A throwback from Universal to the sort of films it made during its Golden Era, complete with Boris Karloff as a henchman. The actual star is Charles Laughton, in fine, lip smacking form as a noble so annoyed a woman picked his brother over him that he locked his brother up under the stairs. He kidnaps a noble and forces him to marry a woman.
In many ways this felt closer in spirit to the AIP Poe films of the 60s than Universal’s earlier classics – it’s an old dark house story with a monster in the basement (Universal’s tales tended to be about monsters on the loose). You can imagine it with Jack Nicholson, Hazel Court and Vincent Price.
The chief attraction of this is Laughton who is wonderful.. He was a wonderful moment at the end when he’s about to kill a girl and she momentarily reminds him of his old love. Michael Pate is fun as an evil henchman (a lot nastier than Boris) and Boris good as always in one of his “yeth, math-ter” parts. Richard Staple, who plays the noble, is OK – not bad, but nothing special. He doesn’t have much chemistry with Sally Forrest, with whom he’s supposed to fall in love – although there is a funny scene where they are threatened by Laughton, he says “you haven’t fallen in love have you” and then they do this big pash…despite it being a life and death situation.
The film reminded me of the horror films Karloff made in Britain in the late 1950s – polished, professional, the rough edges smoothed over. But they seem to lack some of the fun of Universal during their golden age. I think it was a mistake to not reveal Laughton’s secret until the one hour mark i.e. that he was getting revenge on his brother for stealing the woman he loved. There’s probably not enough story here for a feature – but there is a great climax, with three heroes about to be crushed in a cell and Boris and Laughton fighting it out, and Laughton getting stuck in a wheel. (NB Though it is a bit off that poor old faithful servant Karloff kicks the bucket to save three nobles – who keep going “we must have the key” while Karloff is dying struggling to get the key to the cell.)
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