Le mystère du château noir

All Boris Karloff fans will love this classic film, where Karloff is the castle physician and gives his patients excellent attention. Sir Ronald Burton,(Richard Greene), an eighteenth-century English adventurer, believes his two friends have been murdered by Count Von Bruno,(Stephen McNally) on his Black Forest estate. Arriving at Von Bruno's castle to accumulate evidence, Burton learns Von Bruno's unhappy wife Elga (Paula Corday),. and Dr. Meissen(Boris Karloff), the castle physician, are virtual prisoners. Suspecting Burton's motives, Von Bruno and Gargon (Lon Chaney Jr., ) a giant, mute scarred henchman, discover the Englishman was responsible for their being captured and tortured. You will definitely have to view this great Classic Karloff Film to enjoy the ending.

The writer drew on famous sources :Edgar Poe ("buried alive") and Shakespeare ("Romeo and Juliet").The beginning is quite scary and the interest is sustained till the end.The screenplay is certainly smarter than the average horror flick.Boris Karloff is the stand-out ,even if he is not really the scariest thing of the movie.The castle in question is full of traps,dark dungeons and crocodiles pit (which makes sense ,for the story really begins in Africa).The countess and the hero make a good romantic couple inside the gloomy walls of her husband's desirable mansion.The leopard hunting is also a very exciting moment.Very entertaining and a must for Gothic horror buffs.

It's strange that I keep on discovering movies in which Boris Karloff actually plays the GOOD guy! The man will always be an icon of horror-cinema, of course, but I used to think he exclusively portrayed monsters, mad scientists and psychopaths. Here in this forgotten 50's Goth epic, Karloff stars as the noble and honorable resident doctor of an Austrian castle community of which the owner – Count Von Bruno – is the only true sadist and murderer! Sir Ronal Burton arrives at the castle to search for his two missing friends, of which he believes Von Bruno captured and killed them, and eventually relies on Karloff's character Meissen to save him. Von Bruno is a real villain who enjoys barbaric hunting games and holds an impressive collection of torture devices in his dungeon. Burton falls in love with his repressed wife Elga and when he's unmasked as Von Bruno's ancient nemesis, they're both locked up in the cellar. The script of "The Black Castle" is rather complex, but well constructed and rich on topics that fans of vintage Gothic cinema will certainly appreciate. The atmosphere in the extended hunting game sequences reminded me a bit of "The Most Dangerous Game" and the set pieces inside the castle looked genuinely sinister. There are more than enough sub plots and twisted supportive characters to keep the film compelling despite the lack of gruesome horror situations and make-up effects. The cast features another familiar horror face, Lon Chaney Jr., but he and Karloff sadly don't get enough screen time to list "The Black Castle" among their most memorable achievements in acting. This was the debut feature of the respectable director Nathan Juran, who went on making fun & undemanding Sci-Fi/horror flicks like "The Deadly Mantis", "20 Million Miles to Earth" and "The Brain from Planet Arous".

When I saw Lon Chaney, Jr. and Boris Karloff in the cast, I was expecting to find a typically "schlocky" 1950's style horror movie. The opening scene (a graveyard with a wolf howling in the background) seemed to confirm this. Once I began watching it, though, what I discovered was a nifty little mystery about an Englishman (Richard Green) seeking to discover what had happened to two of his friends who had disappeared in the Black Forest and, if necessary, to take revenge against the evil Count (Stephen McNally) who ruled the territory. Chaney, as the voiceless Gargon, had a rather limited role (one which reminded me of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, actually) while Karloff had a somewhat more substantial role as Dr. Meissen. In fact, Meissen was one of the more interesting characters in the movie, and it was difficult to know until the very end whether he would be established to be a good guy or a bad guy! The castle set was magnificent, and even the limited depiction of the Black Forest was real enough. It certainly didn't come across as low-budget, compared to other movies I've seen anyway. The only disappointment, I thought, was Rita Corday's performance as the Countess. She seemed somewhat dry and didn't seem to put much passion into the role.

That aside, I found that this movie held my attention throughout, and there was enough suspense about how this was all going to turn out to make it well worth the watching. Definitely recommended, with a 7/10 rating.

I decided to check this out because I love costume movies, especially 18th century ones. At the same time, since I'm about 50/50 when it comes to Bori Karloff films, I told myself not to expect too much. It turns out I was pleased with this one, a combo action/suspense with some thriller/horror thrown in, with a bit of humor as well as a touch of romance.

Richard Greene did a good job as the hero out for revenge on the villain (excellently played by Stephan McNally), while at the same time falling for his wife (Paula Corday). Boris, for a change, plays a good guy (of sorts) and thinks up a clever (if dangerous) way for the couple to escape the wronged husband's wrath. (Though in his case, wronged was the wrong word). There's also another horror star featured here, Lon Chaney, Jr.

Worth checking out!