Hollywood's Legends of Horror Collection (Doctor X / The Return of Doctor X / Mad Love / The Devil Doll / Mark of the Vampire / The Mask of Fu Manchu)
by Charles Brabin, Charles Vidor, Karl Freund, Michael Curtiz, Tod Browning
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Frances Drake, Lionel Atwill, Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Peter LorreDirector: Charles Brabin, Charles Vidor, Karl Freund, Michael Curtiz, Tod Browning
Brand: Warner Brothers
Writer: Abraham Merritt
Writer: Allen C. Miller
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Czech (Original Language); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 412 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-10-10
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: 79287
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- Doctor X/The Return of Dr. X Mark of the Vampire/The Mask of Fu Manchu Mad Love/The Devil Doll Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: NR Age: 012569792876 UPC: 012569792876 Manufacturer No: 79287
Movie Reviews of Hollywood's Legends of Horror Collection (Doctor X / The Return of Doctor X / Mad Love / The Devil Doll / Mark of the Vampire / The Mask of Fu Manchu)
Movie Review: Classic Hollywood Reflections On Perversity, Obsession, Mystery & Murder
Summary: 5 Stars
The Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection (2006) offers viewers six excellent little-seen thrillers from the classic Hollywood era; as a set, it in many ways surpasses 2005's The Val Lewton Horror Collection in quality.
Though Jacque Tourneur and Val Lewton's Cat People (1942) is generally credited with introducing monsters and horror to the modern urban landscape, Michael Curtiz's atmospheric Doctor X (1932) proves this assertion to be untrue.
Produced in an era before the Hays Code was enforced, Doctor X concerns a series of strangulation murders in New York City and Long Island in which the killer partially cannibalizes his victim's bodies. Known in the press as "the Moon Murderer" due to the period of the month during which he is active, the killer's eventual unmasking and subsequent transformation into the "Moon Monster" is still chilling today. Though the murderer's explanation for his actions seem both forced and unnecessary, the version offered here was printed in an early, eerie version of Technicolor, making a film already long on shadows also weirdly tinted in shades of green, red, and yellow.
Curtiz, of course, would go on to direct The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Casablanca (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945) and White Christmas (1954). A fairly young Lionel Atwill stars as the title doctor, and Fay Wray as his daughter.
Also produced by First National/Warner Brothers, The Return of Doctor X (1939) is a sequel to Doctor X in name only. Humphrey Bogart, who seems to be channeling Andy Warhol in several early scenes, stars as a murderer revived from the dead and now badly in need of continuous transfusions of a rare type of blood. Also starring Dennis Morgan before he rose to stardom as one of the Forties' most popular leading men, The Return of Doctor X is a surprisingly well-made and effective thriller.
Interestingly, the original film trailer, which is present as an extra feature, shows numerous scenes not included in the final cut, suggesting that the producers originally had quite a different film in mind.
Also produced during the pre-Hays era, MGM's The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) stars the post-Frankenstein Boris Karloff as the would-be Asian world-conqueror and Myra Loy as his beautiful but perverse daughter, Fah Lo See. Beautifully produced but anti-climatic, the film is remarkable for its sexual undertones, including the homoerotic scene in which the athletically-built Charles Starrett, who portrays the young hero, writhes under torture while wearing nothing but a scanty loincloth.
Tod Browning and MGM's quirky The Mark of the Vampire (1935) is a fascinatingly disjointed and almost surreal remake of Browning's now-lost silent film, London After Midnight (1927). Starring Lionel Barrymore, Lionel Atwill, and Bela Lugosi, who only has several actual lines of dialogue, the film is actually a murder mystery disguised as a horror movie, and one which continuously cheats at the misleading game it plays with its audience. However, instead of detracting from the finished product, Browning's mischievous use of the editing process and evident joy in subverting viewer expectations make The Mark of the Vampire a horror film classic. Visually stunning throughout, the father-and-daughter vampire team, as depicted by Lugosi and Carroll Borland, remain one of the archetypal representations of the vampire in cinema.
MGM's ghoulish Mad Love (1935) stars Peter Lorre as love-obsessed surgeon Dr. Gogol and Colin Clive as Stephen Orlac, a world-renowned concert pianist who loses his hands in a train accident. When Lorre, who is in passionately in love with Orlac's beautiful wife, Yvonne, is called in to operate, he replaces the pianist's crushed hands with those of a recently-executed murderer whose specialty was knife-wielding. Before long, Orlac has the uncontrollable desire to kill, and Gogol, who keeps a life-size wax effigy of Yvonne in his home, hopes an imprisoned Orlac will finally make Yvonne available to become his bride.
The brief scene in which Orlac confronts what he believes is the reanimated figure of the decapitated and now-handless murderer is one of the great moments of Thirties horror. The film was a critical and popular failure upon release, though Lorre excels as the pathetic, love-sick Gogol, as does Clive as the potentially neurotic pianist, and lovely Frances Drake is extremely impressive as the devoted Yvonne.
The collection is rounded out by the wonderful special-effects extravaganza The Devil Doll (1936), produced by MGM and again directed by Tod Browning. Equal parts fantasy, science fiction, and thriller, Lionel Barrymore stars as wrongfully-accused banker Paul Lavond, who escapes from Devil's Island and subsequently disguises himself as an elderly female Parisian doll maker.
Having discovered how to miniaturize and mentally control human beings from an eccentric husband and wife scientist team who hope to save the world by ending starvation, Lavond sends a pair of 8-inch apache dancers out on missions of revenge, robbery, and murder, before being exonerated and reunited with his daughter, Lorraine, portrayed by the lovely Maureen O'Sullivan.
The Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection is an extremely satisfying set of horror and horror-related films. The screenwriting, acting, directing, photography, art direction, and set design for all six films are exquisite. Hopefully, the success of this collection, as well as that of the earlier The Val Lewton Horror Collection, will see further collections become available. Still awaiting collection are James Whale and Universal's The Old Dark House (1932), White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi (1932), and Michael Curtiz's The Mystery of the Wax Museum, among many others of the classic era.
More Hollywood's Legends of Horror Collection (Doctor X / The Return of Doctor X / Mad Love / The Devil Doll / Mark of the Vampire / The Mask of Fu Manchu) reviews:
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1 2 3 4 5
Summary of Hollywood's Legends of Horror Collection (Doctor X / The Return of Doctor X / Mad Love / The Devil Doll / Mark of the Vampire / The Mask of Fu Manchu)
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