The Raven (1935)

Film: The Raven (1935)

Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lester Matthews, Irene Ware, Samuel S. Hinds

Director: Lew Landers

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

This month we are devoting all of our classic film reviews to Golden Age Horror films that I saw for the first time this year.  If you want to take a look at past titles (from this and other seasons of this series), look at the bottom of the page for links.

As you'll see below, we have covered a lot of ground when it comes to classic horror films, and as we are on our final season of Classical Hollywood-focused horror (never say never, especially with the sequel-prone horror genre, but we will definitely not be doing this at least next year, as we'll go to a different era or style), I wanted to start with something big.  The problem is that most of the classics we have left are not from the 1930's, and since we are doing these chronologically I struggled to come up with the perfect solution until it hit me (like a bolt of lightning, mwahahaha!).  We have had throughout this series two primary mascots: Bela Lugosi & Boris Karloff, who starred in many of the below films & launched the characters behind even more of them.  While we have covered all of the Universal Monster incarnations of these two men, we haven't gotten to all of their films, or even all of their films together, and so we will be kicking off our season with these two headliners, taking on their best (loose) version of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is not, it's worth noting, an adaptation of Poe's classic poem (the 1930's Poe films rarely had anything to do with the horror author).  Instead, it's about a mad scientist named Richard Vollin (Lugosi) who has been pulled out of retirement by Judge Thatcher (Hinds) to save the life of his beautiful daughter Jean (Ware).  While Vollin initially refuses, he is convinced, and soon becomes obsessed with the lovely Jean, with whom he shares a love of Edgar Allen Poe's works.  Unfortunately for Richard, Jean is engaged to another man, and this makes Judge Thatcher warn Vollin to stay away from Jean.  Of course, Vollin being a raving mad scientist, he decides he needs revenge on all involved, and gains help with the assistance of an escaped convict named Bateman (Karloff).  Bateman requests a new face so that he can live in peace (since he's an escaped convict), but Vollin instead purposefully deforms him, and says he will only return his face to normal if Bateman helps Vollin kill Judge Thatcher.

It's at this point where arguably the most famous part of The Raven comes out, and the one part of the film that actually relates to Poe.  Vollin has a giant torture chamber in his basement (cause, like, who doesn't?) that is inspired by different works from Poe.  There's a "Sword of Damocles" style device from The Pit and the Pendulum, and while it's not specifically-mentioned there's a clear nod to the Cask of Amontillado where Jean & her fiancee are sentenced to a crushing fate until Bateman saves them.  This is also the best part of the movie-it allows Lugosi to camp it up to the hilt, espousing on how much he loves torture, and has some really fun set design.

The film itself is fine-it's not a classic or a truly great horror movie like Bride of Frankenstein (not enough humor) or Creature from the Black Lagoon (which is just outright spectacular), but it's fun.  If you're into this style of movie (which you might be able to tell, I am), I love this campy motif & the bad side acting & the wonderful plot holes-it's without pretension, and it's always a good time.  One thing to note here-Lugosi is better than Karloff in this movie.  Not only does he get the better (and larger, despite the billing from Universal) part, but he takes more time with it & seems to relish it.  I have listened to the Bela & Boris season of You Must Remember This more times than I can count (it's an annual tradition for me at this point), and this was not oftentimes the case as the two men had a professional rivalry, and Lugosi was jealous of the fact that Karloff was the more natural actor (particularly in English), something I've echoed oftentimes on this blog, but that's not the case with The Raven.

Past Horror Month Reviews (Listed Chronologically): The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, Werewolf of London, Son of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy's Hand, The Wolf Man, Cat People, The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Mummy's Tomb, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, The House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Blob, The Masque of the Red Death