“Universal [Studios] created one of the first (if not the first) franchises in Hollywood history with its monster movies, and absolutely created the first cinematic universe when they started having those monsters meet each other and hang out with Abbott and Costello. It was a different time.” – Tom Reimann Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay Without a doubt, franchises have dominated Hollywood filmmaking for a long time. From a decades-in-the-making Top Gun sequel to new iterations on classic characters like The Batman to another shameless cash grab like Jurassic World: Dominion, people nowadays are simply more likely to spend money going to the movies if they recognize its brand. Considering how ubiquitous franchises are now with the moviegoing experience, I asked myself some time ago: what was the first film franchise?
To kick off my horror-themed October blogs, I wanted to celebrate the legacy of Universal Pictures’ “Classic Monsters” by delving into the histories (and sharing my thoughts) on some of the iconic movie monsters from this inaugural cinematic universe. So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED!! [NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for several movies. You have been warned.] Dracula (1931) In the wake of F.W. Murnau being sued by the widow of Bram Stoker for the release of his silent horror film Nosferatu, enthusiastic Hollywood producer and co-founder of Universal Studios Carl Laemmle, Jr. (All Quiet on the Western Front, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man) legally purchased the film rights to Stoker’s gothic fiction for $40,000. Upon recognizing its potential at the American box office, he conceptualized his adaption of the vampiric story to be a large-scale spectacle akin to Wallace Worsley’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Rupert Julian’s The Phantom of the Opera. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Louis Bromfield was hired to pen the first draft of the screenplay. However, many aspects of his attempt to reconcile Stoker’s novel with the stage-play version were rejected by Universal due to budget constraints or deemed as potentially controversial. As a result, Bromfield was replaced with playwright and screenwriter Garrett Fort (Frankenstein, The Mask of Zorro). Successfully channeling inspirations from both the hit Broadway adaptation and Murnau’s Nosferatu (notably the scene of Renfield’s pricked finger evoking the Count’s bloodlust), Fort’s final draft became the shooting script and earned him the writing credit for the film. Silent horror film star Lon Chaney (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera) was intended to star in the lead role. However, his sudden death due to a throat hemorrhage forced Laemmle, Jr. to consider other actors. After several were up for the role, the studio hired Lew Ayres (All Quiet on the Western Front, Johnny Belinda) before he was recast with Robert Ames (The Trespasser, Holiday) who was quickly recast with David Manners (The Miracle Woman, The Mummy). As Manners ultimately agreed to the role of John Harker, Laemmle, Jr. remained reluctant to consider Hungarian native Bela Lugosi (White Zombie, The Raven, Bride of the Monster) who received positive reviews for his portrayal of Dracula on the stage. Coincidentally, Lugosi was in Los Angeles for a tour version of the play while the film was being cast. Despite the studio resisting, Lugosi lobbied for the role and ultimately won them over after accepting a salary of thirty-five hundred dollars for a nearly two-month shooting schedule. Principal photography took place over the course of 36 days in Los Angeles, starting in late September of 1930. Due to director Tod Browning’s lackadaisical shooting style, cinematographer Karl Freund took over much of the shoot and thus became an uncredited director for the project. Manners recalls Lugosi being “polite” but “distant” from the rest of the cast as he struck him as not so much acting as being just his true, eccentric self. Several performers in the film, from Edward Van Sloan (Van Helsing) and Helen Chandler (Mina Seward), derided the film and/or their role in it. Lugosi himself refused offers to play Dracula on stage going forward due to his fear of being typecast. Ultimately coming in under budget at just over $340,000, Dracula subverted Universal Studios’ expectations by being a box office success upon its release in February of 1931. Raking in a profit of $700,000, the film became Universal’s best-selling film of that year. Newspaper reports indicated that audience members fainted in shock at the horror on screen, seemingly confirming the studio’s worry that American theatergoers were not prepared for a strait-laced “chiller” flick that included no humor to undermine the movie’s supernatural elements. It was later revealed that these reports were orchestrated by the studio to increase audience interest in the film. Contemporarily, critics received Dracula positively (particularly highlighting Browning’s direction, the creepy atmosphere, and Chandler’s performance). Decades later, the film was re-evaluated for its cinematography and Lugosi’s iconic turn as the most famous vampire character ever to hit the silver screen. Film historians credited the movie with popularizing the cinematic vampire; some even contend that the horror genre in film was born with Dracula. The film’s critical and commercial success launched Universal Studios’ representation as the progenitor of early horror cinema, from James Whale’s Frankenstein (released that same year) to George Waggner’s The Wolf Man. Pretty similar to my thoughts about films like Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park, Bela Lugosi’s Dracula is an important movie more than it is a good one. Did it set the standard for the monster flick? Sure, but it’s been surpassed by nearly every big-name film in its subgenre that’s been released since (including the three other movies that I’m talking about today). I say that for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it looks old. The sets for Dracula, whether they be matte paintings or drapes with illusory 3-D depth, appear very cheap even for the standards of 1930s moviemaking. Furthermore, its special effects (notably the use of a bat on a string) fail to effectively immerse the audience in its story or evoke any kind of terror. The movie also feels old. I particularly found the cinematography to be dull in comparison to other horror flicks of the time (the fact that Murnau’s Nosferatu, a German silent film made ten years prior, looks more haunting than this movie is simply inexcusable). The editing does the film no favors either; the director’s overuse of awkward close-ups on the actors’ uninteresting faces clearly indicate that he failed to differentiate between what looks good on camera to a movie theater versus what looks good on stage to a Broadway audience. And given the fact that silent movies generally made pretty good use of its score to indicate emotion and progress the story, Dracula’s utter lack of musical sound in any way, shape or form to accentuate its “scarier” moments just shows a lack of grasp on how horror should be done. However, what was most clear on a recent rewatch was that filmmakers from the time were still not entirely sure how to direct actors in the sound era. While the cheese feigning as horror is most apparent in Helen Chandler’s performance as the damsel victim of Count Dracula’s mind control, virtually all of the performances (yes, including Lugosi) feel like they’re either trying too hard to be scary in front of the camera or simply not trying at all. All in all, Dracula paled in comparison to its German predecessor and simply does not hold up through 21st-century eyes. While this doesn’t detract from its historical significance as a seminal progenitor of modern horror, I am very glad that we evolved from this style of filmmaking since then. Frankenstein (1931) In the wake of losing over two million dollars in revenue in 1930, Universal Studios was in need of some profitable movies. Their wish came true in the form of Tod Browning’s Dracula, which convinced producer and studio executive Carl Laemmle, Jr. to announce Universal’s intentions to make more horror films. Their first move? To purchase the film rights to the stage adaptation of Mary Shelley’s gothic novel “Frankenstein.” Bela Lugosi hoped to play Henry Frankenstein in the film, but Laemmle, Jr. hoped for Lugosi to play the Monster in order to keep his name on the bill for the movie. At the time, it was reported that Lugosi rejected the offer and left the project due to creative differences with Laemmle, Jr. and Robert Florey (The Cocoanuts, Daughter of Shanghai), who was hired to direct the project. However, later evidence suggests that Lugosi was forced out when James Whale (The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein) took over as director. In doing so, Whale cast British actor Boris Karloff (The Mummy, The Body Snatcher) as the Monster. As consolation for losing the role, Universal had Florey and Lugosi direct and star, respectively, in their film adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Special effects artist Kenneth Strickfaden (The Wizard of Oz, Young Frankenstein) designed landmark special effects for the “creation scene” in the movie. Supposedly, Strickfaden secured the use of a Tesla coil from the eponymous inventor himself. The effects were so successful that Universal used them for every subsequent movie involving the Monster. Furthermore, many actors in the project ended up becoming regulars in Universal’s slate of horror flicks during this era: Lionel Belmore (Son of Frankenstein, The Ghost of Frankenstein), Marilyn Harris (The Bride of Frankenstein), and Dwight Frye (The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein), to name a few. Following its initial release in November of 1931, Frankenstein (made on a budget of approximately $262,000) grossed 1.4 million dollars from theater rentals (and earned Universal a profit of twelve million dollars by 1953 following several re-releases). Critics at the time compared the movie favorably to Dracula, with many lauding it as a significant improvement over it and a landmark achievement for the horror genre. Near-universal praise went towards the make-up effects on Karloff. Nine years before Dracula, the movie was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for its cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance. Today, it is considered by film historians as one of the greatest movies of all time. In many ways, I tend to agree with the contemporary critics who hailed Frankenstein as a superior horror movie to Dracula. Even more so, it supersedes in virtually every aspect of filmmaking. First of all, its concept is scarier than its predecessor. Whereas Dracula plays into the idea of fictional