Island of Lost Souls.

Review #2121: Island of Lost Souls.

Cast: 

Charles Laughton (Dr. Moreau), Richard Arlen (Edward Parker), Leila Hyams (Ruth Thomas), Bela Lugosi (Sayer of the Law), Kathleen Burke (Lota, The Panther Woman), Arthur Hohl (Montgomery), Stanley Fields (Captain Davies), Paul Hurst (Donahue), Hans Steinke (Ouran), and Tetsu Komai (M'Ling) Directed by Erle C. Kenton (#845 - The Ghost of Frankenstein, #847 - House of Frankenstein, #849 - House of Dracula)

Review: 

 "They give us a chance to let our imagination run wild. The art department can go to town on creep sets. Prop men have fun with cobwebs. The cameraman has fun with trick lighting and shadows. The director has fun. We have more fun making a horror picture than a comedy."

I'm sure you are familiar with the scenario: a 1930s horror film loosely based on a novel. This time around, it is a Paramount production based on the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) (describing it as "an exercise in youthful blasphemy"), since the studio managed to do well enough with the release of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde the previous year. The film was written by Waldemar Young (writer on countless productions for over a decade such as London After Midnight) and Philip Wylie (more known for his stories such as When Worlds Collide as opposed to his screenplays, which started with this). Norman Taurog was apparently meant to be the director but was replaced by Erle C. Kenton, who had broken into film in the 1920s after forays into teaching, animal exhibiting, and vaudeville.  In a career of B films of comedy and horror, it is likely Kenton's best remembered film. Apparently, Wells (still living at the time) disliked the resulting movie, once calling it a "complete lack of imagination." In the years since, there have been a handful of subsequent adaptations, such as Terror Is a Man (1959) and The Twilight People (1972), each directed by Filipino filmmaker Eddie Romero (each of which did their own thing). 1977 saw an adaptation by American International Pictures with Don Taylor directing before John Frankenheimer tried his hand in 1996. The irony is that both directors maligned the original film as terrible and then they ended up making adaptations that nobody remembers now. A limited array of home video releases made the film a weird one to see for years, since the lost camera negative of Island of Lost Souls meant one had to combine a bunch of varying prints to make just one that worked until Criterion restored the film at considerable challenge in 2011.

It's funny, Wells intended for Moreau to be a well intentioned mad scientist when it came to doing vivisection on animals in an attempt to make them more human, and here he is getting mad at a movie that manages to show Moreau for what really makes sense: the man is a reasoned nut that made a nightmare when he thought he was making a creation fit for mankind. The terror is present quite effectively in its 70 minute runtime in disturbing qualities, one that has a tremendous performance to lead it off to go with a handful of nice shots from cinematographer Karl Struss that sometimes deal with the creature effects by Wally Westmore. It is that certain kind of chilling thar makes one look between the lines when it comes looking at human nature, whether that involves foolish curiosity or the unraveling of all that matters in group structures. Laughton dominates the film when it comes to understanding the mad scientist role as one that perfectly knows themselves to be doing their actions as a sane man rather than a blustering doubter. One believes right away that this is a man who senses only in his own brilliance of creating something great for man, whether that means serving as a sort of God for his creations or in trying to bring man and beast together. Arlen does fine with the material as the general normal focus in that way you would think for a reasoned man trying to survive in unreasonable times. Believe it or not, Burke was actually marketed as "The Panther Woman" because of a talent contest. Paramount held one for the film that saw the then fashion model and Chicago radio actress win from a pool of thousands of people. By 1938, she had done a handful more films but left Hollywood. She makes more of an impression than Hyams in terms of mystery and interest, but that's about that. Those who know Lugosi and his voice will see him right from the go even with makeup, but I enjoy seeing his presence in the attempt to assert order and reason even among fur. By the time the film has built its disturbing mannerisms of creation to a chaotic end, the experience has been a worthy one for consistent atmospheric creeps that shows there was more than one horror studio who could try their hand at horror, even if the forthcoming Production Code would try to neuter some of the ideas in later films. As a whole, it is a pretty good film worth it for Laughton and all that comes with it in disturbing quality.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Next: Two Thousand Maniacs!, y'all.

Spite Marriage.

Review #1937: Spite Marriage.

