The Béla Lugosi Collection – Films with Boris Karloff
By Scott Essman

Béla Lugosi and Boris Karloff may never have been the close friends that we all hoped that were, but they were undeniably the two greatest horror actors in cinema history. Certainly Lon Chaney played three of the all-time classic horror characters, but he was not exclusively a horror actor – in fact, most of his parts were outside the genre. His son, Lon Chaney Jr, played more iconic horror characters than Lugosi or Karloff during his years at Universal, but he arguably played second fiddle to his more senior colleagues in the 1940s, with each of them having long since established themselves by the time of Chaney Jr’s arrival. In the late 1950s, Christopher Lee certainly matched Lugosi and Karloff character for character, but his performances and the films they were in failed to have the impact of the earlier classics. No, there is no actor who came before or since who has made his mark as deeply and greatly as Béla and Boris.
Lugosi was born Béla Ferenc Dezso Blasko on October 20, 1882, in Hungary. According to published accounts, he joined Budapest’s National Theater in 1913. Later, he appeared in several Hungarian films under the pseudonym Arisztid Olt. After World War I, he helped the Communist regime nationalize Hungary’s film industry. Soon after, he barely escaped government arrest and fled to the United States in 1920.

It has passed into legend that Lugosi performed Dracula live on stage in the 1920s, with the most famous production occurring on Broadway in New York in 1927. Hollywood soon beckoned, as Universal’s head of production, Carl Laemmle, Jr., had decided to make film versions of noted horror novels. Laemmle, Jr.’s first major acquisition to go into pre-production was the 1897 Bram Stoker classic, Dracula, though there was much speculation as to who would play the Count. Certainly, Lugosi had popularized the character on the stage, but he was not a film star at the time. Rumors abounded that Lon Chaney might be courted back to Universal from MGM, but much of this is pure speculation and not based on fact. Other actors were considered for the part, which ultimately went to the man who had made the role famous — Lugosi.

Most fans know that Boris Karloff was born William Henry Pratt on November 23, 1887, in Camberwell in South London. By 1930, Karloff was a working actor, getting parts in the play and stage versions of The Criminal Code. His performance as a killer in that film garnered him due attention. When he was at Universal in the spring of 1931 making Graft, James Whale had been brought aboard a troubled new production that Universal was fashioning as their grand follow-up to Dracula. It seems that Lugosi and Robert Florey, the original director for the new production, could not spark the magic that Laemmle, Jr. was hoping for, especially in light of how successful Dracula became. Laemmle Jr. was unconvinced with a Lugosi-Pierce makeup test for the film, and was even less impressed with Florey’s test footage. Of course, this new film was Frankenstein.
Contrary to some beliefs, in the mid-1930s, there was no real Lugosi-Karloff “horror cycle.” For one, there never was a Dracula sequel with Lugosi (the formidable Dracula’s Daughter did come out in 1936). In fact, though he did play a vampire in several stage and film projects in the 1930s and 1940s, Lugosi only played Count Dracula on screen once more – in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein in 1948, long after the Laemmle regime had ended. The real horror cycle, with numerous Frankenstein, Mummy, and Invisible Man sequels, didn’t fully begin until the late 1930s - early 1940s.
While Lugosi was making Murders in the Rue Morgue, Karloff's next horror role was in The Old Dark House (directed by James Whale in 1932), and at the end of that same year he appeared in another classic horror role — as Im Ho Tep and Ardath Bey, two versions of the Mummy. Notably, in 1934, Karloff and Lugosi teamed for the first time in The Black Cat (directed by Edward G. Ulmer), based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe. Though Karloff’s career seemed to vault higher than Lugosi’s during the 1930s the two made several more films together at Universal including The Raven (directed by Louis Friedlander, 1935) and The Invisible Ray (directed by Lambert Hillyer, 1936). Naturally, these pairings became very popular among fans and cinema enthusiasts alike.
By 1940, with the Laemmles out of the studio, Universal put Lugosi and Karloff together in Son of Frankenstein, again featuring Karloff as the Monster and this time with Lugosi as Ygor, ostensibly his best screen role since Dracula. It might be said that the two horror legends’ film careers were beginning to decline around this time, but they were paired again at their most famous studio when Universal cast them both in Black Friday (directed by Universal regular Arthur Lubin). It was the final time that they would share the screen together in a Universal film.
Lugosi’s career dwindled in the 1950s as he ended up appearing in Ed Wood’s notoriously low budget films. He died in Los Angeles on August 16, 1956. Twelve years and many films later, Karloff caught bronchitis during February of 1968 while in California. He died in England on February 2, 1969. Nevertheless, the two men left a legacy for all time. Their mark is permanently imprinted on the films in which they appeared, the horror genre in general, and the rich overall history of screen characters. Now, we celebrate them in 2005 as the icons that they were, bringing great enjoyment to anyone who has ever watched one of their performances, with four of their best collaborations at last packaged on DVD.
The Lugosi-Karloff films – The Black Cat, The Raven, The Invisible Ray, Black Friday – plus Murders in the Rue Morgue – are at last on DVD from Universal Studios Home Video entitled The Bela Lugosi Collection.