The Raven

Doctor Vollin is a famous brain surgeon, now retired, whose one passion is Edgar Allan Poe. In his cellar he has actually built the devices from Poe's stories: the pendulum, the room with closing walls, the rest. After an accident he operates on a young woman and becomes obsessed with her. When her father objects he makes a plan. As an assistant he uses a fugitive whose face is known: he deliberately disfigures Bateman and binds him to himself. Lew Landers directs. Bela Lugosi plays Vollin and Boris Karloff plays Bateman. It belongs to Universal's horror cycle of the thirties and is one of the films in which Karloff and Lugosi appeared together; both were the studio's great names at the time. What is interesting is the casting. Lugosi is the villain here and Karloff the victim, reversing their usual positions. The source is Poe's poem of the same name, but the narrative comes out of an obsession with Poe rather than the poem itself, which the film uses as a motif. It caused a reaction in Britain and its violence hastened the argument about censoring horror; Universal paused the genre for a period. It runs a little over sixty minutes and moves fast. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Universal horror and the Karloff and Lugosi pairing. Who it is not for: the acting is broad, the plot is thin, and it is not frightening at all by present standards.