The Raven (1935)

Directed by: Louis Friedlander

The good thing about these old horror movies from the 30's is their length... "The Raven" is just 61 minutes long and it's perfect if you want to have your very own double feature (like I did with this flick and "The Black Cat", which is just 65 minutes long), you get two great movies for the length of one! As was the case with "The Black Cat" this is again a Lugosi/Karloff movie and even though I know that Karloff was the bigger name of the two (even though Lugosi became a star first with "Dracula") I do feel that Lugosi should have had top billing as he is without a doubt the star of this movie. Hell, Karloff's character should be considered a supporting character and nothing else here...

Again it's a movie "adaption" of an Edgar Allan Poe story and as usual the movie has nothing to do with the story (or in this case: poem) itself. To justify the use of Poe and the title Lugosi's character is obsessed by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe and we even get a dance number set to a reading of the poem... um, come to think of it, this movie has a lot more to do with Poe than the usual "adaptions"!


When a pretty ballerina, Jean (Irene Ware), gets into a serious car accident Doctor Richard Vollin (Bela Lugosi) is on the case to save her (even though it took some real coaxing from the girl's father for Dr Vollin to even care about it). Vollin, not caring so much about morals, takes one look at the patient on the operating table and quickly wants to play doctor with her... um, not like in saving her life through surgery, rather the hanky panky kinda way. As he's a brilliant surgeon (albeit a bit reluctant to show it) he saves Jean's life and at a follow up visit a month later (these people heal quickly as there is absolutely no sign whatsoever that Jean ever had surgery or took some time to heal) his obsession with her becomes apparent. She won't have anything of that though, but she tells him that she has a surprise for him at her upcoming ballet performance (see? she's doing that this soon after that life saving head surgery... they sure healed fast back in the day...).

At the ballet performance Jean is strutting around on the stage (if that's ballet I'm not sure I ever could be into it) while a Poe look-a-like sits on the side of the stage reading the poem "The Raven". All this while Vollin (who has a serious Poe obsession) sits and drools over Jean, something Jean's father doesn't appreciate (Sure, tell Dr Vollin anything to save his daughter, but don't let him get close to her afterwards!). Vollin doesn't like this little bump in the road, so when a criminal on the run from the police, Bateman (Karloff), comes to Vollin for help to change his face surgically our sweet (and very insane) Dr Vollin agrees to help Bateman only if he will torture and kill some people first.

Not being a very nice guy, Dr Vollin disfigures Bateman to force him to help doing those dirty deeds (as an "ugly person will be able to do ugly things") with a promise to fix Bateman's looks after it's all done. I'm not sure why Vollin needs Bateman really, as when things starts getting done it's mostly him doing it anyway... Jean, her father and her fiancé (yep, she got one of those and Vollin STILL plans to move in on her) and some other people are invited to Vollin's house for a weekend and that's when things start to happen. Trap doors, torture equipment straight out of Poe's stories, moving rooms, crushing walls... hell, being a surgeon must pay damn good as Vollin sure has a sweet set up in his house... I'm not gonna tell you how the movie ends, but Poe is finally "avenged" at least (whatever that has to do with anything, but Vollin isn't very sane and that probably made sense to him).

While not being as good as "The Black Cat", this movie again delivers the macabre we're expecting from Lugosi and Karloff. With his theatrical and over the top performance as the totally batshit insane Doctor Vollin, Lugosi again really shines here. Karloff is great as always, but Lugosi is better... Even though this is a Universal picture it does feel a lot more like those low budget movies Lugosi made for Monogram Pictures and other poverty row film companies instead (with the grisly torture and disfigurement of Karloff's character it feels more exploitative than the usual Universal movies of the time), which it could have been if it weren't for the lavish sets and the fact that Lugosi was teamed up with Karloff. I doubt Monogram Pictures could ever have afforded both of them in the same movie...

There's a DVD set (well, it's one flipper DVD with 5 movies on it) called "The Bela Lugosi Collection" where you'll find 4 of the Lugosi/Karloff movies (this one, "The Black Cat", "The Invisible Ray" and "Black Friday") as well as the 1932 version of "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and it's well worth a buy if you want some real old school entertainment with the masters of the genre.