, April 15, 1935

At the Criterion

F.S.N

Our 10-year-old great-grandson informed us that “Return of Chandu,” featuring Bela Lugosi, has been playing the neighborhood houses in serial form. It seems all too likely. Mr. Lugosi and his magic ring, which permits him to vanish into thin air, much to his enemies’ dismay, saves an Egyptian princess from the sacrificial altar of a sinister Eastern cult. Elementary melodrama, my dear Watson.

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Screen Snapshots #11 (short)

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The Hollywood Movie Parade (short)

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Black Cat Parade (newsreel)

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1935

Best Man Wins

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The Mysterious Mr. Wong

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Mark of the Vampire

The New York Times, May 3, 1935

At the Rialto and the Mayfair

F.S.N.

Horror being a precious commodity in the cinema and a potent lure to the box-office, it is not altogether surprising this week to discover that two Broadway houses—the Mayfair and the Rialto—have avidly laid claims to the same picture. Its name is “Mark of the Vampire” and it manages, through use of every device seen in Dracula and one or two besides, to lay a sound foundation for childish nightmares. Even the adults in the audience may feel a bit skittery at the sight of two or three vampires, a bevy of bats, a herd of spiders, a drove of rodents and a cluster or two of cobwebs, not forgetting the swarm of fog.

The undead, which is the professional name for the zombies of the piece, have chosen the tiny village of Visoka in Czechoslovakia for their depredations this time. There is a ruined castle whose sole tenants are believed to be the vampires, Count Mora (Bela Lugosi in private life) and his red-lipped daughter, Luna (Carol Borland). One night Sir Karell Borotyn is found dead, the telltale marks on his throat, his body drained of its blood.

“Vampires!” wail the villagers. “Murder!” insists Inspector Neumann. Lionel Barrymore drops in to become Professor Zelen, savant and delver into the occult. He scatters bat-thorn (also known as wolf’s claw) about the place to keep the vampires away, but soon it is apparent that Sir Karell’s daughter and her fiancé are being unwilling blood donors to the earth-bound spirits.

To go further into the story would be unfair to Tod Browning, director of the piece, and its authors, Guy Endore and Bernard Schubert. Let it be enough merely to add that, for all its inconsistencies, “Mark of the Vampire” should catch the beholder’s attention and hold it, through chills and thrills, right up to the moment when the mystery of the vampires of Visoka is solved. Like most good ghost stories, it’s a lot of fun, even though you don’t believe a word of it.

MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, from a story by Guy Endore and Bernard Schubert; screen play by the Messrs, Endore and Schubert; directed by Tod Browning; produced by E. J. Mannix for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Professor Zelen . . . . . Lionel Barrymore
Irene Borotyn . . . . . Elizabeth Allan
Count Mora . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Inspector Neumann . . . . . Lionel Atwill
Baron Otto . . . . . Jean Hersholt
Fedor . . . . . Henry Wadsworth
Dr. Doskill . . . . . Donald Meek
Midwife . . . . . Jessie Ralph
Jan . . . . . Ivan Simpson
Chauffeur . . . . . Franklyn Ardell
Maria . . . . . Leila Bennett
Annie . . . . . June Gittelson
Luna Mora . . . . . Carol Borland
Sir Karell Borotyn . . . . . Holmes Herbert
Innkeeper . . . . . Michael Visaroff

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The Raven

The New York Times, July 5, 1935

The Screen

“The Raven,” With Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, Is a Horror Film in More Sense Than One

F.S.N.

 Suddenly there came a tapping As of some one gently rapping —

But there will be no gentle rapping from this corner of the curious photoplay, “The Raven,” which Universal, with amazing effrontery, describes as having been inspired by two Edgar Allan Poe classics, “The Raven” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.”

A hybrid harder to describe than Boris Karloff’s newest make-up, the Roxy’s current tenant should have no difficulty in gaining the distinction of being the season’s worst horror film. Not even the presence of the screen’s Number One and Two Bogymen, Mr. Karloff and Bela (Dracula) Lugosi, can make the picture anything but a fatal mistake from beginning to end.

If you are as curious as we were to see how the movie makers would combine “The Raven” and “Pit and Pendulum”—using Karloff and Lugosi in the process—you may be interested to learn that what Poe suggested to the script boys was a story about a mad surgeon. The chap—Mr. Lugosi—had read Poe so thoroughly that he had gone whacky, kept a stuffed raven (no, Mr. Karloff does not play the raven) on his desk for luck and built a torture room in his cellar.

When the father of the young woman he would espouse refuses to give his blessing, the surgeon invites all the principals to a house party and then, cackling ghoulishly the while, tries out his torture machines. If it had not been for Mr. Karloff—this time with a dead eye, a slack mouth and few other cute touches—the death rate would have been terrific.

Of course, it must be said that Lugosi and Karloff try hard, even though, both being cultured men, they must have suffered at the indignity being visited upon the helpless Edgar Allan. But if “The Raven” is the best that Universal can do with one of the greatest horror story writers of all time, then it had better toss away the other two books in its library and stick to the pulpies for plot material.

The stage show presents Herman Timberg, Tip, Tap and Toe, a dancing trio; the Digatanos, the Gae Foster girls and Freddie Mack’s orchestra.

THE RAVEN, suggested by Edgar Allan Poe’s poem; screen play by David Boehm; directed by Louis Friedlander; a Universal production. At the Roxy.
Bateman . . . . . Boris Karloff
Dr. Vollin . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Jean Thatcher . . . . . Irene Ware
Jerry Halden . . . . . Lester Matthews
Judge Thatcher . . . . . Samuel Hinds
Mary . . . . . Inez Courtney
Geoffrey . . . . . Ian Wolfe
Colonel Grant . . . . . Spencer Charters
Harriet . . . . . Maidel Turner
Chapman . . . . . Arthur Hoyt

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Murder by Television

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Mystery of the Mary Celeste

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San Diego Exposition Opened (newsreel)

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1936

The Invisible Ray

The New York Times, January 11, 1936

At the Roxy

F.S.N.

