October 4: The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

November 25, 1925, The Jazz Age is in full swing (no pun intended) in the good old United States. Women’s hair and skirts are getting shorter and the men’s pockets are getting heavier. It was a rich time during our country’s history with the absence of alcohol. Well, there was supposed to be no alcohol during Prohibition. Amendment 18 of our Constitution stated that the buying, selling and trading of alcohol is illegal but it was terribly enforced. Some citizens found the law to be unnecessary and had no problem breaking that law and that included some police officers. The real enforcers were radical temperance activists like Carrie A. Nation, a woman who would lead raids on saloons and liquor stores, chopping them up with her hatchet.  Later in her life, she would end up at a mental institute when she develop a mental illness. Some people would say she had always had a mental issue for obvious reasons.

For me, one of the creepiest horror settings is a mental institute. Psychiatry was a growing medical field during the early 20th century as the number of patients at these institutes increased immensely. This ever growing population of lunatics (common term in those days) created an overcrowding issue. Asylums would receive spending cuts from the government, usually during time of war and/or of economic struggle, which would lead to poor living conditions and often abuse by nurses and doctors. A movement for deinstitutionalization of such places even argued that the very environment of these asylums caused patients to become more mad. Mental institutes was the answer of the social problem of dealing with the insane outside of family, which caused alienism. Alienism is an idea that we can visually see in the 1925 silent film, The Phantom of the Opera.

Carl Laemmle, the president of Universal Pictures at the time, vacationed in Paris in 1922 and he met a man by the name of Gaston Leroux, author by his own right. Leroux worked in the French film industry so they had something in common. Laemmele shared his love for the Paris Opera House and Leroux told him that he wrote a book set in the Paris Opera House called The Phantom of the Opera. He humbly gave a copy to Laemmele, who read the entire book in one night. He would buy the rights the next day and call Lou Chaney, a daring actor who was well-known for his portrayal of the Hutchback in an adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic, to play the Phantom. Much like the Opera house in the movie, this movie had its own curse to deal with. It premiered 3 times in theaters. The first premiere received poor reviews so the studio pulled the movie and told the director, Rupert Julian, to reshoot it with a different style; Julian walked out. The second premiere showcased a new direction of the film and new scenes by director Edward Segwick, who made the film more of a romantic comedy and the audience literally booed at the movie. The third and final premiere is mostly Julian’s original film with Segwick’s ending and with a little editing magic, the film was successful, unlike the Phantom in the film.

The story starts off with the old owners abruptly selling the Paris Opera House to new managers during the busiest time for the opera house. The new owners are eager but get a fair warning from the old owners about a phantom that resides in the opera house. Judging by the new owners disbelief, the old owners tell them to go ask the man who is in box #5. They see the man and plan to go talk to him but when they do, he vanishes into thin air. The prima donna, Madame Carlotta, receives a threatening letter from the Phantom, stating that Christine, the prima donna’s understudy, will sing Maguerite the following night. Carlotta would never let that happened but she suddenly fell ill the next day, allowing Christine to sing the piece. At this point, Christine has spoken to the Phantom or the “Spirit of Music” and he tells her to focus on her career and let go of the boyfriend, Raoul. She does listen to the “spirit” and Raoul is crushed by the rejection. Raoul does overhear the Phantom talking to Christine but when he enters the room, it is empty. Carlotta receives another letter from the Phantom, stating the she should take ill for the next performance and let Christine perform. Another letter is sent to the managers, saying that if Christine doesn’t sing, that the opera house will be cursed. The managers ignore the warnings and continue the play with Carlotta. The Phantom is angered by the defiance and drops the chandelier on the audience. Christine runs into her dressing room, only to hear the spirit again and it lures her into a secret passageway through her mirror.  She is in a trance as the Phantom leads her into his lair via horseback and a gondola. She faints after he shares that his name is Erik and he is deeply in love with her. She wakes up to a note saying she can come and go as she pleases but she was to never take off his mask. Curiosity overcame Christine and she takes his mask off to reveal a hideous monster underneath. He tells her his plans to hold her prisoner but will allow her to visit her world one last time with the stipulation that she does not see her lover, Raoul. She makes a rendezvous at a masquerade ball when the Phantom makes an appearance as Edgar Allan Poe’s Red Death. Christine and Raoul run to the rooftop and Christine tells him everything and they make a plan to escape. Little do they know, the Phantom has heard their plans. The Phantom reaches out to Christine, revealing that he knows their plans. He kidnaps her during her performance and Raoul runs to her dressing room to find her only to find a man in there already. This man explains that he is Inspector Ledoux and has been investigating the Phantom for months, finding out that his name is Erik and has escaped from Devil’s Island where he mastered the Dark Arts and was deemed insane. Raoul and Ledoux find their way down to the lair but fall into a torture dungeon, where the Phantom has cranked up the heat. The Phantom gives Christine two choices, two levers. The scorpion lever will save Raoul and Ledoux but she would have to marry the Phantom and the grasshopper lever would blow up the entire opera house. She chooses the scorpion only to find them drowning in the dungoen before the Phantom opens up the trap door. The mob is at the door of the lair and the Phantom escapes to the carriage, taking Christine with him. Raoul does save Christine but the Phantom is chased to the pier and is drowned by the angry mob.

