MonsterGirl’s 150 Days of Classic Horror #42 DEAD OF NIGHT 1945 / FLESH AND FANTASY 1943 / CARNIVAL OF SINNERS 1943

DEAD OF NIGHT 1945

Dead of Night (1945) is A masterclass in haunting anthology storytelling. The 1945 British film stands as a landmark in horror cinema, weaving together five distinctively eerie and macabre tales within a framing narrative that loops back on itself like a nightmare refusing to end.

Produced by Ealing Studios—a studio better known for its whimsical comedies—the film marked a bold departure into the supernatural realm, blending psychological tension, literary inspiration, and the beauty of technical innovation.

Directed collaboratively by one of my favorite underrated directors Basil Dearden (Victim 1961, All Night Long 1962 and perhaps one of the best heist movies The League of Gentleman 1960) Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, and another terrific British director Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets 1949 where Alec Guiness’s shine’s in eight separate irreverant roles and It Always Rains on Sunday 1947  collaborating once again  with Hamer, Googie Withers in an outstanding performance.) With a screenplay by John Baines, Angus MacPhail, and T.E.B. Clarke, Dead of Night remains a landmark in anthology horror, influencing everything from The Twilight Zone to the portmanteaus of extravagance of Hammer to the little horror studio that could, Amicus’s (1972’s Asylum, Tales From the Crypt) modern psychological horror thrillers.

Douglas Slocombe worked at Ealing Studios and created classics like Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1952), and The Man in the White Suit (1951). His cinematography subtly amplifies the film’s unease by playing with contrasts of light and shadow, reality and illusion. Its seamless blend of gothic atmosphere and psychological complexity resonated deeply with audiences trying to navigate the uncertainties of the post-war era.

A Dream That Won’t End & The Tales of Unease in Five Acts:

The film opens with architect Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) arriving at a country house in Kent, invited by owner Eliot Foley (Roland Culver) to consult on renovations. Craig is immediately unsettled: he recognizes the guests from a recurring dream that always ends in disaster. As Dr. van Straaten (Frederick Valk), a skeptical psychiatrist, dismisses Craig’s fears, the other guests share their own supernatural experiences, each story building toward the film’s chilling conclusion. Dearden does an incredible job of weaving the vignettes together, creating a sense of inevitability as Craig’s dread intensifies.

1. “The Hearse Driver” (Directed by Basil Dearden) Based on E.F. Benson’s short story “The Bus-Conductor,” this segment follows racing driver Hugh Grainger (Anthony Baird), who survives a crash only to encounter a hearse driver ominously declaring, “Room for one more, sir.” Later, the same phrase is uttered by a bus conductor (Miles Malleson), prompting Grainger to avoid hopping on board—Grainger narrowly avoids death after being haunted by the sinister premonition – a decision that saves his life when the bus crashes. Dearden’s taut direction and Douglas Slocombe’s shadowy cinematography turn this into a lesson in less is more: much of the time, abject fear thrives in simplicity.

2. “The Christmas Party” (Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti) Sally O’Hara (Sally Ann Howes) attends a holiday party and, during hide-and-seek, encounters the ghost of Francis Kent, a boy murdered by his sister in a case inspired by the real-life 1860 Constance Kent scandal. Cavalcanti infuses the segment with a gothic atmosphere, using mirrors and empty nurseries to evoke childhood innocence corrupted by violence. When Sally encounters the ghost of the murdered Victorian boy, it evokes the plight of wartime evacuees—children sent away from their families to unfamiliar and sometimes hostile environments. For audiences who had lived through these tragic upheavals, these stories must have struck a poignant chord.
3. “The Haunted Mirror” (Directed by Robert Hamer) Joan Cortland (Googie Withers) gifts her husband Peter (Ralph Michael) an antique mirror that reflects not their bedroom but a 19th-century chamber where its former owner, a jealous husband, whose frustrations led him to murder his wife. Joan’s fiancé, Peter, becomes possessed by the spirit of the Victorian patriarch. As Peter’s psyche merges with the mirror’s history, Hamer crafts a haunting exploration of possession and marital distrust. The segment, based on John Baines’s original story, benefits from Slocombe’s camerawork, which contrasts the warmth of the couple’s home with the mirror’s cold, distorted reality.

4. “The Golfer’s Story” (Directed by Charles Crichton) A rare comedic interlude, this segment—adapted from H.G. Wells’ “The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost”—follows two golf-obsessed friends (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, reprising their The Lady Vanishes personas) who wager over a woman’s affection. When the loser drowns himself, his ghost returns to demand that the winner vanish instead. Though tonally lighter, Crichton’s direction underscores the absurdity of male rivalry, even in death. Class-based anxieties also surface in “The Golfer’s Story,” where Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne reprise their upper-class personas from earlier films but are caught in an absurd rivalry over love and death

5. “The Ventriloquist’s Dummy” (Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti) is the film’s most iconic segment because it masterfully combines psychological horror, surrealism, and deeply unsettling themes in a way that has rarely been matched. It stars Michael Redgrave with such neurotic verve as Maxwell Frere, a tormented ventriloquist driven to madness by his dummy, Hugo, who appears to have a life of his own. Hugo isn’t just a menacingly creepy doll; he embodies Frere’s fractured psyche, blurring the line between control and autonomy. The dummy’s primacy symbolizes fears of losing your identity—whether over one’s mind or one’s place in society—and echoes Freud’s concept of the uncanny, where familiar objects become disturbingly alien. As Hugo “defects” to rival performer Sylvester Kee (Hartley Power), Frere’s identity unravels in a crescendo of psychological torment and chaos. Director Cavalcanti’s Expressionist lighting and Redgrave’s unhinged performance—his descent into madness with every gesture and expression radiating fear, switching between Frere’s desperation and Hugo’s sneering malice—elevate this tale into a Freudian nightmare.

Redgrave’s portrayal of an artist consumed by his creation makes this particular segment a haunting exploration of identity and madness. The segment’s influence echoes in films like Richard Attenborough’s taut psychological thriller Magic (1978), starring Anthony Hopkins and Ann-Margret, and the iconic The Twilight Zone’s “The Dummy” (1962), starring Cliff Robertson.

Dead of Night 1945 thrives on the collaboration of Ealing’s talent. Cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, later famed for his work on Indiana Jones, uses high-contrast lighting and claustrophobic framing to heighten the film’s sense of dread. The ensemble cast—particularly Redgrave’s frenzied unhinged ventriloquist and Johns’ increasingly unmoored architect—deliver performances that ground the supernatural in a pervasive sense of human fragility.

