Bowery at Midnight

Bowery at Midnight

theatrical release poster
Directed by Wallace Fox
Produced by Sam Katzman
Jack Dietz
Written by Gerald Schnitzer
Starring Bela Lugosi
John Archer
Music by Edward J. Kay
Cinematography Mack Stengler
Edited by Carl Pierson
Production
company
Banner Productions
Distributed by Monogram Pictures
Release dates
  • 1942 (1942)
Running time
60 or 63 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Bowery at Midnight

Bowery at Midnight is a 1942 American horror film directed by Wallace Fox and starring Bela Lugosi.

Plot

Lugosi plays a psychology professor by day who, secretly and under an assumed name, runs a Bowery soup kitchen by night called the Bowery Friendly Mission. Lugosi's character uses his soup kitchen as a means to recruit members of a criminal gang, of which he is also secretly the head. Throughout the film, one of Lugosi's henchmen, a doctor who seems to be an alcoholic drug addict, alludes to having plans for the corpses of henchmen Lugosi has had killed. Then, at the end of the film, these corpses are revealed to have been restored to life by the doctor. Lugosi's character meets his demise when the doctor leads the unwitting Lugosi into a basement room where the reanimated corpses attack him. Towards the end of the film, the male lead, played by John Archer, appears to be killed and mysteriously reanimated, in which state his girlfriend sees him. Then, in the film's final scene, he appears restored to his former health, and not like a zombie at all, and is about to (or already has) marry his girlfriend.

In one scene, with two policemen talking outside a cinema, a movie poster outside the cinema entrance behind them advertises Bela Lugosi in The Corpse Vanishes, another Lugosi horror film also released in 1942.

Cast

Production

Following The Corpse Vanishes, Monogram Pictures announced it would make two more Bela Lugosi films, Night of Horror and Torment. These projects ended up being replaced by Bowery at Midnight and The Gorilla Strikes (which became The Ape Man).[1]

Filming started on 3 August 1942.[2]

Reception

The Los Angeles Times called it "maybe the farthest fetched of the Bela Lugosi films", adding "but judging from the squeals of the youngsters who made up most of the audience in the afternoon such tales can't simply be brought from too great a distance to please them."[3]

See also

References

  1. MONOGRAM TO MAKE 48 FILMS IN 1942-43: 16 Westerns Among Feature Pictures Listed by Corporation New York Times (1923-Current file) [New York, N.Y] 16 May 1942: 10
  2. Tom Weaver, Poverty Row Horrors, p 85
  3. Novel Gang Film Opens Los Angeles Times (1923-Current File) [Los Angeles, Calif] 13 Nov 1942: 17.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bowery at Midnight.
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Bowery at Midnight


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 7/3/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.