Monsters and Matinees: 8 horror films turning 80

Monsters and Matinees: 8 horror films turning 80

Turning 80 is a big deal for anyone – or anything for that matter and that includes movies.

We’ve lost thousands of films through the decades and never for a good reason. Some because they were shot on highly combustible nitrate film, others from neglect, because of old age or even because they were thrown out.

That’s reason to celebrate when we are able to watch films old enough to have their own AARP card. Movies from 1944 turned 80 in 2024 and we shouldn’t take it for granted that we can still watch them today. Yes, some may look their age, but then there’s a restored gem like the atmospheric ghost story The Uninvited that looks as beautiful as it did 80 years ago (at least in my eyes).

Among other horror films turning the Big 8-0 are two Mummy films released within months of each other, a fun Universal monster mash-up and a well regarded take on Jack the Ripper. You’ll notice the names of Chaney, Carradine and Zucco show up multiple times.

Here’s a quick look at just eight films from 1944. All deserve their own story, and all deserve to be watched. Have fun.

Cry of the Werewolf

Nina Foch was only 20 at the time she made this film about a young woman plagued by a curse. It deserves high marks stylistically and for spinning a good old-fashioned monster yarn. It makes great use of the creature being a woman, especially in a closeup that shows female legs in high heels that become the feet of an animal as her human shadow turns into a beast.

The film opens like we’re listening to a ghost story around a campfire but we’re inside the LaTour Museum in New Orleans where our tour guide is weaving tales about “werewolfism, vampirism and voodoism.” One story is of the former mistress of the house, Marie LaTour, thought to be a werewolf who disappeared after killing her husband. Young Celeste LaTour is their daughter who was raised by gypsys and finally learns about her “matriarchal inheritance” (i.e. curse) that is her destiny.

Destiny yes, but it also keeps poor Celeste from the man she loves, and we can’t help but empathize with her even as she wants his fiancée to suffer, like she is.  “Since I am forbidden to love him, so shall you be. You will learn to live as I must live – apart – beyond the reach of men and mortals.” Yes, the movie is fun that way.

The Curse of the Cat People

This “sequel” to Cat People has three of the same characters and producer Val Lewton, yet it’s often said that the two films don’t have much in common. I disagree. It picks up the story of Oliver (Kent Smith) and Alice (Jane Randolph), carries the same dreamlike beauty of the original and has the specter of the late Irena (Simone Simon) hanging over the film.

Now married, Oliver and Alice have a 6-year-old daughter named Amy (Ann Carter), a sweet, withdrawn child who would rather play with butterflies than her school mates, and loses herself in a world of imaginary friends. Amy is a “sensitive” girl, which worries Oliver who sees similarities with Irena whose belief that cats were her friends led to her tragic death. He blames himself and won’t let the same thing happen to his daughter.

Amy is gifted a ring from a strange old actress named Julia (Julia Dean) and, believing it to be a wishing ring, asks for a friend and Irena appears. We don’t know if Irena is really there, but there is a peaceful feeling to these scenes with Irena often appearing in rays of light like an angel. Darkness comes at Julia’s garish Victorian home, especially when her stern daughter Barbara (Elizabeth Russell) appears covered in shadows. Here’s the rub: Julia believes her daughter died at age 6 – yes, the same age as Amy – and calls Barbara an imposter. Questions like how the child died and what it has to do with Amy are never answered, but this subplot does add a sense of danger for young Amy.

“Curse of the Cat People” is an intriguing psychological thriller that asks what is real, what is imagined and what is supernatural. It’s up to viewers to decide and I always believe the supernatural choice.

House of Frankenstein

Three monsters – and four favorite actors – all in in one film! Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange), Dracula (John Carradine) and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.) are linked together by the nefarious Dr. Gustav Niemann (Boris Karloff) who continues the work of Victor Frankenstein after he breaks out of prison and seeks revenge.

To do that, he uses other people who tend to suffer tragic outcomes like Professor Lampini (George Zucco) whose traveling Chamber of Horrors includes Dracula’s skeleton with dirt from Transylvania and a stake in the heart. (Hmm, what happens if you remove the stake?). There’s the sad hunchback Daniel (J. Carrol Naish) who he promises to cure. And finally, the saddest of the sad, poor Lawrence Talbot (Chaney), our wolfman. Each character has something Niemann wants in his quest to resurrect Frankenstein’s monster who he has found in an icy grave. (See the 1943 film, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man for how that happened.)

Throw in some pathos as our heartbreaking werewolf and hunchback both fall in love with the same woman, a young gypsy dancer played by Elena Dervugo who later would star in Marcus Welby, M.D. Bonus: There’s a return to Frankenstein’s castle with angry villagers.

The Lodger

This taut thriller is a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 silent film of the same name, that was based off the 1913 novel by Mrs. Belloc Lowndes about Jack the Ripper. The story focuses on a landlady who fears her new boarder could be the man behind the Whitechaple murders.

It has a great cast starting with Laird Creager as the title character. The actor’s naturally imposing stature – he stood 6′ 3″ and weighed more than 300 pounds – would seem to take away the mystery of whether he is or isn’t the Ripper, but Creager does well in keeping us guessing. Merle Oberon plays Kitty, the landlord’s niece who is a music hall performer. (Shame on her – we know how Jack the Ripper feels about women who show their body!). George Sanders is the elegant inspector on the case who, of course, will fall for Kitty.