Am I the only one who started to feel for the Phantom? I don’t believe he should’ve died at the end. At least take him back to Devil’s Island. The above quote is from the 1930’s by Lou Chaney, who is known for his portrayals of monsters and making them sympathetic. The movie was a lengthy hour and forty-five minute movie.Some parts did feel more comical than anything. The music choice was odd. It would be cheery at times I wouldn’t think to put cheery music but maybe that was to give it a creepy effect that I missed (think of the 1990’s movie, Jeepers Creepers). Sometimes the music did get dark at appropriate moments and I enjoyed that. I did have a issue, not with the movie itself, but with the fact that I am a huge fan of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s opera adaptation of Leroux’s novel and it almost ruined the original. Fun Fact: The editing of this movie in the final premiere was done by Lois Weber, but no relations to Andrew Lloyd Weber.

If you would like to watch this film: here’s how I watched it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1gW1pnKBPI

Next stop, 1931.

October 3: Nosferatu (1922)

March 4, 1922, things are only getting worse in Germany. Right after the war, we saw that the German citizens were fearful of the economic issues that come with reparations and they were growing more distrustful with the government. 1922 is the year of the hyperinflation in Germany. The German government ordered massive print runs of bank notes or cash. The prices of everything rose significantly while German citizens are losing their cash investments and savings. Near the end of 1922, French troops would have taken over the Ruhr region, after Germany defaults on several of its reparation payments. It is during this time that anti-republican movements are forming in Germany, like the NSDAP or the Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party. If that name sounds familiar, that’s because it was this group at lured Hitler into joining the movement; leading up to some devastating events later.

When you are searching for stories to adapt to film, one of the most commonly used story is Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Dracula was based on a real life prince of Romania (old world name Wallachia) named Vlad the Impaler, son of Vlad Dracul. Stories of his evil deeds in Romania traveled to the Slavic people and the Germanic people in the mid-1400’s. Stories were mainly about his love for impaling his enemies amongst other torture techniques. It was Bram Stoker who melded bits of Romanian dark history with Romanian folklore of blood-sucking vampires. The first Dracula movie was two years prior by an unknown Soviet director but has been considered a lost film. The second one was a little more than a year before 1922 was called Dracula’s Death and made by a Hungarian director. That film has also been considered a lost film. The only surviving film about Dracula this early in the 20th century is Nosferatu, directed by F. W. Murnau.

