Poe Cinema: The Raven (1935)

As with The Black Cat, while it was featured in Universal Horror, I didn't really become aware of this film until my early-to-mid teens, when I became a real fan of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi as actors, and didn't actually see it until I was in my 20's, as it was part of that same Bela Lugosi DVD collection. What really piqued my interest in both of these movies was when James Rolfe featured them in an episode of the 2009 edition of Cinemassacre's Monster Madness. While they both looked very interesting, I found myself particularly drawn to The Raven, which he described as possibly Lugosi's greatest performance ever, even more so than Dracula. By that point, I'd also seen Universal Horror a few more times and knew that, as controversial as The Black Cat was, The Raven was, as Kenneth Branagh put it, "the last straw" for many critics, leading to the British embargo on horror films. When I finally did see it, it became my personal favorite of the five films in that set (along with The Invisible Ray), as well as one of my favorite Lugosi/Karloff films and classic Universal horror films in general. It seems like I'm somewhat alone in that sentiment, as general opinion on the movie is rather mixed. I've even seen it mentioned in books on bad movies, while Tom Weaver, Michael Brunas, and John Brunas, the authors of Universal Horrors, call it "ill-conceived" in their book. I don't get it; for me, this movie is more entertaining than The Black Cat, which gets all the accolades. I think the main reason for that is, while The Black Cat is a rather enigmatic film, with aspects to its story that are interesting but don't amount to much in the long run, The Raven is much more to the point and knows exactly what it's trying to be. It also has much more to do with the work of Edgar Allan Poe than The Black Cat ever did. And even at a running time of just 61 minutes, it manages to come off as tightly constructed, as well as fast-paced, and ties everything up by the end, even if the actual ending is a bit sloppy and abrupt.

On a foggy night, young dancer Jean Thatcher suffers a devastating car wreck that soon has her at death's door. When the doctors are unable to save her, her father, Judge Thatcher, and her fiancee, Dr. Jerry Halden, contact Dr. Richard Vollin, a brilliant but eccentric and recently retired neurosurgeon. Vollin is, at first, unwilling to perform the operation, as human life and suffering means little to him; it's only when Thatcher tells him that his peers insist he's the only one who can do it that he agrees. He not only manages to save Jean's life but, a month later, she's fully recovered. Vollin, in turn, has become obsessed with her, and it's only made worse when Jean dances to a recitation of The Raven, knowing of the doctor's love for the works of Poe. Concerned that Jean may be becoming infatuated with Vollin, Thatcher asks the doctor not to lead her on. Instead, he learns that Vollin himself is in love with Jean and demands he not see her again. Vollin, however, insists that he must have her, as his desire is clouding his mind and preventing him from successfully completing his research. Shortly afterward, Edmond Bateman, a criminal on the run from the police, comes to Vollin and asks him to change his face. Vollin agrees but first, he asks Bateman to do a job for him that's in his "line of work": torture and murder. Bateman refuses, saying he doesn't want to hurt people anymore, and Vollin then agrees to the operation. But he leaves the right side hideously disfigured and says he will only fix it once Bateman has done what he asks. Bateman has no choice but to agree. That night, Vollin invites several people to spend the weekend at his home; among his guests are Jean, Jerry, and, eventually, Judge Thatcher. Once everyone has turned in for the night, Vollin puts his grisly plan into action. Having built and collected real life versions of the torture devices described in Poe's work down in the basement, he plans to use them to rid himself of the very people he feels are emotionally torturing him, i.e. Jean, Jerry, and Thatcher.

Tackled by a small handful of writers throughout its development, The Raven was one of the first films directed by New York-born Louis Friedlander, who would soon become better known as Lew Landers. Starting out as an actor who appeared in a couple of D.W. Griffith films in 1914, he began working at Universal, first as a crew member on films such as The Man Who Laughs. His directorial debut was the 1934 serial, The Vanishing Shadow, and like Edgar G. Ulmer on The Black Cat, he would shoot The Raven on a short schedule (sixteen days) and a very low budget (however, he ended up going $5,000 over). Despite the outrage the movie caused and its not so good box-office, Landers went on to be a very prolific director, with over a hundred movies and TV episodes to his credit. He worked in many different genres, from westerns to comedies and, of course, more horror films. Some of his other credits in the genre include The Boogie Man Will Get You, a 1942 horror-comedy starring Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre, and The Return of the Vampire, the wartime horror movie with Bela Lugosi more or less reprising his role of Count Dracula, albeit under a different name. As I said, Landers also directed quite a bit of television in his lifetime, including two episodes of The Adventures of Superman, two of Maverick, and one of Cheyenne. He died of a heart attack in 1962 at the age of 61, his last film being a little known item called Terrified, released the following year.

