Trailers From Hell - HALLOWEEN (1978)

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The Bloody Pit #115 - THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET (1942)

Usually when you see that a 1940’s Universal film is an adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story the expectation is for a horror film, but Poe was much more than just a master of the macabre. His work spanned many types of fiction and he is credited with actually creating the genre of ‘detective fiction’ with his brilliant Murders in the Rue Morgue in 1841. In that iconic tale a clever man interested in puzzles bends his sharp mind to the task of solving an inexplicable murder. This character, Auguste Dupin, would appear in two subsequent Poe stories and is one of the inspirations for Conan Doyle’s later Sherlock Holmes. Universal had very loosely adapted the first of these mysteries in 1932 with Bela Lugosi and a man in an ape suit adding hideous pre-code horrors to the proceedings. The Mystery of Marie Roget was the second of the Dupin tales and it seems clear that Universal thought they could once again capitalize on the famous Poe name to bring home the dollars, only without quite so much of the grisly tone of the earlier film. 

Troy and I pull the film apart looking for its darker elements. We discuss the fact that this is a fairly straightforward mystery that at times feels like a well mounted period drama that just happens to involve a few murders. The nastier details of the victim’s mutilated faces are kept offscreen entirely even as that plot element is needed to both set up a few red herrings and point the way toward the actual killer. We talk about the lavish look of the film, the interesting cast and speculate on who might have made a better onscreen Dupin. The excellent dialog between actors Patrick Knowles and Lloyd Corrigan is the highlight of the picture pointing the way toward an excellent future Universal film series. As usual, we also get a lot of fun out of reading reviews of this movie from contemporary critics. We are developing some favorites among the newspaper writers of the 1940’s! 

If you have any questions or comments the show can be reached at thebloodypit@gmail.com or over on the FaceBook page. We’ll be continuing our 1940’s Universal horror series after the holidays so let know what you think. Thank you for listening to the podcast! 

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What I Watched In September

 A varied month that ended with a rush to get into the Halloween season! 

My favorite new discoveries were the James Bond styled Santo film OPERATION 67 and the very interesting Italian horror film from 1981 called MADHOUSE. 

The List 

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS (1957) – 6 (rewatch on Blu)

GUNSLINGER (1956) – 5 (Corman’s female sheriff western)

CULT OF THE COBRA (1955) – 6

KILL OR BE KILLED (1981) – 6 (fun if slightly silly martial arts action film)

DJANGO (1966) – 8 (rewatch)

NAKED VENGEANCE (1985) – 6 (rape/revenge film)

OPERATION 67 (1966) – 8 (Santo/Bond adventure)

FURY OF THE WOLFMAN (1970) – 4 (rewatch on Blu)

HELLISH SPIDERS (1968) – 6 (Blue Demon vs alien spiders!)

EARTH II (1971) – 7 (TV movie about attempting to build a peaceful future)

THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET (1942) – 6

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961) – 8 (rewatch on Blu)

DEEP RISING (1998) – 3 (rewatch – still awful)

DOOM ASYLUM (1988) – 3 (terrible comedy/slasher film)

MADHOUSE (1981) – 7 (entertaining Italian horror film shot in Savannah) 

TOWER OF LONDON (1939) – 7 (rewatch on Blu)

SANTO IN THE VENGEANCE OF THE MUMMY (1971) – 4 (weak entry)

THE THING THAT COULDN’T DIE (1958) – 4 (rewatch on Blu)

VOODOO DOLLS (1991) – 3 (terrible low budget college-set horror)

DEAR DEAD DELILAH (1972) – 7 (rewatch on Blu)

FRIDAY THE 13^TH (1980) – 7 (rewatch)

THE BLOB (1988) – 8 (rewatch on Blu)

EL VAMPIRO (1957) – 7 (rewatch) (beautiful Mexican horror)

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH – 8 (rewatch on Blu – longer version)

THE CHANGLING (1980) – 8 (rewatch on Blu)

CRITTERS (1986) – 7 (rewatch on Blu)

 

 

Poster Art and Lobby Cards - THE BLACK CAT (1935)

Brief Thoughts - ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY (1945)

After owning this film on DVD for over a decade I finally got around to watching it and was surprised that it was enjoyable - not good but also not as bad as I had assumed it was going to be. My expectations were dialed very low because, in general, the combination of Bela Lugosi and comedy is a sure sign that you're in for cinematic trouble. For me, all horror comedies from this period pale in comparison to the all-time great ABBOT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948) and so I generally expect the worst but hope for the best. The level of humor in horror comedies of the 1940’s was usually pitched at around the level of the broadest of vaudevillian stylings and that never has translated well to the screen for me. Maybe because I've spent the last year catching up with about a dozen previously unwatched Abbott and Costello films, I've grown accustomed to the type of humor commonly found in this decade and therefore I’m more easily amused by them than I would have been in the past.

The old-fashioned joys of this film are the kinds of things that more and more I find myself enjoying as I explore the lesser known efforts of the comedy genre. One of the best elements is the cast with Bela Lugosi getting to play it straight and, in the one scene in which he participates in some actual physical comedy, he is perfect! It couldn’t have been easy to work with a monkey that continues to appear and disappear in a chest of drawers but he actually is spot-on in his timing, expressions and delivery. Plus, any movie in which I get to see Sheldon Leonard playing a quick-to-anger gangster is worth my time. ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY (1945) not a great movie but it's also not bad so I found myself actually enjoying the film for its brief running time. It is far from a classic, but it is a pretty interesting time waster for fans of the star and for comedies of the period.

Jack Kirby Horror Comic Art