Horror Film Review: The Corpse Vanishes (dir by Wallace Fox)

Posted on October 20, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1942’s The Corpse Vanishes opens with a young bride collapsing at her wedding. A doctor runs over to her and says that she’s died. A hearse — or a “stiff wagon,” as one witness puts it — pulls up and takes the body. However, the body never reaches the morgue!

It turns out that this is not the first time this has happened. In fact, there’s an epidemic of brides dying on their wedding day and their bodies disappearing. One would think that this would cause a citywide panic or, at the very least, it would cause some people to maybe get married out-of-town. Considering that the most recent victim was the daughter of one of the richest families in the community, you would think solving this mystery would be the police’s number one priority.

However, the police are useless. And when the police can’t get the job done, it falls to journalists. At least, that’s the way it worked in movies from the 1930s and the 40s. While the cops were busy saying, “Scram!” and “Beat it, buster!,” it fell to the cynical and quick-witted journalist to find out what was going on. In this case, Patricia Hunter (Luana Walters) investigates and discovers that all of the brides received an orchid on their wedding day. (How the police didn’t notice this, I don’t know.) Patricia tracks down the eccentric Dr. Lorenz (Bela Lugosi), who was once quite renowned for his orchids.

Dr. Lorenz now lives in a secluded mansion. He’s polite when Patricia comes to speak to him but it’s obvious that he’s hiding something. A sudden thunderstorm leads to Patricia and Dr. Foster (Tristram Coffin) getting stranded at Lorenz’s mansion. Foster was visiting the mansion to examine Lorenz’s wife, the Countess (Elizabeth Russell).

Lorenz, as you probably already guessed, is behind the corpse abductions. Except, of course, the brides aren’t dead. Instead, the orchid has put them into a state of suspended animation. Lorenz is extracting their blood and using it to keep his wife young. Helping him out are his servants, a dwarf named Toby (Angelo Rossitto), Toby’s hulking half-brother, Angel (Frank Moran), and their mother, Fagah (Minerva Urecal). Patricia figures out what is going on but will she be able to convince anyone else!?

From what I read about the film online, it would appear that The Corpse Vanishes has got a terrible reputation but, when I watched it, I actually found it to be entertaining when taken on its own Poverty Row terms. No, the plot doesn’t make any sense. But Bela Lugosi’s smile manages to be both sinister and inviting and Toby and Angel make for good henchmen. The movie only has a 64-minute runtime and, as a result, the plot has to keep moving fairly quickly. The film also features a lot of snappy “newsroom” dialogue between Patricia and her easily-annoyed editor (Kenneth Harlan), all delivered at a fast pace and with the the casually cynical outlook that makes 1940s newspaper movies so entertaining. The Corpse Vanishes is a thoroughly ludicrous film that epitomizes an era and, as such, it’s far more diverting than one might otherwise expect.

Halloween Havoc!: Bela Lugosi in THE CORPSE VANISHES (Monogram 1943)

Posted on October 29, 2016 by gary loggins

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A little over a week ago I wrote about Bela Lugosi’s pairing with The East Side Kids , and mentioned what’s been come to know as “The Monogram Nine”. These Poverty Row horrors were ultra-low-budget schlockfests made quickly for wartime audiences, and though the films weren’t very good, they gave Bela a chance to once again have his name above the titles. From 1941 to 1944, the Hungarian cranked out the rubbish: THE INVISIBLE GHOST, BLACK DRAGONS, THE CORPSE VANISHES, BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT, THE APE MAN, VOODOO MAN, RETURN OF THE APE MAN, and the two East Side Kids entries. Let’s take a look at a typical Lugosi vehicle, 1943’s THE CORPSE VANISHES.

Our story concerns young, virginal society brides who keep dying at the altar, their corpses hijacked by mysterious Dr. Lorenz (Bela, of course). The brides receive an “unusual orchid” whose “peculiar sweet odor” causes them to go into a…

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Master of Horror: Boris Karloff in BEDLAM (RKO 1946)

Posted on August 25, 2016 by gary loggins

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(This post is part of the TCM SUMMER UNDER THE STARS blogathon hosted by Kristen at JOURNEYS IN CLASSIC FILM! )

Boris Karloff made a trio of films for producer Val Lewton in the mid-40’s: THE BODY SNATCHER , ISLE OF THE DEAD, and BEDLAM. The Old Master of Terror was given the opportunity to show off his acting prowess in these dark, psychological horrors. Freed from the restraint of playing yet another mad scientist or creature, Karloff excels in the roles of murderous Cabman Grey, plague-ridden General Pherides, and here as the cruel martinet of Bedlam, Master George Sims.

Lewton cowrote the script with director Mark Robson , “suggested by” William Hogarth’s 8th painting in the series “A Rake’s Progress”. There are a lot of sly references to Hogarth in BEDLAM, and the artist even gets a screenwriting credit. It’s 1761 London, and the class struggle between rich and poor rages…

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Horror Film Review: The Curse of the Cat People (dir by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise)

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, you can add the 1944 film The Curse of the Cat People to the list of films that made me cry.

And I know that you’re probably going to point out that it’s already a very long list and I know that some people believe that I cry at every movie that I see. (Listen, if I cried every time that I watched a movie, that would mean that not a single hour would pass without me shedding tears and … well, anyway, lets move on…) But seriously, The Curse of the Cat People is a wonderful and heartfelt film.

