|
Poe "suggested" via Universal sets, misread by the maniacal protagonist, avenged at the climax, "that's a thriller, isn't it?" The raven is an avian silhouette on the wall and a tepid ballet interpretation by the ingénue, first and foremost it is a reason to reunite Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff following the macabre arm-wrestling of The Black Cat. As Dr. Vollin (Violin? Violence?), Lugosi takes one look at the young patient on the operating table (Irene Ware) and is readily seized by desire. (A roadside spill after the opening credits sets up the Magnificent Obsession strain.) First seen bearded and stooped, Karloff's criminal fugitive believes a handsome face would curtail the ugliness of his actions; he discovers his new deformity in a room full of mirrors, unloading his pistol into each cruel reflection while the surgeon cackles gleefully from above. "My brain, your hands" is the nature of the team, matters are settled over a stormy weekend in the mausoleum. Lew Landers is no Ulmer, thus Lugosi as the true auteur of the piece—reveling in erudite sadism, he announces his character's plight ("a man of genius denied his great love") as if raging about his own horror path away from romantic roles. Karloff meanwhile finds brutish poignancy on the margins, his Quasimodo makeup comes in for a fine gag as his one good eye follows the blade from The Pit and the Pendulum swinging left and right. Dancer, her father (Samuel S. Hinds) and fiancé (Lester Matthews) shown the cabinet of punishment devices under the drawing room: "What a delicious torture!" Posh nincompoops and the host's deadly toys, Renoir receives them all in La Règle du Jeu. With Spencer Charters, Inez Courtney, Ian Wolfe, and Maidel Turner. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |