jsalsberg

I recently fulfilled a 40 year-old dream and finally saw the ever-so-elusive RETURN OF THE TERROR (the Library of Congress has a print). Like most Monster Kids, I first learned about this film from the British trade ad printed in Gifford's "A Pictorial History of Horror Movies". Unfortunately, the film never seemed to turn up on TV, anywhere. Allegedly, it hasn't been shown on TV since 1963. So I considered myself extremely fortunate to see this exceedingly rare movie.

Well... it's a mixed bag of goods.

The film is neither a remake of, nor a sequel to, the 1928 film THE TERROR. "The Terror" is the nickname given by the press to Dr. John Redmayne, who is on trial for having murdered his patients at the Morgan Sanitorium. Although he proclaims his innocence, he pleads insanity and is sentenced to prison. He later escapes and heads back to the Sanitorium. In residence there are his fiancée Olga, and his friend Dr. Goodman, who has invented a fantastic new type of X-ray machine. Also at the sanatorium are a number of very shady characters, including two jewel thieves, a dope addict, a pull-pushing old lady, an eccentric obsessed with knives, and the orderly who testified against Redmayne in court. No sooner does Redmayne appear than corpses begin to pile up. But after a murderous attempt is made on his own life, it appears that Redmayne might not be the killer after all. That plot sounds like prime material for a good blood-and-thunder horror film. The problem, however, is that WB really didn't see the project as a horror film. THE TERROR is definitely an old dark house film. But in RETURN OF THE TERROR there are no secret passages, or clutching hands, or screams in the night. The killer abandons the traditional monk's robes in favor of a trench coat and floppy-brim hat. Numerous opportunities for horror are completely ignored, or underplayed, and the script spends more time on the comic hijinks of Frank McHugh's wisecracking WB-style reporter. The whole thing comes off as a rather mediocre mystery with some slight sorta-kinda genre moments (most notably when the X-ray machine is demonstrated, and the subject can be seem as a skeleton with blinking eyeballs. I don't know how the effect was achieved, but it appears to have been done by painting a skeleton on the actor with luminous paint, and then turning off the lights). There are some nice, potentially creepy settings, and some left-over props from DOCTOR X, but director Bretherton almost deliberately avoids using them for horror effect. This handling places the film in the same category as THE MAD GENIUS and THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. RX. It's a well-made mystery film, with a fantastic cast of character actors; but it's just not an engaging horror film. Needless to say, I was disappointed.

If RETURN OF THE TERROR ever does manage to show up on TCM, watch it. Watch it just to satisfy the completist in you. But don't expect an unknown gem.

Oh, and that vampiric-looking man on the poster in the Gifford book never appears in the film.

I recently tracked down and viewed the ultra-rare, ultra-cheap, "lost" horror film "The Horror" (1933). There is little information out there about this film, and much of that is wrong or contradictory. The print that I saw (at the Library of Congress) was a mess. It was fragmentary (only about 35 minutes- half of the total running time), and looked like someone had edited it with a weed whacker. Scenes were out of order, and the first five minutes exist as soundtrack only. According to some unconfirmed reports, the film is supposedly based on the Sherlock Holmes story "The Valley of Fear", although it shares more in common with "The Sign of Four". But the plot is still closer to Conrad Veidt's "Furcht" and Monogram's "House of Mystery" than it is to Conan Doyle. So here is what I could make out of the mess:

Years ago, John Massey stole an idol from a temple in India, and was cursed by the high priest. One day, Massey realizes he is being watched by a Hindu on the street. He becomes fearful that he will soon be killed. During a storm, a mystic seeks shelter in Massey's home. He gazes into his crystal ball and sees danger for the household. Massey begins to go mad and sees a number of startling hallucinations, including eyes staring at him from the darkness, a boa constrictor crawling across his wife's sleeping body, and imagines himself turning into a Neanderthal-like creature. Running through the house in terror, he is attacked by a gorilla which emerges from the shadows. In the morning, he is found frothing at the mouth, having slipped into total insanity.

That's a very liberal synopsis, because what survives of the print is so confusing that I had to fill-in-the-gaps more than once. "The Horror" never received a theatrical release. The existence of posters and lobby cards indicates that there was an intended release, but (for some reason which has only been speculated) the film was never shown, at least not legit . It has been alleged, however, that the film got some kind of release in Japan. In the mid-40s, Pollard re-cut and shortened the film, retitled it "John the Drunkard", and released it to churches and civic groups. The print in the LC is supposedly the re release cut, but I'm not entirely sure that is the case. For one, it carries the original titles. Aside from some very brief opening narration by Pollard, who says something like "The tale of John the drunkard is a sad one...", there are no references to drinking or alcoholism. The editing is extremely choppy. Scenes begin and end abruptly, and there is no clear narrative flow. About half of the movie consists of romantic interludes between the chauffeur and the maid. Star Leslie King, an established NY stage actor, mugs and overacts his way through every scene he is in. Nyreda Montez, who featured prominently in the advertising, only appears for about 3 minutes. Raja Raboid, the vaudeville magician who plays the mystic, sneers and glowers like a Victorian-era villain twirling his mustache. Gus Alexander plays his dwarf assistant. Well, not really a dwarf, but certainly a short assistant. His participation is limited to guiding the gorilla around the house. The gorilla looks like a hybrid between a typical early '30s Halloween gorilla costume and a very large mouse. There is one randomly inserted shot of a barking dog, accompanied by someone on the soundtrack saying "woof woof". The canned music score runs non-stop throughout the entire film. The real surprise was the Jekyll & Hyde transformation of John Massey into a Neanderthal. The camera dissolves were fluid, and the makeup was unexpectedly good for such a low budget film. After the transformation (and it's never explained why he suddenly turns into a hairy, tusked monster) Massey runs around the house like a chimp, screaming non-stop at the top of his lungs for a good five minutes. It's no surprise that "The Horror" is a stinker of a film. But it's also fascinating to watch, and I give high credit to anyone who can make more out of it than could I.

THE WIZARD is, indeed, a lost film. The negative was destroyed in a vault fire in 1937, and no copies of the film have surfaced since. So anyone who claims to have seen the movie should prove it or shut up. THE WIZARD was not widely shown, even in its day. The few reviews it received said the film was only mediocre at best. Definitely not the classic some would have us believe. However, like London AFTER MIDNIGHT, the film's publicity photos promise much, what with their hideous ape monster and scowling hook-nosed villain; that, alone, often leads modern day fans to assume the film is a classic. Would that it were.