Cast: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Irene Ware, Lester Matthews, Inez Courtney
This week's SNH is a Lugosi-Karloff hit. Yay!
PLOT: Jean Thatcher (Irene Ware) has been injured in a car accident and her father, Judge Thatcher (Samuel S. Hinds), in a desperate attempt to save her, calls a retired surgeon, Dr. Richard Vollin (Bela Lugosi). Vollin refuses to help but is eventually forced to give in.
Judge Thatcher approaches Dr. Vollin with the claim that Jean has fallen in love with him. He requests that Vollin stop seeing her, but Vollin is obsessed with her and won't obey his request. A murderer on the run, Edmond Bateman (Boris Karloff, hard to believe under all that hair), serves as a scapegoat for Vollin. He agrees to change Bateman's face if Bateman will murder the Thatchers. After various refusals by Bateman, Vollin agrees to simply perform the surgery. In what could be considered the first instance of epic trolling in the history of time, Vollin transforms the left (to us) side of Bateman's face into a disfigured mess; his eye is crooked and his mouth is pudgy (Vollin even laughs when he discovers that Bateman shoots the mirrors after he discovers he's disfigured [because that will change his appearance], so you know he knows he's a master troll). Bateman demands that Vollin fix his mouth, and Vollin says that he will IF Bateman agrees to carry out the murders. Bateman eventually says yes.
Vollin invites the Thatchers and Jean's fiance, Jerry (Lester Matthews) to his mansion for the weekend. During the party, Jean is scared by Bateman and lets out a (rather lackluster) scream. This prompts Dr. Vollin reveals why he is so obsessed with Poe's poem, The Raven. He loves anything to do with torture and death.
Jerry decides to humor Judge Thatcher and move Jean into another room. At 11, Bateman captures Judge Thatcher first. Jerry runs after him, and, as is usually the case when a lover goes after a fiend, he makes no attempt to stop Bateman other than simply running towards him, and is knocked out.
Jean is awoken by her entire room descending. Her and Jerry are thrown into a room in which the walls will close around them and they will be crushed to death. Bateman, however, saves the day and throws Vollin into the room instead. I like this because I was rooting for Bateman all along, lol. At the end of the day, Bateman dies due to Vollin's gunshot and everyone gets away safely.
REVIEW: Considering the fact that almost nothing in this film had to do with The Raven (besides Vollin's torture devices and "Poe has been avenged!"), I enjoyed this film. I loved the mad scientist combined with evil host motif (similar to HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL with Vincent Price). Great music and Bateman was lovable. 4 out of 5 stars.
Full movie:
Nice review, Liz. THE RAVEN ( 1935 )and THE BLACK CAT ( 1934 ) would make a great double feature! They are like two sides of the same coin. Neither film has much of anything to do with Edgar Allen Poe but, both films benefit from the talents of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. And both are great fun!
ReplyDelete- Gary J. Satterlee