THE RAVEN (1935)

Jean, the daughter of Judge Thatcher, sustains serious injuries in a car accident and her fiancé, Dr. Jerry Halden, says that only famed surgeon Richard Vollin (Bela Lugosi) can save her. They contact him, but he is retired and in the middle of negotiating the sale of a large set of Poe paraphernalia. We discover that Vollin also owns replicas of many torture devices out of Poe's stories, including a full-sized "Pit and the Pendulum" device. But a personal visit from the judge changes his mind--partly because the judge plays to Vollin's own belief in his god-like abilities. The operation is a success and soon after, Jean and Vollin are quite buddy-buddy, despite their difference in age and the presence of her fiancé, who is now Vollin's personal assistant. Jean, a noted dancer, gives a performance which is capped by her own interpretation of Poe's "The Raven,' and Vollin is ecstatic. It does seem as if Jean is on the verge of infatuation with Vollin. The judge talks to Vollin to dissuade him from egging her on, but Vollin rebuffs him. That night, escaped killer Edmond Bateman (Boris Kartloff) arrives at Vollin's house and asks him to use his surgical powers to give him a new face, both because he thinks he is ugly and to be able to escape the police. Vollin agrees to do it, not by plastic surgery but by severing certain facial nerves that will alter his looks. Vollin performs the procedure but deliberately disfigures half of his face (scaly skin and a bulging frozen eye), telling Bateman that he will reverse the operation only when Bateman helps him get revenge against those who have wronged him. When Vollin invites the judge, Jean and Jerry to a house party, he sets in motion a plan to torture and kill them using the pendulum on the judge and a room whose walls will slowly crush Jean and Jerry. 

This film, the second of eight movies that co-starred Lugosi and Karloff, was the one that brought an end to the first flow of Hollywood horror films--a few snuck out in 1936, most notably Dracula's Daughter and The Devil Doll, then only Poverty Row efforts until 1939. Though it was cleared by the Production Code, several state censor boards demanded cuts, and the British censors banned horror films altogether for a time. Seen now, it seems almost quaint, especially compared to the AIP Poe movies of the 60s, and no one actually dies from any of the tortures. It's practically an axiom now that Bela Lugosi is good in everything he does, from classy big-studio movies to the cheapie B-films that became his bread and butter, but I was still surprised how good he is here. Despite Karloff's star billing and grotesque make-up (a good job that deserves the occasional close-up it gets), it's Lugosi's film all the way, both in terms of screen time and impact. I think it's more due to Lugosi's full-blooded enthusiasm for torture than for anything we see enacted on screen that the movie ran into censor troubles. The supporting cast is particularly bland. Irene Ware (Jean) made almost 30 movies in the 1930s before retiring and if she's remembered for anything, it's for this. Her uninspired performance is not helped by the silly interpretive dance she gives. Lester Matthews virtually vanishes into the scenery as the ineffectual Jerry. Samuel S. Hinds is serviceable as the judge, and Inez Courtney and Ian Wolfe give the film a little juice now and then as Mary and Pinky, high-society friends of the Thatchers. Karloff does what he can with a fairly one-dimensional role. Oddly, as the pre-op Bateman, he doesn't really look ugly at all, but almost scruffily handsome, certainly more so than in most of his movies. The scene in which Karloff sees the results of the operation in a roomful of mirrors is a high point. Poe has never really been given his due in movies, considering how many films have been based on (more like, somewhat inspired by) his stories, and this is no exception, but as part of Universal's classic horror film cycle, it's worth seeing. [DVD]