You won't be disappointed!

Powerful

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Bowery at Midnight is one of the many poverty row films made by Bela Lugosi in the 40's. In it Lugosi plays a somewhat far-fetched character. He is alternately a psychology professor, a Samaritan who runs a mission for the homeless and a ruthless crime boss! Neither of his lives cross-over and his university students do not know of his mission activities and vice-versa, while his gangster boss life is a secret kept from everyone bar his fellow criminal underlings. Despite what the title and star would imply this is not a horror movie but really a crime-thriller. More accurately it is a crime film with a bizarrely incidental horror angle, as there is a character that creates zombies in the cellar of the mission! Needless to say, Bowery at Midnight is total nonsense but will be enjoyed by those with a tolerance for low budget genre flicks from this period.

Although Bela Lugosi made two movies with the Bowery Boys (or "East End Kids" as they were known at the time of those two unforgettable classics), this is not one of them. Yes, he is in the Bowery, working as the seemingly kindly head of a mission, which is not at all anywhere like the long-running Bowery Mission of legendary fame. He dispenses soup without religious chatter, has a nurse on staff to tend to the ailing, and treats his gentle wife with a tender hand. But there's another side to this philanthropist, which should be obvious considering who's playing the part, and his mission is simply a front for a crime ring. He has a keen eye for criminals hiding out in the mission, bribes them in assisting him with his nefarious criminal activity (which includes jewel robbery) then dispenses them when their services are no longer required. But his ill treatment of a weary doctor who lost his practice threatens to be his undoing, as does the student of psychology whose professor just happens to sound exactly like the kindly mission man.There's something about Bela Lugosi that is both pitiable and frightening. His characters, with that heavy Hungarian accent (no matter what nationality he played), are all one step away from doom, and in many of his films, his dispatchment at the end is obviously an instant elevator to hell. Yet, there's something about him that you can't take your eyes off, and even in roles other than Dracula and Igor, he's the dominating force of attention, even when paired with Karloff. The world-weary doctor character could have played by Karloff who only made occasional "Z" grade films, while Lugosi only appeared in the occasional "B" film at an "A" grade studio."Bowery at Midnight" is mostly crime drama with a very slight element of horror, and features "Z" movie mainstay Wanda McKay as the devoted nurse who has no idea of her employer's real mission until it is too late. The film is static-like, which makes it almost move like a silent film, yet it is not totally without merit. But it is not one of Lugosi's better Monogram films, either, because he is so identified with horror that when you compare this with PRC's "The Devil Bat" or Monogram's "The Corpse Vanishes", it lacks in the unintentional humor department that those (and others of his) encompassed. Once again, his character has a frail wife so in love with her devoted husband that she's oblivious to his real life, and once again, he's done in by younger men he believed he could easily crush with his pinkie. This makes it all predictable, until the very end, with a conclusion that is easily as eerie as his mad doctor's finale from 1935's "The Raven".

Known as a Monogram quickie, the 'Jeckyll and Hyde' type premise, the story and cast had the potential for a very rich and interesting film-- if it had been given a bigger budget and a more deeply elaborated script. At barely more than 60 minutes we have an extremely fast paced movie with many of our favorite "B" movie icons -- Bela Lugosi, Tom Neal, Dave O'Brien, Wanda McKay, John Archer and Wheeler Oakman.Bela, whose English delivery is now excellent and natural, with that great hint of a Hungarian accent, plays Frederick Brenner, a professor of criminology by day and Karl Wagner, the philanthropic director of "The Friendly Mission," a soup kitchen and dormitory in New York's Bowery by night. He has a third identity as the head of a criminal ring of thieves and bank robbers.His modus operandi is to double cross and kill his henchmen (who frequently include Mission transients) after they have served his villainous purposes, and then to have a 'rum dumb' caretaker doctor bury them in the Mission's basement. Unbeknownst to him, the doctor has devised a way to revive the dead and keep them 'alive' as zombies, hidden below the basement in a cellar.The movie shows us scenes of his triple life including blissful tender moments at home with his wife; teaching about paranoid schizophrenics in his college class; doling out soup to Bowery bum denizens; and coldly throwing one of his henchmen off a roof as he stages a jewelry store robbery. In such a rapidly paced film, the inner tensions of his schizophrenic nature are barely touched on, except in a brief moment where he moans in his sleep experiencing nightmares. Oh what this film could have been if given the full "A" treatment! Here we're not going to get anything like Peter Lorre's anguished plea for tolerance and understanding regarding his own compulsive nature that he cannot control as in the great German film 'M' (1931).Wanda McKay, who plays Wagner's perky nurse assistant Judy Malvern, is betrothed to the rich playboy John Archer, who is, coincidentally, one of Professor Brenner's students, Richard Dennison. You can guess that Brenner/Wagner's double life is going to start to unravel. In this case, Dennison wanders into the Mission while doing research on how the indigent live, and meets Brenner as 'Wagner.' Tom Neal, meanwhile, puts in another cynical, tortured (and vicious) performance as a hired killer, used by Brenner / Wagner to rub out his henchmen, and Dennison as well. As a result of Dennsion's disappearance, the police finally discover Brenner's dual nature and raid the Mission. Seeking his own revenge, the caretaker doctor leads Brenner down to the cellar to the awaiting zombies ("You can escape this way...") In the final scene, Dennison is magically returned to normalcy where he joins Judy in his bedroom to live happily ever after.Wanda McKay is also in 'Voodoo Man' (1944) with Bela, and many other Poverty Row 'features' as well as the odd Universal serial 'Raiders of Ghost City' (1944). John Archer, besides starring in the great 'King of the Zombies' (1941) with Mantan Moreland, is in 'Destination Moon' (1950) and many 50s-60s TV shows including 'Perry Mason' and 'Bonanza'. Tom Neal plays the hero in the serial 'Jungle Girl' (1941), as well as in his classic noir film, 'Detour' (1945). Dave O'Brien, who had the most successful career, mostly as a cowboy star, plays the cop who tracks down Brenner. He's most famous as the 'hop-head' in 'Tell Your Children' (1936) which we all know and love as "Reefer Madness'. Wheeler Oakman, with over 280 film and TV credits as a villain, plays one of Brenner's henchmen. He was in countless serials and westerns, and played Tarnak in 'Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars' (1938).Wow! All these great familiar faces in one fast paced, weird little movie that sadly, was too cheaply made. Oh, what it could have been! Therefore, sadly, I can only give it a four and half.

Wow, did this little B-movie have a complicated plot! First, Bela Lugosi operates a soup kitchen in the Bowery for hobos. Second, he uses criminals who come into this soup kitchen to commit various crimes. Third, he eventually kills these criminals and gives the bodies to his friend "the doctor". Fourth, he is in reality a psychology professor who teaches at a nearby college. Fifth, he has a wife who he loves and treats very well. What a very complex character--perhaps too much for just one character--more like three or four characters! While all this strains reason, it also is a reworking of another Lugosi movie from just two years earlier. In DARK EYES OF London, Lugosi is an insurance agent who is also the benefactor for a home for the blind. However, this social service organization, like the soup kitchen, is a cover for theft and murder! And in both cases, he uses residents of the programs to do his evil bidding! Of the two films, DARK EYES OF London is probably the better film since the plot isn't so convoluted and overly complex. Plus the graphic details of the murders really make DARK EYES a very scary film, indeed. With BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT, the film just seemed too complicated and silly. Still, it was very entertaining and for fans of Lugosi and B-horror pictures, it's well worth a look.By the way, among the many murders Lugosi commits or orders, the one involving poor Vince Barnett is amazing and made the film really exciting and creepy. Watch for this scene at the top of a building during a robbery committed by cold and sinister Tom Neal.