Bela Lugosi
Dracula. The fictional count of the undead who emerges by night to claim the blood of his victims. Since his first appearance in the classic 1897 novel, his name has become synonymous with vampire legend. Charles Manson. Career criminal, cult guru, cold-blooded killer. Since his apprehension and conviction in 1971, his name has become synonymous with the dark side of sixties counterculture. In Manson and Dracula: Closer Than We Think, acclaimed filmmaker BC Fourteen takes a deep dive down the rabbit hole to shine a light on the dark deeds and lasting legacies of both these notorious figures.
A what if sequel to the original 1931 Dracula using various public domain elements. Created by Craig Scott Lamb.
Five tales by Edgar Allan Poe come to life thanks to a pictorical style animation, five tales that exude madness, pestilence, murder and torture.
The films of Ed Wood Jr. re-edited into a horrifying new tale.
Diabolical. Seductive. Immortal. Vampires have been an icon of evil in folklore and popular culture for more than three centuries, yet only one name still personifies the ultimate aristocrat of bloodlust. Now join the world’s foremost experts on Dracula – including academics, authors and horror historians – as they explore the untold story of the Transylvanian Count, from the legend of Vlad The Impaler and Bram Stoker’s celebrated novel through its landmark stage productions and classic movie adaptations.
On Valentines Day, 1931, Universal Pictures released the film Dracula - the first true horror movie. Its worldwide success catapulted the film's lead actor, Romanian-born Bela Lugosi, to overnight stardom. "Bela Lugosi: The Fallen Vampire" traces the life and career of this mysterious man whose name became synonymous with the evil, yet magnetically compelling Count Dracula. Using archival still and film clips as well as interviews with film historians, actors and Lugosi himself, the special chronicles the meteoric rise and then precipitous decline of a talented yet tragic man who forever changed the face of horror films.
Film historians, and producer Richard Gordon, talk about the horror movie career of cult star Bela Lugosi.
A stark black-and-white adaption of Edgar Allen Poe’s story by a veteran animator long associated with Disney.
Martin Landau talks about how he portrayed Bela Lugosi in the movie. He mentions the similarities between Lugosi and his own career, and how he worked on the Hungarian accent. Rick Baker, who won an Oscar for the make-up effects, discusses how he approached transforming Landau into Lugosi, and how much he wanted to do the project.
Join all you favorites--Spanky, Buckwheat, Alfalfa, Darla, Butch, Froggy and more--in a jam-packed special covering more than twenty years and 200 episodes of Hal Roach's inimitable brand of childhood magic. This fascinating video offers insight into the Gang's personal lives, as rare footage follows each member's career through the joys and misfortunes that went along with being one of America's most beloved kids. See how the series began in 1922 and changed after the first all-talking release in 1929, why Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney never made the Gang, a fifteenth anniversary reunion, and clips from their only feature.
Lugosi: Hollywood's Dracula uncovers the life and career of legendary actor Bela Lugosi, examining his early life in Hungary and Germany through his Hollywood successes and eventual decline. The film features a vast array of never-before-seen footage of the actor, ranging from remains of his 1918 film Struggle for Life to behind-the-scenes home movies on the set of RKO Studios. Lugosi is peppered with dozens of rare films clips and photographs, with the story itself coming to life thanks to the vast array of on-camera interviewees.
The strange life and the wonderfully awful films of 1950's Hollywood Z movie director Ed Wood are profiled in this documentary that was conceived of and researched several years before commercial-filmmaker Tim Burton made his feature film tribute. Actually, Wood does not appear much in this film. Rather, it centers on the lives and thoughts of his entourage and those who knew him. Among those interviewed are Wood's former lover and star of his earliest films, Dolores Fuller, whom he abruptly replaced in the middle of Bride of the Monster with actress Loretta King who is also interviewed.
Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.
A collection of bloopers and outtakes from an enormous selection of Hollywood classic productions spanning from the 1930s through the 1980s.
Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
A documentary that looks back at some of the classic monsters, mad scientists & creatures from the early days of horror. Which is also an episode of the NBC television series "Hollywood and the Stars" hosted by Joseph Cotten.
