1930s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[matrixschmatrix]

Don't forget Mystery at the Wax Museum (another two strip technicolour early horror).

Oh, I had forgotten about that. It's on the individual release of the Price version, right? (I have that, but my copy is part of one of those TCM fourpacks, so no bonus movie.)

[knives]

It is.

[Mr Sausage]

How could I have forgotten The Man They Could Not Hang. That's probably my favorite Karloff is a mad scientist movie ever. Speaking of The Invisible Ray while more Sci-fi of The Fly kind is absolutely essential (we've already talked in length on the other films in the set). That's a genuine tear jerker that if it was made four decades later could easily be seen as a metaphor for STDs. It gets to a rough start, but once Karloff begins his descent into madness I really do tear up. Lugosi's pleas to him is some truly devastating work.

I just came back to add Invisible Ray, so, yeah, definitely recommended. I also forgot to add Murders in the Rue Morgue, which of course we've already had a big discussion on, here and elsewhere.

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, I just realized that I've seen but hadn't listed The Black Cat, which seems like an important contender. So, of the movies you guys are recommending, which ones would you say are list material (which I want to make sure I watch in the next couple weeks) and which are more just fun but not necessarily vital? Of the ones I've seen, Mad Love and Testament of Dr. Mabuse are certainly going to make it, and probably Vampyr and Bride of Frankenstein as well.

[Mr Sausage]

The vital ones:

The Black Room
Tower of London
Invisible Ray
Dr. X
Murders in the Rue Morgue

[swo17]

All the ones I mentioned are currently making my list.

[knives]

Scratch off Dr. X, it's really only in it's climax that it does anything for me, from Sausage's list and replace it with The Devil-Doll and that's my suggestion too.

[Mr Sausage]

I need to second Swo's list, especially Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It really is essential, at the top of the heap of this genre.

[knives]

I'll have to admit none of the DJ&MH adaptations have done anything for me. The Hammer and March versions are the best, but even then there's something that puts me off of them.

[matrixschmatrix]

Oh, hey, I've actually seen Murders in the Rue Morgue, too- I'd forgotten, since it's on the same disc as The Black Cat

For the rest- I may as well go for Dr. X, since it's in a box set I've already got, and The Student of Prague will be easy enough to watch. It looks like all of Sausage's suggestions are on Netflix (sometimes two on a disc!) but unfortunately Jekyll and Hyde isn't- it seems like general opinion is that it's good enough to merit a blind buy?

(The Slaughter movies look interesting, but there's no way they'd get here from the UK in time, so I don't think I'll get to watch them.)

edit: haha, well crap.

[Mr Sausage]

I'll have to admit none of the DJ&MH adaptations have done anything for me. The Hammer and March versions are the best, but even then there's something that puts me off of them.

Which Hammer version are you talking about? Two-Faces of Dr. Jekyll, or Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde?

Have you seen Amicus' version, I, Monster? It follows the story quite closely, although it throws in some odd Freudian psycho-babble at the beginning. The real drawing point is the presence of Christopher Lee (as Jekyll/Hyde) and Peter Cushing. It's really the "Hammer Version that Wasn't."

[knives]

Oh, damn I was thinking of the Amicus film. I guess I haven't seen either Hammer version. Though I suppose with both Cushing and Lee it's fair of me to not realize. I didn't know at the time it was an adaptation and hadn't read the book yet so that movie came to me as a surprise and remains slightly personal as a result. I forgot to mention Renoir's adaptation which I consider a number two behind it.

[Shrew]

Jekyll and Hyde is placing very high on my list, and I would say it's absolutely worth picking up, or certainly a quick catalog search through a local library. It really is an outstanding piece of the genre--and in my opinion towers above them--as it draws not just on set design and gloomy atmosphere, but Mamoulian's horde of camera tricks as well. The use of superimposition in particular is brilliant, and March and Hopkins especially both turn great performances.

[matrixschmatrix]

Oh, that is irritating as hell- that same TCM set I've got that has the Price Wax Museum and not the earlier one also has the Spencer Tracy version of Jekyll and Hyde but not the '32 version, which it originally came packaged with.

I went ahead and bought the other release anyway, so now I'm going to have two copies of the same movie that I didn't want in the first place. Ugh.

[knives]

The Tracy version is truly awful, but even if I don't think it's great the March version is very fun and should be worth the very minor double dip.

[swo17]

The Slaughter movies look interesting, but there's no way they'd get here from the UK in time, so I don't think I'll get to watch them.

They're also readily available in PD-quality versions in the US (for example, here from Netflix), which you may in fact find appropriate to the material.

[matrixschmatrix]

Oh, cool, thanks- I saw that listing, but it didn't go past the "Johnny Legend's Deadly Doubles", so I didn't realize what was on there.

It's a good thing these movies are largely so trim, I was already in a position where I was going to have a hard time seeing everything I wanted to and I just added a dozen new titles.

[Mr Sausage]

matrixschmatrix, have you seen either Freaks or The Old Dark House? I know you're already pretty overloaded, but if you haven't, you must.

[matrixschmatrix]

Yeah, Freaks is one of the other ones on that TCM fourpack (it and The Haunting are the reasons I bought it)- it's an incredibly hard movie to rank, but it's definitely worth watching. I put The Old Dark House on my Netflix queue, though.

That reminds me- is White Zombie worth watching?

[knives]

I love it, but aside from Lugosi it's not a great movie.

[Cold Bishop]

I'm also a huge fan of Dieterle's Six Hours to Live, standing as it does on the precipice of the horror film and the noir thriller.

[Murdoch]

I've never understood the praise for Freaks. I liked it enough for most of the running time, but then the ending killed any enthusiasm I had

Spoiler

The movie does such a good job in presenting the performers as human and not grotesque, but then undoes all of it in the climax with them crawling and chasing the woman through mud, reducing them to the very monsters the film originally seemed trying to dispell.

[Cold Bishop]

Aren't you cheering for the freaks by that point?

[Murdoch]

I wasn't, I thought it reduced them all to cold-blooded killers and reinforced this vision of them as monstrous and inhuman. It didn't help that the chase plays out like so many evil monster chasing victim scenes.

[knives]

The way I see it is the story is set up Byronically. We gather the good deeds and sympathies for these people so that when they do something that appears less than moral it can be excused. It's really no different from say, Yojimbo for example. An other thing is that at least from the point of view of the movie they were acting out in defense and were perfectly justified in their actions. In a choice between Hans' life and castrating somebody the choice in the movie's eye is clear.