 Time marches on. When last we saw Mr. Karloff he was the tragic monster trapped in the tumbling masonry of Frankenstein’s mountain laboratory. Now, according to the Roxy’s “The Invisible Ray,” Karloff has restored the laboratory to its former state and, subleasing it from Frankenstein, has become a scientist on his own. More than that, he has discovered a new element—Radium X—which can blast a boulder at fifty paces or heal the lame, the halt and the blind at ten.

As the story unreels, you realize that this is just another case of a man’s manager bringing him along too fast. It is no wonder Karloff’s mind cracks under the strain. Becoming poisoned with the new element and acquiring the deadly property of killing everything he touches, he decides to rid the earth of his wife, her lover, the woman whom he suspects fostered their romance and the two scientists who revealed Radium X to the world.

Universal, which seems to have a monopoly on films of this sort, has made its newest penny dreadful with technical ingenuity and the pious hope of frightening the children out of a year’s growth. There is evidence, too, that Carl Laemmle wanted to say “boo” to maturer audiences. In a printed foreword is the legend, “That which you are now to see is a theory whispered in the cloisters of science. Tomorrow these theories may startle the universe as a fact.” Boo right back at you, Mr. Laemmle!

THE INVISIBLE RAY, from a story by Howard Higgin and Douglas Hodges; screen play by John Calton; directed by Lambert Hillyer; a Universal production.
Dr. Janos Rukh . . . . . Karloff
Dr. Benet . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Diane Rukh . . . . . Frances Drake
Ronald Drake . . . . . Frank Lawton
Sir Francis Stevens . . . . . Walter Kingsford
Lady Arabella Stevens . . . . . Beulah Bondi
Mother Rukh . . . . . Violet Kemble Cooper
Briggs . . . . . Nydia Westman
Headman . . . . . Danell Haines

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Postal Inspector

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Shadow of Chinatown (serial)

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1937

SOS Coastguard (serial)

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1939

Son of Frankenstein

The New York Times, January 30, 1939

‘Son of Frankenstein,’ With Boris Karloff, Seen at the Rivoli

 No use beating around the razzberry bush: if Universal’s “Son of Frankenstein,” at the Rivoli, isn’t the silliest picture ever made, it’s a sequel to the silliest picture ever made, which is even sillier. But its silliness is deliberate—a very shrewd silliness, perpetrated by a good director in the best traditions of cinematic horror, so that even while you laugh at its nonsense you may be struck with the notion that perhaps that’s as good a way of enjoying oneself at a movie as any. It must have been all the actors themselves could do, in this day and age, to keep straight faces—always excepting poor Boris Karloff, of course, who couldn’t laugh through all that make-up even if he tried.

For “Son of Frankenstein” is a chip off the old Doc, the most horrible horror picture you ever saw—at least since “The Bride of Frankenstein” (which was a sequel to “Frankenstein”). Imagine, if you can, a picture so tough that Basil Rathbone plays a sympathetic part in it, so mean you feel sorry for Lionel Atwill, so ghastly that Bela Lugosi is only an assistant bogyman. If you can imagine all this, then it is possible that you may have a pale, partial conception of Frankenstein, fils. It is such a picture that—if Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley had suspected the mere possibility of it—she might have consigned that first mild manuscript to the flames, in sheer diffidence. For our part, we’re rather glad she didin’t.

Anybody who’d like a nice, unsunny place to be haunted in couldn’t do worse than rent Castle Frankenstein for the season. Such a paradise of low, brow-bursting beams! Such a number of enchanting secret doors and passageways! Such endless miles of corridors rendered fascinating by skiddy turns, pneumoniac draughts and sudden, breakneck stairways! Such lovely views of the countryside, which combines the picturesque features of the Bad Lands of South Dakota with the rustic charm of the brimstone beds in and around Vesuvius. With a pit of boiling sulphur in the basement and Bela Lugosi living there as a combination monster-nurse and janitor, what could be cozier?

Yes, sir, Castle Frankenstein is the showplace of the neighborhood. At dinner in the great hall Josephine Hutchinson seems justified in remarking to Basil that the front-door knocker “gets on her nerves,” inasmuch as each stroke is equivalent to the Independence Day explosion in San Francisco. When the butler fails to show up and Mr. Rathbone (who thinks he has got the monster safely hidden out in the “lab,” as he calls it, of all things) inquires about him, the second man matter-of-factly explains: “He took a tray to the baby in the nursery, sir, and we haven’t seen him since.”

No, by George, you couldn’t beat Castle Frankenstein for the purposes you have in mind—as a place to be haunted in, that is—and it certainly ought to be available cheap, considering what happened to the last tenants. It must be quite a problem to heat, though.

SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, from a screen play by Willis Cooper; directed and produced by Rowland V. Lee for release by Universal. At the Rivoli.
Baron Wolf von Frankenstein . . . . . Basil Rathbone
The Monster . . . . . Boris Karloff
Ygor . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Krogh . . . . . Lionel Atwill
Elsa von Frankenstein . . . . . Josephine Hutchinson
Amelia . . . . . Emma Dunn
Peter von Frankenstein . . . . . Donnie Dunagan
Benson . . . . . Edgar Norton

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The Gorilla

The New York Times, May 28, 1939

 The Screen

‘The Gorilla,’ With the Ritz Brothers, Patsy Kelly and Lionel Atwill, Opens at the Roxy

Twentieth Century-Fox has not, we regretfully report, enhanced the standing of the comic muse, nor has it contributed much to the enjoyment of patrons of the Roxy this week, through its comedy treatment of the ancient Ralph Spence chiller tersely titled, “The Gorilla.” The Ritz Brothers—Harry, Jimmy and Al—are there to supply a note of hilarity to the supposedly eerie proceedings, but even their antic buffoonery is not equal to the task. The real comedian of the show, strangely enough, is a gentleman named Art Miles (he’s the gorilla) who pops up every so often emitting strange noises and thumping his hairy chest—courtesy of the prop department—in the best Tarzan tradition.

