Les monstres se révoltent

Sir Joel Cadman (Basil Rathbone), a mad scientist, kidnaps his victims and cuts open their brains in an effort to discover a means to cure his wife's brain tumor.

Okay, so you have a 1950s mad scientist story about a guy doing experimental brain surgery that results in some serious mistakes. That alone could probably make a pretty decent horror film -- who is opposed to seeing brain dead lobotomy patients lumbering through a dungeon?

But, really, this film could not have failed if it tried. Besides Rathbone, it features Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney and John Carradine. They could have stood around and played hackey sack and I would still watch it.

Paul Corupe makes an interesting observation about this film's role in history. He notes that on the surface, Cadman is your typical 1930s mad scientist, saying things like, "In the interests of science, anything is justified." But underneath that, he is a 1950s scientist, a transitional figure who does experiments not just because he can but because he is trying to save a life -- he is one of the very first mad scientists we can feel sorry for, possibly. The only earlier example Corupe offers is from "The Ape" (1940).

The Black Sleep (1956)

This is one of those campy horror movies, two decades after the great originators, that fans will really love and newbies or outsiders will have trouble getting.

I'm mostly a fan, but even as the titles rolled and I couldn't believe the great cast, I was aware that this was 1956, that Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. were well past their prime. And the lead, Basil Rathbone, was playing an evil doctor (a shade like Dr. Frankenstein, pushing moral boundaries with his surgery), was more known as Sherlock Holmes. Still, along with John Carradine, what a cast!

And this is really Lugosi's last uncompromised appearance in any movie, even though he plays a mute and we don't get to hear him. ("Plan 9" comes after this, but Lugosi's role there is famously limited.) He's terrific! And Chaney's appearance is also mute, a brief each time, and not such a big deal. (Once there is nice, corny subjective p.o.v. camera as he attacks his prey.)

The plot? The title? Well, it's all a bit obvious what's happening, though the opening twenty minutes is more a straight drama that actually suggests a really good movie is ahead. A man is on death row, and Rathbone visits him and gives him the Black Sleep potion, which puts him into a fake death and he is carted away and revived. That doesn't give too much away. For the rest of the movie the potion is really just used as anesthesia at the crazy doctor's castle and is no big deal.

There is the pretty girl in a coma, a misunderstood nursing assistant who is daughter of the Chaney character, another nurse who is oddly cold and efficient (and not a Nazi--this is all 1872), and then there is the main character, the man from death row, who happens to be a crack surgeon that the evil doctor needs for his research.

For the middle half of the movie you see minor tensions and some brain surgery that is meant to seem cutting edge and unscrupulous. Then, in a huge surprise, almost as if the director woke up, a bunch of old patients appear out of nowhere (maybe they escaped their cells). And it's a bit of absolute mayhem, with Carradine playing an angry Moses type, and it's pretty crazy.

Look, I said too much perhaps but you should know this isn't a great movie. But it's great camp. It's silly, it's filled with icons from the old days, and it's not so badly made at all, edited well and filmed better than you would think for this nadir of Hollywood productions. This is around the time of the new Castle low budget films, and early Corman stuff, but this one is clearly from the old school of 1930s Hollywood. See it on those terms and like it!

Oddly enough The Black Sleep was some years ahead of its time medically speaking. The title refers to a drug from India that scientists Basil Rathbone uses to do that. Today it's a technique to enable recovery from certain illnesses or injuries. But being that this is Basil Rathbone mad scientist you know the drug will be used for all kinds of nefarious purposes.

Rathbone gets Dr. Herbert Rudley out of prison to assist him by use of his coma inducing Black Sleep. Rudley is in prison for a murder he didn't commit. When he 'dies' before the death sentence is carried out that's the end of it. But Rathbone has a lot of work for Rudley to do, operations on some willing and not so willing patients. What it's all about you have to see The Black Sleep for.

If you do see it you're in for a treat because with a cast of scene stealing actors such as Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Jr., and John Carradine, this is not to be missed. All three of their characters are products of Rathbone's failed experiments. Carradine in particular is joy. He plays a deranged man who thinks he's a Crusader King and he's overacting outrageously and I'm loving every minute of it. Also in the film is Akim Tamiroff as a gypsy grave robber who also aids Rathbone.

All these people have legions of fans still. So if you want to see a film that's a combination of Frankenstein and the Island of Dr. Moreau with a great cast you can't miss with The Black Sleep.

