I haven't seen a ton of comedies with Bela Lugosi in them so I checked this one out. Lugosi, as usual, does play the foreign bad guy here but at least he's not a mad scientist again. This is mainly a W.C. Fields slapstick showcase and he's pretty entertaining to watch. There's also a slew of other celebrities of the time including Burns & Allen, Cab Calloway(who sings a song about marijuana!), Rudy Vallee and Rose Marie from THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW(billed as Baby Rose Marie since she was only 10 years old when this was made). The big invention, that everyone in the movie is gathered to see, is just a T.V. but that was obviously a big deal back then. Old-timey sex jokes and weird dance numbers make this an amusing enough time-waster.
Bela Lugosi stars as a hypnotizing, voodoo-practitioner who attempts to bring his dead wife back to life by performing zombifying rituals helped out by George Zucco and also John Carradine as one of his goofy henchmen. You get some zombified ladies and Bela and Zucco doing their creepy shtick wearing what look like magician's robes. Pretty good for a quick(only 62 minutes long!) breezy watch if you like the creepy classics.
So Bela Lugosi plays an insurance salesman named Dr. Orloff who sells policies to folks that he is the sole beneficiary of and then has them killed off by his big ugly blind henchman named Jake(the titular Human Monster?). You see, as is pretty common in films from this era, Lugosi is also a mad-scientist-type on the side who can make bombs out of beakers full of liquid and that sort of thing. Oh and he's also a master of disguise which comes in very handy when he's found out.(so maybe he's the real 'Human Monster' after all)
I think this movie does a fairly decent job of conveying how outward signs of morality and generosity don't necessarily mean that a wholesome character lies beneath the surface. Then again maybe casting Lugosi, who always seems a bit ominous even when he's smiling, might not have been the most inspired casting to convey this idea. It is pretty obvious who is committing all these homicides throughout and it makes Orloff appear kinda naive thinking he was going to get away with it for very long. Luckily it wraps everything up in just 74 minutes, so that's a big plus.
Originally released in England as THE DARK EYES OF LONDON. Whereupon it was rated H for horrific!(there is one fairly gruesome, for the time anyway, drowning scene by our crazed Orloff) Jess Franco musta been a fan since he loved using the Dr. Orloff name quite often. There was a German remake in 1961 as THE DEAD EYES OF LONDON.
Beautiful Turkish poster!:
and beautiful clunky artwork on the Super 8 version (which I assume is some kinda 15 minute long condensed edition):
I bet every kid in 1939 was just dying to be Jake for Halloween!:
I only really watched this movie because of Bela Lugosi which is unfortunate because he's just portraying a supporting character here and he spends most of the time trying to get people to drink coffee which may, or may not, have rat poison in it. This is one of those old creepy house mysteries where people are getting bumped off left and right except here it's mostly all played for laughs. There's a bungling insurance salesman(Jack Haley, best known as The Tin Woodsman from THE WIZARD OF OZ) who gets most of the screen time and he spends that acting pretty stupid. He also manages to get completely nekked at one point but since this is 1944 there is a handy spot for him to hide his shame. This probably will not make too many people laugh these days but it did help me fall asleep one late night so it does serve a purpose.
A sub-par Abbott & Costello rip-off duo(Wally Brown & Alan Carney) promise zombies for a Broadway show and then have to go to the jungle and find one. While there they bump into Bela Lugosi as a mad doctor who just so happens to make zombies. This movie is really dumb and you can't help but imagine it woulda been way better with A & C in the starring roles and was titled ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE ZOMBIES! but if you can deal with a dumb 40s comedy, with the classic black slave zombie-type and a typically great Lugosi performance, I guess it's passable.
Somehow Brown and Carney made a whole series of films together but this looks like the only one that's even slightly interesting and I don't think Lugosi was in any of their other comedies.
Bela Lugosi is a mad-scientist-type fellow who grows some big-ass bats and invents a cologne that makes them really pissed-off and bite-happy. Then it's time for revenge on all the folks that stole his ideas and ripped him-off by putting these two things together. The bats are big rubbery ridiculous things that scream like goats do cuz I guess that was a scary sound in 1940. Overall this is a pretty silly movie with an absurd plot but you do get some quality menacing Lugosi moments and if that's your thing this one is worth a look. AKA KILLER BATS
There is a colorized version of this out there and there was a sorta-sequel, DEVIL BAT'S DAUGHTER, which didn't really have any story connection with this film and a sorta-remake THE FLYING SERPENT, both from 1946. There's also supposed to be a brand new, 2016, sequel called REVENGE OF THE DEVIL BAT which I don't know if that one has ever been released but I don't have very high hopes for it's quality.
This might be of some interest to classic Universal monster movie fans since it features a few of the same folks that had starred in DRACULA just a year earlier. Of course you get Drac himself(Bela Lugosi), Van Helsing(Edward Van Sloan) and DEATH KISS' main star is John Harker(David Manners). Unfortunately there are no monsters in this and it's not even a horror film but is a rather dull mystery. Lugosi plays it pretty straight and doesn't even appear all that much despite having top-billing due to his DRAC fame. You do get to see a bunch of behind-the-scenes shots of a Hollywood studio in the 30s but there's not much else of note going on in this one.
