This collector’s box of Columbia odds ‘n’ ends has a couple of movies that are only marginal horror, but all have at least one or two horror elements. A gangster picture with Boris Karloff dips into mad doctor territory, and the mad scientist in an aviation thriller has cooked up an anti-aircraft death ray. Peter Lorre runs a slave labor camp that features torture. A werewolf movie dabbles in feminist lycanthropy, while a ‘back from the dead’ thriller is stylish but vague. The hot discovery is a beautiful remaster, complete with original tints, of the obscure Voodoo epic Black Moon starring Fay Wray.

Columbia Horror
Region B Blu-ray
Behind the Mask, Black Moon, Air Hawks, Island of Doomed Men, Cry of the Werewolf, The Soul of a Monster
Powerhouse Indicator
1932-1944 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / Street Date October 28, 2024 / Available from Powerhouse / £56.00
Starring: Jack Holt, Constance Cummings, Boris Karloff, Edward Van Sloan; Jack Holt, Fay Wray, Dorothy Burgess; Ralph Bellamy, Tala Birell, Wiley Post; Peter Lorre, Rochelle Hudson; Nina Foch, Stephen Crane, Osa Massen; Rose Hobart, George Macready.
Cinematographers include: Ted Tetzlaff; Joseph H. August; Henry Freulich; Benjamin Kline & Burnett Guffey
Produced by Harry Cohn
Directed by John Francis Dillon, Roy William Neill, Albert S. Rogell, Charles Barton, Henry Levin and Will Jason

Powerhouse Indicator has crept through the Columbia vaults to pull 6 vintage programmer pictures, the kind that might show up in filmographies because a famous star happens to have a small role. All were professionally filmed, with Columbia’s reliably good production values. The handle for the collection is Columbia Horror and the majority qualify for that genre category. One is a gangster-horror item leaning more toward crime, and another is an aviation picture with a Sci-fi idea cooked up in an old fashioned mad lab.

One show has a dandy Boris Karloff appearance, and a decent thriller features Peter Lorre, who never fails to entertain. Perhaps IP or some other company has special plans for the almost-classic Columbia horror  The Face Behind the Mask, again with Peter Lorre. That classic is not yet out on domestic Blu-ray.

As we expect from Indicator, the presentation, extras and curatorship are top-top, crackerjack, positively George. Each picture is encoded with a well-chosen commentary, and a couple of short subject surprises have been thrown in as well.

Behind the Mask
1932 / 69 min. / The Men Who Dared
Starring: Jack Holt, Constance Cummings, Boris Karloff, Edward Van Sloan, Thomas E. Jackson.
Cinematography: Ted Tetzlaff
Film Editor: Otis Garrett
Story, dialogue and adaptation by Jo Swerling from his story In the Secret Service
Produced by Harry Cohn
Directed by John Francis Dillon

The oldest film in the collection is Behind the Mask, a mostly straight-up gangsters vs. G-Men picture. It’s the kind of show in which Columbia’s he-man star Jack Holt goes undercover in prison to round up a ring of drug smugglers. Released early in 1932, it makes special mention of the presence of new star Boris Karloff. His face and the word ‘monster’ feature on the film’s poster, which sells the subject as horror, not crime.

The complex plot has a hero apparently murdered at sea, and a coffin that contains a shipment of narcotics instead of a dead body. A villainous doctor known as ‘Dr. X’ is running a murderous drug ring. He’s played by Edward Van Sloan, a familiar face from both  Dracula and  Frankenstein, and here using  Mabuse – like makeup tricks to pass himself off as two different people.

Van Sloan’s gleefully sadistic byplay with his victim is as strong as any in a genuine horror movie. This angle makes the film seem a precursor of pictures about medical atrocities — the evil doctor drugs the heroine to fake insanity, and prepares to dispose of the hero by performing surgery ‘without benefit of anesthetics.’  Behind the Mask is therefore the second 1932 Hollywood film to feature vivisection, after Erle C. Kenton’s  Island of Lost Souls.

