Life Returns

Arguably one of the most baffling movies ever, and probably THE single worst thing Universal Studios was ever involved with during their golden "horror cycle". LIFE RETURNS is a rare curio which features Onslow Stevens (Dr. Edelmann from HOUSE OF Dracula), Valerie Hobson (BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN) and even Frank Reicher (KING KONG). In the excellent MacFarland book UNIVERSAL HORRORS I had read that this was one of those obscure films that fans love to try and locate, only to be bitterly disappointed once they track it down. I remember a quote which concluded that "LIFE RETURNS deserves its ongoing obscurity", or something. Well....the risk is yours! So what is this, then? One guess is that it's possibly a story about a doctor (Stevens) trying to develop a formula for bringing dead people back to life, though it's certainly not a horror film. This also echoes the vibe of an "Our Gang" two-reeler minus the comedy: the doc has a young son who becomes involved with a gang of kids and has a pet dog which ultimately becomes a participant in dad's experiment. Footage in here was taken straight from an actual medical procedure trying to revive a dog, spliced in to make it appear part of the movie! * out of ****

The presence in the cast of Onslow Stevens (later the nominal lead in 1945's HOUSE OF Dracula) and Valerie Hobson (who starred in both BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and WEREWOLF OF London that same year) is the only indication that this obscure curio was a product of Universal Studios during their golden age as Hollywood's top purveyors of chills and thrills. However, despite this being (relatively speaking) a "mad doctor with a back-from-the-dead scheme" scenario, the end result is far removed from the entertainment value and artistic quality one usually associates with that celebrated horror cycle. Indeed, the film ends up being closer in feel to a Warner Bros-type of social document crossed with a Hal Roach "Our Gang" flick and directed by exploitationer Dwain Esper! Unfortunately, it plays far less amusingly than that bizarre concoction sounds!

Stevens falls out with his two fellow students (including real-life scientist Dr. Robert E. Cornish, who the previous year had actually accomplished the life-giving experiment that inspired the movie in the first place!) over financing their project and goes to work for a commercial firm which, however, soon drops him when his continuous attempts grow costlier and more fruitless by the day. This rejection makes him give up his well-paying daytime practice of treating elderly socialites of non-existent ailments and his consequent impoverishment drives wife Hobson to an early grave and son George Breakston to a juvenile court! The latter eventually takes to the road with his pet dog and joins a gang of streetwise kids who live on their wiles in procuring whatever food they can from 'providential' neighbors! Needless to say, this situation ends badly with the dog being caught by the authorities and subsequently gassed and one of the kids getting hurt in the attempt to free the mutt.

Distressed by failing his son yet again in curing his wounded friend (claiming to be 'washed-up'), Stevens contrives to set up an operation in which Breakston's dead dog is revived, thus proving his initial theory after all! As silly as it sounds, the footage depicting this is actually authentic and integrated into the storyline by having Stevens narrate the ongoing procedure carried out by Cornish and his colleagues (similarly portraying themselves) to a group of gathered medicos – something which he himself could not accomplish because his ostensible patrons did not want to fork out any more dough on some all-important apparatus! Being a lifelong animal lover, this sequence (showing Cornish giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the dog!) could not fail to stir me and easily emerges as the film's highlight…even if LIFE RETURNS itself as a whole proved too amateurish and bland for a Universal horror product! For the record, uncredited co-director James Hogan would later make yet another lesser (but more typical) example along similar 'revivification' lines i.e. THE MAD GHOUL (1943).

I'm a huge fan of the classic horror & sci-fi films of the 1930s and 1940s, particularly those of Universal. So when I came across this obscure title, starring Onslow Stevens and Valerie Hobson (both of much better Universal titles), I thought I'd struck paydirt. Unfortunately, I struck just plain old ordinary dirt. For starters, this movie looks cheap. If you're expecting any of the Universal polish that you find in most of their classic films, forget it. This looks like the kind of Poverty Row cheapie Bela Lugosi would be doing in years to come. The story is basically about bringing dead dogs back to life.

The main selling point is supposedly this guy Robert Cornish, who appears in the movie but hardly speaks and rarely has the camera focused on his face when he does. Apparently for about 5 minutes back in the day he made headlines for bringing a dog back to life. The actual footage of that is crammed into this movie and it's about as cheap and bland as you might expect. Although seeing the guy give the dog mouth-to-mouth is worth a gander. However, despite this movie basically only being made because of Mr. Cornish, he's not the real star of it. The star is Onslow Stevens, turning in a dreary performance as Dr. John Kendrick. He staggers around in a daze for most of the picture (when he's not acting crazy, that is). But it's not entirely his fault. The character is written so unlikeable that you can't root for him even though the movie's objective is to make you do just that. After suffering ONE setback, Dr. Kendrick turns into a total loser wandering around like he's lost and looking disheveled. The guy lets his practice go to ruin, lets his wife die and kid live on the street, all the while whining and moping. He's a mess. Speaking of the kid, he's very annoying and the actor playing him is awful ("Scoota! Scoota!").

Anyway, the best part of this whole movie to me was a minor tidbit. When they show the newspaper article announcing Kendrick's engagement, the headline below that reads "Dog Saves Lad From Wasps." That would have made for a much more interesting film, I think. I was pretty disappointed in this movie and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody but Universal completists and people who like movies they can make fun of.

Surprisingly good and well acted film about a scientist (Onslow Stevens) who spends years of his life working on a formula to bring the dead back to life. His goal overshadows other important things in his life, like his wife, job and son (George Breakston).

The film was made in 1935, but was not released until 1937. The footage of the operation is actual footage performed by Dr. Robert E. Cornish, in which he brings a dead dog back to life. One is left to think today that if the experiment had really been successful that Dr. Cornish would have gone down in history.

Valerie Hobson plays the doctors friend. This is years before her later humiliation, when her husband, John Profumo, an elected British official, had an affair with a chorus girl.

Contrary to what most others have stated, this poverty row-looking production was NOT actually produced or made by Universal (so folks can stop criticizing the poor production values on the greatest studio during the classic era of horror). This fairly dull movie (yes...I agree that much with the negative reviews here) was actually made by Scienart Pictures, and only distributed theatrically by Universal, who did NOT produce it. So people can get off Universal's back with their lambasting of the movie...instead blame Scienart Pictures.