The Man with Nine Lives
Dr. Leon Kravaal develops a potential cure for cancer, which involves freezing the patient. But an experiment goes awry when authorities believe Kravaal has killed a patient. Kravaal freezes the officials, along with himself. Years later, they are discovered and revived in hopes that Kravaal can indeed complete his cure. But human greed and weakness compound to disrupt the project.
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- Cast：
- Boris Karloff , Roger Pryor , Jo Ann Sayers , Stanley Brown , John Dilson , Hal Taliaferro , Byron Foulger
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Reviews
Powerful
A lot of fun.
it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
"Just because a man has an M.D. after his name... can he do as he pleases with human lives?" That quote from the film is exactly what you will ponder while viewing it.Boris plays Dr. Leon Kravaal a doctor who has created "frozen therapy"... basically a slightly primitive version of what we call cryogenics today. Dr. Kravaal is awakened after being frozen for 10 years to find that he is accused of murder while conducting his experiment for a cancer cure. Did he murder someone? Did he find a cure for cancer? Is Dr. Kravall mad? You will simply have to watch the film to find out... I will not give it away.This is a wonderful sci-fi film that I am calling "The Man With Nine Stars"... really the film is that good!! 9/10
Or so the film should have been called to be totally accurate! This is a decent Karloff B film, one of five he made for Columbia which collectively became known to the trade as "The Mad Doctor" series, as they have similar plots.In this one Karloff plays Dr. Leon Kraval, thawed out after 10 years to prove his theory that cryogenics can cure cancer. It's an interesting idea, one the film treats seriously, and the big K delivers a good performance. His forcing his experiments on human guinea pigs is quite harrowing, and as in many of these movies seems to have an unwitting prophecy of Nazi-type concentration camp experiments. A fear in the collective unconscious, perhaps? Anyway his victims are all unsympathetic types. They are THE ONES WHO REFUSED TO LISTEN.The film benefits, for once, from some good support acting. It is, at 73 minutes, rather too long for it's subject and the second half looks drab (it all takes place in an underground laboratory) and overstretched. But this is not a bad B as these things go, and Boris certainly has a field day.
Dr. Leon Kraval (Boris Karloff) has developed a radical means of treating cancer using a freezing therapy. But before he can prove the success of his procedure he is accused of murder. An accident in his lab locks him, his accuser, the judge, the coroner, and the sheriff in his hidden freezing chamber. All are declared missing and presumed dead. Ten years later another doctor is onto the same research and decides to visit the now derelict home of Dr. Kraval in search of his secrets. What he doesn't expect to find is Dr. Kraval, frozen but alive, and ready to continue his experiments on his human guinea pigs.Anytime a new Boris Karloff movie that I haven't seen is set to release on DVD, there's reason for me to rejoice. It's rare that the man and his work have ever let me down. To say that I was under whelmed by The Man with Nine Lives would be an understatement. There's just not much here to get excited about. I wasn't expecting the second coming of Karloff's Frankenstein monster, but I had hoped for a lively, engrossing story. To put it kindly, much of the the movie is dull. A portion of the enjoyment I was able to derive from the movie came from my almost fanboy like appreciation of Karloff and his work. The man simply amazes me every time I see him on screen. Which makes it amazing to me that my favorite part of the movie was the exploration of the Kraval's house that actually takes place before Karloff makes his appearance.It wouldn't be fair to discuss The Man with Nine Lives without mentioning the set design. It's the real highlight of the movie. I've already mentioned the house. In old, dark house fashion, it's riddled with secret passages and mysterious locked doors. But the best part of the set design had to be the freezing rooms that were supposedly carved out of a glacier. To my untrained eye, I found them very believable and authentic looking. Very nice.
This little known gem from 1940 is impressive for a few reasons: first, it stands head and shoulders above most of the B movies of the era, largely due to a good script and a great performance from Boris Karloff. Also, while made in the midst of the Universal horror period, it demonstrates some of the best elements of that genre, however it also pre-figures the oncoming decade of sci-fi flicks of the 50s, but with a more intelligent, and mysterious, plot than most of the B sci-fi films that followed. It also incorporates some noir elements such as shadowy images, gun play, etc. The Man with Nine Lives is also known under the alternative title Behind the Door (which is actually more accurate).
