Putting Some Flesh On History's Bones: 1930s Fright Classics in Sheridan

At the Wyoming Room, the bulk of our work consists of helping patrons with the nitty gritty of family and local history.

Peruse our blog posts and you'll see mostly just that: the nitty gritty. But you'll also see a little lore and culture sprinkled throughout, such as our posts on the Bellevue Cemetery "Witches' Circle," the lore of the Lake DeSmet monster, Native American little people legends, and even a Wimpus.

Beyond mere entertainment, lore and culture, by extension, puts the flesh on history's bones, turning names and dates into characters and phenomena.

And cinema, especially horror cinema, can give us a sense of people's hopes, fears and anxieties from ages past. With this in mind, we present to you a snapshot of Americana and a little about Sheridan in the Great Depression and World War II during the 'Golden Age' of horror movies.

From the May 19 edition of the Sheridan Press.
Click to enlarge.

In the almost century horror films have terrified and chilled American moviegoers, trends come and go, with hidden gems sadly overlooked while silly, half-hearted efforts enjoyed financial success. Beyond quality, there is something much deeper happening beneath the ebb and flow of trends in horror films. In the 1950s, the nasty du jour was atomic mutants. Slashers tore up screens in the 1980s, then faded into oblivion. Supernatural horror has been on and off with audiences since the 1960s (from Hammer Horror films to Poltergeist to The Conjuring).

Horror movies, like all art, are open to interpretation from many schools of thought. Whichever way you cut it, people, like horror films, are a product of a time and a place.

There are about as many who detest fright flicks as there who need them to help deal when the world around them turns upside down. In short, horror can help deal with overwhelming fear and anxiety caused by society-wide catastrophes.

Though the Folio's article on horror and cultural anxieties featuring Dr. Jason Wallin (whose scholarship covers media studies and horror films), concerns contemporary fare, his statements can shine a light on older films as well, as we will see: "[Horror is] not about the scare tactics so much as the unconscious fears....[it] is all about monsters, and those monsters are often the embodiment of social anxiety."

One of the all-time box office champs, 1973's acclaimed The Exorcist, confronted anxieties of a religious origin with its tale of supernatural evil. Reading between the lines a bit, you might see the film as American's way of dealing with the clash of traditional Christian values and the free love of the rebellious 1960s.

Similarly, the 1981 remake of The Thing, with a shapeshifting alien monster that could assume anyone's identity, perhaps helped allay American moviegoers' anxieties about AIDS. More recently, many movie critics interpret the 2015 indie hit, It Follows, as a commentary on sexually transmitted diseases. And The Walking Dead? Its immense popularity could reflect our widespread fear of other human beings in a post-911 atmosphere.

Most of us, whether we like horror movies or not, know the iconic stories and characters of our generations. It might be Bela Lugosi's magnetic, undead aristocrat; Linda Blair spewing split pea soup; Freddy Krueger and his hilariously sinister cackle; or creepy clowns (the less said about them the better).

Nowadays, the once-terrifying Frankenstein and Dracula strike a pretty tame note. In Sheridan in the 1930s and 1940s, audiences were still fresh to big screen abominations and the films they beheld thrilled, chilled, and, afterward, provided a measure of peace for many. Sheridanites were no exception.

Before the Golden Age of Horror in Sheridan came the 1920 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, followed by Lon Chaney Sr.'s silent masterpiece, The Phantom of the Opera in 1925, and the now-lost 1927 film, London after Midnight.

From the December 26, 1925 and January 20, 1928 editions of
the Sheridan Post-Enterprise, respectively.
Click to enlarge.

Unlike horror films in the ensuing decade, defining Phantom and its ilk as products of uniquely American fears is a messier task, which makes sense if we're dealing with a decade marked by the extravagance and excess that precipitated the Great Depression. Alternately, look at German films from the same era, Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for example, as products of its First-World-War-ravaged economic and political troubles that had a stronger impact on the genre.

Enter the Great Depression. In this decade, American horror films entered their first heyday. As a nation marked by social anxieties of the ghastliest kind, folks sought brief reprieve in comedies and light dramas--and when the lighter stuff didn't pack a punch they needed, it was monster movies that saved the day.

Bela Lugosi in Dracula kicked things off on Valentine's Day 1931, though it wasn't until March that the film made its way to Sheridan. The Sheridan Press was hesitant about the film, distancing itself in its description, "a strange and weird motion picture." While the film is now regarded as a classic, it seems Sheridan moviegoers weren't quite sure what to do with it.

From the March 6th, 1931 edition of the Sheridan Press.
Click to enlarge.

