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The first FRANKENSTEIN (1931) is the best for me.

(https://i.imgur.com/C8gCE1a.gif) (https://lunapic.com)

Second would be the RAVEN (1934) with Bela and Boris.
Third- the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935).
If the 1931 DRACULA with Lugosi could have sustained the mood and feel of the first scenes in the castle...(heavy sigh)... :bluesad: I still love it- because of Lugosi. If anyone else had the lead in that film-it wouldn't work for me. I can't imagine Lon Chaney or Conrad Veidt in he role. All the make-up in the world can't replace Lugosi's otherworldly line deliverance, presence or dark charisma. Lugosi IS Dracula!

Universal monster movies....

Bride of Frankenstein might do it. Sad to watch tho. And why'd  they never bring her back? Maybe the best universal monster movie,  ironically the monster wasn't Frankenstein.

As far as boris karloff and universal I liked "the invisible ray" as an early sci-fi movie.


Hey RCM,  you like classic monster movies so much,  this one goes out to you.

http://youtu.be/l2PoSljk8cE (http://youtu.be/l2PoSljk8cE)

Of course it's sad. It's also funny, scary, has a fantastic cast, music-everything. That movie has it all.

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.  :thumbup:

I haven't seen all of them but...

if I had figure my favorite it'd have to be The Invisible Man or Frankenstein

The INVISIBLE MAN (1933) is dam funny! I love when he steals the guys bike!
And scares the s**t out of folks at the Inn!  :bouncegiggle:

http://youtu.be/KXMOURHEMpY (http://youtu.be/KXMOURHEMpY)

The Invisible Man is vastly underrated both as a movie and as a character. 

"Here we go gathering nuts in May, nuts in May, nuts in May... Here we go gathering nuts in May all on a frosty morning..." 

 :bouncegiggle:

I guess it was a horror film featuring a mad scientist sans monster, but I kinda like "the invisible ray" with Boris Karloff wearing a 'fro.

While i'm talking about a mad scientist horror movie I'll give an honorary mention to a non universal movie: Dr. Cyclops. For the time an amazingly high quality movie and one that almost created the model of the bald, bespectacled, evil mad scientist. As for horror, the scene where the aforementioned evil scientist murders a 6" tall man buy holding a poison rag over his face while his equally diminutive friends watch helplessly is certainly horrifying in a cold, cruel, callous and bloodless way.

I have been a fan of what was once called the "Universal Monster Cycle" my whole life.  I like them all even when they get ham handed...
but BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is the best of them all.  I have high regard for THE INVISIBLE MAN (except the shoe-prints in the snow) but secretly love THE OLD DARK HOUSE the best...

http://youtu.be/BvK3wZp4mDE (http://youtu.be/BvK3wZp4mDE)  

Honestly I'll never understand why universal never brought back the bride of Frankenstein in another movie.

Any of you heard any reasons for this apparently boneheaded move?

Come to think of it they never brought back dracula's daughter either. I'm beginning to think there was some sexism in their decision making processes.  I mean plenty of monsters went after women,  like the mummy, dracula,  the creature from the black lagoon, etc.  But when it comes to a female monster going after some nice handsome human buck, well there was a scarcity of those movies. Dracula's daughter was one of  the few. The bride of Frankenstein was giving the doctor a curious, possibly interested,  look but that  was all. 

I guess men just couldn't deal with the idea of a strong female creature coming after them with lust on their minds.

Yeah, they made that mummy remake with the female mummy going after a man, well,  tom cruise at any rate. I don't remember it doing too well at the box office.

DRACULA'S DAUGHTER just didn't make money, for one. Neither did the WEREWOLF OF LONDON (1935), which is why you didn't see another werewolf film until 1941's the WOLF MAN. After the BRIDE, Universal's monsters were mostly banned from Britain for a number of years. It wasn't until 1938 when a theater double-billed FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA together and it broke box-office records that they decided to take a chance and made the SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939). Then they became less about quality and more about churning out a profit.
BTW- Universal DID do 3 films featuring Paula Dupree as the Ape Woman in the 1940's.

Dracula's daughter became a big hit in later years,  i'm surprised they haven't  done a remake. Hell, in today's world it could be a hit. A strong woman lead victimized by a male (dracula)  who tries to escape the curse he put on her, only to be undermined and betrayed by another man (her creepy butler) then decides to find a companion for herself.

