Uncanny Bodies: The Coming of Sound Film and the Origins of the Horror Genre [Paperback]

Robert Spadoni (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 4, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0520251229 | ISBN-13: 978-0520251229 | Edition: 1

In 1931 Universal Pictures released Dracula and Frankenstein, two films that inaugurated the horror genre in Hollywood cinema. These films appeared directly on the heels of Hollywood's transition to sound film. Uncanny Bodies argues that the coming of sound inspired more in these massively influential horror movies than screams, creaking doors, and howling wolves. A close examination of the historical reception of films of the transition period reveals that sound films could seem to their earliest viewers unreal and ghostly. By comparing this audience impression to the first sound horror films, Robert Spadoni makes a case for understanding film viewing as a force that can powerfully shape both the minutest aspects of individual films and the broadest sweep of film production trends, and for seeing aftereffects of the temporary weirdness of sound film deeply etched in the basic character of one of our most enduring film genres.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Rich, insightful book. . . . A poetic and clever analysis, presenting impressive historical scholarship with panache."--Choice

"Original and stimulating."--Image & Narrative

"Spadoni's analysis is intriguing."--Metro Newspapers

"Contributes substantially to the history of film sound as well as the history of classic horror cinema. . . . Lucid, accessible prose."--Hist Jrnl of Film, Rad, Tv

"Profoundly original ... Thanks to Robert Spadoni we can now see and hear Dracula and Frankenstein in a fresh light."--Music, Sound & the Moving Image

From the Inside Flap

"Through meticulous historical research, Spadoni in Uncanny Bodies provides a fine understanding of the aesthetic and cultural context in which the original Universal film version of Dracula appeared. Through analyses of films that came before and after, he successfully restores Dracula's strangeness for a contemporary audience, a strangeness that reflects the rapidly evolving conventions of the early sound film. A significant contribution to reception studies, Uncanny Bodies makes us see why Dracula, while holding little terror for subsequent audiences, is nevertheless both a foundational work for the horror film, and also, paradoxically, an anomaly, one effectively overshadowed by Frankenstein."--William Paul, author of Laughing Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror and Comedy

"Uncanny Bodies is a pleasure to read. I know of no other work that has looked as closely at early sound and horror films to make a persuasive argument about horror's relation to the beginnings of sound film. Given the voluminous literature on Universal horror films, Spadoni presents some very original ideas and frames his inquiry in an interesting way."--Jan-Christopher Horak, editor of Lovers of Cinema: The First American Film Avant-Garde, 1919-1945

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Product Details

• Paperback: 202 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (September 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520251229
• ISBN-13: 978-0520251229
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,385,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Original ideas about a under-studied era, February 1, 2008

By 

Dain P. Goding (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Uncanny Bodies: The Coming of Sound Film and the Origins of the Horror Genre (Paperback)

I read "Uncanny Bodies" because I am such a big fan of "Dracula" and "Frankenstein", the films that most of the text is committed to studying. However, I ended up learning a lot more than I bargained for about an era in film history that is often ignored -- the four years of transition between "The Jazz Singer" and the end of silent film production from the major studios. "Dracula" was made during the end of the transition era, and by the time "Frankenstein" was produced, Universal had ended all silent film production.

The book cites many primary sources and critical writing of the era to shed light on the uncertain responses of a 1931 viewer to the novelty of sound film, and does an excellent job supporting its thesis that the producers of "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" played off of their audience's experiences of early sound films to heighten the terror of the living dead who are threatening the protagonists. Well-written and accessible, while exhaustively researched and remaining very academic, Spadoni's book uses reception study to reveal a lot about the often hailed, derided, and misunderstood early horror masterpieces.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Horror Delight, August 7, 2008

By 

AudioArabesque (Los Angeles, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Uncanny Bodies: The Coming of Sound Film and the Origins of the Horror Genre (Paperback)

UNCANNY BODIES deftly explores the connections between early silent and sound cinema reception and the development of the classic horror genre. In the introduction, the author notes: "As film viewers, Hollywood's first horror filmmakers encountered the same body of films that general audiences and professional critics did during the sound transition years. I will argue that this viewing experience predisposed these filmmakers to conceive of a new kind of film in a way that capitalized on impressions that synchronized sound film had recently made on the viewership at large." In short, the uncanny bodies of actors on the screen that viewers encountered in the transition from silent to sound cinema - with their black and white visages, processed, accented and dislocated voices, and exaggerated acting styles - gave horror filmmakers the raw material to create some of the greatest horror characters in classical cinema, namely DRACULA (1931) and FRANKENSTEIN (1931). Author Robert Spadoni provides a meticulous and well-researched argument in this study. One of the main revelations for the field of cinema scholarship (and cinema history) is the integration of the voices of various critics and filmgoers from the 1920s and 1930s about the transition from silent to sound cinema. These insights offer a time capsule of the changing attitudes toward cinema as a developing art form. I highly recommend this book for both scholars and general readers.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a cinephile's delight, July 16, 2010

By 

Peter Stanfield (Nowheresville) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Uncanny Bodies: The Coming of Sound Film and the Origins of the Horror Genre (Paperback)

This illuminating study of Universal's two seminal horror pix, Dracula and Frankenstein, is good enough to stand alongside the best that Film Studies has produced on popular American cinema, and is by far the finest book on early Hollywood horror. Spadoni's thesis on the films' place in the transition from silent to sound cinema is utterly compelling. Along with conveying a cinephile's delight in his subject, he has produced a perfect compact of archive research and theoretical insight.