Béla Lugosi appears in a lot of horror films. Some evoke memories of classic chills, Gothic architecture and macabre dialogue. Others are simply B-movies that may have plenty of appeal but are certainly not genre benchmarks. In this case there's a line being ridden between the two as an Egard Allen Poe inspired tale of romance and madness begins to play out. But it's also a story that quickly and frequently veers off the rails straight into the realm of absurd death traps, crazy schemes and maniacal laughter. Audiences at the time might have been shocked by some the elements included here but today it's impossible to take it seriously.
The story starts rather aptly as the car being driven by Jean, (Irene Ware) a ballet dancer, goes flying off a cliff during bad weather. It's a taste of things to come - random shocks with little or no build up of suspense. Discovering that she has a serious head injury her father Judge Thatcher (Samuel Hinds) uses his influence to get the best brain surgeon available, although Doctor Vollin (Lugosi) is currently retired. He's far too busy having a cosy fireside chat about poetry and death to be bothered with such trivial matters. But before he can get into the subject of all the secret torture implements he's been collecting the judge presses him to help, and of course his daughter is saved.
However if it wasn't immediately obvious the doctor has a few screws loose, and he soon starts to believe that Jean should be his lover because she owes him her life. His ego won't allow for anything less and it's soon massaged after he watches her dance interpretation of the eponymous story in his honour. But Jean is already engaged to Jerry (Lester Matthews) and soon Vollin's dark side rears its head troubling her father. It's a bizarre series of events that aren't helped by the way that the romance is so awkward. There's no real chemistry between Ware and Lugosi that would suggest a potential love triangle which makes his interest seem strangely alien. But this is all just a prologue to get the weirdest part of the story moving.
Out of the blue a fugitive murderer called Bateman (Boris Karloff) arrives at Vollin's house demanding that the doctor perform face altering surgery on him. Vollin himself freely admits that he's a brain specialist not a plastic surgeon, and yet he still somehow tricks Bateman into being anaesthetised for a procedure. The operation damages a group of nerves resulting in a dead, sunken area on one side of Bateman's face. I guess they just wanted Karloff to be another lumbering monster regardless of whether it fits the narrative at all. Enraged he tries to shoot the doctor who somehow forgot to take away the gun he arrived with. Luckily Bateman is just as illogical and he breaks all the mirrors in the room instead of taking a single well aimed shot.
At this stage Vollin's true self is revealed as he laughs like a madman through a tiny window that looks into the operating theatre. Maybe this is all some kind of commentary on the nature of human cruelty - something that comes from within rather that being related to outward ugliness or low social standing. But then again maybe it's just a wacky horror picture that includes a lot of disparate ideas thrown into the blender. The next stage of the plot involves Vollin inviting Jean, Jerry and a few other friends over for dinner, to make up for his poor behaviour regarding the failed romantic gestures. He knows that they'll come even if her father disagrees - and that Thatcher will arrive to try and break up the party.
The comedy elements are a strange mixed bag as the other oddball guests make inane small talk and the doctor creeps everyone out with a few unsettling anecdotes. Bateman skulks around by posing as a butler, just so that one of the women will scream at his disfigurement every few minutes. Why he's around at this stage is never clear since Vollin only needs him to help during the final stage of his plan, but I guess they needed to give him something to do. Once everyone has gone to bed the real lunacy begins as the doctor's house becomes a high tech death trap, and his Edgar Allen Poe collection is revealed to be more than a few antiques. Was all of this stuff always in the basement or did he restructure the whole building in a day to get revenge?
Like the motive for his revenge it's a mystery. The film leaps between doomed romantic melancholy and crazed killing room mechanisms without ever stopping to try and bridge the gap. For fans of the two lead actors it's essential stuff, and there's no denying that this is a highly entertaining feature. But the bonkers finale and the quiet first act are worlds apart tonally. In a way this adds to the appeal and the results are surprisingly dark for the period. But perhaps splitting this into a double bill - one half a modern day thriller about ego and lust, the other a revenge story in a medieval torture dungeon - might have been a better idea. Overall it's a fun but very messy example of early horror that avoids some of the typical period genre tropes while not quite succeeding with others. But Béla seems to be enjoying himself so you'll probably laugh along with him.
3/5
BONUS REVIEW
THE ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932)
Onto something far more consistent - and far more sinister - this take on the story of Dr. Moreau is certainly a classic of the decade. Béla Lugosi still makes an appearance of course, although his part here is not a lead role. However that doesn't make it any less interesting and his scenes are amongst the most striking. The real star however is Charles Laughton as the doctor, a man who decided that he can push forward evolution by force and create a new animal race. The science here is incredibly vague and flimsy as he talks about radical surgery and hybrid flowers... but it doesn't really matter. The results are still surprisingly unsettling for the period.
A lot of this is to do with the style of the film which lacks music in many scenes, but there's something genuinely eerie about the plot. Twenty years later this would be just another science gone awry creature feature, but here there's an otherworldly quality to the look and sound of the movie. Laughton as Moreau is totally harmless and even sort of cheeky at times, but in other sequences his twisted nature starts to appear. In a way it's his own inhuman brutality coming out that aides his goals of furthering science and advancing human knowledge. His famous speech about feeling like a god is framed with such perfect lighting as he peers through the window bars of aptly named House of Pain.
The romance between his guest Edward (Richard Arlen) and his fiancé Ruth (Leila Hyams) is stomach churning for different reasons altogether, but bland stilted love affairs are a staple of this time period as much the expressionist style shadows. Far more interesting is Moreau's manipulation of these events as he schemes to prove what being human really is... despite the plan involving so much animal magnetism between Edward and the island's only woman Lota (Kathleen Burke). With all his ideas about controlling his slaves with laws and forcing them to eat a vegetarian diet, he seems oblivious to the irony of using Lota's nature to achieve his goals.
The whole things has a unique sort of atmosphere despite the way these themes and storyline elements have been done so often and feel immediately recognisable. There's a kind of sadness to the macabre and an air of cruelty hangs over the whole story. A few dodgy makeup and beard combos and an overacting drunk ship captain in the first act can't dissolve the effect. The finale manages to be shocking in a way that stands out even during a year that saw the release of other greats such as The Mummy and The Old Dark House. There are a few wooden performances and a couple of shaky moments in the editing, but it stands up today as both a genre classic and a tale of the problematic nature of hypocritical scientists, leaders and intellectuals. Are we not men? Who can say.
4/5
