Not much mummy action in this early horror film.

The Eyes of the Mummy (1918)
Starring: Pola Negri, Harry Leidtke, Emil Jannings and Max Laurence
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Albert Wendland (Leidtke) rescues Ma (Negri) from Radu (Jannings), a maniac who kidnapped her and who has been passing her off as a living mummy in an Egyptian tomb. The girl finds fame and fortune as the artist's model and a cabaret dancer in a major European city. However, Radu pursues them, intent on claiming what is his through any means necessary.



"The Eyes of the Mummy" has been touted by some as the first mummy movie. I can't help but wonder if those commentators actually bothered watching it, because there is even less mummy action here than there is in Universal's 1932 "The Mummy" and no supernatural element at all.

Or is there?

There are hints in the film that Radu is more than just a scammer, kidnapper and rapist. In one scene, he seems to appear in spirit-form in Ma's bedroom, and he later commands her through nothing more than the power of his mind. What might these scenes mean?

A generous and imaginative viewer could take these elements and combine them with the story Ma tells for having been dragged from the riverbank by Radu and waking up in the tomb as proof that the spirit of an ancient Egyptian queen dwells within the girl, brought back to life by Radu through magic--her being dragged away from the river was her being brought back from the spirit world to this one.

A less-generous viewer might say that the movie is the cinematic equvilent of an inkblot and little more than a poorly defined melodrama that features a loosely stitched-together selection of gothic fiction elements tossed in with no more thought beyond "well, this'll creep 'em out!"

Whatever the case, "The Eyes of the Mummy" is an unevenly paced movie that never quite manages to invoke enough horror or suspense to make it truly entertaining; some scenes become better when you run the DVD at 2x speed, a hidden advantage to silent movies. The acting is decent (even if you're one of the people who can't stand the acting styles of early cinema) and stars Emil Jannings and Pola Negri are especially fun to watch. Negri's exotic dances are more snicker-inducing to modern viewers than they are sexy, but she shows herself to be both a good actress, dancer and stunt woman--watch for that fall down the stairs near the end of the movie!

Lugosi and forgotten comedy team monkey around in 'The Gorilla'

The Gorilla (1939)
Starring: The Ritz Brothers, Lionel Atwill, Anita Louise, Bela Lugosi, Patsy Kelly, and Edward Norris
Director: Alan Dwan
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

When millionaire Walter Stevens (Atwill) receives a death threat from a vicious murderer and extortionist known as The Gorilla on the very eve his beautiful niece Norma (Louise) and her boyfriend (Norris) are returning to the States, he hires a trio of private detectives (The Ritz Brothers) to protect him and his family. Unfortunately, these detectives couldn't find their way around a well-lit, empty room, so things get hairy when The Gorilla strikes. They get even hairier when a REAL gorilla invades the house.



When I first put this movie in my DVD player, the opening credits took me by surprise. These days, it is being marketed as a Bela Lugosi movie (in so far as it was included in a ten-movie pack of Lugosi films), but when it was first released, the star attraction was a comedy team known as the Ritz Brothers and it was a vehicle first and foremost for them.

As a comedy, "The Gorilla" doesn't quite work, and it works even less as an intended showcase for the Ritz Brothers. Their "stupid detectives" schtick quickly becomes more annoying than funny, and the funniest bits are actualy performed by Patsy Kelly (the household's maid who wants nothing more than to quit) and Bela Lugosi as a creepy butler who seems to have the power to appear and dissapear at will. (This seems to be a minor theme in Lugosi flicks, as he plays a character with a similar talent in "Black Dragons"). It works when played for laughs, like it is here, but it is incredibly annoying when it is featured in a serious drama, like the awful "Black Dragons" was intended as.

As a mystery, the film is somewhat more entertaining. If one can tolerate the antics of the Ritz Brothers, there's actually a clever little story with some neat twists and turns and a Big Reveal that is actually somewhat surprising. (The fact that the gorilla suit featured is better than aveage also helps.)

Of primary interest, I think, is the fact that this film has ended up as an exhibit of the fleeting nature of fame. As mentioned above, I was a bit surprised when I learned this film was a vehicle for a comedy team I'd never even heard of. I did some research, and it seems that the Ritz Brothers may have bene more popular than the Marx Brothers at one time...yet the former are totally forgotten. Similarly, Lugosi and Atwill were big names in their day, but they too have sunken into obsurity. (Hardcore horror fans know Lugosi because he did "Dracula", but Atwill? Only real film geeks have even the slightest inkling about the full output of either actor. Yet, in the 30s and 40s, their names were major draws.)

