Issue 10: Book Reviews
The Hollywood Horror Film, 1931 – 1941: Madness in a Social Landscape
By Reynold Humphries
Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2006. ISBN 0-8108-5726-X (pbk). xvi + 283 pp. £ 25.00 (pbk)
The Quest for the Wicker Man
Benjamin Franks, Stephen Harper, Jonathan Murray and Lesley Stevenson (eds.)
Edinburgh: Luath Press Limited, 2006. ISBN 1-90522-218-1 (hbk). 11 color photos, 1 illustration, 187 pp. £ 16.99 (hbk)
A Review by Edmund P. Cueva, Xavier University, USA
The Hollywood Horror Film, 1931 – 1941: Madness in a Social Landscape is a difficult book to get through. Reynold Humphries examines fifty-three films that were made from 1931 to 1941 and employs as his lens a methodology heavily laden with psychoanalytic and Marxist terms, hypotheses, and models. Some of the movies covered in this book are Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula, James Whales' 1931 Frankenstein, Rouben Mamoulian's 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel's 1931 The Most Dangerous Game, Charles Brabin's 1932 The Mask of Fu Manchu, Karl Freund's 1932 The Mummy, Edward Sutherland's 1933 Murders in the Zoo, Stuart Walker's 1935 Werewolf of London, John H. Auer's 1935 The Crime of Dr. Crespi, Lambert Hillyer's 1936 The Invisible Ray and Dracula's Daughter, Vincent Sherman's 1939 The Return of Dr. X, George Waggner's 1941 Man Made Monster and The Wolf Man, and Edward Dmytryk's 1941 The Devil Commands. This book is not meant to be read by those who are not thoroughly conversant with the works and theories of such thinkers as Jacques Lacan, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse, and Frederic Jameson. The book, indeed, at times relies too heavily on these theories, which causes the reader to lose sight of what Humphries himself thinks, has to say, or contributes to the compendium of knowledge on this fascinating period of cinematic history. It appears that this book was written for the advanced graduate student or experienced scholar.
My somewhat unenthusiastic introductory paragraph should not deter the committed follower of psychoanalysis and its use in the elucidation of film from reading Humphries' book. However, a word of caution is needed: the extreme and cumbersome use of terminology by the author leads to convoluted writing. One revealing case in which the author's stylistic density leads to near-unintelligibility is shown where Humphries is discussing Tod Browning's 1935 Mark of the Vampire:
We must separate the subject from the Real, a sort of invisible barrier that cannot be broached, has "evaporated," as it were, by the presence, blocking the way, of the vampire, the impossible fusing of the Symbolic and the Real, two "spaces" that cannot coexist except through the effects of the latter, here represented by Luna. (34)
I should also note at this juncture that Humphries' comments on Mark of the Vampire are somewhat misleading. He tries to explain away some confusing and inconsistent parts of this very odd film by using possible metatextual or narratological devices. In fact, the incongruent details of the plot and surprise ending are due to MGM's demand that all references to the incestuous relationship between Count Mora (Bela Lugosi) and Luna (Caroll Borland) be eliminated and to the fact that the actors performed their roles as if they were in a real horror movie, ignorant of the changed ending until the very last days of the movie's filming.
Another example of something being amiss is found later, where Humphries is examining Hillyer's Dracula's Daughter. Humphries writes:
The commissioner, who has not quite made up his mind as to whether he believes in vampires or not, makes a facetious remark to his butler about vampire hunting, which elicits this bizarre reply: "I thought you chased after them with checkbooks." The signifiers here are not so much wandering as leading us a merry dance. Given the Slav origins of the countess, we must rewrite the end of the sentence as "Czech books," especially as the countess's studio is situated over a bookshop in London's Chelsea district, renowned (at least outside Britain) for eccentric (= gay?) artists. (65)
Why must we rewrite the end of the sentence with "Czech books"? The commissioner surely was not thinking this. Why must we?
The book also suffers from contradictions. One instance is brought to the attention of the reader by the author himself. In the section entitled "Can Heterosexuals Behave with Gay Abandon?" of chapter two, "Mad Doctors in Love," the author states that since one of his "arguments throughout this book is that class, politics, and history are far more massively repressed within horror and critical discourse thereon than sexuality of whatever persuasion," he feels it fitting to "draw attention in passing to its role in Dracula's Daughter" (63-64). First of all, this book discusses sexuality on almost every one of its pages, and, secondly, the "passing" observation is by no means short-lived: Humphries discusses this point at length.
