I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

A Brilliant Conflict

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

After the phenomenal success of 1931's Dracula and Frankenstein, the names of Hunarian Bela Lugosi and Englishman Boris Karloff adorned nearly every poster Universal released in their horror range for the few years that followed. Despite Lugosi playing the central figure in many of these films, he always found his name overshadowed by that of Karloff, who was enjoying roles outside of the horror genre while Lugosi found himself typecast to his utter dismay. 1935's miniature The Raven (it runs at just an hour and 1 minute) is a prime example of this, despite Lugosi appearing in nearly every scene and delivering one of his best performances as a raving-mad doctor.When Jean Thatcher (Irene Ware) is seriously injured in a car crash, her father Judge (Samuel S. Hinds) and fiancé Jerry Halden (Lester Matthews) call upon the services of highly-skilled surgeon Dr. Richard Vollin (Lugosi). Vollin successfully nurses Jean back to health and becomes enamoured by her, though his advances are discouraged by her father. Vollin is approached by fugitive criminal Bateman (Karloff), who wants the doctor to perform plastic surgery on him to hide his identity. Still enraged at Judge for denying him the woman he loves, Vollin disfigures Bateman and promises to fix his face, but only if he assists in a plan to exact vengeance using various torture devices inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe.Like Roger Corman's 1963 film of the same name, The Raven bears little resemblance to the work of Poe. Lugosi's deranged doctor is a fan of his work, pondering whether Poe's work was a reflection of the man himself, and keeps the bust of a raven as his talisman. Lew Landers' The Raven instead is a rather suggestively grisly horror, with characters being trapped in famous Poe devices such as the shrinking room and the pendulum, and was so extreme for its day that it flopped at the box-office and led to a ban on horror in the UK. By today's standards, it's wonderfully daft and incredibly fun, never feeling rushed despite it's slim running time. Outside of Dracula, this may also be Lugosi's best performances, although it came just before Universal's change of management and the start of Lugosi's tragic mainstream career decline.

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.

Dr Richard Vollin a retired brain surgeon gets a phone call from Judge Thatcher whose daughter Jean has been seriously injured in a car crash . Despite being somewhat reluctant Vollin agrees to operate on her and saves her life . Later on Judge Thatcher returns to Vollin's house and informs that Jean despite being engaged has developed an emotional attachment to him and forbids any contact with Jean , much to Vollin's resentment . Later on a man appears at Vollin's house , an escaped convict called Edmond Bateman who wants the doctor to change his faceMany , many years ago BBC2 used to show a horror double bill in the Summer months and this was shown alongside another Lugosi/Karloff film THE BLACK CAT . It wasn't until the era of the internet that I found out THE RAVEN was the cause of so much controversy on its initial release , so much so that it effectively killed off the Universal horror film for several years . That said there's several factors at play . One is the Hays Code had been brought out the previous year limiting what could be shown on screen and the pre-code film by Tod Browning FREAKS was banned in Britain on its release . Certainly compared to the Browning film THE RAVEN is relatively tame but like FREAKS it too was banned in Britain and THE RAVEN's relatively poor box office in America meant that Universal Studio's the prime producer of horror movies thought the bottom had fallen out of the horror market so concentrated on making other movies The one aspect the film is very very good at it is its psychological undertones of horror . Watching it today it is slightly bizarre on how it remains restrained and yet it has a rather sadistic edge just waiting to surface . Dr Vollin is played superbly by Lugosi as a sadistic control freak with an obsession with both Edgar Allen Poe and torture devices , devices it transpires that he's all too ready to use when circumstances dictate it . Would a doctor in real life be capable of such cruelty ? Let's not forget in Germany the Nazis had risen to power and were making plans for the worst crimes in human history . The Nazi death camps were governed by medical sadists of which Josef Mengele was the most notorious and was not unique in his crimes . Just over ten years after THE RAVEN was released , a separate war crimes trial took place at Nuremburg called The Doctors Trial where those indicted were tried of conducting the most cruel medical experiments against fellow human beings Where the film fails quite badly is on a logical level . Vollin is held at gun point by Bateman and agrees to operate on him but Bateman never jumps to the conclusion that Vollin might contact the police while he's under the anaesthetic and one wonders why Vollin never thought of this . Of course as it transpires Bateman is needed to carry out some dirty work . Again the problem is how does Bateman fit in to this plan ? Surely if Vollin wants to torture and kill Judge Thatcher , Jean and her fiancé then he doesn't need Bateman's help to do this and what is Vollin going to do with the other party guests ? Kill them probably because they're witnesses but how likely is it that these seven guests have not told anyone where they'll be staying at that weekend ? Surely if they all disappear that means the police will know where to look for them ? The more you think about it the more the plan starts falling apart . Surely a simpler plan would have been Vollin blackmailing Bateman in to becoming a hit man who goes to Jean's fiancés house to kill him and one wonders why Vollin didn't do this but I guess that means we wouldn't have had a story in that case As I said this was made just after the Hays Code was introduced and its interesting in how the cinematic morals of the time are played out on screen . If you're about to get married this means you're still not allowed to have sex , you have to stay in separate rooms , get chaperoned by a parent and even if you are married you have to sleep in different beds . The code also stipulates that anyone doing anything bad has to be made to suffer the penalty for their crimes which means the body count of the entire film is rather low at two Despite being a very flawed horror film THE RAVEN is a very enjoyable one too . You have to meet it on its own terms and constantly remind yourself of the context of when it was made but the film is carried by its two stars . It's also a film dealing with psychological obsessions and it's here the story works very well indeed