Total Sci-Fi’s Guide to the Incredibly Strange and Obscure in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Movies

The Facts

Written by John C. Higgins, based on a story by Gerald Drayson Adams
Directed by Reginald Le Borg
Produced by Howard W. Koch
Music: Les Baxter
Cast: Basil Rathbone, Akim Tamiroff, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson
Running time: 82 minutes
Also Known As: Dr Cadman’s Secret

The Plot

Mad scientist Dr Cadman conducts experiments on the brains of living victims, hoping to cure his coma-stricken wife.

The Lowdown


This curiosity has a poor reputation, but it is actually not a bad film at all. Part of that reputation comes from the fact that this was the last completed film by Bela Lugosi, and poor Bela features in a very small, mute role. However, given the cast assembled here (Rathbone! Lugosi! Chaney! Carradine! Er, Johnson!), it is surprising that The Black Sleep is not more widely seen these days.

Admittedly, everyone in this is at the end of their respective careers (in the mid-1950s), but Rathbone manages to come out of it rather well. Carradine is suitably over-the-top as the preaching madman, while Tor Johnson does his usual stumbling around and grunting schtick. Tamiroff was a late replacement for Peter Lorre, who turned the role down as the production couldn’t meet his asking price. His participation would have made for a great Top Trumps hand from this one movie alone.

What is interesting is the gradual revelation of how all these characters are linked together and how they are all connected to Dr Cadman: the seemingly random victims are revealed by the climax to be anything but…

The middle of the picture drags a bit, as there is a lot of coming and going through the secret doors that lead to Cadman’s lab and his secret dungeon. Once the denizens of that dungeon are unleashed, however, things lively up considerably, especially when Carradine is on screen.

Out of step with the wider trends of 1950s SF movies towards radioactive thrillers and giant mutant insect pictures, The Black Sleep is a throwback to the gothic mad scientist movies of the mid-1940s, whose stories were often based on cutting edge science and medical breakthroughs gone wrong.

Cult Cast

There was much more to Basil Rathbone than just Sherlock Holmes, although that’s what he’s still best known for. During the 1930s and 1940s he was a regular screen villain, playing Sir Guy of Gisbourne opposite Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Captain Pasquale in The Mark of Zorro (1940). Beyond the 12 Sherlock Holmes movies, he appeared in fantasy movies Son of Frankenstein (1939) and Queen of Blood (1966). He died of a heart attack in 1967, aged 75.

Tor Johnson was a Swedish professional wrestler who appeared in a handful of Hollywood B-movies, but is best known for his association with trash moviemaker Ed Wood Jr. and his appearance in his cult classic Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959). Johnson’s film and TV roles capitalised on his hulking size and dramatically bald head, so he was often cast in silent, monster men roles. He gained a cult following after his death from heart failure in 1971 (aged 67), mainly due to his association with Wood and appearances in Bela Lugosi’s final films.

Director’s Cut

Reginald Le Borg came to the US from Austria and directed 68 films between 1936 and 1974. He started making short movies, but was best known for his low-budget horror movies, including entries in The Inner Sanctum series such as Calling Dr Death (1943) and Weird Woman (1944). He helmed the Universal sequel The Mummy’s Ghost (1944). In the 1960s he directed episodes of various TV series, including 77 Sunset Strip and Maverick. He died in Los Angeles in 1989, aged 86.


WTF? Moment

The entire cast of this movie is one big WTF? moment, but beyond that there is a particularly odd and eerie scene when one of Cadman’s victims appears to our ‘hero’ Dr Ramsay in a chain-rattling, ghostly form. Ramsay is on the edge of sleep, so it’s not clear if this is a ghostly apparition or a dream state fantasy. The figure warns of Cadman’s evil nature and provides one of the strangest moments in a very strange film. If that’s not enough, try the brain surgery scenes during which the patient wakes up!

Behind-the-Scenes

Getting all those one-time big name horror stars together on one film set was not without its problems. Basil Rathbone was obviously the main star, but folks like Lugosi and Carradine had high opinions of themselves.

Lon Chaney Jr, in particular, was unhappy with his role and was by this time turning to alcohol. Upset at Lugosi’s participation (although in a similarly thankless role), he grabbed the 73-year-old actor and lifted him above his head, causing others on the film to intervene and come to poor Bela’s rescue.

The film was shot in just 12 days and cost $225,000 in total, with the actors probably being the least expensive part of that budget!

Creators Talk

“I called a neurosurgeon and asked him to be a technical advisor [on The Black Sleep]. He told me exactly how to do it [brain surgery] and that, when the brain is exposed, it seeps fluid. So we had a special effects man put a sponge and a hose beneath the operating table and, on cue, he had to squeeze the fluid out of the sponge through the hose and out the brain.” — Reginald Le Borg, quoted in Interviews with B Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers (Tom Weaver).


Availability

The Black Sleep was out on VHS (under its 1963 re-release title of Dr Cadman’s Secret) in 2002, but it has been long deleted. It is not available on DVD.

Online Resources

Then 17-year-old friend of Bela Lugosi Richard Sheffield talks about visiting the set of The Black Sleep [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLdfMtUaKI]

Remake

This would be ripe for a remake, but only if all the victims of Dr Cadman’s experiment were played by Z-list celebrities, like The X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent losers.

The Bottom Line

Much better than you might think, this is a late-entry in the monster mash stakes but with a dignified central performance from Basil Rathbone.

Brian J. Robb