Like most movies in the early days of Sheridan cinema, Dracula played for only a few days, making only a light impact...one that would be felt again later and much stronger.

From the May 15th, 1932 edition of the Sheridan Press. 
Click to enlarge.

Unlike its fanged predecessor, Frankenstein drew crowds of Sheridan moviegoers. The Lotus warned "patrons whose nerves were supposed to be jumpy" to avoid the film, so they naturally went to it in droves. And this time around, the Press introduced the picture with greater enthusiasm, drumming it up as "packed to the brim with thrills, and called by experts the most original film ever to reach the screen."

By late 1931 and mid-1932, the Great Depression had kicked into full gear, seeing food riots, the worst drought in 300 years, trade wars, and exponentially growing unemployment and shrinking stock prices (which couldn't have seemed possible to Depression-ravaged folks). Considering world events in the 1930s, it's no shocker that horror movies enjoyed newfound life.

A surprising number of people were able to scrounge 35 cents (roughly $6 today) and 10 cents for the kids (~ $2) to catch a flick to catch a fright flick at the Lotus. A bag of popcorn ran you about 10 cents.

Impressive was Frankenstein's haul, roughly the equivalent of $220 million in 2018 dollars ($313 million worldwide, counting inflation)-- especially so, considering the depression. Unsurprisingly, it met with much fanfare when it finally arrived in Sheridan a good six months after its wide release.

From 1931 to 1933, three horror movies claimed the top box office spot, Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, and King Kong, respectively; it would be another 40 years until The Exorcist pulled off a similar feat.

Frankenstein was followed by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, another box office success. You wonder if its themes of duality appealed to crowds whose lives had so suddenly changed struggled with their own sense of identities in the wake of such economic and social disasters.

From the February 1st, 1932 edition of the Sheridan Press. 
Click to enlarge.

Hot on Jekyll's heels came the much maligned and controversial Freaks--now considered an important classic--also notable for its place in Sheridan history. Then Sheridan resident, Frances Belle O'Connor, acted and performed in the film.

From the February 26, 1932nd edition of the
Sheridan Press. Click to enlarge.

Reportedly, moviegoers across the nation walked out on Freaks, repulsed by the plot's appropriately strange twists; in Sheridan, however, we sadly know little of locals' reactions. Perhaps they were more forgiving due to fellow Sheridanite Frances O'Connor's presence in the film.

1932 and early 1933 brought three of Bela Lugosi's films, Murders in the Rue Morgue,  White Zombie, and Island of Lost Souls (an adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau) to town.

Each film deals with the immense power that knowledge--science or magic--can hold over run-of-the-mill human beings. As the world spun out of control, perhaps audiences found a measure of comfort in seeing people like themselves overcome such seemingly insurmountable odds.

From the October 12th edition of the Sheridan Press.
Click to enlarge.

From the January 13th, 1933 edition of the
Sheridan Press. Click to enlarge.

You might recognize the next film, Boris Karloff's The Mummy, which thrilled audiences with its spellbinding tale of curses and scientific exploration gone too far. 

From the April 5th edition
of the Sheridan Press. 
Click to enlarge.

In the summer of 1933,  King Kong smashed through Sheridan. Maybe the fantastic yarn of a gargantuan ape and exotic horrors provided Sheridanites with a modicum of control over an ever-growing sense of alienation from a world that probably seemed forever lost to them.

From the July 24th, 1933 edition of the Sheridan Press.
Click to enlarge.

The pace of horror-thrillers slowed as the 1930s marched on; still, plenty of eventual classics made their way to Sheridan screens.

Claude Rains' The Invisible Man  flipped the script on the mad scientist narrative. The Press writer charged with the local market echoed language from Frankenstein pitches, sensationalizing the picture as presenting "the strangest character ever seen." Contrasted with the Press's efforts to distance itself from Dracula two years earlier, by 1934, strange was good.

From the May 2nd, 1934 edition of the Sheridan Press.
Click to enlarge.

Karloff and Lugosi came to Sheridan in August of 1934 with the still-creepy The Black Cat (related to the Edgar Alan Poe story only in the nominal sense). Amid the rush of thrillers in the 1930s, Cat stood out from the pack in its portrayal of religiously-oriented scares, a subgenre that would not see resurgence until the Hammer Horror films of the 1960s and the next decade's Exorcist. 

In contrast to his previous venture, Karloff was seen a year later in the masterful Bride of Frankenstein, which gave Sheridanites a taste of the terrifying and whimsical, a blend rarely seen then or since.

From the June 7th, 1935
edition of the Sheridan
Press. Click to enlarge.