As for the story—well, its the old one about the country gentleman who receives threatening notes from an unknown source signed “the gorilla.” Midnight is the hour of his (Lionel Atwill) doom and the Ritzes arrive at the scene an hour or so before to see that he is properly protected, they, of course, being private detectives. From this point on things begin to happen. People like Anita Louise and Patsy Kelly shriek themselves hoarse; Mr. Atwill disappears, the Ritz brothers disappear (one by one), Bela Lugosi appears out of the nowhere; secret panels in the walls open and close; flashes of lightning illuminate gloomy rooms.

It’s all supposed to be either very funny or shockingly thrilling, depending how you look at it. We couldn’t see it either way.

THE GORILLA, as adapted by Rian James and Sid Silvers from the play by Ralph Spence; directed by Allan Dawn; produced by Darryl F. Zanuck for Twentieth Century-Fox. At the Roxy.
Garrity . . . . . Jimmy Ritz
Harrigan . . . . . Harry Ritz
Mulligan . . . . . Al Ritz
Norma Denby . . . . . Anita Louise
Kitty . . . . . Patsy Kelly
Walter Stevens . . . . . Lionel Atwill
Peters . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Stranger . . . . . Joseph Calleia
Jack Marsden . . . . . Edward Norris
Seaman . . . . . Wally Vernon
Conway . . . . . Paul Harvey
The Gorilla . . . . . Art Miles

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Ninotchka

Garbo and Bela

The New York Times, November 10, 1939

The Screen In Review

‘Ninotchka,’ an Impious Soviet Satire Directed by Lubitsch, Opens at the Music Hall

By FRANK S. NUGENT

 Stalin won’t like it. Molotoff may even recall his envoy from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. We still will say Garbo’s “Ninotchka” is one of the sprightliest comedies of the year, a gay and impertinent and malicious show which never pulls its punch lines (no matter how far below the belt they may land) and finds the screen’s austere first lady of drama playing a dead-pan comedy role with the assurance of a Buster Keaton. Nothing quite so astonishing has come to the Music Hall since the Rockefellers landed on Fiftieth Street. And not even the Rockefellers could have imagined M-G-M getting a laugh out of Garbo at the U.S.S.R.’s expense.

Ernst Lubitsch, who directed it, finally has brought the screen around to a humorist’s view of those sober-sided folk who have read Marx but never the funny page, who refuse to employ the word “love” to describe an elementary chemico-biological process, who reduce a Spring morning to an item in a weather chart and who never, never drink champagne without reminding its buyer that goat’s milk is richer in vitamins. In poking a derisive finger into these sobersides, Mr. Lubitsch hasn’t been entirely honest. But, then, what humorist is? He has created, instead, an amusing panel of caricatures, has read them a jocular script, has expressed—through it all—the philosophy that people are much the same wherever you find them and decent enough at heart. What more could any one ask?

Certainly we ask for little more, in the way of thoroughly entertaining screen fare, than the tale of his Ninotchka, the flat-heeled, Five-Year-Plannish, unromantically mannish comrade who was sent to Paris by her commissar to take over the duties of a comically floundering three-man mission entrusted with the sale of the former Duchess Swana’s court jewels. Paris in the Spring being what it is and Melvyn Douglas, as an insidious capitalistic meddler, being what he is, Comrade Ninotchka so far forgot Marx, in Mr. Lubitsch’s fable, as to buy a completely frivolous hat, to fall in love and, after her retreat to Moscow, to march in the May Day parade without caring much whether she was in step or not.

If that seems a dullish way of phrasing it, we can only take refuge in the adventitious Chinese argument that one picture is worth a million words. Mr. Lubitsch’s picture is worth at least a few thousand more words than we have room for here. To do justice to it we should have to spend a few hundred describing the arrival of the Soviet delegation in Paris where they debate the merits of the Hotel Terminus (a shoddy place) and the Hotel Clarence where one need push a button once for hot water, twice for a waiter, thrice for a French maid. Would Lenin really have said, as Comrade Kopalski insisted, “Buljanoff, don’t be a fool! Go in there and ring three times.”

We should need a few hundred more to describe the Paris tour of Ninotchka, under Mr. Douglas’s stunned capitalistic guidance; the typically Lubitsch treatment of a stag dinner party, with the camera focussed on a door and only the microphone capable of distinguishing between the arrival of a cold meat platter and that of three cigarette girls on the hoof; the Moscow roommate’s elaboration of the effect of a laundered Parisian chemise upon the becottoned feminine population of an entirely too-cooperative apartment house.

For these are matters so cinematic, so strictly limited to the screen, that news print cannot be expected to do justice to them, any more than it could do full justice to Miss Garbo’s delightful debut as a comedienne. It must be monotonous, this superb rightness of Garbo’s playing. We almost wish she would handle a scene badly once in a while just to provide us with an opportunity to show we are not a member of a fan club. But she remains infallible and Garbo, always exactly what the situation demands, always as fine as her script and director permit her to be. We did not like her “drunk” scene here, but, in disliking it, we knew it was the writer’s fault and Mr. Lubitsch’s. They made her carry it too far.

We objected, out of charity, to some of the lines in the script: to that when Ninotchka reports: “The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians”; and to that when the passport official assures the worried traveler she need not fret about the towel situation in Moscow hotels because “we change the towel every week.” But that is almost all. The comedy, through Mr. Douglas’s debonair performance and those of Ina Claire as the duchess and Sig Rumann, Felix Bressart and Alexander Grannach as the unholy three emissaries; through Mr. Lubitsch’s facile direction; and through the cleverly written script of Walter Reisch, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, has come off brilliantly. Stalin, we repeat, won’t like it; but, unless your tastes hew too closely to the party line, we think you will, immensely.