Unlike the first two Dracula-inspired movies, Nosferatu was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s iconic novel. The studio couldn’t get the rights to the novel so the writers had to changed the names of some of the characters, like Count Orlok and Nosferatu (means vampire). Stoker’s heirs had sued F.W. Murnau and the studio for using the story and the court had ordered for all of the copies of this movie to be destroyed. And somehow, a few of those copies did not get destroyed and we have the pleasure of experiencing such a classic movie. They did leave out some classic characters like the vampire hunter Van Helsing but, it still remains to be a beautiful German Expressionist silent film with a 12-page script and a terrifying creature.

The story starts off with a hopeful new real state agent by the name of Thomas Hutter. He got word that a new client, Count Orlok, ws in need of his assistance in Transylvania. He arrives in the small town and asked the locals about Count Orlok. The locals were terrified just by the name. They urged Hutter not to go to the castle at night for fear of a werewolf in the woods. Hutter ignored their heeding words and carries on up to the castle. He meets Count Orlok and seems to not be disturbed by the way the count looks. Hutter accidentally had cut himself while slicing bread at dinner and the count tried to suck the blood out. This would disturb Hutter but such thoughts vanished by morning. He did, however, wake up to two puncture wounds on his neck, which he shrugs off as two mosquito bites. Count Orlok decides to buy the house opposite to Hutter’s own house after seeing a picture of Hutter’s beloved Ellen, noting the loveliness of her neck. Hutter starts to suspect that the count is indeed a Nosferatu and cowers in his room for the night. The count is about to attack Hutter again when he is stopped by this silent call by Ellen, who is back in Germany seeing all of this in her dream. Hutter, the next day, explores the castle, only to find Count Orlok sleeping in a coffin. Horrified, Hutter attempts to escape the castle but is knocked unconscious while the nosferatu is on his way to his new home via ship. The entire crew ends up dying from sickness except the captain and the first mate.The first mate sees the count and realizes the true cause of his shipmates’ deaths. He abandons the ship, leaving the captain behind.  All of the crew members will be dead by the time Count Orlok lands in Germany, taking the captain’s life. More people are dying, thinking it is the plague. After ignoring his command to not read the book about Nosferatu, Ellen reads that the way to defeat a vampire is for a woman, pure in heart, to distract him throughout the night until dawn. And that’s exactly what she did and after Count Orlok vanishes into dust at the sight of dawn, Ellen takes her last breath in Hutter’s arms.

I can see why this is considered a classic and considered an influential masterpiece of cinema. Given the era of the film, it is extremely well done. This movie features the beauties of nature with some visually stunning landscapes of a ship on the ocean and the mountain side of the Carpathians. One thing that really makes this movie so haunting is the music. There’s nothing like heavy Germanic organ pieces throughout the movie to give you that sense of horror. It is a very gothic tone to the movie (of course because it’s German). For me, there was some comical scenes. One scene is Nosferatu just carrying his coffin to his new house without anyone blinking an eye at him. It’s not every day you see a vampire carry his own coffin. This is also the first movie in this list where the hero is actually a heroine. Yay women! It is ultimately Ellen Hutter who destroys Nosferatu and that speaks to the women’s rights activism happening at this time all around the world. This is for sure going to be a movie I watch every October. Instant classic.

If you would like to watch this movie; here’s how i watched it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC6jFoYm3xs

We are coming back to America in our next stop, 1925.

October 2: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

February 26, 1920, Germany is not looking so good. The biggest war in history (at that time) had just ended and Germany was paying a high price for their involvement. That’s right, folks, World War I had just ended. There has never been a war like the Great War. The amount of causalities and the idea of chemical warfare was terrifying. The Weimar Republic was to take blame for the war, according to the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. They lost their colonies and smaller countries they had captured during the war. There was a significant amount of men and women suffering from the effects of the mustard gas during trench warfare and we are seeing the first cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in this time.

