Night of Terror

During his career, Bela Lugosi made a ton of cheap B-movies. "Night of Terror" is a bit higher budgeted and a bit less dumb than his usual Bs. Now don't get upset--when I call them dumb, I still like them...but the often have a lot of very silly plot lines and this one is no exception. A maniac is running about stabbing people and pinning articles from newspapers to their bodies. At the same time, a weirdo scientist is working on a secret formula to allow people to stop breathing for long extended periods with no ill effects! Believe it or not, Lugosi doesn't play either role but instead is an odd-ball servant in turban, Degar. Add to that a typical cliché of the age, a hot-shot reporter (Wallace Ford) and a another, the dopey cop, and you have a typical sort of film from the era. It's silly but a bit better written and a bit less silly--though the ending is strange because of its extended exposition to explain half the film! Worth seeing for Lugosi fans or fans of Bs.

This is a classic murder mystery set at a spooky old mansion. Wealthy Richard Rinehart is murdered at his posh estate. There are plenty of kooky and creepy people about who frequent the manor. Bela plays a household servant, a mystic who believes in his wife's ability to foretell the future.

Wallace Ford plays the wise cracking reporter who seems one step ahead of the police. While the police believe an escaped maniac is the killer, Ford probes to learn who will benefit from Rinehart's murder.

One problem I have with the film is the escaped maniac who is about and who is killing people in the area. We are told that he has already murdered 12 people. The police then announce he was last seen around the Rinehart estate. He murders a yard worker at the estate early on and then spends the rest of the film peering in windows and skulking about the estate. It is beyond reason that the maniac is not captured or that the police are not hunting madly for a man who has murdered 13 people. That said, I understand he is present as a red herring and the murderer has used the maniac's present to commit the murder.

A crazed knife wielding serial killer (Edwin Maxwell) is stalking a family and guests at an old dark house where there is the reading of a will.

Effective low budget programme horror film from Columbia Pictures with a good deal of ol' fashioned creepy and creaky style, not to mention Maxwell's face at the window. A turbaned Bela Lugosi as the mysterious and exotic butler gives out his signature stare with some gusto here.

This film has a special interest to me because it was the only one with my grandmother, Mary Frey, on screen. It has all of the usual old spooky house elements with lots of screams and surprises. Along with this there are the stock incompetent police, and elements of classic farce. But I think the director had some fun with these elements. Check out the scenes with the grinning skeleton. With all of the special effects now available we can't take this film seriously, but we can laugh at the clichés. One notable flaw is the music which does not go well with some of the scenes. It is way too upbeat when it should be communicating mystery. However, it is very soft so it is not obtrusive.

The séance scene has a little history. According to my father it was filmed during an aftershock of the Long Beach earthquake. But the actors were stage professionals and kept going despite the heavy lights swaying over their heads. The director was so impressed by the intent expressions that he said it was perfect with no retakes needed.

OK, the characters are one dimensional, but that is common in this genre. Lugosi has ample opportunity to use dramatic facial expressions and outbursts. Very small children may find this movie frightening. The only available copy from Sinister Cinema is a fairly good, but soft focus print.

A dark house chiller from Columbia with all of the usual ingredients - serial nutso killer running loose (called "The Maniac" by newspaper headlines), an isolated house in the countryside, with a (constantly) screaming heroine, mysterious servants, one liking to peer into crystal balls and go into trances and make proclamations of death coming soon, a wiseguy newspaper reporter who bursts out gleefully "Boy, what a story" every time another dead body turns up and a hard nose detective who doesn't have a clue.

Oh, yes, "comedy relief" is supplied by a black chauffeur who gets scared really easily. When asked what he would do if he met "The Maniac," the chauffeur replies, "I would become famous. I would become the first man to fly without wings." (Truth is, that might be the best line of dialogue in the film).

These kind of films are easy to poke fun at and also, on occasion, fun, if you happen to like this kind of film genre (which I do).

This particular film benefits, though, from a pretty good cast, with Bela Lugosi top billed over the title. Bela plays Degar, a manservant, dressed all in black, including a black turban. Oh, he's mysterious alright, in that ominous Lugosi way, but is he just a red herring? He has a sister, Sika (played by Mary Frey in her only film role), and she's even spookier. She's the one going into trances (yes, at one moment in this film they do have a seance with Sika the star of the show). Guess what? One of the participants holding hands at the table won't make it through the seance without a knife in the back.

It's pretty Sally Blane (Loretta Young's sister) as the screamer and Wallace Ford as the reporter with the snappy one liners and an overly pleased manner whenever a new corpse turns up. There's also Tully Marshall as the owner of the mansion (Bela keeps calling him "Master"). I remembered Tully getting knocked off in the silent version of the similar Cat and the Canary and kept counting the minutes before his character would do the same in this one.

"The Maniac" (who carries an oversized knife) keeps popping up throughout this film, peering through bushes with a scarred face and demented smile full of sharp teeth, climbing through windows and, generally, keeping everyone on their toes, until he lays a few of them out at their feet, that is.

Night of Terror does have a bit of originality with one of the occupants of the house, a scientist (George Meeker) who plans on having himself buried alive in a coffin on their property in an experiment to see if, with an antidote administered eight hours later, he will still be alive. Fun kid. Needless to say, things don't go as expected, but the writing here at least fooled me a little. Nuff said.

Night of Terror can be found if you scrounge around the internet - there's a chopped up version in installments on You Tube, but you're probably better to go to dailymotion.com for a one hour version of this thriller. So far not even Alpha Video has bothered with this one.