In California, an old man grieves the loss of his wife and on the next day he also dies. However, the space soldier Eros and her mate Tanna use an electric device to resurrect them both and the strong Inspector Clay that was murdered by the couple. Their intention is not to conquest Earth but to stop mankind from developing the powerful bomb “Solobonite” that would threaten the universe. When the population of Hollywood and Washington DC sees flying saucers on the sky, a colonel, a police lieutenant, a commercial pilot, his wife and a policeman try to stop the aliens.
In 19th century England, a noted brain surgeon rescues a former student from being hanged on a false conviction for murder, and spirits him away to an ancient, repurposed abbey far in the countryside. There, he connives his pupil into assisting him in mapping the functions of the various parts of the human brain, using living subjects who are under a terrible animation-suspending drug called "black sleep". Subsequently, the student, along with the daughter of one of the subjects, discover that most of these subjects have survived but are being kept in a dungeon-like cellar, in various stages of physical and mental derangement...
Dr. Varnoff captures twelve men for his experiment: to turn them into supermen using atomic energy. Newspaperwoman Lawton gets too snoopy for her own good.
A psychiatrist tells two stories: one of a transvestite (Glen or Glenda), the other of a pseudohermaphrodite (Alan or Anne).
Two goofy entertainers meet a mad scientist on a jungle island.
The legendary Bela Lugosi as "the Vampire" teams up with Britain's much-loved "Mother Riley" in this hilarious comedy adventure. The Vampire plans to control the world with the help of his robot, which accidentally gets shipped to Mother Riley. Through radar control, he contacts the robot and orders it to come to him, bringing along Mother Riley! But his life is turned upside down when he holds this most meddling of mothers captive.
Not a feature, but an edited version of the 1939 serial "The Phantom Creeps" which was released to TV in 1949.
Two hapless freight handlers find themselves encountering Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolf Man.
A woman is married to the son of a doctor, the proprietor of a private sanatorium, where she is under unwilling treatment. Both the son and the doctor indicate they want the marriage dissolved. Arriving at the scene is a mysterious personage identified as the doctor's brother who formerly was a stage magician in Europe. He is accompanied by a threatening dwarf...
Two actors who play detectives on the radio find themselves investigating a real crime masterminded by an arch-criminal named the Cobra.
Edinburgh, 1831. Among those who undertake the illegal trade of grave robbery is Gray, ostensibly a cab driver. Formerly a medical student convicted of grave robbery, Gray holds a grudge against Dr. MacFarlane who had escaped detection and punishment.
A mad doctor (Bela Lugosi) and his helpers (John Carradine, George Zucco) lure girls to his lab for brain work, to help his wife.
An insurance salesman, Albert Tuttle, is hired as a body guard for a millionaire.
The discovery of a perfectly preserved caveman prompts a mad scientist to attempt a daring brain transplant.
In 1918, an English family is terrorized by a vampire, until they learn how to deal with it. They think their troubles are over, but German bombs in WWII free the monster. He reclaims the soul of his wolfman ex-servant, and assuming the identity of a scientist who has just escaped from a concentration camp, he starts out on a plan to get revenge upon the family.
Graverobbers open the grave of the Wolfman and awake him. He doesn't like the idea of being immortal and killing people when the moon is full, so he tries to find Dr. Frankenstein, in the hopes that the Dr. can cure him, but Frankenstein is dead and only his Monster is alive and this one wants to live, not to die like the Wolfman.
The East Side Kids try to fix up a house for newlyweds, but find the place next door "haunted" by mysterious men.
Kurt Ingston, a rich recluse, invites the doctors who left him a hopeless cripple to his desolate mansion in the swamps as one by one they meet horrible deaths.
Ygor discovers Frankenstein's creation is still alive and brings him to the Doctor's son, Ludwig, for help. Obsessed with restoring the monster to his full potential, Ludwig is unaware that someone has more devious plans for the creature.
It is prior to the commencement of World War II, and Japan's fiendish Black Dragon Society is hatching an evil plot with the Nazis. They instruct a brilliant scientist, Dr. Melcher, to travel to Japan on a secret mission. There he operates on six Japanese conspirators, transforming them to resemble six American leaders. The actual leaders are murdered and replaced with their likeness …
A scientist keeps his wife young by killing, stealing the bodies of, and taking the gland fluid from virgin brides. He's aided by an old hag, her two sons - a brutish moron, and a malicious dwarf - in his twisted crimes. A woman reporter, investigating the mystery of the vanishing brides' bodies, accesses his home and discovers the horrid secrets held by the cavernous basement of his house.
Soup kitchen operator and criminologist Bela Lugosi operates a soup kitchen as a front for a criminal gang who commit a series of robberies and murders.
The town's leading citizen is a man victim of homicidal impulses beyond his control. He is being controlled by his wife who had left him for another man. She was involved in a car accident that has left her brain damaged and is kept in the basement, in secret, by Kessler's gardener.
A group of delinquents on their way to summer camp get stuck in a haunted house.
Greedy heirs wait in a mansion for a rich cat lover to die, only to learn her cats come first.
After his brother's death, Larry Talbot returns home to his father and the family estate. Events soon take a turn for the worse when Larry is bitten by a werewolf.
Reformed jewel thief Simon Templar lands in hot water when a look-alike smuggles stolen goods out of Egypt.
When his friend Professor Kingsely (Ridges) is at deaths door, brain surgeon Dr. Sovac (Karloff) saves his life by means of an illegal operation that transplants part of injured gangster Red Cannon's brain. Unfortunately, the operation has a disasterous Jeckll and Hyde side effect and under certain conditions the persona of Cannon emerges. Sovac soon learns of the duel personality and of half a million dollars the gangster has hidden away. He attempts to find the money through the manipulation of his friend, an attempt that brings Kingsley closer to madness as he alternates between a meek professor of english and a brutal gangster out for murderous revenge on those who tried to kill him.
Dr. Carruthers feels bitter at being betrayed by his employers, Heath and Morton, when they became rich as a result of a product he devised. He gains revenge by electrically enlarging bats and sending them out to kill his employers' family members by instilling in the bats a hatred for a particular perfume he has discovered, which he gets his victims to apply before going outdoors. Johnny Layton, a reporter, finally figures out Carruthers is the killer and, after putting the perfume on himself, douses it on Carruthers in the hopes it will get him to give himself away. One of the two is attacked as the giant bat makes one of its screaming, swooping power dives.
The manager of Kay Kyser’s band books them for a birthday party bash for an heiress at a spooky mansion, where sinister forces try to kill her.
A mad scientist attempts to rule the world by creating various elaborate inventions.
When an escaped circus gorilla appears to have gone on a murderous rampage, a threatened attorney calls on the detective trio of Garrity, Harrigan and Mullivan to act as bodyguards. In short order, we discover that there is more to the attorney than meets the eye, and the ape may be innocent after all. When a pretty young heiress faces peril, it's up to our heroic trio to save the day.
One of the sons of Frankenstein finds his father's monster in a coma and revives him, only to find out he is controlled by Ygor who is bent on revenge.
Insurance agent-physician collects on policies of men murdered by a disfigured resident of the home for the blind where he acts as doctor-on-call.
An internationally-notorious criminal scientist returns to the US to sell his latest invention, a disintegrating gas, to a foreign power. When he arrives, however, he is spotted by a young Coast Guard man, whom he kills - and thus earns the enmity of the entire US Coast Guard, but especially the murdered Guardsman's older brother who, together with his reporter-girlfriend and her comical photographer, vigorously sets to tracking him down and interfering with his plans to develop the city-melting gas in quantity. A Republic Serial in 12 Chapters.
Dr. Janos Rukh discovers a certain type of radium that has almost magical healing properties. But the element has a dangerous side, too, and it has already started affecting Rukh. Consumed by paranoia, he begins to suspect that his wife is having an affair. Wild for revenge, Rukh hatches a deadly plot...using his own poisoned body as a weapon to kill.
A brilliant but deranged neurosurgeon becomes obsessively fixated on a judge's daughter who in no way wants him. With the help of an escaped criminal whose face he has surgically deformed, the mad man lures her, her father, and her fiance to his isolated castle-like home, where he has created a torture chamber with the intent of torturing them for having "tortured" him.
During a horrific storm at sea, the crew realizes that there is a murderer among them who is killing them off one by one.
Sir Karell Borotyn appears to have been killed by Count Mora, a vampire who prowled around his castle. One year later, Irena, Karell's daughter, is haunted by the vampire and will be his next victim… unless Professor Zelen can avoid it.
The second of two feature films edited from the movie serial The Return Of Chandu (1934), comprised of footage from chapters 5-12: On the mystic island of Lemuria, the cult of Ubasti seek the Egyptian Princess Nadji to sacrifice so that their goddess Ossana, whose soul resides in Nadji's body, may be resurrected by Black Magic. Nadji is located in the Far East port of Suva, but shielded by the White Magical powers of Frank Chandler, an American raised by Eastern mystics who is also known as Chandu. When Chandu takes a voyage alone, however, the evil Voice of Ubasti is able to magically spirit her to Lemuria, where Black Magic reigns supreme. Chandu sets out in pursuit with his sister Dorothy, niece Betty and nephew Bob; but, shipwrecked on the magic island, Chandu finds his family also held prisoner for sacrifice while he is plunged into an endless maze of caverns beneath the evil temple, where both his mortal and magical strength seem rendered useless...
A diver saves his best friend's life but loses his own arm in doing so. Later, unable to find work because of his missing arm, he is forced to go to work for a criminal searching for lost treasures. Meanwhile his friend, who has since become a policeman, finds himself assigned to break up the crook's operation and bring in his gang--including the man who saved his life.
James Houghland, inventor of a new method by which television signals can be instantaneously sent anywhere in the world, refuses to sell the process to television companies, who then send agents to acquire the invention any way they can. On the night of his initial broadcast Houghland is mysteriously murdered in the middle of his demonstration and it falls to Police Chief Nelson to determine who the murderer is from the many suspects present.
Chandu consults his crystal ball and sees that Nadji, Princess of Egypt, is in danger. She is about to be sacrificed by the black magic cult of Ubasti. Headed for the magic island of Lemuria, he is shipwrecked , washed ashore and captured. He becomes invisible, escapes and after numerous detours is able to rescue the princess.
After a road accident in Hungary, the American honeymooners Joan and Peter and the enigmatic Dr. Werdegast find refuge in the house of the famed architect Hjalmar Poelzig, who shares a dark past with the doctor.
The cult of Ubasti, headquartered on the isle of Lemuria, believes that Princess Nadji of Egypt is a reincarnation of their long-dead goddess, Ossana, and intend to sacrifice her so that Ossana may be resurrected. Nadji has sought refuge at the California home of Frank Chandler, an American educated in the Ancient East and familiar with White Magic and thus calls himself "Chandu". Vindhyan, high priest of the cult's California base has learned of this, however, and works his Black Magic to gain control of Nadji. Chandu is able to rescue her but she is in a deep trance which he cannot penetrate, so attempts to move her to safety in the South Seas, unaware that the cult has a base there also and that Vindhyan has stowed aboard his chartered yacht. One of two feature films edited from the same-title, same-year movie serial, this one is comprised of the first four chapters simply edited together.
Bela Lugosi stars as Mr. Wong, a "harmless" Chinatown shopkeeper by day and relentless blood-thirsty pursuer of the Twelve Coins of Confucius by night. With possession of the coins, Mr. Wong will be supreme ruler of the Chinese province of Keelat, and his evil destiny will be fulfilled. A killing spree follows in dark and dangerous Chinatown as Wong gets control of 11 of the 12 coins. Reporter Jason Barton Wallace Ford and his girl Peg are hot on his trail, but soon find themselves in serious trouble when they stumble onto Wong's headquarters.
Long before the release of the cult film Dracula vs. Frankenstein, the original stars of Dracula and Frankenstein met face to face--for a game of chess. The scene is from an early 1934 episode of Columbia Pictures' Screen Snapshots, a series of short films featuring the off-screen lives of Hollywood stars.
The heirs to a family fortune are required to attend a seance at the spooky old family mansion. However, throughout the night members of the family are being killed off one by one.
Assorted wacky characters converge on a Chinese hotel to bid on a new invention ... television.
