When you consider the case of two stars who pretty much created the classic horror film genre between themselves, it's easy to forget that they were working actors and labored on many films aside from the few that made them monstrously immortal.  In addition, there were those (unfortunately) all-too-few times when they worked together to bring chills and thrills to movie audiences.  No matter how sinister their characters were on screen, Karloff and Lugosi were two fine gentlemen of the "old school," who always gave of their best whatever the venue.  It's thus with pride that we take a few moments to consider the solo and tangent careers of...

By JOE WINTERS

Strong, distinctive personalities are a vital element of HORROR-WOOD history as exemplified by those two titans of terror, Bela Blasko and William Pratt, better known as Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.

Born overseas, one in Hungary 1882, the other in England 1887, their film careers began before the 1920s. It wasn’t until the magical year of 1931 that their greatest fame would be launched, and with it, the birth of talking horror films.

With a young adult life of manual labor jobs under his belt, Lugosi took on acting and became an established stage idol in his native Hungary. He moved to Germany around 1919, where his many silent film roles included the butler in Der Januskopf (1920), starring Conrad Veidt in a variation of the Jekyll/Hyde story.

Moving soon after to America, Bela devoted his time to stage and screen roles. On stage, he played the immortal vampire Count Dracula for a couple years on the road before taking the role to Broadway. With the death of Lon Chaney Sr., Bela was offered the title role in Universal’s film version of Dracula, and horror history was made.

Immigrating from England and juggling a series of manual labor jobs with touring stage roles in North America, Karloff moved on to bit parts and supporting roles in dozens of silent films, including the part of a Caligari-type mesmerist in the murder thriller The Bells (1926). In 1931, director James Whale took notice of the actor, and Boris was offered the role of the Monster in Frankenstein (1931).

Karloff was delighted to take on the part that had been rejected by the studio’s newly-established star…Bela Lugosi. And so for a second time in one year, horror history was made.

Both stars continued to make their mark with supporting parts in major productions and starring roles in the fast-growing horror genre. In 1932, Lugosi chilled the blood as Dr. Mirakle in Universal’s Murders In The Rue Morgue; as voodoo master Murder Legendre in the independent hit White Zombie; and as ruthless Roxor in Fox’s Chandu The Magician.

The following year he had top billing as Hindu manservant Degar in Columbia’s dark house thriller Night Of Terror and a small, but powerful part as the animal-turned-human Sayer of the Law in Paramount’s Island Of Lost Souls. Roles as suspects in the Charlie Chan mystery The Black Camel (Fox, 1931), The Death Kiss (K.B.S., 1932), the Mascot serial The Whispering Shadow (1933), as well as an array of supporting parts in major films, kicked off a promising start to the decade.

Karloff kept quite busy as well and made impressions with supporting parts in major films and with starring roles 1932’s The Old dark House (as mute manservant Morgan) and as ancient Im-ho-tep The Mummy at Universal, as well as the title Oriental mastermind in The Mask Of Fu Manchu at MGM. A trip to his native England included the lead in another old dark house comedy chiller, The Ghoul (1933).

It was only a matter of time until Universal teamed the deadly duo of Karloff and Lugosi (billed as "Karloff" and "Bela Lugosi") in The Black Cat (1934). Stylishly directed by former art director Edgar G. Ulmer, this tale of betrayal, revenge, sadism, murder, necrophilia, devil worship, torture and other delights was bashed by critics and censors, but loved by the public who made it the studio’s top-grossing release of the year.

With Lugosi as sympathetic-yet-troubled doctor Vitus Werdegast and Karloff as ace architect (and Satanist) Hjalmar Poelzig, the story is basically a battle of wits waged within the confines of Poelzig’s art deco house (with sets by Charles D. Hall), built on the ruins of a fort where years before, Commander Poelzig secretly sold out his own troops (including Vitus) to the enemy. In addition, Hjalmar stole Vitus’ wife, and after she died, Poelzig married Werdegast’s daughter! When Vitus learns of all this, capped by the murder of his child, he snaps, then skins Poelzig alive and blows up the house, his enemy and himself.

