Rent Karloff at Columbia (1942)

on three of the films (spoiler)... - Karloff at Columbia review by Steve

THE BLACK ROOM 

Deliciously wicked gothic melodrama with two of Boris Karloff’s very best screen performances. He plays good/bad twins in dispute over a family curse which ordains that the younger Baron will kill the older and so end the wealth and privilege of the dynasty.

And as the tyrannical aristocrat ultimately kills then impersonates his enlightened brother, Karloff completely dominates in his dual role. This is a short, low budget programmer with a minor support cast, though Marian Marsh is appealing as the beautiful heiress coveted by the evil twin.

Yet, the production appears lavish. Roy William Neill extracts maximum value out of the old dark castle in middle Europe, with the downtrodden peasants primed to turn into an angry mob. The black room is the secret dungeon where bad-Karloff discards the bodies.

Quite endearingly the hero turns out to be good-Karloff’s faithful mastiff! Old Hollywood made many of these creepy historical melodramas. Not really horror but with a touch of the macabre and the transgressive, usually with an ostentatious star. Karloff makes this one of the more effective.

THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG

Slim, well plotted sci-fi shocker which is one of Boris Karloff’s ‘mad doctor’ cycle made at Columbia in the war years. He’s a medical researcher who devises a reversible state of death to enable complicated surgery. Only, when the idiot cops and do-gooders rush in during a procedure, they arrest him for murder. The fools!

Naturally, after the whispering, lisping inventor is hanged, he is revived by his assistant (Byron Foulger) to pursue an elaborate revenge reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. But he isn't quite the same. More of a megalomaniac. So further research is clearly necessary.

Yes, science exceeds its ethical frontiers again, though it’s amusing to note that stuff similar to this happens now, even if this laboratory equipment is more steampunk. Karloff is relishable, especially after death, but the support cast is insipid. He needs an adversary. A Lionel Atwill…

The victims are so annoying, you will soon be rooting for the reanimated crackpot. This is just b-horror hokum, but has endured well, and despite a minor director (Nick Grinde) there is obviously some creativity in the photography and set design. But most of all it’s the star that makes this worth watching.

THE DEVIL COMMANDS

Easily the best of Boris Karloff’s cycle of ‘mad doctor’ pictures at Columbia in the early 1940s. The star gives a different, very melancholy performance as a grieving research scientist who tries to connect with his dead wife through some rather gothic technology.

But arguably he contacts a very different dimension than the afterlife. And certainly overreaches the dominium of mankind… Aside from Karloff the main attractions are a subdued, sinister performance from Anne Revere as a malign spiritualist who aims to exploit these astonishing scientific discoveries…

…Plus the emerging talent of future A-list director Edward Dmytryk who makes this way above standard for an hour long, low budget programmer. This is full of spooky atmosphere, with the sombre, narcotic performances, and the shadowy, expressionist photography.

Credit also to William Sloane for the unusually transgressive plot. There are the usual difficulties arising from the slender running time and B-film budget. The sets are not impressive, though still evocative. But the superior imaginative quality of this wild, gruesome sci-fi/horror sets it apart from the rest of the series.