The historic Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport, has been celebrating the Halloween cinematic season with Universal Horror, a screening series featuring some of the best of the Universal Studios black and white classics of the genre. Two of my favorites—the beloved The Bride of Frankenstein and the lesser known The Black Cat—have clearly discerned gay subtexts and include gay actors in their casts (Ernest Thesiger in Bride, David Manners in Cat) while Bride was also directed by Hollywood’s first defiantly gay director, James Whale (so memorably played by Ian McKellan in his Oscar-nominated performance in 1998’s Gods and Monsters—also helmed by a queer director, Bill Condon).
Though Hollywood’s rigid Production Code was firmly in place by 1933, ostensibly putting the kibosh on movies with any queer content, gay subtext continued to thrive in every movie genre, including horror. While modern LGBT movie audiences have quickly become accustomed to a raft of horror-themed queer films like 2004’s sexy/scary Hellbent and TV shows (with True Blood and American Horror from out writer-director Ryan Murphy just two of the latest), there’s still plenty of queer subtext—along with pleasantly familiar chills—to be mined from older entries in the horror genre. Aside from Bride of Frankenstein and The Black Cat (both worth adding to your horror movie marathon), here are some other favorite examples:
Dracula’s Daughter (1936)—Gloria Holden stars as the clinically depressed offspring of the famed vampire who wants desperately to overcome her “base” desire for pretty young girls which her creepy man servant picks up amidst the swirling fog of London with promises of food, drink and cash in exchange for “posing” for his artistic mistress. Holden tries psychotherapy and hypnotism but ends up back at square one each time another young beauty is lured to her studio.
The Uninvited (1944)—When a sister and brother (Ray Milland/Ruth Hussey) buy a charming, seaside “cottage” in the English countryside, little do they know they’ve inherited a rather nasty ghost along with the property. Lovely young Stella Meredith (Gail Russell) (inspiration for the song “Stella By Starlight”) holds the key to unlocking the mystery as her late mother Mary is thought to be the ghost. But clues are provided by Mary’s “close friend,” an overwrought psychiatrist who has built a clinic in honor of her late gal pal who speaks about her with an intensity that queer viewers will immediately recognize. Shamefully, this atmospheric ghost story isn’t available on DVD but is often screened on TCM.
The Lodger (1944)/Hangover Square (1945)—These were the only two vehicles that starred gay actor Laird Cregar and both are sensational Victorian era melodramas set in a foggy, threatening London. In the first Cregar plays Jack the Ripper who at one point talks almost incestuously about his late brother while gazing at his portrait. In the second, he plays George Harvey Bone, a composer driven to murder every time he hears a dissonant chord. Bernard Herrmann, the acknowledged dean of film composers, supplied the masterly “Concerto Macabre” that is played at the climax of the film. Sadly, Cregar died (from a weakened heart after crash-dieting) before Hangover Square was released to great acclaim.
House of Horrors (1946)—Lonely French sculptor Marcel (gay actor Martin Kosleck) is tired of the bad reviews from art critics like the effete F. Holmes Harmon (Alan Napier) but soon gets his revenge when a strange, misshapen, hulking man he has saved from drowning (Rondo Hatton, billed as “the Creeper”) begins to kill off Marcel’s enemies. Though the “Creeper” clearly kills in gratitude for Marcel saving his life, a quasi-gay relationship (which is rather disquieting to contemplate) is also easily picked up on. Hatton, who suffered from a physically deforming disease in real life, died scant weeks after the picture was released. This was the last of the classic Universal Studios horror releases though they returned to the genre in the 50s with stuff like The Creature of the Black Lagoon, et al.
The Haunting (1963 and 1999) Both versions of this bravura haunted house story feature a major lesbian character (Claire Bloom, acidic and stylish in the former, Catherine Zeta-Jones, icy and sluttish in the latter) which adds to the tension in the original but brings nothing to the second. The original is THE quintessential, classic haunted house movie, while the latter’s best assets are its interiors (obviously designed by someone with really strong S&M fantasies). Julie Harris gives her greatest film performance as the hysterical, lonely spinster Eleanor, much of it in voiceover, in the 1963 version that, like Shirley Jackson’s prosaic book it was based on, scares by utilizing the power of suggestion. The brooding, deep focus black and white photography and dissonant score by Humphrey Searle, along with the gothic, foreboding, over stuffed mansion increase the movie’s ominous, frightening power.
The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)—Roman Polanski co-wrote, directed and starred in this horror comedy spoof that starred his gorgeous, ill-fated wife Sharon Tate as the kidnap victim of a titled, nasty vampire. Polanski plays the assistant to a Van Helsing-type professor who he enlists to help him track down the comely beauty who has been spirited away to a nearby castle. There, Polanski encounters not only the evil vampire but Herbert, the count’s clearly gay vampire son who doesn’t waste any time in trying to make Polanski his lover/victim. The movie also features a nicely evocative score from frequent Polanski collaborator Krzysztof Komeda, who went on to provide the memorable music for Rosemary’s Baby in 1968 before his untimely death the following year.
Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971)—Zohra Lampert plays the title role, that of a recently released mental patient who starts a new life with her husband and their best friend when they purchase a remote, Connecticut farm. Upon their arrival they discover a squatter—the pretty, free-spirited Emily (Mariclaire Costello)—who quickly enchants the trio, tantalizing the men and later, overtly coming on to Jessica. But is Emily who she seems to be or is she a maniacal ghost looking to add new victims to her fold (which already seems to include the elderly male residents of the nearby village)?
(Note: Portions of some of my capsule reviews appeared in earlier issues of Windy City Times.)