A mysterious criminal known as The Whispering Shadow commits crimes by means of a gang he controls by television and radio rays. Jack Norton, whose brother was murdered by The Whispering Shadow, suspects that the eerie Professor Strang - whose ghostly wax museum contains figures far too lifelike - may be involved in the crimes.
In the Hollywood Hall of Fame - a wax museum - the figure of Eddie Borden comes to life and introduces us to various stars in effigy. Pining over the effigy of Clara Bow, her husband Rex Bell suggests that Eddie get on with Betty Boop. Betty asks Eddie to accompany her in a rendition of "My Silent Love."
The French Foreign Legion is the setting for this episodic adventure yarn. Victor Jory plays a Legion doctor falsely accused of murdering his commander over the love of Loretta Young. Jory escapes prosecution by heading for parts unknown, but when a deadly illness strikes his old fort, he returns to aid his comrades. He is arrested, but clears himself of the murder charge and ends up with Young. Devil's in Love is distinguished by the surprise appearance of Bela Lugosi, who shows up unbilled as a relentless prosecuting attorney in the courtroom scenes.
When a movie actor is shot and killed during production, the true feelings about the actor begin to surface. As the studio heads worry about negative publicity, one of the writers tags along as the killing is investigated and clues begin to surface.
When delusional madman Roxor kidnaps a scientist in hopes of using his death ray to achieve world dominance, he is opposed by Chandu, a powerful hypnotist and yogi.
In 19th Century Paris, the maniacal Dr. Mirakle abducts young women and injects them with ape blood in an attempt to prove ape-human kinship. He constantly meets failure as the abducted women die. Medical student Pierre Dupin discovers what Mirakle is doing too late to prevent the abduction of his girlfriend Camille. Now he desperately tries to enlist the help of the police to get her back.
In Haiti, a wealthy landowner convinces a sorcerer to lure the American woman he has fallen for away from her fiance, only to have the madman decide to keep the woman for himself, as a zombie.
An obsessed scientist conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations.
Actor Bela Lugosi discusses his career, his social life, and his feelings about his most famous role, Count Dracula.
This short, not seen by audiences since 1931, features rare footage of Jean Harlow and Bela Lugosi discussing Dracula, as well as Walter Huston performing a musical number. It exists solely in fragmentary form.
In this comedy, two men make an extravagant $50,000 dollar bet that one of them will be able to successfully court a lovely woman with out spending any money. To foil his scheme, the other bettor hires two henchman to stop him.
Marines Flagg and Quirt fought together in WWI and Panama. After some time in New York they go to Sweden and compete for the love of Else. Next they go to Nicaragua and help earthquake victims. Then to Egypt where Else is now in Prince Hassan's harem.
Movie star Shelah Fane is seeing wealthy Alan Jaynes while filming in Honolulu, Hawaii, but won't marry him without consulting famed psychic Tanaverro first. Tanaverro confronts her about the unsolved murder of fellow film star Denny Mayo three years earlier, and she decides to reject Jaynes' proposal. When Shelah is found shot to death in her beach-front pavilion, Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police investigates.
In the early days of sound, it was common for Hollywood studios to produce Hollywood foreign-language versions of their films (usually in French, Spanish and German) using the same sets, costumes and etc. Unfortunately, most of these foreign language versions no longer exist. The Spanish version of Dracula is an exception. In recent years this version has become more highly praised by some than the English language version. The Spanish crew had the advantage of watching the dailies from the English crew's version when they came in for the evening and they would figure out better camera angles and more effective use of lighting in an attempt to "top" it. As a result, this version's supporters consider it to be much more artistically effective.
Jack's father lowers the boom when his irresponsible rich-kid ends up in jail after a night of debauchery. The father appoints Ossie, Jack's cousin, as guardian, not realizing that Ossie is just as bad. They set off on a transcontinental trip with mischief on their minds.
Carlotta Manson is a young and beautiful opera star who wants some spice in her personal life. She threatens to forsake opera for a wild, romantic fling. One night, a burglar, Barney McGann breaks into Carlotta's boudoir while she's asleep to steal her jewelery. Carlotta awakes and is facinated with Barney. They date and marry at her Villa in Italy. Soon Barney can't take being married to a diva and leaves her. Carlotta picks herself up and returns to opera. One night as Carlotta is asleep in her boudoir, she is awaken by someone breaking in...
