KARLOFF AT COLOMBIA
Weird Science
RELEASED 3 MAY 1935-1942 | 12 | Blu-ray
Directors Edward Dmytryk, Nick
Grinde, Lew Landers, Roy William Neill
Cast Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and loads more
The actor christened William Henry Pratt had 80 movies under his belt when he was cast in Frankenstein, transforming the 43-year-old into a horror icon. These six Columbia Pictures productions all trade on that late-life status, but do fitfully allow Karloff to demonstrate his range – from doddery avuncularity to brooding perversity. Most clock in at under 70 minutes, making them vampire bite-sized treats.
The Black Room (1931) is the best showcase for Karloff’s talents. An Edgar Allan Poe-pastiching slice of 17th century Gothic featuring a secret chamber with onyx walls and torture pit, it sees a wicked Baron murdering his twin, then taking his place – but will he remember not to use his brother’s paralysed right arm? Karloff is superb as the gentle, considerate Anton and the depraved Gregor, bringing a casual insouciance to the latter’s machinations.
The Devil Commands (1941) has the most lunatic premise, casting Karloff as a scientist working on a brainwave-reading helmet who finds his dead wife’s pattern still detectable. Cue a scheme encompassing a Lady Macbethesque medium, stolen corpses and all the glowing, buzzing apparatus one could desire. Fans of Forteana or film noir (director Edward Dymytrk later made Crossfire) should be hooked.
The Man With Nine Lives (1940) is almost as barking.
Seeing Karloff’s missing scientist defrosted after a decade frozen in an ice chamber in his underground lab, it’s filled with twists and turns.
Three more tales of scientific monomania complete the set. The Man They Could Not Hang (doctor developing mechanical heart takes revenge on judge and jury after his execution) is memorable only for a poison-needled phone receiver. 1940’s Before I Hang (kindly youth serum experimenter has strangly turns due to a transfusion of murderer’s blood) is the weakest link. Sharing a director and some supporting cast with Nine Lives, both feel a tad generic.
The Boogie Man Will Get You (1941) tries to parlay Karloff’s theatrical success in Arsenic And Old Lace into a similarly ghoulish black comedy, with his boffin blithely offing door-to-door salesmen in a superman-making booth. Peter Lorre joins in the screwball farce as a coroner who carries a kitten in his pocket. Sadly, the gags have dated about as well as “Where’s me washboard?”. It works best as a compendium of whimsical slang. Our faves: “Call me Aloysius!”, “Smack in the beezer” and “monkey-doodle”.
Extras There are new team-up commentaries by horror mavens: Stephen Jones and Kim Newman supply three; Kevin Lyons and Jonathan Rigby the others. Each film comes with stills/posters and lobby cards. A final treat is four Karloff-starring editions of ’40s/’50s horror radio show Inner Sanctum Mystery (totalling 105 minutes). Plus: booklet.
Ian Berriman
Karloff’s great-aunt was Anna Leonowens, whose memoirs of teaching in the royal court of Siam inspired The King And I.
Most clock in at under 70 minutes, making them vampire bitesized treats