Behind the Mask looks pristine and plays very smoothly. This the most animated we’ve seen Edward Van Sloan; he hams up his villain as might Lionel Atwill. His makeup changes are well done, and it’s a delight to see Boris Karloff in a new show, waxing villainous.

On his commentary Daniel Kremer suspects that we’re actually watching a 1936 reissue version of Behind the Mask that may have a few deletions made to receive a Production Code seal — notably some potentially rough surgery material. Trade reviews mentioned the scenes when the movie was previewed as The Man Who Dared. Kremer says that the movie’s original release was delayed, supposedly to put some time between it and Columbia’s previous  The Criminal Code, from which Mask recycles a lot of stock prison footage. But the running time didn’t shrink when the film finally emerged as Behind the Mask.

Black Moon
1934 / 69 min.
Starring: Jack Holt, Fay Wray, Dorothy Burgess, Cora Sue Collins, Clarence Muse.
Cinematography: Joseph H. August
Film Editor: Richard Cahoon
Original Music: Louis Silvers
Screenplay by Wells Root from a novel by Clements Ripley
Produced by Everett Riskin
Directed by Roy William Neill

Despite its non-PC theme, this title will provide Columbia Horror’s biggest revelation for genre fans. Just keep it away from White Supremacists.

Made two years later, the pre-code Black Moon again stars Jack Holt, but the real draw for today’s fans will be the dreamy heroine, Fay Wray. She’s not called upon to scream in this picture. We understand why Black Moon would not see many TV broadcasts or museum revivals: it is beautifully made, but its premise is racist from the roots up. The Hatian-style Voudu we see is depicted, in the words of the Motion Picture Herald, as a religion of ‘blood-thirsty worshippers of black gods who indulge in sacrificial orgies.’

This perversion of Voudu never heard of racial sensitivity — its notion of ‘black culture’ is murderous treachery. Juanita (Dorothy Burgess) entreats her businessman husband Stephen Lane (Jack Holt) to allow her to return to San Cristobal, the island where she grew up, and where her uncle Dr. Perez (Arnold Korff) owns a plantation. She wants to take their young daughter Nancy (Cora Sue Collins of  The Scarlet Letter) as well. Stephen sends secretary Gail Hamilton (Fay Wray) on the next boat to lend a hand. Black magic and murders soon follow. Stephen’s island representative is killed, right in New York, before he can deliver a message from Dr. Perez.

On the island, Juanita ignores her Uncle’s warnings, and warms up to her old nanny Ruva (Madame Sul-Te-Wan). When Gail arrives, she knows something is off and sends for Stephen right away. Untimely deaths occur that isolate the few whites and block communication with the outside world. The big secret is truly disturbing. It turns out that Juanita was indoctrinated in Voudu as a child. As a (white!) Voudu priestess, she is now conducting human sacrifices in the jungle, to satisfy the Voudu gods.

Using the ‘R’ word to describe Black Moon is unnecessary — fear and loathing of black power of any kind is the core of the story. Despite an overall articulate screenplay, repeated dialogue obsesses on jungle drums that indicate that ‘the natives are restless tonight.’ By falsifying the Voudu religion as pure barbaric Evil, the movie will today be read by many as highly offensive, ‘invalid.’ But it is an excellent reminder of racial attitudes that haven’t gone away. The commentators note that the source novel is far more racist, something fairly common in books of this period.

The elaborate production has big crowd scenes and handsome sets given Joe August’s glowing cinematography. The quality of the rear projection is remarkable, especially for a show of this vintage. Some night scenes are rendered in tints, as was the style with silent movies. The movie has much of the same iconography as the naïve  White Zombie and the sophisticated  I Walked with a Zombie, but no mention of the walking dead. The monster in Black Moon is the all-Black community itself.

The white landowners have a friend in a  black sea captain named Lunch (Clarence Muse). Lunch refers to the island blacks as ‘monkeys.’ He finds it disagreeable when his beautiful ‘gal’ becomes a Voudu sacrificial victim, but not so disturbing that he can’t keep helping his white friends. When it comes time to fire on the angry mob, Lunch is allowed to take up a rifle and join in: none of the targets are white.

