The Boogie Man Will Get You is a 1942 comedy horror film, directed by Lew Landers and starring Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. It was the final production Karloff made under his contract with Columbia Pictures, and it was filmed in the wake of his success in the Broadway production Arsenic and Old Lace. As he had done several times previously, Karloff played the part of a “mad scientist”, Professor Billings, who is using the basement of his inn to conduct experiments into using electricity to create a race of superhumans. The inn is bought by a new owner, who is initially unaware of the work Billings is conducting.
Reviews:
“The dialogue is deliciously archaic throughout, as if a drunken Vincent Price was mocking passages in some old Victorian novel. Someone had a good time writing this, and the actors ride that spirit. Lorre gets a great glint of mischief in his eyes. Karloff riffs on his zillion past mad scientists.” Acidemic
“So some bad dialogue more suited to the stage and an uneven supporting cast are clear demerits here, but more than anything the script is what keeps this from being better than it could (and should) be. In particular, what little of a plot there is falls completely off the rails once the fascist suicide bomber arrives on the scene, demanding to be taken to the nearby munitions plant. Even for a loopy black comedy, this is an outlandish, absurd turn that nearly causes the film to collapse completely. Thankfully, the script makes a bit of a recovery at the end to send the audience out on a happier, if still slightly bewildered note.” Scared Silly
“Karloff and Lorre are hilarious here, playing off each other like a time honoured comedy double act. If they weren’t so talented at other things they could have made a career of playing roles like this like a more sophisticated Abbott & Costello. They’re aided by Maude Eberne and George McKay as the elderly servants, right out of Arsenic and Old Lace, Don Beddoe as a choreographer who so obviously isn’t, Frank Mitchell as Jo-Jo the Human Bomb… did I mention they threw everything in here that they could think of?” Hal C. Astell, Apocalypse Later
” … frightening people in theatres takes more ingenuity and adroitness than the authors of this screenplay put into it”. Kate Cameron, New York Daily News (1942)
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