With having had a fun time watch a number of Horror movies starring Bela Lugosi for the 2013 Horror Challenge on IMDb's Horror board,I decided to take a look at a box set which had been sent from a very kind IMDber.Looking at the titles,I was delighted to see that I would get the chance to have a double dose of Bela.The plot:Desperate to keep his 70 year old wife looking youthful, Dr. George Lorenz decides to send orchids to about to be married women,which thanks to containing a chemical,causes the women to faint,and leads to Lorenz kidnapping them,so that he can get their spinal fluid for his wife.As Lorenz's kidnapping spree grows,local reporter Patricia Hunter decides to track down the missing women.Getting hold of the orchid from the latest victim,Hunter discovers that the only expert on orchids in the town is a man called Dr.George Lorenz.View on the film:For the screenplay of the movie,writers Sam Robins, Gerald Schnitzer and Harvey Gates disappointingly never give even the slightest reason for Lorenz desperate desire of keeping his wife looking youthful,which leads to the plot feeling rather disjointed.Shooting on a low budget,director Wallace Fox gives Lorenz house /mansion a chilly,low-lit appearance. Angelo Rossitto and Bela Lugosi's team up allows for a great crossing over of Tod Brownings Freaks and Dracula to take place,as Lugosi shows in his icy stare,a lust to turn every blushing bride in the town into a corpse.

There's a very strange and frightening murder series going on: young brides all of a sudden faint and die during their wedding ceremony - the nightmare of every young couple and their parents... But not enough with that: the bodies of the brides are stolen practically right from the altar! But a cheeky girl reporter finally finds a clue: an orchid with a strange smell, and she soon finds out that every one of the brides wore an orchid like this.And so, determined to get out of her gossip column job at last and into the REAL (yellow press) journalism, she finds out who grows these rare orchids, and ventures right into the lion's den - where she meets a perfect, but somehow reserved gentleman and his beautiful, but obviously psychologically disturbed wife. But what she doesn't know yet: this gentleman is the same man who peeps grinning out of the hearse every time it takes away the bodies of the dead brides...Here Bela Lugosi REALLY seems to be in his element: the stately, well-mannered, but somehow sinister gentleman who turns out to be something COMPLETELY different at the end - but not a blood-thirsty monster as we may suspect, but a caring, obeying husband; only not in the USUAL way...This is one of the 'serious' movies that Bela made for Monogram - and he DID take it serious. His performance is excellent, and even if the script at a close look does show some flaws, the direction is perfect: the classic, haunting atmosphere of doom seems to hang above everyone's head - but will fate spare anybody? Find out for yourself - it's REALLY worth watching, a 'must' for every fan of classic horror!

You've got to love a film that so jovially refers to the then occurring horrors of Operation Barbarossa. This one has good old Bela being a mad scientist stealing brides to extract spinal fluid to keep his wife alive, or something.He's pretty manic here, creeping about the place. I'm surprised that his crazy scheme managed to last so long, considering how blasé he is about the whole operation. Unluckily he's got a nosey reporter on his trail (and a woman to boot! God forbid!), who won't stop pestering the poor fellow. Why can't these liberal women just leave a murderous scientist alone? Added bonus: he has both a dwarf to order about and a deranged hick to beat, and we all know how much Bela needs to beat underlings. This flick was a good laugh to be honest. Light hearted fun.

This low-budget cheapy is from the days when Bela was pretty hard up for roles, but it has a certain charm. The basic plot is that Lugosi is a mad scientist with an aging wife whose beauty he is determined to preserve forever. Apparently, the way to do this is by extracting some chemical from young women that makes them beautiful. The height of discretion, Bela decides to kidnap brides at the altar – because it's easy to find them, I guess, when they are the center of attention and surrounded by people. His clever plan is challenged by a young go-getting female reporter who seems just as interested in using her job to secure a doctor for a husband as in solving the case, her comedy-relief photographer buddy, and the inevitable bland love interest. Luckily, Lugosi has a dysfunctional degenerate white trash family to help him out, and he hires street people to distract the police. Great movie making ,this is not, but it is good for some fun.