The Corpse Vanishes

*The Corpse Vanishes* doesn't waste any time getting down to business. Just about the first thing we see is a bride at her wedding dropping dead during the ceremony. The next thing we know, her body has been stolen away in the wrong hearse. (Important safety tip: When having cadavers taken away by hearses, ask to see the driver's identification.)

Amazingly, it turns out that this is only the latest in a series of such macabre incidents. I don't know about you, but if I were about to be married in a city where this was going on, I would probably delay my wedding (or at least hold it in another city.)

We soon learn that the dead brides are being used by Bela Lugosi as a source of something-or-other that he draws out of them with a nasty-looking syringe. This stuff then gets injected into his wife to restore her beauty; she's apparently suffering from some rapid aging disease or something.

A Spunky Girl Reporter (boy, they had a lot of them back then) finds out that all the dead brides had been given a rare orchid just before the ceremony. She then discovers that the local expert on this plant is (you guessed it) Lugosi. She winds up as an not-very-welcome guest of Bela and his wife. Their servants are an older woman and her two sons, one a dwarf and one a mute hunchback who likes to fondle the hair of the dead brides. (There's some speculation at one point that the brides are only in suspended animation, but this question is never resolved.)

*The Corpse Vanishes* is a wild bit of Grand Guignol, with all kinds of spooky stuff thrown in. We find out that Bela and his wife like to sleep in coffins. There is no explanation for this, except for the fact that they find them more comfortable. (This whole household makes the Addams Family look like the Brady Bunch.)

A couple of familiar faces other than Bela show up in this thing. The dwarf is played by Angelo Rossitto, who played various little people in everything from *Freaks* to *Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome*. Bela's wife is played by Elizabeth Russell. Fans of classic horror may best remember her as the woman who calls Simone Simon "Moia sestra" ("My sister") in *Cat People*. She's a striking and exotic woman, who manages the remarkable task of being more sinister than Bela.

This film is short on plot logic (surely there must be an easier way to obtain the bodies of young women than at their weddings) but it delivers more than enough in the way of creepy thrills. And of course there is the insinuation that Bela needs the glandular fluid of a virgin and a really big assumption - even in 1942 - that brides are virgins. How do you know they are virgins? Because, in the words of Fonzie of Happy Days fame - "Virgins never lie about these things."

I give it a five out of ten just because of the old world charm and mystery Bela brings to any role, no matter how low budget the film.

Bela plays a doctor who raises orchids and gives them to girls about to be married....when they smell them, they go into a comatose state, and appear dead. Lugosi & henchmen steal the "bodies" with a hearse, and draw out the girl's spinal fluid, which is used to keep Lugosi's wife looking youthful.

This is Lugosi at his finest....and the dungeons of his home are positively creepy with Minerva Urecal and her two sons, Angelo Rossito (a dwarf) & (ex-boxer) Frank Moran. Together, with Lugosi's "wife", it makes for some nightmarish scenes.

BTW...the actress who plays Lugosi's Wife was morbidly afraid of lying in a coffin, so a "double" was used for that scene!

See It!

Bela made 9 pics for Monogram, but it was only at THIS one, the 4TH, that things started to come together. All the rest in the series would use this one as the essential template for production, writing and character development. From here on, better or worse, the series would also deal with one essential theme: a scientist (usually Bela) makes experiments in the basement or the old house (sometimes IN the basement in the old house) that causes things to go blooey. This was also the first time that Art Director Dave Milton got a chance to spread his wings. He came on board for BLACK DRAGONS, the flick before, but THIS one is where he gets to make his craft start to click. Lewis made great atmosphere for next to nothing, and was around for all the rest of the Monograms. Casting is key in these, and it's a pretty good one B movie wise, here. You get Barclay and Harlen (also from BLACK DRAGONS),along with Russell, who would star in Lewtons' CAT PEOPLE movies..and Rosetto, from SPOOKS RUN WILD...a nice slice of Poverty Row talent. If you have limited time and budget, start with this one...it sums up everything they had learned up to this point, and gives you something to compare the rest to. The plot? Bela steals gland juice to keep his nasty wife young. They both like to sleep in coffins. If you can read that and smile, the rest will be easy.

I have enjoyed the films of Angelo Rossitto, particularly "Fairy Tales". But when Rossitto and Bela Lugosi join forces (both here and in "Scared to Death") there is an element that really sets a tone for a good eery horror film.

This film is about brides who are seemingly killed and then kidnapped so their lifeblood can keep a mad scientist's wife young. A nosy reporter, who seems to take some sick delight in getting photographs of dying brides, trails the mad scientist to his mansion and may become his next victim.

As usual, Lugosi does not disappoint. He is great as a mad scientist with his European look and accent. The supporting cast is also well chosen. While I am not familiar with them (besides Rossitto), this is not a strike against them but actually a positive sentiment. Without being known faces to me, they more successfully blended into the characters they were supposed to represent.

While not the strongest of Lugosi's films by any means, any fan would be missing out if they failed to check this one out. There is an undercurrent of black humor that keeps the film rolling and is definitely missing (unfortunately) in the films of today.

I had watched THE CORPSE VANISHES (1942) a couple of years ago but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised as to how watchable and engaging it was the second time around. Who'd have thought that such fare was worth a second look? If anything, I found CORPSE to be even livelier than GHOST (which did get to be repetitious and feel constrained by its one setting): although it is never explained why Lugosi is married to an 80-year old woman (except maybe to get into high society given that she's a "Countess") or why she needs to be youthful (it's not like she's parading her "look" anywhere except at the Lorenz household), the film offers an amusing throwback to those 30s hard-boiled reporter movies and predates such rejuvenation-themed horror movies as I VAMPIRI (1956).

I found the film to be quite atmospheric and enjoyable: it was nice to watch Lugosi surrounded by such familiar faces as Elizabeth Russell (from several Val Lewton films), Angelo Rossitto (one of Tod Browning's FREAKS [1932]) and Vince Barnett (who had a memorable supporting role in Hawks' SCARFACE [1932]) among others. That said, the campier elements of the film were sometimes too silly for words: Lugosi whipping his moronic assistant, the proverbial funereal organ-playing, the even more hilarious sight of Lugosi and Russell sleeping in coffins and the final shoot-out with the police in which, of all people, it's Lugosi's dwarfish henchman who gets it!

In the end, I guess I wouldn't mind watching Lugosi's other stuff from this period but I doubt if it will make me enough of a fan to go out and purchase them in their best available prints on DVD.