Universal Horror 1931-1956

In 1912, Carl Laemmle, Sr. founded Universal Studios, which is currently the second oldest movie production company in continuous production today. In the early days of the motion picture industry, a person was in control of the studios (not a corporation). For about a decade, Universal was the largest studio, and because of shrewd investing, Laemmle financed the movies himself and not allowing the company to take on debt. Universal's main focus for the first number of years was mostly inexpensive melodramas, westerns, and serials. Erick von Stroheim was allowed to create lavish movie productions, and because Laemmle was financing it himself, Universal nearly bankrupted. They had to look at other markets and types of films. Irving Thalburg took care of most of the production for the company, but was lured away by Louis B. Mayer (of MGM) which made Universal a second-rate studio for years afterward. The two most successful hits for Universal's early days were "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1923) and "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925), both starring Lon Chaney. With the success of such dark content, Univeral first had its taste of being a successful horror studio.

In 1928, Carl Laemmle, Sr. gave control of universal to his son, Carl Laemmle, Jr. Carl Jr. loved macabre movies and it was just a matter of time before Universal made a real horror movie. In this time, "Showboat" (1929) and "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930) were released.

Beginning in 1931, Universal under the leadership of Carl Laemmle, Jr. began a sub-genre series of horror movies called Universal Horror, all now regarded as all-time classics. The aspect that most notice is that they all had sequels, and soon had tie-ins (where the major characters had a movie together), and eventually spoofs. The first of these is "Dracula" (1931) with Bela Lugosi, and then with "Frankenstein" (1931) with Boris Karloff. In 1932, "The Mummy" was released. "The Invisible Man" was released the following year, starring Claude Rains. In 1941, "The Wolf Man" was released with Lon Chaney, Jr. The last of the great classic Universal Horror to be released was "Creature from the Black Lagoon" in 1954.

The flaws with these movies are the lack of creativity. What I mean is there are whole scenes where the dialogue is extremely similar. Whole scenes of dialogue from Dracula can be found very similar in The Mummy. Also, many of the actors are in several different movies. Such as Dwight Frye, who played as Renfield in Dracula, played as Fritz in Frankenstein; or Bela Lugosi who was Dracula, played as Ygor in later Frankenstein movies.

This month, I am planning to make Universal Horror posts with the five major themes of Universal Horror, and some of the sequels, spoofs, and crossovers that followed.