"The Gorilla" is also worth watching because viewers will once again see that Lugosi was a far better comedic actor than he has ever been given credit for. His part is small here, but he shows perfect comedic timing in every scene he's in. It really is too bad that his career track was such that he didn't get to make more comedies.

In final analysis, howevery, "The Gorilla" is really only of interest to the biggest movie geeks among us... and possibly the truly hardcore fans of Bela Lugosi's work. The rest can safely pass this one by; it's not particularly bad, but it's also not very noteworthy.

(As for the Ritz Brothers, it seems their Main Funny was to be found in musical routines... of which they do none in "The Gorilla". Maybe this film is a case of the wrong vehicle for a particular group of performers. If the Ritz Brothers really were any good, it's a shame their movie legacy doesn't reflect that. This was just one or two films they starred in.)

Does evil or madness move 'The Blancheville Monster'?

The Blancheville Monster (aka "Horror") (1963) Starring: Gerard Tichy, Joan Hills, Leo Anchorez, Richard Davis and Helga Line Director: Alberto De Martino Rating: Six of Ten Stars A young noblewoman (Hills) returns to her family estate to find her older brother (Tichy) has replaced all the familiar servants with newcomers, including a suspicious new family doctor (Anchorez). She soon learns that her brother is attempting to hide the fact their father has gone insane and is now bent on murdering his own daugther before she turns 21 in a few days. Can her lover (Davis) stop the madman, or uncover the even darker truths about the Blancheville family before it is too late? "The Blancheville Monster" is a straight-forward gothic romance with horror overtones and just enough twists to keep it interesting. Fans of Edgar Allen Poe stories like "The Oblong Box" (read it here ) and Roger Corman films like "The Terror" (review here) and "The Pit and the Pendulum (review here) will find this film enjoyable. However, it is far from perfect, as it suffers from a great deal of padding in the form of long walks through the haunted grounds of the Blancheville estate. I'm giving the film a generous Six Rating, based to a large extent on the build-up to the end. I thought i had the story all figured out before the halfway mark, but I wasn't quite right. While the twist was nothing earthshattering, it was clever enough and in perfect keeping with the genre and everything that had happened previously in the film.

One of the better 'bad monster movies' you'll ever laugh at

Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)
Starring: Anthony Carbone, Robert Towne, and Betsy Jones-Moreland
Director: Roger Corman
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

When a general flees Castro's revolution with most of the Cuban treasury, he hires notorious gangster Renzo Capetto (Carbone) to bring him and his aides to safety. Capetto intends to kill his charges and keep the gold for himself, but his plans go awry thanks to a tough-talking U.S. government agent who has infiltrated his gang (Towne), persistant bearded agents of Castro, and a sea-creature that starts killing before Capetto can get around to it.


I came to this movie without any idea of what to expect other than a made-on-the-cheap monster movie. But even before the pre-credit sequence--where a man having his tennis shoes shined and then is chased by killer beatnicks with murderous intent--I knew I was in for something strange. When the tough-talking, film-noir narrator introduced hims as having infiltrated Capetto's gang undercover, but assured us that his "real name is Agent XK150" I realized that I was in for a comedy ala "Little Shope of Horrors" or "A Bucket of Blood."

"The Creature from the Haunted Sea" is a strange, nonsensical litle movie that is performed by a collection of decent to average no-name actors who spout bizarre lines with great conviction and zeal. The movie spoofs monster flicks, spy flicks, pirate movies, gangster movies, and probably one or two genres I missed. The film is very disjoined, and I'm not sure this is intentional at times, but I loved the sort of freewheeling nature of the film and the way it kept getting stranger and stranger as it progressed. (It could have done with a few more appearances by the title creature--despite the utterly awful and giggle-inspiring design)and by the hot chicks living on the island where our cast of weirdos get stranded, though.)

This is by no means a great movie, but it has a certain charm about it. It is included in a wide range of different DVD multi-packs, and its presence should be at least partly a reason to pick one up. It's a strange little film that brighten the proceedings at any Bad Movie Party.

I've placed a link to an edition that includes both the original film and a colorized version, because I am increasingly fascinated by the way films are changed--usually not for the better--when the colorization process is applied. Don't get me wrong, I am NOT some purist that will rattle on about the integrity of a director's vision--I will put good money on many directors during the 1950s and 1960s shooting in black and white because their budgets didn't allow for color film--but most directors and their cinematographers understood how to make the most out of the black and white medium and their scenes are lit and filmed to make the most of it. In the vast majority of cases, colorization drains visual excitement from a film rather than adding to it.

Then again, I'm a guy who enjoys black and white movies so I could be biased. Anyone else have thoughts on the matter? Especially if you've seen the colorzied version of "Creature from the Haunted Sea"?)

