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The Mad Monster
Poverty Row studio PRC tried to ride the werewolf wave in 1942 with this Sam Newfield production starring Glenn Strange as a slouch hat-wearing monster and George Zucco as the zany scientist. Not the studio’s worst outing, but at 77 minutes it overstays its welcome. 3/10 Read more
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The Corpse Vanishes
Bela Lugosi is kidnapping brides from the altar in order to extract their precious bodily fluids, which he uses to keep his 80-year old wife young and beautiful. This Monogram cheapo from 1942 could have been batshit crazy fun but tries too hard to be a snappy Warner crime thriller. 3/10 Read more
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The Ghost of Frankenstein
The magic is all but gone from the fourth Universal Frankenstein picture, made in 1942. Although well-paced and entertaining, the film stumbles on a ridiculous, self-contradictory script, a low budget and a Lon Chaney Jr. who isn’t up to the task of replacing Boris Karloff as the monster. 5/10 Read more
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The Mad Doctor of Market Street
Lionel Atwill and his hardy troop of bit-part players and slumming has-beens bravely fight their way through an inane and disjointed script on a shoestring budget. Director Joseph H. Lewis adds touches of class to this odd mad scientist/South Seas adventure horror screwball comedy. 3/10 Read more
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The Body Disappears
Warner produced its first invisibility comedy in 1941. This time it’s a bridegroom who’s accidentally turned transparent on the eve of his wedding. Actors like Jane Wyman, Edward Everett Horton and Willie Best help keep this bland, programmatic situation farce afloat, if only barely. 3/10 Read more
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
MGM pulls out all the stops in this high-profile 1941 horror remake. Star director Victor Fleming, however, is out of his element, as is Spencer Tracy in the lead. Still, the movie’s depiction of domestic psychological abuse makes it genuinely unsettling and Ingrid Bergman is sublime. 7/10 Read more
Bela Lugosi Bert I. Gordon Boris Karloff Brigitte Helm Charles Gemora Crash Corrigan Curt Siodmak Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Eiji Tsuburaya Frankenstein Georges Melies George Worthing Yates George Zucco H.G. Wells Haruo Nakajima Invisible Man Irving Block Ishiro Honda Jack Arnold Jack Pierce Jack Rabin Jimmy Sangster John Carradine John P. Fulton Jules Verne Lionel Atwill Lon Chaney Jr. Mary Shelley Morris Ankrum Paul Blaisdell Paul Frees Richard Carlson Richard Denning Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Shayne Roger Corman Sam Katzman Segundo de Chomon Top Lists Top Silents Walter R. Booth Whit Bissell William Alland William Schallert Willis O'Brien
Scifist. 