Black Friday 1940 Screenplay by Curt Siodmak and Eric Taylor, directed by Arthur Lubin. Lubin would later direct all 131 episodes of Mister Ed. Siodmak would return to this type of story a couple more times in his career with the novels Donovan's Brain in 1942 and Hauser's Memory in 1968. It's the fourth film in Volume 1 of the Universal Horror Collection, there are 6 volumes in the Shout Factory Blu-ray series, each film having it's own separate disc. The films look nice and each movie has a few extras.
Boris Karloff is a doctor who's on his way to the electric chair. He tells his story to a reporter before they flip the switch. Boris's professor friend is killed in a car accident, the driver is a gangster who's injured. Boris is the closest doctor and he takes advantage of the situation to preform an illegal operation. Boris uses a bit of the gangster's brain to revive the professor, the gangster dies and the professor lives.
Soon, it's a short movie, only 70 mins, the professor starts acting odd as the gangster's personality starts taking over his mind. The professor slips back and forth between personalities. Boris is worried about his friend but once he learns that the gangster has hidden a half a million smackaroonies he decides he needs that money for his research. When the gangster takes over he gets back into his life of crime and things go downhill pretty fast. Quite a few people die before Boris puts a bullet into him.
Originally Boris was to be the professor and Bela was going to be the doctor. That got changed when Boris wanted to play the doctor and Stanley Ridges was picked to play the professor. Lugosi was given the role of a gangster, he's hardly in the movie. Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi don't have any scenes with each other in the film. Constantine Nasr spends a fair bit of time talking about Lugosi's bad luck in getting work and Boris's good luck in getting work.
It's a fairly good movie but not as good as the other films in the set.
Audio Commentary With Filmmaker/Film Historian Constantine Nasr. Decent commentary with plenty of information on the changes in the studio and the script.
A Good Game: Karloff And Lugosi At Universal Part Four: Black Friday. A short featurette with comments from various film historians. Fairly good.
Inner Sanctum Mystery Radio Show: The Tell-Tale Heart Starring Boris Karloff. Didn't listen to this, I'd already heard it.
Theatrical Trailer and Still Gallery. Didn't bother with either.
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