Karloff Before Frankenstein: The Utah Kid / Phantoms of the North

William Henry Pratt left England at age 22 to join a theatrical touring company in Canada, and took on the stage name of Boris Karloff. A decade later he would migrate to Hollywood for his earliest surviving film appearance in the 1919 serial, The Masked Rider. He began to appear in other cliffhangers including The Hope Diamond Mystery (1920) and King Of The Wild (1930) often cast as the exotic evil-doer. He portrays a half breed fur trader in 1929's Phantoms of the North, included in this collection. With the introduction of sound, he found substantial supporting parts such as the henchman with the British accent, as seen here in The Utah Kid. This is a truly lost film mastered from the only known existing print. The following year he would rise to international super stardom and Hollywood legend, in James Whale's 1931 horror classic, Frankenstein.

The Utah Kid (1930, B&W): Stars Rex Lease, Boris Karloff, Dorothy Sebastion, Lafe McKee; Directed by Richard Thorpe. Tiffany Productions.

Phantoms of the North (1929, B&W): Stars Donald Keith, Boris Karloff, Joe Bonomo; Directed by Harry Webb. Biltmore Productions. Complete surviving footage of this rare film!

Frankenstein Trailer: Realart reissue, 1948