Again, James Rolfe said that he feels Lugosi's role here of Dr. Richard Vollin is his best performance ever, and I'm not all that inclined to disagree with him. While I do, of course, enjoy him as Dracula, his insane energy and magnificent speeches as Vollin really enthrall me. In his introduction, we see just how enamored he is with Poe's work. We start on a shot of a stuffed raven's shadow and pull back to reveal Vollin as he quotes the poem to a man interested in buying his Poe collection for a museum. He goes on to say, "The raven is my talisman... Death is my talisman, Mr. Chapman. The one indestructible force, the one certain thing in an uncertain universe. Death." In a later scene, he admits that he became a doctor because he was fascinated by pain and death, as well as how much pain one can endure, which is why he's also drawn to Poe. He's such a devotee that he has a collection of torture devices from Poe's literature down in the basement. Besides his inherent sadism, we also see early on how egocentric he is. When Thatcher personally asks him to operate on Jean, Vollin remains steadfast in his cruel resolve not to, as human life means nothing to him. It's only when Thatcher tells him that the other doctors have said he is the only one who can save her life that he agrees to it. He's so prideful and arrogant, as well as psychopathic, that he wants confirmation from his peers that he is the best surgeon around before he will save someone's life. And then, after he saves Jean, Vollin finds himself enamored with her. She makes it even worse when, to show her gratitude, she performs a dance to a recitation of The Raven at the theater. Afterward, Thatcher visits Vollin to tell him of Jean's possible infatuation with him, only to learn of Vollin's own obsession with his daughter. When Thatcher forbids him from seeing Jean again, Vollin tells him, "I am a man who renders humanity a great service. For that, my brain must be clear, my nerves steady, and my hands sure. Jean torments me. She has come into my life, into my brain... Judge Thatcher, there are no two ways. Send her to me." Deciding that Vollin is too insane to reason with, Thatcher leaves, as Vollin intones, "Send her, Judge Thatcher. I warn you!"

Tortured by his feelings for Jean, Vollin feels his life is mirroring that of Edgar Allan Poe himself, whose genius he feels was hampered by his feelings of love for the one who was taken from him. For Vollin, Jean is his own personal "lost Lenore," lost because of her father's intervention, and, therefore, he cannot think clearly about whatever future goals and accomplishments he had set forth for himself. If he weren't already insane, this pushes him over the edge and he decides to end his inner turmoil by destroying Judge Thatcher,

Jean, and her fiancee, Jerry Halden. And right to the end, Vollin believes he is doing the logical, right thing and does not think he is at all insane. He hammers this home in one of my favorite moments, when he has Judge Thatcher strapped to a slab, as the bladed pendulum slowly comes down at him. They have this exchange: "What are you trying to do to me?" "Torture you." "Try to be sane, Vollin." "I am the sanest man who ever lived. But I will not be tortured. I tear torture out of myself by

torturing you!" By the end of the movie, with Thatcher about to be sliced in half and Jean and Jerry about to be crushed in a room where the walls come together, Vollin truly feels he has both accomplished and even surpassed what Poe had hoped to do: "What a torture. What a delicious torture, Bateman. Greater than Poe. Poe only conceived it; I have done it, Bateman! Poe, you are avenged!" He then proceeds to laugh maniacally.

Speaking of Edmond Bateman, what Vollin does to him is especially cruel. Recognizing Bateman immediately when he comes to him to ask him to change his face, Vollin intends to make use of his history of murdering and torturing people. Though Bateman initially refuses to do what he asks, when he laments that he believes he's done the awful things he has because people have always treated him badly due to his appearance, he unwittingly gives Vollin a monstrous idea. He agrees to operate on Bateman's face, only to leave the right side

hideously deformed. Even worse, he leaves him alone in the operating room after he removes the bandages and then reveals a series of mirrors behind drapes, so that Bateman sees his new, grotesque visage everywhere he looks. He sadistically laughs at him from an opening in the ceiling, and later tells him, "You're monstrously ugly. Your monstrous ugliness... breeds monstrous hate. Good. I can use your hate. You will do this for me, Bateman... I'll change you, Bateman. You

will look good, the way you wish... First, you must do this job for me, Bateman. I can't use my hand to do it. Your hand is used to torture. Your hand must do it. My brain, your hand." He then forces Bateman to act as his servant, telling his guests that they fought together in World War I and that he was captured and tortured by Arab bandits. He also makes him abduct Judge Thatcher from his room, strap him to the slab beneath the pendulum, and flip the switch that begins it descent. All the while, 

