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I can't help it. I LIKE this film. Terribly subjective, I know, but... This film is an adaption of an Edgar Wallace novel, like his "The Green Archer", "The Four Just Men", and many, many others, almost all of which have a near-byzantine plot structure amidst the thrills and chills a la Sax Rohmer's "Fu Manchu" stories. They were written in a totally different day and age for a different audience. That a great many more were adapted for film in Europe should give you an idea of their popularity. Like many Wallace's tales, there are dark deeds abounding, naturally having to do with financial gain via insurance fraud and murder, with the Evil Ringleader sitting at the center of it all, dispatching his evil minions to do his bidding, while cloaked in a disguise of (almost) perfect respectability. If you think about it, the big difference, structurally, between this and other films like Humphrey Bogart's "The Enforcer" and Brando's "The Godfather" is that the audience already KNOWS who doing the killing. American audiences even today just don't buy a racketeer being totally anonymous even to the cops(However, if someone were to successfully adapt Forrest Evers' "Take-over" for the big screen, it might change a lot of people's minds).As for me, Don Vito Corleone's hit man, Luca Brasi, doesn't hold a candle to the terrifying henchman,Blind Jake...yes, I like this film. Seen in the proper spirit, it should creep you out, too!

Dr. Orloff has been endowing funds to the Dearborn Institute for the Blind, but is using the institute as a home for his sinister activities. Orloff has been ordering the murders of a series of men who have named Orloff as their insurance beneficiary, as collateral for a monetary loan. Scotland Yard Inspector Holt, also teaming up with Lt. O'Reilly (from Chicago) and Diana Stuart, daughter of the latest murder victim, try to uncover the connection of Orloff, the Dearborn Institute, and the murdered men. I enjoyed this movie more than I expected I would. Lugosi gives a very good performance, and the movie has a good aura of mystery about it which only enhance the audience's attention, despite the film's modest small budget. Rating, 7.

Forget all those naysayers that talk about Bela Lugosi's inability to act, or that he was only good in Dracula and hammed it up in everything else, or that all his Poverty Row films are cheaply made, thin pieces of poor excuses for celluloid. The Human Monster, also known as Dark Eyes of London, is cheaply made and does star Bela, but it is a wonderful film. It tells the story of Bela the insurance broker who loans money to people and signs them up for an insurance policy, only later to kill them for the money. Bela uses a home for the blind as a cover-up for his operation. Lugosi is simply wonderful in his dual roles, and is as menacing as ever playing both the brokering fiend and the head of the Blind Home. This film is low on set and costume design, and has some pretty average performers, but make no mistake that it is an average horror thriller. It simply is a sight to behold!

Bela Lugosi made a lot of schlocky films during his career. While DARK EYES OF London is definitely a low budget film, thanks to decent writing and a very creepy style it manages to entertain even after almost 70 years.

Bela plays a totally amoral criminal who runs an insurance company. He insures people and makes himself the beneficiary after making these people loans. But instead of waiting to collect the money, he drowns them and throws their body in the Thames. While an interesting scheme, he oddly does it repeatedly--naturally arousing the suspicions of the police.

In addition to being an insurance man, Lugosi also is a benefactor to a home for indigent blind men. However, this act of kindness is a front, as this home is where Bela commits his murders with the help of a truly horrifying looking blind assistant. Near the very end, you actually get to see him kill one of his innocent victims and toss him in the river in a very graphic way--hence deservedly earning its special horror rating in the UK.

The film earns some points for an unusual plot and its graphic scenes--it really is a pretty scary film for 1940. However, there are a few lulls, some overacting by the idiot playing the cop from Chicago and the irrationality of Lugosi committing so many murders yet hoping to get away with it when he's the only rational suspect. By the way, speaking of the Chicago cop, do all Brits see us Americans as THAT brash and annoying?! I sure hope not! You also wonder why they even bothered including this character, as he was rather distracting and unnecessary.

Bela Lugosi lights up the screen as the evil Dr. Orloff in this film based on a story by Edgar Wallace. A number of curious drownings in the Thames River leads a Scotland yard detective named Inspector Holmes(I kid you not!) to investigate the insurance company run by Orloff. And just does Dearborn's Home For the Destitute Blind factor into all of this? Lugosi is at his most sinister but the final revelation concerning where he went into hiding doesn't hold-up under close scrutiny - Lugosi's voice should have been used.

In London, the Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Larry Holt (Hugh Williams) is assigned to investigate a serious of deaths apparently in accidents. However, a further inquiry shows that all the victims are men without family and insurance policy released by the insurance agent Dr. Feodor Orloff (Bela Lugosi) and the beneficiary is a home for blind administrated by Prof. John Dearborn (Bela Lugosi). When Henry Stuart is found drowned, his daughter Diana (Greta Gynt) comes to London and helps Holt and his American partner Lieutenant O'Reilly (Edmon Ryan) in their investigation.

