Blu-Ray News #312: Thrillers From The Vault: 8 Classic Horror Films.

Mill Creek Entertainment has two new Blu-ray sets coming in December: Thrillers From The Vault: 8 Classic Horror Films and Sci-Fi From The Vault: 4 Classic Films. Today, we’ll take a look at the horror one.

The Black Room (1935)
Directed by Roy William Neill
Starring Boris Karloff, Marian Marsh, Robert Allen, Thurston Hall

What’s better than a movie with Boris Karloff in it? Two Karloffs in the same film! He’s Anton and Gregor, sons born to the Baron de Berghman. One brother has some sinister plans for the other.

The Man They Could Not Hang (1939)
Directed by Nick Grinde
Starring Boris Karloff, Lorna Gray, Robert Wilcox
This set gives you Karloff’s “Mad Doctor Cycle” in high definition. This one is the first. Karloff invents an artificial heart, and after he’s unjustly hung, he uses it to exact his revenge.

Before I Hang (1940)
Directed by Nick Grinde
Starring Boris Karloff, Evelyn Keyes, Bruce Bennett, Edward Van Sloan
Karloff’s anti-aging serum works with one deadly side effect — he used the blood of a homicidal maniac, which sends him on a killing spree.

The Man With Nine Lives (1940)
Directed by Nick Grinde
Starring Boris Karloff,

Karloff has been trapped in a block of ice for 10 years. When he’s thawed out, he uses his enemy’s to continue his “chilling” experiments.

The Devil Commands (1941)
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Starring Boris Karloff, Richard Fiske, Amanda Duff

Karloff’s experiments capture the brain waves of his dead wife. All he needs is a body to put them in.

The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942)
Directed by Lew Landers
Starring Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Max Rosenbloom

The fifth, and last of Karloff’s Columbia pictures plays like a spoof of the earlier ones. He’s a mad scientist, of course, trying to create a race of superhumans (for the war effort) in the basement of an old inn.

The Return Of The Vampire (1943)
Directed by Lew Landers
Starring Bela Lugosi, Frieda Inescort, Nina Foch

This time, Bela Lugosi is brought back to life when a German bomb hits his grave and cemetery workers yank the stake out of his heart.

Five (1951)
Produced, Written & Directed by Arch Oboler
Starring William Phipps, Susan Douglas Rubeš, James Anderson

Five people survive an atomic blast and try to figure out how to carry on. This post-apocalyptic story was shot at a number of LA locations, including director Oboler’s own Frank Lloyd Wright house.

The Black Room and the Karloff mad doctor pictures are all great — and will be a real treat in hi-def. The Return Of The Vampire is also a lot of fun. Looking forward to Thrillers From The Vault: 8 Classic Horror Films.

DVD/Blu-Ray News #395: Congo Crossing (1956).

Directed by Joseph Pevney
Starring Virginia Mayo, George Nader, Peter Lorre, Michael Pate, Rex Ingram, Raymond Bailey

Explosive Media has a great run of Universal International 50s Westerns coming out throughout the summer, and now they’ve announced Congo Crossing (1956), a U-I jungle picture with a great cast (including Mr. Drysdale himself, Raymond Bailey), Russell Metty cinematography (shot for 2.0) and the Arboretum and Botanic Garden in LA doubling for Africa. This is one I’ve never seen, and I can’t wait!

Thanks to John Knight for the tip!

Blu-Ray News #359: Mad Love (1935).

Directed by Karl Freund
Starring Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive, Ted Healy, Keye Luke

Peter Lorre’s first American film was directed by the great German cinematographer Karl Freund — and Greg Toland worked on it. If that’s not enough to sell you on Mad Love (1935), that photo up top should do the trick. As a kid, I used to stare at it one of my old horror movie books, or maybe a copy of Famous Monsters, and I was dying to see it.

It’s coming to Blu-Ray next month from Warner Archive. An adaptation of The Hands Of Orlac, it stands as another weird, creepy, cool-looking 30s horror movie — and those are always worth seeking out. Seeing this one’s incredible camerawork in high definition is gonna be terrific. Highly recommended!

Blu-Ray News #333: The Face Behind The Mask (1941).

Directed by Robert Florey
Starring Peter Lorre, Evelyn Keyes, Don Beddoe, George E. Stone, John Tyrrell

One I’ve been waiting for. The Face Behind The Mask (1941) is one of those sublime B movies where everything went just right.

Peter Lorre is terrific as an optimistic immigrant whose personal version of the American Dream becomes a living hell. He goes from lowly dishwasher (who’s hideously scarred in an accident) to a criminal ringleader (amassing the fortune needed for plastic surgery). Everything changes when he meets a sweet young blind woman (Evelyn Keyes), but will he be able to just walk away from his double-crossing gang?

Robert Florey’s direction and the moody camerawork of Franz F. Planer — and one of Lorre’s best performances — make this thing a winner from fade-in to fade-out.

Imprint is bringing The Face Behind The Mask to Blu-Ray in May with an assortment of commentaries and interviews. But the real attraction will be the chance to see this terrific little picture in high definition. Highly, highly recommended.

Blu-Ray News #327: Karloff At Columbia (1935-42).

The six pictures Boris Karloff made for Columbia between 1935 and 1942, which include the films now called “The Mad Doctor Cycle,” are a hoot. Eureka has announced a two-disc Blu-Ray set of these movies films for April.

The Black Room (1935)
Directed by Roy William Neill
Starring Boris Karloff, Marion Marsh
Karloff plays twin brothers in 19th century Europe. One twin inherits the family castle and all hell breaks loose.

The Man They Could Not Hang (1939)
Directed by Nick Grinde
Starring Boris Karloff, Lorna Gray
In the first entry in what became “The Mad Doctor Cycle,” Karloff has discovered a way to bring the dead back to life. His assistant volunteers to have it tested on him, and once he’s dead, his girlfriend gums up the works and prevents the volunteer from being revived.

The Man With Nine Lives (1940)
Directed by Nick Grinde
Starring Boris Karloff, Roger Pryor, Jo Ann Sayers
Karloff developed “frozen therapy” and used it on himself. Ten years later, he’s awake and wants to whip a new batch of his formula.

Before I Hang (1940)
Directed by Nick Grinde
Starring Boris Karloff, Evelyn Keyes, Bruce Bennett
This time, Karloff has developed an anti-aging serum. Today, he’d have an infomercial, but it 1940 he’s to be hung instead.

The Devil Commands (1941)
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Starring Boris Karloff, Richard Fiske, Amanda Duff
Karloff is a doctor who shifts his research on brain waves into an effort to reach his dead wife.

The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942)
Directed by Lew Landers
Starring Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Max Rosenbloom
Spoofing the rest of these films, this one has Karloff as a professor trying to create a race of supermen, to help the war effort, in the basement of an old tavern.

These films are a load of fun, and it’ll be great to see them in high-definition. 

It’s also been announced that Warner Archive will be bringing Isle Of The Dead (1945) to Blu-Ray — from a 4K scan of the original nitrate negative.

Happy Birthday, Boris Karloff.

Boris Karloff (William Henry Pratt)
(23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969)

Here’s a perfect way to celebrate the great Boris Karloff — stay up all night watching a slew of his movies.