The Bela Lugosi Collection
'Poor Bela,' Boris Karloff once lamented to an interviewer who asked him about his old rival. 'He was his own worst enemy.'
Reviewed by Steve Uhler, Fri., Sept. 16, 2005
The Bela Lugosi Collection
Universal, $26.98
"Poor Bela," Boris Karloff once lamented to an interviewer who asked him about his old rival. "He was his own worst enemy." Bela Lugosi's career as an A-list star lasted about as long as a full moon, but his autographs now fetch five times the price of Karloff's. His aristocratic bearing and impenetrable Hungarian accent made him a mimic's dream but severely stunted his Hollywood career. After his star-making turn in Universal's Dracula (1931), he balked when the studio cast him as the mute monster in the inevitable Frankenstein. "I was a Shakespearean actor back in my homeland," he huffed, which was true enough, but Hungarian Shakespeare wasn't selling box office tickets. Lugosi's vanity cost him dearly, opening the window for Karloff to inherit the part and usurp Lugosi's place as King of Horror. Lugosi succumbed to increasingly diminishing roles, typecasting, and foolish choices (mostly his), a victim of his own pride and obstinacy.The Bela Lugosi Collection showcases four of Lugosi's best pairings with Karloff, as well as his most seldom-seen starring role in 1932's Murders in the Rue Morgue. The standout gem is the duo's first onscreen collaboration, 1934's The Black Cat, a delirious pre-Code pastiche of perversions, including incest, pedophilia, torture, and Satanism, all topped off by an imposing post-Bauhaus set designed by director Edgar G. Ulmer (Detour). As Dr. Vitus Werdegast, Lugosi had a rare heroic role as a prisoner of war returning after 20 years to claim vengeance on an old enemy (Karloff at his most sinister, modeling his performance after Aleister Crowley). Bela does get to skin Karloff alive in the climax – retribution that must have given the actor pleasure. Lugosi dominates The Raven (1935) as a sadistic, Poe-obsessed plastic surgeon with a nasty little torture dungeon in the basement. When wanted criminal Karloff comes to him asking for a new face, Lugosi obliges, disfiguring the mobster's face into a horrible visage (reasoning that "perhaps if people are ugly, they do ugly things") in order to execute his nefarious plans. In 1936's tepid The Invisible Ray, Lugosi looked dapper in a goatee, but his box office cachet was slipping, Karloff's name towering over his in the credits. By Black Friday (1940), Lugosi had skidded to fifth billing, miscast in a minor role as a gangster. Little lay ahead but the long descent into drugs, Ed Wood's circle of Hollywood losers, and, appropriately, posthumous career resurrection. – Steve Uhler
Also Out Now
Toy Story: 10th Anniversary Edition (Disney/Pixar): Andy, Buzz, and the gang get the Disney reissue refurbishment, loaded with bonus footage, deleted scenes, and behind-the-scenes and making-of featurettes.The Sting: Legacy Series Edition (Universal): 1973's winner of seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay) reteamed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid director George Roy Hill with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Not as memorable as its predecessor, but it beats the hell out of Mac Davis and Jackie Gleason.
To Kill a Mockingbird: Legacy Series Edition (Universal): Gregory Peck morphed from stolid actor to American icon as Atticus Finch, the white conscience of the South in the Oscar-winning adaptation of Harper Lee's groundbreaking novel of Southern justice and family values, while Robert Duvall made his screen debut as mysterious neighbor and unlikely hero Boo Radley. "Hey, Boo."
