Corpse Vanishes (1942)

Cast:

Bela "I controlled the Devil Bat" Lugosi is Dr. Lorenz
Luana Walters is Patricia Hunter
Tristam Coffin is Dr Foster
Minerva "I was in Ape Man with Bela Lugosi" Urecal is Fagah, the maid
Elizabeth Russell is Countess Lorenz

What the box says:

Police are baffled by the sudden death of young brides and the subsequent snatching of their bodies from the morgue; however the tenacious reporter (Luana Walters) follows her leads to the home of Dr. Lorenz (Bela Lugosi). It is there that Dr. Lorenz extracts blood from the brides in effort to keep his elderly wife young.

Plot:

At a church, a wedding is just starting. Phyllis, the bride, collapses at the altar. A doctor pronounces her dead. An undertaker arrives to take Phyllis away. He discovers that she was already taken. This is another case of body snatching.

Newspaper headlines assault us. The cops are puzzled by the 4th society bride to die at the altar.

The police were able to catch one of the fake undertaker assistants. However, he has no idea about anything.

Mrs. Wentworth and her daughter, Alice, pay a visit to the District Attorney. They want police protection fro the wedding.

Patricia, the society reporter who is far too plucky to not get involved in the weird case, is assigned to cover the Wentworth wedding.

Mother is scared for Alice. Bridesmaid small talk ensues. The bride is given an orchid at the last minute.

Dr. Lorenz is skulking about outside.

Alice has the orchid on and collapses at the altar. She is taken off.

Photographer swiped Alice’s orchid.

The police are escorting the funeral wagon. However, a flaming car distracts the escort. While they investigate the car, Dr. Lorenz and his goons leap into action to steal Alice from the mortuary-mobile. The police return to find the mortuary assistants dead.

APB on the dead body ensues. The police pull over the truck and find another body.

Keenan, the editor of the newspaper, is chewing out Patricia for not coming up with a society story like she was sent to cover. She explains how all the brides were wearing the same strange orchid with a peculiar aroma.

Dr. Lorenz has the goons ready everything. Alice is wheeled in on a gurney. As Lorenz gets his lab coat on, the Countess, his uber-shrewish wife, is whining about how he isn’t fast enough. He draws some gland from Alice. A few moments of combining the fluid with a few colored liquids has the solution ready to be injected into the Countess.

Dr. Lorenz catches his servant dwarf trying to fondle Alice. He quickly begins beat the dwarf.

The brides can be used numerous times for removing fluids.

Patricia checks with a botanist who recommends she contact Dr. Lorenz the developer of that particular strain of orchid. He also lives nearby, too. What a small world?

At the train station, a coffin is being readied to be taken to Lorenz’s mansion. Patricia cannot find anyone to give her a ride to the mansion.

Eventually, Dr. Foster gives her a lift. He discusses that Dr. Lorenz and his wife are a bit eccentric. Foster is working on a cure for Lorenz’s wife’s disease.

At the mansion, the midget lets Dr. Foster and Patricia enter.

Excuse me, do you know Billy Barty?

Dr. Lorenz is fiddling with his organ to entertain his wife. Well, playing his organ sounds almost as bad.

The Countess doesn’t appreciate that Patricia came to the mansion and allows her a taste of hand for her impertinence.

Patricia asks Dr. Lorenz about the orchid. He refuses to really explain about it but offers to let her stay the night.

The Countess is very happy with the reporter chick present.

In the guest room, Patricia discovers that the orchid is gone. After she hits the hay, Lorenz is skulking about almost Dracula-like.

Toby, the dwarf, warns the hunchback guy not to go out.

Lorenz hovers over Dr. Foster.

Hunchback is stroking Patricia’s hair. She wakes up screaming loud enough to scare him away.

Patricia starts to sneak around and discovers Lorenz and the Countess sleeping in matching coffins. She tells Dr. Foster about the hunchback.

Lorenz has decided it is time to get rid of the hunchback and heads for the freak quarters.

Patricia discovers a secret passage in her bedroom. She is unaware that the hunchback follows her.

Hunchback finds one of the brides and starts stroking her hair. He hears a noise.

Patricia discovers the bride.

Lorenz finally catches up to the hunchback.

Patricia hides and discovers the dead hunchback.

In the morning, Patricia talks with Dr. Foster about the girls in the crypt. Somehow, Lorenz convinces her she was just having some nightmares.

She asks him about the coffins. Lorenz apparently finds the eternal-rest coffin much more comfortable that a bed. Well, before heading back to the city, she shows Dr. Foster a number of the orchids she found.

Keenan meets with Patricia. She tells of the bride, etc. Dr. Foster stops by. He found the moss that the orchids grow in at Lorenz’s mansion. He also reveals the Countess is chronologically in her 70s. He theorizes that the brides are somehow used to keep the Countess young.

Patricia suggests they trap Lorenz.

Later, she talks with Peggy, a friend and struggling actress. She is to be the bride in a fake society wedding. Peggy is convinced by the amount of publicity this wedding will have.

Lorenz and the Countess read about the society wedding of Peggy. Fagah, the hunchback’s mother is angry about her son’s death.

Keenan hopes everything works.

Patricia gives Peggy some last minute instructions. She is to faint at the altar. All the actors take their places.

The orchid is just delivered.

Bridesmaids ensue as Peggy marches down the aisle.