monsters terrifying us, Frankenstein emphasizes the fact that the worst evils on this Earth are the ones that we create ourselves. Colin Clive’s foundational portrayal of the “mad scientist” Henry Frankenstein helps this mission along by offering a character whose pseudo-scientific hubris and God complex makes for a far more compelling tragic figure than David Manners’ John Harker or Helen Chandler’s Mina Seward from Dracula. Yet, the heart and soul of Frankenstein is Boris Karloff as Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster. Despite not being written as overtly sympathetic, Karloff injects subtle moments that help the audience empathize with this humanoid automaton with the mind of a toddler by portraying his aggression being the result of ignorance rather than malevolence. This, of course, makes the Monster’s demise in the fiery climax at the windmill all the more saddening. Simply put, the fact that Karloff got 1930s moviegoers to care about a nameless, synthetic creature with no dialogue is rather impressive. But what is more impressive is that his version of the character still holds up today. Another vast improvement over Dracula is how the film’s screenplay is pretty decently paced. While the first act establishes Dr. Frankenstein’s hubris in the form of creating his monster, the rest of the film fleshes out the increasingly severe consequences of that decision as the monster wastes no time exploring the world around him (often to the detriment of others). Ultimately, the build to the third act is propelled by the subtler and more heartwarming moments (i.e. the Monster bonding with a little girl over tossing flowers into a pond) only enhances the story’s tragic nature in which both Dr. Frankenstein and his creation suffer at the hands of a paranoid angry mob who have no patience for mercy or forgiveness. So, is Frankenstein a great movie? I don’t think so, but I hold it in higher regard than many of its contemporaries (including Dracula) for taking a more sensitive and heartfelt approach to the monster genre. Without it, we would have never gotten Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands. 😊 The Invisible Man (1933) In the wake of the critical and commercial success of Dracula, director Robert Florey suggested to Universal Studios that they should adapt H.G. Wells’ novel “The Invisible Man” as part of their plan to make more horror movies. Despite studio executive Carl Laemmle, Jr. initially opting to make Frankenstein that year, the studio purchased the film rights to the book in September of 1931 for ten thousand dollars (Wells demanded final script approval as a condition for selling the rights). Having bought the rights to Philip Wylie’s novel “The Murderer Invisible” already, Universal planned to inject some of that book’s more gruesome elements into their film adaptation of Wells’ story. Due to the critical and commercial success of Frankenstein, both director James Whale and star Boris Karloff were expected to return for Universal’s adaptation of “The Invisible Man.” However, Whale left the project by January of 1932 to avoid being profiled exclusively as a horror director. Thus, the studio hired Robert Florey to direct after the release of his film Murders in the Rue Morgue with Bela Lugosi. By April of that year, Florey completed a first draft of the screenplay that he co-wrote with Garrett Fort (who wrote Dracula and co-wrote Frankenstein). Meanwhile, after his next film The Impatient Maiden flopped, Whale returned to directing horror flicks around the same time that Florey left Universal to work with producer Samuel Bischoff. Meanwhile, screenwriter John L. Balderston (The Mummy, Bride of Frankenstein) submitted his screenplay adaptation of “The Invisible Man” to the newly-hired director Cyril Gardener (Grumpy, Doomed Battalion) which was also primarily based on Wylie’s novel. Despite more treatments being written, the studio had no final screenplay by July of 1932 and thus loaned Karloff to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to shoot Charles Brabin’s adventure flick The Mask of Fu Manchu. Upon the release of another horror film for Universal, 1932’s The Old Dark House, Whale signed on once again to direct the adaptation. Still, no final script was written. After eight weeks writing a screenplay involving a revenge plot against the Bolsheviks, Preston Sturges (The Great McGinty, Unfaithfully Yours) turned in his draft to the studio only to be fired the next day. Due to the troubles with the script, Whale wrote his own treatment which Wells rejected (convincing Whale to leave the project for a second time). By January of 1933, Universal reported over one million dollars lost in film productions for the year prior and decided to shut down production for six to eight weeks. In the meantime, German filmmaker E.A. Dupont (Piccadilly, Atlantic) and American journalist John Weld became the studio’s new director-writer team. However, by February of 1933 Whale agreed to sign back on as director (despite being laid off by Universal for twelve weeks during the production shutdown). The film’s new screenwriter, R.C. Sherriff (Goodbye, Mr. Chips, The Dam Busters), ignored the studio’s request to incorporate material from Wylie’s novel or the previous drafts. As Sherriff neared completion on his screenplay while living in London, Karloff was said to be leaving the project in the newspapers by May. After Wells approved his screenplay (notably his