'The Strange Case of Dr. Rx' is worth investigating

The Strange Case of Doctor Rx (1942)

Starring: Patric Knowles, Anne Gwynne, Mantan Moreland, Edmund McDonald, Shemp Howard, Samuel S. Hinds, and Lionel Atwill

Director: William Nigh

Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A successful private detective (Knowles) puts off early retirement at the behest of both a friend in the police department (McDonald) and a high-powered attorney to mob (Hinds) whose clients are being murdered by a seemingly invisible, intangible assassin.

"The Strange Case of Doctor Rx" is a fast-paced comedy-thriller starring a solid cast of mostly under-appreciated B-movie actors who are working with a script full of snappy dialogue and an intriguing murder mystery that deepens and becomes more convoluted as the film unfolds. In fact, everything about this film becomes more convoluted as it unfolds.

By the time "Strange Case" came to an end, I had the amusing thought that someone had challenged writer Clarence Upton Young to include every single mystery B-movie mainstay into one script... and he accepted. As this film unfolds, we get a charming gentleman detective and his befuddled manservant; a go-to-any-lengths-to-get-the-story lady reporter; cops who are tough but not bright; a rich, possibly crooked lawyer with a possibly even more crooked wife and family; gangsters and a gun moll; a suspicious mystery man who may or may not be the killer; a mad scientist; and a guy in a gorilla suit. In the end, nothing makes a whole lot of sense--and it feels a little like Young was hard-pressed to even formulate a satisfactory resolution to the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink mess he'd created. (I was left with one major question at the end, a question that was obviously left unanswered on purpose as it gave Mantan Moreland an opportunity to give us one final, mildly disturbing laugh.

Speaking of Mantan Moreland, this is another one of those films where he's more of a hero than any of the other characters give him credit for; his character isn't as smart as the one he portrayed in 1941's "King of the Zombies", but he absolutely key to the main hero's success and he makes a great personal sacrifice in the process. So, Moreland is perfectly cast here, as is everyone else. Most of the players in the film are at their best, with Moreland, Anne Gwynne, and Shemp Howard (of Three Stooges fame) are particularly fun to watch, even if Gwynne's performance is undermined a bit by the disjointed manner in which her character drifts through the story. Lionel Atwill plays a small but crucial role in the film, and the presence he lends is more a result of brilliant casting than anything Atwill does on screen. (Although, given his ability to slather on the villanous attitude, perhaps the harmless air he  air he has about him in the few scenes he's in is remarkable. At any rate, Atwill just being there brings with it certain expectations that help drive the story along and make it that much more entertaining.

"The Strange Case of Doctor Rx" is one of five movies included in the "Universal Cult Horror Classics" collection, despite the fact even the most creatve marketing executive or inventive critic could come with a good reason for why it should be considered a horror film. Nonetheless, it's fun flick, and it's presence is one of the many reasons why the set is worth owning if you enjoy old-time B-movies.

'Weird Woman' has Lon Chaney Jr at his best

Inner Sanctum: Weird Woman (1944)
Starring: Lon Chaney Jr., Anne Gwynne, Evelyn Ankers, Elizabeth Risdon, and Lois Collier
Director: Reginald Le Borg
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

While studying native rituals and superstitions, an anthroplogy professor (Chaney) falls in love with marries the daughter of an old mentor (Gwynne). Upon his return to the United States, he discoversn that his wife is a fervent believer in the native gods and that she has been practing rituals that she believes will protect him from the evil intentions of one of his colleagues (Ankers). Appalled that his wife believes in such supersitious nonsense, he forces her to destroy all the charms and fetishes she owns... but as soon as he does this, his life and career start falling apart.

"Weird Woman" is a decent adaptation of one of Fritz Leiber's best novels, "Conjure Wife". It features a nice, tight script, great performances by the entire cast, and a surprise ending that at the same time manages to reinforce and cast doubt on the film's central premise--that the "powers of the supernatural" are nothing but supersition and fear causing believers to act in ways that create self-fulling prophecies.

Of particular note in this film is by Lon Chaney Jr., who is seen giving one of the best performances of his entire career. The character he is playing could easily have come across as a self-satisfied jerk in the hands of an lesser actor. His attitude toward his wife and her beliefs is obnoxious in the extreme, and some of his interactions with the staff and students of the college he teaches at borders on high-handed with a wiff of false humility. But Chaney infuses the character with an air of insecurity that makes the viewer accept and even forgive his behavior.

"Weird Woman" is one of the best entires in the "Inner Sanctum" movie series, and it's one of the best films to come out of the Universal Pictures' horror revival in the 1940s. Fans of classic mystery films, the Universal Pictures horror collection, and Lon Chaney Jr. will all find a lot to like in this one.

Top talent, bargain-basement comedy and thrills in 'The Black Cat'

The Black Cat (1941)
Starring: Broderick Crawford, Hugh Herbert, Anne Gwynne, Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard, Gladys Cooper and Bela Lugosi
Director: Albert S. Rogell
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When one of greedy relatives on an unpleasant--but exceedingly wealthy--old woman decides to help her into the grave through murder, it's up to a family friend and greasy real estate broker (Crawford) to unmaks the killer. But he better hurry, because it's a dark and stormy night, and the killer has more lives to claim....


Universal sure does love to throw random films into their DVD collections. In the marketed-as-a-horror-films "Boris Karloff Collection" there was the light mystery "The Night Key" and the historical drama "Tower of London," while the "Universal Horror: Classic Archive" features "The Black Cat." Sure, the film includes horror film regulars like Basil Rathbone, Anne Gwynn and Bela Lugosi, but it is actually a comedy that spoofs the Dark Old House genre that flourished in the early 1930s.

"The Black Cat" was the second film that the famous Poe short story "suggested" to Universal Pictures. It has more in common with the source material than the 1934 picture the story "suggested"--this one at least features a black cat that ends up unmasking a killer with its yowling--but it's nowhere near as good.

As comedies go, it's below average. The behavior of the comic characters--a real estate agent played by Broderick Crawford and a dishonested and scatterbrained dealer of antiques played by Hugh Herbert--is rarely all that funny, although the comparisons I've seen made to Abbott and Costello are unfair. Crawford's more-often-than-not straight man is far more respectable than most characters portrayed by Abbott, and Herbert's "Costello imitation" is more a reflection of the fact that both men started their carrers as comedians on the Vaudeville stage. It's not that Crawford and Herbert are ripping anyone off that viewers should be upset with, it's that they have such poor material and badly written lines to work with.

The overall thrust of the story is decent enough, although it is full of logic holes. I have the senese that someone, somewhere said, "Screw it... it's a comedy being made to just fill the release schedule; who cares the story doen't hang together?"

So, as is always the case when producers don't bother to get the foundation fo their film solid, we end up with an end product that is little more than a waste of talent and time. We have a comedy that's only mildly funny, featuring a mystery that's badly put together because the writers didn't put enough tought into it, and a film that squanders great talent like Rathbone, Gwynn and Lugosi.

In fact, no one is wasted more in this picture than Lugosi. He is relegated to a small and pointless role as the Italian groundskeeper, a role so small and pointless that he doesn't get to show his talent for dramatic or comedic acting. In fact, the role is so pointless that I think not even Lugosi took it seriously--or if he did, he added an attempt to do an Italian accent on top of his Hungarian one late in the shooting schedule because his accent is inconsistent between scenes. It has been written that Universal executives either did not respect Lugosi or didn't know what to do with him... and it's films like this that prove the truth of that. I still have to see one or two of Lugosi's Universal films, but this one has got to be close to the low point of his appearances in them.

That said, Gale Sondergaard does play one of the creepiest house keepers to ever grace the silver screen. Also, the scenes leading up to the end after the murderer has been revealed are very suspenseful and well paced. One can also add that the film is fast-paced, so no matter how dumb it gets at times, it never gets boring.

Karloff & Lugosi miscast in 'Black Friday'

Black Friday (1940)
Starring: Boris Karloff, Stanley Ridges, Bela Lugosi and Anne Gwynne
Director: Arthur Lubin
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When brilliant brain surgeon Dr. Sovac (Karloff) is the attending physician for dying mad-dog gangster Red Cannon and his best friend Professor Kingsley (Ridges), a man who is already dead from brain damage due to Cannon's actions, Sovac decides to conduct an extreme eperiment: He transplants part of Cannon's brain in the hopes of saving Kingsley... as well as proving his theory that a person's personality and memories is preserved in the brain cells. To Sovac's initial delight, his surgery is a success and his theory is proven true, but when he causes Cannon's personality to become the dominant one, the gangster-in-the-professor's body starts taking gruesome revenge on those who killed him, including rival gangster Marney (Lugosi).


"Black Friday" is an interesting horror flick that crosses Frankensteinian mad science with the hardboiled gangster genre. It has its interesting points, but it is a bit overburdened by too many plot complications, and it has an ending that comes too suddenly and too easily. Another run at the script to streamline the plot and expand the ending a bit would have improved this film immensely.

The acting is excellent all around, with Stanley Ridges doing a great job in the dual role of Cannon and Kingsley. (Never mind where the brill cream comes from when he turns into the gangster... it's a great bit of acting, contrasting the mild-mannered professor with the homicidal gangster.)

The oddest thing about the movie is the casting choicies. It seems like Karloff would have been perfect in the dual-role of Kingsley/Cannon, and that Lugosi would have been great as Sovac--heck, some of the exchanges between characters seem to imply that Sovac hailed from some strange and foreign land--but instead we have Karloff as Sovac, Lugosi in a minor role as a gangster, and Ridges as the ambulatory mad science project. As mentioned above, Ridges does a great job, but I can't help but wonder how much better the film wold have been if Karloff had been in that role, and Lugosi as the doctor.