Life Returns

Self-absorbed scientist Dr. John Kendrick (Onslow Stevens) becomes so obsessed with realising his dream of bringing the dead back to life that he neglects both his successful medical practice and his loving family, losing his wife and his mind in the process. Rather than face a stint in juvenile hall, Kendrick's son Danny (George P. Breakston) runs away from home and joins a gang in the next neighbourhood, where his lovable mutt Scooter proves popular with the other kids until it is nabbed and gassed to death by the local dog-catcher. A distraught Danny gives his father one last chance to prove his worth: teaming up with old college pals Dr. Louise Stone (Lois Wilson) and Dr. Robert Cornish (played by real life pioneering scientist Robert Cornish), Kendrick performs a revolutionary procedure to bring the mutt back from the dead.

Part heavy-handed drama, part Little Rascals-style kids' adventure, and part scientific curio, this has got to be one of the most unusual films to come out of Universal Studios during the 30s; however, despite its undeniable credentials as a genuinely bizarre obscurity, the film utilising real-life footage of Cornish's experiments on a dead dog during its climax, Life Returns offers very little in the way of real entertainment value, being too dull, depressing, and devoid of genuine entertainment value to be of much interest to anyone but the most avid fan of Universal's output.

The presence in the cast of Onslow Stevens (later the nominal lead in 1945's HOUSE OF Dracula) and Valerie Hobson (who starred in both BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and WEREWOLF OF London that same year) is the only indication that this obscure curio was a product of Universal Studios during their golden age as Hollywood's top purveyors of chills and thrills. However, despite this being (relatively speaking) a "mad doctor with a back-from-the-dead scheme" scenario, the end result is far removed from the entertainment value and artistic quality one usually associates with that celebrated horror cycle. Indeed, the film ends up being closer in feel to a Warner Bros-type of social document crossed with a Hal Roach "Our Gang" flick and directed by exploitationer Dwain Esper! Unfortunately, it plays far less amusingly than that bizarre concoction sounds!

Stevens falls out with his two fellow students (including real-life scientist Dr. Robert E. Cornish, who the previous year had actually accomplished the life-giving experiment that inspired the movie in the first place!) over financing their project and goes to work for a commercial firm which, however, soon drops him when his continuous attempts grow costlier and more fruitless by the day. This rejection makes him give up his well-paying daytime practice of treating elderly socialites of non-existent ailments and his consequent impoverishment drives wife Hobson to an early grave and son George Breakston to a juvenile court! The latter eventually takes to the road with his pet dog and joins a gang of streetwise kids who live on their wiles in procuring whatever food they can from 'providential' neighbors! Needless to say, this situation ends badly with the dog being caught by the authorities and subsequently gassed and one of the kids getting hurt in the attempt to free the mutt.

Distressed by failing his son yet again in curing his wounded friend (claiming to be 'washed-up'), Stevens contrives to set up an operation in which Breakston's dead dog is revived, thus proving his initial theory after all! As silly as it sounds, the footage depicting this is actually authentic and integrated into the storyline by having Stevens narrate the ongoing procedure carried out by Cornish and his colleagues (similarly portraying themselves) to a group of gathered medicos – something which he himself could not accomplish because his ostensible patrons did not want to fork out any more dough on some all-important apparatus! Being a lifelong animal lover, this sequence (showing Cornish giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the dog!) could not fail to stir me and easily emerges as the film's highlight…even if LIFE RETURNS itself as a whole proved too amateurish and bland for a Universal horror product! For the record, uncredited co-director James Hogan would later make yet another lesser (but more typical) example along similar 'revivification' lines i.e. THE MAD GHOUL (1943).

The tale of LIFE RETURNS is more interesting in what they're not showing you, rather than what they are. I was intrigued by the title card preceding the movie proclaiming, "This part of the picture was originally taken to retain a permanent scientific record of our experiment" and "Everything shown is absolutely real." It was presented as a sort of letter to the audience and it closed with the name Robert E. Cornish. Then it continues with yet more text, this time a scrawl that dedicated this "unusual screen play" to the "determination and genius of those men who have unselfishly devoted their lives to the service of humanity." So it's got a nice pro-science message, as opposed to the usual doom and gloom sci-fi morality tales. We then join three friends in college: Louise Stone (Lois Wilson), Robert Cornish, and John Kendrick (Onslow Stevens). For the record, Cornish actually plays himself for this movie. This matters little because, once our three friends graduate college with their doctorates following a brief montage, Kendrick breaks off from the trio to pursue the chance of performing his research at the Arnold Research laboratories. Rather than follow Cornish, who wrote us that nice letter for the opening and referenced his own experiments, we go along with Kendrick to his new life at Arnold Research. So Kendrick's our main character? All right, then. We're treated to some more quick glimpses of life moving along with news that Kendrick has married a socialite and had a son.

