User Reviews

With a sense of style and storytelling not usually associated with the programmers like this, here is a Gothic horror tale that is a surprising delight. It all surrounds a kindly doctor (Ralph Morgan) who finds himself suffering from blackouts as a brutal vampire-like killer strikes in his small community. Morgan is in love with pretty Maxine Doyle, who admires him tremendously but is not in love with him in spite of being engaged to him.

As the list of victims increases, Morgan becomes more confused by his headaches, and his hunchback assistant (a touching Mischa Auer) keeps close tabs on him. Sets of some of Universal's best Gothic thrillers are utilized for this, adding some music from "White Zombie" into the mix. Haunting photography, above average performances (for this type of film) and strident pacing make this a must for classic horror fans.

Professor Paul Kriston(Ralph Morgan) is a well liked and respected doctor in his tiny village. The beautiful Marguerite(Maxine Doyle)is willing to be his bride in spite of being in love with another man, David(Russell Gleason). The doctor has a hunchbacked servant(Mischa Auer);this is the clue that this is a horror flick. Kriston has suffered a vampire curse his whole life and is not even aware that he has a blood-sucking habit at night. Miss Marguerite discovers her fiancée's secret, only after she realizes she's actually in love with her other man. Things have already turned sinister.

This 30's chiller is directed by Frank Strayer. Other players include: Pedro de Cardoba, Lucy Beaumont and Carl Stockdale.

Rating films as from this era can be quite challenging. American horror films of the 1930's are notorious for unbelievable special effects, degrading female acting, and incoherent plots. This film is no exception, but Condemned to Live is still entertaining due to the care with which it was made. It isn't Karloff's Frankenstein, but it's worth a viewing.

In an African cave, a pregnant woman is bitten by a vampire bat. It is implied that her child is born and sent back to a European village. He becomes a doctor and is quite respected in his town. This prestige has earned him the admiration of a young woman, Marguerite. However, Marguerite has fallen in love with her neighbor David, but feels obligated to marry doctor Kristan. Kristan is visited by a college, Dr. Bizet who discovers Kristan's affliction: he becomes ferociously violent when the lights are dimmed and has killed several people. Kristan does not recall any of these murders and thinks the culprit is a giant bat. He remains innocent due to his devoted hunchback, Zan, covering his outbursts. Both are discovered and commit suicide at the end of the film.

With such a short running time, a lot happens in Condemned to Live, and most of it happens too quickly. Despite the compressed time, the film develops an intriguing antagonist. Dr. Kristan is hell-bent on discovering the perpetrator of the murders, but is unaware of his involvement in them. While it isn't difficult to see this plot twist, Strayer's incorporation of Jeckyll and Hyde personality disorder and vampirism into Ralph Morgan's character add suspense to the film. Zan also shares traditional horror elements, with his inhuman devotion to his master and his shrunken appearance. These two also have a fitting end in their joined suicide. Kristan is a knowledgeable man, and he knows he must separate himself from the village in order to continue serving the people.

The special effects are also worthwhile and appear as realistic as one could expect from a film so old. The bat in the opening sequence doesn't appear fake given the film's age, which is unlike some films today (Army of Darkness is a modern film which incorporates absurdly unconvincing special effects). Morgan's portrayal as a bloodthirsty killer is also intriguing. He exhibits no obvious traits of being a vampire, but bites people as if he were. I interpret his desire to bite as a trait inherited from the bat which attacked his mother. This is why he prefers biting people on the neck, but isn't a real vampire.

I may have read too much into the film, but a good film allows an audience to do that. The film does suffer from a low budget, and certain parts of it are difficult to see. If you find a single disc version, I would suggest that you watch it, since I've had better success with them. I've read the plot summary for The Vampire Bat, and feel obligated to warn you that this film is similar but they both have around a 5.0 rating on IMDb. Yes, there are several holes in the plot, but I don't think I can fairly lower the film's score given its age. While Condemned to Live is dated, it is still a great way to spend 67 minutes of your time.

Professor Paul Kristan (Ralph Morgan) is a kind, wise and good man, worshipped by the people of his village, especially by beautiful Marguerite (Maxine Doyle), to whom he is betrothed. BUT, he does have a hunchbacked assistant, which, in a horror movie, is as good as saying that the prof is the killer. The problem is, Kristan doesn't know he's the 'monster' responsible for tearing out locals' throats and drinking their blood: he suffers from a malady that makes him faint and forget what he has done, his sickness the result of his mother being bitten by a vampire bat when she was pregnant.

The superstitious locals believe that a giant bat is responsible for the deaths, but Marguerite's level-headed friend David (who has known her since school and is in love with her) doesn't believe this: he reckons that the killings are the work of a man.

