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Halloween Month Movie-A-Night!
Oct. 3rd, 2012 07:38 pmOkay it's October 3. I started my (and my mom's) tradition of watching one suspense / horror film a night during the month of October culminating in a screening of "Halloween" on Halloween night.
I started Oct. 1 with the original "Frankenstein". Because the Universal Monsters just say Halloween to me.
Last night it was "Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man". This one was interesting, in that you had two very well known Universal Monsters in one film. Also, in this one, Bela Lugosi played Frankenstein's Monster. He was good, though Karloff really made it what it was. Lugosi, though he had lifts in his shoes, was a deal shorter than Karloff and it showed. I always pictured the Monster much taller, probably because of that image of Karloff in my head. Anyway, nothing against Lugosi, he was good.
Tonight it's "The Bad Seed", based on the book by William March, and maybe something else a little later.
Anyway, I have always just loved this film. One, because it came from the stage to the screen pretty much as is. Mervyn LeRoy saw the stage production, and decided right then and there he wanted to adapt it for the screen. He told the actors to just do it, as if they were on stage. It really does come off like a play when you watch it, since that is what it was. Six of the original stage actors from "The Bad Seed" came for the movie version.
The performance that Nancy Kelly gives is just amazing. And Patty McCormack is a marvel. While some might say it comes off a little cheesy, I really look at its nuances. The acting is superb. The ending was changed from book and stage to movie because the Hays Code which was in place at the time insured that in film, crime cannot "pay". So that is why you see the mother surviving (she does not in the book or the play) and Rhoda getting struck by lightning on the wharf (she actually is the survivor at the end of the book and play). The other change in the film from the stage is the scene between Leroy and Rhoda in the arbor where she's screaming for him to bring her shoes to her. That took place in the livingroom of the Penmark apartment originally.
Anyway. Off I go. I'll pick out something else tonight I'm sure since it's early or maybe not, see what's on TV...
I started Oct. 1 with the original "Frankenstein". Because the Universal Monsters just say Halloween to me.
Last night it was "Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man". This one was interesting, in that you had two very well known Universal Monsters in one film. Also, in this one, Bela Lugosi played Frankenstein's Monster. He was good, though Karloff really made it what it was. Lugosi, though he had lifts in his shoes, was a deal shorter than Karloff and it showed. I always pictured the Monster much taller, probably because of that image of Karloff in my head. Anyway, nothing against Lugosi, he was good.
Tonight it's "The Bad Seed", based on the book by William March, and maybe something else a little later.
Anyway, I have always just loved this film. One, because it came from the stage to the screen pretty much as is. Mervyn LeRoy saw the stage production, and decided right then and there he wanted to adapt it for the screen. He told the actors to just do it, as if they were on stage. It really does come off like a play when you watch it, since that is what it was. Six of the original stage actors from "The Bad Seed" came for the movie version.
The performance that Nancy Kelly gives is just amazing. And Patty McCormack is a marvel. While some might say it comes off a little cheesy, I really look at its nuances. The acting is superb. The ending was changed from book and stage to movie because the Hays Code which was in place at the time insured that in film, crime cannot "pay". So that is why you see the mother surviving (she does not in the book or the play) and Rhoda getting struck by lightning on the wharf (she actually is the survivor at the end of the book and play). The other change in the film from the stage is the scene between Leroy and Rhoda in the arbor where she's screaming for him to bring her shoes to her. That took place in the livingroom of the Penmark apartment originally.
Anyway. Off I go. I'll pick out something else tonight I'm sure since it's early or maybe not, see what's on TV...
