The Ghoul
                                                                                                                  
Director: T. Hayes Hunter
Year: 1933
Rating: 6.0
I admit to having a weakness for the creaky creepy old house horror films of the early 1930s.  With darkness, candlelight, shadows and things that move in the night, they create atmospheres that can send a chill up my leg. Universal with cinematic borrowings from Europe were the best at this and of course they had Karloff and Lugosi to stir things up. The Ghoul certainly has a look that fits right in with the Universal films, but it was in fact produced in England with Gaumont. It is a bit of a rarity in that England became very strict about showing horror, but somehow this snuck in before the clampdown. In this same year, the British censors began applying an 'H" as a rating for films with horrific content. Much of this was aimed at the American horror films that were coming in but also effected British films. This film was thought to be lost for decades and then a copy was found that deleted some of the more violent scenes - perhaps the version that English audiences were allowed to see - but later an intact print was discovered and it has recently made it to Blu-ray. Unfortunately, I only saw a copy from YouTube which added to the general murkiness of the film.

 

Also, in common with Universal is that it stars Karloff as the Ghoul. He had turned down The Invisible Man and went to his home country to take a holiday and was persuaded to appear in this. He has practically no dialogue and is missing from much of the middle of the film - so it was likely an easy gig. His scenes are few but effective and there are some wonderful shots of him in the dark looking mad, horrible and murderous. The director is American T. Hayes Hunter with no other films of note though the Edgar Wallace White Face the Fiend (1932) sounds inviting. But his cinematographer Günther Krampf had a much more impressive filmography at the time with The Hands of Orlac, Pandora's Box and Rome Express. The filmmakers manage to corral four classic British actors which gives the film a nice touch looking back.

 

Professor Morlant (Karloff) is on his death bed after years of being an Egyptologist, discovering tombs and becoming an adherent of their religion. He has acquired the Eternal Light, a jewel that he thinks will give him eternal life thanks to Anubis. He tells his servant Laing (Ernest Thesiger) to tie the jewel to his hand and put the key to his burial chamber on the inside - for when he returns on the first full moon. Laing not surprisingly doesn't believe any of this hocus pocus and steals the jewel after Morlant is dead. Oops. A few others show up at the mansion - Morlant's two heirs, his lawyer (Cedric Hardwicke) and a mysterious parson (Ralph Richardson in his debut). A few of them are after the jewel that is worth a lot of money. The female romantic interest says "What a wonderful night. It's a full moon". The sarcophagus begins to open. By no means a great film - a bit too slow and in the end it turns as much into a crime film as a horror one. Karloff in his make-up though is truly horrific - with eyebrows so thick that he could have hid the jewel in them. 77 minutes.