Cast: 

Buster Keaton (Elmer Gantry), Dorothy Sebastian (Trilby Drew), Edward Earle (Lionel Benmore), Leila Hyams (Ethyl Norcrosse), William Bechtel (Nussbaum), John Byron (Scarzi), Joe Bordeaux (Rumrunner), Ray Cooke (The Bellboy), Mike Donlin (Man in Ship's Engine Room), and Pat Harmon (Tugboat Captain) Directed by Edward Sedgwick (#774 - The Phantom of the Opera and #1774 - The Cameraman) and Buster Keaton (#757 - Seven Chances, #762 - College, #805 - The Navigator, #877 - Three Ages, #908 - The General, #926 - Our Hospitality, #941 - Sherlock Jr, #1037 - Go West, and #1058 - Battling Butler, #1173 - Steamboat Bill, Jr,, #1774 - The Camerman)

Review: 

It may be an odd film to term as a "swan song", but this is one such case where it applies. This was the second feature film with Buster Keaton as star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, a decision that he later called the worst mistake he ever made. But The Camerman (1928), his first effort for the studio, was actually pretty good, since it had plenty of spontaneity along with scope to make a fun comedy. As such, Keaton wanted to make his second MGM feature a sound film, but the studio did not have enough of the recording equipment for that they felt was just another comedy. The following year, he did his first sound film with Free and Easy, but Keaton never directed a full feature after this film (which he didn't even receive credit for anyway), aside from a handful of gag direction assignments. In fact, the film was more in the control of the studio, who clearly wanted to cultivate a moneymaker with their star rather than the decent success of the last film. In short: the long and wavering road of improvisation became washed away by a studio that just wanted to see things run smoothly. Well, for the last Keaton silent film, there is one key exception: The film has a musical score and sound effects that come in from time to time. The film runs from 74 to 80 minutes, depending on what kind of print you find of the film.

The story was written by Lew Lipton, while Ernest Pagano also wrote for it, and Robert E. Hopkins wrote the intertitles. It certainly isn't the best Keaton feature when you consider the ones that came before it, but the movie is generally entertaining in the general ways that you would expect to make a worthy high note to finish the silent era for Keaton. His physical performance seems quite adept to what is needed for the general climax (on a yacht) while playing just fine with the loose plotting and scenario. The movie basically seems like two loose scenarios presented into one: a lovable oddball tries his hand at marriage when a lady wants to make someone else jealous (after trying his hand at acting that goes how you would expect) that eventually segues into adventure on the sea when the marriage falls out of hand (before falling into hand). Sebastian does make a decent leading lady in charm, while Earle makes a suitable cad. Undeniably, the highlight sequence might be one where you get to see an attempt by one inebriated person to get another inebriated person to bed without waking them up. The comic timing of the film may feel as fresh as one sees from Keaton, but the scene is still quite diverting in execution. Of course, Keaton participating in a Civil War melodrama play is a last little gasp at Keaton trying his hand at something only to fall down the pit of amusement, which works to the level one would hope in silly falls without riding the joke down to the ground. The climax does have semblances of his previous works such as The Navigator (1924) and Battling Butler (1926), but even familiar Keaton material is still fun material to watch play out, mostly because Keaton still has the energy to make the chuckles come out. As a whole, it is a light charming movie, a last hurrah for Keaton in the silent era that closes out his run of visual gags and physical comedy with a solid enough impact to make it worthy to view last among the accomplishments done by the actor/director. 

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Freaks (1932).

Review #1897: Freaks.

Cast: 

Wallace Ford (Phroso), Leila Hyams (Venus), Olga Baclanova (Cleopatra), Rosco Ates (Roscoe), Henry Victor (Hercules), Harry Earles (Hans), Daisy Earles (Frieda), Rose Dione (Madame Tetrallini), Daisy and Violet Hilton (The Siamese twins), Schlitzie (Himself), Josephine Joseph (Half Woman-Half Man), Johnny Eck (Half-Boy), Frances O'Connor (Armless girl), Peter Robinson (Human skeleton), Olga Roderick (Bearded lady), and Koo Koo (Herself) Directed by Tod Browning (#031 - Dracula, #470 - Mark of the Vampire, and #516 - The Unknown)

Review: 

