not horrible nor great

Load of rubbish!!

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Laid it on REAL thick about how good the prof was--repeated again and again very stilted Marguerite to marry older saintI love old horror films, so the fact I disliked "Condemned to Live" so much really says a lot about the movie. After all, I should have loved it with its plot about a fiend draining the blood from innocents. But the writing and direction were so sluggish, it felt more like I was watching a community theater production instead of a movie.The story begins with a prologue about some folks stuck on a hellish island with nasty natives and vampire bats. Soon the film skips ahead and folks are back home. There you learn that Professor Kristan (Ralph Morgan) is a saintly man, as folks repeat this about 800 times...just to make sure the audience knows. But it turns out the saintly Professor is struggling with inner demons....as well as overly melodramatic acting! The lines are delivered poorly and the dialog itself is clumsy and unnatural. These, combined with sluggish direction, make watching this film a real chore. Dull beyond belief and a film that simply should have been much, much better.

Ralph Morgan (Professor Kristan), Maxine Doyle (Marguerite Mane), Pedro de Cordoba (Dr Bizet), Russell Gleason (David), Mischa Auer (Zan), Lucy Beaumont (Mother Molly), Carl Stockdale (John Mane), Heida Shope (Anna), Marilyn Knowlden (Maria), Paul Weigel (doctor), Edward Cecil (Manservant), Ted Billings (bell ringer), Charles Slim Whitaker, Harold Goodwin, Dick Curtis, Frank Brownlee, Horace B. Carpenter (villagers), Jean Handel (old crone). PROLOGUE: Barbara Bedford (woman), Ferdinand Schumann-Heinck (man), Robert Frazer (doctor). Director: FRANK R. STRAYER. Original screenplay: Karen DeWolf. Photography: M.A. Anderson. Film editor: Richard D. Reed. Art director: Edward C. Jewell. Music director: Abe Meyer. Title music composed by David Broekman. Production manager: Lon Young. Assistant director: Melville Shyer. Sound recording: Richard Tyler. Producer: Maury M. Cohen. Filmed on standing sets at Universal Studios. Copyright 5 September 1935 by Invincible Pictures Corporation. U.S. release through Chesterfield: 15 September 1935. No recorded New York opening. 7 reels. 67 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A small European village is terrorized by a monster bat. COMMENT: Despite its second-string cast (only Maxine Doyle as the pretty heroine and Mischa Auer as the devoted hunchback make any sort of impression), this little "B" emerges as a fairly effective horror yarn, thanks to Strayer's suspenseful direction and Anderson's atmospheric lighting. The sets are also highly effective, and I must commend the director's decision not to use wolfish make-up for the monster but to let the actor concerned register his transformation simply by changing his facial expression from bland to menacing.

This movie begins with a pregnant woman and two men hiding in a cave somewhere in Africa in order to escape being captured by warriors from a certain tribe. All of a sudden a large bat appears out of nowhere and bites the woman before being chased away. The film then fast-forwards to forty years later where a man by the name of "Professor Paul Kristan" (Ralph Morgan) is helping his fellow villagers resolve a recent spate of murders in which the victims have be totally drained of blood. To further assist him is his loyal servant, "Zan, the hunchback" (Mischa Auer), his fiancé "Marguerite Mane" (Maxine Doyle) and his old mentor "Dr. Anders Bizet" (Pedro de Cordoba) who has just recently arrived. Yet, in spite of their best efforts, none of them are quite able to find out who—or what—is killing the villagers. At least, not for the time being. At any rate, rather than reveal any more I will just say that this could have been a pretty good vampire film if it hadn't been so bogged down with repetitive dialogue and a lack of action. Likewise, the overall lack of suspense certainly didn't help this movie either. In any case, although I certainly don't consider this movie to be necessarily bad, I honestly don't believe it merits a high score either. That said, I have to rate it as slightly below average.

Ralph Morgan, the star of this film, is the brother of Frank Morgan, who played the Wizard of Oz. I just don't want anyone to be misled by the other reviewer's comment. Not that it has anything to do with this film, which is a most interesting film from a Poverty Row outfit. Partially shot on Universal sets from "Bride Of Frankenstein," the film has a most curious appeal. As with most sympathetic "monsters" the Morgan character is doomed - his mother was bitten by a vampire, and his engagement to a much younger woman has evoked his vampiric tendencies, which are more akin to lycantropy than vampirism. The equation is lustful desires bring out the beast, and in this rather subtle (it was made in 1936) implication, the script takes a few ideas from Bran Stoker and Guy Endore. Mischa Auer is also commendable in his role as a hunchback, loyal to Morgan, and who has been keeping Morgan from discovering the truth about himself.