NINOTCHKA, adapted by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and Walter Reisch from an original screen story by Melchior Lengyel; directed by Ernst Lubitsch for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At the Radio City Music Hall.
Ninotchka . . . . . Greta Garbo
Count Leon d’Algout . . . . . Melvyn Douglas
Duchess Swana . . . . . Ina Claire
Iranoff . . . . . Sig Rumann
Buljanoff . . . . . Felix Bressart
Kopalski . . . . . Alexander Granach
Commissar Razinin . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Count Rakonin . . . . . Gregory Gaye
Hotel Manager . . . . . Rolfe Sedan
Mercier . . . . . Edwin Maxwell
Gaston . . . . . Richard Carle

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Dark Eyes of London

The New York Times, March 25, 1940

The Screen

‘The Human Monster,’ Featuring Bela Lugosi, at the Globe, Latest Horror Picture

By B.R. CRISLER

Even connoisseurs of the horror film will doubtless be constrained to admit that nothing quite so consistently horrid as “The Human Monster,” at the Globe, has ever befallen this hapless city. Brooded over by the batlike spirit of Bela Lugosi, it comes like an evil visitation compared to which the hunch-backs of Notre Dame (first and second string); the two Doctors Jekyll and Messrs. Hyde, and both King Kong père and fils are about as intimidating as Ferdinand the Bull. To begin with, all Mr. Lugosi has to do is to look at people and they either get hypnosis or cramps from laughing. Our personal reaction was more hysterical than horrified, but that’s a matter of taste.

Up to now, the most popular screen grotesqueries have had a certain lightness of touch; when Quasimodo, for instance, was beaten by knouts in the cathedral square, the camera mercifully averted its lens, or gave the streaming blood the merest glance, purely for verificative purposes. Not so “The Human Monster,” in which not only is Wilfred Walter more unglamorous than even Charles Laughton as the hunchback, but is totally blind in the bargain. Consequently, his homicidal technique is the more deliberative and, so to speak, stately, giving the camera plenty of time to dwell with sadistic relish on the more recherché details of his method of doing his victims in. But Jake, as the Monster is more familiarly known, is just a stooge, a sort of shipping clerk for Bela, who does a wholesale business in select and artistic submersions.

Bela, in fact, covers the waterfront with highly insured clients (he solicits insurance in his spare time) and so annoys Scotland Yard with this marine Blitzkrieg of bodies that even the conservative Yard is compelled to assign its brightest inspector (Hugh Williams) to the case. A pretty, blond daughter of one of the victims, who floats a loan with Bela and then goes floating down the Thames himself, is mixed up very attractively in the matter, and there are numerous incidental people who give a good if sometimes barely intelligible account of themselves, as is sometimes the wont of English actors. In fact, if the British accent gets much worse, they will soon have to provide incidental titles for America.

THE HUMAN MONSTER, directed by John Argyle, screen play by Patrick Kirwin, Walter Summers and J. F. Argyle, based on “The Dark Eyes of London” by Edgar Wallace; produced by Mr. Argyle for Monogram Pictures. At the Globe.
Dr. Orloff . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Inspector Holt . . . . . Hugh Williams
Diana Stuart . . . . . Greta Gynt
Lieut. O’Rielly . . . . . Edmon Ryan
Jake (The Monster) . . . . . Wilfred Walter
Grogan . . . . . Alexander Field
Dumb Lew . . . . . Arthur E. Owen
Secretary . . . . . Julie Suedo
Henry Stuart . . . . . Gerald Pring
Walsh . . . . . Bryan Herbert
Policewoman . . . . . May Haliatt
The Drunk . . . . . Charles Penrose

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The Phantom Creeps (serial)

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1940

The Saint’s Double Trouble

The New York Times,  February 13, 1940

 The Screen

Simon Templar Has a Twin in ‘Saint’s Double Trouble’ at the Rialto – “Seige,” a Record of Warsaw

One of the more obvious differences between “Penrod’s Double Trouble,” which we remember from a few seasons back, and “The Saint’s Double Trouble,” which we remember from the Rialto yesterday, is that Penrod and his double were played by the identical Mauch twins, while the Saint and his double are played by the identical George Sanders. As both the Saint and the murderous rogue who is such a ringer for the Saint, Mr. Sanders manages to look so much like himself under all circumstances that his resemblance is not merely uncanny but uncommonly amusing. What could be more jolly (and we prefer no answer) than seeing Mr. Sanders-as-the-Saint-impersonating-Mr.-Sanders-as-the-Boss confronted by Mr. Sanders-as-the-Boss impersonating-Mr.-Sanders-as-the-Saint? As the lad in the next row said, “Ain’t he the spittin’ image of himself, though.”

It’s fair fun, anyway, no less through the penny-shocker adventures of Leslie Charteris’s raffish hero as he lifts the smuggled diamonds from the less-deserving rogues who stole them, than through the sentimental duty-dodging of Detective Fernack, who likes the Saint too much to bring him to book. We hope, though, that this one schizophrenic flier ends Simon Templar’s double trouble; it isn’t his iniquity we admire so much, but his uniquity.

Also on the Rialto’s bill is a one-reel documentary, “Siege,” filmed in Warsaw by Julien Bryan during the days immediately preceding the city’s surrender. It is a grim and somber record of war’s effect on the civilian population, narrated matter-of-factly, photographed simply, objectively. Mr. Bryan just happened to be there, just “happened” to remain after the government, the war correspondents and the other photographers had gone. His film is almost a pictorial diary, beginning while there still is some little hope for the city, watching that hope crushed when the weary file of soldiers straggles back from the front and settling into a fearful, bewildered, hopeless period of waiting in the bomb-torn, shell-riddled, fire-swept ruin that was Warsaw. Not entertainment this, but first-rate camera reportage.

THE SAINT’S DOUBLE TROUBLE, screen play by Ben Holmes based on a story by Leslie Charteris; directed by Jack Hively; produced by Cliff Reid for RKO Radio. At the Rialto.
The Saint . . . . . George Sanders
The Boss
Anne . . . . . Helene Whitney
Fernack . . . . . Jonathan Hale
Partner . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Behlen . . . . . Donald MacBride
Limpy . . . . . John F. Hamilton
Professor Bitts . . . . . Thomas W. Ross
Monk . . . . . Elliott Sullivan

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Black Friday

British trade show poster

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San Jose News, April 26, 1940

Bela Lugosi, Karloff Have Starring Roles In New Horror Film

“Black Friday,” heralded as the newest idea in horror pictures, with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in the starring roles, came to the Padre Theater today.

Different from previous horror films both in story and technique, “Black Friday” finds both the stars and their supporting players appearing without the “weird” makeup effects they have used in the past.

A trail of murder unique on the screen is started by Karloff, who as a famous surgeon performs a daring operation by transplanting part of the brain of a criminal into the brain of a quiet little college professor.

Stanley Ridges, celebrated character actor, plays the difficult role of the professor whose dual brain transforms him at times into a ruthless killer.

The supporting cast includes such well known players as Anne Nagel, Anne Gwynne, James Craig, Edmund McDonald, Virginia Brissac, Paul Fix and Ray Bailey.

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You’ll Find Out

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The New York Times, November 15, 1940

 The Screen

Kay Kyser at the Roxy

You have really got to be fond of Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge band in order to get any pleasure out of the show at the Roxy this week. For the professor demeritus and his boys (and girl) moved in there yesterday to appear not only on the stage in one of their quiz sessions, but also upon the screen in RKO’s “You’ll Find Out.” In the former, they’re on their own and consequently responsible for their actions; but in the latter they’re all mixed up with a lot of movie actors and a plot, so it’s hard to say who should take the blame.

For “You’ll Find Out” is one of those silly shudder-comedies, in which Mr. Kyser and his hep cats appear as the innocent bystanders who naturally become involved in an eerie attempt at murder in a forbidding old Massachusetts house. They have, it develops, arrived there to play at a deb party, but Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre have arrived before them, determined to bump off the guest of honor and—ah-ha!—obtain her inheritance. So the party is quite a cozy shindig, with seances and mysterious accidents and occasional renditions by the band to keep it properly confused.

Apparently the script writers were scared out of their wits by their own ideas, for the dialogue and plot developments indicate that little was devoted to them. With three of the most calculating villains vis-a-vis Mr. Kyser in one film, you would think that something more original than shrieks in the night and sliding panels and hidden passageways could have been contrived to confound them. Some of the incidents are amusing, mainly because of Mr. Kyser’s frightened-rabbit attitude when in the midst of them. But, on the whole, the picture is just routine and dull.

YOU’LL FIND OUT, screen play by James V. Kern; based on a story by Mr. Kern and David Butler; produced and directed by David Butler for RKO-Radio. At the Roxy.
Kay Kyser . . . . . Himself
Professor Fenninger . . . . . Peter Lorre
Judge Mainwaring . . . . . Boris Karloff
Chuck Deems . . . . . Dennis O’Keefe
Prince Saliano . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Janis Bellacrest . . . . . Helen Parrish
Aunt Margo . . . . . Alma Kruger
Jurgen . . . . . Joseph Eggenton
Ginny Simms, Harry Babbitt, Ish Kabibble, Sully Mason.

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 The Franklin Theatre, Nutley, New Jersey

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The Milwaukee Sentinel, December 6, 1940

Reviews of the New Films

Hollywood Horror Men Give Kay Kyser a Workout in Warner Film

By ‘BUCK’ HERZOG

“You’ll Find Out”

When Hollywood horror men and a band leader tangle in a motion picture, there’s certain to be a great deal of unusual screen fun. In

“You’ll Find Out,” currently at the Warner theater. Kay Kyser portrays the hot rhythm hero of the show, matching his cunning, despite his fears, with the terrifying manifestations of Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Bela Lugosi.

It doesn’t seem cricket that the frail Kyser should almost single handed knock bad man Karloff for a loop, send scarey Lugosi to the cleaners with a left hook, and outsmart the smart villain Lorre. But that’s what he does and that’s why “You’ll Find Out” contains a lot of fun.

The story is a silly affair, mixinhg night club numbers with spooky melodramatic devices such as secret passage ways, automatic doors, electric contraptions and whatnots. Kyser and his bandsmen journey to a big suburban house to play at the twenty-first birthday party of the girl who is fond of his agent (Dennis O’Keefe). They become involved in a homicidal attempt to do away with the girl which by screen magic Mr. Kyser is able to foil.

The musical numbers offered with interludes by Ginny Simms, Harry Babbitt, “Ish Kabibble” and Sully Mason, all familiar figures to radio listeners, are above par. Particularly engaging is Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge which is presented at the beginning of the piece. “Ish Kabibble” seems to me to be good enough to remain in pictures as a comic. The villains of the piece are customarily villianous and being old hands at the game, overplay with a real professional flourish. While Dennis O’Keefe and Helen Parrish have little to do in the opus, they make a pretty enough romantic couple.

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Sheetmusic for ”I’d Know You Anywhere” 

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Bela Lugosi Hypnotized (newsreel)

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1941

The Devil Bat

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The Invisible Ghost

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The Black Cat

The New York Times, April 26, 1941

 At the Rialto

A.W.

The Rialto is following tradition this week in celebrating a quarter of a century of purveying movies to the public with a new screen-and-squeal item. “The Black Cat,” a comedy thriller suggested by a Poe-short story. “The relationship between the two is microscopic. A tale more slow than sinister, it has all the ingredients of conventional horror melodrama. What with four murders, a score of sliding panels and all the other necessary macaber settings, the horror generally fails to chill. Blame it on the stock plot, which is concerned with the machinations of many relatives and retainers to gain control of the estate of an aged ailurophile, who is murdered early in the picture.

Broderick Crawford and Hugh Herbert, as a friend of the family and a dealer in antiques, respectively, deliver the sparse comedy lines, while Cecilia Loftus (as the cat loving cause of it all), Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard and Bela Lugosi are properly menacing. And, of course, there is a black cat—in fact, there are droves of cats, vari-colored and yowling fit to raise the dead. But they never do.

THE BLACK CAT: original screen play by Robert Lees, Fred Rinaldo, Eric Taylor and Robert Neville; suggested by the story by Edgar Allan Poe; directed by Albert S. Rogell for Universal Pictures.
Hartley . . . . . Basil Rathbone
Mr. Penny . . . . . Hugh Herbert
Hubert Smith . . . . . Broderick Crawford
Eduardo . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Abigail Doone . . . . . Gale Sondergaard
Elaine Winslow . . . . . Anne Gwynne
Myrna Hartley . . . . . Gladys Cooper
Henrietta Winslow . . . . . Cecilia Loftus
Margaret Gordon . . . . . Claire Dodd
Stanley Borden . . . . . John Eldredge
Richard Hartley . . . . . Alan Ladd

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Spooks Run Wild

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The Wolf Man

The New York Times, December 22, 1941

 The Screen

T.S.