The rugged but clueless Stephen defers to Juanita until he witnesses a human sacrifice in person: the victim is played by actress Theresa Harris. Juanita leads the black mutiny while Fay Wray takes her place by Stephen’s side, protecting little Nancy. The disturbing ending is an escape from San Cristobal sans apocalypse. No vengeful volcano descends to wipe out the island. It continues as it did before, waiting for more Voudu priests to call for the death of all whites.

Black Moon clocks in at the programmer length of 69 minutes, but it looks and plays like an ‘A’ picture. Was Columbia perhaps taking advantage of a tropical jungle set left over from another picture?  The performances are decent. Jack Holt’s stiff delivery is an asset, and Fay Wray is as poised and graceful as ever. Dorothy Burgess’ performance is fascinating: her Juanita is a True Believer ready to take her own daughter’s life, with a machete. Juanita is a little bit like Nora in A Doll’s House. The unsatisfied wife begs to have her desires fulfilled, and promises that she’ll make less trouble for her husband. But the more freedom she gets, the more she wants.

We get a mountain of facts and a lot of interesting analysis in the audio commentary by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman. They accept the racial setup for what it is, and their discussion roams far and wide for meaningful observations in fantasy and horror. They find Black Moon ripe for rediscovery, especially in this glowing video remaster.

Air Hawks
1935 / 69 min.
Starring: Ralph Bellamy, Tala Birell, Wiley Post, Douglas Dumbrille, Robert Allan, Victor Killian.
Cinematography: Henry Freulich
Film Editor: Edward Cahoon
Sound Engineer: Edward Bernds
Screenplay by Griffin Jay, Grace Neville from the story Air Fury by Ben Pivar
Produced by Harry Cohn
Directed by Albert S. Rogell

Air Hawks isn’t horror and its fantastic content is a stretch, yet it packs some decent entertainment value into its brief running time — Variety thought it could play as a main feature. It’s basically an aviation thriller about two air transport companies vying for dominance. Only one of them is honest, and the other employs a nasty trick: they hire a scientist’s infrared ray gun, that can shoot competitors out of the sky. Don’t tell Elon Musk.

That makes the movie an aviation / science fiction hybrid. In 1935 Death Rays were a familiar Sci-fi wrinkle for serials, almost as common at television devices put to nefarious service. The treatment here is a tad more realistic than a serial; we get some good scenes with real planes and boats, and lots of model work.

Director Alfred Rogell keeps things fast and exciting, and the young Ralph Bellamy is a dependable hero. The mainstream horror connection is provided by Edward Van Sloan as the disreputable Professor Schulter. He fabricates his Death Ray in a workshop equipped with Kenneth Strickfaden electric devices straight from Frankenstein’s lab. The lighting and camera angles in the lab suddenly go all expressionistic. It’s just enough to excuse the shoehorning of Air Hawks into a horror lineup.

As an aviation film Air Hawks is unique. It is the real-life aviator  Wiley Post’s only feature film appearance, as himself. The noted aviator gets third billing for only a brief appearance. Variety let on that Post was testing pressure suits for high-altitude flying, and needed publicity for his long-distance flights. Just a few months after the film’s premiere, Wiley Post and Will Rogers would die in an air crash in Alaska.

The capable Jeremy Arnold handles commentary duty on Air Hawks finding plenty of information about the film and Wiley Post to fill the one-hour-plus time slot. He explains the exact nature of ‘B’ pictures, and examines the career of an actor who specialized in playing headwaiters. The show’s sound effects gained special attention and praise for Columbia’s sound expert Edward Bernds. He would graduate from audio work to directing, first in countless Three Stooges shorts and then a number of feature films, including a handful of science fiction titles for Allied Artists and Regal Films.

The Wiley Post short subject included on the disc consists only of two shots of Post’s airplane taking off — we don’t even get a good shot of Post, with his eyepatch. It’s a German newsfilm, and has a title saying that Post was the first to fly directly from New York to Berlin.

Watching Edward Van Sloan’s ray gun device in action makes us wonder if it provided ideas for Ray Harryhausen’s later thriller  Earth vs. the Flying Saucers — it’s toted about in a truck, and then aimed upward at flying aircraft.

