The Devil Commands (1941)

I love this movie so much

Thanks for the memories!

A Disappointing Continuation

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

"The Devil Commands" is the best Boris Karloff movie from "Columbia" studios. It has a better plot than some of his others for the studio and a very good performance from Karloff. The only thing is, is that this movie was the last in the actors contract and that meant that the budget had been spent. The reason for this, was that the studio allocated a particular sum of money for four films with Boris Karloff and it was a shame that the above movie had practically no money spent on it. Hence the reason why the lighting is sparse in all the sets.This doesn't spoil the enjoyment for me though.

**SPOILERS**The great Brois Karloff in another one of his many horror films about a misunderstood, but really great guy, mad scientist-Dr. Juian Blair-this time in communicating with the dead trough their brainwaves.The entire story of the mad as a hatter Dr. Blair is told by his daughter Anne, Amanda Duff, in an hour long flashback. It was Anne who was to become a victim of her father's insane experiments in his communicating with his dead wife Helen, Shirley Warde, who's tragic death the Doc feels responsible for. Getting results in picking up brain waves with live subjects in his laboratory Dr. Blair attempted to do the same with dead one's in regard to his wife who was killed in a car accident. This happened as Dr.Blair went to the local bakery to pick up a birthday cake for his daughter's 20th birthday.Having a brainwave print of Helen before she was killed Dr. Blair attempt to pick up his dead wife's brainwaves from beyond was only half successful with him being kicked out of the collage, where he was head of the Science Department, by his not so impressed colleagues before her could finish it. It's when Dr. Blair's assistant Karl, Ralph "A Penny for his Thoughts" Penney, introduced him to psychic and medium Mrs Walters, Anne Revere, that the mad doctor finally convinced himself that he was in fact on to something: Communicating with the dead! It's not that Mrs. Walters was the genuine article, she was in fact a fake, but she had the ability through her electro magnetic energy force to open the door for disembodied spirits like the Doc's late wife Helen to communicate with the world of the living!Moving, with both Karl & Mrs. Walters to the quite seaside New England town of Brasham Harbor to conduct his secret experiments in human brainwaves Dr. Blair soon started to suffer, by working day and night for weeks at a time, from a severe case of burnout with the evil Mrs. Walters taking over his experiments. It's then when everything went bananas for the poor and by now mentally and physically exhausted Doc. It's when Dr. Blair's maid Mrs. Marcy, Dorothy Adams, tired to sneak into his secret laboratory, at the insistence of the local sheriff-or Mister-Ed, that things really got out of control!Getting herself killed, when she accidentally turned on the brainwave machine, Mrs. Marcy's now distraught husband Seth, Walter Baldwin, blamed Doc Blair for her death and whipped up the local townspeople, who had no use for Doc Blair anyway, into a bloodthirsty lynch mob. With pitchforks and torches in hand the mob headed out to Doc Blair's place to pay him a very very unfriendly and unannounced visit!***SPOILERS*** Working against time with the mob bearing down on him Dr. Blair did in fact make contact with his dead wife through his brainwave machine using his daughter Anne as the connection between the world of the both living and dead. This all went to pot when the Doc overloaded his brainwave machine with enough juice that could power the entire city of Boston! In a flash everything that Dr. Blair accomplished over the last ten or so years went up in flames but in the end, even though he was not around to see it, his experiments in brainwave communications turned out to be a smashing success!

Though the science involved in what Boris Karloff is trying to do is very flawed, in The Devil Commands Karloff gives a very good performance as a man obsessed with contacting his late wife. Unfortunately he falls into the clutches of a fake medium played by Anne Revere who takes advantage of him.The first few minutes of the film show a happy well adjusted Karloff married to Shirley Warde with daughter Amanda Duff also getting ready to marry scientist Richard Fiske. After a car accident where Warde dies in his arms, Karloff goes off the deep end as he becomes obsessed with the idea that Warde is trying to communicate with him via electrical impulses. His efforts to combine science and the occult lead him to Revere and ultimately to tragedy.The electrical devices in his laboratory have the familiar Frankenstein like look about them, no doubt Edward Dmytryk in one of his early directorial efforts was trying to capture the mood of the Frankenstein films from Universal. Though the rest of the cast is pretty bland, Karloff and Revere play well off each other and carry the film.One exception to the blandness is that of Dorothy Adams whom I recognized immediately as Bessie the maid from Laura. Her part here is similar to that one and her acting has some real bite to it.The Devil Commands is from Columbia's B unit and it's not invested with a lot of production values. Still it's a good horror film from the master himself.

I got to review this fine motion picture off 'Creepy Classics' and it was enjoyable. "When the DEVIL commands....Karloff obeys!" is the catch phrase to this film. 1940 film is a semi-forgotten great from Columbia Pictures. A riveting mad doctor movie with Boris trying to communicate and bring back the should of his beloved dead wife. He finds a way to do that with mystical women medium and several corpses. He thinks he can talk to his dead wife. When a vortex to the other side is established. He hears his wife and reads her brain waves to confirm the connection while his daughter looks on in terror. He puts the dead corpses seance members in electronic robot suits and it becomes a electronic-age seance not to be missed.