"The Dark Eyes of London" is an interesting B-movie with a good dark story and a great performance of Bela Lugosi. Unfortunately the quality of the VHS released in Brazil impairs the cinematography of the film. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Monstro Humano" ("The Human Monster")

This is one of Lugosi's top movies. It's right up there with Dracula, White Zombie, Son of Frankenstein, and the Raven. Lugosi plays a dual role as a lecherous insurance salesman and kindly Dr Dearborn, a kindly blind teacher. Lugosi is at his sinister best as he knocks off people for their insurance money using the blind to do his bidding.

In one truly evil sequence, Lugosi makes one of the blind men deaf when he discovers that he had tried to warn someone about Lugosi. I won't spoil the ending. Not to be missed for Lugosifiles.

This a very low budget project also known as THE HUMAN MONSTER. Director Walter Summers did the best with what he had...a star, Bela Lugosi. This is a strange story about Dr. Orloff(Lugosi), who is a doctor-on-call at a home for the blind. He loans money to desperate men and in return controls a life insurance policy on the indebted. The sinister doctor uses a hulking blind man to murder men in order to carry out a clever insurance scam.

The cast also includes:Edmon Ryan, Hugh Williams and Wilred Walter. The atmosphere is very mysterious, but this movie is just plain creepy. In its day I am sure it provided a sense of horror as well as suspense.

Instead of repeating all the details others have, I'll just say the film really gave me the creeps the first time I saw it. Sometimes when you see an old movie like this from the 20s or 30s, it's tempting to think nothing in it can shock you, because movies are not as "sophisticated" as the things you see today. I saw it on television many years back, way before home video, and was delighted to find it in a grocery store's previously viewed tape bin. It hasn't lost any of it's punch. To see how cruelly Lugosi dealt with his very helpless victims chilled me to the bone. The Uday of his time. It has a Hitchcock-type of human horror that is more effective than any rubber suited monster. Not too badly paced, and is still one I get out when in the mood for something dark.

The Dark Eyes of London (1939)

*** (out of 4)

Det. Larry Holt (Hugh Williams) is investigated the bizarre "suicides" of several people who seem to have drowned themselves in the Thames. Most people think suicide but the detective believes something more sinister is going on and everything points to a home for blind people being run by Dr. Orloff (Bela Lugosi). Also known as THE HUMAN MONSTER, this British thriller will probably disappoint some expecting a straight horror film but if you go into it as a murder-mystery with horror elements then you should find yourself entertained. It's easy to see why Lugosi would want to go overseas and make this film and especially when you consider the type of mysteries that were being made in America. This here certainly separates itself from others because of its extremely dark atmosphere and rather bleak storyline. The Edgar Wallace story is a pretty strong one and it makes for an entertaining movie. The atmosphere is certainly extremely rich as the setting at the blind home is just the perfect location to match the mood of the picture. Another major plus is that the murders are a tad bit more sinister and graphic than what we'd typically see. This includes the brute of a killer with his deformed look and sinister moans. There's a scene where he's attacking the lead female character, which is quite thrilling even today as the use of shadows are perfectly executed and this was several years before the whole film noir movement. Williams gives a nice performance in the film as he gets a majority of the screen time and manages to carry the picture well. Greta Gynt is good as the girlfriend and Wilfred Walter is extremely effective as the monster. Then there's Lugosi who is certainly extremely good here. He perfectly captures the "good" character but when he switches it's also handled well by the actor. The entire "twist" in the story is pretty obvious today but I'm going to guess that those in 1939 were more caught off by it. With that said, if Lugosi had been able to use different voices and get past that thick accent (dubbing is used here) then it's clear he could have done so much more. THE DARK EYES OF London has some flaws including a few pacing issues and some ill-advised comedy but there's still plenty to enjoy here.

More of a mystery than a horror movie, this never really captured my attention closely, essentially because there really wasn't too much mystery involved. Could there have ever been any doubt that Dr. Orloff, played by Bela Lugosi, was behind the mysterious drownings? That was pretty clear. True, the twist revealed about the identity of Dearborn caught me by surprise, but that came across as silly more than anything else. Parts of the story, in my view, were totally unnecessary. The whole American connection was superfluous (the forger being extradited from Chicago, and the Chicago cop accompanying him to England and becoming involved in the investigation) and the need to make Jake a monstrous-looking creature baffled me. It seemed a weak attempt to introduce a horror-type element to the story. Lugosi did well enough as Orloff, managing to bring his typical "mysterious presence" to the character, although at times he frankly looked too mysterious, and therefore too suspicious, to take seriously the idea that it took a while for the police to suspect him. I also wondered about what he actually was. He runs an insurance company, and yet he's called "Dr." Insp. Holt says he "could have been" a practicing physician, and yet he is running a hospital and treating patients in a home for the blind. A bit more about the background of the character would have been appreciated. Overall, the bare-bones nature of the story was a problem. The last 10 minutes or so of the movie were pretty good, and Orloff's fate was appropriately ghastly. If you're a Lugosi fan, this is worth watching, although it's not one of his greats. 4/10

The Human Monster aka The Dark Eyes of London is a rather creepy little chiller with Bella Lugosi playing two roles in this.

