The Black Sleep reunited some of the old horror stars of the 40's into one last hurrah.It was supposed to be a through back to the Universal chillers made during WWII.Fright vet Reggie LeBorg was at the helm for this opus. A friend Chaney's, he tried to get the most out a group of tired old actors and a stodgy script. This was Lugosi last true film and the poor guy was on his last legs and more pathetic than creepy. Tor Johnson was a graduate of the Rondo Hatton school of acting. Rathbone does his usual scenery chewing as Dr Sir Joel Cadman, and Chaney is more of a drunken stumble bum than terrifying monster in his scenes.He's got nothing on Carridine ,however, as one of the nuts kept in the basement dungeon. Tamiroff gives the only nuanced performance among the nominal stars as Cadman's sinister assistant.Herbert Rudley and Patricia Blair are both totally miscast as the juvenile leads.Rudley was way too old for his role, and Blair was wooden in hers. Blair said much later that she and Rudley definitely didn't like each other and that he was constantly criticizing everything she did and bullying her during the filming. What does work are the sets and the make up job on the victims of Cadman experiments who who have become mutant monsters and are imprisoned in the bowels of the castle. The final when they are unleashed to wreak havoc on their tormentors will give a case of the willies to the younger viewers as it did me. The Black Sleep is a curio and of interest because of it's cast of aging horror stars. I saw this film on Frances Farmer Presents on local Indianapolis TV in 1963. Ms Farmer hosted an afternoon movie program of movies from Hollywood's golden age. Occasionally a star of the film being broadcast, in this case Clair Carlton who was in town appearing in a play would be a guest.Apparently she and Ms Farmer had worked together in the 1930's. I can't remember what she had to say about the movie.

In 1956, the Universal horror series was a fading memory, and the Hammer horror series was just underway. The Black Sleep straddles the two eras very nicely, with a simple spooky plot set in an old castle with a mad scientist, and the cast is a real dream team.Basil Rathbone plays Sir Joel Cadman, a doctor of some repute, who has invented a medicine called nind andhera, which puts the patient into such a deep slumber that he or she appears to be dead. Sir Joel does this in order to claim the corpse and operate on the person's brain. With these experiments, he hopes to find out how to cure his comatose wife's brain tumor. Got all that? The story begins with Sir Joel slipping the medicine to a convicted murder, a Dr. Gordon Ramsey (Herbert Rudley); when the man is discovered dead in his cell, a shifty-looking gypsy (Akim Tamiroff) claims the body and brings it to Sir Joel. But he doesn't wish to operate on Ramsey - he wishes for Ramsey to assist him. Even mad scientists need some help, you know.Present at Sir Joel's castle/estate (complete with hidden entrances and staircases) are some interesting characters: Mungo (Lon Chaney, Jr.), who used to be a doctor but is now more of an Igor/Quasimodo hybrid; Casimir (Bela Lugosi), who's mute; Bohemond (John Carradine), who thinks he's a crusading knight; and a Mr. Curry (Tor Johnson), who has a connection of his own with Dr. Ramsey.Watching Tamiroff's character Odo, I couldn't help but think he exhibited mannerisms similar to Peter Lorre. Sure enough, Lorre had been offered the role first, but ultimately the filmmakers couldn't meet his price tag.Sure, there's no Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing, or Christopher Lee, but that's still an impressive list. And the thing of it is, they all make this work. Rathbone is a great condescending, self-absorbed, driven science-type, and even though Lugosi and Chaney, Jr. don't speak (seriously), they own their scenes as well. This was actually Lugosi's final film, too; he was nominally in Edward D. Wood Jr.'s Plan 9 from Outer Space, but since he died during filming, archive footage and a stand-in were used instead. He and Tor Johnson had been in Bride of the Monster (Wood again) the previous year, and Lugosi and Rathbone had been in Son of Frankenstein back in 1939.The Black Sleep is a terrific throwback to those dusty-castle movies, complete with monsters (hint - man is the real monster!), pseudo science, and a damsel in distress. See it for some old-school scares; see if for Tamiroff's comic relief; see it if you want to feel nostalgic for horror legends.

Very odd horror movie that features Lon Chaney, Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi AND Tor Johnson! Oh, and Akim Tamaraoff.. who? Anyways, Tamaroff plays a doctor, unjustly accused of murder who is saved from the noose from Rathbone, Rathbone knows Tamaroff is a brilliant surgeon, and wants him to join him to get into some exploratory brain surgery Rathbone is doing! Anyways, Rathbone is of course, loony, and Karloff and Lugosi (AND Johnson) are all in the movie playing mute subjects! Poor guys. I felt sorry for them having to do this kind of role. The movie itself is sort of silly, and Tamaroff must've thought he hit the big time playing with these legends! It's Rathbone that shines the brightest here though. I could listen to a non-stop tape of Rathbone for hours.

Sir Joel Cadman (Basil Rathbone), a mad scientist, kidnaps his victims and cuts open their brains in an effort to discover a means to cure his wife's brain tumor.Okay, so you have a 1950s mad scientist story about a guy doing experimental brain surgery that results in some serious mistakes. That alone could probably make a pretty decent horror film -- who is opposed to seeing brain dead lobotomy patients lumbering through a dungeon?But, really, this film could not have failed if it tried. Besides Rathbone, it features Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney and John Carradine. They could have stood around and played hackey sack and I would still watch it.Paul Corupe makes an interesting observation about this film's role in history. He notes that on the surface, Cadman is your typical 1930s mad scientist, saying things like, "In the interests of science, anything is justified." But underneath that, he is a 1950s scientist, a transitional figure who does experiments not just because he can but because he is trying to save a life -- he is one of the very first mad scientists we can feel sorry for, possibly. The only earlier example Corupe offers is from "The Ape" (1940).