So basically, Germany felt screwed over by the Treaty of Versailles and its citizens knew this. There was a real question of what kind of economic harm will this do to German citizens and there was little hope in the German government. Extremism is running rampant in the streets and among the extremists are war pacifists, like Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, who set out to write a story that denounces arbitrary authority as brutal and insane.

Janowitz and Mayer both had bad experiences in World War I that led them to be pacifists. Janowitz was an officer in the war but his experience in the military left him feeling resentful. Mayer, on the other hand, pretended to be insane to get out of military duty which require many medical tests with the military psychiatrist. This left him feeling distrustful towards authority. This psychiatrist would be the model for Dr. Caligari. They met through a mutual friend who suggested that they write a story together. What came from it was a German Expressionist film, taking two months to film.

This movie is set up to be a flashback by the main character, Francis. He is telling an old man, who was haunted by spirits, that he and his wife had just been through a horrible ordeal. We meet Dr. Caligari ,shortly after Francis’ story begins, and he is looking for a permit for his show, starring a somnambulist, a sleepwalker essentially. The town clerk is rude towards Dr. Caligari but still approves the permit. That night, the town clerk is murdered. Francis and his friend, Alan, go down the next day to see this spectacle. Dr. Caligari awakens Cesare and claims that Cesare can tell you your future if you ask. Alan asks Cesare “How long shall I live?” and Cesare said that Alan was to die at dawn. Cesare’s prediction comes true and Alan is murdered at dawn. Francis and the police investigate Alan’s murder and eventually catches the man, only to realize that this man would have nothing to do with the murders. Jane, Francis’ sweetheart, is attacked and abducted by Cesare that night but an angry mob forces Cesare to drop Jane and shortly he collapses and dies. Francis, thinking he was watching Cesare in his cabiner, realizes that the Cesare in the cabinet was a dummy. Dr. Caligari flees to an asylum. Francis follows the doctor to the asylum to discover that Dr. Caligari is the director of the asylum. Francis encourages the asylum staff to help him go through the doctor’s records. They find the Dr. Caligari is obsessed with a 18th century legend of Caligari,  a man who used a somnambulist named Cesare to commit murders in Northern Italian towns. The doctor wanted to understand Caligari and so created an experiment with a somnambulist at his asylum. Francis calls the police and shows them Cesare’s body and Dr. Caligari attacks an officer, leading him to a straitjacket and becoming an inmate of the asylum himself. The narrative comes back to Francis and the old man from the beginning of the movie. This is when we discover that Francis is an inmate at the asylum, Jane and Cesare are also patients. Francis’ imagination of Dr. Caligari is in fact the real director of the asylum. Francis freaks out and is restrained. The director of the asylum ends the movie by saying that he has figured out what Francis’ issue is and can cure him.

The visuals are pretty cool for being an 1920 German silent film. They created they own landscape and there are no outside visuals. It kind of reminded me of early Tim Burton movies, like Edward Scissorhands or any of the Batman movies. There’s a whimsical feeling to the back drop which adds a more gothic, darker feel to the movie. You are not quite sure where the movie is going and the twist at the end was fantastic. Again, current media may have ruined the scariness of this film but if I were around in 1920, this would be a scary, psychological thriller. Something like Shutter Island or The Ward where you think you know the story but the twist at the end has you reeling for answers. It was a very interesting movie and for me, knowing the history of the time in Germany really sets the tone for this movie.

Side note: This film was 50 minutes long which is almost 4 times as long as Edison’s Frankenstein, a mere 13 minute film.

To watch this movie: here’s how I watched it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aimAeeDx2p4

Nest stop, 1922.

 

October 1: Frankenstein (1910)

March 18, 1910, America was in the midst of an immigration wave. The early 1900’s saw a significant increase of immigrants coming into the United States. Although some immigrants came to the United States for the more usual reasons, like religious,political persecution or the lack of economic opportunities, there were some immigrants that were pulled to America by contract labor agreements. After enduring the hours of questioning and the poking and prodding by doctors, the immigrants have finally arrived in America. Immigrant life, however, was not easy. There was harsh work conditions inside mines and factories on low wages and the urban housing was extremely crammed and unsanitary.

