Joseph H. Lewis
64 Minutes
USA
1941
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Polly Ann Young, John McGuire, Clarence Muse, Terry Walker, Betty Compson
**1/2/*****
Cheap poverty row picture that would most likely have fallen into obscurity if not for led Bela Lugosi (and, for those of a more auteur mind, director Joseph H. Lewis). Haunted by memories of his wife (who left him for his best friend AND died in an accident), Lugosi worries his doting daughter and her boyfriend (who is also fooling around with the maid) by having an annual dinner with an empty chair. But it turns out that she survived, and hypnotically wanders outside of her old house. Upon glimpsing her face, Lugosi is put into a trance which leads to a series of bodies piling up and a confused police force.
Lewis crafts an efficient, if unmemorable, mystery with some mild, if uncreative, horror elements, though the interest of "how" Lugosi will both inevitably be caught and discover that he himself is the culprit drives the narrative too early (as if there was any doubt at any time). Things move along fairly briskly, and Lugosi's usual pile of tricks remains great fun to watch even in these particularly low-rent productions (this would not be considered one of the sadder appearances that would be sprinkled throughout the 40s and into the last years of his life). Lewis is able to bring a little bit of style with the hypnotism transitions, and there might be something happening with themes of voyeurism and sexual guilt (though this could be a bit of wishful intellectual thinking). There are also some marvelous ways out of natural holes in the plot, such as the lack of much investigation into the house where several bodies have been found murdered (but Lugosi's character carries quite a bit of clout in the town and asked for the investigation to be dismissed. . . because that is how things work). But the film is passable fare for fans of the genre or Lugosi, slightly a notch upon the level of for completists only entertainment and drifting into the territory of a genuinely interesting curio.
October 20th, 2019