Director:
Wallace Fox
Year: 1942
Rating: 5.5
Year: 1942
Rating: 5.5
This is what I imagine a B film on a Saturday afternoon for kids was all
about. Some crime, some lunacy, some walking dead and Bela Lugosi. Sit down
and enjoy the show boys and girls and be sure to buy some popcorn and a coke.
I am not sure how this was supposed to play but it cracked me up continuously
and I would guess Bela was enjoying it too. A double role - one a kind husband
and professor of psychology - and the other a humanitarian who runs a soup
kitchen on the Bowery and as a sideline is a thief and a psychotic killer.
And what a killer. His Mission has a secret doorway to a secret doorway to
the basement which leads to another secret doorway where he keeps all his
victims in nice tidy graves with tombstones and yells at the cat for peeing
on them. "Don't desecrate their graves". Was that meant to be tongue in cheek
or not? I am not sure but there were a bunch of lines like that.
At home he is the perfect husband to his loving wife and often gives her jewelry from his heists. But she complains that he is out all night. What are you doing? Research. And robbing. He has a problem though finding partners who stick around for long. That is because he kills them after each job. Only the mad doctor has managed to stay on his good side and that is because he is an addict and easy to control. And someone has to dig those graves. What Lugosi doesn't know is that the mad doctor is actually bringing them back to life and keeping them in yet another hidden cellar below this cellar. Every now and then when there is a new victim he opens the trap door and tells those below, here is a new friend. Tom Neal plays one of his gunmen.
This great set-up begins to fall apart when a policeman notices that some bad ruffians always seem to be around the soup kitchen. And the pretty mission helper (Wanda Mackay) investigates when her wealthy social friend (John Archer) goes missing after recognizing that Professor Bela is Mission Bela. "Come inside my office my friend. I have something to show you. You asked at class today what people who are about to die think at that moment. Now you know. Tell me". It has a very strange ending as she turns into a Stepford wife and the social guy is murdered and brought back to life and she doesn't seem to care. In fact, when the cops discover all the dead men walking, no one is the least bit surprised. Because they know they are in a B Bela Lugosi movie. It has to be a joke right? What a great B movie! Two movie posters are passed playing at local theaters - The Corpse Vanishes (1942) with Bela in it is also directed by the same director as this, Wallace Fox, and Mr. Wise Guy starring the Bowery Boys. All three films are produced by Sam Katzman in Poverty Row studios. This has all the makings of a serial but I guess not.
At home he is the perfect husband to his loving wife and often gives her jewelry from his heists. But she complains that he is out all night. What are you doing? Research. And robbing. He has a problem though finding partners who stick around for long. That is because he kills them after each job. Only the mad doctor has managed to stay on his good side and that is because he is an addict and easy to control. And someone has to dig those graves. What Lugosi doesn't know is that the mad doctor is actually bringing them back to life and keeping them in yet another hidden cellar below this cellar. Every now and then when there is a new victim he opens the trap door and tells those below, here is a new friend. Tom Neal plays one of his gunmen.
This great set-up begins to fall apart when a policeman notices that some bad ruffians always seem to be around the soup kitchen. And the pretty mission helper (Wanda Mackay) investigates when her wealthy social friend (John Archer) goes missing after recognizing that Professor Bela is Mission Bela. "Come inside my office my friend. I have something to show you. You asked at class today what people who are about to die think at that moment. Now you know. Tell me". It has a very strange ending as she turns into a Stepford wife and the social guy is murdered and brought back to life and she doesn't seem to care. In fact, when the cops discover all the dead men walking, no one is the least bit surprised. Because they know they are in a B Bela Lugosi movie. It has to be a joke right? What a great B movie! Two movie posters are passed playing at local theaters - The Corpse Vanishes (1942) with Bela in it is also directed by the same director as this, Wallace Fox, and Mr. Wise Guy starring the Bowery Boys. All three films are produced by Sam Katzman in Poverty Row studios. This has all the makings of a serial but I guess not.