Bela Lugosi plays a very Dracula-ish vampire fellow named Tesla who manages to keep coming back throughout the decades even after getting a stake through the heart. The coolest part to me is that he has a werewolf servant! Unlike most wolfmen though this one chats up a storm and stays in his wolf-form even during the day with no full-moon in sight! Also he doesn't seem all that tough or scary, almost getting his ass kicked by a couple of regular humans at one point, which is unfortunate. I think I just like the idea that he's such a helpful ghoul. Eventually Bela/Tesla has no more use for or silly hairy friend and he gets to play the redeemed hero bit. There's also a bunch of boring parts with regular boring people that wasn't all that interesting. Basically this is a weird Columbia Pictures version of a Universal monster movie which if they made it woulda most likely been called DRACULA MEETS THE WOLFMAN. I can't help but think they would have probably done a better job and for sure the Wolfman would have had some better makeup but this is still an interesting old B-movie monster mash-up.
While this has never been my favorite of the classic Universal monster movies, due to it's slow-moving action and stagey feel, it's such an iconic film, thanks mainly to the performance of Bela Lugosi, that even all the negatives are swept aside and it's historical significance shines through. Dwight Frye is also quite awesome with his signature laugh as the bug-eating servant of Mr. Dracula, Renfield.
I was happy I got the chance to view this in an actual theater along with it's Spanish version last night and the main thing I realized in this setting is how quiet the film is. I mean besides the opening titles there's no soundtrack at all so the audience got to enjoy the sounds of the retarded Hollywood movie playing next door as well thanks to the piss-poor construction of your modern-day shithole multiplex theater. But even this couldn't take away from the experience of watching on of the most influential horror classics.
I don't know much about The Ritz Brothers but from what I can tell they're like an even more retarded and less funny version of The Three Stooges. They starred in a whole string of films throughout the 30's that I probably will never bother watching. If they're not annoying enough for you they also throw in a screaming hysterical woman(Patsy Kelly) which was apparently a popular thing to have in horror movies in the 30's. This one is only of interest because Bela Lugosi appears as a creepy butler. A guy with hairy hands called "The Gorilla" is going around killing people. Also there's a "real" gorilla(a guy in an old-timey gorilla suit of course) and a crazy convoluted mystery plot. The best thing about these old classics is that they're all usually around 60 minutes and in this one Lugosi gets to, at least in one scene, be a hero which is something you rarely see. In addition to Lugosi, Universal monster regular Lionel Atwill also appears.
This starts out with Bela Lugosi knocking off brides with special poisonous orchids and then stealing their bodies. From there, like many of these old Monogram pictures, it becomes one of those spooky old house movies. The most interesting thing about this to me was the menagerie of weirdo's Lugosi has at his place. This includes an old witchy/gypsy woman who has two sons one(Angelo Rossitto) who's a midget and the other one who's a creepy peeping-Tom hunchback. There's also Lugosi's wife who's an old lady that he keeps looking young with the spinal-fluid of these brides that he swipes. Also Bela and the Mrs. sleep in coffins for no reason at all. These characters put this one slightly above your average old creaky 40's horror flick. The only thing missing was the guy in the ape suit.
I imagine the concept of television in 1935 was pretty futuristic and maybe even a little bit scary since probably not everyone knew exactly how it worked. This film capitalizes on that fear and shoehorns it into a murder mystery starring Bela Lugosi. Now throughout the first half of this film I kept thinking to myself this might be the worst mystery ever since if you have Lugosi in the cast you know he's got to be the murderer. Luckily they do throw a twist in for the big reveal to make it not totally predictable. This plays more like a Charlie Chan movie, there's even a Chinese butler character who quotes Chan and Confucius, than any kind of typical Lugosi haunted house flick and just like the Chan films you get a stereotypical black maid who shouts out stuff like "Oh lawdy, lawdy! I dun seen a ghost!" which will either make you chuckle or feel embarrassed depending on your silly political viewpoints.
Worth a watch if you dig the creaky classics with Lugosi and as a bonus you get a TV death-ray!
This one's kinda weird for a Bela Lugosi flick because he's not a mad scientist or other sort of miscreant and pretty much a nice guy throughout most of the movie. He's really more of a victim who just happens to fall into a hypnotic and psychotic state when he occasionally sees his allegedly dead wife appear to him. You get the typical DRACULA-like walk from Bela and a black butler who gets all the comic-relief lines. Technically, despite the title, there aren't any ghosts in this movie and by their very nature wouldn't ghosts usually be invisible? Also the plot doesn't really make much sense, like why would seeing his deceased spouse set Lugosi on a murder-happy rampage anyway?, but if you like the moldy-oldies this one is OK for a quick dose of Bela goodness.
The East Side Kids, the earlier version of The Bowery Boys, end up in a haunted house with Bela Lugosi in their 14th movie. It turns out the house doesn't really have any ghosts in it but has Nazis instead which I think would be a lot scarier since Nazis actually exist.
