This week on SVENGOOLIE...

RedRiver
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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Should I know MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT? I don't think I've ever NOT liked a Chayefsky film!
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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It looks like Svengoolie has come up with a winner this weekend. MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. The old one! This cult classic from the early 1930s features Mr. Lugosi as a mad doctor (Really?) experimenting with people, apes, and well...you know what to expect! The movie is primitive; not always exciting. A later remake is just as good. But the fact that it's THAT old, that it's THAT guy, makes this creepy, clever Poe adaptation a classic. Basketball not withstanding, I'll be watching!
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Bronxgirl48
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RedRiver wrote:Should I know MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT? I don't think I've ever NOT liked a Chayefsky film!
Mike, as a fellow Paddy lover, I can say without hesitation that MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT is a must! Wonderful performances by Fred, Kim, Albert, and --- Glenda Farrell!
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Wonder why this never seems to cross my path.
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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RedRiver wrote:It looks like Svengoolie has come up with a winner this weekend. MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. The old one! This cult classic from the early 1930s features Mr. Lugosi as a mad doctor (Really?) experimenting with people, apes, and well...you know what to expect! The movie is primitive; not always exciting. A later remake is just as good. But the fact that it's THAT old, that it's THAT guy, makes this creepy, clever Poe adaptation a classic. Basketball not withstanding, I'll be watching!
I'm watching Syracuse in a nail-biter with Dayton. If they win, I'll probably have be psyched and try to catch this one. Isn't this the one where an incredibly young Leon Ames appears as well?
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

Post by Brian McFadden »

RedRiver wrote:It looks like Svengoolie has come up with a winner this weekend. MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. The old one! This cult classic from the early 1930s features Mr. Lugosi as a mad doctor (Really?) experimenting with people, apes, and well...you know what to expect! The movie is primitive; not always exciting. A later remake is just as good. But the fact that it's THAT old, that it's THAT guy, makes this creepy, clever Poe adaptation a classic. Basketball not withstanding, I'll be watching!
This is an excellent pre-code shocker, but some of the more intense moments in the film may explain why some felt it was necessary to impose a code a short time later. Perhaps the most squeamish scene involves a street walker (played by Arlene Francis, later of TV's "What's My Line fame") being put on an X-cross, where Bela Lugosi extracts her blood and then dumps her in the river.) But the overall atmosphere is excellent and - despite a very fake looking gorilla - there are plenty of scares.

Brian
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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Visitor From The Bronx! The library has ordered the Chayefsky film for me. They had to get The Kim Novak Collection. But that's OK. Maybe I'll watch PICNIC again!
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As for Svengoolie...

Moira, heroic young Leon Waycoff (later Mr. Ames) is prominently featured in this creeper, and commits himself honorably. The man was nothing if not stalwart, even in later years. And you're right. Saturday night TV must compete with A LOT of basketball right now! I'm glad Brian Mcfadden weighed in on this one. My lukewarm recommendation a few days ago failed to do justice.

Lugosi was never more sadly sinister than in this intriguing tale. A scientist whose goal is to prove ancestral connection between apes and humans (Heresy! The man's mad!), he clearly doesn't know when to stop. (How might the filmmakers feel if they knew that, 80 years later, we're still having the same debate?) The doctor needs subjects. When lab experiments prove less than therapeutic, well...who will miss these waifs and wanderers? The scene described by Brian, with the victim on a cross, is sad, terrifying and...religious?

The movie is quite well directed by Robert Florey. Shots are clear and striking, as well as gothic and atmospheric. The mood does as much to tell the story as any amount of dialogue could. Contrary to what I said in previous comments, the film wastes no time. Most scenes, save an obligatory kiss or two, have something meaningful to say. They get right to the point, and the point is hair-raising. This is a fine old Universal film, and further proof that nobody ever did horror better! I retract my mediocre review and hereby upgrade this to MUST SEE!
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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Red & Brian--Thanks for the hearty recommendations. I have seen parts of Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), but seeing most of it this time (I fell asleep), it sure earned the moniker, "pre-code shocker"--especially in the Arlene Francis' moments. The art direction--esp. the sets and lighting-was brilliantly expressionistic, and it hid the ersatz quality of the "monkey" pretty well. Loved Bela's unibrow, making him more convincingly simian than the actual ape.

I thought that Sven did a better job than usual filling us in a bit on Bela Lugosi, Leonard Wycoff, and Sidney Fox, whose career I had read about here at Classic Images and elsewhere previously:
http://www.classicimages.com/people/art ... 70494.html

Too bad there wasn't more about the director Robert Florey (at least when I was awake).
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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RedRiver wrote:Visitor From The Bronx! The library has ordered the Chayefsky film for me. They had to get The Kim Novak Collection. But that's OK. Maybe I'll watch PICNIC again!

Hey, Mikey, you'll like it! (MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT) Kim is also wonderful (and so iconic) in PICNIC. Guess what? I thought she actually had more rapport and chemistry with old poop Fredric March than Bill Holden, lol. Go figure, that's just my feeling. Then again, who knows what went on behind the scenes of those films....

Ah, yes, MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. Some of the dialogue has stayed with me lo these many, many years since back in the day:

"You liked her, didn't you, Erik?"

"I vill PROOOOVE your kinship vit de APE!"

"You have made a CONQUEST, mademoiselle!"

I've never caught the 1954 version. It's not everyday you see a horror movie with Karl Malden and Merv Griffin.
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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When I think of actors likely to present Paddy Chayefsky's material, Kim Novak and Fredric March do not come to mind! Jack Warden, Eileen Heckart, Carolyn Jones: those are Chayefsky characters! But this just makes me want to watch the movie even more. Something different. The library assures me it should be here by the end of this year, or the beginning of the next presidential administration at the very latest!
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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Bronxgirl48 wrote:I've never caught the 1954 version. It's not everyday you see a horror movie with Karl Malden and Merv Griffin.
Fortunately. Thanks for the laugh. I forgot that Merv had a life before tv.
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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Invisible Man on Svengoolie


[youtube][/youtube]


I'm actually looking forward watching this Saturday ... one of my favorite movies made in 1933.
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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Thanks for the heads up, Erik. The Invisible Man is insanely entertaining.
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Re: This week on SVENGOOLIE...

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One of the very best of the classic horror films. You can't SEE too much of THE INVISIBLE MAN!
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