The Black Sleep (1956)

 Seeing Lugosi so frail and sickly as a mute house servant to brain surgeon, Dr. Cadman (Basil Rathbone) in The Black Sleep (1956), his last completed film (not counting that mess with Ed Wood), after watching him so virile and in strong form in the 1929 murder mystery, "The Thirteenth Chair", it is rather humbling. But not only does Lugosi show such age and fatigue, poor Chaney, Jr, as mute and unhinged Mungo, carries the weight of a life hard-lived. But while Lugosi's character is actually supposed to look pathetic, Chaney is also meant to be a brute aiming for the throat of Patricia Blair (his daughter in the film). It is hard for me not to think of both of them in better times, and seeing their vivid decline in "The Black Sleep" is heart-breaking. That's why it is always important for me to return to Lugosi in the early 30's when he was at the height of his fame. And in the early 40's when Chaney was at the height of his before alcoholism deteriorated him. Lugosi in the 30's, as you can obviously determine by my reverence for his work on the blog all the time, is a period of work in the horror genre I hold dear. So when I see him so wasted away (effects of morphine and ultimately a heart attack) it hurts my very soul. As far as Carradine, he is pretty much a raving lunatic with a cane, as if some mad profit quoting history aloud, looking like Moses. Rathbone as the scientist who framed Rudley, performing brain surgeries and research to rescue his comatose wife is chillingly clinical and intensely determined to bring her back, capable of turning normal human beings, with active, healthy minds (regardless of their misbehavior, just the same, what Rathbone alters through his failed surgeries and experimentation is monstrous) into abominations. 2.5/5

My IMDb user comments from July 2008:

Basil Rathbone stars as a determined, and cold-blooded, brain surgeon, Dr. Cadman trying to figure out how to revive his beloved comatose wife. With help from his malicious thieving gypsy body snatcher Odo(Akim Tamiroff), Cadman frames renowned surgeon Dr. Gordon(Herbert Rudley) for the murder of a money lender. Dr. Gordon, sentenced to hang on circumstantial evidence, is visited by Cadman, not knowing he was responsible for being sent to the gallows to begin with, takes an Eastern Indian drug nicknamed "The Black Sleep", awakening to find he was pronounced dead. In Cadman's care, after convincing the court to allow the poor chap a proper burial instead of being dissected by the scientific community, Gordon is to assist him in his brain research. Gordon unravels the fact that Cadman works on live specimens, operating on their brains in the attempt to find a cure for mental and physical maladies which cause paralysis, comas, and tumors. Gordon, given a "new name" by his new associate, doesn't agree with Cadman's methods, challenging him, endangering himself. The drug itself, of the title, renders a subject lifeless, but an anecdote must be administered in 12 hours or they die.

In his vast castle are examples of how his research has went wrong. Great veteran horror stars who are Cadman's "casualties", include: Lon Chaney, Jr. has the role of a brute(..once a gentle and loving scholar and professor), with a rage problem when his daughter, Laurie(Patricia Blair, who plays one of Cadman's assistants)looks or talks in his direction. Bela Lugosi is the sad mute, Casimir, condemned to servitude, doing simple tasks for Cadman such as janitorial labor and answering the door(..well looking through a hole and speaking in sign to Cadman whose there waiting to be let in). John Carradine is one of several prisoners who Cadman sent into a dungeon after an unsuccessful surgery turned him into a lunatic..he looks like a sheepherder ranting and raving prophetic gobbledy-gook repeatedly. Tor Johnson, with creepy albino eyes, is the money lender whose supposed death sent Gordon to the gallows.

The movie carries a resemblance to Universal films from the thirties..a mad scientist movie inside a castle with a secret passageway in the fireplace containing a stairwell leading to both Cadman's surgery room and the dungeon holding those poor souls who were turned into crazies when their brains were damaged through errors and miscalculations. A wrongfully accused hero who will work in secret with a young love interest whose father, once a genius, was now a monstrosity who only obeys Cadman's head nurse, Daphne(Phyllis Blair, who presents a character as cold-blooded as her employer, dutifully carrying out his every wish despite the results that often occur)to find out more about where Cadman's "experiments" are sent to. A greedy body snatcher(..we get a chance to see his fiendish work for Cadman, selecting specimens for his "employer", when Odo sets up a poor woman on the street, with knowledge regarding the money lender and Gordon)who brings Cadman victims for the operating table. A devoted husband whose obsessions with bringing his wife "back from sleep", motivate the committing of unspeakable deeds to people. Scotland Yard detectives fishing for clues, following their scent which leads to Odo, and, obviously, to Cadman. I think that Lugosi and Chaney's problems at the time this movie was made, believe it or not, assist their characters' plight. The weighted baggage of their alcoholic and drug related issues bring out a traumatic pathos that the characters in the movie cry out for. Carradine has to be seen to be believed..his character, along with Tor(who even scuffles with Chaney Jr at the end of the movie), is certain to arouse either pity or laughter. The film builds to a rapid climax where it seems the filmmakers run out of movie and rushed to get the story over with. I thought Rathbone was in fine form as the villain, willing to do anything to succeed in his methods, no matter the cost to others.