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I wanted to defend Bela Lugosi's effort as the YGORSTEIN MONSTER . I'm very much a fan of this snarling characterization and have gone to some great lengths in the past to explain why. Of course it requires much defending as it's the most grossly and unfairly lambasted performance in all of horrordom. Or, at least Universal horrordom.

For openers, I don't buy into the legend that Bela was probably humiliated taking the monster role after he originally rejected it. As we all know by now, the official concept in FMTWM was for Lugosi to be playing the creature with actual dialogue, and this would vindicate his early choice of passing on the part because the monster merely grunted and had no speech. Now, I'm not trying to say he wouldn't have taken ANY monster part at this point in his waning career, speech or otherwise -- but I'm suggesting it was a juicier part as scripted and shot than it had been since BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Furthermore, I've always figured that the monster in MEETS was essentially what we may call Ygorstein ... and that Bela was really playing an odd concoction of both his popular Ygor character and a new monstrosity, combined. This had to be at least partly challenging for an actor, and it offered the monster an entirely new persona all its own.

It's been debated back and forth forever that, of course, the monster in MEETS is supposed to be BLIND. Or at least that he "can scarcely see" (according to actual script dialogue). And everyone here understands that Lugosi's hungarian-speaking creature sounded so funny in the first screening that it was decided to edit out all his speech as well as any reference to his poor sight. And as we all know, this made his performance appear bizarre and unmotivated. But I hardly blame the actor; in the original shooting script there are precise descriptions of how the actor is to portray the monster -- instructions like, "walks around half-blind, stumbling, groping, arms outstretched..." .

It's not at all Lugosi's fault that the final version of MEETS which exists today appears to be so lame. He's a victim of an editing blunder, and at the very least there should have been some attempt made to explain that he cannot see - even a line looped in somewhere.

When others are roasting Lugosi's performance I always like to simply ask, "how else does one play such a part at this point in such a long-winded series?" The monster here is blind, sick, has been frozen alive for years. Ygor is trying to coordinate his brain into this new and misshapen carcass, itself compromised by mismatched blood types. To put it bluntly - even the great Boris Karloff most likely couldn't do much better in this situation, and I think he knew that a long time ago himself - having stepped out of the part a few films back already; fully realizing that the depth of this character, for an actor, was null and void by now.

When we start getting into the "Lugosi looks awful as the monster" part, I agree that he's not physically (generally speaking) the finest first choice to fill the boots. But taking into consideration that he's supposed to be Ygor in essence, I can easily enjoy him in the makeup. And besides, at the very least I think it's cool that ALL our horror stars got a crack at the monster (Boris, Bela, Lon, Glenn...)

Bela does manage to breathe some unique life into the role, even the most narrow-minded of critics have conceded that. Who was it that wrote something like, "a hissing evil that snarled through the makeup"..? Everyone enjoys that moment where Ygorstein regains his sight and smiles triumphantly and cunningly while on that slab. And if you closely watch the scene where Ygorstein crashes the Festival of the New Wine, he very methodically angles his unseeing head to and fro amidst the screams and pandemonium, trying to decipher where people (and Larry Talbot in particular) are --- through the sounds. There's one moment nobody ever talks about that I love - where a girl screams hysterically and some other woman desperately tries to cover her mouth so the monster can't locate her.

As usual, Bela Lugosi got the short end of the stick with this one. I can expect all those wrong impressions from casual moviegoers that don't even know what the hell we're talking about here in the first place, and probably think the monster was still being played by Boris Karloff throughout the series anyway... but to the more sophisticated and well-versed Universal fans like ourselves on boards like this? We should know better.

Quote:

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How exactly did the local villagers learn the Monster was blind? Was there somebody lurking and eavesdropping outside the laboratory door when Doc Ludwig whispered his dying-breath explanation to the hapless Bohmer (Another little "mistake," there, doc...?) and the Ygorstein (properly, Igorstein) Monster? Because in my version of GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, everyone in that room dies in the next 30 seconds.

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Well, this could be asked of just about anything from almost any horror film series - and especially the Frankenstein ones! Things are not always so consistent, obviously. However -- in the film as scripted and I'll presume filmed, the Monster does tell Larry Talbot his eyes are screwed up and he can barely see. That the dialogue was cut out after the fact doesn't change the rest of the movie.

But let me ask you - where in the film DO the villagers indicate they know the creature's blind? Nobody says they know this, but if you're referring to my post where I suggested that a girl screams when the monster comes into town and another woman covers her mouth, this is only my perception of the sequence. It would seem to me that, in any event, the woman is trying to stifle the screams as not to alert the monster as to where the two are hiding. I'll guess they can see the monster looks confused.

As to the end of GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, this may be stretching it a bit (and often times we have to!) but perhaps Ralph Bellamy's character witnessed the final disaster while he was trying to rescue Ludwig.

It's only one single shot out of the entire film and frankly, I think it works perfectly fine as the monster just standing in the background looking around, and the one woman trying to hush the other, lest the monster come near them. Not as big of a deal or an exaggeration as you're making it out to be.! :)

P.S. - this is not to say that the idea of a drunken Larry running around warning everyone isn't funny... ;)

Okay, I've just checked the script and no, there is no indication for this specific moment. Which means that the director could have deliberately intended it himself? If so, it was a nice touch.

Well said, blackbiped!

I've always felt FWTWM was my favorite of all monster films, and largely for the reasons you've written. It was the first "Monster Team-Up Mash" and is full of atmosphere and all that makes monster films so much fun - the dead trees, graveyeards, mausoleum, laboratory, monsters, girl in peril, etc... etc...