Boris Karloff

When you think of the Frankenstein movies, names like Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mary Shelley and James Whale come to mind. But have you ever heard of Kenneth Strickfaden? Long entombed in the annals of horror movie fame, Strickfaden is the man whose electrical designs made Frankenstein the movie that it is. He was called “Dr. Frankenstein’s Electrician” and was directly responsible for all of the electrical effects employed in the monster creation scene. He likewise formulated all the electrical effects for the later Frankenstein sequels. He was even a stunt double for Boris Karloff, who was deathly scared of electricity.

Strickfaden was meticulous regarding his particular effects, concocting respective exotic laboratory equipment, as well as securing the use of a Tesla Coil built by the legendary scientist Nikola Tesla himself. Rest assured, all the electricity in the film was real, and the instrumentation he employed to construct them became known, in fandom, as “Strickfadens”.

He was responsible for all those breathtaking electrical gadgets Frankenstein and Fritz, in respective movies, clutched, clung to, and recoiled from. Strickfaden likewise organized the unforgettable lightening bolts that shot throughout the lab. Without the aid of Tesla’s coil, those fantastic discharges would be out of the question to create.

It ought to be cited that Tesla coils are a resonant transformer invented by Serbian-American scientist Nikola Tesla around 1891. These coils manufacture very high voltage, low current and high frequency alternating current electricity. The electrical discharges formulated those lighting-like plasma filaments that were so extensive used in the film. Believe it or not for the duration of the early 1900s Tesla coils were applied to utilize high frequency current directly to the body in what was then considered therapy!

Kenneth Strickfaden was considered an innovative particular effects genius, peculiarly in the 1930s and 1940s. He worked on movies from Frankenstein to The Wizard of Oz to The Mask of Fu Man Chu. In his later years, he worked on respective television series, including The Munsters. With more than 100 motion pictures to his credit, he still managed to give 1500 traveling science demonstrations and lectures all over the U.S. and Canada. He remains one of the almost forgotten heroes of early film and television, where the lightening bolts were real, the laboratory equipment dangerous, and stuntmen walked into electrical storms.

Boris Karloff

Boris Karloff was to the Horror Movie what Fred Astaire was to the Musical: the epitome of class and style. No matter how grisly the circumstances, he’d rise above them with talent, poise and even charm. And here, for the firstborn time on DVD, are four of his finest chillers from his peak years in the 1930s and 1940s, all demonstrating his awful range. In The Black Room, he plays twin brothers — one good, one evil, naturally — in a little country where pretty women seem to turn up missing. The Man They Could Not Hang and Before I Hang present him in his classic “Mad Doctor” persona as forward-thinking scientists who run afoul of the law and become crazed killers. And in The Boogie Man Will Get You, he sends up that effigy in a delightful farce that also stars Peter Lorre (M) and Larry Parks (The Jolson Story). It’s a collection all fervid classic-horror fans have been eagerly waiting for!

Boris Karloff made his fame for the duration of the great horror cycle at Universal Pictures in the 1930s, but he also flaunted his iconic status at other studios. At Columbia, Karloff etched a handful of good crazy doctor roles (notably The Devil Commands, available on a distinguished DVD) and other oddities. Four of these largely low-budget pictures are accumulated in this two-disc set–which, if not a collection of classics, is nevertheless a real boon for Karloffians.

Although it is called the Icons of Horror Collection, the “horror” is more macabre mood than monster mash. The best (and best-looking) film in the set, 1935′s The Black Room, is a marvelously lurid costume romp with Karloff in a dual role: twin brothers who inherit a baronage but live under a family curse. One is good, one bad, and happily enough, the bad brother has the upper hand. Karloff is in terrific form, and the film features a mystery chamber (complete with torture pit) that provides just the right Gothic oomph. Director Roy William Neill later did Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.

The Man They Could Not Hang, from 1939, is a solid mad-scientist picture. Karloff’s Dr. Savaard has perfected a re-animation process, but the police arrest him before he may revive a student–and so the doctor is sentenced to death for murder. The hanging isn’t a problem, not when the doctor’s assistant has the procedure down pat, and now Karloff may take elaborated revenge. Before I Hang (1940) opens a similar vein, with Karloff once again sentenced to death and this time conducting experiments in prison (aided by Edward Van Sloan, filmdom’s original Van Helsing). However, using a murderer’s blood in the mystery serum proves a fatal mistake…. These cheaply-made films are solid sufficient programmers of the era, and breathtakingly literate–although it would be a stretch to call them scary.

The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942) goes the comedy route, spoofing Karloff’s effigy as a white-haired gentleman who ought to not be permitted to run experiments in the basement. An Arsenic and Old Lace vibe prevails (Karloff had been starring in the stage production), and the labored comedy has Karloff and Peter Lorre using boarders at an early-American hotel as subjects for experiments. Larry Parks and “Slapsie Maxie” Rosenbloom co-star. Lorre, who’s in his slim Maltese Falcon period, is as sly and queer as ever; of course, he and Karloff would team up again for more horror-comedy in the 1960s: The Raven and Comedy of Terrors. –Robert Horton

Most helpful client reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful.
Forgotten Karloff Classics
By Edward Garea
This four-movie set holds one almost forgotten Karloff classic, two rather watchable B-thrillers and a comedic misfire noted only for the performances of Karloff and Peter Lorre.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
An potpourri of Karloff’s Columbia output
By pestcomics
Sony’s new Icons of “Horror – Boris Karloff Collection” comprises of four films Karloff made at Columbia amongst 1935 and 1942. Quality varies from film to film but with Karloff on board these films are all worth watching.