Dr. Foster suddenly proposes to Patricia. She gets a sudden message to meet the minister. It is actually Lorenz and grabs her.

Lorenz carries Patricia away.

Dr. Foster goes to check on Patricia and discovers her gone.

The chase is on…

Bela Lugosi with a midget. This isn't even an Ed Wood movie... Somehow, Toby, the midget, gets shot. Lorenz leaves him behind.

Fagah is angry when she learns that Lorenz left Toby behind to die.

Patricia is wheeled in on a gurney. Lorenz will have to leave the brides behind much to the whining of the Countess.

Lorenz readies the procedure. Fagah stabs him. The dying Lorenz chokes Fagah to death.

Countess is left on her own. It is the Countess versus Patricia. Somehow, the uber-shrew gets stabbed.

Dr. Foster and Keenan suddenly arrive.

Patricia and Dr. Foster quickly get married.

What I say:

Yes, this is another Poverty Row Bela Lugosi movie. Bela had made quite a number of these movies, and I've reviewed a couple of them: Devil Bat and Invisible Ghost. At this point, he had hit a slump and to keep working by doing cheaper and cheaper movies. Eventually, his drug addiction ruined his career with such low budget movies until Ed Wood. Lugosi's career never would recover even to such a low point. Ed Wood would use Bela in several movies. It is shame that such an actor like Bela Lugosi would be remembered for Plan 9 From Outer Space than his earlier movies.

For having hunchbacks, midgets, dwarf whipping, and Bela Lugosi sleeping in a coffin, the Corpse Vanishes still comes across as extremely tame. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that thought. It had so many weird things around that never jelled. One hunchback that liked to stroke unconscious women's hair. A bull-whip wielding Bela Lugosi punishing his incompetent servants. I have a hard time grasping how all those elements don't make the movie go over the top.

If Bela was that evil, he'd have ditched his shrewish wife. Any doctor who discovers a way to prolong or restore youth would have a path of gold paved in front of him whereever he went. Couldn't he have found a better woman who wasn't always nagging him to keep milking spinal fluid from young women? What I don't understand is the process doesn't initially kill the women why go to all the trouble. Wouldn't a newspaper ad about participating in some type of medical experiment which is just a cover up to drain some spinal fluid work just as good and without all the trouble.

We have a mad scientist poisoning brides and stealing their bodies away to improve the beauty of his psychotic wife. I guess that is love. Love is kidnapping brides and draining them of spinal fluid for your hateful battleaxe of a spouse. Anyone who makes that into a bumper sticker better let me have some of the royalties.

Somehow, the spunky girls news reporter is almost as annoying as the comedic sidekick photographer in Devil Bat. Patricia is stuck covering society weddings but jumps head first into investigating the stolen brides bodies. She gets a hold of the clue the police somehow always missed. That is her ticket to the big time with the big story to those giant headlines that spin in these movies.

The spunky reporter that wants to make it her way after all, she sure falls hopelessly for the doctor. I guess that shows that career women don't need careers as much as a man to cook and clean for. Well, horror movies from 1942 can't really paint great pictures for modern romance. It would be like relying on any William Castle movie like House on Haunted Hill as a guide for married couples.

For a guy living in seclusion and trying to keep a low profile, the entire town seems to be awfully terrified of him. Some people may be scared away. Well, fear is one way to keep away any snooping neighbors. However, the number of rumors about him would almost be worse than his big secret to be revealed. However, wouldn't that still draw attention for such a creepy doctor who keeps to himself?

Most mad scientist movies have to have the screwed up schemes. Why be a mad scientist if not tampering with things that should best be left alone? This scheme ranks up there almost with a Herbert West scheme, not for gore but sheer insanity. Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter had a pretty wild plot. Lady Frankenstein is up there as well for Tania needing to create a man to "Rock her Like a Hurricane" to paraphrase the vernacular of the Scorpions. However, a Bela Lugosi stealing brides to rejuvenate his wife has to be at the top of the mountain when you include his sadistic midget and necrophiliac hunchback.

I hate to bring this up. Why does Bela need young brides? It wasn't mentioned but stealing women from their weddings and using their spinal fluids seems an awfully lot like a virgin sacrifice. Movies from the 40s were pretty much unable to state anything like virgin sacrifice. I think it was pretty much understood. Brides in white wedding dresses, what could have symbolized purity better than that? The reason those women were used was never brought up other than the victims were beautiful young women. Could beautiful young women have betterspinal fluid than anyone else?

Bela Lugosi gets ragged on a lot by most B-movie fans. I think that is what is so terible. When Lugosi was on the top of his game, the man is incredible. So many of his movies had to have a close up of his eyes as he mesmerized someone. It did become something almost a running gag. Look at White Zombie, it was pretty off the wall. Murder had to be one of his best roles. I think he did a good job as the hero in Black Cat.

Quotable Dialogue
"Please this is no time for interviews."
"Another kidnapping of a dead bride, what a story."
"What a swell romaine salad."
"Why do you beat my son so hard?"
"Get out you gargoyle."
"I've been up all night with dead people."
Morals of the Story
DAs can have cops produce guard weddings.
Stealing flowers from dead brides isn't illegal or even immoral.
Youth restored 80 year olds can never be young enough.
Hunchbacks and dwarves are closely related genetic disorders.
Coffins are great orthopedic mattresses.