The film Bela Lugosi and director Robert Florey were assigned to make instead of Frankenstein is not one of the better known Universal horrors (there were no sequels) but is definitely worth watching. It has some beautiful photography and excellent sets, as well as a still-quite-powerful sense of sadism. Especially shocking is where Lugosi kidnaps a prostitute, chains her to a wall and cuts her, all the while she is screaming.Lugosi emotes all over the place in a fine old barnstorming performance. While Edgar Allan Poe’s original short story is famed for featuring supposedly the first detective in fiction, the emphasis on this one is on horror – indeed, it is as much influenced by The Cabinet of Dr Caligari as Poe, including a scene where Lugosi spruiks at a carnival (which I would have thought was unduly drawing attention to his activities, but there you go) and where a beast carries the female lead over the rooftops pursued by a mob.
Lugosi shares top billing with a girl, Sidney Fox, who went on to have an OK career before dying mysteriously of an overdose in 1942. Leon Ames, best known for playing elderly character roles like judges and generals, here pops up looking like a matinee idol as the dashing detective. Karl Freud’s photography is divine – there’s even one scene where he attaches the camera to a swing and we go up and down.
One area the movie is definitely lacking in is the monster – instead of coming up with a memorable creation like Frankenstein’s monster or the mummy, they have a combination of man in gorilla suit and monkey shots (that’s right – combining monkey with a gorilla). The result is a bit silly and the biggest reason, I believe, why this film doesn’t enjoy the reputation it otherwise might. (The fact that 20 minutes was lopped off the running time doesn’t help, or does the fact the opening two sequences were swapped around, but the film flows as it is).
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