i must have seen a different film!!

Fresh and Exciting

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The Black Sleep reunited some of the old horror stars of the 40's into one last hurrah.It was supposed to be a through back to the Universal chillers made during WWII.Fright vet Reggie LeBorg was at the helm for this opus. A friend Chaney's, he tried to get the most out a group of tired old actors and a stodgy script. This was Lugosi last true film and the poor guy was on his last legs and more pathetic than creepy. Tor Johnson was a graduate of the Rondo Hatton school of acting. Rathbone does his usual scenery chewing as Dr Sir Joel Cadman, and Chaney is more of a drunken stumble bum than terrifying monster in his scenes.He's got nothing on Carridine ,however, as one of the nuts kept in the basement dungeon. Tamiroff gives the only nuanced performance among the nominal stars as Cadman's sinister assistant.Herbert Rudley and Patricia Blair are both totally miscast as the juvenile leads.Rudley was way too old for his role, and Blair was wooden in hers. Blair said much later that she and Rudley definitely didn't like each other and that he was constantly criticizing everything she did and bullying her during the filming. What does work are the sets and the make up job on the victims of Cadman experiments who who have become mutant monsters and are imprisoned in the bowels of the castle. The final when they are unleashed to wreak havoc on their tormentors will give a case of the willies to the younger viewers as it did me. The Black Sleep is a curio and of interest because of it's cast of aging horror stars. I saw this film on Frances Farmer Presents on local Indianapolis TV in 1963. Ms Farmer hosted an afternoon movie program of movies from Hollywood's golden age. Occasionally a star of the film being broadcast, in this case Clair Carlton who was in town appearing in a play would be a guest.Apparently she and Ms Farmer had worked together in the 1930's. I can't remember what she had to say about the movie.

Take two of Ed Wood's stars of "Bride of the Monster" and the not yet released "Plan 9 From Outer Space" (Bela Lugosi & Tor Johnson), a bunch of other horror vets (Basil Rathone, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine), and place them in a spook fest that at first appears to be the best horror film of 1936. Then, only half an hour into the film, toss in all of the silliness you can muster, and you end up with the worst supernatural film of the year. ("Plan 9", made in 1956, was not released until 3 years later...) Like in "Plan 9", Bela Lugosi doesn't utter a word (which would make Dianne Wiest in "Bullets Over Broadway" very happy....). He's Casmir, the mute "Butler" for mad doctor Rathbone who saves a convicted killer (Herbert Rudley) from the gallows by giving him "The Black Sleep", a potion that renders him to appear dead. Rathbone then takes him to his castle (a must for all mad doctors) to assist him in his nefarious experiments concerning the study of the brain. The first half hour is satisfactorily equivalent to the Monogram horror films of the first half of the 1940's, but once Akim Tamiroff (as an evil gypsy) visits Rathbone at the castle, everything turns into a pathetic mess. Chaney, Johnson, and Carradine are all wasted in ridiculous parts. Carradine is dressed and acts like he is still waiting for Charleton Heston to come down from the mountains in the same year's "The Ten Commandments".The science fiction elements of the plot (examinations of the functions of each part of the human brain) is at first interesting, but ridiculously acted by the guinea pig who must demonstrate physically what each part of the brain controls. The film reaches its nadir with a fleeing nurse whose back is on fire, and the revelation of Rathone's laughable prisoners. That part itself is a rip-off of "Island of Lost Souls". The rest of the film is the poorest attempt to re-capture the fun of all those Karloff/Lugosi mad doctor films Monogram turned out 15 years before. Thank American International for giving us Vincent Price to show us how it really should be done!

Beginning is a bit like "The Man They Could Not Hang"--innocent man condemned to death is spared by his doctor friend. It also is a bit like "The Man Who Lived Again"--both are Boris Karloff films from the 1930s. So, if you have a sense of déjà vu, this might be why.The film stars Basil Rathbone and Herbert Rudley. Rudley has been falsely accused of murder and is about to be executed. His 'friend', Rathbone, gives him a potion to make him appear dead--then instead of burying him, Rathbone will use him as an assistant in his brain research. What Rudley doesn't realize is that this research is being done on live humans--humans that Rathbone renders unconscious with his 'black sleep' formula. Unfortunately, Rathbone's plans for Rudley aren't all that altruistic--tune in and find the evil truth.This film has lots of appearances very horror notables--though most are not very satisfying, as their roles were very, very small. Along for the ride are Akim Tamiroff in a very creepy role--and the most complex of the guest stars. As for Lon Chaney, Jr. and Bela Lugosi, both have thankless non-speaking roles and are rather wasted. And, out of the blue, John Carradine appears near the end of the film...and then overacts wildly. And, along for the ride with him is Tor Johnson--of Ed Wood fame. I liked seeing all these guys--I just wish the script had given them more to say and do. It's like a great opportunity somewhat squandered.The film is entertaining--mostly because the plot is quite good and has a few nice twists. Unfortunately, however, there are also some moments with LOTS of cheese--most notably Carradine's bizarre performance. But the good well outweighs the bad and is fun.

From the opening shot of the Tower of London labeled "Newgate Prison" to the Scotland Yard inspector who feels obligated to reintroduce himself every time he walks into a scene, it is very hard to watch "The Black Sleep" with a straight face. Its main claims to fame are its large cast of horror veterans--Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Tor Johnson, and, some say, Akim Tamiroff (who was really replacing Peter Lorre)--and the fact that this was Lugosi's last real film, shot after his release from self-imposed drug rehab. Lugosi dodders quite a bit, and looks unwell, but he does what he can with his non-role as a mute major-domo. Chaney, meanwhile, reprises his inarticulate, murderous brute routine that he had perfected through such other films as "The Black Castle" and "The Indestructible Man," while Carradine goes completely into the stratosphere as an insane religious fanatic who looks like he just escaped from the Bastille. Johnson is, well, Johnson, complete with the blind contact lenses he later wore in Ed Wood's epics. Rathbone, as the mad doctor who turns humans into monsters for love, is adequate, only really snapping into life in his scenes opposite Tamiroff, but the real lead of the film, in just about every scene, is the miscast Herbert Rudley as Rathbone's assistant, and the film's hero. In addition to being too old for the role of a medical student, Rudley was a very unsubtle actor who telegraphed every thought to the balcony...all right for comedy, but not so good here. He, Rathbone, and Carradine would all fare much better that same year in "The Court Jester." An even bigger villain than Rathbone's character, though, is the script by John C. Higgins, which must have been 300 pages long to include all the talk, talk, talk, talk. Every second on screen is talked-to-death and every plot point over-explained, which serves to make the film seem much longer than it is. Reginald LeBorg's "direction" accomplishes nothing but to record the endless dialogue, though he does manage to get in one trademark dream/montage sequence, reminiscent of some of his 1940s work at Universal. Despite the low budget the castle sets are quite impressive, but all that means is that seeing this cast against those sets makes watching a set of still photos of "The Black Sleep" as satisfying, if not more so, as sitting through the movie.