|
|
|
While many horror film buffs consider Peter Cushing the greatest of the filmic Van Helsings, we must disagree. Although we consider ourselves second to none in our appreciation of Mr. Cushing, there was a Van Helsing before his on screen, one that convinced audiences that, yes, a mere mortal can oppose and defeat the most monstrous of evil. That Van Helsing was essayed by the great Edward Van Sloan, a somewhat unappreciated actor even today. Read on and find out more about...
His was the voice of reason during the earliest years of horror talkies. He was the man armed with the knowledge to protect us from the terrors of the bloodthirsty Count Dracula, the living mummy Im-Ho-Tep and the rampaging Frankenstein Monster. He was born Edward Van Sloun on November 1st, 1881 in San Francisco (or in Minnesota according to at least one source) and of Dutch descent. Young Edward attended art school and became a commercial artist. He made his stage debut in 1908 and by 1910 was working with an acting stock company. By the late 1920s he was established on Broadway where he portrayed Dr. Abraham Van Helsing alongside Bela Lugosi as the immortal Count Dracula.
When Universal brought Dracula to the silver screen in 1931, Van Sloan was along for the ride, sporting coke bottle thick glasses and a succinct style of deliberately paced speaking. With crucifix in hand, garlic at the ready and relaying such warnings as "The strength of the vampire lies in the fact that people will not believe," the Professor seemed quite eager to take on what may have been his first undead adversary, and in so doing became the prototype for vampire hunters to this day. Van Sloan originally appeared in an epilogue where he walked out onto a filmed stage and warned "There are such things." The scene was cut from the finished version of DRACULA. However a similar device was used to introduce Universal’s other 1931 monster hit, Frankenstein.
"How do you do," greets Van Sloan as he emerged on to the screen from behind a stage curtain. "Mr. Carl Laemmle feels it would be a little unkind to present this picture without just a word of friendly warning. We are about to unfold the story of Frankenstein, a man of science, who sought to create a man after his own image without reckoning upon God. It is one of the strangest tales ever told. It deals with the two great mysteries of creation, life and death. I think it will thrill you. It may even shock you. It might even horrify you. So if any of you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now’s your chance to…well, we’ve warned you!" With those words Edward Van Sloan introduced the first talking version, and for many, the best of the oft-filmed variations of Mary Shelley’s classic story. Van Sloan played Dr. Waldman, university professor and one-time mentor to Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive). Once again Van Sloan’s articulation lent authority to such lines as "You have created a monster, and it will destroy you!" However it is Dr. Waldman who is destroyed as he attempts to dissect the Monster who regains consciousness in time to strangle the good doctor.
Van Sloan was back the following year as Dr. Mueller in Universal’s next monster hit The Mummy (1932). Mueller was a Van Helsing-type occult expert in what was essentially a re-working of Dracula. Mystery man Ardath Bey (Boris Karloff) is in reality the living mummy Im-Ho-Tep, returned to life by a mystic scroll. Determined to be reunited with the reincarnation of the long-dead Princess Anck-es-en-Amon (Zita Johann), he resorts to supernatural murder, but is ultimately stopped by Dr. Mueller who also manages to save the skin of David Manners (as in Dracula). Again, Van Sloan gets some of the film’s most memorable lines including "Im-Ho-Tep was sentenced to death not only in this world, but in the next." Later, Mueller confronts his immortal foe with the words "If I could get my hands on you, I’d break your dried flesh to pieces…but your power is too strong."
Reprising his role of Van Helsing (here referred to as "Von Helsing") Van Sloan co-starred in Dracula’s Daughter (Universal, 1936). Picking up where DRACULA left off, Von Helsing is found in the ruins of Carfax Abbey by a pair of policemen (Halliwell Hobbes and Billy Bevan). Von Helsing finds himself accused of murdering the Count (represented by a dummy of Bela Lugosi with a stake through its chest). Where David Manners and Helen Chandler went after ascending the stairs at the end of the earlier film is anybody’s guess. And so the good doctor seeks the investigative assistance of Dr. Geoffrey Garth (Otto Kruger), a skeptical psychiatrist who soon believes his colleague and is nearly made undead himself by Countess Zaleska (a.k.a. Dracula’s daughter and played by Gloria Holden). A wooden arrow fired by her servant Sandor (Irving Pichel) pierces her heart just in time. After the good guys gun down Sandor, one of the heroes comment on the Countess’ beauty, allowing Van Sloan to deliver the final line "She was beautiful when she died…a hundred years ago."
