DVD Review: Karloff & Lugosi Horror Classics
Posted by sean in DVD & Blu-Ray, Reviews on October 31st, 2009
By Jesse Walvoord (10/31/09)
With the most expansive film library of all the major studios, Warner celebrates Halloween by giving fans of classic horror a nice treat, with the KARLOFF AND LUGOSI HORROR CLASSICS collection delivering four films – two starring each actor (sort of, but we’ll get there in a minute) – that fans have long been clamoring for.
1935’s The Walking Dead, starring Boris Karloff and directed by the venerable Michael Curtiz, is a rare gem. The Warner’s entries into the genre during the initial cycle of horror films during the early 1930’s are truly unique and fascinatingly different from what any other studio was doing at the time; mad doctors and fleshy fiends aside, Dr. X and Mystery of the Wax Museum fit in perfectly with their house style, with their emphasis on fast-talking reporters, slick criminals and a penchant for the gritty and the topical. Even more a genre-bending mishmash, The Walking Dead is half gangster/revenge saga and half Frankenstein-style horror film. The mix has no right to work as well as it does, but both Karloff’s tender performance and the incredibly dense, expressionistic visual style of the film really sell it. Surrounded by wonderful character actors (is there any other horror film that can boast Ricardo Cortez, Barton MacLane and Edmund Gwenn?) and some heady ideas about life, death and divine retribution, The Walking Dead has a little something for everyone, and is an entirely welcome odd-ball entry in the ‘30’s horror canon.
Film historian Greg Mank provides a commentary, and it’s a wonderful track – breezy, entertaining and, above all, informative and substantive. Mank’s enthusiasm for the production shines through and is entirely infectious.
1958’s much maligned Frankenstein 1970 has 
nothing to do with the “future” of 1970, and, truth be told, doesn’t have much to do with anything else either. A knock-out gag opening sets the stage for goofy, schizophrenic storytelling in a film that’s bound to disappoint most fans eager to catch Karloff rubbing shoulders with the brand that made him a star. Here, as the latest Dr. Frankenstein, Karloff gives a performance even his most adoring fans tend to sight as unbearably hammy; but I do have to say that – as always – he’s the best thing in the film, and that he’s surely winking knowingly to an audience that knows he’s above such fluff. This one’s surely a doozy, including a monster that was apparently mummified while wearing a trash can over his head, and who goes eyeless through most of the film! Nonetheless, there are some plusses. A fun cast portrays the TV crew crashing Castle Frankenstein to film a spooky special; and the film does sport some nice black and white, CinemaScope cinematography. Sadly, at best, one can call this an occasionally entertaining missed opportunity.
Film historian Tom Weaver wrangles in collector Bob Burns and cast member Charlotte Austin for a lively track. Weaver’s always great at keeping the conversation going, and filled with wonderful trivia. Burns sounds as amiable and enthusiastic as always, and the genial Austin has some genuinely funny anecdotes and no inhibitions about calling a spade a spade, and pointing this out as an, ahem, lesser entry in most anyone’s filmography.
Shifting gears, You’ll Find Out – released by RKO in 1940 – is a relic of another era, reliant on pop-culture trends of the time and, perhaps, hopelessly outdated for many in the audience. And yet I was charmed by nearly every minute of it. Though featuring the trio of Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre, the film is really a vehicle for long-forgotten band-leader and radio game show host Kay Keyser and his “Kollege of Musical Knowledge,” who lead a Scooby-Doo style plot of phony mysticism and attempted murder in a creepy backwoods mansion. You’re enjoyment of the film will rest upon the agreeable screen presence of Keyser, as well as your tolerance for the goofy antics of his band members (plus an adorable dog with a Beatles style bowl haircut…!). The film is a must-see for horror fans though, frustrated (or perhaps even exasperated) as they may be by the surrounding hokum, you’ve still got great, slimy performances from all three horror stars (a toothy Lorre being the standout here), and a rare oddity: watch out for a cellar sequence that features, as props, several stop motion models from King Kong! Yes, even the spiders from the mythic lost spider sequence!
Finally, 1945’s Zombies on Broadway is a real odd-duck… A vehicle for RKO’s (desperate) attempt to duplicate Abbott and Costello: Wally Brown and Alan Carney. Zombies finds two schmucks sent, by mob-order, to the isle of San Sebastian to book a real zombie for a New York nightclub, only to run afoul of mad doctor Bela Lugosi. Really marginalized here, Lugosi still has that charm that his fans adore, and despite having nothing to do, comes out unscathed. Not so for everyone else; it’s difficult to conjure in one’s memory another duo that has less comedic success than Brown and Carney do here. If there’s any attraction at all to Zombies, it’s that it serves as a quirky, sideways sort-of sequel to Val Lewton’s 1943 shocker I Walked with a Zombie, sharing that film’s setting (sort of), Sir Lancelot as a menacing calypso singer (sort of) and Darby Jones as the pop-eyed, lurching zombie (sort of).
All three films look and sound about as good as I’m sure they ever have, with The Walking Dead a little soft and murky (but not distractingly so), while You’ll Find Out absolutely glistens (the negative must have been virtually untouched since it was first struck). Zombies on Broadway looks pretty dupey, but Frankenstein 1970 looks pleasing in its proper aspect ratio.
Ultimately, this is a nice treat – definitely a mixed-bag of films, but each with something of interest. to the classic horror fan.
