The Invisible Ghost (1941)
Jan 19, 2015Hypnotism Psycho-Thriller
A low-budget cheapie starring Bela Lugosi as a widower who goes into a trance and starts killing women after having visions of his late wife's ghost
Sam Katzman
Spooks Run Wild (1941)
Aug 8, 2013Old Dark House Comedy
The East Side Kids, a popular comedy group during the 1940s/50s, conduct a variant on the Old Dark House film featuring a sinisterly lurking Bela Lugosi … The East Side Kids' films were made on impoverished budgets – this one of their better but still aimlessly circles around creaky and dated gags
Bowery at Midnight (1942)
May 28, 2010Crime Thriller/Mad Scientist
Low-budget film with Bela Lugosi as a respectable psychology professor who disguises himself as someone running a soup kitchen from which he runs a criminal operation and keeps zombies
The Corpse Vanishes (1942)
Sep 13, 2000Mad Scientist/Bride Killings
One of a host of low-budget mad scientist films Bela Lugosi made during the 1940s, slightly better than most of the others. Here he uses orchids to place brides in death-like comas
Ghosts on the Loose (1943)
Apr 8, 2001Idiots in a Sinister House
Comedy where the East Side Kids/Bowery Boys encounter Bela Lugosi running a Nazi fifth column operation from a haunted house, although the ghosts part eventually proves misleading
The Ape Man (1943)
Apr 19, 2004Mad Scientist Becomes Ape Man
Poverty row cheapie with Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist transformed into an ape-man after an experiment gone wrong who goes out hunting victims for their spinal fluids with his pet gorilla
Superman (1948)
Dec 5, 2012Comic-Book Superhero/Serial
A 15 chapter serial that marks the very first live-action screen appearance of Superman. The superheroics and effects are painfully primitive today (where Superman flying is represented by animation) but the serial gets many aspects of the comic-book down right
Batman and Robin (1949)
Sep 16, 2015Comic-Book Superhero/Serial
Not to be confused with the Joel Schumacher atrocity, this was the second Batman film ever made, a 15-chapter serial. This is mostly worth watching as a novelty in its laughable attempts to approximate the superheroics of the comic-book in comparison to modern counterparts
Atom Man vs. Superman (1950)
Mar 29, 2022Serial/Comic-Book Superhero
This fifteen chapter serial was the second ever Superman film. It is a vigorously entertaining run through the comic’s basics and features the first screen appearance of Lex Luthor
Mysterious Island (1951)
Mar 27, 2024Serial/Desert Island Survival/Alien Invaders
A serial adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic survival story about escapees aboard a hot-air balloon who wash up on a desert island. To the regular story, this sees fit to add hostile natives, pirates and invading aliens from Mercury
Jungle Moon Men (1955)
Jun 11, 2005Jungle Adventure/Immortal Queen
Former Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller plays himself in a routine studio backlot jungle adventure that uncreditedly steals the plot from H. Rider Haggard's She
The Werewolf (1956)
Aug 17, 2000Atomic Werewolf
A real oddity among the werewolf genre – a film that tries to mix the werewolf up with the 1950s fad for the atomic monster movie in having the transformation brought on by atomically irradiated wolf blood
Zombies of Mora Tau (1957)
Feb 21, 2013Zombie Sailors Guard a Treasure
A zombie film back from the days before zombies wanted to eat brains and could only be despatched with a bullet in the head where they were instead figures out of voodoo – in this case undead sailors guarding a treasure. A mildly interesting if never entirely standout B movie of the era
The Giant Claw (1957)
Sep 10, 2014Giant Alien Bird
1950s monster movie about a giant alien bird. A standard B movie of the era that is shot down by one of the most pathetic and ridiculous looking monsters ever put on screen
The Wizard of Baghdad (1960)
May 31, 2001Arabian Nights Comedy
A majorly unfunny variant on the Arabian Nights comedy featuring Dick Shawn as a demoted genie. The Thief of Bagdad as shabby flying carpet burlesque