BEST HORROR FILMS 1930 to 1939 25 plus : Part 1 of 3. Review

BEST HORROR FILMS 1930 to 1939 25 plus : Part 1 of 3. — 

The best horror films of 1930 to 1939 won't shock today's audiences (for the most part), but most truly terrified theater audiences in their day.  Many of  the early ones were pre-code and when they were re-released in the 40s to theaters and starting in the 50s to television were edited.  Seek out restored and uncut editions and avoid other versions.  The best have memorable performances, weird sets, great atmosphere and sometimes really bizarre plots and sadistic tortures and murders.  Many of the most effective ones were made prior to 1935 when the Hayes Code of Censorship was in full effect (it began in 32).  Remember acting styles were more theatrical and sound was still relatively new to the cinema.  

25. Crime of Dr. Crespi, The (1936)

Erich Von Stroheim (years after the classic Greed and a year prior to Grand Illusion) gives us one of his best ‘evil' performances in this twist on Poe's Premature Burial. He injects a rival with a drug to make him appear dead and then buries the poor chap alive. Yikes. Still worth a look today.

24. Kongo (1932)

A claustrophobic exercise in extreme sadism that is still somewhat powerful and disturbing today. Walter Huston (Director John's father and best known for his performance in Treasure of Sierra Madre ) plays a cripple who rules an African colony and wants revenge on the man who crippled him so he tortures his daughter. (Don't confuse this with the 1961 camp classic Konga wich stars Michael Gough)

23. Man They Could Not Hang, The (1939)

This is a low budget twist on  1933's The Walking Dead  (see #12).  Karloff plays a doctor who is hung for performing illegal heart transplants. He's brought back to life by his assistant and traps judge and jury in his specially outfitted house where he plans to kill them off one by one. Karloff did 4 movies with very similar plots and this was the second best of this type.   It remains very entertaining.

22.   Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936) aka Demon Barber of Fleet St.

Not released in the U.S. until 1939, this film stars the almost forgotten Tod Slaughter an extremely melodramatic theatrical actor who is usually utterly over-the top as plays villainous rogues and murderers. Here he is the infamous Barber who opens a trap door under the barber chair and victims fall into the basement where they are made into meat pies to be sold by the bakery next door. Its not scary, but it's a lot of fun. Slaughter is a campy delight with a very memorable voice.  Be fun to watch since Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are coming out with their musical version of this story this Christmas.

21.  Mummy, The (1932)

If your in the right mood, this moody atmospheric and dated film still has the power to creep you out. It's not the roller-coaster ride the recent re-make is, and it's not the rather silly guy in bandages series of 40's Mummy films you may be familiar with. . . The best scenes are the flashbacks, and you'll consider a few shots borderline gruesome (this was pre-code). It's slow, but it's a worthwhile film.

20. White Zombie (1932)

Good Lugosi performance, but even well restored this one is very low-budget, and very dated and rather slow going. It's pretty much the original Zombie movie, though. Atmospheric, wonderful music. After a book in 1929 called the Magic Island introduced the word Zombie to most Americans, a hit Broadway play called Zombie followed. Then the very smart independent producer/director team of Edward and Victor Halperin borrowed sets from Universal (Dracula, Frankenstein, King Kong, Hunchback) and signed Lugosi (for just $800 bucks !!!!!) To play Murder Legendre ruler of the Haiti Zombies. Certainly worth seeing. Take care in finding restored uncut versions. 

19. Black Cat, The (1934)

"Supernatural perhaps, Baloney perhaps not," speaks Lugosi in this the first of several Kaloff/Lugosi pairings. Karloff is a famous architect who has built his ultra-modern house on top of the 'greatest graveyard in history'!. Lugosi has never forgiven his former friend for stealing his wife. He learns his former wife is dead, and preserved in a tank, and Karloff has married her daughter who is also supposedly dead now too. It has nothing to do with Poe, and it barely makes sense, but watching Karloff and Lugosi spar amongst the odd art-deco sets is great fun. Directed by cult favorite Edgar Ulmer (who was 30 at the time.).

18. Maniac (1934)

Dwain Esper's gross-out shocker will have you shaking your head in utter disbelief. It's bad in the most fun Ed Wood kind of way but it's also got some gross outs like the pulling out of a cat's eye before it's consumed. There's the always fun two women armed with hypodermic needles fighting each other. Some truly hilariously bad moments in between the attempted gross outs. Most of it was filmed in a large basement. . . or so it appears. Esper defied the censorship code with this shocker and even included a touch of nudity. Hildegarde , A scientist wants to raise the dead, so he experiments on the living, trying to turn his wife into a she-cat, and there's the rapist who thinks he's an Orangutan.  Bizzarre and utterly tasteless to say the least.  Esper's wife wrote it, Esper produced and directed. Together they would make the exploitation classics: Marijuana; and How to Undress in Front of Your Husband. Esper also bought the distribution rights for FREAKS. MGM didn't want the movie when it was declared obscene.  Esper would often tour with his movies and show them at special adults only theater presentations beginning in the 1930s.  

17. Murders in the Zoo (1933)

Here's a film which was released just before the code went into full effect. It's a nasty (for it's day) low budget film. Lionel Atwill plays a very jealous , and we soon find out, quite sadistic zoo-keeper. He's throwing people to snakes, and alligators and leaves one man to die after he sows the poor chap's mouth shut. Kathleen Burke (who played the Panther Girl in Island of Lost Souls) is the wife and a very young Randolph Scott is the hero here. Try it. Directed by Edward Sutherland. Scott wouldn't become a star for several more years after a boost from Mae West in Go West Young Man.

16. Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)

A still enjoyable horror classic. Shot and often shown (and now restored) in two strip technicolor this is the film that made Lionel Atwill a full fledged horror star. He plays the mad sculptor who covers his victims in wax as he tries to replace the figures of the wax museum he owned which burned down. The wise cracking reporter character played by Glenda Farrell is sometimes funny, sometimes annoying, and another character, a junkie, is brutally tortured by the police. It's still got a few shocks and scares but you can't help but notice that the Wax figures occasionally breathe and move because real people are standing as still as they can playing them. This of course was re-made most famously as the 3D classic House of Wax with Vincent Price and then there's that recent version with Paris Hilton.

What's next?  Check out  Best 25 Horror Films 1930 - 1939  Part 2 of 3  and Part 3 of 3.

BEST  25 HORROR FILMS  1930-1939  PART 2 of 3