User reviews

Ralph Morgan plays a kind-hearted doctor, known throughout his community for his wisdom and charity, that has a terrible secret he does not even know. It seems when he was born he was marked by a vampire bat....and now in his middle age the terrible strain of over-work has caused his affliction to surface. He passes out whenever total darkness envelops him and turns into a hideous monster that rips the throats of the townsfolk. This is a pretty good, ole creaky film from Invincible Films(?). It is a low-budget thriller to be sure, but has a lot of heart behind it and is quite a satisfying story. Ralph Morgan, brother of the Wizard of Oz'z Frank Morgan gives an interesting performance. He is adequate as a man torn apart with this terrible malady as he calls it. The rest of the cast is pretty good too with Mischa Auer standing out as a hunchback and Pedro de Cordoba excelling as a friendly doctor. What I really liked about the film was its rather blatant symbolism about the light and the darkness and how each brings out a different persona..

"Condemned to Live" is one of those movies that make you feel sorry for the monster. An unfortunate creature caught up in circumstances beyond it's control. The creature seemed to me to be a cross between a vampire and a werewolf although which one it actually is, is really unimportant to the movies plot. There is a nice assortment of characters and a romantic theme that goes along with the horror story. I thought that it was a pretty enjoyable movie. You do have to consider that it is a 1935 movie made by Invincible Pictures Corp. Old and probably a low budget film. You do have to like older movies to enjoy this one. I thought that it should have a rating of 5+ or a low 6 and decided on voting for the 6. It is worth seeing.

I'd never heard of this film but it's worth a look for those who can put up with 1930's style film-making and especially for genre fans.

The story has elements of Jeckyll and Hyde and it has psychological overtones of the main monster character that help it. These elements help keep it fresh despite the hunchback and dated directorial non-touches and lack of much on screen violence. But the aftermath of the killings and good acting of Ralph Morgan help. The final scene is suspenseful as well and of course the whole thing is over pretty quickly, but still manages, thanks for Karn DeWolf's script to pack in quite a bit of character complication.

Nice production values but the director, Frank Strayer, shows little flair. Then again he keeps things moving and the acting is good. Alpha Video copy I watched was "okay" looking a better source print is unlikely to turn up, but the movie deserves some restoration and recognition.

Ralph Morgan, the star of this film, is the brother of Frank Morgan, who played the Wizard of Oz. I just don't want anyone to be misled by the other reviewer's comment. Not that it has anything to do with this film, which is a most interesting film from a Poverty Row outfit. Partially shot on Universal sets from "Bride Of Frankenstein," the film has a most curious appeal. As with most sympathetic "monsters" the Morgan character is doomed - his mother was bitten by a vampire, and his engagement to a much younger woman has evoked his vampiric tendencies, which are more akin to lycantropy than vampirism. The equation is lustful desires bring out the beast, and in this rather subtle (it was made in 1936) implication, the script takes a few ideas from Bran Stoker and Guy Endore. Mischa Auer is also commendable in his role as a hunchback, loyal to Morgan, and who has been keeping Morgan from discovering the truth about himself.

"A small European village is the site of a series of horrible murders, thought to be the result of some vicious animal attacks. When the local doctor begins to look into the deaths, he discovers the victims were really attacked by some type of vampire-like creature. The doctor is also startled to find the he may be responsible for the deaths, due to a condition he acquired when his mother was attacked by a creature while pregnant with him," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

No need to wonder about the vampire's identity; it's given away during the first attack. Although the film goes to dullsville with the idea, it is intriguing to think about a plot involving the offspring of a pregnant female vampire victim. Instead of interesting, "Condemned to Live" bores. As does a "love triangle" involving older doctor Ralph Morgan (as Paul Kristan), fresh-faced fiancée Maxine Doyle (as Marguerite), and more age appropriate young Russell Gleason (as David). Ms. Doyle seems unrehearsed.

*** Condemned to Live (1935) Frank Strayer ~ Ralph Morgan, Pedro de Cordoba, Russell Gleason

Laid it on REAL thick about how good the prof was--repeated again and again very stilted Marguerite to marry older saint

I love old horror films, so the fact I disliked "Condemned to Live" so much really says a lot about the movie. After all, I should have loved it with its plot about a fiend draining the blood from innocents. But the writing and direction were so sluggish, it felt more like I was watching a community theater production instead of a movie.

The story begins with a prologue about some folks stuck on a hellish island with nasty natives and vampire bats. Soon the film skips ahead and folks are back home. There you learn that Professor Kristan (Ralph Morgan) is a saintly man, as folks repeat this about 800 times...just to make sure the audience knows. But it turns out the saintly Professor is struggling with inner demons....as well as overly melodramatic acting!

The lines are delivered poorly and the dialog itself is clumsy and unnatural. These, combined with sluggish direction, make watching this film a real chore. Dull beyond belief and a film that simply should have been much, much better.

Vampiresque tale of a madman loose in a small village in the middle of the 19th century.Someone is tearing the throats out of villagers after dark. Who could it be and how does it relate to the events years earlier when a shipwrecked pregnant woman was bitten on the neck by a vampire bat? Well made melodrama with horrific overtones take many horror conventions and breathes just a bit of new life in them, Give this movie a good many points for daring to be different in its supernatural tinged tale. Add to it a great cast headed by Frank Morgan and Misha Auer (as a hunchback) and you get a fine little lost film. Sure it won't win any awards but as a movie to watch on a dark and stormy night with the lights on low its gangbusters Worth seeing, especially if you program a night of moldy oldie horror films.

The plot of this is very similar to another movie (I believe "The Vampire Bat). Still, it holds its own pretty well. The main character, Paul, was cursed from birth to become a horrible creature with bat-like tendencies. He rips the throats out of people and drinks their blood. He has no recollection of his actions. A young woman who admires him is engaged to marry him, even though he is twice her age (at least). His best friend is aware of what is happening and tries to intervene. He also has a hunchback assistant who tries to keep things from escalating. Eventually the murders are going to be investigated. The black and white film has a nice quality to it. The principle character is a kind man who has helped people for years, especially the downtrodden. He makes a very tragic figure. There is a bit of the Wolfman, imitating Lawrence Talbot. Of course, things must come to a proper conclusion. It's a little slow at times, but the gentle goodness of the characters, contrasted with the evil forced on them, makes it work.

This cheapie, shot on bargain-basement film stock, is Just Another Vampire Movie. There's a bespectacled doctor who doesn't know his mom was bitten by a vampire bat when she was pregnant with him, which I suppose is a new way to become a vampire. Anyway, when it's dark out, he tends to lose his senses and change into a vampire, kill someone via the ol' throat bite, and then wake up with no memory. His faithful, hunchbacked servant Zan knows his secret but protects said doctor, who loves a fair maiden but won't marry her because she doesn't love him back and then there's another doctor who kinda gets what's going on and another man who loves the fair maiden as well and is definitely better suited to marrying her and, finally, an angry mob. Like, angry all the time. Anyway, it's a tough movie to watch (it's very dark, literally), and it's not very good and quite derivative.

Condemned to Live story concerns a physician in a small village in Europe who is born a vampire because his mother was bitten by a vampire when she was pregnant with him. So his vampirism is an affliction rather than a curse.The doctor blacks out when he is overcome by his disease which occurs when night falls and when he awakens he has no memory of his actions. A Trusted college arrives and helps him finally realizes that he must be the vampire that is murdering the villagers for their blood.

Invincible Pictures was a poverty row studio but they did produce some watchable movies. Condemned to Live was one such movie. Eventually Invincible was absorbed by Republic Pictures.

Ralph Morgan was a notable character actor who became overshadowed by his more famous younger brother Frank. Ralph had roles in some big movies and quite a few "B" pics.He was often cast as weak or timid men. He really didn't project a strong enough personality to be an effective lead.

The acting is uneven. Maxine Doyle portrays the doctors much younger fiancé and her performance is flat and lifeless. Mischa Auer plays the doctor's hunchbacked servant who is loyal to a fault. Auer adds a little fire to the proceedings. The rest of the cast is professional enough.

Condemned to Live is an interesting take on the vampire legend but there are just too many plot holes and weak performances to make it a really good movie. The ending is kind of a downer as well. Still as I said it was a watchable film for horror buffs.

CONDEMNED TO LIVE (1935) is a low budget vampire horror made by Invincible Pictures, a studio hoping to rival the success of the Universal monster show. It even reuses some costumes and furniture from THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. The story, which is reminiscent of DRACULA, involves a village being plagued by strange deaths for which a giant vampire bat is blamed. But could there be a more human explanation?

This is a story that works on paper, with a heroic professor, a hunchbacked manservant, torch-wielding villagers running amok, and an array of unfortunate victims. As a film, it never really gets off the ground, feeling more staged and stately than even Lugosi's DRACULA. There's even a guy attempting a Bela accent in the cast. The mystery hinges on a plot twist which isn't too satisfying, and even with the drama of the climax it just sort of plods along.

Condemned to Live (1935)

** (out of 4)

A Professor (Ralph Morgan) learns that his mother was attacked by a vampire bat while pregnant with him and soon he begins to fear that he is the vampire stalking his small town. This film comes from the same director as The Vampire Bat, which was made two years earlier. If you enjoyed that Lionel Atwill film then you'll probably enjoy this one as well. For me, I didn't enjoy the previous film and this one here didn't work either, although there were a few interesting twists on the vampire legend. I think the biggest problem for the film is that it's pretty much all talk from start to finish without very much happening. Whenever something exciting does happen it's usually off screen and we only hear about it through more dialogue scenes. Morgan delivers a fine performance but the rest of the cast are rather boring. The direction is also off to the point where the film, for me at least, drags quite a bit and the 65-minute running time seems very long. I enjoyed the relationship between the Professor and a hunchback but this is about the only thing that worked for me. It's far from a really bad movie but it is rather slow and dull. It's also worth noting that the movie was shot on the same sets as Bride of Frankenstein.

To begin with, I acquired this only a couple of hours before I watched it; I was in no particular hurry to check it out but, knowing I had the somewhat similar DEVIL BAT'S DAUGHTER (1946) on the schedule anyway, I opted to go with this one beforehand since, of course, it came first. Not having been exactly impressed by the director's other, more popular genre work (namely THE MONSTER WALKS {1932} and THE VAMPIRE BAT {1933} which, again, this resembles quite a bit), I hardly expected the film under review to change matters; while presenting a novel (if silly) spin on the vampire theme, the approach is so stodgy as to defeat its purpose!

Here, in fact, we have a man (Ralph Morgan, who would return to the genre with a couple of somewhat better efforts i.e. NIGHT MONSTER {1942} and the recently-viewed THE MONSTER MAKER {1944}) who transforms – a' la Jekyll & Hyde and complete with inhuman slurping sounds – into a bloodsucker (actually preceding in this regard the 1957 THE VAMPIRE by more than two decades!) because his mother was bitten by a vampire bat during pregnancy. The irony is that, being an eminent doctor, the community looks up to him after every new attack (he is himself unaware of his nightly depredations which occur during periodic blackout spells – hilariously and repeatedly described as "swooning" to the point that the film has been disparagingly described by some as CONDEMNED TO LIVE aka I SWOONED!) As usual, he is about to marry a much-younger girl that is loved by another man, who is most vociferous about the fact that the fiend is human as opposed to supernatural.

Incidentally, what triggers Morgan off is complete darkness(!?), so that he has the townsfolk keep a candle burning at all times of the night…but, when he begins to feel the blackout coming during a visit to his girl, she unwisely turns out the lights one by one (which sends him off in a fury every time!). Eventually, a family friend of Morgan's comes along and he realizes that the doc is unsettled by his condition and, suspecting the truth, asks him to release the girl until he is cured. In the meantime, the attacks continue – with Morgan's devoted hunchback (future comic Mischa Auer who was also in THE MONSTER WALKS) always lurking behind to save his master from being apprehended as well as finding out about his true nature, even if this means that Auer is himself fingered as the vampire on more than one occasion!

Just as THE VAMPIRE BAT was filmed on standing sets from James Whale's much-superior THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932; with which it had even shared leading man Melvyn Douglas), this one uses leftover scenery from that same genre master's BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) and, it seems to me, even some from his FRANKENSTEIN (1931), not that these are adopted in any imaginative way given CONDEMNED TO LIVE's relentlessly talky approach! In the end, Morgan bows out not by the traditional stake through the heart but by simply leaping, of his own free will, from a cliff…followed in quick succession by Auer himself (apparently, the latter saw no point in living if he cannot be with his beloved master – make of that what you will!). The film, then, is at least watchable for trying to be different but, ultimately, it emerges as nothing more than a curious footnote in the history of the (sub)genre.