Life seems to be going smoothly for Kendrick for a while, practicing medicine while also continuing his research. What's his research involve? Oh, that's right: returning people from the dead. Not like zombies unfortunately; that'd be too fun. It's the ability to revive people from recent death due to accidents or illness. It's all going swell until the big boss pays a visit to the office and not only refuses a requisition order for new equipment but also shuts down Kendrick's research entirely. He wants him to focus on more important things in life, such as nail polish and assorted ointments. Then Kendrick's wife dies (incredibly suddenly) from an undefined illness. It's all going to crap now, and Kendrick is left to tend to his young son Danny (played by future director of THE MANSTER, George Breakston). Sadly, Kendrick can't keep it together. He's quit his work at Arnold Research (he wasn't interested in shifting his research to creating the ultimate hair-restoring brush), ditches his medical practice, and now the county has decided to take his son away. Honestly, it's probably for the best. Danny is to be placed in the county's juvenile hall since Kendrick isn't a fit father. Which is true; he's a total wreck at this point. Danny won't have any of it, and escapes with his dog Scooter to live among street hooligans in their makeshift clubhouse. The entire second half of the movie deals with Danny's new street life with his rascally friends and his attempts to pull his dad out of his rut.

Now back to what I said at the beginning. LIFE RETURNS is more interesting in what it's not showing you versus what it is. We waste an entire hour-long movie following the sorry luck of Kendrick and his son's street adventures with plucky 1930's street kids, but why aren't we following Cornish? This movie is (vaguely) about his true-to-life experiments in reviving the dead. Google him. He's a real dude. So why isn't this movie about him? When the trio of new doctors split, we should go with Cornish and see where his life goes. Instead we reconnect with him in the last ten minutes of the movie for the big experiment we were promised in the opening text. I had the thought that the surgical footage looked a little too real and I noticed the reaction shots from Dr. Stone and Danny seemed tagged on. Sure enough, it was and they were. The final ten minutes of this movie is one of Dr. Cornish's actual surgical procedures to return a being to life after death. So that's cool, I guess. I can't help but feel kind of bad for Cornish though because a lot of the victory goes to Kendrick because he needs his big win to end the movie on a high note. Cornish is performing the procedure, but the movie sort of gives Kendrick credit. It's a bummer for Cornish, and it's a bummer for us having had to sit through an hour of family drama and one man's total breakdown when we could've been following Cornish's tale the entire time. From the little bit I read about him on Wikipedia, I can guarantee it would've been way, way more interesting.

Arguably one of the most baffling movies ever, and probably THE single worst thing Universal Studios was ever involved with during their golden "horror cycle". LIFE RETURNS is a rare curio which features Onslow Stevens (Dr. Edelmann from HOUSE OF Dracula), Valerie Hobson (BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN) and even Frank Reicher (KING KONG). In the excellent MacFarland book UNIVERSAL HORRORS I had read that this was one of those obscure films that fans love to try and locate, only to be bitterly disappointed once they track it down. I remember a quote which concluded that "LIFE RETURNS deserves its ongoing obscurity", or something. Well....the risk is yours! So what is this, then? One guess is that it's possibly a story about a doctor (Stevens) trying to develop a formula for bringing dead people back to life, though it's certainly not a horror film. This also echoes the vibe of an "Our Gang" two-reeler minus the comedy: the doc has a young son who becomes involved with a gang of kids and has a pet dog which ultimately becomes a participant in dad's experiment. Footage in here was taken straight from an actual medical procedure trying to revive a dog, spliced in to make it appear part of the movie! * out of ****

I'm a huge fan of the classic horror & sci-fi films of the 1930s and 1940s, particularly those of Universal. So when I came across this obscure title, starring Onslow Stevens and Valerie Hobson (both of much better Universal titles), I thought I'd struck paydirt. Unfortunately, I struck just plain old ordinary dirt. For starters, this movie looks cheap. If you're expecting any of the Universal polish that you find in most of their classic films, forget it. This looks like the kind of Poverty Row cheapie Bela Lugosi would be doing in years to come. The story is basically about bringing dead dogs back to life.

The main selling point is supposedly this guy Robert Cornish, who appears in the movie but hardly speaks and rarely has the camera focused on his face when he does. Apparently for about 5 minutes back in the day he made headlines for bringing a dog back to life. The actual footage of that is crammed into this movie and it's about as cheap and bland as you might expect. Although seeing the guy give the dog mouth-to-mouth is worth a gander. However, despite this movie basically only being made because of Mr. Cornish, he's not the real star of it. The star is Onslow Stevens, turning in a dreary performance as Dr. John Kendrick. He staggers around in a daze for most of the picture (when he's not acting crazy, that is). But it's not entirely his fault. The character is written so unlikeable that you can't root for him even though the movie's objective is to make you do just that. After suffering ONE setback, Dr. Kendrick turns into a total loser wandering around like he's lost and looking disheveled. The guy lets his practice go to ruin, lets his wife die and kid live on the street, all the while whining and moping. He's a mess. Speaking of the kid, he's very annoying and the actor playing him is awful ("Scoota! Scoota!").

Anyway, the best part of this whole movie to me was a minor tidbit. When they show the newspaper article announcing Kendrick's engagement, the headline below that reads "Dog Saves Lad From Wasps." That would have made for a much more interesting film, I think. I was pretty disappointed in this movie and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody but Universal completists and people who like movies they can make fun of.