This is a re-post (a riposte?). Thought I would transfer it to a separate thread to see if anyone is interested in the topic.
... Reed
"I debated submitting this as a new topic, but decided it fit better into the Monogram/Lugosi discussion. I just watched it for the first time ever -- see what happens when you join this board? -- with my wife last night. It wasn't a terribly onerous use of a little more than 60 minutes. Bela's acting was reasonably good in this one, and it was nice to see Tom Neal of Detour in another tough-guy role.
I guess the film is nominally horror, due to the suggested Black Sleep type of ending, but boy, could it have been better if that aspect of the film was strengthened.
Brief synopsis -- Lugosi plays a dual role. As Kurt Wagner, he runs a soup kitchen/mission in the Bowery of New York which is a cover for attracting lowlife criminals that he enlists as "partners" in various robberies. Then he kills the "partners" and buries them in the basement of his establishment. His second role is that of a criminology professor (can't bring up the name) whose only purpose is to teach upscale students who eventually show up at his soup kitchen to express surprise at his secondary line of work.
Of course the main problem with the film is complete lack of internal logic -- what can we expect from a 60-minute film. But this one had tremendous potential that went completely unrealized. Why Lugosi is playing two identities is never discussed. Viewers must supply the logic -- he began as a professor, then saw a way to augment his income through crime. But Lugosi-as-Kurt-Wagner is a stone killer -- he tosses one accomplice over the side of a building as a diversion for a jewelry heist. So he must have been a psychopath from a very early age.
The biggest problem I had with the film is the treatment of the protagonist. Once again, using Bill Warren's division of hero/protagonist, this guy is no herol. In fact, he is shot by Tom Neal, leaving the viewer with a serious inference that he's dead. Yet he shows up in bed, apparently completely recovered for the requisite happy ending with the heroine who was fending off his romantic advances early in the show. The other implication is that he is one of the restored "zombies/living dead men" that the opium/absinthe-addicted doctor (whom Lugosi employs as a janitor/gravedigger) has created and kept in one of several secret rooms scattered under the soup kitchen. There is just no logical answer for this particular problem.
Bowery at Midnight leads off on an eight-film, two-disc DVD compilation of Poverty Row/early Roger Corman flicks. I bought it for $10 at Best Buy, mostly because of the eight films, I'd only purchased one on a separate Alpha Video DVD. The quality of the transfer was marginal -- the first 20-30 minutes were speckled, and scenes in shadow were very dark. All of that was okay with me, but the second half of the film was much worse, with clipped dialog and much larger speckles. Still, the experience was better than I thought it would be, and I give the film a marginal thumbs-up for Lugosi's commanding presence, the whacky storyline, and the appearance of Tom Neal. I just wish the script had concentrated on the horror aspects a little more because several risen-from-the-dead ex-criminals running amok could have worked much better as a precursor of Richard Denning and the Creature with the Atom Brain."
... Reed
... Reed
"I debated submitting this as a new topic, but decided it fit better into the Monogram/Lugosi discussion. I just watched it for the first time ever -- see what happens when you join this board? -- with my wife last night. It wasn't a terribly onerous use of a little more than 60 minutes. Bela's acting was reasonably good in this one, and it was nice to see Tom Neal of Detour in another tough-guy role.
I guess the film is nominally horror, due to the suggested Black Sleep type of ending, but boy, could it have been better if that aspect of the film was strengthened.
Brief synopsis -- Lugosi plays a dual role. As Kurt Wagner, he runs a soup kitchen/mission in the Bowery of New York which is a cover for attracting lowlife criminals that he enlists as "partners" in various robberies. Then he kills the "partners" and buries them in the basement of his establishment. His second role is that of a criminology professor (can't bring up the name) whose only purpose is to teach upscale students who eventually show up at his soup kitchen to express surprise at his secondary line of work.
Of course the main problem with the film is complete lack of internal logic -- what can we expect from a 60-minute film. But this one had tremendous potential that went completely unrealized. Why Lugosi is playing two identities is never discussed. Viewers must supply the logic -- he began as a professor, then saw a way to augment his income through crime. But Lugosi-as-Kurt-Wagner is a stone killer -- he tosses one accomplice over the side of a building as a diversion for a jewelry heist. So he must have been a psychopath from a very early age.
The biggest problem I had with the film is the treatment of the protagonist. Once again, using Bill Warren's division of hero/protagonist, this guy is no herol. In fact, he is shot by Tom Neal, leaving the viewer with a serious inference that he's dead. Yet he shows up in bed, apparently completely recovered for the requisite happy ending with the heroine who was fending off his romantic advances early in the show. The other implication is that he is one of the restored "zombies/living dead men" that the opium/absinthe-addicted doctor (whom Lugosi employs as a janitor/gravedigger) has created and kept in one of several secret rooms scattered under the soup kitchen. There is just no logical answer for this particular problem.
Bowery at Midnight leads off on an eight-film, two-disc DVD compilation of Poverty Row/early Roger Corman flicks. I bought it for $10 at Best Buy, mostly because of the eight films, I'd only purchased one on a separate Alpha Video DVD. The quality of the transfer was marginal -- the first 20-30 minutes were speckled, and scenes in shadow were very dark. All of that was okay with me, but the second half of the film was much worse, with clipped dialog and much larger speckles. Still, the experience was better than I thought it would be, and I give the film a marginal thumbs-up for Lugosi's commanding presence, the whacky storyline, and the appearance of Tom Neal. I just wish the script had concentrated on the horror aspects a little more because several risen-from-the-dead ex-criminals running amok could have worked much better as a precursor of Richard Denning and the Creature with the Atom Brain."
... Reed