Island of Doomed Men
1940 / 67 min. / Dead Man’s Isle
Starring: Peter Lorre, Rochelle Hudson, Robert Wilcox, Don Beddoe, George E. Stone, Kenneth MacDonald, Charles Middleton, Stanley Brown.
Cinematography: Benjamin Kline
Art Director: Lionel Banks
Film Editor: James Sweeney
Musical director: James Sweeney
Screenplay by Robert Hardy Andrews
Produced by Wallace MacDonald
Directed by Charles Barton

Compared to the exotic setting of Black Moon, Columbia’s Island of Doomed Men is a budget production designed to squeeze a marketable program picture from the bogeyman persona of star Peter Lorre. The not-too logical yarn concerns a slave labor racket run by Stephen Danel (Lorre), who has an inside track to hire prison parolees — who then disappear. Despite being run on an island off California (?) the feds must enlist agent Mark Sheldon (Robert Wilcox) to go undercover as a parolee. Mark finds himself in forced mine labor, overseen by cruel guards in Danel’s employ. Danel lives right there in a house, with his semi-captive wife Lorraine (Rochelle Hudson) and a comic relief cook (George E. Stone). Mark enlists Lorraine to turn the tables on Danel. Will the prisoners revolt before they can act?

The film’s claim to fame is a sadistic moment with a pet monkey, and a whipping scene that’s marginally more explicit than was the norm for 1940 — some censor boards insisted that it be cut. Lorre adds his peculiar performance tricks to the mix. His Danel is power-mad, but not a sex pervert or even a sadist. He shows no particular interest in the flogging ritual.

We never feel that we’re on an island, and the movie might have more credibility if Lorre’s Danel ran his labor prison out in the desert somewhere. The entire mine labor camp set was thrown together in Hollywood’s  Bronson Caverns.

Island of Doomed Men has been released on Blu-ray in Australia but that disc had no extras. Indicator gives it a commentary by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson, who start by having a big laugh at the fact that the movie was banned outright in Australia. The presumed reason is the whipping scene but we’re assured that Australians won’t stand idly by while monkeys are being abused. Actor-critic Jonathan Rigby skates through a brisk career bio for Peter Lorre.

Note that the opening of Doomed Men is not original — there’s a 1950s logo up front, and the main titles have been reformatted for widescreen projection, clearing the top and bottom of the frame for cropping.

Cry of the Werewolf
1944 / 63 min. / Bride of the Vampire
Starring: Nina Foch, Stephen Crane, Osa Massen, Blanche Yurka, Barton MacLane. Milton Parsons, Ivan Triesault, Fritz Leiber.
Cinematography: L.W. O’Connell
Art Directors: Lionel Banks, George Brooks
Film Editor: Reg Browne
Musical director: Mischa Bakaleinikoff
Screenplay by Griffin Jay, Charles O’Neal
Produced by Wallace MacDonald
Directed by Henry Levin

The directing debut of Henry Levin ( Where the Boys Are,  Journey to the Center of the Earth) is this weak potboiler that could have been initiated with a memo reading, ‘give me another  Cat People, only different.’  Except for some trucking shots of animal legs, and an attempt at a transformation seen in a shadow on the wall, Cry of the Werewolf has not an inkling of what works in Val Lewton’s movies. Instead of setting the horror out of ordinary lives, we spend most of our time in a ‘psychic research institution’ conveniently located in an old house where a mysterious murder once occurred. Both the institute and a modest funeral home have basements with elaborate catacombs, secret passageways, etc.

Gypsies – Romanis – have a large camp just outside of town, that looks like something from the 19th century. Black Moon isn’t the only film in the collection to disrespect a minority group. The consensus of this script is that Gypsies are a murderous cult that worships the Devil.

