James Whale's 1931 Frankenstein classic comes to Peacock and kicks off a series of Universal horror

[Mysterious Benefactor]

WORTH WATCHING: ... and Classic Horror, ...

"Peacock, which also begins streaming classics from the Universal Horror vaults."

Frankenstein
Peacock
As a horror fan from childhood, I’m much more excited about Peacock’s mega-drop of titles from parent studio Universal’s vault of vintage monster movies, starting with the 1931 James Whale Frankenstein classic that started it all. The original 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi as the creepy count is also in the lineup. Other titles include Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, 1932’s The Mummy and four Mummy sequels, 1935’s The Raven (pairing Karloff and Lugosi) and many more. Halloween has come early, and I’m not complaining.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Oh, yes, these films are magnificent. I remember watching these classic films as a young kid with all of my friends, when the films were aired on local NYC television stations back over sixty years ago. I think my love of these wonderful films prompted me to start watching “Dark Shadows,” a daily soap opera which featured a reluctant vampire, a vindictive witch, a man-made and decidedly concupiscentn monster along with a veritable host of ghosts!

An excellent film biography of horror film director James Whale is “Gods and Monsters,” starring Sir Ian McKellen as James Whale along with Brendan Fraser and the late Lynn Redgrave. In the film, James Whale tells Brendan Fraser’s character that Boris Marloff was a fine actor and “the most boring man I ever met.” Ouch!

If you can get the dvds of the original Universal horror films, there are some excellent commentaries on them. On “The Bride of Frankenstein” dvd, I learned that one of the terrified townspeople seen running from the monster, is a very young Walter Brennan, long before his Grandpa McCoy days on tv. (If you blink, you’ll miss seeing Mr. Brennan.)

I’ll bet you that young David Collins enjoyed watching these classic Universal horror films on tv when he wasn’t busy trying to scare Vicky Winters or sabotage his father’s bleeder-valve on his dad’s classic Mustang. 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I know I've seen almost all of those movies, many multiple times - but I don't know if I've seen all four Mummy sequels. I should check them out to be sure...

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Regarding those mummy films, Lon Chaney, Jr. portrayed Karis (sp?), the slow-moving mummy in those four Universal horror films. (Boris Karloff had portrayed the mummy in a earlier film.)

Actor Dick Foran (of beautiful Flemington, NJ) as a young archaeologist appeared in the first couple of mummy films, along with the always-wonderfully creepy British actor, George Zucco and Turkish actor Turham Bey.

The first begins in an all archaeological dig in Egypt. The second film occurs many years later, where Turham Bey brings Karis to a Midwestern university town, where retired Professor Dick Foran resides, to kill the professor for violating Karis’s pyramid in the first film.There’s also a beautiful, young American woman, who is the spitting image/reincarnation of an Egyptian princess, buried with Karis centuries before and whom the love-mstarved Karis of has an unrequited love for.

After Karis is presumably destroyed in that Midwestern town, he inexplicably shows up in a town in Louisiana in the next film, still carrying a torch for that comely Egyptian princess.

It would have been interesting if Dan Curtis had introduced a mummy storyline in conjunction with the Laura Collins/great god Ra plot. Oh, well, what might have been on DS.