Frankenstein / The Mummy

FRANKENSTEIN, 1931, Universal, 70 min. Dir. James Whale. "A Monster Science Created – But Could Not Destroy!" Boris Karloff had appeared in over 75 films before FRANKENSTEIN turned him almost overnight into a screen legend. His performance as a manmade human stitched together from pieces of dead bodies and reanimated by electricity – anguished, eloquent, wordless – remains one of the most hauntingly powerful in all cinema. With Colin Clive, Edward Van Sloan, Dwight Frye.

THE MUMMY, 1932, Universal, Dir. Karl Freund. Boris Karloff gives one of his finest performances as the 3,000-year-old Egyptian who returns from the dead to reclaim reincarnated love Zita Johann, in cinematographer-turned-director Karl Freund’s marvelously atmospheric chiller – easily the best of many mummy films to come. (Look for a memorial tribute screening to Forry in early March at the Egyptian.)