WARNING! POSTER MAY BE MUCH BETTER THAN MOVIE!!
1 – White Gorilla: Skipped, seen it.
2 – Long Hair of Death: Skipped, seen it.
3 – The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave: Skipped; awful, butchered full frame print. Put better copy on Netflix list.
4 – CONDEMNED TO LIVE (1935)
Ah, here we go, a moldy oldie that I never got around to seeing. This probably didn’t get a lot, or any, TV play back in the day, even when poverty row flicks from the ’30s and ’40s popped up fairly often, because it lacked a Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff, or even a Lionel Atwill or John Carradine or George Zucco. Also, the title doesn’t exactly scream ‘horror movie’; it sounds more like a prison picture. Even similarly obscure flicks like The Vampire Bat (1933) or The Vampire’s Ghost (1945) at least got that right.
Condemned to Live was also handicapped in that it wasn’t made by one of the bigger poverty row studios like PRC or Monogram. No, it was made by Invincible Pictures Corporation, a production arm of Chesterfield Pictures. Invincible existed but a scant four years, although it cranked out 30 films in that period. Most of them were just regular ‘B’ fare, crime pictures and other social melodramas. The only other horror flick they made was the previous year’s The Ghost Walks, also directed by Frank R. Strayer.
As expected, this thing is as predictable as the sunrise. That’s OK, there was pleasure derived from putting another notch on my cinematic belt, as well as watching yet another variation on the theme, even if it weren’t that varied. I mean, when you see local savant and beloved village altruist Professor Kristen (Ralph Morgan) show up at a death site and he’s accompanied by a hunchbacked assistant, you know they won’t be reinventing the wheel here.
The film boasts a nice opening, as two white men and a white woman hide in a cave in Africa from hostile (and economically unseen) natives. The woman is pregnant, and when her two comrades walk off to discuss the cave’s fabled vampire bats—the fear of which is the only thing keeping the natives at bay—the woman is attacked by a nice, big, floppy prop bat on wires. Now, that’s entertainment. Seriously, I’d watch that any day of the week.
Then, a scroll: “Years later…The mark of the Bat brings tragedy and terror to a peaceful village in another land.” Cut to the sort of generic fakey-European village that you always get in these things. A body, the second so ravaged in a short period, has been found with its throat ripped out, dragged some distance after death and drained blood. An old woman asserts that it’s the work of an extremely large vampire bat (odd, as this is the sort of person generally pushing a supernatural fiend). Stalwart young buck David sneers at this. However, the learned Prof. Kristen, with Zan the hunchback in tow, isn’t so sure. In any case, as both killings occurred at night, the village is put under curfew.
We soon learn that the scholarly Kristen is engaged to pretty and much younger blonde Marguerite. (The actors actually were 32 years apart in age.) Anyone conversant with films of this period will see where this is going, and things proceed apace when we learn that the more age-appropriate David is also in love with her. Any lingering doubts are assuaged when we see Kristen wince and put his hand to his head at one point.
Sure enough, when the moon comes out he becomes a Jekyll and Hyde killer, a fact unknown to him. (This isn’t really a spoiler, given how obvious it is.) At this point you don’t exactly have to be Nostradamus to figure out the Kristen is the son of the pregnant woman who was attacked by the bat at the beginning of the film. And hey, he was ahead of the similarly-origined Blade the vampire killer by about four decades.
The film’s pacing, even at 65 minutes, is deadly. Watching the Professor interact with a small kid for several minutes to demonstrate what a swell guy he is isn’t exactly getting the job done. The entire romantic triangle aspect eats up waaaaay too much time. And the way the picture crawls to reach toward its inevitable climax is excruciating. In essence, the film tragically lacks the engaging verve and downright daffiness of cheapies like The Ape Man or The Invisible Ghost. Even given its 65 minute length, most will find the film interminable. Luckily, the last five minutes or so are at least a big more lively.
Although other studios at the time looked with envy at the box office receipts Universal was drawing with their horror films, they remained markedly squeamish of getting into the biz themselves. This is a fine example, with all the mayhem occurring safely offscreen. Censorship fears were a part of this, and indeed, shortly after this England would basically outlaw showing horror films. The loss of this major market shut down even Universal’s horror efforts, and it wasn’t until the early ’40s that the genre roared back to life.
Like nearly all films of this ilk, efficiency was valued quite a bit higher than artistry. Movie like this tended to shot in a week or less, and for as little money as humanly possible. As such, the casts tended to be made up of has-beens, wannabes, up-n-comers and character actors who alternated between supporting roles in big movies and starring roles in little ones.
Even so, there are some moderately known actors here. Ralph Morgan (Kristen)—the brother of Frank Morgan, the Wizard of Oz in the Judy Garland movie—was one of those guys who alternated starring in stuff like this with smaller roles in major studio films. He appeared in over a hundred films, including (the same years as this) the original version of Magnificent Obsession, Anthony Adverse (winner of four Oscars), The Life of Emila Zola (winner of another 3), and a few other highlights. Mostly, though, it was stuff like our current subject. This remained his only apparent horror flick until the ’40s, when he appeared in several of them: The Mad Doctor, Night Monster, Weird Woman, The Monster Maker, The Monster and the Ape and The Creeper. Mr. Morgan passed away in 1956.
Mischa Auer (Zan the Hunchback), meanwhile, had a major supporting role in one of my all-time top ten movies, My Man Godfrey (1936). Playing pompous gigolo Carlo, Auer was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, the year that category was first introduced. Following that, Auer because Hollywood’s “Mad Russian,” typecast but given lots of work. He has 175 credits on the IMDB.
His genre credits were few, including The Monster Walks (1932) and Sinister Hands (’32). After Godfrey he mostly worked in comedies, one notable one being the Jimmy Stewart classic Destry Rides Again, in which he had a major role. He also appeared in the early Abbott & Costello spook comedy Hold that Ghost! Auer moved back to Europe in the ’50s, and mainly worked there afterward. He passed away in Rome in 1967.
Meanwhile, the direction was typically stolid. As Les Adams over at the IMDB writes of Strayer regarding another film “…shot in the usual static style of Frank R. Strayer who moved the camera maybe twice for a medium close-up, probably under orders not to from producer [Maury M.] Cohen who knew moving the camera cost time and money. “ Again, the ability to get footage in the can would have been far more highly prized than making said footage anything but strictly utilitarian.
The print of this film was adequate, and eventually better than that once I’d severely jiggered the brightness and contrast controls. Also, as I always do when watching a black & white movie, I turned the color all the way off. This can make a big difference. All this increased picture grain, but made the image generally more pleasing. In fact, it wasn’t half bad. As well, you have to take into account the film’s obscurity and age. Finally, I’m old enough to remember watching films like this on a 19 inch black and white TV set, all while fiddling with the rabbit ears every five minutes. A sub-optimal presentation if anything just added to the nostalgia value.
The sound was blotchy, but again, given the age of the film that’s almost unavoidable. After my mucking about with the picture, I’d give the picture quality a B minus. As a movie, I’d give it a D+.