Admittedly, a horror movie can take time to appreciate, particularly ones that were given the shaft like this one was. After all, the director associated with a film involving "Freaks" seemed exactly the one to direct it. Tod Browning left high school before graduation in order to join the circus. After years of carnivals and vaudeville, he became an actor in 1909, primarily in slapstick shorts, although he was hired in 1913 by D. W. Griffith near the twilight of his time at Biograph Studios. A 1915 accident involving him being drunk while at the wheel of an automobile led to injuries that kept him in bed for a considerable amount of time, which gave him inspiration to write (he had already done a few couple of short films as a director). He returned to work in film after time away, serving as an assistant director on Griffith's Intolerance (1916), and Jim Bludso (1917) was his first feature film. Browning's best work is associated with the star in Lon Chaney, who he did ten features with from 1919 to 1928 (Dracula, Browning's one key success in the sound genre with audiences, was meant to star Chaney before he fell ill). When the sound era dawned, Browning did nine feature films before retiring in 1939. The film is loosely based on the short story "Spurs" by Tod Robbins, and the screenplay was done by Willis Goldbeck and Leon Gordon, while Browning also served as producer. Test screenings of the film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) proved a tough pill to swallow. Apparently, people ran out of the theater halfway through the movie - I guess a horror film just can't be too scary, and MGM cut the movie from an original run-time of 90 minutes to an hour. The climax was cut down, worse yet. The film did not have the "happy" ending in the original cut, instead going further into just what happened with the character of Cleopatra beyond a scream (because the original had her get trapped under a tree struck by lightning). So yes, the fate of one of the characters is kept the same, but with a twist: their companion is present this time around, albeit as a soprano because of castration.  Maybe it seemed strange for MGM to be the production company. They did do a couple of features beforehand in the 1920s, most notably with Browning's London After Midnight and The Unknown, but I think you will agree that having Irving Thalberg in your corner could be a double-edged sword. Once the film came and went with the box office as a failure, Browning's career never recovered, and he retired after his 46th feature in Miracles for Sale (1939), and he died in 1962 at the age of 82. Hell, in the era of trying to remake movies that were pretty good already, why not try to cover features that were given the shaft like this one? You wouldn't even have to change much of the actual script (one that does the simple art of presenting people as they are), since the only thing necessary would be to just show things as originally intended in the ides of retribution in what it means to go against the collective.

From the contemporary reaction by certain critics, you would think Freaks showed people getting chopped in half. One review actually said that people should put in the hospital pathological ward if the viewer considered it to be entertainment. I think we can safely say that they were clearly wrong. Hell, it didn't even take that many decades for people to carefully recognize that the audience was wrong, because counterculture audiences in Europe found a liking for it in the 1960s, and it became a midnight movie to enjoy in later years. Yes, you could consider it as a melodrama with an ounce of horror for the climax, but that is what makes it all the more interesting and useful to consider in the place of 1930s horror (besides, one grows tired of people deeming movies as just melodramas rather than being, you know, horror, which could also go for so-called psychological thrillers"). It was disrespected in its time by audiences that just wouldn't accept the idea of presenting circus people as anything other than what people thought they were, and the fact that the 90-minute version does not survive is a straight tragedy. The horror is not the people of the circus that happen to have no arms or are conjoined twins, the horror is the people who treat them like crap. What does it mean to be normal is the question provided here, which is done in a thoughtful and entertaining way that was ahead of its time when it comes to "pretty" people being punished by others that get away with it. So yes, there is a mix of established actors (Ford, Hyams, Baclanova, and Victor) mixing with performers such as the Earles, Schlitzie, and the Hilton twins (there were plans to have bigger names cast against the circus people such as Myrna Loy and Victor McLaglen, but this fell through). Granted, the acting is a bit on the okay side, and I do wonder exactly how one came to the decision to cast siblings in the Earles as characters meant to have feelings for each other. Baclanova (once nicknamed "The Russian Tigress") is the key to the film when you boil it down to basics, the embodiment of the horror of man in the cruelty that can be shown to others not like them. Sure, Ford and Hyams are mild counters to that idea, but they are barely important in the long run when you want to see just where mistreatment of people can get you (it should be noted that they were actually vaudevillians before becoming involved in film). Far from exploitation, the circus performers are just shown being themselves, whether that involves a man being able to light a cigarette with no arms or legs or conjoined twins having distinct lives of love.

Oh sure, the climax is the highlight, but consider the gooble-gabble scene a couple of scenes beforehand. Here one is trying to welcome someone into the community despite their misgivings, and all they do is react in disgust at the idea that they are at your level. That would be a pretty sad thing to hear, so it works quite well with what is needed here. And then the climax happens in a flash: a dark night with rain and people that lurk in the background ready to strike. The ending shot should've just been the shot involving the final fate of one of the characters rather than just being a "happy" ending, if only because it is more fun to show the logical conclusion of doing a morality tale rather than just trying to suck up to audiences who think happy endings need to happen in horror too. As a whole, Freaks was ahead of its time, and a little more credit is given for this film for its quibbles (a cut pace and decent if not quite professional cast) because of how it was treated in getting to theaters as opposed to later films with misunderstandings. Had the original cut survived the way it was intended, we would think it was even better and give Browning even more credit as a director, one who specialized in the exotic, the bizarre or just the mystery that comes with life that shows just who the real freak is, which makes it a horror film worth investing all of your time in as opposed to just cutting to the end for the big highlight.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.