Superb work by our boys, these complex characters along with atmosphere and mood, classical music and disturbing undercurrents add up to arguably the best of the Lugosi/Karloff collaborations. Among the promotional tie-ins in which the two participated was a Black Cat Parade to help select the lucky feline for the title role. And in the Columbia short Screen Snapshots # 11, the duo addressed each other as Dracula and Frankenstein playing chess for charity.

In addition, Lugosi and Karloff made separate cameo appearances in Universal’s weak musical comedy Gift Of Gab (1934).

That same year, Bela snared the heroic romantic title role in the film serial Return Of Chandu (Principle Pictures) and the villainous title role of the Oriental mastermind (not Fu Manchu) in low budget Monogram’s The Mysterious Mr. Wong. The following year Lugosi was back on familiar ground with Dracula director Tod Browning in MGM’s Mark Of The Vampire and off to England for a very early offering from Hammer Films, Mystery Of The Mary Celeste.

Boris was on familiar ground, too, reprising the role of the Monster in James Whale’s Bride Of Frankenstein (Universal, 1935), and over at Columbia with a fine dual performance in The Black Room (1935).

Back at Universal, it was announced that Boris and Bela would co-star in Werewolf Of London (1935), but the roles went to Henry Hull and Warner Oland. The studio instead cast Boris and Bela (billed this time as "Karloff" and "Lugosi") in The Raven.

Directed by Louis Friedlander (who later changed his name to Lew Landers), Lugosi played Poe-obsessed surgeon Richard Vollin, while Karloff got the smaller, but sympathetic role of convict Edmond Bateman, made grotesque by Vollin (and Jack Pierce’s make-up department) to assist in his evil deeds. Though Bela’s role offered more screen time for his character to go bananas with Poe-inspired torture traps, and thus carry the picture, he was only paid half as much as Boris.

While The Raven did well in America, the censors, particularly in Great Britain, were up in arms. This hastened a British ban on horror pictures and a Hollywood halt to horror productions for a couple years, but not before Universal teamed Boris and Bela for The Invisible Ray (1936) under the direction of Lambert Hillyer, who also helmed Dracula’s Daughter that year, thus rounding out Universal and the Horror film’s Golden Age before the studio changed hands.

While The Invisible Ray is essentially a science fiction film, it opens in a Gothic setting, the Carpathian castle of Janos Rukh (Karloff). His search for Radium-X propels the story from Transylvania to the African jungle. Exposure to the element gives the high-strung Rukh added anxiety, the touch of death and a glow-in-the-dark appearance, courtesy of special effects wizard John P. Fulton (who repeated the process five years later in Universal’s Man Made Monster).

In Paris, the Karloff character goes bonkers, taking revenge on other members of the Africa expedition, while Lugosi remains restrained in the role of doomed colleague Dr. Benet, our anchor to reality. Reality can be somewhat cruel, however. Bela was reportedly offered four-thousand dollars for his co-starring role in The Invisible Ray, while Boris is said to have earned nearly four times that amount.

During those lean years, Bela kept working in poverty row productions, including the dual lead in Murder By Television (Cameo Pictures, 1935), and villainous roles in the cliffhanger serials Shadow Of Chinatown (Victory) and S.O.S. Coast Guard (Republic, 1937).

As the Golden Age of Horror did its 1936 fade-out, Karloff scored in Warner Brothers’ The Walking Dead, as well as a co-starring role as a crazed baritone up against Warner Oland as Charlie Chan At The Opera (Fox), and in the top-notch British production The Man Who Changed His Mind (a.k.a. The Man Who Lived Again). Proving that even he couldn’t hit a home run every time, Karloff starred in the British murder drama Juggernaut, while back at Universal he played a vision-impaired inventor in the crime thriller Night Key (1937).

