Bowery at Midnight (1942)

Too much of everything

i must have seen a different film!!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT is one of the many skid-row thrillers that Bela Lugosi made for poverty producers Monogram in the 1940s. This one starts off promisingly enough with an interesting plot that sees Lugosi acting as the kindly host of a soup kitchen, although it soon transpires that the kitchen is merely a front for Lugosi's midnight activities as the head of a criminal gang. Sadly, after the initial premise, this set up never ends up going anywhere and the resultant police investigation is highly boring. Sensing this, the scriptwriter adds in a nonsensical sub-plot involving the bodies of dead criminals being buried and then brought back to life as zombies in the soup kitchen basement. We never find out how or why these zombies are created and their presence adds absolutely nothing to the storyline, other than providing for Lugosi's denouement.The lack of budget and professionalism really hurts this film. The direction is absolutely stilted and the cast, aside from Lugosi, completely wooden. The horror star himself is on top form, delighting in the contrast between his kindly benefactor and sinister criminal mastermind, but his presence alone is not enough to lift this film from the quagmire into which it quickly sinks. Despite a scant hour-long running time this feels like a lot longer and is a real drag – it's another Monogram fail.

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.

Respectable psychology professor Bella Lugosi (as Frederick Brenner) moonlights by operating a soup kitchen for New York's Bowery denizens. At "the mission", Mr. Lugosi (as Karl Wagner) fronts a secret underground criminal organization. There, Lugosi's entourage includes baby-faced recruit Tom Neal (as Frankie Mills), mad zombie-maker Lew Kelly (as Doc Brooks), and pretty assistant Wanda McKay (as Judy Malvern).While working on a term paper he calls "The Psychology of the Underprivileged," student John Archer (as Richard Dennison) discovers professor Lugosi's daring double life, which places Mr. Archer's life in grave danger. Innocent Ms. McKay is also put in peril. The plot is all over the map in "Bowery at Midnight". Don't stop watching to think about what is going on with the interesting set of characters - or, the film may make less sense.*** Bowery at Midnight (10/30/42) Wallace Fox ~ Bella Lugosi, Tom Neal, John Archer

(There are Spoilers) In a duel role as both professor Frederick Brenner and philanthropist Karl Wagner Bela Lugosi mixes business with profits by using the criminal element of the city, many who get free meals at his Bowery soup kitchen, for his own evil purposes.Brenner plays both ends against the middle in using hoodlums like "Fingers" Doland, John Berkes, and "Trigger" Stratton, Wheeler Oakman, to do his dirty work and then has them eliminated in order to keep them from talking to the police if their ever caught. It's when one of Prof. One of Brenners students psychology major Richard Dennison, John Archer, shows up at his soup kitchen, disguised as a bum, in order to get information for his thesis on the human condition that Prof.Brenner, as Karl Wagner, cover is suddenly in danger of getting blown.Dennison's girlfriend Judy Malvern, Wanda McKay, just happens to be a volunteer at the "Friendly Mission", Brenner's Bowery soup kitchen, and recognizes him which makes things a bit complicated for Brenner in his efforts to get rid of the pesky Dennison, by having him murdered, in that she can place him there! Despite all that Brenner still has Dennison gunned down, as he's invited into Brenner's private office, by one of Brenner's gang members homicidal maniac and on the lamb hit-man Frankie Mills, Tom Neal.The one thing that Brenner completely overlooked was that his assistant the disbarred and disgraced physician "Doc" Brooks, Lew Kelly, who has a serious drinking problem has been secretly experimenting behind his back with the people, like Dennison, who are buried in his basement. Turning Brenner's victims into Zombies "Doc" is waiting just for the right moment to unleash them against the hated Brenner, who treats "Doc" like one of the bums at his soup kitchen or even worse, when the time is right. Far too confusing to get a handle on it the film "Bowery at Midnight" has too many subplots in it that makes the movie almost impossible to follow. Bela Lugosi seems as comfortable playing a gangster as does playing a vampire or mad scientist and in his role as both Prof Frederick Brenner / Karl Wagner Lugosi more then makes up for the films many deficiencies. Lugosi as usual puts everything into his part, or parts, that you almost forget just how disjointed and uncoordinated he movie really is.There's also Tom Neal, of "Detour" fame, doing his best as the psycho killer Frankie Mills. Mills despite his cold-blooded personality and disregard for human life does have a soft spot in not being able to bring himself to gun down a woman; Dennison's girlfriend Judy Malvern. It's that deficiency in his character, as a mindless killer, that in the end brings the curtains down on both Mills and his boss Prof. Frederick Benner. ***SPOILER ALERT***In fact the good professor has a big surprise coming to him when, with the police about to break into his office and arrest him, "Doc" shows Brenner an exist strategy that leads him right into the hands of the Zombies, or Brenner's many murder victims, that he secretly created!