[HorrorScience] Bowery at Midnight (1942)

Reading time: 5 minutes

Qualification

Bowery At Midnight

Year

1942

Duration

60 minutes

Director

Wallace Fox

Distribution

Bela Lugosi, John Archer, Vince Barnett, Tom Neal, Anna Hope, John Berkes, Joseph Farrell MacDonald, Dave O'Brien, Wheelere Oakman

Script

Gerald Schnitzer

In order not to lose the habit, today I am going to talk about a black and white film starring Bela Lugosi, once one of Universal Pictures' biggest horror film stars who began a long and decadent film career until he ended up filming with Ed Wood, considered the worst film director in history.

On this occasion I will not talk about any of Wood's films (everything will come) since I have preferred to choose one of those feature films that are not normally mentioned when talking about the Hungarian actor: Bowery at Midnight, also known as Burial at midnight.

The film begins by showing us a prisoner named Fingers Dolan escaping from prison, to avoid his pursuers he ends up wandering through the slums of the city, where he will find a place dedicated to helping and feeding those without resources run by a certain Karl Wagner and his young assistant.

Due to his situation, he will go there to have something to eat, but Karl recognizes him and after meeting him with an old friend now called Mr. Stratton, he offers Fingers the possibility of taking part in his organization. The job involves a robbery for which they need Fingers' ability to open the safe, having done his part, his former partner kills him on Karl's orders.

This decision provokes strong resentment in Stratton, who tells Doc (another of Karl's hitmen) that if he continues doing what he wants, without taking others into account, he himself will be in charge of eliminating him.

The next scene shows us Karl at home, giving jewelry from the robbery to his wife, who does not seem to know anything about the double life of her husband, who is apparently a writer and psychology professor. At the same time, the owner of the robbed premises finds Fingers' body in the safe and alerts the police.

[HorrorScience] Bowery at Midnight (1942) — Karl managing his business

Veteran detective Pete and his partner, a young police officer named Martin, encounter a criminal named Frankie who has started a shootout. Martin tries to follow him but the gangster escapes by hiding in Karl's charity shop, who will protect him from the police and then offer him a position in his organization, just as he did with Fingers.

Frankie's first job will be to kill Stratton and take his place, which he does without thinking twice. Stratton's body will be buried by Doc, in a small cemetery that Karl has at his premises, where the former eliminated allies lie.

The sinister Doc feels belittled by Karl, who calls him a human waste without any consideration. Meanwhile, the robberies continue to happen.

On the other hand, the boyfriend of Karl's young assistant decides to abandon his life as a spoiled rich man and investigate what the life of the less fortunate is like, so he decides to go to the diner where his girlfriend works, where he will discover that his psychology professor is also the owner of the establishment.

And I think I have to leave the final part in suspense, because it is quite unexpected and could be the best (or the worst) of the feature film.

The film is very weak and is only saved by being quite short, by the always charismatic Lugosi, who despite giving a good performance, does not deviate much from what we expect from him (for better or worse) and by some of his characters, who seem taken from totally different films, such as Frankie (typical cool and lethal gangster) and Doc (a decadent scientist, ideal for a monster movie).

Although the story of the film is quite crazy (especially some robbery scenes and Karl's double life) you can enjoy the suspense at times, but don't expect much more. The film is free domain, so if anyone wants to see it, they can easily find it online.

Curiosities about the film:

At one point in the film, we can see a poster for the film The Corpse Vanishes, a film shot the same year as this one by the same director.
The script of this film has several parallels with The Mysterious Eyes of London, another film shot by Lugosi in 1939.
In some countries the poster and name of the film were altered with the intention of making it look more terrifying.