Boris Karloff Horror Flicks Collection: The Black Room / The Man They Could Not Hang / Before I Hang / Boogie Man Will Get You (DVD)
APPROX. 0 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 0 - MPA RATING: NR
" If you've only seen Karloff as The Mummy or Frankenstein you really ought to check out his mad doctor films. They're a fun genre unto themselves.
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Best known as "The Mummy" and "Frankenstein," Boris Karloff could be pretty creepy-looking without a mask or extensive make-up—especially in his grave robber or mad doctor films. Two of the latter are included in this collection of Columbia pictures from the late Thirties to early Forties—three, if you count "The Raven" style self-parody, "The Boogie Man Will Get You."
"The Man They Could Not Hang" (1939) I enjoyed the most, because it combined elements of the mystery, thriller, and horror genres. Karloff stars in the first of four films to deal with a well-intentioned doctor who runs afoul of the law and turns evil in the process. As Dr. Henryk Savaard, he toils away in the laboratory in his big house trying to find a way to cheat death. Working on an artificial heart 30 years before Dr. Christian Barnard would perform the first heart transplant, Savaard's contraption looks more like it could make moonshine than revive a body. But that's what he has in mind. Getting a med student to volunteer to let the doctor put him to death so he can revive him again, Savaard gets to work with his assistant, Lang. But his nurse (now, why would a research doctor need a nurse?) is in love with the kid, so she runs to the police. The doctor isn't given the chance to revive the boy because his idea seems so preposterous, and he goes through trial and is sentenced to hang. It's after the hanging that things take an interesting turn, because the body is released to the custody of his assistant, who hooks him up to the Rube Goldberg gizmo and brings him back to life. After that, the mystery and thriller genres kick into full gear as the doctor methodically confronts those who denied him the chance to revive the boy who had faith in him.
Director Nick Grindé shot this 64-minute black-and-white film with plenty of noir effects and a cast that doesn't oversell it, though there's the potential for a plot like this to degenerate into melodrama. The plot's the thing, so don't look for any depth of characterization. In fact, every character is really just a type. Robert Wilcox plays "Scoop" Foley, the reporter who sticks his nose where it doesn't belong, while Lorna Gray is the doctor's clueless daughter, Ann Doran is that stoolie nurse, and Byron Fouller is the doctor's unquestioningly devoted assistant. The pacing is just right, and though there's really not much mystery, that's compensated by an edge-of-your-seat tension and Karloff's portrayal of the mad doctor. After all, this is Karloff's show, and he gives us a character that only slightly borders on the campy.
"The Boogie Man Will Get You" (1942) is the other film I really liked in this foursome. Some might think it a cheap knockoff of "Arsenic and Old Lace," but that Cary Grant film didn't appear until two years later. In this parody of the mad doctor films, Karloff shows his comedic skills as he tweaks his character just enough to be more amusing than menacing, and more doddering than diabolical. In this Lew Landers film, Karloff plays Prof. Nathaniel Billings, owner of Billings Tavern, 1764, a historical inn in which the doctor has a laboratory in the basement full of all sorts of contraptions, including what looks like a live-action version of the Peabody's Wayback Machine from the old "Rocky and Bullwinkle Show." As it turns out, the professor is using reluctant volunteers to further his experiments, ushering one traveling salesman after another downstairs so he can try to turn them into supermen. "Oh dear," he'll say afterwards, or something to that effect, after the latest experiment is proven to be an obvious failure when the subject keels over dead . . . again.
What drives this 67-minute farce is a side plot that brings another unsuspecting person into uncomfortably close range. In this case, the doctor is going to lose his home unless he can figure out a way to pay off the mortgage that's long past-due. So he puts up a for sale sign and sells the inn to a wide-eyed young woman (played by Miss Jeff Donnell) who's determined to turn the inn into a tourist trap. All the better, of course, for the professor and his experiments—especially after she agrees to allow him to stay and continue his research in the basement. Like, what was she thinking? A housekeeper adds both comic relief and a kind of warm pathos, while another horror/thriller icon, Peter Lorre, plays Dr. Lorencz, the ubiquitous small-town snoop who uses his many hats—sheriff, notary public, loan shark, and, of course, physician—to show up at the most inopportune times. As a light comedy that gently satirizes the mad scientist films, "The Boogie Man Will Get You" is a fun diversion.