The Lodger is one of multiple films in this list that benefits from great cinematography. Lucien Ballard (whose later work included The Wild Bunch), gave the movie a noirish look that added to the tension-filled drama. Ballard and Oberon married after meeting on this film and would go on to make four more films together.

The Mummy’s Ghost and The Mummy’s Curse

The Universal Mummy films began in 1932 with the Boris Karloff classic and spawned multiple sequels in the 1940s. The sequels all carry on the story of Imhotep who was cruelly mummified alive after attempting to resuscitate his beloved Princess Anck-es-en-Amo. He will spend eternity searching for her if he must. Each subsequent film starts with yet another discovery of the mummy, his search for his princess, and a race between scholars and devoted Egyptian high priests to find him for their own reasons.

The plots are really that simple. Sometimes the names change – Imhotep becomes Kharis and the princess is Ananka – but the story remains formulaic, easy to digest and quick to move (each film is only about an hour long).

The Mummy’s Ghost is set in Mapleton, Mass. where the events of the 1942 film The Mummy’s Tomb took place, leaving the town in terror. Professor Norman (Frank Reicher) is sharing the background of the mummy with his students (and the film viewers so we know what’s going on), which of course they don’t believe. Tom, one of his students, visits his girlfriend Amina who is of Egyptian descent and goes into an almost trance-like state at talk of Egypt or the mummy. Hmm, wonder where Ananka’s soul has been reincarnated? Lon Chaney Jr. returns as Kharis for the second time, John Carradine is Yousef Bey and George Zucco is High Priest Andoheb.

The Mummy’s Curse comes 25 years later and is “set” again in Mapleton. If it feels more like Louisiana to you, it’s OK. That’s what French accents, talk of bayous and a character named Cajun Joe will do. An engineering company is trying to drain the swamp that was the setting of the end scene in The Mummy’s Ghost. Terrified workers believe the mummy and his princess haunt the area, leaving bodies in their wake. When bodies do start to appear, it confirms their worst fears. What sets this film apart from the others is an unsettling and effective sequence involving the resurrection of Anaka (Virginia Christine) who rises from underground and stumbles while her body jerks to life. It’s an exceptional performance that was ahead of its time (see the TV series The Walking Dead). An interesting note about the exotic looking Virginia Christine: she is best remembered for her role as Mrs. Olson in a series of Folgers coffee commercials.

The Uninvited

The Uninvited is the most unexpected of ghost stories, one with grace and beauty along with chills. Though there are scary moments, it haunts me most with its gorgeous score that uses the song Stella by Starlight to great effect and the moody, atmospheric cinematography by Charles Lang.

The plot is a brilliant mix of ghost story, mystery and romance. Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey are siblings who buy an house on a seaside cliff in Cornwall that they will learn comes with an inhabitant or two. Unusual sounds and sobbing will be heard, there is a strange draft on the stairs, and other odd things happen. The new owners meet some of this with fascination and wonder, but even so, they know what it means when pets won’t go in certain areas of a house.

But it’s not until young Stella (Gail Russell) visits and her strong connection to the house plays out that the film takes some terrifying turns. Her grandfather (Donald Crisp) will finally share why he wants her to stay away. There will be a séance, a ghostly possession and a sanatorium.

I never tired of watching The Uninvited. It hasn’t aged for me since
the first time I saw it and looks stunning on the restored Criterion Blu-ray
release. I suggest putting it on and curling up on the couch with the lights
off. Then be prepared to want to watch it again.

Voodoo Man

Bela Lugosi gives a surprisingly touching performance as a doctor trying to bring his beloved wife back from the dead – although death in her case looks like she’s sleeping with her eyes open. (She’s been dead for 22 years, yet barely looks 22.) But Lugosi isn’t the Voodoo Man of the title: That would be George Zucco as filling station owner Nicholas who dons a black cape and speaks gibberish as he attempts to draw the life essence out of young women and into the doctor’s wife.

He gets his test subjects by pointing unsuspecting innocents asking for directions toward the doctor’s house where they’ll hit a “detour” and be kidnapped. Three times he’s tried, but it hasn’t worked, so the women, all in flowing long dresses, are kept in a catatonic state in strange phone booth-like rooms to await the next try. Up next is Betty (Wanda McKay) who is on her way to her best friend’s wedding. Before reaching the staged detour, she comes upon a man who has run out of gas. Surprise – he’s the groom. (You never know who you’ll meet on lonely country roads.) Mr. Clueless doesn’t help her from being kidnapped but now that there’s a witness to her disappearance, a search is set in motion that will lead to the truth. Whether our bereft doctor will get his cherished wife back in time is part of the film’s climatic tension. (I’m rooting for him.)

– Toni Ruberto for Classic Movie Hub

You
can read all of Toni’s Monsters and Matinees articles here.

Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor
and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her
blog, Watching Forever
and is a member of the Classic
Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo
chapter of TCM Backlot and now leads the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie
Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in
the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You
can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto.