Yes. Well. Sorry about that. March kind of went pear-shaped there. As did a large chunk of April. I’m not quite out of the mire yet, but at least I’m towards the periphery of it and starting to towel myself down. I’m not going to get carried away and start making promises about updating more regularly, though. That Way Lies Madness.
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Early in 1932, finally accepting that they could no longer afford to ignore the ever-growing audience for horror movies – or forego the profits associated with them – a reluctant Warner Bros. bit the bullet and commissioned the studio’s first real genre film…albeit one variously disguised in advertising as a “thriller”, a “mystery”, a “comedy” and even a “love story”.
The good news? There’s a deformed, psychotic killer on the loose in New York, who strangles, stabs and cannibalises his victims, and only a bizarre scientific experiment can reveal his identity.
The bad news? There’s a wisecracking reporter on the case.
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#1 by Ed on April 17, 2011 - 12:16 am
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I’m glad to see this reviewed Liz, if for no reason other than the slim chance that you;ll get around to the sequel with Humphrey Bogart. Nice job as always, by the way.
#2 by Luke Blanchard on April 17, 2011 - 1:41 am
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The blood-test scene in Carpenter’s The Thing is partly based on a scene from the source story. You could still be right, though, as the scene is handled in the story differently. As I recall, in the story the scientists are tested, and the monsters exposed and killed, one by one. It turns out there were more monsters in the group than humans.
#3 by lyzard on April 17, 2011 - 2:18 am
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Ed – thanks! I’m actually very fond of The Return Of Dr X, so yes, there’s every chance of it.
Luke – it’s the after-the-event realisation that maybe tying everyone to the furniture wasn’t a good idea – and the fact that both scenes, intentionally or unintentionally, are pretty funny – that makes me wonder.
#4 by Jen S on April 17, 2011 - 11:37 am
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How I long for an outstanding love-mystery of my very own. I just adore how, in the words of Tom Servo, you really had to make a commitment to read posters back then, and the overwrought prose used to whip up a frenzy in the potential viewer.
#5 by PB210 on April 17, 2011 - 12:41 pm
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“For Warners, their approach was to take a gruesome premise and to build around it one of their typical, fast-paced newspaper dramas – and in doing so, created the first thoroughly contemporary American horror movie”.
Actually, Lugosi’s vampire film in 1931 took place in contemporary times-notice the flapper era clothes on the women.
Remeber 1931-1897=33 years.
http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/reply/562466/Horror-Films—1930-s–1940-s-based–novels—decades—-192#reply-562466
Come to think of it, how many horror and/or paranormal films of the 1930’s and 1940’s adapted the works of contemporary authors? The Tarzan films? Doctor Fu Manchu films? Fantomas? Doctor Mabuse?
#6 by lyzard on April 17, 2011 - 8:58 pm
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Well, yes and no –Dracula isn’t set in America, which is what I was getting at. (I guess that wasn’t very clear, sorry.) I’ll try again: Warners were the first studio not to set their horror / science fiction films “somewhere else”, but in the same world occupied by its audiences. Paramount’s Murders In The Zoo was contemporary, but Warners did it first; while MGM copied Universal, setting their films either Mittel-Europe or somewhere “exotic”.
Anyway, Universal’s horrors are always a weird mixing of times and places, as if different parts of the story were taking place in different time periods. It’s hard to think that the London scenes and the Transylvania scenes in Dracula are occurring at the same point in history; likewise, in Frankenstein you’ve got distinctly 30s characters butting against Baron Frankenstein’s feudal peasantry, which becomes the traditional torch-bearing mob – but in modern dress. Eh!? 🙂
With regard to horror and science fiction, the studios were a bit wary about adapting contemporary authors – they preferred playing it safe with “the classics”. It happened more in the realm of the B-picture and the serial, where there was less at stake.
#7 by Ken on April 17, 2011 - 1:09 pm
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So this is a bad time to ask about that promised review of The Whisperer in Darkness?
#8 by El Santo on April 17, 2011 - 8:41 pm
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Hey, we’d ALL have reviewed The Whisperer in Darkness if they’d ever sent us the frigging screeners.
#9 by Ken on April 18, 2011 - 12:48 pm
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Sorry, I didn’t mean to pick on Liz, though now that I re-read my comment I see it could be read that way.
But look on the bright side: if-and-when they finally send it, you have a ready-made roundtable. Maybe “Whispering in the Dark: One Movie, Ten Reviewers”.
#10 by MatthewF on April 18, 2011 - 9:32 am
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I always thought that Frankenstein was set in the past until I actually paid attention one day and was amazed to see a telephone.
Part of the problem with these Universal flicks is their overuse of the ‘European Village’ standing set (which you can see on the studio tour), which makes every country in europe look like a version of Prague circa 1900 whenever or whereever it’s actually supposed to be set.
#11 by Jen S on April 18, 2011 - 12:14 pm
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“Don’t worry kids! It looks like the hideous monster exists here, in your town, RIGHT OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE–but see? Peasants in funny hats! It’s okay, you’re safe in America.”
#12 by supersonic on April 18, 2011 - 5:07 pm
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Hollywood is actually quite a bit further east than Oakland.
#13 by supersonic on April 18, 2011 - 5:26 pm
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Type your comment here
And said story was written six years after this movie!
#14 by Mr. Rational on April 19, 2011 - 9:28 am
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Say, Liz, now that Scream 4 is out in theaters, any chance of finishing up the quadrilogy?