Vollin uses his promise to fix Bateman's face as leverage to keep him from betraying him. Though Bateman, at one point, manages to strap Vollin himself on the slab and start the pendulum, Vollin tells him that he will remain as he is if he kills him. But he underestimates Bateman's own affection for Jean, which proves to be his downfall.

What makes Lugosi's performance in this film so much fun to watch is the sheer range of emotions he goes through. He's ominous when quoting The Raven when we first see him, charming but with a hint of obsessiveness when we see him with Jean, forlorn and with a note of building tension when he talks to his party guests about what he feels The Raven meant personally to Poe, has slowly rising anger about him when Thatcher forbids him from seeing Jean again, is manipulatively sly when he first meets Bateman (you can see the wheels

turning as he figures out how to make Bateman do what he wants, commenting, "You are saying something profound. A man with a face so hideously ugly..."), truly menacing when ordering around Bateman, whom he whips at one point, and forcing his victims into his death traps, and, best of all, absolutely giddy with madness during the climax. When Judge Thatcher first notices the pendulum above him, he says, "What's that?", and Vollin says, "A knife." Thatcher then asks, "What's it doing?" to which Vollin casually responds, "Descending." He's as confident as they come and he's enjoying every minute of it, and it makes you enjoy watching him, despite how demented he is.

As much as I love Boris Karloff along with Lugosi, it's really unfair that, as always, he received not only top billing here, as his role of Edmond Bateman is only a supporting one, but that his salary was double Lugosi's. Moreover, publicity, including Universal's pressbook, focused heavily on him, calling him, "the uncanny master of makeup," which I've heard did very much irk Lugosi. Regardless, I totally disagree with the authors of Universal Horrors when they say Karloff was miscast as Bateman. A criminal who's

on the run after escaping from prison, killing two guards in the process, and horribly mutilating a bank cashier's face with a blowtorch, Bateman comes to Dr. Vollin in hopes that he will give him a new face. Besides wanting to hide from the police, Bateman, not wanting to go on committing the same violent and horrific crimes, feels they come down to how he's been treated because of his looks. He says, "Ever since I was born, everybody looks at me and says, 'You're ugly.' Makes me feel mean... I'm saying, Doc, maybe because I look ugly... maybe if a man looks ugly, he does ugly things." Bateman soon comes to regret telling Vollin that, as instead of fixing his face, Vollin leaves the right side mutilated. He's then forced to perform one more act of torture and death for Vollin, aiding him in taking revenge on Jean, Jerry Halden, and Judge Thatcher, as well as act as Vollin's servant while his "guests" are there. 

In this capacity, Bateman is subjected to more disgusted reactions. Even Jean is at first horrified at the sight of him, but when she learns it's due to a mutilation, she feels bad for him and apologizes to him for screaming. This touches something in Bateman and he tries several times to warn Jean and the others of Vollin's plan, even climbing up through a trapdoor in her room while she's sleeping, only to be forced to go back down before he can speak to her. Eventually, he must do Vollin's dirty work and abducts Judge Thatcher, straps him

to the slab, and activates the pendulum. When Jean is brought down into the basement, Bateman tells her that Vollin is the one who mutilated his face and that, once he does this for him, he'll fix it. Jean, however, warns Bateman that a madman like Vollin would never keep his word and offers to help him herself. Bateman continues going along with Vollin, albeit very reluctantly, but the last straw is when he puts Jean and Jerry in the crushing room. Bateman knows that if he disobeys or kills Vollin,

he'll remain the way he is forever, but he refuses to let Jean die. Vollin fatally shoots Bateman when he lets Jean and Jerry out of the room, but he manages to knock out and drag Vollin himself into the room, activating it before he dies, and killing Vollin and saving his victims. My only real problem with Bateman is how he becomes a living deus ex machina during the climax, as Vollin had won, for all intents and purposes. Also, his affection for Jean is yet another horror take on Beauty and the Beast, albeit a minor one, and by this point, it was already starting to become a cliche.

Though not as extensive as some that he'd worn before, Boris Karloff again had to endure another makeup by Jack Pierce. For his initial appearance as Bateman, Pierce gave Karloff a thick beard, mustache, and eyebrows, akin to what he wore as Morgan the butler in The Old Dark House. After Vollin mutilates Bateman's face by damaging his seventh cranial nerve, he's now clean-shaven but the right side of his face, as well as his mouth, is badly scarred, the eye's lower lid droops hideously, and the eye itself is always fixed to the right. As per usual with Pierce, this was achieved with cotton, collodion, and spirit gum, as well as a glass eye. But, while it is another memorable makeup, as you can see the line between it and Karloff's actual face is much more apparent than usual. And I like how, the same year as Bride of Frankenstein, Karloff did the Frankenstein monster snarl in this movie when he realizes what Vollin has done to him.

Remember back in my review of The Black Cat, when I said that in a movie starring Karloff and Lugosi, anybody else is just sort of there? The Raven is a prime example. While the other actors certainly give fine performances, they hardly have much to do with the little material and short screentime they're given. Since she's the object of Dr. Vollin's obsession and the source of his torment, you'd think Jean Thatcher (Irene Ware) would be a fairly significant character, but that's not the case at all. She's grateful to Vollin for saving her life but, while there is the slightest hint that she does feel something for him, despite what Judge Thatcher tells Vollin, I think it is mostly just gratitude, both for saving her life and for giving her fiancee a job that will allow them to marry soon. When the two of them are alone and Vollin makes an advance on her, she seems to sense his intentions and gently pushes him away. Still, that doesn't stop her from performing a dance to a recitation of The Raven, only intensifying Vollin's obsession. But Jean doesn't think Vollin is dangerous and gladly agrees to be his guest for the weekend, along with Jerry Halden. She's at first frightened at the sight of Edmond Bateman, but once she learns his face has been mutilated, she takes pity on him. Soon, she learns just how insane Vollin is when he takes her prisoner. And when Bateman tells her that he must do what Vollin says so he'll fix his face, Jean tells him that a psychopath like Vollin would never keep his promise and offers to help him herself. It's tempting to think she only said that so he would help her escape but, given the pity she felt for Bateman, including in the very last scene, I believe she was being sincere. In any case, her compassion touches him in such a way that he gives his own life in order to save her and the others. Other than that, though, Jean spends much of her screentime doing little more than the typical routine of screaming and fretting.

The rest of the cast has even less to do. Lester Matthews, Paul Ames from Werewolf of London, barely has a presence in the film as Dr. Jerry Halden, Jean's fiancee. Significantly, he's the one who recommends Dr. Vollin operate on Jean at the very beginning of the film but, other than that, he does absolutely nothing else substantial in the story. He's not much of a hero. He does try during the climax but he gets knocked out while trying to help Thatcher, and is later captured and put into the crushing room with Jean, leading to Bateman

saving everyone instead. Judge Thatcher (Samuel S. Hinds) fares a little better. While he's definitely grateful to Vollin for saving Jean, he fears that she may become infatuated with him, endangering her betrothal to Jerry. When he asks Vollin not to lead her, he not only learns that Vollin himself is in love with Jean but he gets a glimpse of how unstable he is when, after crushing a test tube in his hand, he says, "There are no two ways. Send her to me." Angered when Jean and Jerry go to Vollin's home for the weekend behind his back, Thatcher follows after them. Though Vollin seems to be more reasonable when he greets the judge at the door, when he talks about his obsession with death and torture, as well as the work of Poe, Thatcher becomes absolutely convinced that he's insane. Unfortunately, when he tells Jean and Jerry about this and tries to make them go home with him, they don't take him seriously. As a result, Thatcher soon finds himself at the mercy of the mad surgeon, placed under the deadly pendulum and watching helplessly as the knife slowly descends towards him. Like everyone else, it's only through the intervention of Bateman that he's saved. 

In an interesting goof, actors Spencer Charters and Ian Wolfe's roles are switched around, both in the opening and ending credits. Charters is Col. Bertram Grant, who continually comes to Vollin, asking him his opinion onvarious ailments he claims to have. He and his wife, Harriet (Maidel Turner), are rendered unconscious when Vollin gives them some strong sleeping powder, so they completely sleep through the climax, unaware that the others are fighting for their lives down in the basement. Ian Wolfe plays Geoffrey Burns, whom

his wife, Mary (Inez Courtney), calls "Pinky." Though the two of them come off as a couple of airheads, especially Mary, they do try to help Jerry in his attempt to rescue Jean and Judge Thatcher from Vollin, with Geoffrey futilely trying to get Thatcher off the slab. But, in the end, they prove to not be very effective. 

The Raven proved to be the final film for cinematographer Charles Stumar, who died in a plane crash just weeks before its release in July of 1935. Because of the low budget and very short shooting schedule, he wasn't able to give it as much of the German Expressionist feel as he did on past films like The Mummy and Werewolf of London. He does still manage to come up with some great imagery, like the first shot of Jean driving in the fog, the close-up of the shadow of Dr. Vollin's

stuffed raven before we first see Vollin himself, the dim cinematography of the late night scenes in his house, and the way he shoots the Gothic, dungeon-like staircases and corridors of his basement, as well as Vollin's torture devices, especially the pendulum as it slowly makes its way down towards Judge Thatcher. As for his direction, Lew Landers wastes no time getting into the story. The movie opens with Jean driving along on a foggy night, panicking when she comes upon a detour at the last 

minute, and running off the road. In a flurry of editing, we dissolve to a close-up of an ambulance's door, a shot of the vehicle itself rushing down the street, and then, people standing around Jean's hospital bed, the camera pushing towards Jerry Halden and another man and then going in-between them to reveal her lying there, comatose. We then get several close-ups of a doctor, Jerry, Judge Thatcher, and Jean, before we finally get some dialogue. And even then, the pace doesn't let up, as Jerry immediately comes up with

the idea to contact Dr. Vollin and thus, we're introduced to him and see him take the call while speaking about selling his Poe collection to a museum. The actual operation is done in a similar manner, with a wide shot of the operating room, a close-up of Vollin's face, another wide shot of the assistants bringing Jean inside and putting her on the table, a shot of her face, another close-up of Vollin, another close-up of her, a tighter close-up on Vollin's eyes darting around, yet another shot of Jean, one of Jerry, and a final shot of a doctor bringing the mask for the anesthetic towards the camera. After it goes totally black, the movie transitions to a month later, when Jean has recovered.

There are some memorable shots and instances of camerawork here for sure, such as a number of instances of two characters standing across from each other or virtually nose-to-nose, staring each other down (a great one is a shot of Vollin and Jean looking at each other, with Judge Thatcher in the background, watching what's happening with concern), as well as some slow, methodical zoom-ins, such as when Bateman's mutilated face is first revealed and when Vollin tells his guests about his

fascination with the works of Poe, settling on a side-angle of his face. Editing is also effectively used to create tension during the climax, as they cut back and forth to show how the knife is getting ever closer to Thatcher and how the walls in the compressing room are getting closer and closer to crushing Jean and Jerry. And Bateman's final struggle and revenge on Vollin is done in a series of quick, close cuts rather than in wide shots or one long shot.

The film isn't much for genuine atmosphere until we get into the third act in Vollin's house, which, in classic fashion, takes place on a dark and stormy night. As a storm rages outside, the sound of crackling thunder and shrieking wind are complimented here and there with cutaways of shutters knocking against the wall, tree branches scraping at the roof, the trees themselves becoming uprooted by the force of the wind, and lightning piercing the sky (a very common stock footage

shot). Once everyone else has turned in for the night, Vollin brings Bateman down into the basement and shows him the various torture devices he has down there. While only one of them is actually put into use, we see others like a rack, an iron maiden (in the background), and various chains, metal balls, and cages hanging on the wall. Just the sight of them and knowing what they do is enough to make you wince, and when you add how downright medieval the place looks, the effect is genuinely skin-crawling. Back upstairs, things

remain spooky due to the storm and the darkness, and while he was likely coming to warn Jean, the sight of Bateman coming up through the trapdoor in the dark is quite a creepy one, especially for Jean, as she wakes up in time to catch a glimpse of him.

In a way, The Raven and The Black Cat can be seen as two sides of the same coin. Besides taking their names from the works of Edgar Allan Poe; both star Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi as two disturbed men at each other's throats, one of whom is an out and out villain while the other is sympathetic, despite the horrible things he's done; both involve the female lead becoming the object of the villain's evil intentions, while the nominal "hero" tries to stop him; both take place almost entirely in a house

filled with odd devices and a chamber of horrors in the basement, where the climax occurs and where the villain meets a grisly end; and both films were very controversial at the times of their respective releases due to their grisly subject matter (yet The Raven did very poorly at the box-office, despite The Black Cat being the sicker film). The biggest difference between the two of them is, while The Black Cat used the title of a Poe story as little more than window dressing, The Raven is most definitely based around Poe's work. It may not be a

film adaptation of the actual poem but it does something even more clever in that the poem itself, as well as Poe's literature in general, are a major part of the film, with how Dr. Vollin is not only an aficionado but comes to see himself in the troubled author and his tortured inability to obtain his own personal "lost Lenore," and uses devices based on Poe's work to try to rid himself of his pain. 

Even though The Black Cat is arguably the more ghastly film, The Raven, with its emphasis on torture and sadism, had more than enough for the Production Code Administration to object to. Though the PCA was assured there would be no shots of Bateman's actual operation, and there, indeed, are none, their warnings to the filmmakers that the screenplay was, "Running the risk of excessive horror," seem to have gone unheeded. While Vollin and Bateman are the only ones dead

by the end of the movie, and all of the would-be torture victims escape unscathed, the slow impending doom of Judge Thatcher below the pendulum and Jean and Jerry in the crushing room, the many close-ups of Bateman's mutilated face (there are some memorable ones of his undamaged eye watching the pendulum), and Vollin's almost seeming to get off on torture, to the point where he full-on admits that he likes it, were enough to outrage the censors and critics. After how lax the code's enforcement had initially been since its

establishment in 1930, the PCA's formation in 1934 began to, slowly but surely, ensure that extremely morbid horror films like this would die out by the mid-30's. The Raven, as well as maybe the following year's Dracula's Daughter, with its implied lesbianism elements, can be seen as the last gasps of the Pre-Code era. The film was not only banned in several countries, including the UK, but it helped prompt the British embargo on horror films, leading to a drought in the genre until 1939. This drought would prove devastating for Bela Lugosi, as he would never again reach the heights of success he was enjoying during this period.

Unlike Poelzig's house, Dr. Vollin's home, which you never get a full establishing shot of, looks fairly normal, save for a stuffed raven here and there, and some other oddities, like a miniature, automatic horse race track in the sitting room, where people bet as if they actually are at the races. Said sitting room has a nice fireplace, comfy sofas, and an organ, which Vollin plays for Jean in their first scene together. At the opposite end of the front door is the door to Vollin's office, which also looks

pretty innocuous, as do the upstairs bedrooms. However, there are hints that not all is at it seems, with a turning bookcase behind Vollin's desk in his office revealing an opening that leads down into the basement, and a trapdoor in one of the guest rooms. And once you go downstairs behind the aforementioned bookcase, you find yourself in a medieval dungeon of horror. The first room we see down there is the operating room where, Vollin mutilates Bateman. Again, it looks normal enough

at first, but as we soon see, it's all rigged for Vollin's sadistic pleasure. The door locks from the outside, the drapes behind the table conceal a row of mirrors where Bateman sees his hideous visage reflected multiple times, and there's a sliding panel up in the ceiling, where Vollin looks down on Bateman and laughs maniacally at his suffering. Elsewhere in the basement are the real torture devices, within a labyrinth of stone, medieval-like corridors, such as the chamber housing the slab below the bladed pendulum, the crushing room,

and it's also revealed that one of the upstairs bedrooms is built inside a large elevator that can be lowered into the basement. Everything is controlled by an enormous panel, including metal shutters for the upstairs windows so no one can get in or out, and a switch to shut off the phone-lines. In other words, Dr. Vollin was almost like the original Jigsaw. 

