(8/10)
Anyone that knows me knows that my favorite actor of all time is Bela Lugosi. I feel he is the most fun
actor to watch on screen. What sets me apart from many of Lugosi's followers is that rather than hating
his multitude of poverty row schlock-fests where his brilliant talents were wasted, I actually love these
movies as much as - perhaps even more than - his more serious, restrained Universal efforts. I revel in
these often terribly plotted potboilers with far-fetched (even for the time) scenarios because they're
fun movies and Bela makes them cool just by his participation. He rises them to a much higher level and
makes them far more memorable than they could have been.
Here is such a film - and I must say, for a 1940's B-movie this one is actually pretty heady stuff. It could
be argued that this is one of the seriously better efforts in the disreputable Monogram canon. The only
snag is the story is a little too weird for it's own good, often defying any real logic and it gets a tad too
crazy by the end.
Lugosi leads a double-life as a scholarly psychology professor at the University level who secretly runs
a soup-kitchen in the bowery to take care of vagrants and other unfortunate transients. Actually, make
that a triple life - at night he's the leader of an unstoppable crime ring that's been terrorizing the city
with unsolved robberies for months. You see, the bowery mission is for him to have the chance
meeting with career criminals on the run and get them to join his gang.
This scheme seems fairly unlikely, but he seems to find new talent daily. So much so that it becomes his
trademark to kill one of the gang at the site of every robbery and leave the body behind which seems
sort of sloppy and you'd think would discourage new recruits, but somehow it's no problem. It's only a
problem to his junkie physician that works for him in the dungeon (doing what is not quite clear). It
seems Bela keeps the doc on hand in case any of his gang should suffer the occasional bullet wound.
The doc gets a nice dungeon to live and work in, gets his prescriptions filled,' and can as a hobby
reanimate the dead (!). That last bit actually comes as something of a shock to Bela.
OK, this one is jam-packed with things going on and is nothing if not entirely original (don't believe I've
ever seen a film like it before or since) but the big question is why? Why is any of this happening? Why
does Lugosi keep up the robberies? He seems fairly well-off and the only thing he seems to do with the
money is buy expensive gifts for his wife who keeps saying she doesn't want any more jewelry and only
wants him home in the evening every now and then. The various murders are also often out of left field
- why does he kill some of these people who seem like they could still be useful to have around?
It seems like there was more to the story that we didn't get on screen. As callous and cold-blooded as
Lugosi is, he is tormented by nightmares about what he does. He apparently does have some guilt if not
fears that are never fully explained. And the ending - while a great shock, and certainly pretty intense
for the time - will leave you asking 'OK, what just happened?' There's also a dead character who appears
to re-emerge alive and well in the end. Is he a zombie? Is his fiancé knowingly marrying a walking
corpse? Who knows?
Of course, the sad truth is probably that the hacks at Monogram Pictures didn't really care and just
loaded the movie with goofy shit, contract players, and leftover sets and didn't care in the least that it
didn't make much sense. I guess they never could imagine that in fifty or sixty years people would still
be watching it and wondering what they just saw.
Anyone that knows me knows that my favorite actor of all time is Bela Lugosi. I feel he is the most fun
actor to watch on screen. What sets me apart from many of Lugosi's followers is that rather than hating
his multitude of poverty row schlock-fests where his brilliant talents were wasted, I actually love these
movies as much as - perhaps even more than - his more serious, restrained Universal efforts. I revel in
these often terribly plotted potboilers with far-fetched (even for the time) scenarios because they're
fun movies and Bela makes them cool just by his participation. He rises them to a much higher level and
makes them far more memorable than they could have been.
Here is such a film - and I must say, for a 1940's B-movie this one is actually pretty heady stuff. It could
be argued that this is one of the seriously better efforts in the disreputable Monogram canon. The only
snag is the story is a little too weird for it's own good, often defying any real logic and it gets a tad too
crazy by the end.
Lugosi leads a double-life as a scholarly psychology professor at the University level who secretly runs
a soup-kitchen in the bowery to take care of vagrants and other unfortunate transients. Actually, make
that a triple life - at night he's the leader of an unstoppable crime ring that's been terrorizing the city
with unsolved robberies for months. You see, the bowery mission is for him to have the chance
meeting with career criminals on the run and get them to join his gang.
This scheme seems fairly unlikely, but he seems to find new talent daily. So much so that it becomes his
trademark to kill one of the gang at the site of every robbery and leave the body behind which seems
sort of sloppy and you'd think would discourage new recruits, but somehow it's no problem. It's only a
problem to his junkie physician that works for him in the dungeon (doing what is not quite clear). It
seems Bela keeps the doc on hand in case any of his gang should suffer the occasional bullet wound.
The doc gets a nice dungeon to live and work in, gets his prescriptions filled,' and can as a hobby
reanimate the dead (!). That last bit actually comes as something of a shock to Bela.
OK, this one is jam-packed with things going on and is nothing if not entirely original (don't believe I've
ever seen a film like it before or since) but the big question is why? Why is any of this happening? Why
does Lugosi keep up the robberies? He seems fairly well-off and the only thing he seems to do with the
money is buy expensive gifts for his wife who keeps saying she doesn't want any more jewelry and only
wants him home in the evening every now and then. The various murders are also often out of left field
- why does he kill some of these people who seem like they could still be useful to have around?
It seems like there was more to the story that we didn't get on screen. As callous and cold-blooded as
Lugosi is, he is tormented by nightmares about what he does. He apparently does have some guilt if not
fears that are never fully explained. And the ending - while a great shock, and certainly pretty intense
for the time - will leave you asking 'OK, what just happened?' There's also a dead character who appears
to re-emerge alive and well in the end. Is he a zombie? Is his fiancé knowingly marrying a walking
corpse? Who knows?
Of course, the sad truth is probably that the hacks at Monogram Pictures didn't really care and just
loaded the movie with goofy shit, contract players, and leftover sets and didn't care in the least that it
didn't make much sense. I guess they never could imagine that in fifty or sixty years people would still
be watching it and wondering what they just saw.
 |
Rating;
| by Jim Haggerty |