Maybe a different ending, she actually comesto love the guy she sets her sights on, the creepy butler betrays her,  badly injures her,  tries to kill the guy she wanted,  he offs creepy then drac's daughter tells him to leave her to the sun because she loves him too much now to do that to him. He embraces her and tells her he wants to be with her.

Done right it could work. I mean classic literature of full of immortal beings giving up their immortality for mortal love, why can't a mortal give up mortality for immortal love?

Can't believe I just typed that, i'm in a weird part of my cycle now...

It happened in SON OF DRACULA (1942).

Didn't the guy end up burning his vampire lover in that one?

Man,  I gotta give that lady credit tho, she put one over on Dracula himself, now how many people do that?

Oh yeah- they did a follow-up double bill.Also in 1938-

(https://i.imgur.com/S46xCxf.jpg) (https://lunapic.com)

The OLD DARK HOUSE is very underated. James Whale at his best! And what a cast!
Ernest Thesiger steals the whole movie! Over Laughton and Karloff!

Even with all the classics of the UNIVERSAL era, the film that does it for me is FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN(!943)

Yes, it's down the rung on the Frankenstein series list, however, it features the first clash between two well-known monster characters in the form of the Monster and the Wolf Man. It's a nice sequel to both GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN(1942) and THE WOLF MAN(1941) and does a pretty decent job of incorporating the storylines if both of those previous films into this(with the exception of Bela Lugosi's Monster now rendered mute instead of having full dialogue as was originally intended.)

Lon Chaney, Jr. gets a chance to shine in his signature role as Larry Talbot and the cast is made up of the Universal reliables of the 1940's back lot: Patric Knowles, Lionel Atwill, Ilona Massey, Dennis Hoey(taking a break from the Sherlock Holmes series), Dwight Frye and Maria Ouspenskaya reprising her role as Maleva from THE WOLF MAN.

The climax is well-worth waiting for as both Monster and Wolf Man get their licks in before the exploding dam sweeps them both to their doom(til the following year's HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN(1944). The opening of the film is still one of the most effective grave-robbing scenes ever in horror films.

Loved it as a kid, still love it today!

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^ FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN is the very first horror movie I ever seen.
Back in 1967.  :thumbup:

Honorable mentions:

SON OF FRANKENSTEIN(1939)
THE MUMMY'S TOMB(1942)
SON OF DRACULA(1943)
THE MAD GHOUL(1943)

I kinda liked "the invisible ray" with Boris karloff. (Yes RC I know you hate  that he killed bela in it, sorry.)

BORIS also kills BELA in THE BODY SNATCHER.  Of course, they had killed each other earlier, each in different films gits it good... THE BLACK CAT (1934) and THE RAVEN(1935). 

Not really. Bela peels all the skin from Karloff in the RAVEN-so there ya go.

http://youtu.be/Y3Uvlm7N-As (http://youtu.be/Y3Uvlm7N-As)

http://youtu.be/U8lX9UVUTgk (http://youtu.be/U8lX9UVUTgk) 

What's that got to do with Universal Monsters?

And to answer your question- yeah- I seen 3 versions of SHE. An old silent version, the RKO version, and this one. They all put me to sleep.

I thought she could have been a good universal movie.

There's no monsters. There's no humor. And where would Bela or Boris or Lon fit in? It's not Universal 'stuff'.
The reason DRACULA'S DAUGHTER sank is because it didn't have Lugosi (which pre-production ads and photos show), and they didn't have a star. SHE (1939), by KING KONG's creators, sunk as well. SHE (1925) was the best that I saw, but I still fell asleep.
Hammer's SHE was just a showcase for Hammer starlets.
And I never really got into Haggard. Tarzan nonsense.

The main character in She was a monster, RC. Look at the scene where she had all those slaves thrown into a volcano. The way she had her romantic rovel loaded into lava. She was a monster, just one with a nice face.

Sigh. It wasn't what Universal did. Merian Cooper did these kinda exotic adventure films. It wasn't a gothic horror film. It was a film trying to capitalize on KONG.

Oh yeah- SHE by Hammer was s**t.
As far as the INVISIBLE RAY-ah medicore pulp sci-fi junk. It was redone with MAN MADE MONSTER (by Universal) . Also pretty f**king dull.
BLACK FRIDAY (1940) also had Karloff and Lugosi in a sci fi film. The worst they ever starred in together. Garbage.