On contract for several pictures at Warner’s, Karloff displayed versatility in several non-horror pictures, and at low-rent Monogram he kept busy with the most of the studio’s series of Mr. Wong mysteries. This Mr. Wong, an Oriental detective played by Karloff, had no connection with the earlier Lugosi film.

Boris and Bela teamed up in 1937, not in a film, but on the radio program Baker’s Broadcast. There they sang a duet entitled "We’re Horrible, Horrible Men." They soon got another chance to prove that after a Los Angeles theater ran a triple feature of Dracula, Frankenstein, and Son Of Kong (RKO, 1933) in 1938. The public responded. The new Universal took notice and re-issued Dracula and Frankenstein. The public responded Nationwide.

Bela and Boris had done it again, and the self-imposed studio horror ban ended with the release of Son Of Frankenstein. Basil Rathbone led the cast as Henry Frankenstein’s eldest son and heir, Wolf. Karloff was back as the Monster. Lugosi crafted one of his greatest roles and practically stole the show as broken-necked grave robber Ygor. Fellow Golden Age horror stalwart Lionel Atwill was also memorable in the heroic role of one-armed Inspector Krogh.

Director Rowland V. Lee made sure Bela got a better deal than the studio intended. Instead of five-hundred dollars for one week, the expanded role insured several weeks at that rate, totaling a reported four grand. Boris had good reason to celebrate, too, including a surprise fifty-first birthday party on the set and, more importantly, the birth of his only child, Sara Jane.

Son Of Frankenstein was a huge hit. Universal started the Silver Age Horror assembly line rolling, and other studios followed suit. Lugosi rounded out 1939 with the lead in Universal’s chapter play The Phantom Creeps, Fox’s comedy-thriller The Gorilla with Lionel Atwill, and The Dark Eyes Of London (a.k.a. The Human Monster) in England. Karloff closed the decade as Mord the Executioner in Universal’s Tower Of London and as a mad scientist in The Man They Could Not Hang, the first of several such roles at Columbia.

A new decade opened with the next and final Universal teaming of Karloff and Lugosi. Ironically, in Black Friday (1940) their two characters never meet! Bela was to play the role of brain surgeon Dr. Sovac, who performs a transplantation that transforms kindly literature professor Kingsley (Karloff) into gangster Red Cannon. Screenwriter Curt Siodmak said Karloff didn’t want to play the dual role. Director Arthur Lubin was reportedly not happy with Boris’ interpretation of the part.

In any event, Karloff was re-cast as Sovac, while character actor Stanley Ridges was brought in for the Kingsley/Cannon role, and Lugosi was assigned the part of a rival crime boss. The re-casting proved okay all around, especially in the case of Ridges, who excelled and went on to, among other things, a similar type role in a supernatural variation The Phantom Speaks (Republic, 1945) as a scientist possessed by a criminal’s ghost.

But back to Black Friday, where Lugosi was allegedly put in a trance to get a more realistic re-shot suffocation death scene. Karloff was sure his co-star had indeed been hypnotized, because Boris had never seen Bela with his back to the camera for so long. Years later, Lubin dismissed it all as a publicity stunt, during which the cameraman had run out of film half-way through the re-shot scene.

Prior to his next on-screen encounter with Bela, Boris appeared in his own next two mad doctor outings for Columbia. The Man With Nine Lives and Before I Hang hit the screens in 1940, as did The Ape, Karloff’s only mad doctor movie for Monogram.

At RKO, Karloff and Lugosi were joined by Peter Lorre for the musical mystery You’ll Find Out (1940), directed by musical/comedy specialist David Butler. Kay Kyser and his band play the music while our trio of terror plays it straight.

Poker-faced Judge Mainwaring (Karloff) and cohorts (Lugosi and Lorre) masquerading as Prince Saliano and Professor Fenninger are secretly behind a plot to bump off birthday girl Janis Bellacrest (Helen Parrish) during a party at her family mansion. Among the effective shocks is the séance conducted by phony mystic Bela, complete with floating objects and sounds from the Sonovox, a machine that electrifies voices and makes musical instruments talk.

It’s a matter of opinion as to who supplies the comedy, though we can mostly rule out band member Ish Kabibble. In the end, the bad guys simply decide to blow up all the guests, but Prince the dog turns the tables, and all that’s left of the villains is Bela’s turban.

A busy, though not overly-profitable period for Bela followed with lead roles in PRC’s The Devil Bat (1940), Columbia’s Return Of The Vampire (1943) and a whole slew of movies at Monogram which we’ll cover in a future issue of HORROR-WOOD. What should have been a return to big roles at Universal never happened, partly due to the studio’s grooming of Lon Chaney Jr. as their new horror star. In the small, but effective role of Bela the Gypsy, Lugosi helped launch Lon to stardom in The Wolf Man (1941).

Bela was back as Ygor, opposite Lon the Monster in Ghost Of Frankenstein (Universal, 1942). In Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943), Lugosi finally played the composite creature while Chaney played the furry one. A run of Bela-the-butler roles included parts in Universal’s The Black Cat (1941) and Night Monster (1942) and Paramount’s One Body Too Many (1944). Back at RKO he was up against comics Wally Brown and Alan Carney in both Zombies On Broadway (1945) and Genius At Work (1946), the latter teaming him with Lionel Atwill in that actor’s final feature film.

Boris had fewer pictures on his plate as he embarked on a successful Broadway run of Arsenic And Old Lace, but he did manage a few film appearances. These include his last mad doctor roles at Columbia, The Devil Commands (1941) and The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942), the latter a light romp that re-teamed Boris with Peter Lorre. At Universal, Karloff headlined the Technicolor musical thriller The Climax and was mad doctor Niemann in House Of Frankenstein, both in 1944. Returning to RKO, Karloff was in fine form in a trio of films for producer Val Lewton beginning with Isle Of The Dead (1945).

That brings us to The Body Snatcher (RKO, 1945), the final film to feature Boris and Bela together. Under the direction of a young Robert Wise, Karloff gave one of his very best performances, in spite of having a lot of back problems at the time. Bela was also not well, according to Wise, but the actor’s role was a small one as a household servant who tumbles onto the murder-for-profit schemes of grave robber John Gray (Karloff) and is discreetly dispatched for learning too much.

Boris rounded out his association with RKO in the Val Lewton thriller Bedlam (1946) and in Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947).

Bela moved on to some good and not-so-good things in his remaining years. A highlight was starring in a summer stock production of Arsenic And Old Lace, where he actually got to send up the character originated by his old rival. Another bright spot was a return to the role of Dracula in Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (Universal, 1948).

He was frequently playing the Count on stage and in 1956 even in death when he was buried in one of his Dracula capes. Whether Lugosi’s bad breaks were brought on by studio politics, poor agent representation, a lack of English language skills, a medically incurred addiction to back pain killers (which he licked before he died), sheer desperation, or a combination of these, is a matter continually up for debate.

As for the ever-busy Boris, he would enjoy more stage success in the 1950s (as Captain Hook in Peter Pan and a Tony-nominated role in The Lark), along with steady work in films and television, even wheelchair-bound, oxygen-deficient and practically up until his passing in 1969.

Bela and Boris; they may not have been the best of friends, but by most accounts, neither were they antagonistic toward each other. They were constant and courteous professionals, working actors, and on screen will always remain…such good fiends.

Thanks, Joe.  A lot of ink has been splashed on the mummified remains of dead trees concerning the contributions of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff to the classic horror film.  But your article sums it up neatly--both actors were Classic Film Horror, period.  It's a blessing that Karloff enjoyed such a busy and successful career in Hollywood and it's a dirty shame that Lugosi was so badly treated and forced to work for peanuts on so many penny-ante films most of his professional life.  At any rate, when they worked together, it was magic, and that magic will keep their names and careers alive for generations to come.  Such good fiends, indeed.

Article copyright © Joe Winters

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