The Corpse Vanishes

1942 B&W 64min
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Luana Walters, Tristram Coffin, Elizabeth Russell, Minerva Urecal, Angelo Rossitto, Joan Barclay, Kenneth Harlan, Gwen Kenyon, Vince Barnett, Frank Moran, George Eldredge.
Directed by: Wallace Fox

The Corpse Vanishes opens at a wedding where everything seems to be going well. That is, until the bride collapses and dies. Yup, that’ll happen. I can’t tell you how many times that has happened to me. One second you and your bride-to-be are at the altar, the next second your she keels over and dies. Hmm…now that I think about it, it was kind of odd that they never had funerals for any of those girls…wait a minute, I think I saw Nikki at the Reds game last week…Son-of-a… Well, never mind. Let’s continue with the review.

When the girl's body disappears, a news reporter, Pat (A woman, just so you know), is ecstatic, and exclaims, “It’s sensational. Another kidnapping of a dead bride. What a story!!!” Obviously her sympathy and compassion for her fellow human being is what’s going to endear her to the audience and make us care about her later on. Maybe it’s just me, but shouldn’t she be disgusted by the deaths and subsequent kidnapping of young brides? She reacts as if she just won a new car on Oprah, or something. We’re 45sec in to this and already I don’t like our heroine.

Obviously those hats are being used to filter out the mind altering rays from Major League Baseball's satellite

After several more deaths and body snatchings, Pat decides to investigate the situation a little further. She discovers that every bride was wearing a strange orchid when they collapsed. She finds out from a local botanist that the man who bred this particular species of orchid, Dr. Lorenz, is still living in town. So, as you probably guessed, Pat decides to pay Dr. Lorenz a visit.

Umm…what?

We meet Dr. Lorenz at his mansion where he is performing a delicate operation on the kidnapped girl. It turns out that the girl is not dead, but merely in a comatose state (kind of like Robert Byrd). He is extracting uh, something from the girl and injecting it into his horrible, whiny, troll of a wife. In my notes, I referred to her as “The moody raisin.” I’m pretty funny when I’m tired. Anyway, this procedure miraculously transforms her into a beautiful young woman and thankfully she quits her incessant wailing.

Perhaps I should introduce you to Bela’s helpers for a moment. First, we have Angel, the Igor-like assistant who spends most of his time fondling the comatose girls and any other female who gets too close. Bela has a great time beating the bejesus out of him. Second, we have Toby, the sadistic dwarf (Those are two words that I just don’t see next to each other nearly enough) who serves as Bela’s doorman, bellhop, assistant, and all around jack-of-all-evil-trades. And finally, we have Fagah, the two boys mother. I don’t even want to know who the father was. She resents Dr. Lorenz for the treatment of her sons and you can probably guess how that situation resolves itself. The character that really stands out, however, is the Countess Lorenz. More to the point, what stands out is the way Elizabeth Russell plays the role. Now, it is generally pretty hard to steal a scene from Bela Lugosi, but I’ll be damned if she doesn’t do it on a couple of occasions during this movie. She plays it WAY over the top. So over the top that it stands out next to Bela Lugosi's performance. That is saying something.

Anyway, Pat reaches the mansion after catching a ride with Dr. Foster, who was going there to speak with Dr. Lorenz. Convenient huh? The duo is met at the door by Toby, the dwarven doorman. It’s hilarious when Pat sees Toby for the first time. She is noticeably repulsed by his presence. Pat pretends to be doing a story on the orchid for her newspaper, and says that she would love to interview Dr. Lorenz. The Dr. says that he and Dr. Foster have much work to do, so the interview will have to wait. He talks Pat into staying the night (After Countess Lorenz gives her a good ole’ Pride-Obliterating Bitch Slap™) and Toby takes her to her room where she is, again, repulsed by him.

Nostradamus? But why?

Pat somehow manages to fall asleep, and is treated to a few unwelcome visitors throughout the night. The first visitor, Dr. Lorenz, just sneaks in and exits without doing much. The second, Angel, sneaks in and pets her like a kitten…Okay, so he needs to work on his moves a little. Pat wakes up to Angel petting her and, understandably screams in horror. Now, you would think that she would run screaming out of that room as fast as she could, right? You would be wrong. She first takes the time to put on her robe and slippers, and then goes running and screaming out of the room. Modesty first, I guess.

Patricia, of course, being “Mrs. Nosey Reporter,” she decides to snoop around the mansion. She spots Angel, who unwittingly, leads her to Dr. Lorenz’s freezer of comatose women, where he is, again, petting a girl’s hair (Like that’s weird or something). I think maybe he dreams of becoming a hairdresser. Dr. Lorenz finds Angel and he kills him for...uh, well…I’m not really sure why he kills him. Just because. He’s evil!!! Anyhow, Pat stumbles upon the corpse, and promptly passes out. Of course she does. That’s what women did in the 40’s.