The Quest for the Wicker Man, on the other hand, offers a more balanced and straightforward approach to the reader. In addition to an introduction written by the editors, "The Search for The Wicker Man," the text has eleven essays, which in general are well written and researched. The essays and their authors are: "The Genesis of The Wicker Man" by Robin Hardy, "The Wicker Man, May Day and the Reinvention" by Richard Sermon, "Ritualistic Behaviour in The Wicker Man: A classical and carnivalesque perspective on 'the true nature of sacrifice'" by Paula James, "Sacrifice, Society and Religion in The Wicker Man" by Luc Racaut, "Anthropological Investigations: An innocent exploration of The Wicker Man culture" by Donald V. L. Macleod, "The Folklore Fallacy: A folkloristic/filmic perspective on The Wicker Man" by Mikel J. Koven, "The Wicker Man -- Cult Film or Anti-Cult Film? Parallels and paradoxes in the representation of Paganism, Christianity and the law" By Anthony J. Harper, "The Wicca Woman: Gender, sexuality and religion in The Wicker Man" by Brigid Cherry, "'Do As Thou Wilt': Contemporary Paganism and The Wicker Man" by Judith Higginbottom, "Music and Paganism with Special Reference to The Wicker Man" by Melvyn J. Willin, and "Wicker Man, Wicker Music" by Cary Carpenter. The book also includes an interview with Robin Hardy conducted by Jonathan Murray.
The Quest for the Wicker Man is the result of a cross-disciplinary conference, "The Wicker Man: Rituals, Readings and Reactions," that was held at the Crichton Campus of the University of Glasgow in Dumfries. The conference took place on July 14–15, 2003. The editors note that this film is able "to rouse religious passion and provoke debate" (9) even after more than three decades. This is a very good reason for the conference to be held and for the book to be published. The main thrust of this collection of essays, however, is the appropriation of some of the cultural components of the movie that can be identified as Pagan or pagan. The editors define the former capitalized term as an "identifiable set of spiritual practices or coherent set of beliefs concerning magic, pantheism and the moral principles thus derived" (9). The latter lower case term encompasses "any unsystematised religious or mystical belief that lies outside standard monotheism" (10). Most importantly, the editors aim to scrutinize the verifiable historical roots of these components.
The authors make several attention-grabbing and unanticipated observations and revelations. Robin Hardy, for example, observes that Tony Shaffer's Sleuth served as the inspiration for the core of the movie along side Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Moreover, Paula James rightly remarks that the Graeco-Roman resonance of the film "was not consciously created (the emphasis is naturally on allegedly Celtic rituals) but elements of classical sacrifice can be detected as the plot unfolds" (44). The classical, of course, derives from the film's creators' reliance on The Golden Bough. Likewise, Luc Racaut touches on Frazer's influence, but on the contrary emphasizes Christian symbolism as the root of the plot. The Golden Bough also surfaces as a topic of analysis in Milkel Koven's essay, where the author competently and convincingly argues that the more folkloric details are added to a motion picture in order to lend to it a quality of authenticity, the more misinterpretations, misrepresentations, and faulty conclusions may result. The multitude of folkloric minutiae creates the opposite of what was intended: instead of authentic context and content, the film has the effect of a "folkloric amusement park" (93). This slippery slope has its start in the erroneous reading of Sir Frazer's work as historical rather than "folkloristic description" (83). In particular, Hardy and Shaffer uncritically reproduce numerous flaws in Frazer's text. Most damning is Koven's conclusion that the filmmakers "missed Frazer's own, albeit belated, admission that such a depiction was being filtered through a very specific theoretical schema" (92).
An associated problem that arises from this conflation of fact and fiction is the resultant belief of the verisimilitude shared by Pagans and Wiccans who have enthusiastically accepted this film and made it a "firm favourite" (126). Fascinatingly, Judith Higginbottom writes that Pagans do not see The Wicker Man as a "horror film per se, but rather as a drama in which knowledge of Pagan spirituality is key to understanding the outcome" (131). The rationalization of the obvious contradiction between a peace-loving system of religious belief and the shocking immolation of Sergeant Howie is as follows: the death of Howie is logical "because Howie has rejected the knowledge which would enable him to escape his fate as the virgin sacrifice" (132). I am not sure if Pagans note the flawed reasoning behind this logic since the same could be said of the multitude of people who suffered destruction during the multiple permutations of the Inquisition because they did not accept the knowledge which would enable them to escape annihilation. Richard Sermon's "The Wicker Man, May Day and the Reinvention," possibly the best essay of the lot, is a systematic and careful evaluation of the ways in which this film has been re-interpreted to serve modern rituals and ceremonies that have been incorporated into present-day folk events.
Some of the essays in this book greatly elucidate the quasi-historical and folkloric elements of the film. Other essays, unfortunately, do not do this and cause puzzlement. For example, Brigid Cherry's essay lends great credibility to R. McKie's unsubstantiated and superficial designation of Stonehenge as an ancient representation of female sex organs (R. McKie. "The vagina monoliths: Stonehenge was ancient sex symbol," The Observer. July 6 [2003] 7). Similarly, Melvyn J. Willin's "Music and Paganism with Special Reference to The Wicker Man" falls into the verisimilitude trap that Koven cautions against when he writes that the film's music is "in harmony with the Pagan ethos" and that it "underwrites the film's Pagan aesthetic and, by extension, supports readings of the film which are sympathetic towards Paganism, whatever the writers' intentions" (151). I italicized the last clause because it crystallizes for us the problem that arises when one takes a naive approach to a multifaceted film.