10. Universal suspended the monster films for three years in the 1930s
In 1936 Universal responded to the Hays Code and increased censorship of films by suspending the production of films featuring the classic monsters and the stars who portrayed them on film. Enterprising theater owners, with no new product with which to entice horror film fans, repackaged some of the original releases as double features. A double bill which combined Dracula and Frankenstein, in their original formats and length, was highly successful and drew the attention of Universal executives in 1939. The result was Son of Frankenstein.
Son of Frankenstein was the last time Boris Karloff portrayed the monster, the first time Bela Lugosi appeared as Ygor, the doctor’s assistant, and featured Basil Rathbone as Wolf von Frankenstein, son of Henry Frankenstein, creator of the monster. Both the monster and Ygor were apparently (to the audience) killed in the film, though later revivals would prove them more durable than thought. Lugosi and Karloff received positive reviews for their performances, though The New York Times speculated that the film was “the silliest picture ever made”. The film revived Universal studio’s fortunes and the classic monster genre.