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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2017 1:40:12 GMT
Utter rubbish. Virtually nothing in common with the Poe story, no scares and no thrills. "Here, we'll put a fake unibrow on Lugosi, that will make him seem menacing."
Plodding direction and lackluster writing doesn't help.
3/10
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Post by Nalkarj on Dec 26, 2017 5:28:57 GMT
Ah, sorry to hear you didn’t take to this one. While your criticisms are well-taken, I think this Murders in the Rue Morgue has a lot going for it.
Robert Florey, who directed, was an intriguing talent; he got to manage this flick without much involvement from the studio during filming as compensation for having been removed from Frankenstein (which ended up with a far better director in Jimmy Whale). Florey directed a lot of stinkers in his career, to be sure, but some real little gems too: this, The Cocoanuts, The Florentine Dagger, The Beast with Five Fingers.
Rue Morgue displays some of Florey’s surprising similarities with Lugosi’s Dracula director, Tod Browning; indeed, the opening at the circus/sideshow and the lack of supernaturalism all bespeak Browning. That opening manages to evoke both Browning’s The Unholy Three and Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Caligari is the major plot-influence throughout, with Dr. Mirakle and Dr. Caligari not only resembling each other but also having similar murder methods.
Like Browning, Florey was an old-fashioned director who believed more in cutting than in camera movement to move around in-scene; one simply has to get used to the style, I suppose. (I’ve been watching a good deal of Browning’s films recently, so I’ve been thinking about it for a while now.) The plot, I am perfectly willing to state, is weak, but, as with Dracula, the fun is in the performances and the mise-en-scène: there are some wonderful images here, some genuinely spooky evocations. I love that Poe-esque Paris that never was, that expressionism (Lord, the use of shadows!) with which Florey and cinematographer Karl Freund fill in their frame, that operatic quality (La bohème in particular) to the sets, that haunting fog in which murder is done…
With Dracula and The Mummy (both also involving Freund—the former as cinematographer, the latter as director), this is horror-as-painting, or even as poetry, whereas Whale’s films are horror-as-theatre and Hillyer’s, Lee’s, or Waggner’s horror-as-prose. I do not particularly care about the plot here, but I remember the images—and that, I think, is the point.
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Post by petrolino on Dec 26, 2017 12:09:09 GMT
Awesome movie.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Dec 26, 2017 17:42:23 GMT
Florey directed a lot of stinkers in his career, to be sure, but some real little gems too: this, The Cocoanuts, The Florentine Dagger, The Beast with Five Fingers.
Just wanted to kick in with another Florey gem, The Face Behind the Mask. An especially effective vehicle for Peter Lorre, it's a wonderful demonstration of his range, finding him going from wide-eyed, eager to please immigrant to desperate outcast to ruthless crime boss to tender suitor, doting husband and, ultimately, dealer of cold, calculating vengeance. Accomplishing quite a lot in under 70 minutes, it weaves an unconventional tale that's epic in its own modest way, and full of twists and turns while infused with sensitivity throughout. With The Beast With Five Fingers, it fills out a twin package of Florey-Lorre glory. Haven't seen The Florentine Dagger; its thumbnail synopsis sounds thematically similar to Mad Love (speaking of Lorre), released only four months later. I'll have to seek that one out.
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bd74
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Post by bd74 on Dec 26, 2017 19:25:11 GMT
It's been several years since I've seen this, and I don't remember much about it, other than it being a crappy movie. One thing I do recall is that it had really good cinematography. It's my winner in that category for the year.
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Post by Nalkarj on Dec 26, 2017 20:47:18 GMT
Just wanted to kick in with another Florey gem, The Face Behind the Mask. An especially effective vehicle for Peter Lorre, it's a wonderful demonstration of his range, finding him going from wide-eyed, eager to please immigrant to desperate outcast to ruthless crime boss to tender suitor, doting husband and, ultimately, dealer of cold, calculating vengeance. Accomplishing quite a lot in under 70 minutes, it weaves an unconventional tale that's epic in its own modest way, and full of twists and turns while infused with sensitivity throughout. With The Beast With Five Fingers, it fills out a twin package of Florey-Lorre glory. Haven't seen The Florentine Dagger; its thumbnail synopsis sounds thematically similar to Mad Love (speaking of Lorre), released only four months later. I'll have to seek that one out. I haven’t actually seen The Face Behind the Mask, Doghouse, but it sounds right up my alley! Thanks for the recommendation. As for The Florentine Dagger, it’s a fun whodunit with a good horror streak; the atmospherics are particularly good (as they are in Murders in the Rue Morgue). Also some plotting similarities with Castle in the Desert, one of the better late Chans. Mad Love is one of my long-time favorite horror flicks, but I’ve never actually thought that there were that many similarities… I’m going to have to look again.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Dec 26, 2017 21:14:07 GMT
NalkarjJust so's ya know .... The Face Behind the Mask IS on EweTube but Mad Love is there only as bits and pieces and clips. (Drat!)
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