Der Rabe

MORD39 RATING: *** out of ****

I have always loved this strange little film, even as a kid. Bela Lugosi has one of his greatest roles as the insane Dr. Vollin, a part which ranks right up there with Dracula and Ygor. It's also one of those rare times where he actually upstages Boris Karloff.

At only 60 or so minutes, the 1935 version of THE RAVEN is brisk entertainment with all the golden elements of a fine horror movie: a crazed doctor, his misshapen assistant (Karloff), secret rooms and lots of thunder and lightning. There are trap doors, a creepy dungeon, and a torture chamber. This film doesn't pretend to be profound or a literary rendition of Poe's works... it's just Bela and Boris - the two greatest horror stars of all time - doing what they do best.

The comedy in the film is rare, and doesn't detract from it. The main issue at hand is Dr. Vollin's jealous need for revenge to satisfy his own tortured soul...by inflicting horror on those he feels have caused his misery. The moment where Bela blackmails Karloff and cackles maniacally has no equal.

A perfect companion to THE BLACK CAT, it's not cinematically as good, but I have always had much more fun with it. Highly recommended for fans of "classic" horror!

Dr. Vollin (Lugosi) who's a Neurosurgeon with a large interest in Poe inspired torture comes out of retirement for a wealthy judge to save his daughter that was seriously injured in a auto wreck. During the recovery state the doctor falls for the girl and wants to marry her. Though, the doctor has a plan to torture his guests and with help from an unwillingly on the run murderer Bateman (Karloff) who's face was disfigured by the doctor when he wanted his face changed. So now he must do his biding or the doctor won't restore his face.

"The Raven" is a pretty good BW horror film that truly delivers the goods even though it's not particularly grand or inventive. It holds a fairly entertaining if rather routine narrative of clichés (stormy night in strange house). Though, you can't go wrong with a stormy night in a horror film. Saying that, it's the evoking presence of Karloff and Lugosi when on screen that makes it a great spectacle as there performances overshadow the rather foreseeable material or plot. For a mostly talkative film it doesn't have a sluggish feel and it moves at a rather brisk pace.

It had a ludicrous plot with some far-fetched scenario's (A quick recovery after surgery) and unintentionally humorous moments. After a real talkative first half about these amusing Poe torture designs we get to see them finally in use. It's too bad he used them towards the end, as not much torturing did happen, but mostly talk of these devices. Though, when it did happen there was a lot of imagination and interesting ideas. This is when the sudden thrills pick up in the last 20-mintues and it suddenly gets quite claustrophobic further along the film goes. In which Dr. Vollin really tightens the screws in some energetic and upbeat scenes. These scenes aren't terribly suspenseful, but the confrontations between Bateman and Vollin are vibrantly compelling and the devices achieve such a horrific mood. The climax is rather grand too. The ending was rather sudden and you can say lame for my liking. Dialogue was a mix bad with some engaging dialogue from the leads coming across as poetic and other times it was rather stilted or just plain corny.

A rather enforcing and roaring music score surrounds and captures the terror superbly. The film is well shot and is very atmospheric indeed. There is such great use of shadow and lighting composition in the mansion and a superb layout of the dungeon with its torture devices. The storm helps the atmosphere to be effective too. Karloff's character with the disfiguring is treated with decent make-up effects and it really does keep you glued at staring at it.

Rather mundane performances from the cast except for the two strong central leads and maybe with the exception of Samuel S. Hinds as Judge Thatcher. It's definitely one of Lugosi's best performances as the sadistic Dr. Vollin. Lugosi gives us his usual evil grimaces and at times goes over-the-top in delivering the dialogue. While Borris Karloff gives a solid performance, but I wouldn't class it as one of his greatest. He shines as the demented criminal Edmond Bateman who's lurking around the house with great effect.

For me it was a competent shocker that holds some unforgettable scenes and performances.

This is the Boris & Bela show all the way. Like its sort-of companion piece "The Black Cat," THE RAVEN involves young lovers held captive by a madman with an odd hobby, in a large house which is elaborately tricked-out with amenities not usually found in even the most exclusive residences. This time out, Boris is the nominal "hero" (as with "The Black Cat," the male half of the young couple proves remarkably useless) and Bela the nut-case: Richard Vollin; doctor, Poe aficionado and do-it-yourself-er without peer. Summoned from retirement to perform life-saving surgery on Jean Thatcher, a lovely young dancer, he subsequently falls head-over-heels for her, and the trouble starts.

Lugosi was a better actor than he usually gets credit for being; his downfall seemed to stem from a lack of selectivity about what projects he accepted, frequently landing him in dreck. THE RAVEN gives him ample opportunities to shine, and he makes the most of them. Some consider his work here over-the-top, but scenery-chewing is entirely appropriate to the character, who is written as an arrogant egomaniac - he refers to himself as "a law unto myself" and even "a god" - and probably the only out-and-out lunatic Lugosi ever played. The desires or welfare of others simply don't enter into the equation for Vollin. After repeated refusals to perform Jean's operation, only an appeal to his ego ("So, they DO say I am the only one!") can induce him; that the object of his affection makes no secret of her love for someone else is of no consequence to him, and for the one "nice" deed he does for someone else - making Jean's fiancé his research assistant - he flatters himself that he's being magnanimous, though his true motivation, keeping the young rival too busy to interfere with his pursuit of Jean, is nonetheless self-serving.

