The Devil Commands

As for another viewer, this film was deposited in my memory banks a generation ago. This morning (4 Sept 2007) the TCM screen stirred that memory, so I taped and replayed the conclusion. The content is thin but the film is short, at least for a grown-up. Karloff is splendid, perfectly absorbed as ever in his character. His role is well supported by the evil medium-familiar woman with regulation severely-pulled-back hair. Dmytryk's touch is in evidence already, as every scene is well composed and lighted.

But the reason why the film stuck in my aging memory, and the only reason for it to attract attention, is the stunningly realized seance scenes at the end. As other posters have described, this isn't just any seance: most of the participants have already crossed over, but they look bewitchingly cool sheathed in deco metal suits. (Another poster called them diving suits, but more like space suits you'd find on the covers of Amazing Tales in that era.) In classic seance style, all these suited bodies are seated around a table.

As in Frankenstein and so many other movies since, the action in the lab scene mostly involves turning up the juice, which pours through the whole interlinked seance, adding a lot of hypnotic background noise. (And can be defended historically, since Spiritualists often used electro-magnetic metaphors to describe their rapport.)

What happens then testifies to a lesson later film-makers probably can't re-learn: nothing is more suggestive than restraint. In two concluding scenes where Karloff finally gets the experiment up and running the way he planned, this well-built seance scenario comes to partial but mesmerizing life. A spinning vortex appears at the bodies' center. The voice of Karloff's dead wife breaks through in a grinding electronica: "Julian!"

Then a lovely, unpredictable action: the seance cadavers in their space suits move ever so slightly, bowing toward the vortex in a series of click-actions. Then, when the electricity ceases, they click back into upright postures. Just as the Karloff character hears his wife's voice, something strangely suggestive of life beyond death occurs. The scene lasts only seconds but is repeated for the mob-finale. It's like an Eric Clapton solo, where you're touched less by what is actually played than all that might have been played. The performance stops at its peak moment, launching the audience's imagination in a way that extensions of the scene could never have accomplished.

One of several "Mad Doctor" films Boris Karloff made for Columbia Pictures in the '40s and often considered one of the best of that group by many fans. It's not bad, but it's only a notch above average in my estimation. Here we have Karloff as a scientist who has discovered a device for reading people's brain waves and then becomes obsessed with the idea of trying to communicate with his recently deceased wife. He enlists the aid of a somewhat eccentric phony mystic (Anne Revere) who becomes the dominant force in the partnership and sets the course for some potentially disastrous events.

This movie was directed by Edward Dmytryk, so at least it enjoys some spirited dashes of mood and dreary lighting, which is one thing that elevates it just over the line of the ordinary. It's interesting to see long-time Three Stooges foil Kenneth MacDonald as a sheriff who suspects that strange goings-on are underfoot in Boris' mysterious house, and Anne Revere's stoic and power-hungry medium is an added benefit. Still, there's something which seems to be lacking here to keep this one from rising above "B" level. Karloff is quite good as the eager but harried scientist, emitting a range of different emotions during the course of the picture. **1/2 out of ****

Kindly Dr. Revere (Boris Karloff) has found a way to record the brain waves of people. His loving wife is tragically killed in a car accident. Revere however gets a reading from his dead wife (he thinks) when alone in is lab. He becomes obsessed with trying to communicate with her beyond the grave. He ends up with a cruel conniving fake medium (Anne Revere) and some corpses borrowed from the nearby cemetery.

OK--the plot doesn't make a lick of sense. He does turn on the machine after his wife dies and he DOES get a message--but how can he know it's her? Why does he need to use other dead bodies to communicate with his wife? Why not dig up HER body and try it? Too many questions. The sets are threadbare (looks more like a PRC production than Columbia), talented character actress Revere gives out her worse performance, the silly narration doesn't work and it just completely derails at the end. Still Karloff is good (as always) and gives this junk a better performance than it deserves. He single handedly makes this an OK movie. It just isn't that scary. It does have a somewhat spooky scene where a maid is stuck in a room with a bunch of dead bodies but that's it. Minor but a must for Karloff fans.

I saw this movie over 35 years ago, as a child, late at night.It left a big impression on me and scared me to death. I recently saw it again and my earlier impressions were justified. Karloff tries to contact the soul of his dead wife using an apparatus comprised of metal helmets through which he directs psychic electricity. The whirling vortex of soul energy is a high point in the film. Karloff gets more and more creepily deranged as the movie goes on. Presumably the devil makes him do it. This film is really a well done minor gem. Fans of the mad scientist/laboratory genre will find much to enjoy. This film is a must for Karloff afficianados. It is unfortunately very difficult to find as it hasn't been on T.V.for years and no commercial video tapes exist. See it if you can!

At last, Karloff has met his match. One glance from the steely-eyed Ann Revere (Mrs. Walters) is enough to freeze even Frankenstein. She doesn't need make-up—she's scary enough just walking onto the set. I'd love to see a stare-down between her and an icy Bette Davis. Anyway, the movie is occasionally atmospheric, especially the cliff house scenes. The plot doesn't make much sense—I guess that's why we get the voice-over narration. It's something about getting brain waves from the dead and turning them into talk. Apparently, that requires that Dr. Blair (Karloff) assemble a junk pile in his laboratory. On special occasions, the metal heaps sit around a table in diving helmets and sort of rock out on brain waves. Then there's the live person who puts on a helmet and sticks neon tubes in her ears. Apparently, that triggers an indoor wind, and then wispy ghost-like things appear. The wind doesn't bother them, but it sure musses-up Karloff's hair. It's one wild and crazy lab scene.

The cast and crew are an interesting bunch. Director Dmytryk was one of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten, who then decided to sing to the House committee, and so, went back to work. On the other hand, Revere never did sing and stayed blacklisted for a decade or so. There's also young Robert Fiske who plays Dr. Sayles. He has the distinction of being one of a handful of movie actors killed in action during WWII— don't they deserve some kind of Hollywood memorial. And between Dorothy Adams (Mrs. Marcy) and the equally familiar Ellen Corby, housekeeper roles stayed monopolized in Hollywood for about twenty years. Nothing special in this 50 or-so minutes, except for the goofy lab scenes. But something should be said for the great Karloff. Even in this routine programmer, he gives it his all, a spirited performance that almost makes the hocus-pocus believable. I hope there's a place in Hollywood heaven for great old pro's like him.