Sun 2 Dec 2012
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: THE RAVEN (1935).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews[9] Comments
THE RAVEN. Universal, 1935. Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lester Matthews, Irene Ware, Samuel S. Hinds, Spencer Charters, Inez Courtney. Based on a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Director: Lew Landers (as Louis Friedlander).
William K. Everson described The Raven as “grand guignol.” He might also have added that it was probably the apex of Bela Lugosi’s career. Loud, lurid and fast-moving (only 62 minutes long) it’s got monsters, torture, bondage and obsession, and perhaps the Classic Mad Scientist of the Movies, definitively interpreted by Lugosi, whose magnetic screen presence and limited acting ability made him a tragic icon of the B movies.
The Mad Doctor in The Raven is just about everything an evil medico should be: a megalomaniac plastic surgeon (a theme that would reappear in the classic Eyes Without a Face) obsessed with Poe, who keeps a torture chamber in his basement, falls in love with a woman he can’t have, and sets out to torment her and the rest of the cast, laughing maniacally between fits of sinister organ-playing. What more could you want from a Mad Scientist? Or for that matter, from a horror movie?
Well for one thing The Raven also features Karloff as a sinister go-fer (the only time Boris ever played second-string to Bela in their careers) a disfigured and disgruntled killer clearly just aching for a chance to get back at his mad-doctor-boss.
There’s also a giant, razor-edged pendulum, swinging mercilessly downward at its victims, perambulating rooms, a dark, stormy night, and a pervasive atmosphere of tasteful sadism, more quaint than kinky, closer to Fu-Manchu than Krafft-Ebbing. Plus Bela Lugosi gloating — a lot. As if Director Louis Friedlander immediately saw that gloating was his star’s forte and felt it best to give him his head. The result is a full-bodied performance in a juicy part that just begs for the kind of sonorous overacting only Lugosi could give. And a fun film all around.
Alas, though, things weren’t all that much fun for poor Bela. Almost immediately after The Raven, horror movies went out of style (possibly because of excesses in films like this and Island of Lost Souls) and were actually banned in Britain.
And hence, one of the premier horror actors of his day found himself unemployed and unwanted. Monster movies came back in the late 30s and early 40s, but now the former star was mostly cast as sinister butlers or red herrings, his name featured prominently on the posters but himself seen little in the films.
That was in the B-movies. In the grade-Z flicks from Monogram and PRC, Lugosi got meaty roles once again, with a string of mad scientists, deranged killers and lots of screen time, but the meat here was generally bland-tasting, as the films themselves were slow-moving, cheap and mostly devoid of thrills.
Only once more did Lugosi get a really good lead in a B-movie, and that was Return of the Vampire (Columbia, 1944) a classy job once again directed by Friedlander, who was now calling himself simply Lew Landers. Return has been largely ignored by Horror fans, but it has s spooky atmosphere reminiscent of Roy William Neill’s Sherlock Holmes series over at Universal, even featuring some of the players from that series and set, like them, in an oddly gothic war-time England.
This was only the second time Lugosi played a Vampire in the movies (he’s named Armand Tesla, but with his cape, coffin and dinner clothes he is Dracula to all intents and purposes) and he takes the role in his teeth and runs with it, clearly relishing the chance to swirl his cape once more and stalk about the graveyard cloaked in fog.
He’s even assisted by a rather unimpressive werewolf, played by Matt Willis in the best tradition of Dwight Frye, and he gets to gloat a lot once again, just like he did in the old days. Landers/Friedlander adds some fine touches, with the vampire’s presence presaged by dead leaves fluttering in through the french doors, and mist creeping all over the place, and again, when Lugosi’s being sinister, the camera’s right there in a well-lit close-up, while writer Griffin Jay, a veteran of the B-horrors at Universal and PRC, manages to polish up all the old clichés and provide a fast-moving story that seems enjoyably familiar.
The rest of the 1940s were unkind to Lugosi, and the 50s even worse, but it’s nice to see him in Return of the Vampire, once again flashing his hammy fangs and biting the scenery as only he could.

December 2nd, 2012 at 5:00 am
THE RAVEN is hilariously bad, but enormously watchable. Part of the fun is the extremely flat dialogue given to everyone else except Lugosi, which makes his stuff seem even more over-the-top. I would suggest that it was THE BLACK CAT rather than THE RAVEN that caused Hollywood to get cold feet about the horror movie. It’s an almost unbelievably perverse movie, with Satan worshipper Karloff keeping the body of his late wife preserved in the cellar, and one of the characters getting skinned alive.
RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE is a bit of a forgotten gem. The wartime setting is unusual for a 40s horror movie. Universal preferred to pretend that the war didn’t exist as far as their major monsters where concerned. It also makes Lugosi’s nemesis a woman, played by Frieda Inescort. A female vampire hunter was pretty unusual for the 40s.
As regards Lugosi, he was rather a better actor than popular opinion might suggest. People tend to forget SON/GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, where his portrayal of Ygor is fascinatingly multi-layered.
December 2nd, 2012 at 10:03 am
Lugosi is also quite good in a small role as Joseph in Val Lewton’s The Body Snatcher. His pre-death drinking scene with Boris Karloff is excellent.
December 2nd, 2012 at 10:46 pm
Lew Landers has become something of a cult director.
Dave Kehr, the film historian who writes for the New York Times, is an admirer.
Landers was so prolific, though, that it is hard to get an overall idea of his work.
So there is lots of room for study.
This is an interesting review!
December 2nd, 2012 at 11:00 pm
From Landers’ resume on IMBD
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0484645/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
it looks like most of his movie work was of the lower budget variety, including several Boston Blackie films. He ended up doing a lot of work on TV, and I mean a lot, especially westerns.
December 3rd, 2012 at 5:50 am
Last summer I typed up a few notes on Lew Landers:
http://mikegrost.com/landers.htm
Hope to expand this very brief article as time goes by.
December 3rd, 2012 at 8:48 am
Mike, I read your notes with interest. Perhaps you could add that Landers/Friedlander was the one director who really knew how to exploit Lugosi’s talents to their fullest. You could also add that BADLANDS, DEATH VALLEY and MASK OF DIJON all have some very effective moments.
December 3rd, 2012 at 8:09 pm
Dan,
I will definitely keep your ideas in mind!
I’ve never seen BADLANDS, DEATH VALLEY or MASK OF DIJON. Or countless other Landers films. He was incredibly prolific. Will watch for them.
December 5th, 2012 at 9:24 am
If we’re talking great (but insane) Lugosi movies you can’t leave out his only color film (you could look it up), 1947’s incredible SCARED TO DEATH.
December 11th, 2012 at 12:37 am
According to Laura:
http://laurasmiscmusings.blogspot.com/2012/12/tonights-movie-smashing-rackets-1938.html
Turner Classic Movies will be celebrating director Landers’ work next month, showing a marathon of 10 Landers films on January 14th.