Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie''s plot.
When an epidemic of dying brides sweeps the city, young reporter Patricia Hunter (Luana Walters) discovers what may be a clue at the most recent scene; a rare breed of orchid, originally hybridized by Dr. Lorenz (Bela Lugosi), who just happens to live upstate. Patricia arrives unannounced at the Lorenz home hoping for an interview with the doctor to discuss the mysterious orchid, but what she finds instead are the bodies of the missing brides in the doctor’s basement. It turns out Dr. Lorenz is harvesting the young virgins for their bodily fluids which he injects into his own wife, the Countess (Elizabeth Russell) in order to keep her young.
I just don’t know about this movie.
First off, the plot is just plain ridiculous. Let’s forget the obvious (why is Lorenz stealing only brides--the implication is that he’s in need of virgins, but let’s be honest here, you know where I’m going with this. Even in 1942) and assume for the sake of argument that whatever condition the Countess suffers from (she’s a relatively young woman, but her organs are aging much faster than they should be) COULD be reversed by simply injecting unspecified fluids from the necks of young women. When Patricia finds the bodies in the basement, she faints. She wakes up the next morning back in her bed in the guest room of Dr. Lorenz’s house and asks about the bodies. “No, no, my dear,” Dr. Lorenz assures her, “you must have been dreaming.” So instead of returning through the secret panel she’d found in her room the previous night and proving she saw the bodies, she says, “Oh, okay, maybe I was dreaming,” and leaves. She then returns to her paper’s editor’s office and arranges a sting whereby they’ll set up a fake wedding in hopes of catching Lorenz in the act. Now that seems like an AWFUL lot of trouble and expense when she knows exactly where the hidden panel is and how to open it. Sounds to me like someone (I’m looking at you Harvey Gates, Sam Robins, and Gerald Schnitzer) didn’t think their story all the way through. And director Wallace Fox must have been too busy being bored by his own movie to catch these plot holes.
THE CORPSE VANISHES is just a mess, plain and simple.
The acting isn’t too terrible, Walters does a good job as the eager reporter, reminding me a lot of Marjorie Reynolds’ character in THE FATAL HOUR. Tristram Coffin as Dr. Foster, Patricia’s colleague in bringing down Dr. Lorenz, was also decent enough, although his part was nothing anyone from the era couldn’t have pulled off. Probably the best performance goes to Kenneth Harlan as Keenan, the excitable newspaper editor. Think J.K. Simmons in the Spider-Man movies, only not as gruff and irritable.
Dr. Lorenz is aided in his efforts by his housekeeper Fagah and her songs Toby (Angelo Rossitto, more famous for his role as Blaster in MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME) and Angel (Frank Moran), a dwarf and an imbecile. Lorenz keeps the “dead” brides in suspended animation in his basement, so why does he keep having to steal new brides all the time (when the movie begins, we’re on the fourth victim already). And when Patricia arrives requesting and interview with Lorenz, the Countess slaps her in the face before the Dr. tells her it’s okay, calm yourself, but not once does anyone apologize to Patricia. WTF?
I don’t know. I’m sure the makers meant well with this one. I mean it’s an interesting idea for a mystery, but . . . Okay, no it’s not. It’s just dull. This is one of those ideas you jot down, find yourself unable to develop into anything you can make interesting, and you trash it. It’s like someone saw a headline in 1941 about a bride dropping dead at her wedding and they tried to play the writer’s “what if” game with it. Only, they’re answer to the what if was crap.
And so was this movie. Boring, full of holes, and 63 minutes of my life gone.
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