A poverty row effort with a sympathetic monster, Condemned to Live evokes the tragic horror of The Wolf Man, which would follow six years later. As such, it makes a welcome change from mad scientists and genuinely evil villains, although revealing Kristan as the killer early on robs the film of mystery and reduces the horror, the only tension coming in the final act, when the professor is alone with Marguerite (and even then, we know she is going to be rescued). Director Frank R. Strayer struggles to keep the action moving at a reasonable pace due to an overly talky script (and stiff performances), and the visuals are uninspired and unmemorable.

The film ends in tragic fashion, with an angry mob pursuing hunchback Zan, who they believe to be the killer, only for Kristan to tell them that it is he who committed the murders. The prof then leaps to his death off a cliff, followed by his faithful assistant. Oh well, at least that leaves Marguerite free to hook up with David, the lucky so-and-so.

'Condemned …' doesn't repeat Strayer's earlier movie about bloodsucking in a peaceful village. The story lines are unlike. This one should of been both more romantic and unnerving. 'The Vampire Bat' wasn't about _vampirism, but about crazy science, an insane scientist, hypnosis, a henchman …. 'Condemned …' is about _vampirism, it has much more drama (which would of required a better cast), no comedy. It brings a natural explanation to _vampirism, and in both movies the _vampirism is related only to bloodsucking, but not to any unholy things whatsoever. Here, there's no copper, but a rival. For those who complain about humor in suspense movies, we are completely spared of it, the chills are straight.

A peaceful village, a cave and its pit …. Also, the villagers with torches. The eeriness in both is basically natural: a disease here (and the giant bats are real, though they live in the depths of Africa), the hypnosis in the earlier movie.

The script depends much more on drama (and here, the cast dis-serves it), not at all on comedy, Kristan, as played by R. Morgan, is wholly bland, though doomed, a bland altruist stricken by a disease; Maxine Doyle is banal, and more naughty and knowledgeable than a village ingénue. The cast has Auer, whose role was smaller than advisable; in an earlier movie, also by F. Strayer, he had been the illegitimate son of a wealthy man, and made a good role. The script offers a romantic drama, but Kristan (one of the medicine professors who practiced in peaceful villages) should of been more keenly characterized, while Maxine Doyle looks nothing like her role. When the stepfather Bizet arrives, the professor seems surprised, though he had informed his guest about his plans to marry. And the denouement in the cave comes off as less grand than needed, with the villagers turned suddenly into a sympathetic crowd.

So, in a sense, Frank Strayer did return to his peaceful village, but to shoot an entirely different tale. Here, the names are fancier: Kristan, Bizet …. In fact, Strayer tries here a new thing, positively strives not to repeat himself, to acknowledge another template, for a dissimilar plot. The supporting players, mainly Auer, but also the foster father and the girl's father, upstage the leads. The overtones of sexual pathology perhaps required better scenes, according to later criteria; but within the age's code, the dissonances are spelled as explicit as possible (the manservant Zan is a double of the professor, and like a son, signifying the inner deformity; the girl is another double, not inner, not interiorly, but as mirroring his repression and denial).

'Condemned …' is a movie about _vampirism understood as a disease; it also links this illness with morbid sexuality, the girl's bland sentimentality, guessed by both Bizet and the professor's rival, mirror the vampire's unacknowledged _pulsions, and both the professor and his fiancée are trapped in an unhealthy relationship to deny their genuine leanings (wholly morbid, his; entirely sane and ordinary, hers). The paternity plays an important role: Bizet is the professor's foster father, the professor himself is like a foster father to Zan, the oaths of the girl's father prove worthless. So, the seeming paradox is that this movie will at once endear Strayer's fan, and disappoint slightly; as its style is what at once endears, and proves insufficient. The script could of been better, though it's uncanny enough as such; but even with the one given, a better cast was needed, one more glamorous and striking. The earlier movie had been a sure recipe, and meant as such; the later one tries a new territory: gloomy drama, and it needed a dependable cast, and even Auer, underused here, had been better filmed by the very same director.

There's a bit of effective music I recognized from another '30s chiller.

R. Morgan and Maxine Doyle weren't the most enjoyable leads. The professor comes across as not only understandably weakened, but positively repugnant and lecherous. In an earlier Strayer movie, Auer had been much better showcased.

Before there was The Asylum and the Mockbuster, there was Poverty Row and their quick imitation movies. Cashing in on the popularity of Universal's Dracula, this movie is about a man whose parents were hiding out in a cave in Africa from some angry natives (that hasn't aged well), and a vampire bat bites the woman. (Clearly, the writers didn't know vampire bats are from South America, not Africa.

Flash forward to the present day, and the baby has grown up to be a respected professor who tells the dumb peasants of this town how to live their lives. But by night, he creeps out and drinks blood. He's tragic because he doesn't know he's doing this. Put in there a love triangle with a girl who wants to marry him for status and not really love and a hunchback who covers up evidence of the murder, and you still have... a pretty dull melodrama from the days when movies were more like stage plays than movies.

Worth a watch? I guess if you are into film history.

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.