If you've seen any of the million other Bowery Boys/East Side Kids movies you know exactly what to expect and it's lots of stupid jokes and this one has some of that old-timey, racial/stereotypical humor with the black Scruno character. They used to show all these around 2am on the local station when I was younger and that's probably a good time to watch these if you suffer from insomnia. There was an earlier Lugosi/Kids meet-up titled SPOOKS RUN WILD which was equally dumb.
It does sound an awful lot like Lugosi says "Shit!" when he sneezes:
The East Side Kids, who later went on to be known as The Bowery Boys, starred in a whole bunch of stupid Three Stooges-esque films that they used to continuously show at late-night/early morning hours back in the old days before TV sucked. Along with Charlie Chan, Tarzan and similar low-budget black & white oldies these films were most likely only viewed by 80 year-old invalids and myself. This one is the 7th in the series and has the boys meet Bela Lugosi in an old dark house full of skeletons and a midget(Angelo Rossitto). This one is pretty dull overall and I think I'm more of a fan of the Bowery Boys-era stuff when they just went all out with the slapstick but this is only about 65 minutes long so that's a plus. Lugosi would meet the kids once again in GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE in 1943.
Bela Lugosi is top-billed here but he isn't really the star. He just plays a butler in a house where a bunch of mysterious murders are taking place. Lionel Atwill is also in here as a doctor but also not a main character. Besides fooling us with the names of these horror icons the poster also promises us a monster but what you get is more of a whodunnit mystery-type film than any kind of monster movie despite what the title promises. It does a pretty decent job creating suspense and atmosphere on what I'm assuming was a low-budget(although it was made by Universal studios so maybe I'm wrong about that) but I probably would have enjoyed this more if a guy in a gorilla suit or a giant bat showed up. The big surprise reveal at the end doesn't really make much logical sense unless you believe in the magical power of swami's or Indian mystics but at least they tried something different there. Not to be confused with THE NAVY VS. THE NIGHT MONSTERS which came out in the 60's.
This old clunky horror flick is probably best known today for historical purposes rather than being a great film. This was the first film featuring zombies. Of course these aren't your modern-day over-hyped, gut-munching type but your old-timey voodoo, mind-controlled, shambling slave sort. Bela Lugosi is the main highlight here as our evil villain with the awesome name of Murder Legendre. This is a very dashing Lugosi complete with sweet bad-guy mustache and matching beard. You also get a little racism thrown in, since it's the 30's, when someone talks about the worst thing for a woman would be to have her body in the hands of natives. Pretty dull whenever Bela isn't onscreen but worth a watch if you dig the classics and can deal with a very low-budget example of one.
Although it feels like this movie is everywhere today due to being in the public domain the original film was actually lost for a bunch of years up until being rediscovered in the 60's.
Bela Lugosi stars here as a crazy scientist-type who somehow or another is turned into a half-ape man and he's not too happy about it so he goes around killing folks and stealing their spinal-fluid with the help of his gorilla sidekick. This partner is obviously a guy in a suit since I guess they hadn't figured out how to film an actual gorilla at this point in time. The makeup job here makes Lugosi look very Amish or perhaps more like Alley Oop. Bela also has a security camera in his mad scientist lab with a little T.V. monitor to spy on intruders which I think woulda been pretty futuristic in 1943. Director William Beaudine amazingly made more movies than Jess Franco in his career including a bunch of those Bowery Boys pictures and other cheaply made stuff. This movie probably woulda been better if Satch or Mahoney showed up. Only really watchable to fans of Bela Lugosi and his over the top acting style since both are featured plenty here or fans of cheap DVD horror movie sets since it's on a few of those also.
I guess this was successful enough at the time since there was a RETURN OF THE APE MAN a year later but it has none of the characters from this one in it.
I'd seen the 1996 remake of this with Marlon Brando at a drive in once before but never actually viewed the original version til now. This one blows that newer flick away by far and I thought it was great for a few reasons. One being Bela Lugosi who doesn't star but has a neat role as the leader of the beast-men and seems to have been an inspiration for the band Devo with his "are we not men?" chanting. Charles Laughton is also great as Dr. Moreau and this one really fits in well with the other classic Universal monster movies(even though it was technically made by Paramount) since it has a whole island of hairy monster creeps running around. Also of note is the Panther Woman who's pretty hot for a 30's chick. I've never seen the 70's interpretation of this but I think it would be hard to top this.
This is more of an old-time murder mystery than a horror flick. It's also pretty dull and even comedic in parts and the mystery parts don't really make much sense in the end. The only thing that makes this worth watching at all is Bela Lugosi and his sidekick, the great midget actor Angelo Rossitto(who was in everything from FREAKS to MAD MAX 3). Basically any scenes without either of these two is really ponderous stuff. Unfortunately our little midget hero splits about halfway through the movie and is never mentioned again. It's also weird to see a cheap-o B-movie from the 40's that's in color(and I'm pretty sure this is Lugosi's only color film). There's also a weird-o in a blue mask who peeps through the window every once in a while and a totally nonsensical ending. Luckily this one is on a lot of cheap-ass horror compilations DVD's otherwise it's probably not worth the effort of seeking it out.
