Dr. Julian Blair (Boris Karloff) is experimenting with brain waves, and determines to continue his work especially after his wife (Shirley Warde) dies. His daughter Anne (Amanda Duff) and his young associate Dr. Sayles (Richard Fiske) try to make him see reason. Meanwhile, Julian hooks up with a (mostly) phony medium (Anne Revere) and a hulking brute (Cy Schindell), and moves to a new town so as not to get in trouble with the law."The Devil Commands" has its entertaining, unusual touches, such as the sight of various corpses propped around a table, clad in what can only be described as space suits, in mockery of a traditional seance. But it's basically a routine B movie in the end, albeit capably directed by Edward Dmytryk, who was still years away from mainstream success with films such as "The Caine Mutiny"."The Devil Commands", taken from a story by William Sloane, has a very tight running time of 65 minutes, and tells its tale in a concise enough manner. It does have an adequate amount of atmosphere for any sci-fi / horror tale from the era, with some effective looking equipment. But Karloff remains the primary reason to watch, as he did with so many of the B pictures that he headlined. He's just so wonderfully sincere and plaintive, that your heart does go out to him ever so slightly, no matter if he is as mad as mad scientists get. The supporting cast is fine in general, especially Ms. Revere. Dorothy Adams has appeal as a housekeeper in the doctors' employ, and Kenneth MacDonald is solid as a sheriff trying to keep a mob from enacting some vigilante justice that, for all he knows, might possibly be unjustified.A decent viewing that won't take up a lot of your time.Six out of 10.

THE DEVIL COMMANDS boasts one of Karloff's best performances ever: he's extremely sympathetic as a doctor driven by Love to reestablish contact with his dead wife. The use of a graph to visualize the brainwaves (so as to differentiate between the brainwaves of various subjects) was a bit of a Master Stroke, if you ask me: it's simple in the extreme and makes clear exactly what's happening when "contact" is made. It's interesting (story-wise AND character-wise) that Karloff's LOVE for his dead wife is used against him- by the duplicitous "Medium"-, which results in his deviation from The Right Path to a career in crime. Not a lot of Fright Films can make such a boast- and not very many actors could pull it off the way Karloff does here. One genuinely feels for his character.

I got to review this fine motion picture off 'Creepy Classics' and it was enjoyable. "When the DEVIL commands....Karloff obeys!" is the catch phrase to this film. 1940 film is a semi-forgotten great from Columbia Pictures. A riveting mad doctor movie with Boris trying to communicate and bring back the should of his beloved dead wife. He finds a way to do that with mystical women medium and several corpses. He thinks he can talk to his dead wife. When a vortex to the other side is established. He hears his wife and reads her brain waves to confirm the connection while his daughter looks on in terror. He puts the dead corpses seance members in electronic robot suits and it becomes a electronic-age seance not to be missed.

This film was a bit of a Holy Grail for me - I saw it many many years ago as a a child, (not on the original release - I'm not that old!) and it gave me many a treasured thrill.So I came back to this film hoping it would somehow survive my growing up and increased critical perceptions. Many a childhood scare has been displayed as utterly terrible by the cold light of adulthood - Man Without A Body is one such movie - so I had some trepidation on going back to it.I needn't have worried; The Devil Commands still holds up well, and after a slightly slow first half picks up with fine aplomb when Boris Karloff takes up residence in an old New England mansion. And you just know he's up to no good! Karloff plays a respected University professor who is trying to invent a device that can enable the transmission of thoughts across vast distances, a sort of "brain telephone" if you will. On the tragic death of his wife in a car accident Karloff discovers he can still detect her brain waves through the instrument, and begins a new line of enquiry...that of contacting the dead.Taking up with a spirit medium, played by a splendidly icy Ann Revere, Karloff is soon robbing graves and conducting unholy experiments. The change in his physical appearance about half-way through, is quite startling even today. Boris is in terrific form, giving a restrained and understated performance. And the film has some piquant black and white ghoulish chills. Compared to such bottom of the barrel dross as Lugosi's Ape Man and Karloff's own The Ape, this is a great little "B" well worth checking out.