Ominous October: The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942)

It's spooky season again. Join us for spine chillers from yesteryear this month.

MICHAEL SCHLESINGER:  Well, after my debut appearance here, there was an avalanche of letter—specifically from a Mrs. Trellis of North Wales, who wants to know why they don’t make Charlie Chaplin movies anymore. Nonetheless, Samantha took this as a positive sign, so she’s decided to take the week off and now Rodney’s stuck with me.

And since ‘tis the season, I requested to discuss one of my all-time favorite B-pictures, one I’ve loved since I was a child, The Boogie Man Will Get You. And since Sony wouldn’t let me do a DVD commentary, even though I’d have done it for free, I figured this would be a good place to yak about it, especially as the backstory is arguably more fascinating than the film itself.

RODNEY BOWCOCK:  If there’s one thing that those of us at the Picture Show are known for, it’s being harbingers of good taste.  So while Sony may have passed on your commentary, we’re more than happy to have it here.

MS:  Thank you. Our tale begins in 1939, when Karloff signs a non-exclusive, five-picture deal with Columbia, and over the next 18 months or so he cranks out four quite similar movies known as the “Mad Scientist” cycle, in which he usually plays someone trying to better humanity—and of course things go horribly wrong. He’d already trod this path before in the likes of The Invisible Ray and (as the victim) The Walking Dead, so he wasn’t being especially taxed, acting-wise.

RB:  You know, people in our circles tend to talk about “Poor Bela” and how he chose such lousy roles, and while Karloff didn’t quite get to that level, he was slumming around the Monogram backlot during this time making those dreary Mr. Wong films in between making these films at Columbia.  All things considered, you can’t really blame him for jumping at the chance to switch coasts for awhile.

MS:  Of course. But he also had an advantage over Bela in being a native English speaker. Anyway, Then, in 1941, he left for New York to star on Broadway in Arsenic and Old Lace, playing a serial killer who looks like Boris Karloff—a joke that was doubly funny because duh. It became a massive hit, and Frank Capra, about to enter the service and needing something he could film quickly to keep the family fed, snapped up the rights. Josephine Hull, Jean Adair and John Alexander came west to be in the film, but in a move that was tragic for posterity, Karloff stayed with the show, partly because he was getting a piece of the box office (many years later he noted it was the most money he ever made in his entire life) but also as it was feared it might close without him. A heavily made-up Raymond Massey took over for the movie.

Now it was standard in those days for a “hit” to run one year and then tour the country (not always with the Broadway cast, though), so film rights usually came with the condition that a movie couldn’t be released until the show closed. But occasionally, a show did run longer, and this was the case with Arsenic. Even after Karloff left after 18 months—replaced by no less than Erich von Stroheim!—it kept on running, and Warners had to sit on the film for what turned out to be over three years!

RB:  Von Stroheim was already seasoned in the role as he spent a fair part of 1941 touring in a roadshow production of the play.  When he returned to Broadway to take over for Karloff, he was replaced by Bela Lugosi, fresh of a short lived attempt to portray Dracula on stage (this is fresh in my mind because I just heard a Fred Allen show this morning, where Bela was the guest as he was in New York preparing for the production, but I digress).  There were also a couple of TV adaptations starring Karloff in 1955 and 1962 respectively.  To my knowledge, these are both rarer than hen’s teeth.

MS:  We’re lucky the amount of live ‘50s TV that survives is as high as it is! Meanwhile, Karloff’s returned to L.A., still owing Columbia one more picture, and Harry Cohn, of whom it was said, “He’s no schmuck,” saw an opening: he’d do his own knock-off of Arsenic—with the real Boris. And then doubled down by adding Peter Lorre (who played sidekick Dr. Einstein in the film) to the cast. The Mad Scientist template was dusted off and a quick comedic rewrite later—boom, Boogie Man was before the cameras and arrived in theatres two full years before Arsenic did. It ran its course and was then forgotten, like most Bs, until it arrived on TV some 15 years later as part of the “Shock Theatre” packages.

RB:  The film was helmed by Lew Landers, who I find to be a good director.  Every studio needed at least one director that could churn them out fast and cheap, and Landers fit the bill at Columbia.  I immediately know him as the director of a couple of Boston Blackie movies and one of those super-stylish Whistler movies (although I’d have sworn he did more, but he didn’t).  Scroll through his filmography and you’ll find a plethora of the kinds of movies that we like around here. And you’ll also find that way too few of them are readily available to see.  By the way, what’s this movie about, anyway?

MS:  So here’s the plot: Boris is still a mad scientist, albeit a kindly one, working out of his ancestral New England home, a one-time tavern, luring traveling salesmen into his basement with the intent of turning them into supermen who’ll help win the war for the Allies. Of course, something always goes wrong and the cellar is filling up with “martyrs.” He’s also far behind in his mortgage payments to Lorre, who seems to be a one-man government (“Doesn’t anyone else do anything in Jenksville?” “Oh, they vote once a year.”). Salvation arrives in the form of (Miss) Jeff Donnell, who intends to turn the joint into a tourist trap—in the middle of a war!—quickly followed by her ex-husband (a pre-Jolson Story Larry Parks), who’s been drafted, but is going to hang around long enough to prevent her from making a terrible mistake. She buys the place anyway, and he has no choice but to stick around for as long as he can to help her from making things worse. And if that weren’t enough, Lorre discovers what Karloff’s been doing in the basement, and smelling a profit, deals himself in.

More people start showing up: the set designer from a ballet company who wants to study the décor (Don Beddoe), a powder-puff salesman (“Slapsy” Maxie Rosenbloom), a couple of cops (Frank Sully and James C. Morton) and eventually a fascist terrorist (Frank Puglia) with a backpack full of dynamite. And we mustn’t forget the other residents: housekeeper Maude Eburne, handyman George McKay and the ghost of the Last of the Mohicans. It’s incredibly busy for a 66-minute movie! Full credit to Lew Landers, one of the finest B-movie directors, who keeps all the plates spinning. He actually turned out twelve features in 1942, most of them pretty darn swell. He’d previously directed Karloff in The Raven (under his real name, Louis Friedlander), and the next year worked with Parks again in the astounding The Power of the Press, the only teaming of newspaper-movie titans Lee Tracy and writer Sam Fuller.

RB:  That’s a good one, that I saw thanks to that Sam Fuller boxset that came out, I guess a couple of decades ago now.

MS: Actually 15 years ago, but still, it’s been that long? It was my idea to add the three Bs that Sam wrote. I also wanted to throw in the six Iron Horse episodes he directed, but they drew the line at that. A shame.

RB: Your statistic about twelve films is a powerful one, as is one I picked up on.  In 1944, he only directed nine films, but one of those was a serial.  Pretty wild that in just a couple of short years he’d be at PRC.  But before that, he also directed Mark of the Vampire, which is probably one the best Dracula-but-not-Dracula movies.

MS:  One of the delights of Boogie Man is how deftly it spoofs conventions we know so well without straining to do so. It skips lightly along, subtly acknowledging the mockery without feeling the need for a sledgehammer. Karloff and Lorre were old hands at self-parody by now and are clearly having a ball—it’s been noted by some that of the many films and TV shows they made together, all of them were comedies. Lorre occasionally seems to be ad-libbing, especially with the ersatz Latin quotes, and at one point has apparently forgotten his line (“…which means, uh, what I wanted to say…”) before recovering; Landers evidently found it amusing enough not to do a quick pickup. Donnell never had the career she should have—she wasn’t pretty enough to be a leading lady but was too pretty to be a goon comedienne—but she always delivers, and was seldom better. Everyone else seems cast to type, from Rosenbloom’s big dumb lug (after taking a whiff of chloroform, he innocently asks, “Am I unconscious yet?”) to go-to Italian Puglia, whose cackling nutcase is zany enough to make you forget that a human bomb shouldn’t be a laughing matter. And then there’s Eburne, who was born to steal everything that wasn’t nailed down—apart from The Bat Whispers, this is arguably her best showcase. And Edwin Blum’s script wraps it all up with one of the most perfect curtain lines ever.

It’s an absolute delight, fun for kids and grown-ups alike—a little bit scary and a lot very funny. For a picture that was shot on standing sets and exteriors in 10-12 days, it’s a sterling example of the Golden Age factory working at peak professionalism. Five stars all the way.

RB:  I have to admit, that I don’t share the same enthusiasm for this picture as you do.  Oh, I like it, and I agree that it’s a good example of the genre.  In fact, I agree with pretty much your entire assessment of the film, but for some reason, it didn’t hit the sweet spot for me that it does you.  That said, it’s well directed, with a great cast and worth digging up a copy for a pleasant hour of wartime fun.  I just wish the disc had a commentary.  Three stars.

MS: Which averages out to four. All righty, then. Who wants pie?