(1942)
Dir - Wallace Fox
Overall: WOOF
Another collaboration of several between Bela Lugosi and Monogram Pictures, The Corpse Vanishes was bad enough to be featured on the first season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and that is basically where it belongs. Loaded with one of the most asinine of scripts, nothing in the film remotely works. At only sixty-three minutes, it is still staggeringly boring and every detail to the premise would make any elementary school student raise their hands with plenty of questions. A doctor elaborately kidnaps only brides on their wedding day by sending them an anonymous orchid that of course they all wear, drop comatose at the alter wearing, get assumed to be dead, then after getting loaded in an ambulance, all end up easily stolen by Lugosi's dim-witted assistants. This is all to extract neck cells or something from all of the girls to inject in his aging wife to keep her young. Along the way, they sleep in coffins, Lugosi murders one of his servant's sons and she just puts up with it, they try to convince another woman that she dreamed everything, Lugosi's a hypnotist as well presumably, two characters who barely know each other get married, and then some asshole at the very end also faints from smelling an orchid because it is supposed to be cute and funny.
(1943)
Dir - Lew Landers
Overall: GOOD
Columbia Pictures scored Bela Lugosi for one last serious take at playing a distinguished vampire in the actor's final top-billed, major Hollywood film The Return of the Vampire. Lugosi is certainly older looking here, but he still effortlessly portrays the undead Armand Tesla as close as can be expected to his iconic Count Dracula performance and it is very fitting to see him in such comfortable surroundings where he can easily excel. Thankfully, the budget and production values for Vampire mostly complement the proceedings. There is plenty of foggy cemeteries and some comic relief deliberately reminiscent of Universal's established classic monster movies and the script is generic yet ambitious enough, incorporating World War I and II bombings for one. Matt Willis' werewolf makeup is well-done and it is an interesting enough tweak on the mythos to have him both speak and fill in as Reinfield, being Lugosi's unwilling slave. Seeing Lugosi's face melt near the end is also a newer, cinematic addition for the times. All of these details aside though, the movie is a fitting if bittersweet send-off to the actor being involved in the type of productions he better deserved and it is one of the more above average vampire films of horror's golden era.
(1943)
Dir - William Beaudine
Overall: MEH
Sadly, The Ape Man is very typical of the type of overly camp-heavy tripe that Bela Lugosi would get stuck with once he was forever typecast as that horror movie guy with a funny accent. Directed by prolific hack William Beaudine, (who helmed upwards of nearly two-hundred such silly, no budget affairs throughout his career), The Ape Man has Lugosi doing his natural best, but even he cannot help but to nearly make a fool of himself with the material. As the title character, he does manage to keep his body language appropriately in check and it is admirable that even in such a ludicrous affair as this, he still always took it seriously. Yet why his character seems generally pleased to be murdering people to become human again, (long, stupid story), is one of the many ridiculous details to the whole movie. The script is asinine, the pacing tedious, the direction uninspired, the music obnoxious, and the performances are lackluster and just barely competent. This is not even taking into account the actor stuck in an ape costume the entire film who is impossible not to laugh at. As cruddy as the movie is, it is a quick one and easily enjoyable in a "laugh at it" capacity, but it is also rather sad to see the mighty Lugosi simply collecting a paycheck with it.
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