The Addams Family was never as creepy as this father/daugher duo

Mark of the Vampire (aka "Vampires of Prague") (1935)
Starring: Lionel Barrymore, Lionel Atwill, Elizabeth Allen, Jean Hersholt, Henry Wadsworth, Donald Meek, Bela Lugosi, Caroll Borland, and Holmes Herbert
Director: Tod Browning
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When a local nobleman (Herbert) is found dead, his body completely drained of blood, the villagers are certain that the vampires Count Mora (Lugosi) and his daughter Luna (Borland) have returned to spread more evil. However, Police Inspector Neumann (Atwill) refuses to believe in such superstitious nonsense as vampires--it IS after all 1935--and he searches for a more down-to-earth culprit. But when the nobleman's daugther (Allen) and her fiance (Wadsworth) come under attack, and the vampires being to menace the home of Baron Zinden (Hersholt), Neumann has to reconsider his sceptical ways and joins forces with the Baron and occult expert Professor Zelin (Barrymore) to destroy the vampires.


"Mark of the Vampire" is a fairly lighthearted mystery/horror movie, with some genuine chills thrown in for good measure. (The scene with Luna Mora winging her way across the vampire gathering while turning from bat into human is creepy as all get-out. In fact, every scene featuring Luna is creepy as all get-out!)

The actors here all to a good job, and the sets and lighting are all well-done. Although Lugosi has top-billing here, he really doesn't do much. He has a nice transformation scene after which he chases some terrified servants down a hallway, and his closing scene is hilariously self-referential, but otherwise all he does is stand around and grimmace. Borland even gets to be scarier than Lugosi.

The overall story isn't anything surprising, even by 1935 standards, but the final-act twist was not one that I saw coming. Its presence was welcomed, and it actually made the movie far more entertaining for me. I would have liked to have gotten a bit more background on the Moras--why does the Count have a bullet wound in his head?--but that may have overburdened the simple story that is already having to bear the above-mentioned twist.

(Speaking of that twist, it probably wasn't all that surprising to the audiences in 1935. It was standard in those days to provide down-to-earth explanations of anything that appeared supernatural in a film. The Lugosi-starring and Browning-directed "Dracula" from 1931 was the first movie to break that standard.)

"Mark of the Vampire" isn't the greatest of the 1930s thrillers, but it's still worthwhile viewing. And it's one of the six movies included in the "Hollywood Legends of Horror" DVD collection, which does include several must-see classics like The Mask of Fu Manchu and Mad Love.

Lugosi takes a turn as hero in 'The Invisible Ray'

The Invisible Ray (1936)
Starring: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Frances Drake
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Scientific genius Janos Rukh (Karloff) discovers an amazing new radioactive element, but accidentially becomes poisoned by it. His equally bright collegue Dr. Benet (Lugosi) devises a serum that surpresses the deadly effects, but the chemicals and radioactivity drive the already mentally unstable Rukh over the edge, and he soon starts using his new radioactive powers to kill everyone he feels as wronged him. Will the kindly Benet and the police stop manage to stop Rukh's murderous rampage in time to save Rukh's ex-wife (Drake)?


"The Invisible Ray" has all the makings of a cool little Science Gone Mad film (complete with Karloff delivering the "they called me mad" speech!), but it is sabotaged by pedestrian direction, some of the tinniest dialogue ever put on film, and a too slow build-up before the killings start. Throughout the film, I saw glimmers of what it COULD have been if someone had written decent dialogue for the actors to deliver, but as "The Invisible Ray" currently exists, it's not until the action move to Paris and Rukh goes on his mad rampage that the film becomes entertaining. (There's enough going on at that point that the bad dialogue is no longer such an irritant.)

I think the only reason to watch the movie is for seeing Lugosi play a role that's almost entirely unlike any other part he's played; everyone else appearing doesn't really deliver performances that are noteworthy for being good or bad... they're just in the movie. Lugosi, however, is not only the film's indisputable hero (even if Dr. Benet is just about Rukh's equal when it comes to Mad Science... but he uses the WonderTech and crazy discoveries for good!), but he gives a more-restrained-than-usual performance that lets us see why he was such a respected stage actor. It's another one of those those pictures that makes it easy to understand why Boris Karloff described Lugosi as "Poor Bela" in interviews following Lugosi's death. It's another Lugosi film that gives a glimpse at what moviedom lost because Universal management treated him like a throw-away bit player and because Lugosi managed his overall film career badly.