Bela plays Dr Orloff as well as the manager of a blind peoples' home, where he dresses up as one of the residents and pretends to be blind. Its Dr Orloff who is killing people in London and he uses a disfigured man to do killings too. After trying to kill a young woman, the police eventually catch up with Orloff.

This movie is quite atmospheric and creepy but a little slow moving in parts.

Apart from Bela, the cast is mostly made up of unknowns including Hugh Williams.

If you are a fan of these kind of movies, you will enjoy this one.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

Bela Lugosi tries hard here, but he really can't quite hold it all together as the doctor who is indirectly collecting insurance policies held on men who are brutally murdered. We know from early on just who is doing the killing and just who is pulling the strings, so to a certain extent we are just really marking the homework of Hugh Williams' "Insp. Holt" as he investigates the crimes and tries to get to the bottom of things before any more people are killed. His investigation is soon being assisted by the daughter of one of the victims - "Diana" (Greta Gynt) and that brings him to a school for the blind where Lugosi's "Dr. Orloff" acts as a consultant. Can he put two and two together in time? If it lost ten/fifteen minutes then it could have worked better, but even at 75 minutes it's too long with not enough happening to sustain the interest in what is a dark and gloomy production that is sadly devoid of jeopardy. It might actually have worked better on stage - it has some of the hallmark ingredients of a solid, if unimaginative, one act play - but on a big screen it's unremarkable fayre, I'm afraid.

In my opinion, outside of "Dracula" and "White Zombie," this is Lugosi at his best. Dr. Orloff (Lugosi) is a philanthropist who donates his medical expertise to a work-house for blind men. On the side he runs an insurance scam by loaning money to desperate individuals and holds their life insurance policy as collateral, then he has them killed so he can collect on the policies. But that's just the plot. There is so much more happening.

Lugosi is brilliant as the cold-hearted Dr. Orloff as he plays cat and mouse with the police and the daughter of one of his victims. He is able to move effortlessly from kind hearted doctor to calculating and greed driven murderer. The plot moves forward at a brisk pace with little down time and the build up to the climax was unexpected and absolutely chilling. Lugosi truly made me believe he was evil in this film and I quickly was involved with the plot. The supporting cast did exactly as they should; got out of the way and let Lugosi run with the film. See it. Buy it. Watch it.

I have been watching a lot of Edgar Wallace adaptations lately, but most of them are part of the German Krimi collection from the 60s; - a film series that I wholeheartedly recommend! This, however, is an early adaptation of Wallace's work, starring the legendary horror icon Bela Lugosi. It's most unfortunate that Lugosi is principally only known for his Dracula role, in fact, because he was a much more versatile actor than people think! Here, for instance, Lugosi depicts a sly but devious insurance broker whose customers mysteriously drown in the Thames. His character Dr. Orloff also somehow makes sure that a nearby home for the blind, led by his buddy Dearborn, benefices greatly from the deceased's insurance money. "Dark Eyes of London" is a prototypic Wallace adaptation; - meaning it's a convoluted plot with a lot of characters, and the grisly murders committed by unusual type of monster. Thanks to Bela Lugosi and Wilfred Walter (whom Orloff uses as instrument to commit vile murders), the film is eerier and more sinister than most contemporary thrillers, and there's also an unpredictable twist-ending (not unpredictable because it's genius, but due to a clever trick with voices)

This film begins with a dead body found on the banks of the Thames River in London. And because there have been several other bodies found in that area within the last eight months, Scotland Yard has appropriately opened an investigation into these incidents. The next scene shifts to an insurance company run by a former physician named "Dr. Feodor Orloff" (Bela Lugosi) who, because he has been rejected by the medical association in that country, has made his living providing life insurance to certain people in need of it. What these people don't know, however, is that Dr. Orloff has concocted an elaborate scheme to collect on the insurance policy in the event that something should happen to them-and that they are destined to become his next victim found on the Thames. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a rather odd horror film due in large part to the abbreviated nature of the scenes. Even so, Bela Lugosi performed quite well in his diabolical role despite the overall limited production values and for that reason I have rated this film accordingly. Average.