decision to make the protagonist a lunatic), Sherriff returned to Hollywood in July where Universal Studios accepted his script. Whale considered a few English stage actors for the lead role, but ultimately wanted Claude Rains (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia) who was seriously considering retiring from acting to live on a farm stateside. Despite being initially hesitant about hiring an unknown actor, Universal eventually approved of Rains’s casting after Whale showed them a screen test of the actor reading a scene from the script (and gave him top billing). Without knowing the full extent of the role, Rains was sent by Whale to Universal Studios labs to have molds and casts of his head made for the special effects team. Principal photography lasted from June to August of 1933 with another two months of post-production which primarily focused on special-effects work. According to leading lady Gloria Stuart (The Old Dark House, Titanic), the visual effects shots were filmed “in utmost secrecy” on set; Universal kept the secret by falsely claiming in press for the movie that the invisibility effects were done with optical illusions and mirrors. Whale worked with John P. Fulton (The Ten Commandments, Vertigo) on the special effects for the movie. Over a year after the film was released, Fulton broke down how duplicate negatives, black velvet tights, wires, and wire frames contributed to the effects work, stressing that his major obstacle was matching lighting and fixing small imperfections within the frame with a brush and opaque dye. With a final budget of approximately $328,000, The Invisible Man was released in October of 1933 and was a big success (despite its final box-office gross being unknown to this day). Contemporary critics were generally positive, specifically with regards to Whale’s direction, Sherriff’s screenplay, and Rains’s performance. Later on, cinephiles and historians highlighted the film’s strengths as its humor and groundbreaking special effects, with some describing the movie as a black comedy. In 2008, the movie was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for its cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance. The legacy of The Invisible Man differs from other tentpoles horror flicks of the time like Dracula and Frankenstein. For one, its sequels were not directly tied to the original. Also, there were no immediate remakes from other studios (á la the Christopher Lee Dracula films of the 1950s and 1960s). However, director Leigh Whannell (Upgrade) revitalized interest in the character with the release of his 2020 remake starring Elisabeth Moss. While I fully acknowledge that The Invisible Man isn’t technically a monster movie, I simply could not do this blog without talking about it. In my humble opinion, it is undoubtedly the best of Universal’s classic monster movie line-up despite not having a classic monster in it. For me, though, that’s probably its best quality. Much of this, of course, is thanks to the exceptional lead performance of Claude Rains as Dr. Jack Griffin (otherwise known as the titular “Invisible Man”). Watching the film for a second time, it became even more clear that Rains unquestionably comprehended what he was tasked with and embraces the mission of his character. Griffin, an ambitious chemist who discovers the secret to invisibility, is a man whose reality-altering discovery that empowers him is also what has exponentially stripped him of his sanity. That, in and of itself, is a compelling arc for the villainous protagonist. However, mix in Griffin’s psychopathic and sadistic antics and The Invisible Man transcends its character-study formula to become one heck of a fun watch. While Rains’s performance is a huge part of the movie’s fun factor, much of the nihilistic wit of the eponymous character comes from R.C. Sheriff’s screenplay. Without being too zany all the time, his writing of the increasingly paranoid townsfolk helps the Claude Rains-free scenes move the plot along in entertaining fashion. But it’s Griffin’s sardonic, maniacal dialogue that truly elevates the film’s writing far and above all of its contemporaries (and even some horror movies today). The fact that a scary movie from 1933 manages to make me laugh with it and at it simultaneously is, in my humble opinion, a genuine achievement. Coming off of Frankenstein, I found James Whale’s directing style to be more refined in The Invisible Man. His approach to editing, particularly in the third act, helps propel the story towards its violent yet pointed climax with a combination of wipes and cuts spiced up with beats from the score (thank God this studio finally added music to these horror movies!). However, the technical prowess most on display in The Invisible Man is the “invisibility” effects. Having seen the movie twice, I still don’t understand how Whale’s special-effects team managed to pull this off nearly ninety years ago. In the same way that King Kong revolutionized stop-motion and All Quiet on the Western Front brought realistic warfare to the silver screen, The Invisible Man showed that sci-fi B-movies could be innovative moviemaking for the better. Simply put, the fact that those effects still hold up and look better than some modern CGI says a lot about what is and is not needed in order for a movie to become magical. If you haven’t seen The Invisible Man and are skeptical based on other monster movies from the era, I implore you to give it a shot. It’s fun, funny, and entertaining because of its age rather than in spite of it. A movie that old that’s still enjoyable to watch? Worth a shot! 