"The Black Sleep" is a glorious, elegant all-star "monster romp" in black and white from Hollywood's "ghoulden era." The film has it all: rich performances (both mimed and spoken), evocative sets, lighting and cinematography, an involving story and detailed script, mad science, swirling mists, dark London streets, gaslight, an old abbey (complete with an oaken door with a medieval viewing-window), rumblings of thunder, burning candles, horse-drawn carriages, elegant costumes and period (1872 England) detail, gigantic fireplaces with sliding panels, shadowy corridors replete with ghostly "knight's armory" lurking in dark corners, sinister music, hidden torchlit chambers, suggestive sound-effects, subtly chilling props and special effects (including clanking chains, coffins, syringes, a musty skull, and a pulsating brain!), a moody matte-painting of a castle atop a hill overlooking a valley of gnarled, wind-blown branches, gruesome monster make-up, and a stunning ensemble cast of mystery and terror specialists that features Basil Rathbone, Akim Tamiroff, Lon Chaney, Jr., John Carradine, Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson! To promote the film, make-up artist George Bau was commissioned to create life-sized wax replicas of many of the cast members, which were later displayed in New York City to coincide with the picture's June, 1956 release. For good measure, Boris Karloff, who was in town at the time, is said to have posed with these wax sculptures in publicity photos to help give the film an extra push; in the following year, Boris would work with "The Black Sleep"'s director, Reginald LeBorg, its production company, Bel-Air, and many of the same technical crew to make "Voodoo Island," an eerie zombie tale set on a tropical isle. Herbert Rudley (who would later appear in "The Mothers-In-Law" TV series), Patricia Blake (aka Patricia Blair), Phyllis Stanley, Sally Yarnell, George Sawaya, Peter Gordon, Claire Carleton, John Sheffield, Clive Morgan, Louanna Gardner, and the unbilled players (who always add so much to the creating of a world in which a film is set--one of whom is Howard W. Koch, who helped produce the film!) all join together with the aforementioned players in bringing a magical level of conviction to this tale of a scientist and the strange drug he tampers with (which produces a death-like trance to all who come under its influence). Dr. Max Andler is the Beverly Hills neuro surgeon who served as technical advisor during the "brain surgery" sequences. A well-produced tale of terror, directed by Reginald LeBorg (who helmed such other favorite shockers as "The Mummy's Ghost," "Diary of a Madman" and the above-mentioned "Voodoo Island.") Curl up on a rainy night and enjoy "The Black Sleep"!

If I went for snark more often in my reviews, I might say that "The Black Sleep" will put *you* into a black sleep. But, in truth, it's not *that* bad. It's just somewhat disappointing, given the gathering of some of the shining lights of the horror genre. This is really more of a period drama (with precious little period recreation - this is mostly shot in interiors) with touches of horror. Its first three quarters are somewhat dull, and talky, and most unfortunate of all, NOT very atmospheric.

The story mostly centers around the activities of a deranged doctor, Sir Joel Cadman (Basil Rathbone) who saves a former student, Gordon Ramsey (!) (Herbert Rudley) from the hangman. This he does with the assistance of a drug, the "Black Sleep" of the title, that can make people appear to be dead. Sir Joel intends to have Ramsey assist him in his radical research into the human brain. Ramsey meets such characters as Daphne (Phyllis Stanley), Sir Joels' loyal nurse, two mutes (Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi), and the very fetching young Laurie Monroe (Patricia Blair), while an annoying, talkative gypsy named Odo (Akim Tamiroff) provides Sir Joel with unwilling test subjects.

"The Black Sleep" is saved, to a degree, by its final quarter, which is good fun, as more characters come crawling out of the woodwork. Among them is a hirsute John Carradine. Don't be fooled; despite his prominent billing, his is little more than a cameo role. The same goes for the hulking Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson, who doesn't show up for a long time. The reasonably likable Rudley does a decent job of carrying the story. He's a good man who claims to be innocent of a murder charge, and there's no reason to doubt him. He's also the moral centre, scoffing at the insanity perpetrated by Sir Joel. Mr. Rathbone is marvelous; his performance does ultimately transcend the material. But performers like Carradine, Lugosi, and Chaney end up rather under utilized.

Directed without much style by Reginald Le Borg ("Weird Woman", "Diary of a Madman"), but the score by the talented Les Baxter is definitely worth a listen.

Six out of 10.