Despite a case of sequelitis, Bride's take was a modest success,  demonstrating the power of Mary Shelley's monster in America's collective psyche.

Edgar Allan Poe was big in the 1930s. Another adaptation of his work landed in Sheridan in the late summer of 1935, reuniting Karloff and Lugosi in The Raven. 

From the September 12, 1935 edition of the
Sheridan Press. Click to enlarge.

As the 1940s and World War II approached, horror experienced a decline with studios growing less confidant, releasing mostly sequels such as Son of Frankenstein with the dependable duo of Karloff and Lugosi. 

From the February 9th edition of the Sheridan Press. 
Click to enlarge.

At the start of the new decade, Sheridan began to bring Frankenstein's monster and the gang into the Hallowe'en season, where in earlier years, the Lotus et al presented romantic comedies or dramas for Hallowe'en events. 

From the October 31st, 1940 edition of the Sheridan Press. 

Looking at the poster above, it seems likely that America and Sheridan now associated fright flicks with the kiddos, precipitating an almost Jekyll-and-Mr.-Hyde split in attitudes regarding horror pictures as the 1940s approached.

One of the most renowned Universal horror pictures, perhaps eclipsed only by Frankenstein, missed Sheridan until two years after its release. Lon Chaney Jr.'s The Wolf Man landed nationwide just two days after the December 7th, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor;. Talk about unfortunate timing. When The Wolf Man did find Sheridan, it was obscured under a Hallowe'en double billing with Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror.

By the 1940s, America had a sharper understanding of horror pictures. A decade of strife saw to that. Gone was the emphasis on softer descriptors such as 'thriller' and 'suspense'; you now saw stark, sometimes violent language preferred: 'horror,' 'kill,' 'shock'. And below, you can see language trying desperately to show that the new wave of horror pictures were edgier: "Frankenstein was a sissy." Perhaps it was desperate marketing. Perhaps horror pictures of the 1940s did have bite those from the 30s lacked.

From the November 13th, 1940 edition of the
Sheridan Press. 

War changed the formerly dominating economic woes from what could best be described as psychological and existential anxiety to constant fear stemming from a more immediate, physical threat. As such, monsters and the more visceral horror of the mid-to-late 30s fell out of favor with everyone but younger moviegoers. 

In the excellent history of Universal monster movies, Universal Horrors: The Studio's Classic Films, the authors quote legendary screenwriter, Curt Siodmak, who wrote The Wolf Man, on historical context and its circular effect on audiences and horror films:

"When we made those pictures throughout the Second World War, we couldn't show an American with a machine gun mowing down 5000 Japanese. Nobody would have believed it; it wouldn't work. So we had the Gothic stories... When the war ended, the bottom fell out of the horror business. Then, when we began testing the atomic bomb, it all started again."

One such Gothic story was the Val Lewton production, Cat People. While the film has endured to become considered a classic, audiences greeted it with barely a meow upon its release (thank you for allowing us to indulge ourselves). Of the 1940s, it is the more mature Cat People and its ilk that people still take seriously today.

From the April 20th, 1943 edition of the Sheridan Press.
Click to enlarge.

The old standbys of Lugosi, Chaney Jr., and Universal's monsters were seen as niche staple, sometimes a joke. Movie studios sank a lot of money in their fright flicks with decent returns, but, for the most part, nothing that screamed 1940s like Frankenstein or Kong screamed the 1930s.

Yet horror films maintained an active presence in Sheridan during World War II and the years immediately after. Hallowe'en shows persisted as well as occasional events like Jack Wyman's Asylum of Horrors.

From the May 30th edition of the Sheridan Press.
Click to enlarge.

That evening found Sheridanites thrilled and chilled by seances, floating ghosts, and a King-Kong-like uncaging and releasing of a Frankenstein's monster, which apparently got loose.

Even festivities that started as a means to allay youth vandalism, like Sheridan's First Annual Hallowe'en Parade and subsequent festivities, used things that go bump in the night as a distraction from real bogies across the oceans.

By the end of the '40s, monsters, when they did appear, had been relegated to the realm of adolescent angst or slapdash comedies. See the classic Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters series of films. As America's post-war prosperity blossomed and technology exploded, aliens, UFOs, and mutant monsters calmed and claimed America's fears.

As this Halloween season approaches and you find yourself wanting to check out some viewing of the ooky variety, maybe combine a little history and a little culture with your chills and thrills by exploring some of these time-honored classics.

But that's not the point, not entirely. If we may be so bold: for the curious, we have a wealth of information in the Wyoming Room on Sheridan in the Great Depression and World War II--golden age horror movies are just the tip of the cultural iceberg.