Tony Marlow Movies
- 1934
The first cinematic teaming of horror greats Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi is a bizarre, haunting, and relentlessly eerie film that was surprisingly morbid and perverse for its time. Peter (David Manners) and Joan Allison (Julie Bishop) are honeymooning in Budapest when they meet mysterious scientist Dr. Vitus Verdegast (Lugosi) aboard a train. When the trio's bus from the train station gets into an accident, the young couple accompanies Verdegast to the castle of the spectral Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff), an architect and the leader of a Satanic cult. Poelzig's treachery in World War I caused the deaths of thousands of his and Verdegast's countrymen, as well as Verdegast's own internment as a prisoner of war. While Verdegast was detained, Poelzig married first his wife, who later died, then his daughter. Now Verdegast has come back for retribution, and the honeymooners are trapped in the two men's horrifying battle of wits. Corpses preserved in glass cases, frightening Satanic rituals, and a climactic confrontation in which one of the characters is skinned alive add to the film's pervasive sense of evil and doom, along with the stark black-and-white photography by John Mescall that makes Poelzig's futuristic mountaintop mansion even more disturbing. Karloff and Lugosi are both excellent, with Lugosi doing a rare turn as a good guy, albeit one who has gone off the rails. Having little to do with the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name, The Black Cat has grown in stature over the years and is now widely regarded as the masterpiece of director Edgar G. Ulmer and one of the finest horror films ever made. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, (more)
The Mummy represented Boris Karloff's second horror starring role after his "overnight" success in Frankenstein. Brought back to life after nearly 3,700 years, Egyptian high priest Imhotep wreaks havoc upon the members of the British field exposition that disturbed his tomb (shades of the King Tut curse). While disguised as a contemporary Egyptologist, he falls in love with Zita Johann, whom he recognizes as the latest incarnation of a priestess who died nearly 40 centures earlier. Spiriting Zita away to the tomb, he relates the story of how he had dared to enter her ancestor's sacred burial crypt, hoping to restore her to life. Caught in the act, he was embalmed alive and his tongue was cut out for his act of sacrilege. Now that he has returned, he intends to slay Zita, so that they will be reunited for all time in the Hereafter. Despite its melodramatic trappings, The Mummy is essentially a love story, poetically related by ace cinematographer and first-time director Karl Freund. Jack Pierce's justly celebrated makeup skills offers us two Karloffs: the wizened Egyptologist and the flaking, rotting mummy, who though only seen for a few seconds remains in the memory long after the film's final image has faded. Best line: "It went for a little walk." The Mummy was followed by four stock footage-laden sequels, none of which approached the power and poignancy of the original. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, (more)
- 1928
This solid gangster flick from director Lewis Milestone was based on a stage play and earned a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. Louis Wolheim stars as Nick Scarsi, a tough-guy bootlegger with political connections that enrage a local police captain, McQuigg (Thomas Meighan). In order to get rid of his enemy, Nick use his influence to get McQuigg transferred to an out-of-the-way duty post, which only further inflames the determined cop's animosity. In the meantime, Nick's brother Joe (George Stone) is about to get himself in trouble with a beautiful singer, Helen (Marie Prevost), and Nick tries to prevent a match-up by humiliating her at a party. After Joe kills an innocent pedestrian in a car accident, he's arrested under a phony name. To get even with the brothers, Helen alerts the police that Joe is a big-time gangster's brother, putting Nick, who has also killed a police officer, at the mercy of McQuigg and a district attorney (Sam De Grasse). Tragically, stars Wolheim and Prevost would both be dead by the early 1930's, he of cancer and she of starvation and alcoholism. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thomas Meighan, Marie Prevost, (more)