The themes of fear and mortality in Dead of Night resonated deeply with audiences in post-war Britain, reflecting the psychological and societal anxieties of the time. Upon its release in September 1945, Dead of Night unsettled audiences emerging from the trauma of World War II, offering not escapism but a reflection of existential dread. Released just months after World War II ended, the film captured a nation grappling with the trauma of conflict, the uncertainty of the future, and the lingering specter of death.

The film’s bleak ending, where Craig is trapped in an endless loop of his dream, felt both nihilistic and urgent to audiences. Initially cut down in the U.S. (with the golfing and mirror segments removed), the restored version revealed a film ahead of its time, blending genres and experimenting with narrative structure. Its cyclical ending—where Craig’s nightmare begins anew—shows how potent fear is and how horror films that are ‘art’ can haunt us over and over again.

FLESH AND FANTASY 1943

Flesh and Fantasy (1943): A Dreamlike Exploration of Fate and Free Will

Flesh and Fantasy, directed by Julien Duvivier, is a hauntingly elegant anthology film that is a dreamlike exploration of fate that blends supernatural intrigue with philosophical musings on destiny, free will, and the mysteries of human nature.

Released in 1943 by Universal Pictures, the film predates the better-known Dead of Night (1945) but shares a similar structure, weaving together three hauntingly atmospheric tales possessing elegance and emotional depth; it’s an early example of the portmanteau format of storytelling with strong artistic vision.

With its literary roots, striking visuals, and stellar cast, including Edward G. Robinson, Charles Boyer, Barbara Stanwyck, and Betty Field, Flesh and Fantasy is a forgotten gem in the history of supernatural cinema.

The film showcases three loosely connected tales tied together by a framing device featuring humorist Robert Benchley, whose lighthearted presence provides a contrast to the darker themes explored in each story. Each one dives into the push and pull between the choices we make and the strange, unseen forces that seem to guide our lives, blending romance, suspense, and just the right amount of eerie twists.

What makes Flesh and Fantasy so compelling is how each tale explores the delicate balance between the choices we make and the unseen forces that shape—or disrupt—our lives.

The surreal first segment, written by Ellis St. Joseph, has the spirit of a fairytale. Set during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, it follows Henrietta (Betty Field), a plain, self-conscious, and embittered woman who secretly yearns for affable law student Michael (Robert Cummings).

Her life changes when she visits a strange mask shop where the mysterious shopkeeper (Edgar Barrier) gives her a beautiful white mask. However, she must only wear it that evening. And is warned that it must be returned by midnight. The masks in this sequence create an atmosphere of dreamlike transformation.

With her newfound confidence disguised by the mask, Henrietta attends a party where Michael falls for her beauty and charm – unaware of her true identity. As midnight approaches, Henrietta removes the mask only to discover that her newfound allure is no longer an illusion—It turns out it was her bitterness all along that had cast a shadow over her real beauty.

The second story, adapted from Oscar Wilde’s Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, features Edward G. Robinson as Marshall Tyler, a skeptical lawyer whose world is turned upside down when a palmist (Thomas Mitchell) predicts he’s destined to commit a murder.

Consumed by paranoia, leading him into increasingly dark territory, Tyler becomes obsessed with fulfilling his supposed destiny in order to rid himself of its looming shadow.

In a darkly ironic twist, his attempts to outsmart fate only drag him deeper into chaos until, in a fit of rage, he strangles the very palmist who made the prediction—fulfilling the prophecy he was so desperate to escape.

This segment is widely regarded as the strongest in the film due to Robinson’s intense performance and Stanley Cortez’s noir-inspired cinematography, which uses shadows and reflections to mirror Tyler’s fractured psyche.

The third tale features Charles Boyer as Paul Gaspar, a high-wire artist plagued by recurring dreams of falling to his death while a mysterious woman (Barbara Stanwyck) looks on in horror. When Paul crosses paths with Joan Stanley (Stanwyck)—the exact woman he’s been seeing in his dreams—he gets entangled in the wreckage of her troubled life, all while his own fears start to unravel his career.

The sequence builds to a gripping climax as Paul decides to confront his fate head-on during a daring tightrope act while Joan comes face to face with her own reckoning with the law. Written by László Vadnay, this segment stands out for its surreal dream sequences, brought to life through double exposures and moody, atmospheric lighting, making it both visually arresting and rich with thematic resonance.

Julien Duvivier brought his European sensibilities to Hollywood with Flesh and Fantasy, crafting a film that feels both sophisticated and otherworldly. Duvivier had previously directed Tales of Manhattan (1942), another anthology film that explored human frailty through interconnected stories. For Flesh and Fantasy, he collaborated with screenwriters Ernest Pascal and Samuel Hoffenstein to adapt stories by St. Joseph, Wilde, and Vadnay into a cohesive narrative.

Cinematographers Stanley Cortez (The Magnificent Ambersons 1942) and Paul Ivano infused the film with an Expressionistic style that heightens its dreamlike quality.

The use of shadows, reflections, and surreal imagery creates a hazy atmosphere where reality and fantasy seamlessly blur, drawing you into a mysterious and mesmerizing world. Alexandre Tansman’s moody score shifts between romantic melodies and ominous undertones.

Flesh and Fantasy was originally planned as a four-part anthology, but things shifted before its release. One of the stories, about an escaped convict who finds redemption through a blind girl, was cut after test screenings—even though audiences liked it. That segment didn’t disappear entirely, though; it was later expanded into its own feature film called Destiny (1944), directed by Reginald Le Borg.

Flesh and Fantasy is unique in that it avoids punishing its main characters for their inherent flaws; instead, there is the potential for them to learn something about themselves and maybe even find redemption though those moments of clarity; those shades of opportunity come at great cost.

The film truly deserves recognition as one of the earliest anthology films executed with beautifully artistic flair. Its blend of eerie supernatural intrigue, psychological complexity, and gorgeous visuals delivers Flesh and Fantasy to a secure place in cinematic history as a fascinating exploration of human nature—and a haunting reminder that our fates may not be entirely our own.

CARNIVAL OF SINNERS 1943

Sunday Nite Surreal: Daughter of Darkness (1948) & Carnival of Sinners (1943)-The Right Hand of God/The Left Hand of the Devil

Carnival of Sinners (originally titled La Main du Diable, or The Devil’s Hand) is a 1943 surreal French fantasy-horror film directed by Maurice Tourneur (Jacques Tourneur’s father), one of the silent era’s most celebrated auteurs. This darkly elegant film is based on Gérard de Nerval’s novel. It is a haunting exploration of morality, temptation, and redemption, seen through the lens of a cursed talisman—a macabre severed left hand—that grants the one who possesses it fame and fortune but at the cost of their eternal soul.

The film opens in an isolated mountain inn, cut off from the world by an avalanche. Roland Brissot (Pierre Fresnay), a famous painter missing his left hand, arrives carrying a mysterious casket. When his casket is stolen during a blackout, clearly uneasy, he reluctantly agrees to tell the other guests his story. We’re pulled into a flashback that reveals Brissot’s Faustian bargain and his frantic attempt to escape its terrifying consequences.

Brissot begins as a struggling artist in Paris who persuades Irène (Josseline Gaël), a glove shop worker, to pose for him. Frustrated by his lack of talent and success, he encounters Mélisse (Noël Roquevert), a chef who offers him a magical talisman that will grant him everything he desires—for the price of one sou (penny).

The talisman turns out to be a severed left hand that obeys commands and imbues Brissot with extraordinary artistic skill. Despite warnings from Ange (Pierre Larquey), an angelic figure, Brissot buys the hand and quickly rises to fame and riches. He marries Irène and signs his paintings under the pseudonym “Maximus Leo.” Soon after, however, he realizes that his success comes at a steep price: he must sell his hand at a loss before he dies or faces eternal damnation.

As Brissot struggles to rid himself of the cursed talisman, he encounters its previous owners—a musketeer, a thief, a juggler, an illusionist, and others—each recounting their tragic fates in stylized vignettes reminiscent of theatrical tableaux. The little man (Palau), representing the Devil, relentlessly pursues Brissot as he tries to escape his fate. Ultimately, Maximus Leo himself appears—a saintly monk whose hand was stolen centuries ago—and declares that all bargains are invalid since the Devil cannot sell what does not rightfully belong to him. Brissot must return the hand to Leo’s tomb to break the curse.

In the film’s big finale, Brissot faces off with the Devil in a tense showdown at the ruins of an old abbey. The fight ends with Brissot’s death, but nearby, the casket is discovered empty at Leo’s tomb—a powerful symbol of Brissot’s ultimate redemption.

Maurice Tourneur’s direction imbues Carnival of Sinners with a dreamlike, almost otherworldly moodiness, seamlessly blending elements of both fantasy and horror.

Known for his visual artistry in silent classics like The Wages of Sin (1915) and While Paris Sleeps (1923), Tourneur uses striking monochromatic imagery and noir-inspired shadows to create an atmosphere steeped in dread and paradox.

The vignettes featuring the talisman’s previous owners are especially memorable. They’re stylized tableaux with surreal visualizations that feel like a mix of Gothic theater and Expressionist cinema.

Cinematographer Armand Thirard—later celebrated for his work on Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique (1955) and The Wages of Fear (1953)—enhances Tourneur’s vision with dramatic lighting and carefully composed frames that emphasize the film’s themes of temptation and moral decay. The dance between light and shadow beautifully captures Brissot’s inner conflict, reflecting the weight of the choices he’s struggling to come to terms with.

Pierre Fresnay delivers a compelling performance as Roland Brissot, capturing both his initial arrogance and eventual desperation as he realizes the cost of his ambition.

Palau steals scenes as the Devil’s representative—a charming yet sinister figure whose mild-mannered demeanor disguises his ruthless pursuit of souls.

At its core, Carnival of Sinners is a morality play about human weakness and redemption. The film explores timeless themes such as greed, vanity, and the price of ambition through Brissot’s journey from naivety to self-awareness.

The cursed hand serves as both a literal object of temptation and a metaphor for humanity’s struggle with free will versus predestination. With its haunting imagery, nuanced performances, and thought-provoking themes,

Carnival of Sinners stands as one of Maurice Tourneur’s finest works—a reminder that even in darkness, there is room for redemption.

The story also reflects broader cultural anxieties tied to its production during World War II under Nazi-occupied France. Some critics have interpreted the film as an allegory for collaboration with evil forces—whether political or personal—and the moral compromises individuals make under pressure.

#42 down, 108 to go! Your EverLovin’ Joey, formally & affectionately known as MonsterGirl!

Chapter 4 – Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:

CODED CLASSIC HORROR THEORY “The Uncanny & The Other”

“Scenes of excessive brutality and gruesomeness must be cut to an absolute minimum.”

“As a cultural index, the pre-Code horror film gave a freer rein to psychic turmoil and social disorientation because it possessed a unique freedom from censorship… the Hays Office admits that under the Code it is powerless to take a stand on the subject of ‘gruesomeness.‘(Thomas Doherty)

Horror films in particular have made for a fascinating case study in the evolving perceptions of queer presence; queer-horror filmmakers and actors were often forced to lean into the trope of the “predatory queer” or the “monstrous queer” to claim some sense of power through visibility and blatant expressions of sexuality.- Essential Queer Horror Films by Jordan Crucciola-2018

Though Hollywood execs refused to show explicit queerness, they were willing to pay for scripts that dealt with characters that were social outcasts and sexually non-normative. The horror genre is perhaps the most iconic coded queer playground, which seems to have an affinity with homosexuality because of its apparatus of ‘otherizing’ and the inherent representation of difference. The horror genre crosses over boundaries that include transgressions between heterosexuality and queerness. The villain, fiend, or monster plays around with a variety of elements that, while usually separate, might merge male and female gender traits.

The horror film, in particular, found its place asserting a queer presence on screen. The narratives often embraced tropes of the “˜predatory queer’ or the “˜monstrous queer’ in order to declare themselves visible while cinematic queers were elbowed out of the way. Filmmakers had to maneuver their vision in imaginative ways to subvert the structure laid out for them by the Code.

As Harry M. Benshoff explains in his book Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality in the Horror Film, “Immediately before and during the years of World War II, Universal Studio’s horror films began to employ a more humanistic depiction of their monsters,” and the films of Val Lewton, like Cat People, reflected “a growing awareness of homosexuality, homosexual communities, and the dynamics of homosexual oppression as it was played out in society and the military.” So even though Hollywood execs refused to show explicit queerness, during the first true horror boom in American cinema, they were willing to pay for stories about social outcasts and sexually nonnormative figures. Horror fans thus found themselves awash in some of the genre’s most iconic queer-coded characters of all time.

On a Greek Island, Boris Karloff plays Gen. Nikolas Pherides in Val Lewton/Mark Robsin’s Isle of the Dead 1945. Driven insane by the belief that Thea (Ellen Drew), who suffers from catalepsy, is the embodiment of an evil vampiric force, is a demon called a vorvolaka. Lewton drew on collective fears, and all his work had an undercurrent of queer panic and a decipherable sign of homophobia.

The Vorvolaka has beset the island with plague. Thea- “Laws can be wrong, and laws can be cruel, and the people who live only by the law are both wrong and cruel.”

The Pre-Code era was exploding with American horror films, that reflected the angst, social unrest, and emotional distress that audiences were feeling. Personified in films that used graphic metaphors to act as catharsis, the images were often filled with rage, as Thomas Doherty calls it ‘the quality of gruesomeness, cruelty and vengefulness’. Think of the angry mobs with their flaming torches who hunt down Frankenstein’s monster, eventually crucifying him like a sacrificial embodiment of their fury. James Whale’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein 1931 was a smash hit for Universal. Other studios were trying to ride the wave of the awakening genre of the horror picture. Paramount released director Rouben Mamoulian’s adaption of the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, published in 1886. The film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which was released in 1931, stars Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins. During the Pre-Code period, many horror films proposed grisly subject matter that would shock and mesmerize the audience. For example, actor/director Irving Pichel’s The Most Dangerous Game (1932) starring Joel McCrea, Leslie Banks, and Fay Wray.

In 1932 Michael Curtiz directed Doctor X starring Lionel Atwill who would become one of the leading mad scientists of the genre.

Michael Curtiz’s macabre horror/fantasy experiment of homosocial ‘men doing science’, crossing over into profane territories and embracing dreadful taboos!

All scenes below from Dr. X (1932).

Fay Wray is Atwill’s daughter who is the only woman surrounded by a group of scientific nonconformists.

The adaptation of Bram Stoker’s story of the Eastern European incubus was interpreted by Tod Browning in Dracula 1931, immortalized by Hungarian stage actor Bela Lugosi with his iconic cape and mesmerizing stare. While his nightly visitations were blood-driven and cinematically sexual in nature, there is a very homoerotic element to his influence over Renfield (Dwight Frye) and his gaze of gorgeous David Manners as John Harker.

Bela Lugosi looks down upon David Manners in a scene from the film ‘Dracula’, 1931. (Photo by Universal/Getty Images)

Robert Florey directed the macabre Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe. And a film that has no connection to Poe’s story but in the name is one of the most transgressive, disturbing horror films rampant with vile taboos, such as necrophilia, incest, sadism, satanism, and flaying a man alive, is the unorthodox The Black Cat (1934). The film stars Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, one of four pictures they would do together. A pair of enemies who have a score to settle, ghosts of a past war, and stolen love all take place with the backdrop of a stylish Bauhaus set design and high-contrast lighting.

Paramount released Murders in the Zoo (1933) with Lionel Atwill, a sadistic owner of a zoo who uses wild animals to ravage and kill off any of his wife’s (Kathleen Burke) suitors. Kathleen Burke is well known as the panther girl in Erle C. Kenton’s horrifically disturbing Island of Lost Souls 1932, an adaptation of master fantasy writer H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau. Incidentally, Welles, Laughton, and wife Elsa Lanchester had been good friends earlier on, before the filming of Lost Souls. The film stars Charles Laughton as the unorthodox, depraved scientist who meddles with genetics and nature. He creates gruesome human/animals, torturing them with vivisection in his ‘house of pain.’ The film also stars Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams, and Bela Lugosi as The Sayer of the Law.

In 1933, King Kong showed a giant ape grasping the half-naked object of his affection, with unmentionable connotations of bestiality between the ape and Fay Wray. With scenes of Wray writhing in his gigantic paws, he lusts after her until his desire kills him. It’s almost like fantasy noir: the object of your desire will ultimately kill you!

The 1930s and 1940s Fear the Queer Monsters:

Re-assessing the Hitchcock Touch; by Wieland Schwanebeck -As Rhona Berenstein asserts, the horror genre “provides a primary arena for sexualities and practices that fall outside the purview of patriarchal culture, and the subgeneric tropes of the unseen, the host and the haunted house.”

By the same token, Kendra Bean concludes that Mrs. Danvers is portrayed as “a wraith; a sexual predator who is out to make Mrs. de Winter her next victim.”

Queer characters in horror films during the early period, reveal similarities between Mrs. Danvers and the staging of earlier sapphic characters, such as Gloria Holdens’s well-known portrayal of Countess Marya Zaleska in Dracula’s Daughter 1936. Yet, similar to the self-discipline of Mrs. Danvers, Dracula’s Daughter remains a figure of primacy and pity Ellis Hanson argues Dracula’s Daughter presents “the possibilities of a queer Gothic” early on in Hollywood history, “rich in all the paradox and sexual indeterminacy the word queer and the word Gothic imply.

There was a revival of the horror craze during the period of WWII. The Hollywood studios, both major and ‘Poverty Row” like Monogram and Republic, realized that horror movies were a lucrative business. The studios began to revisit the genre, looking for not only fresh formulas but they resurrected the classic monsters, dropping them into new plots. They also envisioned uniting gangster films with horror films, and this homogenizing led to a ‘queering’ of the two styles that demonstrated phallocentric ( guns, scientific penetration) and homoerotic themes and images into a sub-genre.

Public awareness of homosexuality reached a new height during these years, primarily due to the new set of social conditions wrought by war. Slowly , the love that dare not speak its name was being spoken, albeit in ways almost always obscurantist, punitive and homophobic. The linkage of homosexuality with violence and disease remained strong. Monsters in the Closet -Harry Benshoff

Rhona Berenstein, in her insightful book Attack of the Leading Ladies points out that films featuring the mad scientist trope operate with the homosocial principle, which speaks of the homoeroticism of males working together in consort subverting science together as a group of men who hide behind their objectification -the female object of their gaze, are in fact, figures of objectification themselves. They are simultaneously homosocial, homoerotic, and homophobic in aspect; … potentially possessing an extra-normative commitment between the two men.

Mad Doctor movies are homosocial in nature. The Mad Doctor movie is a subgenre that, below the surface, glorifies intimate male camaraderie and male homosexuality, and by the close of the picture, society, the prevailing culture, must, in turn, annihilate that which is repressed. However, it is not exclusively a vehicle to express homosexuality through homosocial interactions. There is a component not only of male bonding, a world without women; the thrust is a synthesis of misogyny and patriarchal tyranny and oppression of women. Homosocial relationships between men in these science horrors show the man’s desire for connection to other men, even one created by his own hand.

According to (Twitchell) in his Dreadful Pleasures, and Attack of the Leading Ladies (Rona Berenstein) Colin Clive as Dr. Frankenstein in all three Universal pictures, was at least performing bisexuality. Whale’s 1933 Frankenstein might give way to the homosocial realm of the mad scientist trope of ‘homoerotic indulgence’ as these men exclude women from the pursuit of their fulfillment. Twitchell views the scientist’s fluid sexuality in order to examine the concept of a man controlling women’s primacy of giving birth. This might explain Dr. Frankenstein’s venture into unnatural reproduction. A process he wants to divert to himself without women’s exclusive right to motherhood. In the scene where he is as close to giving birth to a full-grown man, he seems to display sexual arousal when his creation comes to life. Henry Frankenstein provokes nature and defies his heterosexuality. As Whale was an openly gay director in Hollywood, it can be pondered whether he knew exactly what he was suggesting. Thesiger’s sexually ambiguous, or okay, not so ambiguous Dr. Pretorius, the mad scientist who pressures Henry Frankenstein to revitalize his experiments and create a mate for the monster. Pretorius is the scientist who insists Henry continue his creative efforts in Bride of Frankenstein. Vitto Russo called Thesiger, a “man who played the effete sissy”¦ with much verve and wit.”

George Zucco, like Lionel Atwill, often portrayed the unorthodox scientist who flirted with taboos. He plays mad scientist Dr. Alfred Morris in The Mad Ghoul (1943) As a university chemistry professor, he exploits medical student Ted Allison (David Bruce) with his experimental gas that transforms Ted into a malleable, yielding macabre ghoul, whom Morris directs to kill and remove the victim’s hearts using the serum to temporarily bring Ted back from his trance like death state. David Bruce’s character is represented as a ‘queer’ sort of young man. He is not quite masculine and is unable to get his girlfriend, Evelyn Ankers, to fall in love with him. As the Mad Ghoul, he becomes a monstrous queer.

In 1932, director Tod Browning’s Dracula based on Bram Stoker’s story of a fiendish vampire who in a sexually implicit way, violates his victims by penetrating them with his fangs. The story pushed the boundaries of storytelling, and there was an inherent subtext of ‘queer’ ravishment when he sucks the blood of Dwight Frye to make him his loyal servant.

In Jonathan Harker’s Journal, the protagonist recounts his impressions of his interaction with the vampire, Dracula “As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which do what I would, I could not conceal.” For (Noël Carroll) the entry in his diary conveys revulsion by the Count’s closeness and offensive presence, which causes him to become sickened.

But it also could be read that Harker’s ‘shudder’ is not about his revulsion, but rather, an uncontrolled sexual response to the vampire’s looming over him, which could be interpreted not just as hunger for his ‘blood’ but an expression of repressed sexual desire and the fear it causes.

Horror movies have always pushed the boundaries of normalcy, by virtue of the fact that these films are inhabited by ‘monsters’, something ‘queerly’ different. And it is natural to observe two diverging responses to the impact of the horror genre and often, its persecution of what is ‘different’ and the source of what causes our anxiety.

Dracula may appear as the image of a man, but the count is far from human. While monsters in classical horror films are based on systems of maleness, they are split from being actual men. Although there are physical interactions and suggestive contact with the heroine, there isn’t the foundation of heterosexuality, but something quite deviant within their aggressively erotic encounters and/or assaults. The understanding of sexuality and the most narrow identifications that are assigned to varying orientations in a large sense is not translatable for the deeper layers of the monster and their relationship to their victims. In Hollywood, horror films can be seen as heterosexuality being invaded by an abhorrent outside force; inherent in the underlying message could be racism, classism, sexism, and gay panic. Though it can be interpreted as a landscape of heterosexuality that is in the full power of its universal presence, horror films are perfect platforms that can illustrate the collapse of heterosexuality and the subversion of sexuality.

The horror genre is a breeding ground for portrayals of the shattering of heterosexual power. This can be seen in Lambert Hillyer’s Dracula’s Daughter (1936) starring Gloria Holden as the sapphic vampire who lives in a New Village-type artist’s den, it signals her outsider status from domesticity and normalcy.

In White Zombie (1932), Bela Lugosi plays the eerily menacing Legendre. He turns men into lifeless workers who run the sugar mill. Legendre also begins to turn the plantation owner, Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer), into one of his zombies. His motivation for his control over people is ambiguous, though there seems to be sexual reasoning for both the beautiful Madeline (Madge Bellamy) and Beaumont. In the scene where Beaumont is nearly paralyzed, Legendre’s control over his male victim parallels the sexual entrapment of the movie’s heroine.

MAD LOVE (1935) I have conquered science! Why can’t I conquer love?

Karl Freund’s Grand Guignol Mad Love (1935) shifts from gazing at the female to gazing at the male. Here the focus is on Peter Lorre in his American screen debut as Dr. Gogol, who has an obsession with Frances Drake as Yvonne Orlac an actress who works at Grand Guignol Theatre. To Gogol, she is the typified defenseless heroine whom he tries to lure away from her husband, Stephen (Colin Clive), using his knowledge of scientific alchemy.

Though Gogol tries to become Yvonne’s master, his Galatea, there are critics who read the struggle between the two men as not just a rivalry for Yvonne’s love but Gogol’s desire for Stephen as well. Gogol is responsible for grafting new hands onto Stephen’s mangled body after a train crash. Mad Love could fit the criteria for the subgenre of science/horror films where the male gaze is diverted from the female object toward other men, in this case, what connected the two was the preservation of Stephen’s hands. Why, then, is it not possible that the focus could shift from Gogol’s attraction to Yvonne to the homosocial dynamics between Gogol as a doctor and his subject, Stephen?

Mad Love possesses some of the horror genre’s most tenacious performances of gender play. (Carol Clover) asks us to take a closer look at Freund’s film. It is less about the “suffering experienced by women, but at a deeper, more sustained level, it is dedicated to the unspeakable terrors endured by men.”

In a similar fashion to Waldo Lydecker’s (Laura) and Hardy Cathcart’s (The Dark Corner) pathology of objectifying Laura and Mari, Gogol worships Yvonne – his Galatea, with a measure of scopophilia that lies within his gaze upon the perfection of female beauty. To control and possess it. The pleasure is aroused by the mere indulgence of looking at her.

Gogol pays 75 francs to purchase the wax statue of Galatea. The seller remarks, “There’s queer people on the streets of Montmartre tonight.”

Gogol’s maid Francoise talks to the statue, “Whatever made him bring you here. There’s never been any woman in this house except maybe me… “I prefer live ones to dead ones.”

A Time Magazine review of Mad Love in 1933 notes this queer appeal directly, even comparing Lorre’s acting skills to those of another homosexual coded actor: I find the comment about their faces rude and insulting to both Lorre and Laughton, both of whom I am a tremendous fan.

Mad Love’s insane doctor is feminized throughout the film… In fact, the same reporter who noted Gogol’s sadism argues for his feminine demeanor: “Lorre, perfectly cast, uses the technique popularized by Charles Laughton of suggesting the most unspeakable obsessions by the roll of a protuberant eyeball, an almost feminine mildness of tone, an occasional quiver of thick lips set flat in his cretinous ellipsoidal face. This reviewer came closer than any other to articulate the subtext of mad doctor movies. He seems on the verge of noting that Lorre, Like Laughton is an effeminate madman obsessed by unspeakable homosocial desire. Attack of the Leading Ladies: Gender Sexuality and Spectatorship in Classic Horror Cinema by Rhona Berenstein

Frances Drake’s heroine masquerades as a wife who deludes herself into believing that her husband is more masculine than he really is. Gogol has a curious empathy with Stephen, whom he touches frequently and prolonged. Although Gogol pursues the heroine, Yvonne, at the theater, forcing a kiss on her, his focus is primarily manipulating Stephen’s body, rejoining his hands and massaging them to stimulate life back into them. When he realizes that Stephen’s hands cannot be grafted back successfully to his wrists, he turns to another man, the hands of a knife thrower who was executed as a notorious murderer. Once Stephen recovers from the surgery, he can no longer continue as a concert pianist but does develop the desire to throw sharp knives.

On the surface the plot of Mad Love appears to be a heterosexual obsession, the most unspoken context is the connection between Gogol and Stephen. As is true of Frankenstein’s labor of love in Whale’s first film, Gogol sews men’s body parts together and the result is a monster of sorts. (Berenstein)

In the film’s climax, Yvonne hides in Gogol’s bedroom and pretends to be the wax statue of Galatea. When Gogol touches the statue, she lets out a scream. In a euphoric daze (as in the original story), he believes that he has the power to bring Galatea’s statue to life. Yvonne begs him to let her go as he tries to strangle her.

Stephen then rushes to his wife and holds her in his arms. With his eyes fixed on the offscreen space in which Gogol’s body lies, he croons: “My darling.” The homosocial desire is destroyed when Stephen murders Gogol who intones, “Each man kills the thing he loves”“” echoing on the soundtrack.

In the film’s closing moments, the secret desire is finally spoken out loud…Has Stephen killed the man he loves? Given that the phrase that Gogol mutters was written originally by Oscar Wilde, whose homosexuality scandalized the British social and legal system in 1895, reading the homosocial desire into Mad Love within the very last moments, we are left to decipher the suspended cues. We are left with Stephen’s gazing at Gogol’s face and his knifed body as he lay dying, he speaks the words, “˜My darling” while the camera frames the two men sharing that moment in the closing scene.

The mad doctor narrative is particularly predisposed to homosocial impulses. “intense male homosocial desire as at once the most compulsory and the most prohibited of social bonds” – Epistemology of the Closet (Sedgwick)

Sedgwick investigated early fantasy/horror novels, Shelley’s Frankenstein 1818, Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1886, and Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau 1895. At the beginning of the 1930s, these stories centered around mad doctors who delved into unorthodox, profane explorations and were all adapted to the screen. All of these nefarious or scientific, inquisitive men cultivated secret experiments, challenging the laws of nature. What Sedgwick found was that the Gothic literary representations of men performing homosocial collaborations were ‘not socially sanctioned and shunned.’

It was considered a necessary narrative element as well as a monstrous possibility that threatened to subvert the status quo. The combination of these two attitudes is expressed in homosocial narratives- male bonding is both horrifying and guaranteed, entailing the simultaneous introjection and expulsion of femininity. (Sedgwick)

“My darling”…

James Whale was a gay auteur who often imbued his work intentionally or with the ‘intentional fallacy’ of a ‘queer’ sense of dark humor. This comical, campy absurdity was always on the edge of his vision of horror and subtle profanity. His picture The Invisible Man (1933), adapted from H.G. Wells’s story and starring Claude Rains, was classified as a horror film by the Code.

Dr. Jack Griffin (Rains), the antihero, is a frenzied scientist addicted to his formula as he seeks the ability to make himself invisible. His sanity begins to ‘vanish’ as his hunger for power, delusions of grandeur, and bursts of megalomania grow out of control. He plans on assassinating government officials, and he becomes more belligerent the longer he turns invisible. The idea that he displays radical ideas and runs around in the nude didn’t seem to arouse the censors; in 1933, a letter from James Wingate to Hays states, “highly fantastic and exotic [sic] vein, and presents no particular censorship difficulties.”

What’s interesting about the presentation of the story is that the coded gay leitmotifs were paraded out, right under the Code’s noses, and didn’t stir any indignation for its ‘queer’ humor.

Gloria Stuart and Claude Rains in James Whale’s The Invisible Man 1933

The Invisible Man perpetrates campy assaults on all the ‘normal’ people in his way, with intervals of sardonic cackles and golden wit and, at the same time, a menacing reflection of light and shadow. Claude Rains is a concealed jester who makes folly of his victims.

“An invisible man can rule the world. Nobody will see him come, nobody will see him go. He can hear every secret. He can rob, and wreck, and kill.” –Dr. Jack Griffin (The Invisible Man)

Claude Rains plays Dr. Jack Griffin, an outsider (a favorite of James Whale’s characters) who discovers the secret of invisibility, which changes him from a mild yet arrogant scientist into a maniacal killer. The film bears much of Whale’s campy sense of humor, with Griffin’s comic shenanigans abound until things turn dark and he becomes uncontrollably violent. “We’ll begin with a reign of terror, a few murders here and there, Murders of great men, Murders of little men, just to show we make no distinction. I might even wreck a train or two… just these fingers around a signalman’s throat, that’s all.”

According to Gary Morris (Bright Lights Film Journal), ‘The film demands crypto-faggot reading in poignant scenes such as the one where he reassures his ex-girlfriend, who begs him to hide from the authorities: “the whole worlds my hiding place. I can stand out there amongst them in the day or night and laugh at them.”

Though Griffin’s (Claude Rains) character is unseen at times, there are potent moments, when he is animated as he skips to the tune, “Here we go gathering nuts in May” flitting around like a fairy.

It is suggested that The Invisible Man is a metaphor for the way homosexuals are seen/not seen by society – as “effeminate, dangerous when naked, seeking a male partner in “crime,” tending to idolize his fiance rather than love her, and becoming ‘visible’ only when shot by the police…monitored by doctors, and heard regretting his sin against God (i.e., made into a statistic by the three primary forces oppressing queers: the law, the medical establishment, and religious orthodoxy” (Sedgwick)

The Invisble Man [undressing] “They’ve asked for it, the country bumpkins. This will give them a bit of a shock, something to write home about. A nice bedtime story for the kids, too, if they want it”

Continue reading “Chapter 4 – Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:”

Postcards from Shadowland no. 16 Halloween edition –

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) Directed by Jack Arnold adapted by Richard Matheson and starring Grant Williams
Five Million Years to Earth (1967) Directed by Roy Ward Baker, written by Nigel Kneale starring Barbara Shelley and Andrew Keir
The Manster (1959) Directed by George P. Breakston starring Peter Dyneley, Jane Hylton and Tetsu Nakamura
The Twilight People (1972) Directed by Eddie Romero
Bluebeard (1972) Directed by Edward Dmytryk. Starring Richard Burton, Raquel Welch, Virna Lisi, Natalie Delon, Agostina Belli, Karen Schubert, Sybil Danning, Joey Heatherton and Marilù Tolo
The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) Directed by Robert Florey with a screenplay by Curt Siodmak. Starring Robert Alda, Peter Lorre, Andrea King and J. Carrol Naish
Carnival of Souls (1962) Directed by Herk Harvey starring Candace Hilligoss
The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) Directed by Robert Florey Starring Robert Alda, Peter Lorre, Andrea King and J. Carrol Naish
Bedlam (1946) Directed by Mark Robson Starring Boris Karloff, Anna Lee, Ian Wolfe,Billy House, Richard Fraser, Glen Vernon and Elizabeth Russell. Produced by Val Lewton
Dracula (1931) Directed by Tod Browning adapted from the novel by Bram Stoker-Starring Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye, Frances Dade and Edward Van Sloane
Blood and Roses (1960) Directed by Roger Vadim. Adapted from the novel by Sheridan Le Fanu- Starring Mel Ferrer, Elsa Martinelli, Annette Stroyberg
Black Sunday (1960) La maschera del demonio-Directed by Mario Bava Starring Barbara Steele, John Richardson and Andrea Checci
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) Directed by William Dieterle Starring Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Hara and Cedric Hardwicke adapted from the novel by Victor Hugo
War of the Colossal Beast (1958) Directed by Bert I. Gordon Starring Sally Fraser and Roger Pace
It Conquered the World (1956) Directed by Roger Corman- Starring Beverly Garland, Peter Graves Lee Van Cleef and The Cucumber Monster
Curse of the Faceless Man (1958) Directed by Edward L. Cahn–Starring Richard Anderson, Elaine Edwards, Adele Mara and Luis Van Rooten
The Old Dark House 1932 directed by James Whale-Gloria Stuart and Boris Karloff
Dead of Night (1945) Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, and Robert Hamer.–Starring Michael Redgrave, Mervyn Johns, Roland Culver, Googie Withers, Mary Merrall, Sally Ann Howes, Frederick Valk, Anthony Baird
Die! Die! My Darling! (1965) directed by Silvio Narizzano with a screenplay by Richard Matheson adapted from a novel by Anne Blaisdell–Starring Tallulah Bankhead, Stephanie Powers, Peter Vaughan, Donald Sutherland and Yootha Joyce
The Tenant (1976) Directed by Roman Polanski–Starring Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Jo Van Fleet, Bernard Fresson, Lila Kedrova, Claude Dauphin and Shelley Winters
House of Horrors (1946) Directed by Jean Yarborough starring “The Creeper” Rondo Hatton, Martin Kosleck and Virginia Gray
Spirits of the Dead (Italy/France 1968) aka Histoires extraordinaires
Segment: “William Wilson” Directed by Louis Malle
Shown from left: Brigitte Bardot, Alain Delon
Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) Directed by Freddie Francis–Screenplay by Milton Subotsky–Starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Neil McCallum, Ursula Howells, Peter Madden, Katy Wild, Alan Freeman, Ann Bell, Phoebe Nichols, Bernard Lee, Jeremy Kemp
Doctor X (1932) Directed by Michael Curtiz-Starring Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster, John Wray, Harry Beresford
Frankenstein (1910) Produced by Thomas Edison Directed by J. Searle Dawley
Horror Hotel aka The City of the Dead (1960) Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey Starring Christopher Lee, Patricia Jessel, Dennis Lotis, Tom Naylor and Betta St. John. From a story by Milton Subotsky
House of Frankenstein (1944) Directed by Erle C. Kenton from a story by Curt Siodmak. Starring Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr. J.Carrol Naish, John Carradine, Anne Gwynne, Peter Coe, Lionel Atwill and George Zucco
Island of Lost Souls (1932) Directed by Erle C. Kenton Starring Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams and Kathleen Burke based on a story by H.G.Wells
Isle of the Dead (1945) directed by Mark Robson written by Ardel Wray-Starring Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer, Katherine Emery, Helene Thimig, Alan Napier, Jason Robards Sr.
Carl Theodor Dreyer Leaves from Satan’s Book (1921) starring Helge Nissen
Diabolique (1955) Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot adapted by Pierre Boileau Starring Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot and Paul Meurisse
The Wolf Man (1941) Directed by George Waggner Starring Lon Chaney Jr. Claude Rains, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy, Patric Knowles, Bela Lugosi, Maria Ouspenskaya, Evelyn Ankers and Fay Helm original screenplay by Curt Siodmak
Night Must Fall (1937)
Directed by Richard Thorpe
Shown from left: Robert Montgomery, Dame May Whitty
Phantom of the Opera (1925) Directed by Rupert Julian and Lon Chaney. Starring Lon Chaney and Mary Philbin story by Gaston Leroux
Strangler of the Swamp (1946) directed by Frank Wisbar-starring Rosemary La Planche, Robert Barrat with an original story by Leo J. McCarthy
Nosferatu (1922) directed by F.W.Murnau Starring Max Schreck
The Abominable Snowman (1957) Directed by Val Guest starring Forrest Tucker, Peter Cushing and Maureen Connell written by Nigel Kneale
The Bat Whispers (1930) Directed by Roland West-starring Chance Ward, Richard Tucker, Wilson Benge, DeWitt Jennings, Una Merkel Grace Hamptom, and Chester Morris
The Curse of the Cat People (1944) directed by Gunther von Fritsch- Starring Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Ann Carter, and Elizabeth Russell. Screenplay by DeWitt Bodeen
Mighty Joe Young (1949) Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack
Young Frankenstein (1974) Directed by Mel Brooks Starring Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Teri Garr, Kenneth Mars and Liam Dunn.
The Devil Bat (1940) directed by Jean Yarborough Starring Bela Lugosi
The Fly (1958) directed by Kurt Neumann screenplay by James Clavell, Starring David Hedison, Patricia Owens and Vincent Price
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) directed by Tobe Hooper. Starring Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger and Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface
The Undead (1957) Directed by Roger Corman written by Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna Starring Pamela Duncan, Richard Garland, Allison Hayes, Val Dufour, Bruno VeSota, Mel Welles, Dorothy Neumann and Billy Barty
The Witches (1966) directed by Cyril Frankel Written by Nigel Kneale Starring Joan Fontaine, Kay Walsh and Alec McCowen
The Uninvited (1944) directed by Lewis Allen Starring Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Cornelia Otis Skinner and Gail Russell
THE NIGHT CALLER [BR 1965] aka BLOOD BEAST FROM OUTER SPACE MAURICE DENHAM, JOHN SAXON, JOHN CARSON Date: 1965
Poltergeist (1982) directed by Tobe Hooper written by Steven Spielberg. Starring JoBeth Williams, Beatrice Straight, Craig T. Nelson, Dominique Dunne Heather O’Rourke