Technically, it’s a sequel to the original Cat People. Oliver (Kent Smith) and Alice (Jane Randolph) are married now and they have a six year-old daughter named Amy (Ann Carter). Irena (Simone Simon) does return but we’re never quite sure whether she’s a ghost or if she’s meant to be a figment of Amy’s imagination. There is no mention of Irena being cursed, though a hissing cat does make an appearance at the beginning of the film. In the original Cat People, Elizabeth Russell played a mysterious woman who asked if Irena was her sister. In The Curse of the Cat People, Russell appears in a different role but, interestingly enough, she’s still linked to the memory of Irena.

Instead, The Curse of the Cat People is about Amy. Amy is a shy girl who spends most of her time daydreaming and Ann Carter (who was 8 years old at the time) gives a very real and very authentic performance, one that is totally the opposite of the type of performance that we often expect from child actors. I was a shy child myself (I was famous for always hiding behind my mom whenever I saw a stranger approaching) and, from the minute Amy appeared, I knew exactly how she felt and what was going through her mind.

While Alice feels that Amy’s daydreaming is harmless, Oliver worries about her daughter. At one point, he says that he fears that she’ll never leave her fantasy world and that she’ll grow up to be like Irena. (Interestingly enough, this line suggests that Oliver still doesn’t believe that Irena was actually a cat person.) Amy, meanwhile, has a vision of Irena standing in the backyard and soon, the two of them are best friends.

At the same time, Amy has also become friends with Julia Farren (Julia Dean), an elderly woman who lives in the neighborhood. Just like Amy, Julia lives in a fantasy world. She treats Amy like her own daughter. Meanwhile, Julia refuses to acknowledge her true daughter, Barbara (Elizabeth Russell), accusing Barbara of being a spy and saying she is only pretending to be her daughter. Barbara grows more and more resentful of Amy and that resentment leads her to consider doing a truly terrible thing.

I guess it’s debatable whether or not The Curse of the Cat People can truly be called a horror film. While it does have elements of the horror genre, The Curse of the Cat People is ultimately both a coming-of-age story and a plea for adults to allow their children to be children. It’s all so heartfelt and so wonderfully performed by Ann Carter, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Elizabeth Russell, and Simone Simon that I couldn’t help but cry at the end of the film. The Curse of the Cat People is a great film to watch in October or any other month.

Horror Film Review: Cat People (dir by Jacques Tourneur)

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1942 horror classic Cat People is often described as being a horror film where, up until the last few minutes, the monsters are mostly psychological. And there is some definite truth to that. The title creatures remain a mystery for the majority of the film and, up until those final minutes, the audience would have every right to wonder whether or not they actually existed. This is a film that seems to take place almost totally in the shadows, a film noir without detectives or gangsters but featuring a memorable and compelling femme fatale.

However, I would argue that there is a monster who is present on-screen long before the audience first sees the shadowy form of a cat person. That monster is named Louis Judd and he’s the true villain of this story. As played by Tom Conway, Louis Judd is a psychiatrist and, from the minute we first see him, we know that he’s not to be trusted. He’s far too smooth for his own good and his soothing tones barely disguise the arrogant condescension behind his words. If his pencil-thin mustache didn’t make him sinister enough, Dr. Judd also keeps a sword concealed inside of his walking stick.

Irena Reed (Simone Simon) is one of Dr. Judd’s patients. A fashion designer from Serbia, Irena has recently married an engineer named Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). Despite the fact that she loves Olivier, she cannot bring herself to be intimate with him. As Dr. Judd discovers, Irena fears that she has been cursed and, if she ever allows herself to become aroused, she will be transformed into a panther. Dr. Judd repeatedly tells her that her belief is just superstition and that her fears are the result of repressed trauma from her childhood. When Irena refuses to accept his diagnosis and continues to insist that she is cursed, Dr. Judd assumes that he can prove her wrong by forcing himself on her. (Big mistake.)

Meanwhile, Oliver loves Irena but her refusal to consummate their marriage is driving him away. He finds himself growing more and more attracted to his co-worker, Alice (Jane Randolph). At first, Irena is upset to discover that Oliver has been telling Alice about their problems. But eventually Irena realizes that all she can do is watch as Oliver and Alice grow closer and closer. Irena knows that she can’t give Oliver what he desires but the confident and outspoken Alice can. As Irena grows more and more jealous, Alice starts to feel as if she’s being watched and followed. She starts to hear growls in the shadows and when she’s at her most vulnerable — swimming alone at night — she is shocked when Irena suddenly appears and demands to know where Oliver is.

And really, that’s what makes Cat People such a great film. It’s not necessarily a scary film, at least not to modern audiences. Sadly, we have seen so much graphic real-life horror and have become so jaded by CGI that we’re no longer scared by the mere cinematic suggestion of a monster. But the film still works because we can relate to both Irena and Alice. When I look over my relationships, I can see times when I’ve been both the insecure Irena and the confident Alice. For a film where the word “sex” is never uttered once, Cat People is a penetratingly honest look at relationships, love, and sexuality.

And it also features a truly memorable monster.

Seriously, that Dr. Judd is the worst!