Universal, which must have a veritable menagerie of mythological monsters, all with an eye on stardom and a five-year contract, is now sponsoring the debut of its latest pride and joy, “The Wolf Man” at the Rialto. Perhaps in deference to a Grade-B budget it has tried to make a little go a long way, and it has concealed most of that little in a deep layer of fog. And out of that fog, from time to time, Lon Chaney Jr. appears vaguely, bays hungrily, and skips back into mufti. Offhand, though we never did get a really good look, we’d say that most of the budget was spent on Mr. Chaney’s face, which is rather terrifying, resembling as it does a sort of Mr. Hyde badly in need of a shave. Privately, and on the evidence here offered, we still suspect that the werewolf is just a myth.

Well, so for that matter is Santa Claus—though this is no time to be saying it. But the fact is that nobody is going to go on believing in werewolves or Santa Clauses if the custodians of these legends don’t tell them with a more convincing imaginative touch. And that is precisely where the wolf man is left without a paw to stand on; without any build-up either by the scriptwriter or director, he is sent onstage, where he, looks a lot less terrifying and not nearly as funny as Mr. Disney’s big, bad wolf. Sharing his embarrassment

are Maria Ouspenshaya, Claude Rains, Bela Lugosi, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy and Evelyn Ankers—who under more nonchalant circumstances would be referred to as a “sterling” cast. Most of them look as though they wished they had a wolf-skin to jump into—any old wolf-skin, so long as it was anonymous.

THE WOLF MAN, original screen play by Kurt Siodmak; directed by Gearge Waggner and produced by Universal. At the Rialto.
Sir John Talbot . . . . . Claude Rains
Dr. Lloyd . . . . . Warren William
Captain Paul Montford . . . . . Ralph Bellamy
Frank Andrews . . . . . Patric Knowles
Bela . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Twiddle . . . . . Forrester Harvey
Maleva . . . . . Maria Ouspenskaya
Jenny . . . . . Fay Helm
Gwen Conliffe . . . . . Evelyn Ankers
Charles Conliffe . . . . . J. M. Kerrigan
The Wolf Man . . . . . Lon Chaney

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1942

Black Dragons

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The Ghost of Frankenstein

The New York Times, April 4, 1942

 The Screen

That Monster’s Back

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

Don’t look now, gentle reader, but Frankenstein’s monster is loose again. Out of that deadly bed of sulphur into which he was last seen to plunge, Universal has hauled the foul creature and set him to roving once more on the scabrous screen of the Rialto in a film called “The Ghost of Frankenstein.” Gorgons, hydras and chimeras dire! Aren’t there enough monsters loose in this world without that horrendous ruffian mauling and crushing actors? For that, as a matter of fact, is about all he does in this film, except to submit to an operation whereby the sinister Dr. Lionel Atwill removes the brain from Bela Lugosi and pops it into him.

To be sure, the replenished monster is being consumed by fire when we see him last, but the thought that he may yet return for further adventures with his body and Lugosi’s sconce fills us with mortal terror. That is the most fearful prospect which the picture manages to convey.
That Monster’s Back

THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, screen play by W. Scott Darling; from an original story by Eric Taylor; directed by Erle C. Kenton; produced by George Waggner for Universal Pictures. At the Rialto.
Dr. Ludwig Frankenstein, . . . . . Sir Cedric Hardwicke
The Monster . . . . . Lon Chaney Jr.
Dr. Theodore Bohmer . . . . . Lionell Atwill
Erik Ernst . . . . . Ralph Bellamy
Ygor . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Elsa . . . . . Evelyn Ankers
Cloestine . . . . . Janet Ann Gellow
Dr. Kettering . . . . . Barton Yarborough
Martha . . . . . Doris Lloyd
Chief Constable . . . . . Leyland Hodgson
Russman . . . . . Olaf Hytten
Magistrate . . . . . Holmes Herbert

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The Corpse Vanishes

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Night Monster

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1943

Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman

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The Ape Man

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Ghost on the Loose

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Screen Snapshots (newsreel)

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1944

Return of the Vampire

The New York Times, 29, 1944

The Screen

 Any Blood Donors?

B.C.

Need we say more about a picture called “The Return of the Vampire” than just that—plus the fact that Columbia made it and it opened at the Rialto yesterday? Are you still interested? All right, we’ll tell you that Bela Lugosi rises again from the grave to go about sucking transfusions from the throat of a beautiful girl in the dark of night, while mists rise around the English mansion and dogs howl mournfully on the hill. But his accomplice, a hairy-faced man-beast (Matt Willis) proves his undoing in the end. This monster gets religion or something and turns the vampire into dust with a crucifix. Thus the forces of good triumph over evil and we all can feel much better—until next time.

Any Blood Donors?

THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE; screen play by Griffin Jay; additional dialogue by Randall Faye; based on an idea by Kurt Neumann; directed by Lew Landers; produced by Sam White for Columbia Pictures. At the Rialto.
Armand Tesla . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Lady Jane Ainsley . . . . . Frieda Inescort
Nicki Saunders . . . . . Nina Foch
John Ainsley . . . . . Roland Varno
Sir Frederick Fleet . . . . . Miles Mander
Andreas Obry . . . . . Matt willis
Professor Saunders . . . . . Gilbert Emery
Elsa . . . . . Ottola Nesmith
Lynch . . . . . Leslie Dennison
Gannet . . . . . William C. P. Austin

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Voodoo Man

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Return of the Ape Man

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One Body Too Many

The New York Times, November 25, 1944

 The Screen

Beyond the Limit

B.C.

