The Black Castle 1952 Story and Screenplay by Jerry Sackheim, directed by Nathan H Juran. The first film in the Universal Horror Collection Volume 6. Four films on 4 Blu-rays with commentaries and a few random extras.
Jerry's film before this one was The Strange Door, another odd and entertaining film. Can't say I recognize any of his previous dozen films and I don't think I've seen much of the TV he wrote in the 50s.
The Black Castle was Nathan's first film as a director, he'd been an art director on a couple of films in the 40s. He won an Oscar for How Green Was My Valley back in 1942 and a nomination for Razor's Edge in 1946. I know I haven't seen the latter but not sure on the former. I might have seen it on TV when I was a teen.
Nathan didn't win any Oscars for his film direction but he won the hearts and minds of young SF and Horror fans from the mid 50s on. In 1957 he directed The Deadly Mantis, 20 Million Miles To Earth and The Brain From Planet Arous. In 1958 he followed that with The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad and Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman. In the 60s there was Jack The Giant Killer and First Men On The Moon. There's some entertaining films there. I wish I had seen more of his crime and western films.
That's Stephen McNally, Richard Green, Rita Corday and Nancy Valentine. Richard plays Sir Ronald Burton, he's investigating the disappearance of his friends. They'd been to see Count von Bruno, played by Stephen, and disappeared. The Count has a grudge against the British after they sent African natives to attack him. He's killed Sir Ronald's pals and plans to put an end to Ronald's life.
Rita plays the Count's wife Countess Elga von Bruno and Sir Ronald plans to take her with him when he escapes the Count's clutches. John Hoyt and Michael Pate play the Count's pals and they are a scummy lot. No one will miss them when they wind up dead. Boris Karloff plays Dr Meissen, Lon Chaney Jr plays Gargon, the Count's servant.
There's plenty of scheming and running about with occasional fights and murders. I first saw the film in 2015 as part of a DVD set of Boris Karloff films. I thought it was good enough to upgrade to Blu-ray. The Shout Factory transfer is fine and there's a good commentary by Tom Weaver and a still gallery.
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