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Memes come and go, but the really resonant ones have a way of sticking around, even evolving.
Ditto the phrase large adult son.
Ashirt-designing heir to the Koch family?
Sometimes its easier to root for the losers.
Lugosi starred inDraculain 1931, bringing to film a role hed played successfully onstage for years.
That same year, Karloff starred inFrankenstein, a success he followed just a year later withThe Mummy.
Lugosi brought a singular, enchanting creepiness.
As at ease playing childlike monsters as lovestruck immortals, Karloff brought remarkable versatility.
But Longworth doesnt mince any words in summing up his talents.
In fact, she uses just one word to sum him: sucks.
Because shes not entirely wrong.
But Longworths not entirely right, either.
Chaney was a big, lumbering guy who seldom looks at ease onscreen.
Hes prone to sound panicky whether or not a scene called for that emotion.
He seems sweaty, even when he wasnt literally sweating.
He looks, at all times, like a man who knows hes in over his head.
Yet its these same qualities that can make him a memorable, pitiable screen presence.
Karloff could make monsters empathetic, romantic, or unnervingly cosmopolitan.
Even under mounds of makeup Chaney usually just seems like hes been dropped into the movie by accident.
Then his father became famous.
And, once again everything changed for his son, then 24.
They made that up.
In truth, Lon Chaney Jr. never wanted to be Lon Chaney Jr.
He didnt even want to act, instead attending business college and working in the appliance industry.
Sometimes it works for him.
Chaney delivers the films the least-skilled performance.
The film became a hit, helping to kick-start a new interest in monster movies at Universal.
It also locked Chaney into a track hed follow for the rest of his life.
Suddenly, like his father, he was asked to play every monster part around.
But, unlike his father, he couldnt disappear into his roles as easily.
In 1943, hed play Dracula in the confusingly namedSon of Dracula.
Then he played the Mummy again.
Then the Wolf Man.
And so on, up to the end of the decade.
But theres also something weirdly endearing and sometimes unexpectedly moving about Chaneys performances because of those limitations.
And at first he gotthisclose.
Hes yet to be overshadowed as the definitive Lennie, even after a well-received 1992 adaptation starring John Malkovich.
And though there had been other werewolf movies beforeThe Wolf Man, his was the one that broke through.
For Chaney who eventually dropped even the Junior that provided some separation from his father maybe it was.
The soil is red with the blood of a hundred races.
Theres no life left there.
Here you have a young and vital race.
Frankensteins monster should have suited him better, but he cant make the part sing like Karloff did.
Mostly, he just looks like an ordinary guy stuck beneath heavy, uncomfortable makeup.
Hes not a bad mummy, but the moviesarebad.
They dont try nearly as hard as he does.
I didnt like the idea of starving though.
He found other roles in the 50s, and some of them werent bad.
it’s possible for you to see him inHigh NoonandThe Defiant Ones.
He turns up inPardners,one of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewiss last films together.
Who could understand monsters better, especially monsters whose fates have been sealed by their parentage?