What the upside to this dirty history of immigration boom in America is that many people from different countries introduced their culture to the United States. They brought with them family recipes, traditions and of course, stories.  Some of the classic horror movies were actually myths and legends from different countries. They used these stories to yield caution. There’s always a moral to the story to understand life itself. Mary Shelley wrote about it and Thomas Edison pictured it.

Thomas Edison published his kinetogram, a fancy word for movie, on March 18, 1910 and it took the director, J Searle Dawley,  three short days to film it in the Bronx (New York) at the Edison Studios. Some sources credit Edison as a producer of the movie. This movie was not meant to be a horror movie. The production team was wanting to steer away from the horrific aspects of the story and focus on the more psychological problems found in the story. This kinetogram is a retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein . This is considered the first horror film.

Frankenstein leaves behind his sweetheart and father to go to college to study science. Just after he arrived at college, he becomes obsessed with the mysteries of life and death. He wants to create the most perfect human being and one night, it all came to him. He conducted an experiment, involving a skeleton and vats of chemicals. To his horror, what emerges wasn’t a beautiful human being but a grotesque monster. Frankenstein runs out of the room and the monster peers at Frankenstein through the curtains of his bed. Frankenstein travels back home to his sweetheart and father, leaving the monster behind. Much to his dismay, the monster reappears out of jealous towards Frankenstein’s sweetheart. After a struggle, the monster catches a glimpse of itself in the mirror and runs away in horror. The monster reappears, again, at the house on Frankenstein’s wedding night. Frankenstein’s sweetheart faints at the sight of the monster and the monster overpowers Frankenstein’s feeble efforts to stop him and runs away. Frankenstein’s love for his bride makes the monster disappear for good. The final scene is the monster fading away from the screen into the mirror and when Frankenstein stands in front of the mirror, the monster slowly disappears and we see Frankenstein’s reflection instead.

Dawley and Edison took the psychological approach to the classic novel. The monster is not a physical creation but the creation of the evil mind. The last slide said, “The creation of an evil mind is overcome by love and disappears.”  (Oh, I guess I should mention that this is a silent film. NO dialogue, just music.) Love cures all, apparently. With the older movies, sometimes the movie may not be scary but you can see why it could have be seen as scary. If I was around in 1910, this would scare me for sure. It has a creepy looking monster, played by Carl Stanton Ogle, terrorizing the doctor and his wife. The problem I ran into was that the music played in this movie was made popular by Walt Disney in his 1940 classic, Fantasia. It was Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Ring any bells? It’s the music to Mickey Mouse using a sorcerer’s hat to make brooms do his chores and it gets out of hand. I was trying to focus on the actors rather than the music or else, I would’ve expected Mickey to show any moment with his brooms.

If you would like to enjoy this movie, here is how I watched it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY-VTRKB220

Next stop, 1920!

 

About Me

My name is Lisa and I weirdly like and enjoy watching horror movies. It started when I was a little kid when my dad showed some of the classic monster movies from the 1930’s and then watching scary movies during sleepovers and trying not to pee the bed out of fright. (it happened twice.) Now, every so often my sister and I will Skype one another and watch horror movie together. My obsession with the horror genre died down a little bit until I was in college and needed a topic for my senior thesis. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I chose to write and research my thesis on horror movies, more specifically, 1970’s horror movies. That’s when I found that doing research about the history of the time of these movies made the movies better; my obsession is back. I’m currently in my last semester of school and since I’ve been waiting for fall and October weather to come for months, I felt that I would share my love for history and horror movies by writing a blog. I wanted to challenge myself to research and watch 31 horror movies in 31 days to celebrate my favorite holiday, Halloween. Won’t you join me?