Really Surprised!

Best movie ever!

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Poverty Row cheapie starring Bela Lugosi as a professor running a soup kitchen as a front for his criminal activities. Slow, creaky, mostly boring B with only one person in the whole movie with any screen presence - Bela. And this is far from one of his better roles. The cast backing up Lugosi includes Vince Barnett, John Archer, J. Farrell MacDonald, Wanda McKay, and future murderer Tom Neal. Sadly the Bowery Boys do not appear. Similar plot to Lugosi's previous film, Dark Eyes of London/The Human Monster. Oh and there are zombies in this. Sort of. Not really.

This is a pretty engrossing crime-thriller with a splash of horror. To be honest, they could have left out the splash of horror that appeared towards the end of the film - (Did someone say Zombies?!!) (: Bela Lugosi is leading a double life as Professor Brenner/Karl Wagner. By day he is a the well respected Professor Brenner. By night he is the sinister criminal Karl Wagner. Wagner will kill his partners in crime to reach his goal. Little does Brenner/Wagner know, his helper Doc Brooks (Lew Kelly) has something up his sleeve when Wagner puts Brooks down one to many times. This movie is definitely worth watching! If you like crime-thrillers and don't mind twist of horror then you might like this film.8/10

A well respected psychology professor, Frederick Brenner, actually leads a life of crime, using his status as the proprietor of a Bowery soup kitchen to mask his devious activities. Under the name of Karl Wagner(Bela Lugosi), Brenner is able to lift criminals on the run off the street, putting them to work for him..that is until he no longer needs them. Brenner's office in the Bowery soup kitchen building houses secret rooms as escape hatches while also servicing him the ability to stash away confiscated items. Wagner's operation has been successfully robbing bank vaults, then ridding himself of criminals who would potentially provide problems later. Brenner's wife has no idea that her husband has been coming home late at night and having nightmares due to his criminal work(..he lies to her about writing a book, on the street researching). One sub-plot features Wagner's employee, Judy Malvern(..the very lovely Wanda McKay)and her beau, Richard Dennison(..great television actor John Archer)whose lives will soon be complicated when unforeseen circumstances lead them to discover the fiend Brenner really is..Dennison is actually Brenner's student at his college, and when he goes to the Bowery masquerading as a bum, working on a project for class, he'll uncover a horrifying truth regarding how cruel and evil his professor really is. Another sub-plot has Wagner's underling, Doc Brooks(Lew Kelly), once a great physician, now a drug-addicted fraidy-cat who disposes of bodies in a graveyard created within a secret room under the Bowery building, reviving those unfortunate souls put to death as a way of revenge when his moment comes towards his lecherous boss. Pete Crawford(Dave O'Brien)is a newly promoted detective, once pounding the pavement as a beat cop, who devotes his time to unraveling the sting operation that's depleting banks of monetary resources. Tom Neal, very effective as Wagner's newly recruited trigger man, Frankie Mills, a tough-talking, fearless thug, replacing tired gunner, Stratton(Wheeler Oakman)who was about to end his partnership with the boss.Solid cast backing up Lugosi, in a tour-de-force performance getting a chance to portray a multi-layered character. The movie is over-plotted, for sure, and the zombie premise that develops is more than a bit ridiculous. Still, this is essential viewing for die-hard Lugosi fans, even if BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT attempts to pack too much in a small running time. Some of the criminal acts by Brenner/Wagner are chilling such as his orders to murder specific characters(..often committing a few himself, unflinchingly)and his cornering of student Dennison within the basement of the soup kitchen is particularly shocking. Not really a horror film as much as a crime drama.

(There are Spoilers) In a duel role as both professor Frederick Brenner and philanthropist Karl Wagner Bela Lugosi mixes business with profits by using the criminal element of the city, many who get free meals at his Bowery soup kitchen, for his own evil purposes.Brenner plays both ends against the middle in using hoodlums like "Fingers" Doland, John Berkes, and "Trigger" Stratton, Wheeler Oakman, to do his dirty work and then has them eliminated in order to keep them from talking to the police if their ever caught. It's when one of Prof. One of Brenners students psychology major Richard Dennison, John Archer, shows up at his soup kitchen, disguised as a bum, in order to get information for his thesis on the human condition that Prof.Brenner, as Karl Wagner, cover is suddenly in danger of getting blown.Dennison's girlfriend Judy Malvern, Wanda McKay, just happens to be a volunteer at the "Friendly Mission", Brenner's Bowery soup kitchen, and recognizes him which makes things a bit complicated for Brenner in his efforts to get rid of the pesky Dennison, by having him murdered, in that she can place him there! Despite all that Brenner still has Dennison gunned down, as he's invited into Brenner's private office, by one of Brenner's gang members homicidal maniac and on the lamb hit-man Frankie Mills, Tom Neal.The one thing that Brenner completely overlooked was that his assistant the disbarred and disgraced physician "Doc" Brooks, Lew Kelly, who has a serious drinking problem has been secretly experimenting behind his back with the people, like Dennison, who are buried in his basement. Turning Brenner's victims into Zombies "Doc" is waiting just for the right moment to unleash them against the hated Brenner, who treats "Doc" like one of the bums at his soup kitchen or even worse, when the time is right. Far too confusing to get a handle on it the film "Bowery at Midnight" has too many subplots in it that makes the movie almost impossible to follow. Bela Lugosi seems as comfortable playing a gangster as does playing a vampire or mad scientist and in his role as both Prof Frederick Brenner / Karl Wagner Lugosi more then makes up for the films many deficiencies. Lugosi as usual puts everything into his part, or parts, that you almost forget just how disjointed and uncoordinated he movie really is.There's also Tom Neal, of "Detour" fame, doing his best as the psycho killer Frankie Mills. Mills despite his cold-blooded personality and disregard for human life does have a soft spot in not being able to bring himself to gun down a woman; Dennison's girlfriend Judy Malvern. It's that deficiency in his character, as a mindless killer, that in the end brings the curtains down on both Mills and his boss Prof. Frederick Benner. ***SPOILER ALERT***In fact the good professor has a big surprise coming to him when, with the police about to break into his office and arrest him, "Doc" shows Brenner an exist strategy that leads him right into the hands of the Zombies, or Brenner's many murder victims, that he secretly created!