Son of Frankenstein
This is one of my favorite of the Universal Monster Movies. First off you have Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Basil Rathbone in the starring roles, each playing characters that are iconic in their own right. Basil Rathbone plays Wolf Von Frankenstein, the son of Dr. Frankenstein. Lugosi plays Ygor, and Karloff plays the monster. What most people don’t know is that Lugosi originated the role of Ygor. The Hunchback in the first movie was named Fritz, and played by Dwight Frye.
This is one of the few movies that Lugosi and Karloff did together where Lugosi actually turns in the superior performance. He plays the role of Ygor with a menace and cunning rarely seen on the screen. Lugosi chews the dialogue up and spits it out with a fervor that was absent from most of his roles at this time, and later in his career, as his own demons ate him alive.
Karloff plays the Monster as well as ever, though it may be apparent to some that the back problems that the costuming for this character caused him start to become evident. Karloff was the Christian Bale of his day, wearing torturous prosthetics and enduring hours of make up to turn in his best performances. The make up for the role was so grueling that Karloff endured three major back surgeries after his performance. Karloff was always considered a gentleman, as opposed to Lugosi’s reputation for difficulty and melancholy.A fun note for Karloff is that his daughter Sara was born during the making of this feature, and upon hearing of her arrival, Karloff rushed from the set, and showed up at the hospital in full makeup.
Several roles in this film were lampooned later in Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks seminal 1974 send up of the franchise. (The Inspector, Wolf Von Frankenstein, Ygor, and the Burgomaster.)
Critically still lampooned to this day, this is a worthy entry in the series, and better than most will expect.
3 out of 5.
Famous Monster Movie Art of Basil Gogos
With the death of under appreciated fantasy artist Frank Frazetta this week, and the resulting Twitter skirmish, I decided to profile this book by another artist that is near and dear to my heart: Basil Gogos.
Growing up I was, and still am, a huge fan of Universal Studios Monsters. I remember the USA network used to show Dracula and some of these other classics late at night on the weekends. The creepy atmosphere and engaging characters held my attention from the start of the classic music to the end. I discovered the Hammer films in my twenties, and haven’t looked back since.
When I first came on the internet in the late 90s, I did a image search for some of these great characters, and made a discovery: Basil Gogos. Most of these monsters had been in black and white, and suddenly here they were in deep vibrant colors. This literally blew my mind. The figures were spot on, not caricatures of my beloved monsters from childhood, but real honest to god pieces of art.
Gogos is most famous for his covers to Famous Monsters of Filmland, but has a very diverse portfolio. He did men’s adventure magazines, a myriad of other movie posters, album covers for Rob Zombie (who also writes the forward for the book) and the Misfits,and one of the best images of Christopher Lee’s Sauromon I’ve ever seen.
This book captures these images in high quality and on nice glossy paper. There are photos of the master painter, and most interesting to me, some of his pencil drawings.
If you are a fan of the genre, or simply an appreciator of great art, I can recommend this book to you.
5 out of 5.
Entertainment deficit disorder 