classicsoncall
From the vantage point of today (6/21/2014) as I write this, it seems incredible that a film made in 1940 treated the subject of cryogenics as if it were as common as, well, the common cold. The opening scroll mentioned that medical science agreed that disease can be arrested and life can be prolonged by freezing human beings. I'm aware that the concept is still being researched with significant results, as in lowering body temperature to treat victims of drowning, but you'd think a whole lot more progress might have been made by now.Well I'm surprised it took me so long to run across this little Karloff gem. It turned up this morning of all places on Antenna TV, generally better known for it's airing of old TV programs from the Sixties. Actually it was in the Sixties when my dad gave me the run down on actors like Karloff, Chaney and Lugosi and I've been a fan ever since. The film includes elements of horror and sci-fi with a little bit of murder mystery to boot, featuring Karloff once again as a mad, but seemingly normal scientist working for the betterment of humanity. It's only when his work is threatened that he resorts to killing an antagonist. Actually, the scene where he shoots Bob Adams (Stanley Brown), in the back no less for destroying his formula, seemed to me to be a bit over the top. Granted, I'd be PO'd too, but gee, I don't think I'd kill anybody over it.Probably the best part of this flick was the set design of Dr. Leon Kravaal's (Karloff) impressive lab, one of the better ones this side of Frankenstein. And not just one, he had multiple labs in different parts of his house. Which made me wonder, how long would it have taken the good doctor to set up his working lab through a secret tunnel and another hundred feet under ground? That's some kind of dedication.There were other things I had to think about as well as the story got under way. Why would Dr. Mason (Roger Pryor) and his nurse/fiancée Judy Blair (Jo Ann Sayers) embark on their mission to find Dr. Kravaal's missing research wearing business suits. That seemed just a little too formal for me, particularly when they started crawling around through Kravaal's tunnels and labs. Not that this was unusual for films of the era, but I don't understand what would motivate anyone to be attired that way.But you know what really blew me away? When the doc and his assistant rented the boat from old Pete Daggett (Ernie Adams), do you know what the fee was - twenty five cents per hour plus a dollar deposit!!! Holy smokes, and I thought the whole concept of freezing human bodies was scary!
utgard14
A doctor (Roger Pryor) studying cryogenics visits the deserted home of Dr. Leon Kravaal (Boris Karloff), a pioneer in the field who went missing ten years before. Uncovering a secret passage in the basement, he and his nurse girlfriend (Jo Ann Sayers) find Kravaal and four other men frozen in ice. They successfully revive Kravaal, who then revives the others. It turns out Kravaal had frozen himself and the others years before when they tried to arrest him. So now the somewhat mad doctor holds them all hostage while he tries to recover his original formula.Very interesting and entertaining Karloff mad scientist movie. The subject of cryogenics (never called that here, just frozen therapy) is ahead of its time. The rest of the cast is fine but obviously it's Karloff's show the whole way. Intriguing premise with fun execution. A solid "B" movie that's highly enjoyable.