Pat awakens the next morning, in her bed. She tells the Dr. Foster and Dr. Lorenz what happened the night before, but they assure her that it must’ve been a dream. She eventually agrees, but her suspicions return when she finds an orchid on the floor by her bed. She gathers her things and leaves with Dr. Foster, but not before she asks Dr. Lorenz about the coffin he sleeps in, to which he replies, “I find a coffin much more comfortable than a bed. Many people do so, my dear.” You know, many “normal” people, such as, Michael Jackson, Angelina Jolie, and Dracula. I doubt anyone would find them strange.

Introducing, the new Sealy Posturepedic Comfo-coffin…

Pat returns to Mr. Keenan, the cantankerous newspaper editor (is there any other kind?), and fills him in on what happened. Of course, her whole story hinges on the assumption that she wasn’t dreaming. And she has absolutely no proof other than a stinky flower…But Hell, I’m sure the New York Times wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop a good story, so why should these guys, right?

Pat is being read the riot act by Mr. Keenan, when Dr. Foster shows up and confirms her story. He found a shipment of moss that is used specifically for growing orchids (That doesn’t prove anything…uh, maybe he eats it). They eventually persuade Mr. Keenan that the story is worth pursuing, and they decide to stage a bogus wedding to trap Dr. Lorenz.

“You know, that Dilbert is pretty funny.”

The wedding starts out well enough and, as planned, Dr. Lorenz has a orchid delivered to the bride. They continue with the phony wedding and it all seems to be getting to Pat as she remarks, “It looks just like a real wedding, doesn’t it?” To which Dr. Foster replies, “Yes. Too bad it isn’t…Ours.” Pthhht!!! Smooth, Dr. Foster, smooth. You’ve known this woman 2 days and your proposing to her? And with that line?!? And the crazy thing is, she accepts that lame proposal as we see later on…I’ve clearly lost my mind.

“Oh, um…How long have you been watching?”

Before she can accept however, she is summoned to see the minister. Of course it’s not the minister who is waiting for her but, you guessed it, Dr. Lorenz. Dr. Foster gets suspicious and goes back to check on Patricia, where he discovers the real minister unconscious on the floor. As this is going on, Dr. Lorenz and Toby are escaping with Patricia. Unfortunately, Toby takes one for the team and is killed in the escape. They killed off my favorite character…That always happens.

Lookout dwarf…Or should I say “Lookout!!! Dwarf!!!”

Dr. Lorenz returns to the mansion and preps Pat for surgery. While he is doing so, Fagah complains to him about the fate of both of her sons. He, being his compassionate self, slaps her in the face. But Fagah gets her revenge when she stabs him in the back with a dagger. Determined to stay young and beautiful, The Countess tries to extract whatever the Hell needs to be extracted herself, but Fagah kills her as well. Pat, of course, passes out…again. Eventually the police and Dr. Foster show up and find Pat, unconscious on the floor.

“How many times have I told you kids not to touch Grandma's knick-knacks!?!”

We then cut to Dr. Foster and Pat’s wedding. It appears that Mr. Keenan is the one giving her away. I guess she belonged to the newspaper or something. And we get one final gag from the comic relief doofus, as he sniffs an orchid and passes out…And I wouldn’t have it any other way. THE END.

---

Conclusion

Lord help me, I really enjoyed this one. Of course, anything starring Bela Lugosi instantly gets a couple stars in my book. Then you add Angelo Rossitto and there was pretty much no way that I wouldn’t enjoy this one. There are quite a few unintentionally hilarious moments, like Pat’s ecstatic reaction to the deaths of young brides. You also have the laughable romance between Dr. Foster and Pat. Of course you have Bela giving his usual performance. And then you have Minerva Urecal’s performance as Fagah. She has truly been blessed with a tremendous ACTING!!! ability.

The Corpse Vanishes also has quite a few unexplained points that are key to the plot. Why Dr. Lorenz is specifically taking brides instead of any young woman is never explained. I would think that it would be easier to just abduct women off of the street instead of having to snatch the bodies on their way to the morgue (Not that I've thought about it or anything...). Why he keeps abducting more women when it seems to me that he could just keep using the same woman since he was keeping them alive. They would continue producing whatever they were producing, wouldn’t they? But really, the most glaring problem is that I have yet to think of a single reason why Dr. Lorenz was keeping this horrible woman alive. She’s constantly wailing at him, insulting him, and hitting everyone who gets near her. I’m sure she has many other redeeming qualities that we just don’t see in this film. I can’t imagine what they might be, but…

The Corpse Vanishes clocks in at just over 1 hour and it is packed full of goofy fun so it’s not a hard watch, even for people who don’t generally like older movies (I do, but I know many people have a bias against older movies, especially those before 1950). It's definitely not Bela Lugosi's best movie, but if you're looking for an hour of mindless, goofy fun, you could do a lot worse than this movie.

I'm sorry. I don't have a caption for this…I just love this screenshot.

Reviewed by Derek Miller
Posted 1/30/06