😊 Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) While filming Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane in 1941, actor and producer William Alland (It Came from Outer Space, Tarantula) was attending a dinner party where he met Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa (The Pearl, The Night of the Iguana) who shared with him a myth about a race of humanoid, underwater creatures that inhabit the Amazon River. This influenced his story notes for a film idea, which he entitled “The Sea Monster,” a decade later (although the French fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” also served as inspiration). By 1953, Alland’s notes were expanded into a full treatment entitled “The Black Lagoon” by Harry Essex (The Fat Man, It Came from Outer Space) and Arthur A. Ross (Kazan, Brubaker) around the same time that Andre DeToth’s horror film House of Wax was released to major box-office success. Universal Studios was inspired to film the project in 3-D, and hired acclaimed sci-fi director Jack Arnold (It Came from Outer Space, Tarantula, The Incredible Shrinking Man) to helm the production. Milicent Patrick, a trailblazing female animator at Walt Disney Studios, designed the head of “The Creature” costume for the film (although make-up artist Bud Westmore significantly downplayed her creative contributions for roughly fifty years). Jack Kevan (The Wizard of Oz), whose primary work involved constructing prosthetics for World War II veterans with amputated limbs, created the monster’s body suit. Two performers portrayed “The Creature”: Ben Chapman, a Korean War veteran and Purple Heart recipient, played him on land in Los Angeles while Ricou Browning (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) filmed his underwater scenes with a second unit in Wakulla Springs, Florida. On the Universal back lot, Chapman worked an average of fourteen hours per day and was unable to sit in the costume. Due to easily becoming overheated, Chapman frequently remained in the artificial lake of the studio’s back-lot requesting to be hosed down and his vision was usually obscured resulting in unintentionally injuring his co-star, Julie Adams, while carrying her. On the opposite coastline, Browning would hold his breath for anywhere from two to four minutes at a time. One day while shooting underwater, a snapping turtle purportedly bit off a chunk of the costume’s foot and Browning chased the turtle to get it back. Released in March of 1954, Creature from the Black Lagoon earned over one million dollars at the box office and was generally well-received by critics for its underwater cinematography and atmosphere. Retrospectively, the movie’s eponymous monster has had a significant impact on popular culture from television and music to games. Most recently, “The Amphibian Man” from Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning film The Shape of Water was directly influenced by “The Creature.” Following the classic monster flicks of the 1930s and early 1940s, Universal focused on crossover films like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and House of Dracula for much of the World War II era. While these films can be credited for making Universal’s monster movies a cinematic universe, they aren’t nearly as iconic as Dracula, Frankenstein, and others. But one movie from the post-“Golden Age” era that I think deserves more praise is Creature from the Black Lagoon. While pretty removed from its classic predecessors, this movie is an ideal representative for the best sci-fi B-movies of the 1950s like The Blob and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. At approximately 80 minutes long, it moves at a steady pace and never feels like wasted time. Furthermore, its simple yet fun concept makes for a good, old-fashioned “creature feature” that (in my humble opinion) surpasses the likes of Dracula and even Frankenstein. Much of its fun factor has to do with the film never leaning too heavily into the romantic subtext involving “Gil-Man.” While it’s certainly there, you can just ignore it and appreciate it as a monster-hunting tale. However, the thing that helps Creature from the Black Lagoon stand out among its contemporaries is its cinematography. For a black-and-white film made in the early 1950s, its underwater photography is crisp, clear, and clean-looking in a way that some movies that utilize shooting beneath the ocean’s surface nowadays simply cannot mimic. In addition to the ahead-of-its-time aesthetic, the film’s emphasis on shooting underwater helps flesh out the day-to-day existence of the world of “Gil-Man” so as to aid the audience immerse ourselves in his story. While by no means the best monster movie, Creature from the Black Lagoon is a solidly entertaining movie that surprisingly holds up despite some of its acting and characterization being clearly dated. If you want a movie with (slightly) more modern sensibilities than the likes of Frankenstein or The Invisible Man, this is probably a good choice for a slow Sunday evening. Which of these classic monster movies is your favorite (or least favorite)? What other old-school monster flicks do you think people should check out? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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