Review #898: 'The Raven' (1935)

After the phenomenal success of 1931's Dracula and Frankenstein, the names of Hungarian 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.


Directed by: Lew Landers
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lester Matthews, Irene Ware, Samuel S. Hinds
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie