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MONSTERS PHOTO GALLERY #01 (CLASSIC)

Updated: June 04, 2023

Universal Monsters is a phrase used to describe the horror, suspense and science fiction films made by Universal Studios during the decades of the 1920s through the 1950s. They began with The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera, both silent films starring Lon Chaney. Universal continued with talkies including monster franchises Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man and Creature from the Black Lagoon. The films often featured Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr.

Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera ( 1925 ) in 1923, Universal produced the drama The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney as Quasimodo. The production sets were built to evoke 15th-century Paris, including a re-creation of the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral. Chaney stars as The Phantom in 1925's horror film, The Phantom of the Opera, based on the mystery novel by Gaston Leroux. The interior of the Opéra Garnier was recreated to scale and was used again in the 1943 remake with Claude Rains.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame September 2, 1923 Wallace Worsley Lon Chaney, Patsy Ruth Miller, Norman Kerry, Nigel de Brulier, Brandon Hurst, The Phantom of the Opera November 25, 1925 Rupert Julian Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Gibson Gowland. The Cat and the Canary September 9, 1927 Paul Leni Laura La Plante, Forrest Stanley, Creighton Hale, Flora Finch. The Man Who Laughs April 27, 1928 Mary Philbin, Conrad Veidt, Brandon Hurst, Olga V. Baklanova, Cesare Gravina, Stuart Holmes, Samuel de Grasse, George Siegmann, Josephine Crowell.The Last Warning January 6, 1929 Laura LaPlante, Montagu Love, Margaret Livingston, John Boles. The Last Performance November 1929 Paul Fejos Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin.

Bela Lugosi as Dracula, Boris Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein in 1931, Bela Lugosi starred in Universal's Dracula and Boris Karloff in Frankenstein. Actors Dwight Frye and Edward Van Sloan, who played major supporting roles in both films, made several film appearances in this decade. Make-up artist Jack Pierce created several monsters' make-up starting in the 1930s.

The Mummy, starring Karloff, was produced in 1932. This was followed by a trilogy of films based on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe: Murders in the Rue Morgue ( 1932 ) starring Lugosi, The Black Cat ( 1934 ), and The Raven ( 1935 ), the latter two of which teamed Lugosi with Karloff. Universal began releasing sequels including Bride of Frankenstein ( 1935 ), Dracula's Daughter ( 1936 ) and sequels for The Invisible Man ( 1933 ). The first mainstream werewolf picture, Werewolf of London ( 1935 ) starring Henry Hull, was not a box office triumph despite being revered by audiences today.

The end of Universal's first run of horror films came in 1936. The monster movies were dropped from the production schedule altogether and would not re-emerge for another three years. In the meantime, a theatre owner revived Dracula and Frankenstein as a resoundingly successful double feature, prompting the studio to re-release the original movies. Son of Frankenstein ( 1939 ), starring Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, and Bela Lugosi, was filmed as a result of the unexpected resurgence.

During the 1940s, Universal released The Wolf Man ( 1941 ), with Lon Chaney Jr. The junior Chaney became the studio's leading monster movie actor in the 1940s, just as his father had been two decades earlier, supplanting the 1930s' Karloff and Lugosi by a wide margin in terms of the number of leading roles that he played. Chaney Jr. physically resembled his father apart from usually being somewhat overweight, which the senior Chaney never was. The studio dropped the "Jr." from the junior Chaney's billing almost immediately to confuse some in the audiences into assuming that this was the same actor.

In 1943, the studio created a remake of Phantom of the Opera, this time starring Nelson Eddy and Susanna Foster with Claude Rains as the Phantom.

The Frankenstein and Wolf Man series continued with The Ghost of Frankenstein ( 1942 ), in which Chaney Jr. played Frankenstein's monster and Lugosi reprised his role as Ygor, and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man ( 1943 ) with Lugosi as the Frankenstein monster and Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man. Son of Dracula ( 1943 ) featured Chaney Jr. in Lugosi's original role as the Count. The Mummy series was also continued with The Mummy's Hand ( 1940 ), The Mummy's Tomb ( 1942 ), The Mummy's Ghost and The Mummy's Curse ( both 1944 ) with Chaney Jr. as the Mummy in the last three films. House of Frankenstein ( 1944 ) and House of Dracula ( 1945 ) featured many of the monsters from the studio's previous films. As the decade drew to a close, the comedy Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein ( 1948 ) features Lugosi in only his second film as Count Dracula, alongside Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot ( the Wolf Man ), and Glenn Strange as Frankenstein's monster.


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