I put The Black Castle on my Netflix queue because it said Boris Karloff was in the movie. He is, though not a lot. It's a 1952 movie with Richard Greene in the lead role. Boris plays the evil Count's doctor. Stephen McNally plays Count von Bruno and Rita Corday, using the name Paula Corday, is the Count's wife Elga. She'd been forced into the marriage by the evil man and she longs to leave him but he's the type of guy who takes things and kills them if they put up a fight. Lon Chaney is the weird manservant Gargon, he shambles around and doesn't say much.
There's Michael Pate, the Count's henchman, on the left. If you watch old movies, you've probably seen him a lot. Continuing right we have The Count, Boris and Richard in the Count's fine castle. Two of Richard's pals had disappeared while visiting the Count. Richard along with these 2 men had been involved in a rout of the Count when he was in Africa. The Count has vowed vengeance and he's the prick to carry it out. The Count does not know Richard and hasn't ever seen him. Using that knowledge Richard uses another name to get close to the Count so he can investigate and strike first if he can. It almost works but things conspire and he gets caught.
On top of that Richard and the Countess have fallen in love and he wants to take her away from there. Von Bruno isn't much into that, he's got other deadly plans in mind. When they finally find themselves in the dungeon waiting sure torture and death Boris offers them a drug that will simulate death. He'll retrieve them from their coffins when they wake up. Of course that goes wrong and we have people about to be buried alive. How will Richard get out of that and save his new found love? I know but I'm not telling.
It's a first feature for director Nathan H Juran who would go onto make some well known SF and Fantasy films. You might have seen The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman, The First Men In The Moon, The Brian From Planet Arous or 20 Million Miles To Earth. He also directed episodes of Daniel Boone, Land Of The Giants, Lost In Space, The Time Tunnel and Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. It's story and screenplay are by Jerry Sackheim.
I enjoyed The Black Castle quite a bit and was glad to have seen it. There's a fairly nice copy on YouTube that has Greek subs, slightly annoying but totally watchable.
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