Boris Karloff plays a Nutty Professor to Peter Lorre's nutty.. Well everything.
He's a Salesman, a scientist, banker, a money loaner. A person who can get you married (I don't know what those are called). The local sheriff and probably a bunch of other stuff too.
There's this old estate house to be sold to somebody so the Professor can pay off his loan to continue his experiments.
Luckily for him this kind of nutty girl decides to buy the place, thinking that she can turn this Antiquated living space into a tourist attraction / Hotel.
Right as she signs the cheque her ex-husband comes through the door claiming that he was looking all over this country (or possibly just the state) for her.
And begging that she stops wasting her money on antique furniture, old clothing or in this case; A big old home that she really shouldn't be buying.
But it's too late.
The house has been bought, they're stuck with the place and this guy who really has no business being here decides to stick around for the benefit of his ex-wife.
And I kept thinking there was going to be some sort of rekindled love or possibly a story about a man trying to deal with his troubled ex-wife and weighing the consequences of wasting his time and effort on somebody who he shouldn't have a relationship with anymore.
But the film doesn't go down any path like that. Instead these two characters become reduced to Side characters. Almost forgotten for the rest of the of the film.
Instead we have Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre as our main characters.
Which isn't a bad thing. The two of them work really well with each other playing these two odd but very different people. Who get entangled in experiment to create some sort of superman being as to fight the fascists over in Italy and Germany.
or at least that's what the Professor's view is.
It's made pretty clear that Peters character is just going to try and make as much money off of this endeavour as possible.
Forgetting for a moment that the experiment has never really worked and that there are several dead bodies in the basement that he should probably do something about giving that he's the local sheriff.
Or at least that's what the Professor's view is.
It's made pretty clear that Peters character is just going to try and make as much money off of this endeavour as possible.
Forgetting for a moment that the experiment has never really worked and that there are several dead bodies in the basement that he should probably do something about giving that he's the local sheriff.
And once again I thought there'd be a story here about them kidnapping people and creating some sort of Boogeyman like what's in the title of the movie.
But like everything else it's kind of forgotten about and we just keep introducing new weird little side stories.
There's a kind of murder mystery story where people are dying by another person's hands. Which gets the police force involved but also tangled up with the military because of they supposedly fraudulent call.
Then there's this crazy Italian man who escaped from a US military prison and now plans to blow up a munitions factory. He wants to keep everybody in the house as a prisoner until he can achieve his goal.
And finally you have all the other caretakers of the home running around doing their own weird little thing.
If the whole movie was chaotic from the start it might have turned out better.
Just having this wacky adventure of a thousand people doing a thousand different things.
But unfortunately it only seems to happen the last 20 minutes and he become confused by this movie which you thought was about two or three other stories but now involves a bunch of other crap.
All in all it just ends up being kind of confused and weird. With everything kind of working out but only out of ridiculous convenience.
That's not to say that it's a bad movie. It's got a couple of fun comedic moments and if you just want to watch nutty people doing nuttie things inside of a possibly haunted house then you'll definitely get your fix.
But if you're looking for a story about a man resurrecting some sort of Boogeyman to be his new Frankenstein monster then you'll want to look somewhere else. Because you don't get any monsters here.
The poster like many is very misleading. As stated before there is no actual Boogeyman.
Just look at Peter Lorre over there.
I know that's supposed to be his character in the top Corner because he has the sheriff star.
But he doesn't look anything like the guy.
Oh also there's this baby Siamese cat in the film that Peter Lorre just keeps it with him everywhere he goes. And it's the most adorable thing.
It's like putting a monkey in your movie it just improves it regardless of what it is.
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