Universal & Fires -- The Music of Universal Horror and Drama Films

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 10:04:20 10/12/13 Sat
Author: DAN
Subject: Universal & Fires

I thought about doing a fire post last year after watching several Universal horror films with my cousin and then discussing how they could have killed certain monsters in some of the films without distroying property.

I just watched "Night Monster" last night and it rekindled my thoughts on Universal's obsession with burning down houses and other buildings, especially in the forties.

This post is all in fun of course. No matter what the short comings, I will always love the Universal horror films.

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT: I will be giving away the endings of these movies.

FRANKENSTEIN - The monster ends up in and old windmill and the villagers set it on fire to destroy the monster. Ok, couldn't they have stormed the mill and over powered the monster, as in "Bride of Frankenstein" and "Ghost of Frankenstein and then after capturing him, maybe burn him at the stake instead of destroying the mill. But I guess maybe that mill was longer in use so it wouldn't matter.

THE INVISIBLE MAN - The invisble man, Jack Griffin, is discovered sleeping in an old farmers barn. The barn is set fire and drives Griffin out into the snow and then he's shot by the police. I suppose they had no other choices to get Griffin out of that barn without setting fire to it to take Griffin by surprise. But I only hope they built the farmer a new barn and replaced all his tools and hay.

THE MUMMY'S HAND - Near the end of this movie, a bowl of tana fluid is shot out of Kharis, the mummy, hands and spills on the floor. As Kahris gets down to drink the fluid off the floor, Steve Banning hits Kharis with a flaming stand and sets Kharis on fire. Now this fire is ok because just the mummy is set on fire, not the whole building.

THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN - Not one, but two house fires here. When the monster finds out he is getting a new brain, he goes to the home of the little girl with the ball, Cloestine, to bring her to Dr Frankenstein because he wants her innocent brain. The monster enters Cloetine's bedroom, picks her and her ball up and as he walks out of the room carrying her and the ball, the monster knocks over an oil lamp and it sets her home on fire. Then later after Ygor's brain is transplanted into the monster, he finds out he is going blind because Ygor and the monster have different blood types. Well the Ygor monster stumbles around knocking chemical stuff over and it sets the whole house on fire. Well I also hated to see the Frankenstein house go up in flames. But both homes were caused by the monster, so it couldn't be helped here.

NIGHT MONSTER - The monster is shot, but they had to have his sister burn down a perfectly good mansion because she wasn't happy there.

THE MUMMY'S TOMB - Kharis is chased to the banning house where he enters and is shot at and had torches pushed in his face and then the house is set on fire to kill Kharis again. Man I really hated seeing the Banning house burn down. I mean if I was John Banning I'd try do do anything to drive Kharis out of the house and burn him outside, rather than burn my house down. But John Banning acted like it was no big deal.

SON OF DRACULA - Kay Cauldwell uses Alucard, the son of Dracula to turn her into a vampire so she can have eternal life and then kill Alucard and make her boyfriend, Frank Stanley a vampire so they can be together forever. Kay tells Frank where Alucards coffin is, so he goes to it and sets it on fire before the sun rises and Alucard can get in it. Alucard arrives as the coffin is burning and tries to kill Frank, but it's too late for Alucard, the sun destroys him. Then later Frank sets Kay's coffin on fire in ther home, but I don't think the whole house went up. So these fires were ok IMO.

THE INVISIBLE MAN'S REVENGE - The fire here was Dr Drury's home set by Rob Griffin the guy who Drury made invisble. Rob did a blood transfusion on Dr Drury which drained Drury's blood and killed him. Then Griffin set Drury's house on fire to destroy evidence I guess. Well it was a waste of a home, but Drury wouldn't be around, so this fire wasn't that big a deal. But still, another good home burned down.

HOUSE OF DRACULA - Dr Edelman is trying to cure both Dracula and Larry Talbot, the wolf man.
He manages to cure Talbot, but during a blood transfusion with Dracula. Dracula double crosses him and reverses the blood which turns Edelman into a Jeckyl and Hyde type monster. Later after Dracula is destroyed and Talbot is recovering from his operation, the police come to Edelman's home to investigate the murder of Seigfried, Edelman's servent. The mad Edelman kills Nina his hunchbacked nurse when she catches him reviving the monster. Talbot and the police enter the lab, the monster attacks, slamming one cop into the electrical equipment and along the way knocks over some chemicals which sets the place ablaze, ala Ghost of Frankenestein. No choices here. Talbot and his nurse girlfriend escape, but here's yet another great home destroyed by fire.

ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN - A&C being chased by the Frankenstein monster jump into a row boat as they are escaping, the Monster is on the dock tossing barrels at them. The dock is set on fire by Dr Stevens a good assistant of Dracula who knew nothing about who Dracula was or what he was up to. As the dock burns the monster is caught in the fire and is supposedly destroyed again. Well I guess this fire wasn't that bad, it was just an old wooden dock which can be easily replaced. No burned homes in this film.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[> Re: Universal & Fires -- Tim, 03:28:47 11/07/13 Thu [1]

Another excellent post, Dan. I agree there were times when methods other than fire could have been used to bring things to a conclusion. The filmmakers may have found it an easy way to resolve the story, plus it looked more dramatic on film to destroy an entire castle, windmill, etc., than to destroy just the monster or monsters. You give some interesting examples of the use of fire in the Universal horror pictures.

In Ghost of Frankenstein the villagers eagerness to destroy property backfired in a manner of speaking. Near the start of the movie they convince the mayor to permit them to get rid of the Frankenstein castle. They opt to blow it up, but their effort to destroy the "curse of Frankenstein" is what unleashes the Monster once again.

Tim

[ Post a Reply to This Message ]
[ Edit | View ]