Today’s horror on the lens is a short horror comedy from 1942. In The Boogie Man Will Get You, Winnie Slade (Miss Jeff Donnell) buys an old house from Prof. Billings (Boris Karloff) with plans to covert it into a hotel. However, one of the conditions of the sale is that Prof. Billings and his servants be allowed to live on the property. What Winnie doesn’t know is that Prof. Billings had been conducting experiments on traveling salesman. He hopes to turn them into supermen who, much like Captain America, can then be sent overseas to fight the Nazis. However, his experiments have yet to be successful and have mostly just resulted into a lot of salesman being buried out in the rose garden.
However, things start to look up for Prof. Billings when he meets Dr. Lorencz (Peter Lorre), who is not only a doctor but also a mayor, sheriff, and dog catcher. Seriously, Dr. Lorencz can do it all!
The Boogie Man Will Get You is a fun little time capsule of the time in which it was made. For horror fans, it is mostly interesting because it features both Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. Both Karloff and Lorre appear to be having a lot of fun parodying their usual screen images.
During a raid on a club that doubles as both a brothel and gambling hall, the police discover the dead body of gambler Lucky Wilder. Standing over him with a gun is Mae Miller (Martha Chapin), the wife of respected Dr. John Miller (Robert Frazer). Dragged in front of the District Attorney (Edward Keane, sporting a mustache that was probably meant to make him look like real-life New York D.A. Thomas Dewey), Mae is given a chance to explain herself.
And that’s what Mae does, revealing how she was just an innocent housewife who was dragged into a life of gambling and sin by Wilder (Wheeler Oakman) and Molly (Vera Steadman). After being fooled into thinking that she’s a good gambler, Mae finds herself in debt to Wilder and is blackmailed into working in Wilder’s brothel. However, when Mae realizes that Wilder and Molly are trying the same con on a new girl, she’s left with little choice but to take the law into her own hands…
Released in 1936, Gambling With Souls is — much like Damaged Lives — an exploitation film disguised as an educational film. That’s why the district attorney is there to let us know that Mae’s story is not an unusual one and that all decisions have consequences. “Don’t gamble and resent your husband for not making enough money!” the film shouts at us, “BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN!”
And really, that’s the fun of Gambling With Souls. It’s just so histrionic and over-the-top and, ultimately, it’s so shameless that you can’t help but enjoy it. If they ever remake Gambling With Souls, I want to play Mae because not only does she get to shoot the bad guy but she also gets to wear a lot of pretty clothes and look good while doing it. Other than being a prostitute and a gambling addict, Mae could be a role model for us all.
Plus, this is one of those old films that’s full of stock footage! That means that whenever we watch one of the shows at Lucky’s club, we’re actually watching footage that was shot for several other movies. These scenes are so haphazardly and awkwardly inserted into the main film that I actually made a game out of trying to predict when the next one would suddenly pop up. On the one hand, all of that stock footage means that the look of both the club’s stage and the club’s performers change from scene to scene. However, on the other (and far more positive) hand, it also means that there’s a lot of dancing!
Gambling With Souls is a lot of fun and guess what? It’s in the public domain! Watch it below!
Today’s horror on the lens is a short horror comedy from 1942. In The Boogie Man Will Get You, Winnie Slade (Miss Jeff Donnell) buys an old house from Prof. Billings (Boris Karloff) with plans to covert it into a hotel. However, one of the conditions of the sale is that Prof. Billings and his servants be allowed to live on the property. What Winnie doesn’t know is that Prof. Billings had been conducting experiments on traveling salesman. He hopes to turn them into supermen who can then be sent overseas to fight the Nazis. (Kind of like Capt. America, when you think about it…) However, his experiments have yet to be successful and have mostly just resulted into a lot of salesman being buried out in the rose garden…
However, things start to look up for Prof. Billings when he meets Dr. Lorencz (Peter Lorre), who is not only a doctor but also a mayor, sheriff, and dog catcher. Seriously, Dr. Lorencz can do it all….
The Boogie Man Will Get You is a fun little time capsule of the time in which it was made. For horror fans, it is mostly interesting because it features both Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. Both Karloff and Lorre appear to be having a lot of fun parodying their usual screen images.
Through the Shattered Lens 