Bela Lugosi

  • Robert F. Hill – Shadow of Chinatown (1936)

    Robert F. Hill1931-1940CrimeHorrorUSA
    Shadow of Chinatown (1936)
    Shadow of Chinatown (1936)

    Released both as a 15-chapter serial and as a condensed feature version (for theatres that didn’t use serials) which means that all of the cast and crew would one day be credited in some sources with a misleading extra film appearance added to their filmographies even though they only worked on (and got paid) for one performance or job. The story (serial and/or feature) deals with the plotting of a European importing firm to put Chinese trade competition in a west coast Chinatown – city unnamed, but it’s by the bay and it isn’t Oakland – out of business. Their representative, Sonya Rokoff/The Dragon Lady (Luana Walters), a beautiful Eurasian girl, hires Victor Poten (Bela Lugosi), a mad Eurasian chemist and inventor and an equal-opportunity racist who hates both Chinese and White races, to aid her. Read More »

  • Wallace Fox – The Corpse Vanishes (1942)

    Wallace Fox1941-1950HorrorSci-FiUSA

    Dr. Lorenz, a mad scientist, wants to keep his elderly wife young. He does this by kidnapping young females and extracting fluid from them. He then injects this fluid into his wife. What a diabolical guy!Read More »

  • Wallace Fox – Bowery at Midnight (1942)

    1941-1950ClassicsHorrorUSAWallace Fox

    Bowery at Midnight casts Bela Lugosi as Professor Brenner, a psychology instructor at New York University (which looks a lot like Berkeley in the exterior shots!). When not enlightening his students — most of them buxom Monogram starlets — Brenner is engaged in charitable work, running a mission in the Bowery. In truth, however, the kindly professor is a fiend in human form, who uses his mission as a front for a vast criminal empire. When Judy (Wanda McKay), one of Brenner’s students, stumbles onto the truth, she’s targeted for extermination by the Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde prof.Read More »

  • Lew Landers – The Return of the Vampire (1944)

    1941-1950ClassicsHorrorLew LandersUSA

    Bela Lugosi rises from the crypt in this blood-curdling horror classic! In 1918, Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi), a 200-year-old Hungarian Vampire, prowls the English countryside, feeding from the jugulars of the villagers. But Tesla’s reign of terror is interrupted when a pair of scientists, Lady Jane (Frieda Inescort) and Sir John Ainsley (Roland Varno), drive a railroad spike through his heart. The “un-dead” Tesla remains safely entombed for two decades until the impact from a stray Nazi bomb accidentally releases him. Along with his werewolf servant Andreas Obry (Matt Willis), the resurrected vampire now plots vengeance on the family that put a halt to his nocturnal feasting.Read More »

  • Lew Landers – The Raven [+commentaries] (1935)

    1931-1940ClassicsHorrorLew LandersUSA

    The Raven 1935 Synopsis:
    A wealthy judge coaxes the brilliant but eccentric neurological surgeon Dr. Vollin (Lugosi), who also has an obsessive penchant for Edgar Allen Poe, out of retirement to save the life of his daughter, a dancer crippled and brain damaged in an auto wreck. Vollin restores her completely, but also envisions her as his “Lenore,” and cooks up a scheme to kidnap the woman and torture and kill her fiance’ and father in his Poe-inspired dungeon. To do his dirty work, Vollin recruits a wanted criminal (Karloff), and turns him into a hideous monster to guarantee his subservience.Read More »

  • William Beaudine – Voodoo Man (1944)

    1941-1950ClassicsHorrorUSAWilliam Beaudine

    Dr. Richard Marlowe uses a combination of voodoo rite and hypnotic suggestion to attempt to revivify his beautiful, but long-dead wife, by transferring the life essences of several hapless young girls he has kidnapped and imprisoned in the dungeon beneath his mansion.Read More »

  • Lambert Hillyer – The Invisible Ray [+commentary] (1936)

    USA1931-1940HorrorLambert HillyerSci-Fi

    Visionary scientist Janos Rukh convinces a group of scientists and supporters to mount an expedition to the African continent to locate and study an ancient meteorite of great significance. He exposes himself to the highly toxic radiation of the meteorite, and while an antidote devised by Dr. Benet saves him from death by radiation poisoning, his naked touch causes instant death to others. Back in London, the benefits of the meteorite’s controlled radiation offer Dr. Benet an opportunity to restore eyesight to the blind. The antidote’s toxicity excites Prof. Rukh into paranoid rages as he seeks revenge against the members of his expedition, who he accuses of stealing his discovery for their own glory.Read More »

  • Jean Yarbrough – The Devil Bat [+commentaries] (1940)

    1931-1940HorrorJean YarbroughSci-FiUSA

    Synopsis:
    Dr. Carruthers feels bitter at being betrayed by his employers, Heath and Morton, when they became rich as a result of a product he devised. He gains revenge by electrically enlarging bats and sending them out to kill his employers’ family members by instilling in the bats a hatred for a particular perfume he has discovered, which he gets his victims to apply before going outdoors. Johnny Layton, a reporter, finally figures out Carruthers is the killer and, after putting the perfume on himself, douses it on Carruthers in the hopes it will get him to give himself away. One of the two is attacked as the giant bat makes one of its screaming, swooping power dives.Read More »

  • Tod Browning – Mark of the Vampire (1935)

    1931-1940ClassicsHorrorTod BrowningUSA

    Sir Karell Borotyn appears to have been killed by Count Mora, a vampire believed to haunt the local village. Now his daughter Irena is the count’s next target. Enter Professor Zelen, an expert on vampires who’s sent in to prevent her death. At the same time, secrets are revealed surrounding the circumstances of Sir Karell’s death.Read More »

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