Outside of Vollin's home, the most memorable set is that of the theater where Jean performs an interpretative dance based on The Raven. These interiors should be very familiar to you by this point, as they're those of the Paris Opera House, complete with the lovely seating boxes and the enormous stage. In this instance, the stage is designed with a centerpiece of an enormous barred, rectangular window, with a large floor candelabra on either side of it, atop a small flight of steps. On 

the left side of the stage is a large door with a circular window above it, while on the right is a table with a candle and books. Behind it stands a man dressed up as Edgar Allan Poe himself, reciting the poem, while Jean performs to it. (The performance itself is really nothing to write home about: just Jean dancing around the stage in a costume with a weird mask and black veils.) The film is so insular as a whole that, other than the fog-enshrouded road at the beginning, and shots of the storm raging outside Vollin's home during the climax, the only other exteriors are the outside of a shady place where Bateman is first introduced and the city streets he walks while on his way to see Vollin.

Like in The Black Cat, Jean's car crash at the start of the movie is accomplished through a brief but well-done instance of model-work, and I have a feeling that similar effects were used for the shots of the raging storm during the third act, where you see it blow over trees. And when Vollin brings Jean's bedroom down into the basement, there's an instance of rear-screen projection as he watches the elevator lower down through an open doorway. While it's ambitious in that it's an entire image that slowly moves down, rather than a fixed one with moving elements inside it, like normal, the effect is obvious and the eye-lines between Vollin and Jean don't line up.

Aside from the lackluster supporting characters, my only other qualm with The Raven is the ending, which feels so abrupt and rushed. Vollin has everyone where he wants them: Judge Thatcher is about to be sliced in half, Jean and Jerry are going to be crushed in the compressing room, and Geoffrey and Mary Burns are powerless to help them. He then promises to keep his promise to Bateman and repair his face, but because of his affection for Jean, Bateman turns on Vollin.

Despite his warning that he won't fix his face if he betrays him, Bateman pulls the switch on the crushing room, stopping the walls and opening the door. Vollin, in turn, shoots him, but with his last bit of strength, Bateman rushes at Vollin, overpowers him in a struggle, drags him into the room, and activates it. While Vollin is crushed to death in his own deathtrap, the others take the key off the now dead Bateman, rush to Thatcher, and unlock him from the slab. Once everyone is safe, Mary suddenly screams, saying they forgot all

about Colonel and Harriet Grant, who we then cut to as they're snoozing upstairs, completely unaware of what's happened. That really detracts from the ending's impact, which isn't much in and of itself, as it's just a sudden rush through everything I've described, with the last scene being Jean and Jerry driving home, lamenting Bateman's death. Putting his arm around Jean, Jerry comments, about their nearly being crushed, "I think I better finish the job, don't you? Only a little more gently," and Jean retorts, "So you're the big, bad raven, huh?" Again, so abrupt and "meh," not to mention, again, how much of a deus ex machina Bateman proves to be.

There's very little original music here, save for the theme played over the opening credits, composed by an uncredited Clifford Vaughan. It's okay, but not that memorable, and it's not heard much, if at all, during the movie itself. I also think the freakish music that plays when Bateman's mutilated face is first revealed is also Vaughan's work and, while definitely suitable for that scene, it's not that memorable, either. Much of the rest of the music is recycled from The Black Cat, including Les Preludes, Poelzig's leitmotif, and even Heinz Roemheld's arrangement of the Romeo and Juliet overture, which plays during the ending scene between Jean and Jerry. Both original and classical music arrangements from the 1933 movie, Destination Unknown, were also used in the score, and I think I heard some bits from Werewolf of London as well. This hodgepodge of stock music is a prelude to how a number of the Universal horror movies from the 40's and 50's would be scored.

The Raven is, I feel, one of the most underrated entries in the classic Universal horror cycle. It's a great little flick and a must-see for Karloff and Lugosi fans, especially the latter, who's absolutely marvelous as the insane Dr. Vollin. Despite its short running time and lightning-fast pace, it manages to squeeze in a lot of interesting elements regarding Poe, Vollin's house makes for a great setting, and the film is well-shot and edited. Mind you, it's not perfect, as none of the supporting characters are as memorable as Vollin and Bateman, the music score is nothing special and is mostly recycled, and the ending is very rushed and a bit sloppy, but I'm here for Lugosi and Karloff and they don't disappoint. And since both films run just a little over an hour, The Raven and The Black Cat make a great double feature. So, one dark night this month, get yourself some pizza and soda, sit back, and spend an evening with the original kings of horror. You're guaranteed to have a fun time.