Bowery At Midnight

2043. BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT (1942-usa). With Bela Lugosi, John Archer, wand McKay, TOM NEAL, WHEELER OAKMAN, DAVE O’BRIEN. Bela Lugosi is at his evil best in this cracker jack horror film. It is set in and around a Bowery soup kitchen called The Friendly Mission” where those who are down and out can be well fed with no questions asked. Karl Wagner, the cheerful chap who operates the mission, is known to his minions as a soft touch. Wagner is played by Lugosi, so it is no shock to learn that beneath his friendly exterior lurks a sick man with a shady past and a dastardly hidden agenda. Wagner is a master thief who double-crosses those who assist him in his misdeeds. In fact, he kills them just after their jobs have been completed and leaves their corpses on the crime scenes as souvenirs for the police. Wagner also has an alter ego: Professor Brenner, a respected and happily married psychologist-college instructor. It is a wonder how the man ever finds the time to sleep! Among the various characters parading through the film is Wagner’s innocent and kind-hearted assistant; a baby-faced killer with a heart of ice; a student of the professor’s who decides to go slumming in the Bowery to research a term paper; and a locate the drug addicted doctor who resides in the mission’s basement. The doc has formulated a process by which he is able to return life to the dead. After all else fails, will the fruits of this concoction lead to Wagner/Brenner’s downfall? 62 minutes. Horror