Despite the writing contribution of Charles O’Neal  (The Seventh Victim), the film has what we call a ‘radio’ script: the dialogue all but explains who is speaking and what is happening. When the institute’s director (Fritz Leiber) is found torn to pieces in a hidden chamber, detective Barry Lane (Barton MacLane) first suspects the museum receptionist Elsa Chauvet (Osa Massen of  Rocketship X-M) and then janitor Spavero (Ivan Triesault). The director’s son Bob (Stephen Crane) eventually connects the murder to the Gypsy camp, and its leader Princess Celeste LaTour (Nina Foch). A hereditary werewolf, Celeste and her confidante Bianca (Blanche Yurka of  A Tale of Two Cities) try to cover up the crimes with more killings, a scheme that includes casting hypnotic spells over both Bob and Elsa, who are now romantically involved.

Outing Celeste as a werewolf is no spoiler, as a live wolf is seen behind the main titles, removing any possible Lewtonesque ambiguity. Most of the dramatics are pedestrian. John Abbott ( The Vampire’s Ghost) pads out the opening as a tour guide for the institute’s haunted rooms. Creepy Milton Parsons plays yet another mortuary proprietor — who happens to be maintaining a Devil Cult’s combo crypt-altar in his basement.

Shining out from this imitation Universal-RKO horror show are the leading actresses. Lovely Osa Massen is naturally charming and sincere as the sensible young woman that nobody takes too seriously; she’s even more compelling in her aggressive ‘posssessed’ state. Handed a truly unpromising part, Columbia’s major new talent Nina Foch rises to the challenge with style to spare. Her Celeste dishes out several varieties of veiled menace, but also shows some sensitivity when toying with the attention of Elsa’s boyfriend. Foch would handle thankless chores in a full dozen Columbia programmers, until finally winning some proper attention in the Joseph H. Lewis noir  My Name is Julia Ross.

Cry of the Werewolf hasn’t much of a reputation. In its defense, it certainly plays better than Universal’s 1946 lady werewolf effort She-Wolf of London. It features favorite June Lockhart but dodges its horror content almost entirely.

What with the actress-dominated movie and the theme of a matriarchal cult, Australian critic and film programmer Eloise Ross takes an appropriate feminist read on her commentary. She doesn’t hold back, and notes that the full moon cycle affecting werewolves matches up with the menstrual cycle, a relationship of course reflected in traditional folklore. Also present is the weird Navy Aviation training film  Don’t Kill Your Friends starring ‘Dead End Kid’ Huntz Hall. The safety lessons come with a dose of sick humor. Stupid mistakes by Huntz’s ‘Dilbert’ character kill people left and right. One unlucky victim is a woman on the street, zonked by unsecured ammo in Dilbert’s airplane. The unlucky victim’s girlfriend is none other than Nina Foch.

The Soul of a Monster
1944 / 62 min. / Death Walks Alone
Starring: Rose Hobart, George Macready, Jim Bannon, Jeanne Bates, Erik Rolf, Clarence Muse.
Cinematography: Burnett Guffey
Art Directors: Lionel Banks, George Brooks
Film Editor: Paul Borofsky
Musical director: Mischa Bakaleinikoff
Screenplay by Edward Dein
Produced by Ted Richmond
Directed by Will Jason

The Soul of a Monster is a curious and somewhat soporific ‘undead’ thriller that never attracted much attention. It didn’t play well in the somewhat murky older prints shown back in the day on late-night TV. Remastered for HD by Sony’s experts and placed in context with these other less-committed horror titles, it shapes ups as a good effort. It may fall a little short, yet there’s a workable stab here at a spiritualist – diabolical fantasy. In between dialogue scenes come occasional well-designed, wordless suspense sequences, that are almost too good for the movie. Did director Will Jason film them, or would they have been handed over to an insert / special photography unit?

The movie is less like Val Lewton and more like an episode of TV’s One Step Beyond but more depressed.
The operative word is Grim. When the great philanthopist George Winston (George Macready) is near death, his wife Ann (Jeanne Bates) prays to anyone in the Great Beyond who can intervene. Ann’s answer comes in the form of the supernatural Lilyan Gregg (legendary actress Rose Hobart), who makes a dramatic entrance marching across town on a windy night. Gregg ‘cures’ George overnight, and newspapers report a miracle. But when George is up and about, he seems an unnatural version of himself. Animals hate him and flowers wilt at his touch. People notice things like that.

