mmcclelland

Bride of the Monster is the best of Ed Wood's films. Frankly compared with Scared to Death and the Devil Bat-- the film truly looks like a masterpiece -- and truth be told it isn't that bad. In fact, it is rather enjoyable. Okay, I am gonna admit it -- I like it! If you look past the cheesy octopus (no worse than the hysterical devil bat), the cheap sets and the lame acting (better than Scared to Death!), if you suspend a little disbelief and realize this movie was made for a song -- then actually it is pretty darned good. One reason for this is that Bela Lugosi gets ample screen time. If Ed Wood was a bit unimaginative, he at least knew what it was that made Lugosi a legend and reprises little details, from the mad scientific leering of the Devil Bat to the idiosyncratic hand gestures of White Zombie. Bela is given a chance to shine in his final starring performance and shine he does. The movie has its flaws, but Bela is not one of them. He is old and looks weak, but he carries the movie like a true champion. He makes empty dialog sound meaningful and implausible scenarios seem poignant (well almost poignant).

Lugosi's "I have no home" monolog is beautiful. He could make dialog such as "I have proven that I am alright!" sound good. Lugosi gives his all in his last performance, and it is a great performance, even if he does have to wrestle with a fake octopus.

Scared To Death has the unfortunate distinction of being my least favorite Bela Lugosi movie. To say the movie is bad is an understatement. It features a plot so lame that you don't care that you don't understand it. If you don't want this horrible film ruined for you, don't read any further! In a nutshell someone is scaring a woman to death and it turns out not to be any of the characters in the movie. It features the absolute worst character acting I have ever seen including a half-witted rentacop and a sadistic male chauvinist reporter and his dingy girlfriend.

Of course, when Bela Lugosi is on camera the movie becomes interesting. Bela is in good form as a hypnotist/magician and of course he gives it his all in this dismal movie that is too long at 59 minutes. Some of the problem lies in the fact that as a Bela Lugosi movie, Lugosi gets far too little screen time. The script gives too much stage time to these very egregious and tedious characters and seems to feature the Lugosi character only because they *had* to fit him in somewhere.

Bela Lugosi gives a great performance as always, I am not sure if even that is capable of redeeming this movie -- especially when the nagging thought kept running through my head that surely someone could have found something better for this great actor to do than this drek. Bela is healthy and strong and powerful and I daresay still sexy here -- why was he being wasted? What great talents are being wasted in such a fashion today? But I digress.

I don't recommend this film to any but the die-hard Lugosi fan or the connoisseur of truly bad cinema. It is almost painful to watch Bela Lugosi a skilled artist playing on such a taudry canvas.

As a side note Scared to Death was Bela Lugosi's only movie filmed in color. (Which actually gives one a reason to watch it, I suppose). I'm going to have to look again more closely, but apparently Bela Lugosi had . . . green eyes! Or are they blue?

Tod Browning directed one of the most visually eerie films ever made. It is so visually eerie that it wasn't given a score. I always felt that the bleak silence added to the powerful visuals and disturbing mood of the movie. I feared a score would detract from Bela Lugosi's sublime and sexually charged performance. I bought a CD of the new film score by the genius composer Phillip Glass and the brilliant Kronos Quartet some months ago and found the music to be understated and moody. So I decided to give the new scored version of Dracula a try. And While there is much to be said for the stark bareness of the unscored original -- I have to say that the full background that music gives a film is probably essential for making this classic more accessible to modern audiences. Glass does a wonderful job of complimenting the atmosphere of each scene and I did not find the score to be detracting in any way. I enjoyed this viewing of Dracula as much as I ever have. I should have realized that a little music could not steal a scene from the hypnotic tour de force of Bela Lugosi, the enigmatic performance by Dwight Frye or Browning's lusciously decaying sets of sugary webs and crumbling vermin infested stones. Dracula (1931) is one of the moodiest and most unsettling films ever made-- despite the fact that there is virtually no on-camera violence-- only threat and menace-- which comes exclusively from Lugosi's rich presence. Each frame is like a work of art -- meticulously painted by Browning. Lugosi moves through that painting as if he were artwork as well. It's probably been too long since you watched this movie and the new scored version is as good an excuse as any. "Children of the night. . . what music they make."