![]() ![]() 1939 saw the release Son of Frankenstein, the second sequel to Frankenstein after Bride of Frankenstein. The Laemmle family lost control of Universal in 1936 and the studio lost interest in horror - but only momentarily. It buoyed the studio’s fortunes (for a while) and helped make Universal synonymous with horror.įrom there the story twists. It also established the trademarks of a Universal monster movie, combining macabre atmospheres and shocking flashes of violence - sometimes the object of censorship - with monsters that were often as pitiable as they were scary and stories that tapped into deeper themes of death, compulsion, and insanity. That remarkable early-’30s run debuted one now-iconic movie character after another, the collaborative work of the films’ stars directors Tod Browning, James Whale, and Karl Freund the studio’s in-house writing talent and makeup and effects wizards like Jack Pierce and John P. Karloff returned in The Mummy in 1932, followed by Claude Rains as The Invisible Man in 1933. Frankenstein, featuring the English-born Boris Karloff as the mad scientist’s stitched-together creation, followed in November. Dracula, with its chilling lead performance by the Hungarian-born Béla Lugosi, arrived in February. Those efforts didn’t always translate into profits for Universal, which would prove a problem for Junior, and Universal, later in the decade - but in 1931, both found tremendous success by unleashing a string of horrors on an unsuspecting moviegoing public. ![]() The son of Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle, the junior Laemmle had served as the studio’s head of production since 1928, helping the studio transition to the talkie era and earning acclaim for efforts like All Quiet on the Western Front and Waterloo Bridge. saw the future in 1931 and the future looked scary. Photo-Illustration: Vulture and Universal PicturesĬarl Laemmle Jr. ![]()
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