Lugosi Friday.

I decided when I got up this afternoon (my night shift requirement has my sleep all fucked up), I would have a Bela Lugosi Marathon in lieu to seeing Dracula in the theater Sunday early afternoon. I am still quite stoked as I write this in preparation for seeing Dracula in a cinema. So jacked.

I opened the day with Return of the Vampire (1943) from Columbia. I had read this would be the last starring role for Lugosi where he receives top billing. At least, he made it count. I agree with others, the scholars and Lugosi fans, that this is Dracula without the name used throughout. It is even in London, the setting of the film. During the Blitz when war raged between the English and Germany, and how bombs dropped on London effect the plot, Return of the Vampire actually is unique in its presentation of a “Vampire in London”. Lugosi is game, too. He’s suave and gentlemanly when taking the name and position of a supposed visiting scientist, cold and calculating when predatory in his bloodlust and need to keep himself safe, authoritative and demanding when he needs his servant to do whatever he commands (and nothing more unless he sees fit), & narcissistic and unholier than thou when it appears he is in control over others (his visit to Lady Ainsley, knowing that her son and his fiancé could be doomed, has *Armand Tesla* full of pride and glee in his handiwork).

It is a fun part always for me, such a Dracula mark, to see him don the cape and persona one last time. He had other roles, Ygor and Vitus come to mind, that were rich and memorable within the horror genre, but his vampire and that accent fit him so well. I like this little effort from Columbia to glean some of the foggy, atmospheric magic from Universal. I did notice some Universal bit players in small parts in Return of the Vampire as well, so it was like Columbia wanted to duplicate that magic for an audience that was starting to dissipate as the 40s would near an end.
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Of course, for me, Lugosi and Karloff together in The Black Cat (1934) is pure gold. Its value is worth its weight in rubies. Lugosi, returning from a prison camp a bitter and vengeance-minded psychiatrist, Dr. Vitas Werdegast and Karloff, a renowned architect, who built his newest home on top of the burial ground of those he sold away to the enemy of the country he was supposed to fight for. Karloff’s Poelzig is evil in its purest form. The guy sold his country out, for heaven’s sake, and was responsible for the deaths of Lugosi’s wife and eventually his daughter (both of whom were to be Poelzig’s wife!). He’s a black mass conductor, plans to take the wife of an American writer (both headed elsewhere until a weather-caused wreck changed those plans) just because he can, and glosses over the rivers of blood spilled against his own people thanks to his own betrayal with Vitas, claiming he himself was a victim! He’s a piece of work. The film breaks lots of rules. The beautified *wives* remaining as they were in life, now incased in glass tombs for Poelzig to admire and *mourn*, Vitas getting his revenge by skinning alive his adversary, his face warped in menace due to his years in the prison camp, and the iconic “chess game” which determines whether the writer’s wife is fated to be victim or not. My guess is regardless of the outcome, Poelzig was going to push Vitas to the brink of insanity. Certainly, Vitas seeing his wife encased in a tomb, tormented by the knowledge that she died believing he was killed in war. Definitely I will have a review for this film up in the future as it is one of my all-time favorites.

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Next up was The Raven (1935) featuring a batshit crazy Lugosi wanting to *remove his torture by torturing others*. A Poe torture device devotee, Lugosi’s retired surgeon/brain doc has built himself a *chamber of horrors*. Oh, if he is going to build such elaborate torture digs, this doc is going to use them. A closing-walls crush-room, pendulum swinging-blade, tables that lock you shut, and even a device that moves a room down so if he needs to snatch them it’s possible. It all starts with this judge that demands him to perform a neuro-surgery on his theater actress daughter who was driving too fast, misses a detour during a sharp turn, and careened off the road. Well, he isn’t the nicest guy in the world and only agrees to do it when the other docs/surgeons say he’s the one that can save her. His ego is off-the-charts, and when he becomes infatuated with the judge’s daughter, particularly after a theatrical presentation of Poe’s The Raven just for him, this doc believe her spell on him is pure torture…torture he must rid from his life. So a party will be put together so that the doc can gather his paramour, her father, her fiancé, and some sophisticates in the city.

This guy plans to get rid of pops with the pendulum, crush the would-be newlyweds, and use a down-on-his-luck fugitive (Karloff, getting star treatment despite the fact that this is Lugosi’s show all the way) to do his dirty work. This fugitive wanted *a new face* but instead is provided with a paralyzed, uglied right side, with a droop that is so hideous it frightens or creeps out folks upon first sight. When Lugosi laughs his crazy ass off at Karloff’s predicament thanks to a diabolical nerve surgery only he can correct, this firmly recognizes that the doc is over-the-edge and out of his mind. It is so much fun to watch, I question my own taste…it is just that Lugosi throws himself into the part so completely. “Poe, you are avenged!” shouted in such a way as to illustrate there’s a total sanitary denigration. Karloff gets to be the tormented patsy who eventually makes good by undermining his tormentor’s evil plans. He’s certainly low key and sympathetic, here, in comparison to Lugosi who has no turn-down button. It isn’t flashy but Karloff was always a master of giving characters who have committed bad deeds humanity. This character is a rough sort, first shown in full beard and poverty-row dregs. His salvation is the moment when Lugosi is on the verge of destroying lives he cannot but try and save.

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Murders on the Rue Morgue (1932) is when the German expressionism in film had made a splash in Hollywood, with Robert Florey bringing that to his Paris in its architectural design (the cityscape), and adding the rich atmospherics of what Dracula and Frankenstein called to attention at Universal. The fog is thick, the surprising amount of racism in the characters (perhaps on purpose?) unveils itself at the carnival visiting the city (like the talk about the Arabs and Lugosi’s scientist’s peculiar looks), evolution gets ample time in the dialogue of Dr Mirakle (Lugosi) who attempts to teach this theory to an audience that finds his talk repulsive, and blood experiments by Mirakle on women in the city (including one with a blood that is “corrupted by her sins”, eventually dying after losing too much of it to Mirakle’s hypodermic indulgence), soon to be dumped in the Sienne.

So all that and Lugosi wearing quite a hairdo and unibrow, director Florey gives us quite a pre-Code piece of horror. The anatomy student obsessed with the serial killings studying the blood who just happened to have a girlfriend (his poetry to her on a balcony is certainly cringe-worthy) Mirakle’s “ape-man” desires as a mate. That and Mirakle wants to close the gap on *the missing link*. This is not long at all, and not having Willis O’Brien on the payroll for the ape-man effects does hurt (the up close shots of a monkey, coupled with distance shots of a guy in a gorilla suit do more harm than good for the film’s credibility), but I think the material has some really controversial moments for the time it was released, the look is rich in sinister during the night with the day much more pleasant, and Lugosi’s iconic presence lurking about for more girls to experiment on give Murders on the Rue Morgue a certain case for cult-dom.