I often wonder
Instead of receiving a salary, were horror icons paid per word that they said in the old days or something? The amount of old (1930s, '40s and '50s) horror movies in which great actors appear, and even receive top billing, but hardly have any lines or dialogs is enormous. Particularly Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. were specialists in this, although this probably had something to do with the fact that they were both very unreliable due to their alcoholism/drug addiction issues in the fall of their careers
The very first screen is perhaps the best thing about "The Black Sleep", because that's the opening image that lists the names of Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney and John Carradine underneath each other. What an awesome line-up for a horror movie, you'd think, and we even get a little cherry on top of the cake when also the name of Tor Johnson appears on the second credits' screen! Yes, the line-up is definitely incredible at first sight, but I've rarely witnessed a bigger waste of talents. Basil Rathbone – history's greatest Sherlock Holmes – is the only one with a prominent role, whereas the others merely just serve as set decoration. Lugosi is a mute butler (again
), Chaney Jr is a mad-raving brute (again) and Carradine appears as a kind of wizard but I honestly don't understand who his character was and what his role added to the plot.
Purely talking in terms of plotting "The Black Sleep" does form an interesting footnote in horror movie history, as it somewhat builds a bridge between the old-fashioned mad scientists from the Universal era (Victor Frankenstein and such ) and the more emotionally tormented mad scientists from the 1960s and onwards. The former group contains merely just megalomaniac geniuses, whereas the latter group is driven by severe personal problems, usually to cure their terminally ill wives or to save their daughters that got horribly deformed in accidents. The classic French masterpiece "Les Yeux Sans Visage" (1959) was officially the first and most famous of the 'tormented scientist' flicks, but perhaps "The Black Sleep" was really the first one. Physician Joel Cadman (Rathbone) is looking for a cure for his wife's brain tumor and therefore conducts unorthodox experiments in a remote old castle, primarily experiments that teach him how the human brain is mapped and structured. He uses an oriental drug, nicknamed black sleep, that puts the patient in a death-like coma and subsequently cuts open their skull to explore the brain functions. Unfortunately things usually go awry during this process and therefore the castle is full of failed experimental subjects. "The Black Sleep" benefices from the professional direction by Reginald LeBorg and strong performance of Basil Rathbone, but the screenplay is often boring and there disappointingly aren't any real Grand Guignol highlights. As stated already, the phenomenal cast is underused and it's a bit sad that Lugosi's very last role is such a pitiable one.
Purely talking in terms of plotting "The Black Sleep" does form an interesting footnote in horror movie history, as it somewhat builds a bridge between the old-fashioned mad scientists from the Universal era (Victor Frankenstein and such ) and the more emotionally tormented mad scientists from the 1960s and onwards. The former group contains merely just megalomaniac geniuses, whereas the latter group is driven by severe personal problems, usually to cure their terminally ill wives or to save their daughters that got horribly deformed in accidents. The classic French masterpiece "Les Yeux Sans Visage" (1959) was officially the first and most famous of the 'tormented scientist' flicks, but perhaps "The Black Sleep" was really the first one. Physician Joel Cadman (Rathbone) is looking for a cure for his wife's brain tumor and therefore conducts unorthodox experiments in a remote old castle, primarily experiments that teach him how the human brain is mapped and structured. He uses an oriental drug, nicknamed black sleep, that puts the patient in a death-like coma and subsequently cuts open their skull to explore the brain functions. Unfortunately things usually go awry during this process and therefore the castle is full of failed experimental subjects. "The Black Sleep" benefices from the professional direction by Reginald LeBorg and strong performance of Basil Rathbone, but the screenplay is often boring and there disappointingly aren't any real Grand Guignol highlights. As stated already, the phenomenal cast is underused and it's a bit sad that Lugosi's very last role is such a pitiable one.