The Devil Commands
| The Devil Commands | |
|---|---|
William Sloane | |
| Starring | Boris Karloff |
| Cinematography | Allen G. Siegler |
| Edited by | Al Clark |
Production company | Columbia Pictures |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 65 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Devil Commands is a 1941 American
Plot
Dr. Julian Blair is engaged in unconventional research on human brain waves when his wife Helen is tragically killed in an auto accident. The grief-stricken scientist becomes obsessed with redirecting his work into making contact with the dead and is not deterred by dire warnings from his daughter Anne, his research assistant Richard, or his colleagues that he is delving into forbidden areas of knowledge. He moves his laboratory to an isolated New England mansion where he continues to try to reach out to his dead wife. He is aided in his experiments by his mentally-challenged servant Karl and abetted by the obsessive Mrs. Walters, a phony medium, who believes in his work and seems to exert a sinister influence over him. When their overly curious housekeeper discovers the truth about their experiments, her death brings the local sheriff in to investigate the strange goings on.
Cast
- Boris Karloff as Dr. Julian Blair
- Richard Fiske as Dr. Richard Sayles
- Amanda Duff as Anne Blair
- Anne Revere as Mrs. Walters
- Ralph Penney as Karl
- Dorothy Adams as Mrs. Marcy
- Walter Baldwin as Seth Marcy
- Kenneth MacDonald as Sheriff Ed Willis
- Shirley Warde as Helen Blair
Reception
From retrospective reviews, Tony Rayns reviewed the film in
See also
Notes
- All Movie Guide. Archived from the originalon November 4, 2012. Retrieved May 1, 2011.
- ^ Young 2000, p. 154.
- ^ Stephen Jacobs, Boris Karloff: More Than a Monster, Tomahawk Press 2011 p 265
- ^ Rayns 2021.
References
- Rayns, Tony (June 2021). "Karloff at Columbia". Sight & Sound. Vol. 31, no. 5. p. 87.
- Young, R. G. (2000). The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film: Ali Baba to Zombies. ISBN 1-55783-269-2.
External links
- The Devil Commands at IMDb
- The Devil Commands at AllMovie
- The Devil Commands at the TCM Movie Database
