THE CORPSE VANISHES (1942)

 "IT'S SENSATIONAL!  ANOTHER KIDNAPPING OF A DEAD BRIDE!  WHAT A STORY!"

How many times have I seen this movie?  Zillions.  I think I first saw clips from it in that Good Times VHS tape of Zacherley's HORRIBLE HORROR back in the mid-1980's.  I found that video at K-Mart.  I'm also pretty sure I found the actual full movie videotape at K-Mart as well -- in one of those bargain VHS dump bins.  So I've been watching this movie ever since the mid-80's and I'm just now watching it again.  This time it's in the purdy metallic green steelbook from Pop Flix called HEROES OF HORROR COLLECTION. 

My doddy Cheeks got this dinged-up for 3 bucks.  I had all the movies in it (as well as THE VEIL TV show) many times over but, as I said, the metallic green steelbook is purdy so I had to have it.  And mine's NOT damaged, thank you very much.  Yes, I paid full price for it and do I regret it for a single second????  No sir!  But enough about the purdy green steelbook.  Among the 4 DVDs of Bela and Boris poverty row movies (and Boris' aforementioned TV show THE VEIL) can be found THE CORPSE VANISHES.  Directed by Wallace Fox (the auteur that brought us the blah BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT and the better INNER SANCTUM movie PILLOW OF DEATH with Lon Chaney Jr., THE CORPSE VANISHES is probably my favourite Wallace Fox film - - if there IS such a thing.  The wonderful premise is that brides standing at the altar drop dead at the moment they get married.  Then someone masquarading as the ambulance service steals the bodies.  I wonder who could be behind this all?!?!?  Yep, it's our old friend Bela as Dr. Lorenz.  But he's a sympathetic nutcase in this one.  His poor wife  Countess Lorenz (the magnificent Elizabeth Russell) can only be kept alive by the juice from dead brides' glands.  Sounds like a typical Saturday night for Bela.   Our intrepid Lois Land reporter discovers that each dead bride had an orchid corsage delivered right before they died.  Dr. Lorenz is knocking out the brides so he can spirit them away back to his secluded house of horrors and extract all the bride gland juice he needs to make a smoothie for his wife.  Elizabeth Russell really sells the intense pain she is in before Bela administers his antidote.  

Endlessly entertaining, this just-over-60-minutes poverty row quickie has always been a fun watch as far as I'm concerned.  There's also a string of awesome character actors who have long been favourites of mine due to their constant appearances in poverty row quickies like this.  There's Bela, of course, and Elizabeth Russell who was so memorable in every movie in which she appeared such as CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, THE SEVENTH VICTIM, CAT PEOPLE, BEDLAM, the INNER SANCTUM film WEIRD WOMAN and HITLER'S MADMAN.  Luana Walters (from the terrific serial DRUMS OF FU MANCHU as well as co-starring with Bela in the serial SHADOW OF CHINATOWN) plays go-get'um reporter Patricia Hunter; whose quote at the top of this post shows her being thrilled each time a bride croaks because it's worth a story.  Tristram Coffin is another fave -- not only for his very name but also for his many appearances in faves like the Frankie Darro/Mantan Moreland team-ups IRISH LUCK, UP IN THE AIR,  CHASING TROUBLE and ON THE SPOT, THE BARON OF ARIZONA with Vinnie, Boris Karloff's Mr. Wong movies THE FATAL HOUR and DOOMED TO DIE, Mantan Moreland's COSMO JONES, CRIME SMASHER, the SPY SMASHER serial and THE BRUTE MAN with Rondo Hatton. 

 The odd Minerva Urecal appeared in the wonderful MURDER BY INVITATION, GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE and THE APE MAN with Bela, THE APE with Boris, THE LIVING GHOST and a few Charlie Chan and The Whistler flicks.  Good ole Angelo Rossitto was, of course, a munchkin in THE WIZARD OF OZ but more importantly appeared with Bela in SCARED TO DEATH and SPOOKS RUN WILD, with Boris in MR. WONG IN CHINATOWN and DOOMED TO DIE, with Vinnie in THE BARON OF ARIZONA, FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM and CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM EATER, Tod Browning's FREAKS, Al Adamson's BRAIN OF BLOOD and DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN with Lon Chaney Jr.,, MESA OF LOST WOMEN as Jackie Coogan's lab assistant, and Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES.  Pug-nosed pugilist Frank Moran was also in THE LIVING GHOST as well as GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE and RETURN OF THE APE MAN with Bela and the Jack Benny & Fred Allen vehicle LOVE THY NEIGHBOR.  Then there's Joan Barclay who appeared with Bela in BLACK DRAGONS and SHADOW OF CHINATOWN, the Val Lewton produced THE SEVENTH VICTIM, and as the leading lady in one of my favourite serials BLAKE OF SCOTLAND YARD with Ralph Byrd.   I go into such Cv detail because I love these character actors and their movies and they should be shouted out more than they are. 

But back to Bela and his bride-corpse business.  This movie has so many unintentionally (I think) funny moments that you have to love it.  I mean, there's that iconic shot of Bela nearly swallowed up by the cloth lining inside a coffin with his eyes bugging out.   The cops are stopping all suspicious cars and, when they stop Bela's car THIS is how he chooses to look inconspicuous!!!  

There's the mother who tells her soon-to-be married daughter moments before the wedding:  "Do you feel all right, dear?" followed by her daughter's line:  "You should forget all that silly nonsense about those brides dropping dead!".  At one point, Luana Walters' reporter sees a corpse in Dr. Lorenz's sub-basement and faints.  The almighty crash you hear on the soundtrack as she hits the floor is hilarious; makes her sound like she weighs 200 pounds.  I think you can even hear the set shake.  Later the next morning, Tristram Coffin's Dr. Foster knocks on Ms. Hunter's guest room door and she answers in her dressing gown.  "Oh, I'm sorry," says Dr. Foster, "I thought you were up." "Up?!?!?" she says ,  "I've been up all night with dead people!".  This is the movie that first springs to mind whenever I think of Bela Lugosi's poverty row horror movies and it's one of the most fun.