Comments on She Blogged By Night: Recently Watched: The Devil Commands (1941)

It's great to find someone else who appreciate...

2009-11-29T09:06:57.175-06:00

It's great to find someone else who appreciates Isle of the Dead! The Karloff character is one of the most interesting he ever played, and he really makes the most of the opportunity to do some serious acting. And like most of the Lewton films it's complex in its treatment of women, and male fear of women, and women's fear of other women and of their own sexuality. People make a big deal about film noir and the way it confronted the changing roles of women in society, but I think the Lewton movies do it in a deeper and more complex way.

I just watched "Isle of the Dead" last m...

2009-11-29T04:50:25.382-06:00

I just watched "Isle of the Dead" last month! I was going to do a post about it instead of "The Devil Commands" but I can't find the disk. Again. You'd think I'd learn about labeling disks, but apparently not.

I liked "Isle of the Dead" quite a bit. Katherine Emery was so good, I was shocked to see she wasn't in very many films. It does suffer a little bit from weird editing at the end, but otherwise I think it holds up with any of Lewton's other films.

The Man Who Changed His Mind is one of a ...

2009-11-29T04:35:13.936-06:00

The Man Who Changed His Mind is one of a couple of quite good horror movies he made in Britain during the 30s. Horror mixed with sci-fi. Another reasonably good British Karloff horror movie from that period is The Ghoul, but unfortunately the existing prints are in very poor condition so the reputation of the movie has suffered.

My all-time favourite Karloff performance is still The Isle of the Dead. The one Val Lewton horror movie that nobody seems to like, except for me!

You're welcome to, Pierre -- I hate to have a ...

2009-11-29T03:26:47.839-06:00

You're welcome to, Pierre -- I hate to have a negative post in the middle of the blogathon, though. Especially since this is, thus far, the ONLY Karloff film I don't like!

D -- I love "The Walking Dead"! I haven't seen "The Man Who Changed His Mind" yet, but I have a stack of 3-4 Karloff movies I recorded over the last year, maybe it's in there.

I love some of Karloff's lesser known movies o...

2009-11-29T02:38:06.724-06:00

I love some of Karloff's lesser known movies of this period, like The Walking Dead and especially The Man Who Changed His Mind.

Great post. If you don't mind, Stacia, I'...

2009-11-28T23:05:36.669-06:00

Great post.

If you don't mind, Stacia, I'll list this on today's Boris Karloff Blogathon.

Amazing post!

2009-11-27T13:46:22.717-06:00

Amazing post!