Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

gavin6942 Kindly soup kitchen operator and professor of criminology Bela Lugosi uses his soup kitchen as a front for a criminal gang who commit a series of daring robberies and murders.The biggest problem with this film, at least for me, is that it has fallen into public domain and nobody has come along to clean it up. I understand the process might be costly, and it would be a labor of love because this film will never be a big seller. But that is what it needs. The acting is solid, the plot is strong... it just looks like a 1920s rather than 1940s film, and that is a travesty.Bela Lugosi made some stinkers in his day, but this is not one of them. Although I only gave the film an "average" score, I could bump it up a bit if the film was properly restored to full glory. Have a film historian or Lugosi biographer do a commentary track on top of it, and you would have a decent disc. Just saying.

John W Chance Known as a Monogram quickie, the 'Jeckyll and Hyde' type premise, the story and cast had the potential for a very rich and interesting film-- if it had been given a bigger budget and a more deeply elaborated script. At barely more than 60 minutes we have an extremely fast paced movie with many of our favorite "B" movie icons -- Bela Lugosi, Tom Neal, Dave O'Brien, Wanda McKay, John Archer and Wheeler Oakman.Bela, whose English delivery is now excellent and natural, with that great hint of a Hungarian accent, plays Frederick Brenner, a professor of criminology by day and Karl Wagner, the philanthropic director of "The Friendly Mission," a soup kitchen and dormitory in New York's Bowery by night. He has a third identity as the head of a criminal ring of thieves and bank robbers.His modus operandi is to double cross and kill his henchmen (who frequently include Mission transients) after they have served his villainous purposes, and then to have a 'rum dumb' caretaker doctor bury them in the Mission's basement. Unbeknownst to him, the doctor has devised a way to revive the dead and keep them 'alive' as zombies, hidden below the basement in a cellar.The movie shows us scenes of his triple life including blissful tender moments at home with his wife; teaching about paranoid schizophrenics in his college class; doling out soup to Bowery bum denizens; and coldly throwing one of his henchmen off a roof as he stages a jewelry store robbery. In such a rapidly paced film, the inner tensions of his schizophrenic nature are barely touched on, except in a brief moment where he moans in his sleep experiencing nightmares. Oh what this film could have been if given the full "A" treatment! Here we're not going to get anything like Peter Lorre's anguished plea for tolerance and understanding regarding his own compulsive nature that he cannot control as in the great German film 'M' (1931).Wanda McKay, who plays Wagner's perky nurse assistant Judy Malvern, is betrothed to the rich playboy John Archer, who is, coincidentally, one of Professor Brenner's students, Richard Dennison. You can guess that Brenner/Wagner's double life is going to start to unravel. In this case, Dennison wanders into the Mission while doing research on how the indigent live, and meets Brenner as 'Wagner.' Tom Neal, meanwhile, puts in another cynical, tortured (and vicious) performance as a hired killer, used by Brenner / Wagner to rub out his henchmen, and Dennison as well. As a result of Dennsion's disappearance, the police finally discover Brenner's dual nature and raid the Mission. Seeking his own revenge, the caretaker doctor leads Brenner down to the cellar to the awaiting zombies ("You can escape this way...") In the final scene, Dennison is magically returned to normalcy where he joins Judy in his bedroom to live happily ever after.Wanda McKay is also in 'Voodoo Man' (1944) with Bela, and many other Poverty Row 'features' as well as the odd Universal serial 'Raiders of Ghost City' (1944). John Archer, besides starring in the great 'King of the Zombies' (1941) with Mantan Moreland, is in 'Destination Moon' (1950) and many 50s-60s TV shows including 'Perry Mason' and 'Bonanza'. Tom Neal plays the hero in the serial 'Jungle Girl' (1941), as well as in his classic noir film, 'Detour' (1945). Dave O'Brien, who had the most successful career, mostly as a cowboy star, plays the cop who tracks down Brenner. He's most famous as the 'hop-head' in 'Tell Your Children' (1936) which we all know and love as "Reefer Madness'. Wheeler Oakman, with over 280 film and TV credits as a villain, plays one of Brenner's henchmen. He was in countless serials and westerns, and played Tarnak in 'Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars' (1938).Wow! All these great familiar faces in one fast paced, weird little movie that sadly, was too cheaply made. Oh, what it could have been! Therefore, sadly, I can only give it a four and half.

sol (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!

newportbosco One of the best of Bela's Monograms, mostly due to it's total craziness. This is the 5th of Bela's nine Mongrams' and by the looks of it, the plot was SO twisted the censors were just about ready to toss up there hands in incomprehension..and ignored stuff they might have nailed in years past. How else do we account for Bela's angry line about cats 'DESECRATING' his graves?? (Yeah, that's the word he uses. Not 'digging in'. It might be the first time a movie character complained about cats using graves as a litter box..) And it's not the only eyebrow raising thing...there is a sick creepy vibe that runs through this thing..really neat, actually. The plot has Bela doing multiple roles and defies logic or description. He kills folks in lots of scams and buries them in the basement in clearly marked graves with CROSSES no less...and has a drug addicted ex doctor side kick who has created zombies in the sub basement..(got that??) He also has the ability to work all night while telling his doting wife he is really writing, and then turn around and go back to run a soup kitchen or class room...Maybe the speed he would HAVE to take to DO such feats has fried his mind... But the cast and crew...this is one from your dreams. Fox, and Schnitzer directed and wrote CORPSE VANISHES from last time. Vince Barnett, also from CORPSE, is along for the ride. Archer made KING OF THE ZOMBIES..a flick that Bela was SUPPOSED to have made and SHOULD HAVE...Leading lady Wanda MacKay came back for VOODOO MAN, and keep your eye out for Ralph Littlefield...he's the friendly guy playing checkers and graduates next time to a pivotal role in THE APE MAN. You also get Tom Neal from DETOUR and Dave ("Play it FASTER!!") OBrien from REEFER MADNESS. It's one of the best Poverty Row casts ever assembled. And Bela is clearly DIGGING it...he gets KICKS out of double crossing folks and shooting them in cold blood, getting them pushed off roofs...the man is positively GLEEFULL. Now, of course, you HAVE to have the ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL ending so Archer SOMEHOW comes back and marries MacKay, but you won't forget those graves...or the cat