The Raven

Bela Lugosi’s over-the-top performance as mad scientist Dr. Richard Vollin is not to be missed. Lugosi hams it up as a brilliant, egotistical surgeon that has a fanatical obsession with Edgar Allan Poe, keeping a stuffed raven on his desk and devices of torture described in Poe’s tales in his dungeon! Although Boris Karloff has top billing, this is Lugosi’s film. It’s too bad Karloff doesn’t have more screen time, because his performance as disturbed criminal and victim of Vollin, Edmond Bateman, is top notch. This movie includes what is probably the only interpretive dance ever performed to Poe’s eerie poem “The Raven.” (61 min.)

Unrated - 1935

Director:
Lew Landers

Starring:
Boris Karloff
Bela Lugosi
Lester Matthews
Irene Ware
Samuel S. Hinds
Spencer Charters
Ian Wolfe

Writers:
Edgar Allan Poe (poem)
David Boehm (screenplay)