[5] Bela Lugosi headlines this Universal horror flick as a carnival showman determined to successfully inject a human being with gorilla blood to prove that man descended from ape. But who in 1845 Paris would willingly subject themselves to such an experiment? Lugosi and his gorilla companion travel by carriage through the fog-filled streets looking for women to kidnap and inject. After many failed attempts …
[8] Five travelers end up stranded at our title location after a fierce night-time storm makes driving the English hillsides too dangerous. The family that lives there is less than hospitable, with secrets that make the evening increasingly frightening. The Old Dark House is one of the grandfathers of what is now a classic horror sub-genre. Director James Whale (Frankenstein, Waterloo Bridge) makes it a …
[3] British archaeologists unearth a disgraced Egyptian prince (Boris Karloff) and accidentally bring him back to life. Ten years later, the mummy — looking conveniently human — schemes to reunite with his ancient lover, now reincarnated in the body of one of the archaeologist’s girlfriends (Zita Johann). In the pantheon of Universal’s classic monster movies, The Mummy is my least favorite by a large margin. …
[4] Barbara Stanwyck plays a poor waitress who falls in love with a rich man (Regis Toomey), but his mother (Clara Blandick) is determined to keep the two apart. She even goes so far as to have a judge arrest her on a phony morals charge and send her to ninety-day reform program! Once she’s released, Stanwyck starts a new life and becomes a infamous …
[6] A persistent newspaper reporter (Lee Tracy) sneaks into a clifftop mansion where a scientist (Lionel Atwill) is conducting experiments to determine which of his college associates may be the nefarious ‘Moon Killer’. The cast of Doctor X, which includes King Kong‘s Fay Wray as Atwill’s daughter and love interest to Tracy, give predictably theatrical performances, but Tracy wields a brand of subtle humor that …
[7] Ruth Chatterton is our title character, a bootlegging madam in 1906 San Francisco. The big earthquake claims the lives of her father and fiancée, and she ends up giving birth in a Chinatown basement. When poverty gives her no option, she gives up her baby for adoption. She straightens up and returns years later to reclaim him, only to find he no longer remembers …
[4] James Cagney stars as a racecar driver who sacrifices his relationship with Ann Dvorak to help his kid brother (Eric Linden) follow in his skid marks. But when Dvorak gets even by encouraging a girlfriend (Joan Blondell) to take the brother’s eye off the game, the plan backfires. Linden and Blondell really fall in love, and after a tragedy on the race track, Cagney’s …
[5] Sylvia Sidney (Madame Butterfly, Sabotage) plays a rich girl smitten with a drunkard. Fredric March co-stars as her somewhat charming but sobriety-challenged lover, effectively doing a dry-run for the type of role for which he’d receive an Oscar nomination five years later with A Star is Born. Despite the warnings of her father (George Irving) and friends, Sidney marries March and things go as …
[4] Barbara Stanwyck plays an engaged Christian missionary who is separated from her husband-to-be during the Chinese civil war in Shanghai. She is rescued by General Yen (Danish actor Nils Asther with ‘squinty eyes’ makeup), who takes her to his palace and looks after her. But Stanwyck soon realizes she hasn’t so much been rescued as kidnapped. While begging to be reunited with her husband, …
[3] Sylvia Sidney and Cary Grant star in this iteration of Madame Butterfly, the shitty-ass story of a geisha who marries an American Navy officer who leaves her and never comes back. The concept, alone, makes me cringe. Granted, this may be excellent fodder for opera, but stripped of music and left as a bare-bones narrative, this Madame Butterfly is almost torturous for most of …
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