Karloff At Columbia (Blu-ray)

Directed by R. William Neill, Nick Grindé, Edward Dmytryk, Lew Landers

Starring: Boris Karloff, Marian Marsh, Robert Allen, Thurston Hall, Katherine de Mille, Lorna Gray, Robert Wilcox, Roger Pryor, Don Beddoe, Jo Ann Sayers, Stanley Brown, John Dilson, Hal Taliaferro, Evelyn Keyes, Bruce Bennett, Edward Van Sloan, Ben Taggart, Richard Fiske, Amanda Duff, Anne Revere, Dorothy Adams, Peter Lorre, Maxie Rosenbloom, Larry Parks, Jeff Donnell
Contributors: Arthur Strawn, Henry Myers, Allen G. Siegler, Karl Brown, Benajmin Kline, Robert D. Andrews, Milton Gunzburg, Wallace MacDonald, Edwin Blum, Colbert Clark, Henry Freulich
Studio: Eureka Classics
Genre: Horror/Occult
Main Language: English
Region: Region B
Release Date: 14 Feb 2022
Originally Issued: 1942
No of Discs: 2
BBFC Cert: (PG) Parental Guidance.
Run Time: 400 minutes

Description

Six horror dramas starring Boris Karloff. In 'The Black Room' (1935) Karloff plays Baron Gregor de Berghman, a wealthy landowner who grows increasingly suspicious of his younger twin and plots his downfall in order to ensure he retains his personal wealth and status. In 'The Man They Could Not Hang' (1939) Karloff plays a scientist who is sentenced to hang for meddling with a young man's life in order to test an artificial heart that he is working on.

In 'The Man With Nine Lives' (1940) Dr. Leon Kravaal (Karloff) experiments with cryonics and then disappears for ten years. When he is discovered in a secret chamber along with four colleagues they are allowed to thaw out and come back to life, although legally they remain dead.

In 'Before I Hang' (1940) Dr. John Garth (Karloff) is on death row and given an opportunity to test a serum using the blood of another criminal. 'The Devil Commands' (1941) sees Karloff portray Dr.

Julian Blair, whose wife is killed in a road accident resulting in him attempting to connect with her consciousness beyond the grave. Finally, in 'The Boogie Man Will Get You' (1942) Karloff plays Professor Nathaniel Billings, the owner of a dilapidated mansion house. When new owners move in to the property Billings continues to inhabit the basement where he experiments on human subjects as he attempts to create a new race of people.

Special Features

• Interactive Menus
• Commentary: 'The Black Room'/'Before I Hang'/'The Boogie Man Will Get You': Kevin Lyons, Jonathan Rigby; 'The Man They Could Not Hang'/'The Man With Nine Lives'/'The Devil Commands': Stephen Jones (author), Kim Newman (film critic)