Karloff and Lugosi in THE RAVEN (1935)

After DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN (both 1931), Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff established themselves as the twin kings of horror movies, so naturally Universal was eager to team them together in a film. Their first film together was THE BLACK CAT (1934), loosely based on Edgar Allen Poe's short story. A good film, it nevertheless made the mistake of casting Lugosi in a relatively straight part and tying Karloff down as a zombie-like villain, thus wasting the acting talents of both men. Still, it contains one classic line from Bela. When another character mentions that he doesn't believe in "supernatural baloney", Lugosi says, with a straight face, "Supernatural? Perhaps. Baloney? Perhaps not."

THE RAVEN (1935) rectified the mistake of THE BLACK CAT. Karloff was now the tragic hero and Lugosi the raving lunatic mad doctor. Both men jumped into their roles with relish. Karloff played his character, murderer Edmund Bateman, with the same touch of humanity that made his performance as Frankenstein's monster such a success. Meanwhile, Lugosi effectively stole the film as the evil Dr. Vollin, ripping into the role with an energy that brings his performance close to camp (but never quite crosses the line.) Along with Dracula (especially the Dracula of 1948’s ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN and Ygor (1939’s SON OF FRANKENSTEIN), Lugosi's Dr. Vollin is his most enjoyable performance.

The film itself is a minor classic and, clocking in at about an hour, it is one that goes down quickly and easily. Dr. Vollin is a Poe-obsessed surgeon (!) who recreates torture devices from Poe's stories in his secret laboratory. When he falls in love with the daughter of a colleague, he loses all semblance of sanity and devotes his life to making her his. To that end, he employs Edmund Bateman, who is on the run from the police, to do his bidding. Bateman has come to him for some simple plastic surgery - a change of face in order to keep the police off his back. Vollin turns him into a hideously ugly monster and then sends him out to do various evil tasks. Of course, the film climaxes in the torture chamber, where all of Vollin's various schemes come to a head and, of course, go horribly awry.

There is a real joy in watching these two actors, so different on screen and off, feed each other lines and bounce off each other throughout the film. It is the only Karloff-Lugosi teaming that fully exploits the best of both men, and the film becomes a tennis match, with Karloff hitting subtle drop-shots and tricky lobs while Lugosi, on the other side of

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic