Horror Movies, Old Movies, Best Horror Movies 1930 to 1934 Part 1 Review

By 1927, Horror Movies were delighting, shocking, scaring audiences and controversy was beginning to brew.  What effects were these nightmarish ghoulish images having on the public at large?   

Lon Chaney starred in director Tod Browning's macabre tale  The Unknown  1927  in which he played Alonzo the Armless, a carnival knife-throwing performer supposedly with no arms, hopelessly in love with a young woman.  I won't spoil the twists in this highly recommended film.

One of the biggest Broadway hits was the 1927 stage adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula starring a mysterious hungarian actor named Bela Lugosi.

The era of sound was ushered into existence by 1929 and Tod Browning and Lon Chaney re-made  The UnHoly Three in which Chaney portrayed several characters using 5 voices proving he would make an almost seamless change from the silent era to sound.  Unfortunately he tragically died of a throat hemorrhage, just as the film was released. 

 The planned Dracula stage to film adaptation now needed a needed a new star and despite resistance to casting the barely English speaking Bela Lugosi (a former Hungarian cinema matinee idol, turned Broadway star) in the title role, Browning insisted  and got his way.   Dracula would be released on Valentine's day in 1931 creating a huge stir, which saw several audience members screaming and fainting.

At the same time Browning was filming Dracula, at night, using the same sets and many of the same camera set-ups, Director George Melford made a Spanish Version starring Carlos Villarias as Lugosi,  Eduardo Arozamena as Van Helsing and the almost scandalously dressed  Lupita Tovar as Eva (Mina) and Carmen Guerrero as Lucia (Lucy).   Many consider the film better than the one with Lugosi!

Note: Both versions are available on a special edition Dracula DVD.

Although Dracula would become the most frequently portrayed character in film with about 170 representations, the first  official sequel to the original Dracula  was not made iuntil 1936 and called, Dracula's Daughter (1936), starring Gloria Holden as Countess Marya Zaleska who arrived in London to claim her father's body and developed a taste for blood - mostly from female victims (more than a hint of Lesbianism suggested). It was an atmospheric, somewhat effective film.   And then the next authorized sequel happened in Robert Siodmak's Son of Dracula (1943) set in the American South with Lon Chaney, Jr. starring as Count Alucard (Dracula spelt backward). He was not nearly as effective in the role as Lugosi or later on,  Christopher Lee.

Also in 1931, Danish writer/director Carl Theodor Dreyer's dreamlike, atmospheric, seminal horror film Vampyr (1931 aka The Strange Adventure of David Gray) was released. It tells the story of Baron Nicholas de Gunsberg, (Julian West) staying in a remote country Inn who believe he is surrounded by vampires and dreams his own death and burial in a coffin.  It's almost silent film with music, dialogue and sound effects added later.    

1931 was also the year were introduced to a child murdering deviant character being pursued by an angry mob in Fritz Lang's 1931 masterpiece M  which has the look and feel of a horror film, is based on the real life serial killer Peter Kurten - 'the vampire of Dusseldorf" and features an incredible performance from Peter Lorre

Universal Chief Carl Laemelle and director James Whale hoped to cast Lugosi in the role of the Monster for Frankenstein, but Lugosi did not want to endure the hours of make-up discomfort for a non-speaking, supporting role.  So instead, Boris Karloff, who was only billed as Karloff in the END credits for the film was cast in the role.    The film would be an even bigger success than Dracula and make Boris Karloff a household name and star.

He would make  The Old Dark House (1932) (his first starring role)  and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) with director Whale, and star in other huge hits like  The Mummy (1932).  Karloff would refuse the title role in Whale's The Invisible Man (1933) which helped launch Claude Rains' career. Karloff instead went to England to make an effective twist on The Mummy, called The Ghoul (1933).   Eventually Karloff and Lugosi worked together, first in 1934's The Black Cat, which has little to do with Poe, but is a good subtle horror tale. then 1935's The Raven, 1937's The Invisible Ray (later, Black Friday 1940 and You'll Find Out 1941) and in 1939's Son of Frankenstein (the last time Karloff played the Monster) which saw Lugosi create the memorable character of Ygor that he reprised in the later Frankenstein sequel  Ghost of Frankenstein in 1942 (with Lon Chaney Jr. playing the Monster).  Lugosi eventually played the Monster, himself  but rather stiffly in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943).  He would reprise his role as Dracula, effectively in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein in 1948.

Actually the next Vampire role Lugosi had was in Tod Brownings  remake of his lost silent film London After Midnight, called Mark of the Vampire in 1935.  More on this later...But first, Lugosi agreed to star in Director Victor Halperin's independent, low-budget horror film White Zombie (1932).   It was  the first 'true' zombie film. And Lugosi played the hypnotic and sinister Haitian sugar mill owner "Murder" Legendre with zombie slaves It was made with minimal dialogue, its strong atmospheric visuals still memorable and effective 76 years later.  Then he would join Charles Laughton in an excellent adaptation of H.G. Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau called Island of Lost Souls

   1933 was the year one of the most legendary and beloved 'horror' films of all times was released.  King Kong which featured the still amazing and intricately detailed special effects by Willis O'Brien, (who incorporated some of the dinosaur work he created for an unfinished project called Creation into Kong) was the brainchild of producer Merian C. Cooper who co-directed with an also uncredited Ernest B. Schoedsack.  Actor Robert Armstrong essentially played Cooper in his portrayal of Carl Denham.  Fay Wray became the screen's greatest scream queen as the 'beauty who killed the beast.'    After some screenings and its premiere, several somewhat graphic scenes and a quick nude breast shot was cut from the film and not restored until the 1980s. 

It was the Hayes Office that enforced the Production Codes that began to censor the content of movies and meant the end of nudity, graphic scenes and un-punished criminal behavior.  When Dracula and Frankenstein were re-issued in the mid-1930s footage was cut.  Scripts often had to be pre-approved.  Movies that did not have the Production Office Approval could only be shown in adults only venues.    Obviously this would change the look and feel of many horror movies, until the 1950s when England's Hammer films and others pushed the boundaries of good taste once again.

Next time  a list of the best Horror Movies 1930 to 1934.