Made during the early years of the movie musical, this exuberant revue was one of the most extravagant, eclectic, and technically ambitious Hollywood productions of its day. Starring the bandleader Paul Whiteman, then widely celebrated as the King of Jazz, the film drew from Broadway variety shows to present a spectacular array of sketches, performances by such acts as the Rhythm Boys (featuring a young Bing Crosby), and orchestral numbers—all lavishly staged by veteran theater director John Murray Anderson.
Four one-for-all and all-for-one privates in the French Foreign Legion are all in jail for disorderly conduct, but they break out and rejoin their regiment and fight off a band of marauding Arabs, and are soon in Casablanca getting decorated by the French Minister of War. Deucalion spots Eleanor, a spy who had done him dirt and after tangling with the local gendarmes, they take her and head back for Morocco where they are charged with desertion, and have to go out and defeat some more marauding natives, and dodge the machine-gun fire directed at them by the highly-displeased Eleanor, and one thing just follows another.
The son of a wealthy politician falls in with a notorious gangster planning to rob a night club.
A wealthy and powerful industrialist changes his identity to avenge himself on the wife that spurned him on their wedding night.
This sentimental Romberg-Hammerstein operetta was made late in the first cycle of movie musicals, and the glut of product at the time crowded it out at the box office. Which is too bad, because it's an excellent example of its kind -- well-crafted, well-cast, and in handsome two-tone Technicolor.
Although his murdered friend was by all accounts a scoundrel, Edward Wales is determined to trap his killer by staging a seance using a famous medium. Many of the 13 seance participants had a reason and a means to kill, and one of them uses the cover of darkness to kill again. When someone close to the medium is suspected she turns detective, in the hope of uncovering the true murderer.
Prisoners was a 1929 American film directed by William Seiter for First National Pictures. It was released as a part-talking, part-silent feature. with Corinne Griffith, James Ford, Bela Lugosi, Ian Keith, Julanne Johnston, Ann Schaeffer, Barton Hesse and Otto Matiesen. Lugosi, in his first talkie, played the owner of a Vienna nightclub.
A woman tells a girl who's just been rescued from a notorious rake, four stories of men from her own life, one of whom she had to kill to protect herself.
A corrupt art patron finds himself in love with the same girl as his stepson.
Immediately after the October revolution, in Russia, stir unrest and propaganda against the Government of the United States. Serge Oumansky is a Communist agent trying to organize terrorist actions against the same United States.
Diane Duprez (Alma Rubens) falls in love with Leslie in the snows of a Canadian village. And when they are trapped by a blizzard, her father thinks wrong of her...
A distinguished young Naval officer from a celebrated military falls prey to a terrorist and his seductress accomplice bent on destroying the Panama Canal.
The film was an unauthorized adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but the source material went unrecognized by some of the German media due to changes in the characters' names. Released in 1920, this is one of Murnau's lost films. While the film itself does not survive, the scripts and related production notes do. Because the film is lost, its full length is unknown. Dr. Warren is the Dr. Jekyll character who changes into Mr. O'Connor, a parallel of Mr. Hyde. This transformation is brought about, not by experimentation with chemicals as in Stevenson's original, but through the supernatural agency of a bust of Janus (the Roman god of the doorway), which Warren / O'Connor purchases in the opening sequence as a gift for his sweetheart, Jane. When she refuses the gift, horrified, Warren / O'Connor is forced to keep the statuette himself...
French aristocrat falls for Russian nightclub singer, gets involved in underground Russian revolutionary movement. Part 1 and 2 were re-edited in the surviving copy named Daughter of the night.
When doctors fail to cure the young and beautiful Claire Raven, who for inexplicable reasons seems to have fallen under a spell, Professor Mors, an expert in the field of hypnosis, is called in to help.
French aristocrat falls for Russian nightclub singer, gets involved in underground Russian revolutionary movement. Part 1 and 2 were re-edited in the only surviving copy named Daughter of the night.
