Word: frankenstein
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...candle-lit surgery in London, Dr. Jekyll brews broth of Hell, gulps down his potation, and with many a phthisical cough turns into "Mr. 'Ide," the terror of Limehouse. In Germany, Bavarian merrymaking is stilled as Frankenstein's monster stalks abroad. And somewhere in the English countryside, Count Dracula pushes up his mouldering coffin-lid, flicks the gravedirt from his shoulders, and adjusts his cravat for a pleasant evening...
...exaggerated the element of horror. This element is sufficiently diluted in the actual showing to make more prominent other merits, such as the careful settings, imaginatively done, and the capable photography and camera-angles. There is a consistent tone to the piece, a tone that was lacking in "Frankenstein," with its weakening comedy interludes. The extravagance and absurdity of the plot is somehow reconciled by the opening scene sin the mountebank's tent, which set the key for shivery theatricality. Mirakle, showman that he is, can heap leer on leer and only add to our pleasure...
Horror films, plots with newspaper or gangster settings have undoubtedly fulfilled the wishes of the movie going public, but they have also fitted in happily with the producers' campaign to cut costs. "Frankenstein", "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and "Murders in the Rue Morgue," the latter opening at the R.K.O. Keith today, constitute a trio of carefully contrived hair-raisers. A survey of other current titles reveals additional evidence that melodrama and the effects of the spoken word are being capitalized...
...Critics who feel that the cinema should be an independent medium are discouraged because an overwhelming majority of the best talkies are reproductions of successful plays or novels. Tonight or Never is a case in point. The cast-with the exception of Alison Skipworth, Gloria Swanson and Boris Karloff, Frankenstein's monster, who herein plays a waiter-is the one which made the play a success in Manhattan when it was produced by the late David Belasco. The cinema, directed by Mervyn Leroy, differs from Mr. Belasco's production mainly in the fact that Gloria Swanson performs more...
...mechanical means of forecasting the efficacy of mechanical entertainment. Said he: "Instead of the old hit or miss previews we can now know exactly the emotional effect of any film, can cut out the 'dead' spots, and generally improve the pictures distributed." A live spot in Frankenstein as revealed by the "Lie-Detector": one in which the ugly face of Frankenstein's dwarfish assistant pops up from behind a graveyard fence. Dead spots: the reappearance of the dwarf's face in subsequent scenes when familiarity has made it less frightening...