BLACK FRIDAY-1940-2 STARS

This isn’t really a horror movie, I guess its more drama engrossed in violence, with one creep doing all the killing. If you are a Boris Karloff fan, you’re gonna love this, because he actually looks like a normal person in this movie, instead of some freakzilla. Karloff stars as Dr. Sovac, a famous doctor who participates in an interesting operation which eventually sends him to the electric chair which is where the title Black Friday comes in. That was the day Sovac got fried, but before this happens, he tells us his story.

Once again Bela Lugosi plays the side role, and he’s seriously miscast on top of it. Lugosi stars as Eric Marnay, a two bit gangster hoodlum. Now c’mon, can you honestly see Lugosi trying to play an Al Capone type role instead of a scientist or a doctor? Also, his part in the movie was so small, it could probably fit through a keyhole, and on top of that, he and Karloff never cross paths, so why bother putting  them in a movie together?

Let me fill you in a little on what’s going on here. Marnay and his band of ruffians get into a car accident with a former gang member Red Cannon (Stanley Ridges), and Professor Kingsley (same guy), a friend of Dr. Sovac’s. Now Cannon is really important because he’s got $500,000 stashed somewhere, and everyone wants to know where it is.

But we have a big problem here, since the auto accident, Cannon is paralyzed, and Kingsley is dying. As an effort to save his friend, and to get his hands on that 500 thou, Sovac performs a brain transplant, Cannon’s brain inside of Kingsley’s body. The operation is successful, and after a full recovery, Sovac takes Kingsley to New York hoping to the Cannon’s memory will come to life, and lead him to the 500 thou.

Except, everything goes wrong, Kingsley now has a split personality, through most of the movie he spends his time as Cannon, who kills off his former gang members one at a time.  The movie would have been better if the plot focused more on Kingsley’s internal struggle to keep his own identity, and not lose it to a cold blooded killer. Take for example Lon Chaney as the Wolfman. Now we all know he was a good guy with a kind heart, who just ran up on some bad luck by getting bitten by a wolf while he was out minding his own business.

Remember how he tried so hard to keep his soul while he changed from man to wolf every night, falling in love by day, and ripping people to shreds by night. It’s a good movie, and you should see it, so put that on your must-see-movie-right-away-because-Ria-said-so list. Black Friday should have thrown a Talbott/Wolfman plot into the storyline, instead of letting the Cannon alter ego take over most of the time, and allowing him to run rampant through New York, killing of a bunch of people without at least a coffee break.

After retrieving the 500 thou, Cannon does goes back to being Kingsley, but wigs out in the class he was teaching, as he gets a glimpse of all the people his alter ego snuffed out. At home, he once more becomes Cannon, and tries to strangle Sovac’s daughter. Sovac puts a bullet in him, and naturally he changes back into Kingsley, and now he’s a murderer. In the very last scene, Sovac dies by the electric chair, and it happens so fast, you’re like, “Hey, is he dead, ’cause I didn’t get a chance to see nothin’. Did the man yell for help, or did he cry for his mama?”

This is not Universal’s best work. Karloff was great in his role and carried the movie up to a certain point, but poor Lugosi got treated like a stepchild, and was barely seen in the whole movie. Well, he should be relieved since it wasn’t that good of a movie anyway.

This entry was posted on 19. April 2008 at 08:03 and is filed under Lugosi Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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