The Raven (1935 film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Raven | |
|---|---|
 movie poster |
|
| Directed by | Lew Landers |
| Written by | Edgar Allan Poe (poem) David Boehm (screenplay) |
| Starring | Boris Karloff Bela Lugosi |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 8, 1935 U.S. release |
| Running time | 61 min |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Raven (1935) was a horror film revolving around Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem, featuring Bela Lugosi as a Poe-obsessed mad surgeon with a torture chamber in his basement and Boris Karloff as a fugitive murderer desperately on the run from the police. This harrowing film viscerally disturbed many viewers of the time, but many critics currently agree that it displays Lugosi's finest non-Dracula performance. Lugosi had the larger role, but Boris Karloff received top billing in huge letters as "KARLOFF," with his first name dropped in the fashion that Universal Pictures adopted while Karloff's career was at its height. Too strong for 1935 tastes, with its grandiose themes of torture, disfigurement and grisly revenge, the film didn't do particularly well at the box office during its initial release (much like another renowned 1935 horror movie, MGM's Mad Love, starring Peter Lorre), and indirectly led to a temporary ban on horror films in England. With the genre no longer economically viable, horror went out of vogue. This proved a devastating development at the time for Lugosi, who found himself losing work and struggling to support his family. Universal Pictures changed hands in 1936, and the new management hardly seemed interested in the box office novelty of the macabre.
Almost three decades later, Karloff also appeared in another film with the same title, the inferior Roger Corman 1963 B-movie comedy The Raven, and the two films are frequently confused but bear no resemblance to one another.
[edit] Cast
KARLOFF as Edmund Bateman
Bela Lugosi as Richard Vollin
Lester Matthews as Jerry Halden
Irene Ware as Jean Thatcher
Samuel S. Hinds as Judge Thatcher
Spencer Charters as Bertram Grant
Inez Courtney as Mary Burns
Ian Wolfe as Geoffrey
Maidel Turner as Mrs. Harriet Grant