Scarecrow-88
The Columbia Karloff Pictures would recycle generally the same idea, incorporating touches here or there to remove identical ties to each other. Thematically, Karloff portrays a dedicated scientist whose goal is to benefit mankind through some type of medical experiment to prolong life. His work is treated with skepticism, unbelief, and scorn by local authorities and medical doctors who would find his experiments too fantastic to accept despite all his efforts to persuade him otherwise. The use of human guinea pigs(..voluntary, as often was the case)would not be received well by those who were critical of his work, or found his experiments too far-fetched or, as often was the case, morally objectionable. But, as in many of these film's story arcs, Karloff's scientists would proclaim that in order to achieve breakthroughs in science, sacrifice had to be made, most of the time those volunteers perhaps would've survived while under his care if those who oppose this new, "dangerous" science hadn't of interfered. The opposition would balk that the threat of human life was too great and so this dilemma always seems to disrupt Karloff, plague his desires to bring good to the world, not evil. The Man With Nine Lives establishes the experiment as "frozen therapy", cryogenic science as a method for benefiting mankind, with Karloff's Dr. Leon Kravaal, found in a chamber frozen in ice in his abandoned secret laboratory by Dr. Tim Mason(Roger Pryor) and his nurse/fiancé Judith(Jo Ann Sayers)as they were hoping to uncover notes of his research since he's known as the father of this type of growing medical practice many consider the future for helping the sick and dying. When it's discovered that there are four others in another room of the chamber where he was found, their lives are thrown into a crisis..those who threatened to imprison Kravaal for his frozen therapy, endangering a patient he had under cryogenic sleep, are awakened and despite the obvious success before them threaten to ruin all the potential benefits which could reach the world. See, when threatening to arrest him, Kravaal concocted a solution which could poison them if the liquid were to erupt into gaseous form, when breathed could cause harm. Instead, this solution, as written down while preparing it, stabilized those who ingested it, and so, for ten years, those in the ice chamber rooms remained in a cryogenic state, but kept alive. Unfortunately, Kravaal's nemesis is a greedy nephew who wants the inheritance of his patient in cryogenic sleep, and this maggot rips up and burns the exact written details of the solution which would in fact help prolong human life. This causes Kravaal to shoot him in the back, with others a witness to the murder..seeing as they pose a threat to his developing another solution, in the name of science, he will do whatever it takes to achieve again what has been lost thanks to the vile stupidity of another.In these kinds of movies, it never ends well for Karloff's scientists. He often achieves extraordinary results, paying the ultimate price, a sacrifice is often made so that others may benefit. In most of these films, Karloff would succumb to his human frailties such as revenge against those who opposed him or caused damage to the potentiality of success in his work. Unlike the mad science of Frankenstein, these Karloff Columbia Pictures grounded their stories in a modern setting, despite how outrageous the experiments might seem, often they still offer a realism, debating how far one should go to increase life expectancy. Those that find his work crazy, most of these films show that Karloff, at first anyway, was completely sane and determined to help his fellow man if allowed to continue his work unabated, and this was so often not the case.In most of these movies(..like Before I Hang or The Man They Could Not Hang)Karloff is provided a loving daughter who can reason with him in his moments of emotional blackness and despair, even as he threatens the lives of others who have railroaded his mission to bring medical breakthroughs to humankind. The Man With Nine Lives almost entirely takes place within the cramped confines of Kravaal's laboratory, holding prisoner those who were to arrest him, using them as guinea pigs for his experiments concerning the development of a new solution, needing to test his theories, raising the ire of his contemporaries, Tim and Judith, who can see the lengths he's willing to go to achieve success. Again, the story will seem familiar if you have watched other movies Karloff made for Columbia Pictures..if you like them, I think you might like this one as well.
Neil Doyle
THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES is the kind of programmer made on the quick from Columbia studios, not too bad as far as the sets are concerned and with some halfway decent dialog--but nothing disguises the fact that it's not exactly BORIS KARLOFF at his finest. He's a doctor tinkering with the concept of freezing bodies and reviving them later, inadvertently getting frozen in his own freezer and thawed out by a doctor (ROGER PRYOR) and his pretty assistant (JO ANN SAYERS).Most impressive thing about the film is the ice storage areas where the frozen look of the experimental igloos are pretty "cool". But the plot is a simple one of a man willing to be an outlaw in order to prove his scientific theories about reviving the frozen dead.WILLIAM TROWBRIDGE, a dependable B-film actor (who did many an A-film at Warner Bros. and other studios) is the only other recognizable name in the cast--except for a bit appearance by BRUCE BENNETT as a trooper, who is uncredited.Karloff's final experiment does have some value and he passes this on to Pryor and Sawyers so the world can benefit from his knowledge.Summing up: Serves as an okay vehicle for Karloff but fails to have the horror appeal of his best string of films at Universal.
