The Climax (1944)

Waste of time

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

The first must-see film of the year.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The Climax (1944) ** (out of 4)Boris Karloff returned to Universal Studios playing Dr. Frederich Hohner, a man most people believe is haunted by the disappearance of a female opera singer ten years earlier. What they don't realize is that he actually murdered her. In present times he hears the beautiful Angela Klatt (Susanna Foster) sing and her voice reminds him of the one he killed so he plans to control the new singer.THE CLIMAX was Karloff's return to the studio that made him a legend and the company went all out in regards to what the film has to offer. They gave him director George Waggner who had just scored a major success with THE WOLF MAN. They allowed the film to be shot in Technicolor. They even went all out with a higher budget and a classier looking picture. Everything is here except for a story, energy or any passion. I'm always shocked that Universal threw everything at this picture yet they basically delivered a rehash of SVENGALI and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.On a technical level this film is very impressive as the visuals really jump off the screen. The Technicolor is extremely beautiful and especially the dresses and costumes in the picture. Just wait until you see the fire at the end as it looks incredible. The music itself is quite good if you really judge it and I'd argue that the cast is very good as well. This includes Karloff who has no problem playing the passion that this role requires. Foster, Turhan Bey and Gale Sondergaard are all good as well.So, what's the problem with THE CLIMAX? It's the story, which is downright boring and the movie ends up moving so slow that it feels twice as long. I really don't know why Universal did this to Karloff and offered such a boring screenplay and especially when they had just done PHANTOM OF THE OPERA the previous year.

Without being told so it is fairly obvious that The Climax was a film made by Universal to get some more use out of the set built for Phantom Of The Opera. I do mean both versions too.Boris Karloff takes the place of Claude Rains as the man obsessed with a soprano. Unlike the pitiable Rains who went mad at the thought that someone was stealing concerto, Karloff is the house physician who is the paramour of soprano June Vincent. But the deeper he's involved the more jealous he becomes. When she gives him the brush finally he strangles her and hides the body. He's got quite the shrine to her, think of Lenin's tomb.Ten years after Karloff did the deed young music students Susanna Foster and Turhan Bey audition for Thomas Gomez the head of the opera company. Karloff hears Foster sing and she reminds him so much of Vincent he's determined to halt her career. No one should sing like Vincent or sing any of her material. Karloff embarks on a campaign of psychological intimidation against Foster. Karloff's menace Foster's soprano are the main reasons to see The Climax. Films like this and Phantom Of The Opera combine the music and horror genre well and remain popular to this day. There's also a nice performance by Gale Sondergaard as Vincent's maid who has been waiting for years to finally get the goods on the good Dr. Karloff.And the music is swell. English is used instead of the foreign languages that we of the English speaking world enjoy classic opera. I suspect that opera fans would have put down their theater admission to hear Susanna Foster sing the Erie County Phone Directory of 1944.

All the archetypes of "The Phantom of the Opera" are there in this attempt to cash in the success of the 1943 version of that classic. There's the sweet chanteuse who rises from chorus to leading lady, a jealous diva, and the darkly dressed, seemingly darkly souled servant, a love-starved hero, and of course, the various artists surrounding the opera. But what's missing here is an interesting villain. Boris Karloff is a sinister doctor, inside and out, seen killing his obsession, Marcellina (June Vincent), then driven to further craziness ten years later when rising opera star Susannah Foster shows up with the same voice. He tries to shutter that, but his plot is in danger of being thwarted by the young man (Turhan Bey) who loves her and Marcelina's devoted companion (Gale Sondergaard) who now works for him.This is all tightly wrapped up in a Technicolor package, but ultimately, it is artificial and predictable. A few amusing moments (mostly provided by Ludwig Stossel as the conductor and Lotte Stein as a feisty maid) and an interesting characterization by Gale Sondergaard are the best moments in the film. Sondergaard gets the most convincing dramatic moment when her motivations are revealed after spending the first half of the film being a dour, dark presence with little to do but look sinister.I must mention the amazing resemblance in this film between Karloff and veteran actor Jack Betts who would play Karloff in "Gods and Monsters". Betts once played a similar doctor character on "One Life to Live" in a plot line very similar to the one here, his obsession being with a living character (played by Judith Light) rather than a dead one.

The Climax would be more aptly named The Anti-Climax. It marked Boris Karloff's return to movies after three years on Broadway and touring in Arsenic and Old Lace. His name alone led many to believe The Climax would be a grand, shivering horror fest, especially as it would be Karloff's first color film. Instead, The Climax is a sad tale of an elderly doctor who has a thing about a singer he strangled ten years previously. For some, it might have promised a delightful Technicolor movie of Viennese operetta and Hollywood soubrettes. Instead, it's a weak re-make of The Phantom of the Opera, without the Phantom, which was released the year before. At the very least, ticket buyers would have expected, based on the lavish sets and art design, all in Technicolor, a passionate story of behind-the-scenes Old Vienna, complete with everyone wearing evening dress or gilt-braid uniforms with red breeches, with gas lights and wet cobblestones, with jealous prima donnas, excerpts from operettas and dancers in pastel tutus. We get the tutus, all right, but the lavishness is from the Minnelli school of garish over-kill. More than anything else, we get a story of aged obsession, hypnotism and throat spray that is as flavorless and stale as a slice of month-old Sachertorte. Dr. Friedrich Hohner (Boris Karloff), an aging and dignified doctor, serves the medical needs of the operetta singers at Vienna's Theatre Royal. Count Seebruck (Thomas Gomez) runs the theater and the opera company with firmness and humor. One day the doctor chances upon an audition Seebruck is giving to a young student, Angela Klatt (Susannah Foster). She has a marvelous voice, and Seebruck immediately gives her a role in an upcoming production. Hohner is horrified. Angela sounds just like the great singer, Marcellina, who disappeared without a trace ten years ago. We have already learned in flashback at the start of the movie that Hohner loved Marcellina obsessively, and blamed her refusal of his love on her ambition...caused by her extraordinary voice. Hohner solved that problem by silencing the voice. An unfortunate by-product of his action was the dead body of Marcellina. And now it appears that the same voice will star again at the the Theatre Royal. For the rest of the movie we have Angela being pulled and pushed between Hohner, determined that Marcellina's voice will never be heard again, and the young man and fellow student who loves Angela, Franz Munzer (Turhan Bey), who is determined Angela will sing and be a great success. Lurking around the doctor's lavishly decorated medical office and home is his assistant and housekeeper, Luise (Gale Sondergaard). Luise is playing some game of her own, but what could it be? Could it have something to do with the steel, locked door at the top of the stairs in Hohner's home, a door which leads to a room we dread to see what it might contain? What makes a movie dull? The Phantom of the Opera the year before also starred Susannah Foster. It was a Technicolor knock-out of a movie, and featured a fine performance by Claude Raines, all the behind-the-scenes stuff you could want, an amusing light comedy performance from Nelson Eddy, aided by his rival for Foster's affection, Edgar Barrier. The sets were lavish, including some of the creepiest below-ground scenes ever filmed. It is no classic, but it isn't dull. The Climax uses the same sets, same story line and has a fine actor as the main threat. But there it ends. The story is too familiar and drags on and on. Inexplicably, Karloff is under-utilized. When Karloff says in that deep, sincere voice of his, "I've come to help you, my dear," we hope things will pick up. They don't.