Comedy cut-ups in an old house, with Jack Haley playing owl with a “hot” corpse over which a gang of heirs-apparent are wrangling viciously, form the low and tasteless substance of Paramount’s “One Body Too Many,” which came yesterday to the Rialto, where such pictures have a way of getting by. Except for Mr. Haley’s bleats and shivers, which are amusing for their droll despair per se, this picture is a wretched exhibition of trashy film construction and clowning. There is a limit to so-called comedy business projected through proximity with the dead, a limit to charnel-house buffoonery. And “One Body Too Many” breaks it.
Beyond the Limit

ONE BODY TOO MANY; an original screen play by Winston Miller and Maxwell Shane; directed by Frank McDonald; produced by Pine and Thomas for Paramount. At the Rialto.
Albert Tuttle . . . . . Jack Haley
Carol Dunlap . . . . . Jean Parker
Larchmont . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Attorney Gellman . . . . . Bernard Nedell
Matthews . . . . . Blanche Yurka
Henry Rutherford . . . . . Douglas Fowley
Mona . . . . . Dorothy Granger
Jim Davis . . . . . Lyle Talbot
Kenneth . . . . . Lucien Littlefield
Estelle . . . . . Jessica Newcombe
Margaret . . . . . Maxine Fife
The Professor . . . . . William Edmunds

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The Advocate, October 22, 1948

ACTOR’S ACROBATICS

In the making of a comedy-mystery film, such as Parmount’s “One Body Too Many,” the star is required to perform sundry and diverse acrobatics. Jack Haley. Who stars with Jean Parker and Bela Lugosi, actually did the following things in a day’s work on the picture, and lived to work another day –

He doubled for a corpse, climbing into a real coffin.

He ran up and down a hallway wearing only a Turkish towel.

He was hit over the head with a revolver butt.

He fell through a trap door, dropping six feet.

He sat down in a collapsible chair which realistically collapsed.

He jumped off a ten-foot ladder on to a none-too-thick floor pad.

He was dunked in a fishpond filled with cold water – and he swallowed a goldfish.

In addition to Jean and Bela, Haley has a supporting cast comprising  Lyle Talbot, Douglas Fowley, Maxine Fife and Lucien Littlefield.

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1945

The Body Snatcher

The New York Times, May 26, 1945

The Screen

By BOSLEY CROWTHER

There was eerie business on the screen of the Rialto Theatre yesterday, where “The Body Snatcher” held forth. This new gloom-lodger, though not as nerve-parlyzing as the performers might lead you to expect, has enough suspense and atmospheric terror to make it one of the better of its genre. Boris Karloff, sporting a days-old beard, is in there pitching with ghoulish delight as an Edinburgh cabbie, circa 1830, whose hobby is snatching people out of their graves, and Bela Lugosi, surprisingly unsinister for a change, works industriously to achieve fame as a blackmailer.

A long time ago Robert Louis Stevenson supplied the plot in a short story about the difficulties medical men had in procuring cadavers for scientific study, and RKO has taken the exhumation up from there for less noble purposes. “The Body Snatcher” is certainly not the most exciting “chiller-drama”—the Rialto has often done much better—but it is somewhat more credible than most and manages to hold its own with nary a werewolf or vampire! But then, with Karloff on the prowl, what chance would a blood-thirsty hobgoblin stand?

At the Rialto
THE BODY SNATCHER; written for the screen by Philip MacDonald and Carlos Keith; based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson; directed by Robert Wise; produced by Val Lewton for RKO-Radio Pictures.
Gray . . . . . Boris Karloff
Joseph . . . . . Bela Lugosi
MacFarlane . . . . . Henry Daniell
Meg . . . . . Edith Atwater
Fettes . . . . . Russell Wade
Mrs. Marsh . . . . . Rita Corday
Georgina . . . . . Sharyn Moffett
Street Singer . . . . . Donna Lee

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Zombies on Broadway

The New York Times, April 27, 1945

By BOB CROWTHER

The Rialto, which has housed its fair share of the “living dead,” has added to its cinema roster with “Zombies on Broadway,” a farcical departure on a very old theme. Despite all the mystic charades and scientific claptrap, this minor comedy item about a couple of press agents who are forced to produce a real zombie for the opening of a night club called “The Zombie Hut,” comes up with very few laughs. Bela Lugosi, glaring as evilly as any of the zombies he creates, is the scientific genius behind all the goings on, while Alan Carney and Wally Brown are the frenzied main stem drum-beaters in search of an ambulant corpse. Those lads and RKO’s scenarists no doubt were trying real hard but “Zombies on Broadway” is no laughing matter.

At the Rialto
ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY; screen play by Lawrence Kimble; adaptation by Robert E. Kent; from an original story by Robert Faber and Charles Newman; directed by Gordon Douglas; produced by Ben Stoloff for RKO Radio Pictures.
Jerry Miles . . . . . Wally Brown
Mike Strager . . . . . Alan Carney
Professor Renault . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Jean La Danse . . . . . Anne Jeffreys
Ace Miller . . . . . Sheldon Leonard
Gus . . . . . Frank Jenks
Benny . . . . . Russell Hopton
Joseph . . . . . Joseph Vitale
Professor Hopkins . . . . . Ian Wolfe
Douglas Walker . . . . . Louis Jean Heydt
Kolaga . . . . . Darby Jones

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1946

Genius at Work

Lobby Cards

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1947

Scared to Death

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1948

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Billboad poster

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The New York Times, July 29, 1948

The Screen

That One Laugh

B.C.

Most of the comic invention in “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” is embraced in the idea and the title. The notion of having these two clowns run afoul of the famous screen monster is a good laugh in itself. But take this gentle warning: get the most out of that one laugh while you can, because the picture, at Loew’s Criterion, does not contain many more.

