Last night we found another buried treasure, a previously unheard of German film from 1951 called "Der Verlorene" (English title : "The Lost One"). Peter Lorre directs and stars as "Dr. Karl Rothe", who is working at a refugee camp at the end of World War Two. Dr. Rothe is in charge of vaccinating the camp's populace, until one day when he is replaced by a doctor named "Hosch" (Karl John). The two men know each other and share a sordid past. Hosch is a jovial backslapper who boasts about covering for Dr. Rothe in the aftermath of some crime. At first we don't know what it is. Rothe resents his presence but keeps things friendly for the moment. Later on, as the story is told through flashback, we will see that Hosch was covering up something even more sinister than what Peter Lorre was involved in. I have to cut in to note that the subtitles are a problem. Because they are closed captioned and, I assume, generated by the computer rather than embedded in an uploaded commercial dvd, they are less than accurate and only give a general idea of what is being said. This leaves the viewer to have to interpret much of what is going on. It's like reading a "See Spot Run" version of the actual dialogue, so you only get the gist of the plot (and apologies to the author of 'See Spot Run' because in that book you know exactly what's happening. I only chose it as an analogy because of the book's simplicity.)
Having said that, the film is well acted and the photography is masterful. Lorre does his trademark Downcast Look, to emphasize his eyelids, while he smokes cigarettes and paces back and forth. Still, it's a great performance because of the psychological weight he is carrying. It turns out there was a secret at the camp, to infect the refugees with a poisoned vaccine. The scheme was concocted by the Nazi administrators.
Lorre murders his fiancee when he discovers she knows the secret, but it's all alluded to. I had to look up the meaning of that sequence on IMDB because the subtitles and Lorre's directorial style are minimal in the extreme. Watch the murder scene for yourself, and see if you can find any reference to the secret of the poisoned vaccine, or even that the woman is Lorre's fiancee. What I assumed while watching was that she was the daughter of his landlady, and that she was sexually tempting him. I thought he killed her because he was doing his Repressed Peter Lorre Thing. She was branded a "tramp" by the other doctors in the compound, and I thought he was ashamed at having had relations with her, and killed her because of that.
But apparently the explanation is far more conclusive. You'd never know it from the subtitles, though, nor the action. I think that even if you understood German you wouldn't get it, because Lorre intended to keep it mysterious. It's still a great movie, however - if a little slow. For sheer Peter Lorre-ness, it comes in close to "M". I apologize for the vagueness of the review, but it's in proportion to what I gleaned from watching. You might be surprised that I'm gonna give it Two Big Thumbs Up, but I am, and Two Huge Thumbs for Lorre's direction and the expressionistic photography and sets. Don't worry about getting only bits and pieces of plot information to work with. Just go with what you're given and let it lead you into the mystery. It will resolve to some level of satisfaction (and yikes! watch out!), and the rest you can look up when it's over. The picture is razor sharp. "The Lost One" is very highly recommended. ////
Alrighty, then. Just when we thought we had seen every available Bela Lugosi movie, up jumps one of his weirdest. I'm talking about "Voodoo Man"(1944), which we watched the previous night. Are you ready for the cast? Are you sure? Okay. You've got Bela as a Mad Doctor, who's trying to revive his dead wife. Then there's George Zucco, who runs a gas station in the daytime but is a Voodoo Priest by night. Finally, you've got tall, gaunt John Carradine, who plays a creepy half-wit. He's one of Lugosi's assistants, who kidnaps blonde girls for his experiments. To picture Carradine in this movie, think of The Hitchhiker in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He's a maniacal numbskull but harmless compared to his compadres.
The movie opens at Zucco's gas station. A blonde chick pulls in to fill up. While waiting - because there was full service in those days - she asks George for directions to the highway. He obliges, but deliberately sends her to a phony detour on Mulholland Drive, where she becomes trapped when Lugosi sends an electromagnetic pulse from his lab and her car stalls. At that point, Carradine and his fellow creep "Grego" (Pat McKee), emerge from the bushes and capture her, then carry her to Bela's house.
His dead wife is sitting in the basement. She's a knockout for someone who's been deceased for 22 years. The blonde gal is placed in a chair next to her, and now the weirdness goes into overdrive as Zucco, in a runic robe and pointed hat, recites an incantation designed to transfer the blonde's soul into Lugosi's wife's lifeless body. (yeah sure, but yeah, sure).
So far we've only covered the first five or six minutes. Monogram Pictures was the studio, usually noted for their Poverty Row production values but they've gone all-out here, giving Lugosi a decked-out Mad Scientist lab with all the bells and whistles.
It turns out that the hijacked Blonde Gal isn't the right soul-match for Bela's wife, so the kidnapping must begin anew. This time, another blonde pulls into Zucco's gas station. She too needs directions to the highway and he gives her the same phony detour, but she's traveling with her boyfriend, so when their car goes dead from Lugosi's EM pulse, he goes in search of help. She gets abducted during this time, but when the boyfriend returns, clues lead him to Lugosi's house. Now, Lugosi is also a legitimate doctor, who tends to his patients in town. He has a sterling reputation there, so when the boyfriend comes calling, he puts on his Good Doctor face to get rid of him. But the boyfriend's no stooge. He starts to suspect his fiancee is trapped in Bela's house, and he concocts a ruse involving her sister - also a blonde - to get inside and find her.
Topping all of this off is that the boyfriend is a Hollywood screenwriter who's been signed to write a horror movie. But! - and this is an Important 'But' - this is not one of those 1940s Lugosi horror comedies like "Spooks Run Wild", which, while they're fun, aren't particularly scary or weird. On the contrary, "Voodoo Man" is one of the weirdest flicks in Bela's canon. It's completely off the wall. Lugosi is downright evil as "Dr. Marlowe", and when he chants "soul into body!......body into soul"! and other creepy incantations while performing the revival rites for his wife, it looks like you're witnessing the real thing, if there really were (or are) such weirdos who'd perform reanimation rituals. I'm surprised "Voodoo Man" isn't more well known. I'd never heard of it and only discovered it by looking up Lugosi's filmography on IMDB. For what it is, it's unique. George Zucco is off the charts as the Voodoo Priest. Then you've got John Carradine slapping a bongo drum during the ceremony with a cretinous grin on his face. In it's weirdness it reminds me of a film like "The Devil Commands" starring Boris Karloff, which involves a similar subject, communication with the dead. But "Voodoo Man" is even weirder, and for that I'm gonna give it Two Huge Thumbs Up. This is not to say it's a masterpiece on the scale of epic films that are usually are given that rating, but for what it is, it's tremendous and unmissable. I can't recommend it highly enough, especially for fans of Lugosi. You also get Zucco and Carradine in the bargain and the picture is razor sharp. /////
So there you go, two Weird Ones, from Peter Lorre and Bela Lugosi. The Lorre does qualify as a Halloween movie, I think, just by it's grimness and chiaroscuro lighting. You don't wanna miss either one, so watch 'em back to back. I hope you have a great day and I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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