The gloriously unrestrained nature of his performance notwithstanding, he gives us some of his best moments here: when he finds himself in Karloff's clutches, totally helpless and at Boris' mercy, the panic beneath his thin veneer of casual bravado is palpable. Likewise the barely-controlled fury and pain when, ostensibly speaking about Poe, he tells of the madness that grips "a man of genius denied of his great love," and how that madness can drive him to conceive of "torture....torture for those who have tortured him." His perverse glee in inflicting that torture is chilling, and he even displays some unexpectedly dry wit. When Vollin demands of Jean's father, Judge Thatcher, "There are no two ways; send her to me," the Judge gasps an incredulous "Do you know what you're saying?" Lugosi, in a deliberate monotone, answers the question literally; repeating, "There - are - no - two - ways - send - her - to - me!"

If I've put the emphasis here on Lugosi, it's because he truly dominates all around him, including Karloff. That's no reflection on Boris; he just plays a mostly passive character: Edmond Bateman, bank robber and escaped con, who seeks Vollin out for an operation to make him "look different." Given the shady-looking hood who passes Vollin's name and address to Bateman, and the seedy surroundings in which the meeting takes place, one can't help but wonder at Vollin's social contacts, and the kind of services he's previously solicited (or performed). The unfortunate Bateman soon finds himself in over his head, the victim of Vollin's particularly sadistic blackmail.

As with Frankenstein's creation, Boris suffuses Bateman with pathos. "I don't want to do them things no more," he pleads, when Lugosi sets out to enlist his help for some dastardly deeds. Because of his predicament, we can feel sympathy for Bateman, even as he does more of "them things" at Vollin's behest. Under heavy and restricting makeup, as was often the case, Boris is able to communicate a great deal with his eyes (or, in this case, eye). Watch the excitement in them (it?) as Lugosi removes the post-op bandages; your heart fairly breaks because you know the shock that's in store for him.

The supporting cast is filled out with familiar and capable players such as Inez Courtney and Ian Wolfe (who has one of the film's best lines when, as Bela goes on his torture rampage, protests with an oh-so-civilized, "See here, Vollin, things like this can't be done!").

The ever-dependable and versatile Samuel S. Hinds provides us with one of his delightfully stodgy curmudgeons as Judge Thatcher, and he deserves a special nod on general principle. Hinds was one of those "oh, I've seen him a hundred times before" actors (whose face is probably known by far more people than his name) who, during the '30's and '40's, seemed to pop up in every third film released. His persona varied little (and he seemed doomed to rarely being cast as anything besides judge, doctor or lawyer), but he was able to bend it in whatever direction a role required, enabling him to move with ease from the tight-ass Thatcher to Slade, the corrupt, tobacco-spittin' judge in "Destry Rides Again," to the sage and kindly family physician in "The Boy With Green Hair." Too bad he never did a "Huck Finn;" he'd have been great as The King.

Despite the improbability (oh, all right; absurdity) of the plot, the script provides some wonderful dialogue. Hinds has the great good fortune of uttering the catchy phrase, "stark-staring mad" on more than one occasion. But the delivery of even the pithiest exchanges, such as "'You monster, you like to torture.' 'Yes, I like to torture.'" gives them a vitality far beyond what is on the page. When all is said and done, though, THE RAVEN is, above all, B & B's show. Each is at the top of his game, and together, they own it.

Karloff gets the top billing in this second feature pairing both horror stars, but it is Bela Lugosi all the way who steals each and every scene he is in. Lugosi is incredible in his over-the-top performance of a morbid, obsessed doctor and Poe aficionado. Each line he utters with flair and gusto, each movement an outrageous, maniacal gesture. He is truly a ham, and an enjoyable one at that. Karloff is quite good as a killer, and the only compassionate character in the story. He is disfigured by Lugosi, so he will kill for the mad doctor. One of the best scenes is Lugosi leaving his patient to see his handiwork. Karloff shoots through several mirrors after realizing the atrocities committed on him, and from a door in the roof of the room.....Lugosi peers through and laughs...laughs with coldness, cruelty, and hysteria. The rest of the film is devoted to Lugosi utilizing his Poe recreations of torture...and I must confess as an earlier reviewer noted that you really feel little sympathy for the other characters involved...and at one point I wanted the pendulum to win. You must see this film as it is the second best of the Karloff/Lugosi pairings...but it really is a Lugosi film.

BELA LUGOSI never had a role that made better use of his stylized ham emoting than his mad surgeon here. The camera holds him in close-ups that emphasize the penetrating gaze and knitted eyebrows as he obsesses about an attractive woman he wishes to marry.

He steals every scene he's in with his heavy emphasis on certain words and his inflection that has menace in every syllable. By comparison, Boris Karloff (top-billed) has a cameo role that he plays with his usual skill, managing to get some sympathy for a basically unsympathetic character--a man who served time as a killer. Between the two of them, they create a minor thriller that is the kind of horror film Universal was famous for in the '30s.

Lugosi being a man obsessed by Edgar Allen Poe's torture devices in stories like 'The Pit and the Pendulum', approaches every scene with relish, obviously delighted with his role as a surgeon who declares: "I love torture!" The plot, of course, is outrageously preposterous but just try to turn away as he puts into place his plan for the girl, her father and her fiance--as well as his servant Karloff.

None of it is believable, but it's all great fun in the tradition of Universal thrillers. Perfect for Halloween!!