BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT (1942)
Director: Wallace Fox
The Roan Group/Troma

Simply stated, BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT is one of the best of the poverty row pics made by Monogram studios with Bela Lugosi in the forties. Really more of a crime story with an occasional dash of horror as an added condiment, this is a tasty 62 minutes of absurd fun done on the cheap.

Bela Lugosi is in fine form playing Karl Wagner, a sweet soul with a soft touch who runs a nightly Bowery mission, spooning out bowls of soup for needy tramps with nowhere to go. When he recognizes a new customer as an escaped safe cracker called "Fingers" Dolan, Wagner kindly escorts the convict to a hidden room and offers him a cigar.

During the leisurely smoke, the host confides that he's admired Dolan's work for a long time, and springs a surprise on him: Bela's actually a crime boss, using the mission as a front and looking for someone new to join his racket. His present gang consists of a gunman named Stratton and a whacky doc with unusual drugs and more than one of his screws loose. Wagner immediately leads a modest heist on a jewelry store where Fingers helps out by cracking the safe. His magic touch is rewarded with Bela ordering Stratton to shoot him.

On another evening, the notorious killer Frankie Mills wanders into the Bowery after a shootout with the cops. Bela offers him refuge and Stratton's job, which Frankie secures by pointing a pistol at the nervous gunman. "Don't get gay, kid, just because you're handy with the heater!" Stratton pleads prior to getting pumped full of lead. Stratton's body is taken to a makeshift graveyard in the next room, where Bela has been burying the remains of all his ex-partners. When Lugosi refers to the doc as a derelict, the nutty old man starts ordering more drugs and plots an agenda of his own...

By day, Wagner leads a double-life as a professor named Dr. Brenner. When he's not showering his unsuspecting wife with gifts from his nightly escapades he teaches a class on psychology. One of his students wants to do a paper on what a man thinks about just before he dies, and it's a question he later learns the answer to for himself when he gets too nosey.

One afternoon, Bela plots another heist with Frankie using a tramp as their helper. "Whoda thunk yesterday that I'd be workin' with Frankie Mills on a high class job!" the guy beams. Lugosi is unimpressed: "yes, each day brings its little surprises," he mutters. As Bela and the tramp look down from a neighboring rooftop, Frankie prepares to enter a jewelry store across the street. At the crucial moment, Bela flings the bum off the roof and onto the streets, creating a crowd diversion chaotic enough for Frankie to rob the store with ease.

The law finally catches up with Wagner/Brenner and his gang, shooting Frankie and driving Bela back inside his mission. With nowhere to run, the doc comes to the rescue and leads his boss to a safe hiding place where nobody can ever find him. It's a secret basement, and as Bela descends he is horrified to see that the corpses of his former partners have been restored to life, courtesy of the cackling doc. This ending is surely a precursor for NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, but of course it's not as potent.

Look fast for a Lou Costello clone who wants a cigarette later in the picture, as well as an appearance by Bernard Gorcey as a tailor. I never knew that Louie Dumbrowski owned a business in the Bowery before he opened his famous Sweet Shop!

The Roan Group and Troma have served up a nice treatment for this strange feature. The DVD print is the best I've ever seen for this movie. Previous tapes have appeared too dark, but here the scenes look distinct and proper, or at least as good as they possibly can. Sure, the elements are worn and have some dirt, but the picture is smooth and enjoyable just the same. These Monograms don't look any better than this disc, given what they are.

The sound quality is clear and loud, and also the best I've ever heard for this film. The expected surface noise underneath is now so low that it's practically non-existent.

Nice job, guys! I am anxiously awaiting more and more poverty row horrors from Roan/Troma, and I urge anyone with an appetite for these eccentric shoestring films to own this one immediately! (Joe Lozowsky)

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