It’s the kind of movie that drops huge hints of diabolical activity, yet nobody becomes alarmed. Lilyan Gregg leaves the house but retains her influence over George, who at times seems to be struggling to control his own actions. What Lilyan intends to do with George is not clear. It is eventually determined that George has no pulse and doesn’t bleed. Hmm, does that seem odd to you, too?

The murky horror film has no real monster and an ill-defined femme fatale. Rose Hobart’s Lilyan Gregg is an intimidating, somber presence. Her mysterious character doesn’t behave like the standard zombie master, the kind with big plans for murderous revenge. We keep waiting to find out more regarding Lilyan’s status in the cosmic scheme of things. We of course suspect that she is undead as well. And why does she pull a gun on George, considering his undead status?

The direction of The Soul of a Monster alternates between dull coverage and some very expressive sequences surely imitating the work being done over at RKO’s Val Lewton horror unit. One of them is a bald imitation of a Lewton ‘nightwalk.’ The filmmakers get a chance to fashion some appealing images with silhouettes, etc.; we’re tempted to assume that ace cameraman Burnett Guffey filmed them too, and not some second unit.

Rose Hobart is an intimidating presence and George Macready underplays nicely. The actor’s facial scar is often highlighted when he plays villains, but not so much here. In practically every classic story in which a mortal ‘usurps the power of God’, the offending person or monster turns to evil deeds for power and conquest. This show has no such agenda, and even as the third act arrives is assuring us that faith is the answer to everything. If that’s not enough, a trick ending upends most of what we’ve seen. Just the same, horror fans seeking something different will not be disappointed. Unless they expect a monster.

Commentators Stephen Jones and Kim Newman scored the two most interesting titles in the collection. They find plenty to like in The Soul of a Monster but admit that it doesn’t quite rise to its potential. They again range far and wide in the genre, playing the compare and contrast game with other horror pictures.

Powerhouse Indicator’s Region B Blu-ray of Columbia Horror is a welcome item, not just for the very worthy Black Moon but for the excellent visual presentations overall. Most of these films existed for decades in iffy 16mm copies generated long ago for TV. As with remastered Blu-rays from studios like Republic and Allied Artists, we discover that these ‘minor’ Columbia program pictures are technically very well crafted. The films from the 1930s look every bit as good as ‘A’ product, although it can be argued that Black Moon is not really a ‘B.’ Stock shots and small sets in Island of Doomed Men and Cry of the Werewolf reveal basic budget limitations.

The remastering people at Sony didn’t rush these jobs through. The only flaws I could perceive were a few shots with a sprinking of white speckles, or a slightly unstable moment where the film scanner couldn’t defeat some film shrinkage. As mentioned above Black Moon benefits from some truly beautiful scene tinting.

All of the films are accompanied by still photo galleries. Cry of the Werewolf is given some excerpts from an original press book. A lengthy career interview (audio) with actress Constance Cummings is included on the disc for Behind the Mask.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Columbia Horror
Region B Blu-ray rates:
Movies: Good to Very Good; Black Moon Excellent -minus
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
New commentaries:
Daniel Kremer on Behind the Mask
Stephen Jones, Kim Newman on Black Moon and The Soul of a Monster
Jeremy Arnold on Air Hawks
Alexandra Nicholas-Heller, Josh Nelson on Island of Doomed Men
Eloise Ross on Cry of the Werewolf
New Featurettes:
Sheldon Hall on actor Jack Holt
Jonathan Rigby on Peter Lorre
Tom Vincent on Burnett Guffey
Audio:
The BEHP Interview with Constance Cummings (1997)
Short films:
New York to Berlin in Twenty-Six Hours (1933) with Wiley Post
Don’t Kill Your Friends (1943) with Nina Foch
Image galleries
Illustrated 100-page book with essays by Bethan Roberts, Ellen Wright, Sergio Angelini, Paul Duane, Tim Snelson, and Jeff Billington; articles on Boris Karloff, Fay Wray, Rochelle Hudson, Wiley Post, Rose Hobart.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: haven’t seen it but it contains 3 Region B Blu-rays
Reviewed: October 21, 2024
(7215colu)

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