Le château des loufoques

Karloff and Lorre attempt to make superhuman zombies for the war effort. Its far from the best horror comedy ever made but if you click into its loopy silliness you're in for a breezy hour plus.

What can I say I found it charming and sweet even as seemingly ghoulish things were going on. Some people I know find it dumb, and to be honest, it is dumb, but the chance to see Lorre and Karloff being silly together years before Roger Corman brought them together again is a joy.

Should you run across this film, by all means see it, you may not laugh but you will smile from start to finish is a goofy sort of way.

This film was quite enjoyable for what it was. A cockeyed optimist(Miss Jeff Daniels) buys a rundown colonial era inn with high hopes and decides to allow the current inhabitants, among them a scientist working on a device that will help the Allies win the war(Boris Karloff)and an old woman who obsesses about chickens, to stay on. Her bumbling ex-husband has followed her. The scientist is soon joined by the sheriff/coroner/justice of the peace (and purveyor of baldness cures),played by Peter Lorre. The big question is: Is there are or aren't there a room full of corpses in a secret room off the wine cellar? They have been experimenting on travelling salesmen who happen by the house,using the standard bulb- and- helmet type of contraption that should be familiar to moviegoers. Lorre's character packs a huge pistol and keeps a Siamese kitten in his pocket, claiming that "she has a incredible sense for crime and corruption." Good thing.

Though conceived as a quickie ripoff of "Arsenic and Old Lace," "Boogie Man" now seems more like a weird precursor of "Green Acres," featuring (Miss) Jeff Donnell as a sort of young female Eddie Albert, and Boris Karloff in what might be called the Eva Gabor position, spoofing his kindly old mad scientist roles as a semi-senile inventor attempting to create a race of electrically enhanced supermen in the basement of a crumbling colonial inn while Miss Donnell joyously appraises all the charming old antiques upstairs. Peter Lorre, of all people, gives a rare comic performance as the local version of Mr. Haney, running around dressed like Robert Mitchum in "Night of the Hunter," with a cute little Siamese kitten in his pocket that he periodically coos to in German. This is the sort of movie you used to catch one night on the late late show, and wonder for years afterwards if you'd actually seen it or just dreamt it.

The title, "The Boogie Man Will Get You" should give you an idea of the sort of film you're going to see. Its basically a minor horror/comedy played out more or less like a Three Stooges comedy with a budget. For stars Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre, it was probably a welcome change of pace from the roles both had been playing. The story is similar in many ways to "Arsenic and Old Lace" a hit Broadway play of the day in which Karloff had been starring.

Two eccentrics, Professor Nathaniel Billings (Karloff) and Amelia Jones (Maude Eburne) live in a run down old Colonial Inn which they have put up for sale. A young lady Winnie Layden (Jeff Donnell) comes to look over the place and decides to buy it. As a condition of the sale Billings asks that he, Amelia and handyman Ebenezer (George McKay) be allowed to stay so that Billings can complete his experiments in the building's basement.

The mortgage holder Dr. Lorentz (Lorre), who is also the sheriff, the coroner and the Justice of the Peace, among other titles, arrives. Billings gleefully pays off his mortgage and Winnie takes title to the property just as her former husband Bill (Larry Parks) arrives to try for some unknown reason to prevent her from buying the Inn.

Meanwhile Billings continues his experiments to try to perfect a super human, but his test subject apparently dies. Bill discovers the body in the basement and he and Winnie report the crime to Lorenz in his role of the town sheriff. On investigating, Lorenz learns of Billings plans and wants in on the action. He also discovers that there are also four other "test subjects" laid out in the next room.

A "ballet master", J. Gilbert Brampton arrives at the Inn and begins to snoop around. A traveling powder puff salesman (Maxie Rosenbloom) arrives and Billings and Lorentz plan to make him their next "test subject". An escaped fascist prisoner (Frank Paglia) also drops in and threatens to blow everybody up. Two cops (Frank Sully, James Morton) arrive to investigate a reported murder.

Everything manages to get sorted out in the end.

The film leaves a few unanswered questions such as "Where did Winnie get all of the cash?, Why were Bill and Winnie divorced?, Who was really making the Indian whooping noise? and What was the "arrangement", if any between Billings and Amelia? And beware of the typical Hollywood Production Code ending. This was Karloff's final film on his Columbia contract and he would be off the screen until 1944's "The Climax" while he continued to appear in "Arsenic and Old Lace", which by the way prevented him from getting a part in the 1944 film version.

The two leads seem to enjoy all of this nonsense and both would appear in comedic parts over the years for the rest of their careers.

From the very beginning, during the opening credits, you already know what you are dealing with, despite Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. It's not my cup of tea, but that's a movie from Lew Landers,, a grade B movies provider whose I have already tried not to miss any movie available; many are not anymore. Fortunately for me, this feature is not too long, so it was not too hard for me to really focus on the plot. It is definitely fun, enjoyable. Impossible to say the least harm about this film. Made during the war, 1942, it is obviously destined to help audiences to forget, at least for more than one hour, the nightmare of the conflict.