Thanks for the memories!

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This early shocker isn't in fact an adaptation of Poe's poem, but instead a story of a mad doctor who keeps all manner of torture devices hidden in his basement (The Pit and the Pendulum figures predominantly) and fancies himself as the main character in The Raven. What could have been yet another routine thriller turns into a fun and fantastically entertaining little horror movie thanks to the pairing of Karloff and Lugosi. While Karloff plays it fairly subtle and low-key as a villain whose face is disfigured, Lugosi goes over the top in an extreme way as the totally mad surgeon who says "yes, I enjoy torture!".At the beginning of the film Lugosi is hailed as a hero for saving a girl from paralysis, and seems to be pleasant enough. By the end he has descended into a cackling lunatic hell-bent on a twisted form of revenge and putting innocent victims into old-fashioned torture devices - a young couple are placed in a steel room in which the walls are slowly moving inwards, a man is strapped to a slab while a swinging blade descends upon him. Lugosi plays it for all he's got, just listen to his demented and evil laughter as he thwarts Karloff's plans for a new life. And Lugosi gets to read The Raven out loud in his own inimitable thick-accented tones, something you won't find anywhere else.Karloff plays his potentially villainous role as a sympathetic one, torn between saving himself and saving the life of an innocent girl. He's a servant in this film, low-key and graciously allows Lugosi to hog the limelight as the chief villain. Still, once again Karloff gets to wear some effective make up, this time half of his face is paralysed, complete with dead eye and curved mouth. It's certainly horrific and notable. The rest of the cast merely stand around to provide some unwelcome comic relief or to act stupidly in dangerous situations - frankly, I couldn't give a damn about them. The film is at it's best when Lugosi is playing classical music on his piano or exulting in his own fiendish schemes.While THE RAVEN is not quite as gripping or complex as the year's other Karloff/Lugosi pairing THE BLACK CAT, it still remains a fine, old-fashioned chiller, and Lugosi has never been better when he hams it up here. The extremely short running time (the film clocks in at just over an hour) also means that it's never boring. For nostalgists, and Karloff and Lugosi fans, this is one to watch.

This wonderful teaming of horror greats Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi is an incredible amount of fun. The stars play off each other beautifully, and are well supported by a strong group of actors. Director Lew Landers gives the story great pacing and a gleefully macabre flair. The scenario comes complete with torture devices, secret chambers, rooms that elevate, and some pretty good makeup for Karloff.Lugosi plays Richard Vollin, an esteemed surgeon with an Edgar Allan Poe obsession. When lovely young Jean Thatcher (Irene Ware) gets into a bad car accident, he agrees to save her life, albeit very reluctantly. The bad doctor soon develops another fixation, this time on Jean. When her father, a judge (Samuel S. Hinds), warns Vollin to stay away from her, Vollin goes mad. He shanghais escaped criminal Edmond Bateman (Karloff) and disfigures him, promising to restore Batemans' face only if he will help Vollin with his evil schemes.This is very much essential viewing for lovers of Karloff and Lugosi. Karloff is good as always, playing a basically sympathetic character despite his past. Ware and Hinds are both fine, as are Lester Matthews, Spencer Charters, Inez Courtney, Ian Wolfe, and Maidel Turner. But this is pretty much Lugosis' show. He gets a chance to really tear into the scenery, and looks like he's having a whale of a time. Vollins' Poe obsession also allows him to do some recitals of lines from the Poe poem.There's some potentially strong stuff here for some viewers, but "The Raven" has lots of energy and clocks in at just over 61 minutes. The second half is the best part.Eight out of 10.

The best 1930s pairing of horror legends Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. And notice that I put Lugosi's name first--as watching the film, I can't help but wonder why Universal put Karloff's name ahead of Bela on the credits and billing of this particular movie, considering how Lugosi dominates the film.In fact, I think it's 16 minutes into the movie before Boris makes his first appearance. But who knows--maybe in the wake of "Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein", some higher-up at Universal thought Karloff's name had a little more cache at the box office.In any event, this is a stellar movie, centering around Lugosi's infatuation with a young girl whose life he saved doing a serious operation & since he can't have the object of his desire--or in this case, his torture--he decides to try and tear torture out of himself by murder.If you like the old Universal horror classics, then "The Raven" is must see viewing.9 stars

"The Raven" sees horror legends Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, who had both achieved star-status four years earlier as Dracula and Frankenstein's monster respectively, sharing a billing for the second time after the previous year's classic "The Black Cat". However, while on paper "The Raven" and "The Black Cat" share key similarities (both star Lugosi and Karloff, both are inspired by the morbid works of American writer Edgar Allen Poe, and both films even share a similar trapped-in-house-of-death plot) the latter feature has none of the eccentricities, suspense, or depth which characterized the earlier film and, as a result, I found "The Raven" uninspired, uninspiring, and really un-scary.The final part of a trilogy of (really loosely) Poe-based films, beginning with "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1932), "The Raven" has Lugosi playing Dr. Richard Vollin, a brilliant ex-surgeon who is lured out of his research to save the life of beautiful dancer Jean (Irene Ware) who he then falls madly in love with. However, she is already engaged and his desire turns to obsession and then to insanity as he hatches a plan involving Bateman (Karloff), a wanted criminal that literally knocks at Vollin's door who he facially disfigures and enlists to help him deal with those that got in the way of his love for Jean with the help of a dungeon full of Poe-inspired torture devices.The film's main problem is the total lack of suspense which, despite its 60 minute run time, seems to drag. I put this down to the characterizations which have the charismatic Vollin dominating the broadly ineffectual and pitiable Bateman (harking back to Karloff's role in Whale's "The Old, Dark, House" (1932)) in contrast to "The Black Cat" where the characters were equally matched in a bitter game of death. In addition, Lugosi's performance starts off as creepy and menacing in the Dracula mould but as the film goes on his hysterical madman's laughter is exaggerated and campy like Kenneth Williams in horror-spoof "Carry on Screaming". Add to this the dull sets (apart from the mirror room reveal scene) which, again, seem woefully dull compared to the cold, futurist masterpiece set design of "The Black Cat", and we have a movie struggling to keep its head above water.Maybe it's unfair to keep referring to "The Black Cat" in a review of "The Raven", but I think that, considering all the elements that the films share, the comparison is unavoidable. And as a result, with the first film being a classic, it was always going to be hard to come out from its shadow. Saying this, I still think that even without the comparisons to "The Black Cat" running through my head the whole film, "The Raven" still wouldn't quite cut it.