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Fox Horror Classics Collection (REGION 1) (NTSC)


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Fine acting by Laird Cregar in two, and creepy atmosphere in all three. Not bad.
Review date: 2007-10-27 Rating: 8 out of 10

Hangover Square:
Can Hollywood make an engrossing movie about a murderous schizophrenic who is a big, fleshy sad sack? Director John Brahm, cinematographer Joseph LaShelle and lead actor Laird Cregar come close. The movie has a great title and such an atmospheric turn-of-the-century London look about it -- with plenty of gas lights and foggy night-time streets -- that we almost expect composer George Harvey Bone (Cregar) to walk by Sherlock Holmes as he returns dazed from another murder. The movie also benefits, if that's the word, by the story of Cregar's death. Cregar was a large man, well over 6 feet and often over 300 pounds. With Hangover Square, Cregar saw his chance to escape being cast as a character actor and turn himself into a leading man. In weeks he lost over 100 pounds with the help of amphetamines and a strict diet. Shortly after finishing Hangover Square, he was dead of a heart attack at 28.

Bone is a Victorian-era composer who is subject to blackouts. He puts his chance for serious musical acclaim at risk when he meets the dance hall singer Netta Longdon (Linda Darnell). He always was something of a weakling, but now he is becoming a sad creature manipulated by a selfish woman. When he learns Netta was simply using him, he has a seizure that leads to a spectacular Guy Fawkes bonfire which leaves Netta done to a crisp. Bone almost welcomes the insistence by Dr. Alex Middleton (George Sanders), a medical man who consults with Scotland Yard, that Bone must turn himself over to the police. But first Bone must play his finished concerto macabre, even as the flames of a burning salon engulf him.

Is this horror? No. Is it sad? Yes. But more than anything, Hangover Square is melodrama...not a bad thing when it's the end-product of the well-greased Hollywood movie-making machine which featured the efficient skills of filmdom's craftsmen. Unfortunately, the movie has no one to really care about. I found myself more upset over the fate of Netta's Siamese cat than I was over the fate of Netta. For those intrigued by Cregar, watch him as the suave devil in Heaven Can Wait (1943), the amusing Sir Francis Chesney in Charley's Aunt (1941) and the obsessed, menacing and tragic Ed Cornell in I Wake Up Screaming (1941).

The Lodger:
"When the evil is cut out of a beautiful thing, then only the beauty remains."

The quote belongs to Mr. Slade, played by Laird Cregar, who with his scalpel leaves a number of former London dance hall women dripping, beautiful and sprawled dead in the alleys of Victorian London.

This creepy Ripper story delivers the goods. There are no close-ups of gore splashing Slade's face as he slices and extracts. What The Lodger has in abundance is atmosphere...gaslights in the fog at night, glistening wet cobblestones, dark alleyways and shadowed rooftops. It benefits immensely from the sinister black-and-white cinematography of Lucien Ballard. Most of all, it has Laird Cregar as the tormented, hulking Slade. The final scenes as Slade, wounded by a shot from Detective John Warwick's revolver, running in a crouch through the back of the theater where Kitty Langley has just performed, the police after him, his desperate eyes looking for a way out, his jowls quivering in fear and madness, all lit by gaslight, is quite a moment.

Watch The Lodger, then watch Man in the Attic from 1953. It's a very close remake of the Lodger, with Jack Palance as Slade. It's instructive to see the differences between movies with the same plot where one is not quite awful and the other is an A movie.

The Undying Monster:
"'Orrible, it were!" cries a wide-eyed, dirty-nailed villager rushing into Hammond Hall. He's just come across the latest results of a mysterious monster that ferociously attacks members of the Hammond family, a line going back 500 years. We're in the tail end of the 19th century in England, and Hammond Hall is a great, stone hulk perched on the cliffs above a tumultuous sea.

When Oliver Hammond is attacked late one night on the cliffs as he tries to protect a young woman who had taken a shortcut, Scotland Yard is brought in. Robert Curtis (James Ellison), a scientifically inclined detective with a cheery air, is determined to find the truth. He has to deal with the well-meaning Oliver Hammond (John Howard), the chilly and beautiful Helga Hammond (Heather Angel), the suspiciously mysterious Dr. Jeff Colbert (Bramwell Fletcher), and the doom-speaking Walton with his hatchet-faced wife, the housekeeper.

The acting ranges from amateurish (James Ellison) to clunky (John Howard, who sports a mustache even more carefully trimmed than Gable's) to carefully hammy (Bramwell Fletcher.) The cliches are all here and presented with sincerity. The enterprise, however, looks just fine, thanks to cinematographer Lucien Ballard, and the movie moves briskly to fill its 63 minutes. Someone even decided to speed up the film to make the monster look quite snappy as he runs along a cliff carrying his latest victim. Still, the overall effect, 65 years later, is one of pleasant indulgence, especially if one has a fondness for or suffers from lycanthropy.

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Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Glenn Langan
Laird Cregar
Faye Marlowe
George Sanders
Linda Darnell

Creators:
Laird Cregar (Primary Contributor)
Linda Darnell (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
EAN: 0024543466796
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 3
Format: Box set, Black & White, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Restored, Subtitled, NTSC,
Release date: 2007-10-09
Universal product code (UPC): 024543466796
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Region code: 1
Running time: 224 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1944-01-19
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: French (Subtitled)
Language: Spanish (Subtitled)
Language: Spanish (Dubbed)

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