Prior to Dracula’s Daughter, yet after Dracula and Frankenstein, it occurred to some to start casting Van Sloan in the roles of murder suspects and sometimes the surprise villain. While the poster for Behind The Mask (Columbia, 1932) was designed to capitalize on Karloff’s new-found fame with the words "Who is the murdering monster?" Boris in fact played a mere henchman to the criminal Dr. Steiner (first name Frank perhaps?) who commits murders on the operating table. As he hovers over the bound hero, the surgical-masked madman takes delight in explaining what the hero (without benefit of anesthesia) is about to experience as the scalpel nears. Is Van Sloan the villain? Will he be stopped? Anyone familiar by now with the actor’s voice will know the answer to the first question. Anyone who has ever seen a Thirties murder thriller knows the answer to the second.
The Death Kiss (Tiffany, 1932) reunited Dracula stars Bela Lugosi, David Manners and Edward Van Sloan in the mystery of an actor shot dead for real in a filmed murder scene. Playing the film’s director Van Sloan instructs "Oh, Mr. Brent, when you die this time lets have less gymnastics and don’t spin like a top when you fall." When the actor doesn’t get up, Van Sloan becomes a suspect, as does Lugosi as one of the studio heads. Manners plays a screenwriter who turns detective to solve the case. In Murder On The Campus (Chesterfield, 1934) Van Sloan plays a chemistry professor who helps solve the title crime, but is he in fact guilty of it? A Shot In The Dark (Chesterfield, 1935) kicks off more campus crime with Van Sloan as another college professor among the suspects. He was also on hand for The Crosby Case (1934) as (surprise!) a college professor. In Danger On the Air (Universal, 1938) the bullying sponsor of radio dramas is poisoned. Van Sloan is the quack doctor who offers a worried network executive a pill, which the man refuses. In more than one of these mysteries Edward Van Sloan was indeed the killer. As to which ones, well…that would be telling.
Throughout the 1930s Van Sloan took small or uncredited roles in larger studio productions such as Deluge (RKO, 1933), Death Takes A Holiday (Paramount, 1934) and The Man Who Reclaimed His Head (Universal, 1934). He played the doctor who delivered twin boys who grew up to become Boris Karloff in The Black Room (Columbia, 1935). As the spy chief Jarvis, Van Sloan’s villainy was secondary to that of Bela Lugosi’s mad Doctor Zorka in the serial The Phantom Creeps (Universal, 1939). In Before I Hang (Columbia, 1940) Van Sloan was kindly prison Doctor Howard who assisted kindly inmate and youth serum creator Dr. John Garth (Boris Karloff). When Garth’s blood and mind were infected, he strangled Dr. Howard (as Boris did during his encounter with Van Sloan nearly a decade earlier in Frankenstein).
More small and uncredited roles rounded out Van Sloan’s film career. He was the warden in Paramount’s The Monster And The Girl (1941). He appeared in chapter seven of the Republic serial cliffhanger The Masked Marvel (1943) as an electrical research scientist introduced bound and gagged whose information saved some good guys from being blown up. He was in danger once more in the Republic serial Captain America (1945) as an imperiled scientist in chapters one and two.
Among his final film appearances were This Side Of The Law as a judge and as a minister in The Underworld Story (both 1950). Widowed and in failing health, Van Sloan studied music history during his remaining years. He died in San Francisco on March 8, 1964. His star never rose to the horrific heights of Karloff, Lugosi, Atwill, and others. But with his words of wisdom to guide us against the denizens of darkness during the early and defining days of talking terrors, we were indeed lucky to have Edward Van Sloan on our side. Thanks, Joe. Edward Van Sloan was, indeed, a class act and a strong presence in the most classic of all classic horror films. A fine actor of stage and screen, he was a victim of typecasting--the same career affliction that scuttled the career of another fine actor, Dwight Frye. It's a shame that after his "horror" roles, his film appearances are usually brief and unsatisfactory for those of us who want to watch him perform in non- genre roles. However, unlike some more "successful" actors, his "monster hunter" roles in the great fright films are as immortal as those films themselves and are, in a way, a lasting tribute to him. Article copyright © Joe Winters |