Perhaps the very best and most interesting film included is 1935′s “The Black Room” a first-rate costume drama in which Karloff delivers a tour-de-force performance as twin brothers. This film is remindful of the fine historical spectacles one might suppose from a studio like MGM. It likewise offered Karloff an chance to play a more mainstream dramatic role (or roles to be precise) before he got completely pigeonholed into the roles of monsters and crazy scientists by the mid-40s. “The Black Room” is considered one of his all-time best films and will have to be a pleasure to all Karloff fans.

As for the other three films, well, they’re not his best but they do offer a good deal of fun and entertainment. My favored of these three is 1939′s “The Man They Could Not Hang.” In this one Karloff is a crazy scientist sentenced to death who is brought back to life and seeks revenge versus those who sentenced him (including the judge, DA, witnesses and jurors). He sets up a dinner party inviting his oppositions in order to imprison them and kill them one by one each 15 minutes. This is Karloff at his most maniacal best.

“Before I Hang” (1940) recycles a great deal of plot points from “The Man They Could Not Hang,” including the conception of the scientist being brought back to life after a death sentence, but isn’t rather as agreeably diverting as it is predecessor. In this one Karloff is a kinder more tame scientist who turns evil through the blood of a killer. It’s also nice to see Karloff and his “Frankenstein” co-star, Edward Van Sloan, together again. Karloff even gets to kill Van Sloan’s reputation one more time.

“The Boogie Man Will Get You” (1942) is a B comedy which doesn’t have too much to offer even though it is interesting to see Karloff on screen with Peter Lorre in comedy shenanigans. It makes me wonder how the two might have interacted had Karloff been cast as Jonathan Brewster rather of Raymond Massey in Warner’s film adaptation of “Arsenic and Old Lace.” Karloff did not get the film role, which he had originated on stage, because he was playing it on Broadway at the time. He would have made a great Jonathan Brewster on film.

Sony doesn’t offer anything else other than the four films in this collection. Unlike Warner Brother’s releases of classic films there are no trailers, no scene selections, no commentaries and no featurettes. This is a shame as a nice little documentary when it comes to Karloff’s films at Columbia would have been interesting. The DVD menus are pretty basic (almost amateurish) and the packaging is nice and compact with two slimcases tucked into a cardboard sleeve. The packaging graphics undertake to simulate a movie poster look with Photoshopped images of Karloff. It would have been more beautiful had they applied real movie poster images instead.

If you want to finish your Karloff collection of Columbia horror films I’d suggest acquiring “The Devil Commands” (1941) and “The Man With Nine Lives” (1940). These two had been antecedently freed as single DVDs.

All in all, Sony’s “Icons of Horror – Boris Karloff Collection” will surely appeal to Karloff fans, like myself, and allows us to own a great deal of seldom seen performances from a veritably gifted and underrated screen star. It likewise makes a nice associate piece to his more famous monster roles and Universal’s own recent “Boris Karloff Collection.”

19 of 21 humans found the following review helpful.
Ask And Ye Shall Receive.
By Chip Kaufmann
No sooner had I finished writing a review of THE BORIS KARLOFF COLLECTION saying that somebody will have to release THE BLACK ROOM on DVD when lo and behold here it is. The fact that it’s being issued by Sony means that it will use the best prints available which is outstanding giving careful consideration to how often Boris is seriously served by substandard prints of his non-Universal films. Sony has already issued a couple of the Columbia Karloff “Mad Doctor” films on DVD (THE DEVIL COMMANDS, THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES) and while they were devoid of any real extras, the visual quality of the films was an betterment over the old VHS copies. This will finish the set and give us THE BLACK ROOM in the bargain which is the finest of the films he did for Columbia. Directed by Roy William Neill (known for the progressed day Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce) THE BLACK ROOM gives Boris one of his best acting chances in a double role as twin brothers one good the other evil (a triple role when you consider he likewise plays one brother impersonating the other).

The other films are THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG, BEFORE I HANG, and a comedy THE BOOGIE MEN WILL GET YOU. Although I haven’t viewed the set yet I assume that Sony will do the same for these titles as they did for the others with hopefully a few extras thrown in altho it’s a shame that they didn’t include the former two on a third DVD to have all the films in one package. So Karloff fans rejoice even more so than for THE BORIS KARLOFF COLLECTION as overall the quality of these films are better. Thanks to these, THE VAL LEWTON COLLECTION, and the British films THE GHOUL and THE MAN WHO CHANGED HIS MIND, nearly all of Karloff’s 30s and 40s films are now on DVD. That just leaves THE WALKING DEAD which Warners will have to have issued in their upcoming HOLLYWOOD LEGENDS OF HORROR COLLECTION…. ADDENDUM: I have now seen the set and the picture quality is excellent. Unfortunately there are no extras whatsoever not even chapters for the respective films.

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