I liked this film to a degree: the idea of vampire bats, a murder mystery and a belief that one might be a vampire rolled into a film is a pretty neat idea 1935 and still is today.

The acting is good, fine. The story is just "okay" - nothing to really brag about but it's not a terrible film either. The biggest thing is it's easy to solve the mystery, so you are left watching the characters "solve the mystery" when you already know the answer - but it is kind fun watching them solve it.

Dr. Anders Bizet is played by Pedro de Cordoba - quite well I must add. But I have to admit I kept seeing John Carradine playing the role in my mind.

5.5/10

Although an enormous bat is initially blamed, the Fiend ripping out peoples' throats after dark is a much messier eater than your average vampire, and it quickly becomes plain that the culprit is either a werewolf or a psycho-killer like the compulsive murderer in 'M'.

The film is slow and talky but Ralph Morgan brings his usual presence to the proceedings, and it all looks good thanks to sets and costumes plainly recycled from earlier productions. Also recycled is the faithful simpleton and red herring played a couple of years earlier in the same director's 'The Vampire Bat' by Dwight Frye, and this time by Mischa Auer.

There's no missing the antiquated social values represented in this (including ableism), but so it goes. One also can't mistake the very dated sensibilities of "horror" - painting genre elements with the same flat tone and putting them in a small corner, declining utmost thrills, telling more than showing and leaving much to be merely suggested. Just as much to the point: while plenty of this film's contemporaries (or forebears) demonstrated perfect capability of fluid, natural storytelling and film-making, here we nonetheless see a certain stilted heavy-handedness in the direction, editing, and acting. None of this is to say that the movie we get has no value or can't be enjoyed on its own merits, but it's safe to say that viewers who have a difficult time abiding older movies won't find anything here to change their minds.

Admittedly these are issues not necessarily with this one title specifically, but with (genre) film-making as a whole of the 30s. If one can look past these matters, 'Condemned to live' is nonetheless modestly enjoyable. It's not necessarily anything special, even as it takes a slightly different approach to vampirism, but stylistic notions aside it's reasonably well made. Though restricted as such, the cast give solid performances; the production design and costume design are swell. Karen DeWolf's screenplay is less than extraordinary, but not at all bad; it's just that conceptions in this timeframe somewhat twist the content into a more imperfect form. And so on, and so on.

Ultimately this is passably entertaining for a lazy day, and suitable for those who already appreciate older titles. It's hardly anything to go out of your way for, but there are worse things to watch. Even diminished by common 30s senses of horror, 'Condemned to live' is a decent enough way to spend one hour.

A pregnant woman is bitten by a vampire bat. Years later, a village is terrorized by a series of murders and the woman's baby, now grown and a respected professor, believes he might be the killer. Is he a vampire? Probably not or else this might be more well-known.

Well this is interesting. A neat little (sort of) vampire movie I'd never heard of nestled away in 1935, the same year as Mark of the Vampire. Ralph Morgan stars as the professor. There's also a hunchback played by Mischa Auer. Shot on Universal sets, which helps a lot. Romantic subplot about a young woman (Maxine Doyle) in love with a guy while being engaged to Morgan's character, thirty years her senior, is a negative. Doyle was not a good actress. At least there was no annoying comic relief. The movie never quite lives up to the strong opening but it's perfectly watchable and even atmospheric in some scenes. Slow-going but worth a look for classic horror fans who think they've seen everything.

CONDEMNED TO LIVE opens with a pregnant woman in a cave being bitten by a vampire bat.

Years later, the woman's son, Professor Kristan (Ralph Morgan) lives in a small village where several ghastly deaths have occurred. The victims have all been drained of blood. Kristan starts to wonder if he's been cursed by what happened to his mum.

Could he be the killer?

As the body count rises, the villagers grow increasingly paranoid, superstitious, and desperate.

This movie is similar in theme and plot to THE VAMPIRE BAT. Both films contain a series of unexplained deaths, suspected vampirism, mass hysteria, and a big twist.

Morgan plays his haunted role well, as does Mischa Auer as his faithful servant, Zan.