The Dark Eyes of London [The Human Monster] *** (1939, Bela Lugosi, Greta Gynt, Hugh Williams) – Classic Movie Review 3765

Director Walter Summers’s 1939 movie, retitled The Human Monster in the US, brings the great horror star Bela Lugosi to Britain to make this encouragingly daft horror picture based on Edgar Wallace’s novel. It is notable as the first film in Britain to receive the H certificate for horror.

Lugosi plays Dr Feodor Orloff, a mysterious monstrous maniac who runs a home for blind people whom he embroils in a hideous death plot. Though strange deaths are taking place all over London, they all appear to be accidents.

Enterprisingly, Dr Orloff is also a loopy life insurance company agent, who gets his dumb giant servant to murder the chosen victims, unlucky single men with no family who carry the insurance that he has sold them, so he can get his hands on their money.

If often just silly, this is still an entertaining movie that occasionally provides a real shiver or two, and Lugosi is great value. It also stars Hugh Williams as Detective Inspector Larry Holt and Greta Gynt as Diana Stuart.

Also in the cast are Wilfred Walter, Edmon Ryan, Julie Suedo, Alexander Field, Arthur E Owen, O B Clarence, Mary Hallatt, Brian Herbert, Charles Penrose and Gerald Pring.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3765

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