Universal Monsters - 1930s

1930s

In spite of the Great Depression, executive Carl Laemmle Jr produced massive successes for the studio with Dracula (directed by Tod Browning) and Frankenstein (directed by James Whale), both in 1931.

The success of these two movies launched the careers of Béla Lugosi and Boris Karloff, and ushered in a whole new genre of American cinema. With Universal at the forefront, filmmakers would continue to build on their success with an entire series of monster movies. These films also provided steady work for a number of genre actors including Lionel Atwill, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan, and John Carradine. Other regular talents involved were make-up artists Jack Pierce and Bud Westmore, and composers Hans J. Salter and Frank Skinner. Many of the horror genre's most well-known conventions—the creaking staircase, the cobwebs, the swirling mist and the mobs of peasants pursuing monsters with torches—originated from these films and those that followed.

The Mummy was produced in 1932, followed by a trilogy of films based on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe: Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), The Black Cat (1934) and The Raven (1935), the latter two of which teamed up Lugosi with Karloff. The Invisible Man, released in 1933, was a phenomenal hit and would spawn several sequels. Of all the Universal monsters, the most successful and sequelized was undoubtedly the Frankenstein series, which continued with Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Dracula too had its share of sequels, beginning with Dracula's Daughter in 1936, although only Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the 1948 comedy that was the beginning of the end for the Universal monster cycle, would feature Dracula as played by original leading man Bela Lugosi.

1936 also marked the end of Universal’s first run of horror films as the Laemmles were forced out of the studio after financial difficulties and a series of box office flops. The monster movies were dropped from the production schedule altogether and wouldn’t re-emerge for another three years. In the meantime the original movies were re-released to surprising success, forcing the new executives to give the go-ahead to Son of Frankenstein (1939) starring Basil Rathbone.

• Dracula (1931)
• Dracula (Spanish version) (1931)
• Frankenstein (1931)
• The Mummy (1932)
• Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)
• The Old Dark House (1932)
• The Invisible Man (1933)
• The Black Cat (1934)
• The Raven (1935)
• Werewolf of London (1935)
• Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
• Dracula's Daughter (1936)
• The Invisible Ray (1936)
• Night Key (1937)
• The Phantom Creeps (1939)
• Son of Frankenstein (1939)
• Tower of London (1939)