Colin Clive

[8] Director James Whale (Waterloo Bridge) was given free reign by Universal Pictures to craft a sequel to his highly successful Frankenstein. The result is a more daring and stylized film considered by many to be the most remarkable in all the studio’s legacy of classic monster movies. In The Bride of Frankenstein, both Frankenstein and his monster survive their apparent deaths at the end …

[7] James Whale (Waterloo Bridge, The Invisible Man) directs Boris Karloff in his iconic performance as Frankenstein’s monster in this cornerstone of Universal Pictures’ monster movie legacy. The adaptation from Mary Shelley’s novel is somewhat loosey-goosey, but taken on its own merits, Whale’s film offers a lot of Gothic horror, expressionistic set design, and a handful of indelible images — including the monster’s laboratory ‘birth’ …

[7] Peter Lorre stars as a doctor so obsessed with an actress (Frances Drake), that after a train wreck destroys her husband’s hands, Lorre offers to perform a transplant. Problem is, the new hands once belonged to a murderer, and old habits die hard… even for disembodied hands. Mad Love benefits from Lorre’s creepy performance and many exotic settings, including recreations of a famous Guignol …

[6] Katharine Hepburn plays a daring aviator, her first starring role, in Christopher Strong. You can see a lot of the attitude and behavior that would later define her career in this early talkie. But the film, directed by Dorothy Arzner, is far from a triumph for feminist viewers. Hepburn’s character begins an affair with a married man and ends up paying the ultimate price …