Postcards From Shadowland: no. 15

Anna The Rose Tattoo
Anna Magnani in Tennessee William’s The Rose Tattoo (1955) directed by Daniel Mann
Blood of a Poet 32 Cocteua
director Jean Cocteau’s The Blood of the Poet (1932) starring Enrique Rivero
Broken-Blossoms-Gish
Lillian Gish stars in Broken Blossoms in D. W. Griffith’s (1919) visual poetry
kongo1932
Kongo (1932) Lupe Velez torments Virginia Bruce in this remake of West of Zanzibar (1928)
GIULETTA MASINA in Fellini's masterpiece oneric journey Juilet of the Spirits 1965
Guiletta Masina is brilliant in Juliet of the Spirits (1965) Fellini’s masterpiece oneric journey
kuroneko
director Kaneto Shindô’s Kuroneko (1968) a beautifully disturbing ghost story
Anita Louise as Titania
Anita Louise as Titania Queen of the Faeries in A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1935
Brando and Schneider The Last Tango in Paris
Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider in The Last Tango in Paris 1972
Ohmart and Franz The Wild Party
Arthur Franz, Anthony Quinn and Carol Ohmart in The Wild Party 1956
Annex - Alexander, Katharine as Alda Death Takes a Holiday)_01
Death Takes a Holiday (1934) Katherine Alexander as Alda with Fredric March as Prince Sirki/Death
curtis-strangler
Richard Fleischer directs Tony Curtis in The Boston Strangler 1968
Dead of Night
Part of several segments of this classical ghost story, Alberto Cavalcanti directs Michael Redgrave in perhaps one of the most famous frightening tales in “The Ventriloquist’s Dummy” Dead of Night (1945)
Shock Corridor
Peter Breck is attacked by Nymphomaniacs in Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor (1963)
Brighton Rock Dick Attenborough as Pinkie Brown with Carol Marsh
Film noir thriller Brighton Rock (1947) starring Richard Attenborough as Pinkie Brown co-stars with Carol Marsh
Clementine
John Ford’s epic western drama -My Darling Clementine 1946 starring Henry Fonda and Linda Darnell
The Maids 1933 men in drag
Charles Busch, left, and Peter Francis James in a 1993 Classic Theater Company production of "The Maids" (1933) in which the sisters were men in drag
The Living Dead Man 1926-Michel Simon Jérôme Pomino
The Living Dead Man 1926-Michel Simon as Jérôme Pomino
the-bride-wore-black
François Truffaut’s tribute to Alfred Hitchcock with The Bride Wore Black (1968) starring the incomparable Jeanne Moreau
The Sea Hawk 1924
The Sea Hawk (1924) directed by Harold Lloyd starring silent film idol Milton Sills
through a glass darkly
Harriet Andersson in Through A Glass Darkly (1961) director Ingmar Bergman
The notorious Last Supper sequence in Luis Buñuel's VIRIDIANA.  Credit: Janus Films.  Playing 4/24 - 4/30.
The notorious Last Supper sequence in Luis Buñuel’s VIRIDIANA Janus Films. 

Postcards From Shadowland No.5

A Cry in The Night (1956) Directed by Frank Tuttle, and starring Natalie Wood, Edmond O’Brien and Brian Donlevy
Curse of The Cat People 1944 directed by Robert Wise, produced by Val Lewton, and starring Simone Simon, Kent Smith and Ann Carter
The Sea Beast 1926 directed by Millard Webb, written by Herman Melville and starring Dolores Costello and John Barrymore.
La Belle et la Bête 1946 directed by Jean Cocteau starring Jean Marais and Josette Day.
The Big Heat (1953) directed by Fritz Lang and Starring Gloria Grahame, Glenn Ford and Jocelyn Brando.
Body and Soul 1947 directed by Robert Rossen, starring John Garfield, Lilli Palmer and Hazel Brooks
Bury Me Dead (1947) directed by Bernard Vorhaus starring Cathy O’Donnell, June Lockart and Hugh Beaumont.
Curse of The Cat People 1944 directed by Robert Wise, and produced by Val Lewton. Starring Simone Simon, Kent Smith and Ann Carter.
Dead of Night (1945) directed by Alberto Cavalcanti,Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. With stories by H.G.Wells, E.F.Benson, John Baines and Angus MacPhail.
Dracula’s Daughter 1936 directed by Lambert Hillyer, and starring Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden, Marguerite Churchill and Edward Van Sloan.
The Penalty 1920 directed by Wallace Worsley and starring Lon Chaney as Blizzard. With Charles Clary, Doris Pawn, Jim Mason and Ethel Grey Terry.
Eye of The Devil 1966 directed by J.Lee Thompson and starring Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Sharon Tate, Donald Pleasance, Flora Robson and David Hemmings.
Each Dawn I Die (1939) directed by William Keighley and starring George Raft and James Cagney.
Horror Hotel (1960) aka City of The Dead directed by John Llewellyn Moxey and starring Christopher Lee, Patricia Jessel, Dennis Lotis and Betta St. John
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Ivor Novello as the mysterious Lodger.
I Wake Up Screaming (1941) directed by H.Bruce Humberstone and starring Victor Mature, Betty Grable and Carol Landis.
Robert Aldrich’s 1955 Film Noir Kiss Me Deadly starring Ralph Meeker as Mike Hammer.
MAD LOVE (1935) directed by Karl Freund starring Peter Lorre, Frances Drake and Colin Clive.
The Man Who Laughs 1928 directed by Paul Leni and starring Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine, and Mary Philbin as Dea.
Fritz Lang’s German Expressionist masterpiece of futuristic entropy blending element of Sci-Fi and hints of Film Noir to come. Metropolis (1927) Starring Brigitte Helm and Alfred Abel.
William Castle’s The Night Walker (1964) starring Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor, Judi Meredith, Lloyd Bochner and Marjorie Bennett.