Since forty years - at least - I see Lugosiphiles confronting Karlophiles in a battle without mercy, each camp championing its hero, most often with displaced arguments. In France, Jean Boullet (who died in 1970), who wrote a number of articles on fantasy and horror movies when only a small number of them was released in this country, ostensibly despised Karloff and loved Lugosi. The motives? the movies, you said? not at all - according to Boullet, Karloff "hated fantasy films", was an "ordinary man" in real life, etc. In contrast, Lugosi was "a mysterious man, living in a sinister manor full of spiderwebs, and really sleeping at night in a coffin"... "he was totally mad before dying" etc... So, their (supposed) personalities were influential in his judgement about their films. This kind of litterature influenced a generation of French moviegoers in a time when neither Karloff nor Lugosi movies were easily accessible to them. Then, suddenly, the old films were distributed again - some were in fact shown for the first time - and everybody was able to see the naked truth: BOTH Lugosi and Karloff, or Karloff and Lugosi if you prefer, were tremendously gifted actors. The only difference, perhaps, was that Lugosi's career took an unfortunate turn a short time after his greatest successes - and Karloff was generally more lucky until the end. Personally, I prefer Boris, not because he was "a kind gentleman" in real life - but simply because I'm more sensible to the characters he often played - exactly as I prefer Frankenstein's Monster and his distressing humanity, to Dracula and his coldness (I'm speaking of the Universal Dracula - not the later Langella image). It's only a matter of taste, and I totally understand that others can prefer Lugosi's characters. A "mad doctor" played by Karloff is not the same than "a mad doctor" played by Bela, I appreciate both, but I prefer generally the ones played by Karloff, probably because I can fully understand their motivations, and sympathize with them.
All this long preambule makes more difficult for me to explain WHY I have an idolatry (the term is not exaggerated) for the late British stage and screen actor TOD SLAUGHTER, as his characters are invariably odious, hateful, despicable... Yes, but SO FUNNY! I don't remember who, in the Scarlet Letter Forum, wrotes that Vincent Price was the most comic of Horror Stars. I wonder if this friend knows Tod Slaughter. A British critic called him "the villain with a comic face", and Graham Greene was dithyrambic about him, in his review of "The Face at the Window", qualifying Tod as "one of our very best actors". He certainly was - so his (relative) anonymity nowadays is a shame. Especially now, when practically everyone having appeared in one or two horror movies is celebrated as a star, even for a little role. Tod Slaughter WAS a star, in any case he was the star of practically ALL the movies he which he played.
So, I hope some of you will add their commentaries about him, and his films.
All this long preambule makes more difficult for me to explain WHY I have an idolatry (the term is not exaggerated) for the late British stage and screen actor TOD SLAUGHTER, as his characters are invariably odious, hateful, despicable... Yes, but SO FUNNY! I don't remember who, in the Scarlet Letter Forum, wrotes that Vincent Price was the most comic of Horror Stars. I wonder if this friend knows Tod Slaughter. A British critic called him "the villain with a comic face", and Graham Greene was dithyrambic about him, in his review of "The Face at the Window", qualifying Tod as "one of our very best actors". He certainly was - so his (relative) anonymity nowadays is a shame. Especially now, when practically everyone having appeared in one or two horror movies is celebrated as a star, even for a little role. Tod Slaughter WAS a star, in any case he was the star of practically ALL the movies he which he played.
So, I hope some of you will add their commentaries about him, and his films.
