Boy, on paper this should be fabulous. Just the fact that it co-stars Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre in their respective primes, in a film that features the two together onscreen for much of its length, should at the very least guarantee that it’s entertaining.
Sadly, this isn’t the case. There’s a reason this film isn’t very well known, even amongst aficionados. Frankly, it’s just not very good. Not awful, mind you. However, it’s bland, inert and uninvolving. Even the scenes with Karloff and Lorre, and there are many of them, just don’t have a lot of juice. It’s kind of puzzling.
Aside from his work at Universal, Karloff’s most consistent body of work was in a skein of Mad Science movies over at Columbia. He made four of these in short order; The Man They Could Not Hang, The Man with Nine Lives, Before I Hang and The Devil Commands. At this point The Boogie Man Will Get You was made.
The idea, presumably, was to freshen up the Mad Science movies with a dose of spoofery, while taking advantage of Karloff’s well-advertized concurrent success in the smash Broadway stage production of “Arsenic and Old Lace.” Ironically, Karloff didn’t star in the eventual film adaptation of Arsenic, while Lorre did.*
[*The main gag is that the killer Karloff plays in the stage production was operated on by a drunken plastic surgeon, who, as everyone comments, made him look like Boris Karloff. I hate to say it, but I think the film was improved by Karloff’s absence. Cary Grant plays the lead with a tremendous amount of mugging, while Karloff’s role was ably filled by Raymond Massey. I think the overt shtick of Karloff playing the part in the movie would have constantly pulled you out of things, while Massey’s convincing menace grounds Grant’s rubber-faced shenanigans. Anyway, Arsenic is clearly what Boogie Man wanted to be, but it’s not even close.]Frank Capra’s film adaptation of Arsenic had actually the year before. Contractual obligations, however, meant the film couldn’t be released until the stage production had run it’s course. That wasn’t until 1944.
Since his obligations to the play had kept Karloff from appearing in Capra’s movie–Karloff made but two films, including this one, from 1941-1943, whereas he had starred in eight movies in 1940 alone–it was decided to take advantage of the situation. Karloff took a rare hiatus from the play to make a rank imitation. And I do mean rank. OK, that’s somewhat exaggerated. Somewhat. It was of necessity a quickie production, though, and it shows.
Indeed, Boogie Man is basically a mash-up of Arsenic and Old Lace and, seriously, Ed Wood’s Bride of the Monster. (Sadly, though, it’s not nearly as funny as either of those.) Karloff and Lorre basically play Arsenic’s dotty aunts in this, killing traveling salesmen in their quest to produce, ala Bride of the Monster, atom-powered supermen.
Just as with the aunts, though, the two murderers are meant to be misguided but lovable. Thus their goal is to create these superbeings to help fight the war. Even so, it’s kind of odd that these two screwball patriotic New Englanders are both played by émigrés. Perhaps the studio felt that if anyone complained the plot was in bad taste, they could say, “Well, you know…foreigners.”
We open on a rare, above the title card listing both Karloff and Lorre as the stars. Again, this raises hopes that the film doesn’t come close to realizing. Meanwhile, just to make sure the audience ‘gets’ it, the opening credits are accompanied by Wacky Comedy Music. That’s almost never a good sign, and the score’s slide whistle sounds (!!!) didn’t exactly assuage my fears.
Karloff is Prof. Billings, the quintessential Dithering, Absent Minded Professor. He owns a decrepit old inn, in the basement of which he conducts his experiments, complete with equipment from a cut-rate Kenneth Strickfaden box kit.
He also has two daffy servants, an old woman obsessed with raising chickens she doesn’t actually own—see how that’s funny?—the other an old, rough-hewn fellow who wants to raise pigs. Indeed, at one point we see the old woman sleepwalking, and the gag is that she’s clucking and strutting around like a giant chicken. Hilarious!
As we open Winnie, an irrepressible screwball dame of the last water, suddenly arrives and buys the inn. She’s instantly agreeable to Billings continuing his experiments downstairs, because this is farce and that means nothing has to made sense. Winnie is, sadly, the first in a parade of zany characters the film will proffer to miniscule comic effect.
Winnie is soon followed by her ex-husband Bill (the divorce element is actually pretty odd for the time period). Bill is Continuously Exasperated by Winnie’s Madcap Hijinx; basically the grade-D Desi to Winnie’s bargain basement Lucy. Since a war is on, they explain that Bill is about to enter the Army and using his last ten days as a civilian to try to keep his ex out of trouble. Ho ho!
Winnie goes to buy out Billing’s outstanding mortage, which is held by Dr. Lorencz (Lorre). Lorencz ‘comically’ holds all the local positions of authority; Mayor, Justice of the Peace, Coroner, Sheriff, etc. Basically, he’s Mr. Haney from Green Acres, a slick rural bunco artist always out to con somebody out of a buck. His wackiest character trait (I guess) is that he carries around his cat in the interior pocket of his frock coat.
“Is that a cat in your pocket or are you just happy…oh. It *is* a cat.”
Anyway, Bill eventually sees the results of one of Billing’s experiments and alerts Lorencz. The latter goes to arrest Billings, but decides he may be on to something, something that would be big money. And so the stage is set for mirth. Bill is sure something sinister is going on, Winnie is sure he’s just being paranoid, and the gruesome twosome plan how to get their hands on another experimental subject.
At one point they elect on Bill to be their next subject. They appear over his bed via a secret panel behind (what else?) a painting. Only every time Lorre makes to bop him, the unaware Bill moves out of the way. Are your sides hurting yet? By the way, the panel clearly opens up on an enclosed secret passage. This is kind of strange, given that several earlier shots established that the other side of the wall faces an open hallway.
All this is, as mentioned, abetted by a parade of wacky supporting characters. There’s the suspicious fellow who says he’s working on a ballet but is always skulking around the place. There’s the *cough* loveable mug of a salesman as played by lovable mug specialist Max “Slapsie Maxie” Rosenberg. (This guy gets waaaay too much screentime. Not the actor, the character, I mean. For instance, he can’t wear Billing’s experimental helmet because his head is ticklish. Ha!) Another is an escaped Italian saboteur (?!) who comes equipped with a backpack bomb.
You’d think the movie would move briskly, given that it only runs 66 minutes. Not so. Apparently I’m not the only one who thought so. One scene quite evidentially starts in the middle of the action, making it apparent some drastic cuts were made prior to release. Another sign of the studio’s lack of faith is the poster art, seen above. Notice how except for the tagline there’s little to indicate that the picture isn’t straight horror stuff.
Even so, comedy is a highly personal, idiosyncratic thing. So I can’t outright guarantee you that you won’t indeed think it’s funny. However, as I noted, not many seem to. All the ingredients are there, but they just don’t gel. You’d probably be better off taking in another screening of Corman’s The Raven, which the two stars made together two decades later.
Still, it’s hard to pass up a chance to see Karloff and Lorre share so much screentime together in their primes. For those wishing to give it a look, the film can be found on the ‘Icons of Horror – Boris Karloff’ DVD set. Even if you don’t like this one any better than I did, the set also includes the far worthier Before I Hang, The Black Room and The Man They Could Not Hang.
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