The Mad Ghoul
      
Director: James Hogan
Year: 1943
Rating: 5.0
Not a bad cast at all and decent production values from Universal for a B horror film, but it made close to no sense at all. A mad scientist or Professor (played by George Zucco) thinks he can put people into a state of both death and life whatever that means. And what is the point exactly of doing that? He explains to his class that ancient natives in South America discovered a gas that could do this and that he is close to creating it. He invites his best student to work in the lab with him, but he actually has nefarious motives. He is in love with Evelyn Ankers who is the girlfriend of the student and Zucco wants to get rid of him. How? By giving him the gas that he has actually already created.  When he does the student ages about 30 years and the Professor can hypnotize him. One fly in the ointment though – he needs a new injection of the serum every few days to stay alive. And that means visits to the graveyard for fresh meat where they take out the heart for the injection. The fresher the better and that would be live people.



Along for the paycheck were Robert Armstrong as the reporter, Milburn Stone as the cop at the end and Turhan Bey as the dreamy piano player. He was born in Austria to a Turkish father and for a few years in the 40's was quite the dashing smoldering dark-eyed hunk. He had a thing going with Lana Turner for a while so he certainly had something going for himself. David Bruce plays the student.