'The Corpse Vanishes' will make you appreciate your family

The Corpse Vanishes (aka "The Case of the Missing Brides") (1942)
Starring: Luana Walters, Bela Lugosi, Elizabeth Russell and Angelo
Director: Wallace Fox
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Certifiable madman and scientific genius Prof. Lorenz (Lugosi) is placing beautiful, virgin brides into deathlike states at the altar with specially created orchids. He then steals the bodies and drains glandular fluids from them to create a concoction that keeps is even crazier wife looking youthful. His scientific fountain of youth is threatened when society columnist and wanna-be hardnosed reporter Patricia Hunter (Walters) grows suspicious and pays him a visit at his isolated home. Will she bring in the scoop of the year, or will she herself become a victim?

"The Corpse Vanishes" is a pretty standard mad scientist vs. plucky girl reporter lightweight horror movie... except for the bizarre group of characters that make up Lorenz's household.

From Lorenz's wife (who sleeps in a coffin for no apparent reason) to the house-keeper (a doomsaying withered old hag), her bestial son (who likes fondling the comotose brides Lorenz brings home, not to mention our heroine when she stays the night at the house), to her midget son (who serves as valet, butler, and Lorenz's chief henchman), to Lorenz himself (who at one moment refers to them as his "strange family" and the next moment is threatening to kill them... not to mention the whole abducting of brides thing), this is the weirdest household this side of the Manson Family.

No matter how freaky your family is, if you watch this film before going to celebrate a holiday with them, you will be able to say to yourself, "Eh... they could be worse."

Aside from the Lorenz household, everything else is pretty much stock here--including our heroine and the bland love interest she picks up--but the fast-paced story keeps things lively and moving.

Lugosi gives a standard performance. Although he has quite a bit of screen time, he doesn't have alot do to, except to be a centerpiece around which other, stranger characters orbit.

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.

'Horror Hotel' has lots of amosphere but few sparks

Horror Hotel (aka "City of the Dead") (1960)
Starring: Venetia Stevenson, Christopher Lee, and Patricia Jessel
Director: John Llewellyn Moxey
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When Nan (Stevenson) decides to spend her Winter Break working on a research project involving witches, her professor (Lee) urges her to travel to a small New England village that has a rich history of witchcraft. Once there, she discovers that the fog-bound hamlet is crawling with evil witches and Satanists (both alive and undead).

"Horror Hotel" has a few nice scares, a couple of genuinely chilling moments, and nice performances by its stars (with Jessel being particularly excellent in a dual role as innkeeper and evil undead witch), but the most constant feature of the film is tedium. The fog-shrouded village and its decaying cemetary are rich with atmosphere, but the pay-offs of that atmosphere are too few, and I often felt myself wishing that the film would get on with it.

In final analysis, "Horror Hotel" is a fabulously atmospheric movie, but the filmmakers are then unable to fully capitalize on that atmosphere.

'The Monster Walks' is a mediocre early talkie

The Monster Walks (1932)
Starring: Rex Lease, Sidney Bracy, Mischa Auer, Vera Reynolds and Willie Best ("Sleep 'n' Eat")
Director: Frank Strayer
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

The night following the death of Earlton Manor's master, those gathered for the reading of his will are menaced by a killer who seems to move unseen through the sprawling house's shadow-filled rooms. Will Dr. Clayton (Lease) discover the identity of the killer in time to save the prime target, his fiance, Ruth (Reynolds)?


A slightly dull example of the "Dark Old House" mystery films that flourished in the early days of the talkies, "The Monster Walks" has a couple of respectable twists and tense moments. It's not the strongest example of this faded film sub-genre, but it's decent enough.

I wonder: Is this one of the first examples of an ape being the possible killer in a mystery film? It seems like by the late 30s, every fourth low-budget thriller or comedy featured an ape (or a guy in a gorilla suit). Is this where the trend started? (One of the sources of dread of the film is a large, violent chimp that's kept in a cage in the house's basement.)

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Two Faces of Vampirella

One of the most longest lasting icons of horror is the comic book character Vampirella. She may have fallen on hard times of late--with publisher Harris instituting all sorts of arbitrary changes in a desperate attempt to reverse the trend of ever-dwindling sales figures--but some things stay pretty much the same.

Here's a drawing of Vampirella by the first artist to ever paint her 40 years ago, for the cover of "Vampirella" issue #1 in 1969, Frank Frazetta.


And here's a drawing by one of the artist who has painted some of the most celebrated modern portraits of her, Joe Jusko.



Happy 40th birthday, Vampirella! You don't look a day over 28!

'X the Unknown' is the dirtiest radioactive monster of all!

X: The Unknown (1956)
Starring: Dean Jagger, Leo McKern, Michael Ripper, Edward Chapman, John Harvey, William Lucas, Ian MacNaughton, and Anthony Newley
Directors: Leslie Norman and Joseph Losey
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A routine military exercise on the Scottish moors brings draws forth a mysterious, formless mud-creature from the depths of the Earth. Research scientist Adam Royston (Jagger) and an assortment of law enforcement and military personnel work to discover the nature of the creature and figure out how to stop it, even as it gains strength and claims evermore victims.


"X: The Unknown" is a rarely seen and underrated monster movie from Hammer Films. Like so many horror/sci-fi films from the 1950, it features a radioactivity-driven creature that seems destined to destroy the world. The creature here is particularly well-conceived, particularly in light of the fact it's perfect for the limited effects budget and technology that the filmmakers were working with.

This is a well-crafted movie, where everyone both in front of the camera and behind it are doing their very best work. The script is suspenseful and perfectly paced, the creature is well-conceived and perfect for a film of limited budget, and the various model and special effects shots are better looking than in films with five times the budget. The actors give top-of-the-line, perfectly believable performances Heck, even James Bernard, whose music I often find overblown and inappropriately loud at all the wrong times, provided a score that works perfectly throughout the movie.

"X: The Unknown" is a film I recommend highly to lovers of 1950s sci-fi.

'Things Happen at Night' is best viewed as sleep aid

Things Happen at Night (1947)
Starring: Gordon Harker, Alfred Drayton, and Gwynneth Vaughan
Director: Francis Searle
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

When his daughter (Vaughan) becomes the conduit for a fire-starting poltergeist, Mr. Prescott (Drayton) teams with an insurance adjuster (Harker) and a paranormal investigator to annoy the spirit and drive it out.

"Things Happen at Night" is a weak attempt at a horror comedy. It features a nice cast of actors who labor mightily with the bad script, but who ultimately can't overcome the material. There's very little reason to watch this film unless you're the world's biggest fan of comedian Gordon Harker... or you're looking for a drug-free sleep aid.

(I came across this film in the "Dark Crimes" 50-movie collection, and it was the odd-film-out, with its supernatural overtones in a set of crime dramas and film noir-type pieces.)


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