Don't Believe the Hype

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

I was surprised to learn that this was a product of Universal Studios because it looked very much more like a product of Poverty Row. Despite what you could reasonably expect, it isn't one of Universal's horror cycle though, it's barely even sci-fi either and is mostly a melodrama. It's about a doctor who continues to try and develop a formula that will re-animate the dead. He eventually succeeds in bringing his son's dog back to life.The film tries to suggest that we will witness footage from an operation that indeed did bring a dog back from the dead. Apparently a Dr. Cornish devised this procedure and tested it successfully. He stars in this one and it's footage of his surgery we see in the finale. In reality the dog may have been briefly resuscitated but it died very soon afterwards. Of course the movie doesn't show this! On the whole this is an okay medical drama that could probably have been told in a more exciting manner. On a side note, I did find it quite amusing that the paperboy in the film used his dog to carry his newspapers in a little dog cart, the lazy little git.

The presence in the cast of Onslow Stevens (later the nominal lead in 1945's HOUSE OF Dracula) and Valerie Hobson (who starred in both BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and WEREWOLF OF London that same year) is the only indication that this obscure curio was a product of Universal Studios during their golden age as Hollywood's top purveyors of chills and thrills. However, despite this being (relatively speaking) a "mad doctor with a back-from-the-dead scheme" scenario, the end result is far removed from the entertainment value and artistic quality one usually associates with that celebrated horror cycle. Indeed, the film ends up being closer in feel to a Warner Bros-type of social document crossed with a Hal Roach "Our Gang" flick and directed by exploitationer Dwain Esper! Unfortunately, it plays far less amusingly than that bizarre concoction sounds! Stevens falls out with his two fellow students (including real-life scientist Dr. Robert E. Cornish, who the previous year had actually accomplished the life-giving experiment that inspired the movie in the first place!) over financing their project and goes to work for a commercial firm which, however, soon drops him when his continuous attempts grow costlier and more fruitless by the day. This rejection makes him give up his well-paying daytime practice of treating elderly socialites of non-existent ailments and his consequent impoverishment drives wife Hobson to an early grave and son George Breakston to a juvenile court! The latter eventually takes to the road with his pet dog and joins a gang of streetwise kids who live on their wiles in procuring whatever food they can from 'providential' neighbors! Needless to say, this situation ends badly with the dog being caught by the authorities and subsequently gassed and one of the kids getting hurt in the attempt to free the mutt.Distressed by failing his son yet again in curing his wounded friend (claiming to be 'washed-up'), Stevens contrives to set up an operation in which Breakston's dead dog is revived, thus proving his initial theory after all! As silly as it sounds, the footage depicting this is actually authentic and integrated into the storyline by having Stevens narrate the ongoing procedure carried out by Cornish and his colleagues (similarly portraying themselves) to a group of gathered medicos – something which he himself could not accomplish because his ostensible patrons did not want to fork out any more dough on some all-important apparatus! Being a lifelong animal lover, this sequence (showing Cornish giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the dog!) could not fail to stir me and easily emerges as the film's highlight…even if LIFE RETURNS itself as a whole proved too amateurish and bland for a Universal horror product! For the record, uncredited co-director James Hogan would later make yet another lesser (but more typical) example along similar 'revivification' lines i.e. THE MAD GHOUL (1943).

This is a truly bizarre little film that really baffled me--so much so that I tried to research a bit about the odd work of Robert E. Cornish and would like to know what made this odd man tick. Apparently in the early 1930s, this odd man was interested in reviving the dead--though the practicality of such work is rather dubious. Apparently he'd hoped to use this technique on humans but why is beyond me. His work, thankfully, was restricted to dogs. First, they'd euthanize a dog. Then using a combination of stimulants, artificial respiration and a teeter-totter-like device, they were able to BRIEFLY revive a couple dogs...who died PERMANENTLY soon after!!! So what possible use is this procedure?! Well, I guess if a person would be euthanized, you MIGHT be to bring him or her back BRIEFLY--and then they'll die! Wow, no wonder this guy never became all that famous! Apparently, the film makers who brought us this film decided to make use of film footage they had of one of Dr. Cornish's dog revivals. BUT, they had to create a story in which to insert this footage. As for the story, it's pretty dull and is great if you like bad 'boy and his dog' films. Ultimately, the film is sunk because this story and the footage really aren't integrated well together. First, the dog in the experiment is NOT the same one they used as an actor in the film. Second, the stuff is pretty cloying and has a crappy low-budget look and feel to it. The overall effect is poor but not bad enough to make it funny or entertaining as kitsch.

Arguably one of the most baffling movies ever, and probably THE single worst thing Universal Studios was ever involved with during their golden "horror cycle". LIFE RETURNS is a rare curio which features Onslow Stevens (Dr. Edelmann from HOUSE OF Dracula), Valerie Hobson (BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN) and even Frank Reicher (KING KONG). In the excellent MacFarland book UNIVERSAL HORRORS I had read that this was one of those obscure films that fans love to try and locate, only to be bitterly disappointed once they track it down. I remember a quote which concluded that "LIFE RETURNS deserves its ongoing obscurity", or something. Well....the risk is yours! So what is this, then? One guess is that it's possibly a story about a doctor (Stevens) trying to develop a formula for bringing dead people back to life, though it's certainly not a horror film. This also echoes the vibe of an "Our Gang" two-reeler minus the comedy: the doc has a young son who becomes involved with a gang of kids and has a pet dog which ultimately becomes a participant in dad's experiment. Footage in here was taken straight from an actual medical procedure trying to revive a dog, spliced in to make it appear part of the movie! * out of ****