That is to say, the situations which the wags at Universal have contrived for their two untiring comedians in this assembly-line comedy are the obvious complications that would occur in a house of horrors. Costello, the roly-poly and completely susceptible one, shudders and shakes in standard terror to behold the assembly of ghouls—which includes not only the monster but Count Dracula and the Wolfman. Abbott, prevented from seeing the creatures until near the end, scoffs and snorts at his partner from behaving so curiously. After a thorough exhaustion of this play on frustration and fright, the story is brought to a climax with the intended transference of a brain. Whose brain is tagged for what monster we leave you to surmise. That One Laugh

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, original screen play by Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo and John Grant; directed by Charles T. Barton; produced by Robert Arthur for Universal-International Pictures. At Loew’s Criterion. Chick . . . . . Bud Abbott Wilbur . . . . . Lou Costello Lawrence Talbot . . . . . Lon Chaney Dracula . . . . . Bela Lugosi Monster . . . . . Glenn Strange Sandra Mornay . . . . . Lenore Aubert Joan Raymond . . . . . Jane Randolph Mr. McDougal . . . . . Frank Ferguson Dr. Stevens . . . . . Charles Bradstreet

British poster

1956 re-issue poster

1956 re-issue poster

Swedish poster

Spanish poster

Yugoslavian 1970s re-issue poster

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1948 lobby cards

1956 re-issue lobby cards

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Newspaper advertisements

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Youngstown Vindicator, August 18, 1948

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Youngstown Vindicator, August 19, 1948 

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1951

Mother Riley Meets the Vampire

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Seeing Stars (newsreel)

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1952

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla

 Los Angeles Daily News, Friday May 30, 1952

“Kiddies Greet Bogey Man with Smiles”

They’re not afraid of Bela Lugosi

By Erskine Johnson

GUYS AND DOLLS:  Let it never be said that Bela (Dracula) Lugosi, the screen’s boogey man, is No. 1 on the kiddies hate parade. Bela is right up there with Roy Rogers as an idol for the bubble gum set.     

“It’s fantastic,” Bela grinned on the set of “Bela Lugosi Meets the Gorilla Man” in which he’s playing another mad scientist role-this time turning people into gorillas!     

“You’d think the kids would be scared to death of me. But they’re not. Every time I meet one, it’s ‘Hey Bela, you’re the boogey man. Make some funny faces.’ Really, the kids love me.”    

There only one cross Bela bears over his merchant of menace character which started 20 years ago when he stepped out of romantic roles and played Dracula. “Every time I get into a cab-and this is without exception-the driver looks at me and says, ‘Aren’t you Boris Karloff?”

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St. Petersburg Times, June 13, 1952

LOUELLA IN HOLLYWOOD

Producer Touchy About Imitation Of His Stars

By LOUELLA O. PARSONS

HOLLYWOOD – (INS) The comedy team of Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell is so much like Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis that trouble may be a-brewing. Hal Wallis says he is waiting to see “Bela Lugosi Meets the Gorilla Man,” in which the boys do a turn. If they imitate Dean and Jerry, Hal will take legal action.

Jack Broder, who has the boys under contract, says Sammy Petrillo can’t help looking like Jerry Lewis, and that Jerry once had him on a TV show as a gag. He says Mitchell is much shorter than Dean, but he has a good voice and may resemble the good looking Martin.

“If we feel they are doing an imitation,” said Hal, “we’ll stop them.”

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The Meriden Daily Journal, August 21, 1952

Imitators Amaze Martin & Lewis; They Might Sue

BY ALINE MOSBY

Hollywood, Aug. 21 – (UP) – As if one Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis wasn’t hectic enough around hgere, Hollywood now houses twos and Jerry Lewises, and the original team is so amazed they might sue.

The latest “Martin and Lewis” are Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo. They look, talk, laulike Dean and Jerry, and they’re in the movies now, too.

Independent producer Jack Broder starred Mitchell and Petrillo in “Bela Lugosi Meets the Brooklin Gorilla.” Broder says Martin and Lewis asked to see the movie and the producer has a telegram saying the famed comics will go to courttheir young carbon copies continue to act.

Mitchell and Petrillo, however, insist they don’t see “any resemblance.”

“They’re the greatest comedy team in the business,” shrug. “We’re not trying to take anything away from them. We plan to continue in this business, and we think the public accept us on our own talent.”

Mitchell and Petrillo have the same haircuts, expressions, gestures and even ancestries of Martin, who’s Italian and Leweis who’s Jewish.

Mitchell, the singer, claims his hair “just happens to fall on my forehead – I can’t help it.” And Petrillo, the comic, saysutch haircut since he was eight years old, and was doing his act on a Phoenix, Ariz., radio station years before he first saw Lewis n a New York theater. Mitchell and Petrillo had single club acts before they teamed up here a year ago.

Evein show business, they added, is a “combination of everybody else,” anyway.

“Chaplin is the only originasl comic,” said Petrillo, and his arm like Lewis does.

“If it wasn’t for Minosha Sku;nic (a Jewish comic) Harry Ritz and Gene Baylessis wouldn’t have an act. And that trick he does with his upper lip he got from Huntz Hall.”

“I’m a combination of Billy Daniels, Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaugn Mitchell. “Sometimes I get up to sing and I feel like Vaughn Monroe. Nothing’s original in show business. Who do you think Martin is? Crosby. Mel Torme’s like Sinatra, and he did all right.”
Producer Broder says he hopes to star the boys in more pictures. “I don’t think they are any imitation of Martin and Lewis,” said Broder, and he looked me right in the eye, too.

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1953

Glen or Glenda

Los Angeles Times, February 17, 1953

LUGOSI TO APPEAR AS WEIRD SCIENTIST

by Edward Schallert

That veteran portrayer of mysterious scoundrels and whatnot, Bela Lugosi, will soon be visible on the screen again in a weird science fiction subject called “Transvestite,” which concerns the transformation of men into women in their apparel and other outward manifestations but which does not deal with any sex issue. Its sponsor, Edward D. Wood Jr., declares it has no relation to a case much spotlighted in the news. Lugosi will be the mastermind in the science phase of the picture, which is said to incorporate much symbolism. Others in the cast are Dolores Fuller, whose fiance falls under the Lugosi influence,  while Lyle Talbot will be seen as a police inspector and Tim Farrell as a psychiatrist. Roles of the victims are minor. The film is being finished at the Jack Miles studio.

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House of Wax Premiere (newsreel)

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1955

Bride of the Atom aka Bride of the Monster

American newspaper, September 15, 1952

New shivers and shudders, as well as another picture for Bela Lugosi, are assured through “Atomic Monster,” to be produced by Alex Gordon, British filmmaker in Hollywood. This Lugosi feature will go into work in six weeks.

Lugosi previously appeared for producer Gordon in “Vampire Over London” which was made in England and recently did “Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla” for Broder.

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1956

The Black Sleep

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1959

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Reading Eagle, October 26, 1958

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Lock Up Your Daughters