Comments on: The blood was her life

By: mrsardonicus

mrsardonicus — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:59:23 +0000

Having worked in the film industry in the early &70′s I can tell you first hand that there are alot of actors working that will never have one-tenth the talent that lugosi had during his film career. he always used his accent to the character’s advantage & never overplayed or overstaged his roles… He never got the girl [except in the "return of Chandu"] and never complained about it. Totally unlike actors today. His acting talents are sorely missed in today’s industry…..

By: Medusa

Medusa — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 02:30:19 +0000

RHS, it’s hilarious that you would use SCI-FI Channel movies as examples of terrible actors. I always have SO much hope that one of these will be good — the loglines are always so promising and right up my alley, but man, they are uniformly horrible and totally disappointing. (I did sort of like the one with the Manitcore in it, with the soldiers in the Middle East — not sure why that didn’t stink quite as much, or maybe it did but I think I liked the monster).

Not sure about Phillip Seymour Hoffman in 50 years — and I sure won’t be around to find out! — but I’ll sure take him over the indistinguishable crop of younger actors.

By: RHS

RHS — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:10:35 +0000

I would disagree with you, John, that Lugosi’s accent was absurd. I find it glorious to listen to – it electrifies (well, sometimes) the most banal and clunky of lines. It is odd that Lugosi was often given a whitebread surname that sat incongruously with his heavily accented English but that just made the guy seem all the more mysterious. I don’t think Lugosi was a poor actor at all… he inhabited every role assigned to him and made the character larger than life… and sometimes larger than un-life. The world is fully of genuinely poor actors, more today than ever (tune into any SCI-FI CHANNEL movie and you’ll see what I mean), while Lugosi remains unforgettable. Fifty years after his death, and we’re still talking about him. We’ll just see if Phillip Seymour Hoffman rates this kind of adoration in 2058.

By: john august smith

john august smith — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:53:01 +0000

LUGOSI in mark of the vampire was perfectly cast, all he had to do was to walk thru the role! by the 40s he was making a string of poverty row Z productions that would shame any actor. his absurd accent combined with his drug addiction made him a very poor actor indeed. i always felt the VOODOO MAN was the nadir of his career. karloff even with his lisp and british accent was a more accomplished actor, there was really no contest between the two.

By: Jonathan Lapper

Jonathan Lapper — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:15:28 +0000

Browning’s silent (presumed) classic (presumed because nobody alive today has seen it) LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (1927). TCM, of whom everyone here is obviously aware, showed LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT a year or two ago and I was excited about it but in the end I couldn’t finish watching because such an overwhelming amount of the film was missing. Of the first twenty minutes I watched it seemed as if 18 were just pictures of carriages, full moons and Lon Chaney’s face. By the twenty minute mark it was clear that sometimes if a film is lost it’s probably best to not try and combine stills with what remains to make a movie. With LOST HORIZON a very small amount of it uses stills so it works but LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT felt like a failed restoration project.

And Luna is terrific but I have always found Browning to be one of the most prosaic directors of early Hollywood. His films have a lifelessness to them that isn’t even energetic enough to be classified as undead, just dead.