[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 …
[3] Boris Karloff stars as a doctor who transplants the brain of a gangster into the body of a dying professor (both played by Stanley Ridges), then tries to get the convalescing professor to remember — with his new brain — where the gangster hid half a million dollars. Once they visit the gangster’s old stomping grounds, the memories come flooding back and the professor …
[7] Charles Laughton plays H.G. Wells’ mad scientist in the first film version of The Island of Dr Moreau. It’s a reasonably faithful adaptation until the halfway point, where it gets as loose as the Demi Moore version of The Scarlet Letter. Wells’ provocative suggestions about man’s animal nature remain largely submerged in the movie’s Saturday matinee atmosphere. Leading man Richard Arlen (so striking in …
[6] When a madman kidnaps the inventor of a lethal ray gun, it’s up to a powerful hypnotist named Chandu to stop the fiend from unleashing the death ray on the world. This is Bela Lugosi in his prime. His performance as the madman Roxan is definitely the best part of this old, Saturday matinee movie. I did not care at all, however, for Edmund …
[5] Whenever Bela Lugosi isn’t onscreen, you can’t wait for him to return in this cornerstone of on-screen horror. His iconic portrayal is the best thing this movie has going for itself. I also liked some of the sets and Dwight Frye’s crazy performance as Renfeld. The rest of the cast are not particularly good, and I would like the Dracula/Mina relationship to have been …
[7] It’s fun to watch Greta Garbo defrost in Ninotchka. She plays an oh-so-serious Russian sent to Paris to straighten out the sale of some allegedly stolen jewels. Melvyn Douglas gets in her way. At first, he’s an annoyance, but a curious one. Her no-nonsense attitude toward him makes for a unlikely cinematic romance. The highlight of their courtship is a restaurant scene where Douglas …
[10] I doubt Tim Burton will ever make a finer film. Armed with a powerhouse screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (The People vs Larry Flynt), Burton turns the biography of Hollywood’s most infamously bad director into a poignant and hilarious film about never giving up… no matter how much you might suck. The film is admittedly white-washed, concentrating and embellishing upon Ed Wood’s …
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