The Raven (1935)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Fresh and Exciting

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Inspired by (rather than based on) Edgar Allan Poe's poem of the same title, this Universal horror film stars Bela Lugosi as a surgeon whose obsession with Poe has led to him building torture devices as described in the author's writings. While the devices only exist for display, Lugosi nevertheless sets about putting them into action in a scheme to separate the woman he loves from the man she plans to marry. This plot element could have done with a bit more work as it always seems like a rushed, ill-conceived and illogical scheme, but the chief sell point of the movie is a subplot involving Boris Karloff as a murderer on the run. Things turn rather grisly as Lugosi disfigures Karloff's face on purpose with the promise of only fixing his face if he helps him in his torture scheme, and both Karloff and Lugosi excel in their respective roles. In fact, with the way Lugosi so eloquently quotes Poe while clearly growing crazier and crazier, a good case could be made for this being his very finest performance. The same cannot be said for the rest of the cast with Irene Ware especially underwritten as the love interest who goes from being smitten with Lugosi to being prepared to settle for another man within minutes. Overall though, this is arguably a better paced and more wacky horror film than 'The Black Cat', which is often cited as Lugosi and Karloff's greatest collaboration.

This early shocker isn't in fact an adaptation of Poe's poem, but instead a story of a mad doctor who keeps all manner of torture devices hidden in his basement (The Pit and the Pendulum figures predominantly) and fancies himself as the main character in The Raven. What could have been yet another routine thriller turns into a fun and fantastically entertaining little horror movie thanks to the pairing of Karloff and Lugosi. While Karloff plays it fairly subtle and low-key as a villain whose face is disfigured, Lugosi goes over the top in an extreme way as the totally mad surgeon who says "yes, I enjoy torture!".At the beginning of the film Lugosi is hailed as a hero for saving a girl from paralysis, and seems to be pleasant enough. By the end he has descended into a cackling lunatic hell-bent on a twisted form of revenge and putting innocent victims into old-fashioned torture devices - a young couple are placed in a steel room in which the walls are slowly moving inwards, a man is strapped to a slab while a swinging blade descends upon him. Lugosi plays it for all he's got, just listen to his demented and evil laughter as he thwarts Karloff's plans for a new life. And Lugosi gets to read The Raven out loud in his own inimitable thick-accented tones, something you won't find anywhere else.Karloff plays his potentially villainous role as a sympathetic one, torn between saving himself and saving the life of an innocent girl. He's a servant in this film, low-key and graciously allows Lugosi to hog the limelight as the chief villain. Still, once again Karloff gets to wear some effective make up, this time half of his face is paralysed, complete with dead eye and curved mouth. It's certainly horrific and notable. The rest of the cast merely stand around to provide some unwelcome comic relief or to act stupidly in dangerous situations - frankly, I couldn't give a damn about them. The film is at it's best when Lugosi is playing classical music on his piano or exulting in his own fiendish schemes.While THE RAVEN is not quite as gripping or complex as the year's other Karloff/Lugosi pairing THE BLACK CAT, it still remains a fine, old-fashioned chiller, and Lugosi has never been better when he hams it up here. The extremely short running time (the film clocks in at just over an hour) also means that it's never boring. For nostalgists, and Karloff and Lugosi fans, this is one to watch.

Bela Lugosi was campy as hell and yet hellishly enjoyable.Boris Karloff's role, on the other hand, was quite subtle and downplayed, yet good in the opposite spectrum of that of Lugosi's.The plot was, to put it briefly, bizarre. The author of the script may have been an Edgar Allan Poe fanatic. The various incursions regarding Poe, however, although somewhat out of place, are doubtless enjoyable to fans of Poe, especially if they happen to like The Raven and The Pit and the Pendulum.The script seems to have been tightly edited; the plot moves along at breakneck speed, and there are no meandering scenes whatsoever.All in all, a rather enjoyable—if only mainly for its strangeness —"old dark house" movie from the 30s.Recommended.

Dr Richard Vollin a retired brain surgeon gets a phone call from Judge Thatcher whose daughter Jean has been seriously injured in a car crash . Despite being somewhat reluctant Vollin agrees to operate on her and saves her life . Later on Judge Thatcher returns to Vollin's house and informs that Jean despite being engaged has developed an emotional attachment to him and forbids any contact with Jean , much to Vollin's resentment . Later on a man appears at Vollin's house , an escaped convict called Edmond Bateman who wants the doctor to change his faceMany , many years ago BBC2 used to show a horror double bill in the Summer months and this was shown alongside another Lugosi/Karloff film THE BLACK CAT . It wasn't until the era of the internet that I found out THE RAVEN was the cause of so much controversy on its initial release , so much so that it effectively killed off the Universal horror film for several years . That said there's several factors at play . One is the Hays Code had been brought out the previous year limiting what could be shown on screen and the pre-code film by Tod Browning FREAKS was banned in Britain on its release . Certainly compared to the Browning film THE RAVEN is relatively tame but like FREAKS it too was banned in Britain and THE RAVEN's relatively poor box office in America meant that Universal Studio's the prime producer of horror movies thought the bottom had fallen out of the horror market so concentrated on making other movies The one aspect the film is very very good at it is its psychological undertones of horror . Watching it today it is slightly bizarre on how it remains restrained and yet it has a rather sadistic edge just waiting to surface . Dr Vollin is played superbly by Lugosi as a sadistic control freak with an obsession with both Edgar Allen Poe and torture devices , devices it transpires that he's all too ready to use when circumstances dictate it . Would a doctor in real life be capable of such cruelty ? Let's not forget in Germany the Nazis had risen to power and were making plans for the worst crimes in human history . The Nazi death camps were governed by medical sadists of which Josef Mengele was the most notorious and was not unique in his crimes . Just over ten years after THE RAVEN was released , a separate war crimes trial took place at Nuremburg called The Doctors Trial where those indicted were tried of conducting the most cruel medical experiments against fellow human beings Where the film fails quite badly is on a logical level . Vollin is held at gun point by Bateman and agrees to operate on him but Bateman never jumps to the conclusion that Vollin might contact the police while he's under the anaesthetic and one wonders why Vollin never thought of this . Of course as it transpires Bateman is needed to carry out some dirty work . Again the problem is how does Bateman fit in to this plan ? Surely if Vollin wants to torture and kill Judge Thatcher , Jean and her fiancé then he doesn't need Bateman's help to do this and what is Vollin going to do with the other party guests ? Kill them probably because they're witnesses but how likely is it that these seven guests have not told anyone where they'll be staying at that weekend ? Surely if they all disappear that means the police will know where to look for them ? The more you think about it the more the plan starts falling apart . Surely a simpler plan would have been Vollin blackmailing Bateman in to becoming a hit man who goes to Jean's fiancés house to kill him and one wonders why Vollin didn't do this but I guess that means we wouldn't have had a story in that case As I said this was made just after the Hays Code was introduced and its interesting in how the cinematic morals of the time are played out on screen . If you're about to get married this means you're still not allowed to have sex , you have to stay in separate rooms , get chaperoned by a parent and even if you are married you have to sleep in different beds . The code also stipulates that anyone doing anything bad has to be made to suffer the penalty for their crimes which means the body count of the entire film is rather low at two Despite being a very flawed horror film THE RAVEN is a very enjoyable one too . You have to meet it on its own terms and constantly remind yourself of the context of when it was made but the film is carried by its two stars . It's also a film dealing with psychological obsessions and it's here the story works very well indeed