Black Friday *** (1940, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Stanley Ridges, Anne Nagel) – Classic Movie Review 5603

Director Arthur Lubin’s 1940 Universal horror movie teams up Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi together again – though alas they don’t appear together – in an eerie, involving little horror chiller. It takes its place in film history as the first ‘Brain Movie’, with its obviously weirdly popular, much filmed idea, a cousin of the disembodied hand premise. Although it also makes liberal use of the Jekyll and Hyde premise, too.

In Black Friday, Doctor Ernest Sovac (Karloff) transplants the brain of gangster Eric Marnay (Lugosi) into the skull of a mild college tutor Professor George Kingsley (Stanley Ridges), near death after a car crash, so that he can uncover the mob’s swag. However there is a dangerous side effect that causes a Jekyll and Hyde split personality as Kingsley alternates between meek professor of English and murderous gangster out for revenge on those who tried to kill him.

Poor Lugosi ended up with the support part of the gangster after he seemed awkward in his original role as the professor, and was further humiliated when Ridges steals the picture in what is in effect the main role.

Also in the film are Anne Nagel, Anne Gwynne, Virginia Brissac, Edmund MacDonald, Murray Alper, Jack Mulhall, Joe King, John Kelly and Paul Fix.

The film runs 70 minutes, is written by Curt Siodmak (1902–2000) and Eric Taylor, is shot in black and white by Elwood Bredell, is produced by Burt Kelly, is scored by Hans J Salter, and is designed by Jack Otterson.

Writer Curt Siodmak turned the idea into a now cult 1942 science fiction novel, Donovan’s Brain, the title of Curt Siodmak’s source novel, which was adapted for the screen as The Lady and the Monster (1944), Donovan’s Brain (1953), Vengeance and The Brain  (1962).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5603

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