(Oh... I don't usually do much trivia in this forum, but there is an amusing bit of stock footage in the film. The scene where Janos lowers himself into the meteor crater in protective gear was taken from the matinee serial "The Phantom Creeps". It is actually Bela Lugosi wearing the suit.

Mad science creates a four-sided love triangle

Four Sided Triangle (aka The Monster and the Woman) (1954)
Starring: Barbara Payton, Stephen Murray, James Hayter, and John Van Eyssen
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Robin and Bill (Murray and Van Eyssen) are childhood friends who both grow up to be scientific genuises. Together, they create a device capable of replicating any object, no matter how complex, including living beings. When Robin marries Lena (Payton), a girl they've both loved since childhood, Bill is dispondant. However, with the help of Lena and his mentor Dr. Harvey (Hayter), he uses the Replicator to create an exact copy of Lena. It perhaps goes without saying, but things don't work out as Bill and his friends expect.



"Four Sided Triangle" is a Frankenstein-type story with a twist, and a higher-than-average number of morals-, ethics-, and compassion-challenged characters. That Bill, obsessed as he is with having a relationship with Lena, would want to make a copy of her is understandable. That his supposedly intelligent friends wouldn't understand the signifcance of what they are taking part in is a huge flaw in the film. They aren't creating something from nothing--they are creating a full-fledged, exact copy of Lena... who loves Robin, not Bill, and who doesn't want to be Bill's slave.

Maybe the issues of the film are clearer to me than most, because it's something that have been a recurring theme in my long-running "Star Wars" RPG campaign, or maybe my perspective is different from that of people in the 1950s, but I am amazed that none of the characters saw what their actions would lead to, and I am slightly appalled at the actions (or rather, the inaction) on the part of some of the characters when Bill sets about to reshape the Lena copy's mind to fit his desires.

Like all Fisher-directed movies, the film is great to look at. It takes full advantage of the black-and-white medium. The actors also give excellent performances. Unfortunately, the film is too ponderous and slow-moving to be really entertaining... even if you aren't as outraged at the behavoir and attitudes of some of the characters as I was.

Lugosi is wasted in this so-so comedy

One Body Too Many (1944)
Starring: Jack Haley, Jean Parker, Bernard Nedell, Bela Lugosi, Lyle Talbot, and Lucien Littlefield
Director: Frank McDonald
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Insurance salesman Albert Tuttle (Haley) arrives to sell a millionaire life insurance, only to find that his customer is already deceased and his greedy family members are at his house to fulfill the terms of his unusual will. Albert's night goes from bad to worse when he is recruited to help watch the body (which is laying in state in the house until construction on a special crypt is finished), as the estate's executor (Nedell) fears the some of the relatives may try to circumvent the terms of the will. And can anything more happen once Albert is attacked and the body is stolen? Well, there's always murder....

"One Body Too Many" is a film that history has passed by. It's a straight-up spoof of "the dark old house" mystery subgenre that flourished in the 1930s and early 1940s. That genre so long out of favor that it is barely remembered (although several horror movies in recent years have incorporated elements of the genre, with "See No Evil" being perhaps the most prominent of them), and much of its humor is therefore somewhat muted to the modern viewer. Although, those who remember the "Scooby-Doo" cartoons are familiar with the standard elements of the genre, as bioth "Scooby-Doo" and this film features (and pokes fun) at all them, such as the setting of a gothic mansion that is honey-combed with bad electrical wiring and secret passages, full of creepy servants, crooked relatives, andshadowy killers, and beset by rain and thunderstorms that come and go depending on the needs of the plot.

The film features a solid cast and decent sets, even if the rooftop observatory left a lot to be desired. Jack Haley, as the hapless Albert Tuttle, brings about many chuckles, and he does a fine turn as the start of this comedy. Despite the fact that Bela Lugosi's name and face are huuuge on the DVD case of this film, his part is rather small. Further, while he and Haley play off each other in one of the film's funniest exchanges--where Lugosi, playing Murkil the butler, has to explain the mud on his shoes--he doesn't get to show off his all-too-rarely used talent for comedy. The running gag with the servants and the coffee, which pays off in the film's final scene, isn't one that required a great deal of skill to deliver.

Script-wise, it's okay, but there's nothing particularly bad, but there's also nothing particuarly spectacular. There only one part that doesn't work on any level, and that's when three of the relatives decide to take the coffin and hide it in the pool. The action makes no sense and the schtick that it lets Haley do isn't particularly funny. The rest of the fillm is pleasently amusing, however.

While "One Body Too Many" isn't a film that I would necessarily recommend buying on its own, it does add to the value of any DVD multipack it is featured in. It's also a fine candidate for a Netflix rental if you enjoy comedies and mysteries from the 1930s and 1940s.