The Devil Commands (1941)

Disturbing yet enthralling

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

**SPOILERS**The great Brois Karloff in another one of his many horror films about a misunderstood, but really great guy, mad scientist-Dr. Juian Blair-this time in communicating with the dead trough their brainwaves.The entire story of the mad as a hatter Dr. Blair is told by his daughter Anne, Amanda Duff, in an hour long flashback. It was Anne who was to become a victim of her father's insane experiments in his communicating with his dead wife Helen, Shirley Warde, who's tragic death the Doc feels responsible for. Getting results in picking up brain waves with live subjects in his laboratory Dr. Blair attempted to do the same with dead one's in regard to his wife who was killed in a car accident. This happened as Dr.Blair went to the local bakery to pick up a birthday cake for his daughter's 20th birthday.Having a brainwave print of Helen before she was killed Dr. Blair attempt to pick up his dead wife's brainwaves from beyond was only half successful with him being kicked out of the collage, where he was head of the Science Department, by his not so impressed colleagues before her could finish it. It's when Dr. Blair's assistant Karl, Ralph "A Penny for his Thoughts" Penney, introduced him to psychic and medium Mrs Walters, Anne Revere, that the mad doctor finally convinced himself that he was in fact on to something: Communicating with the dead! It's not that Mrs. Walters was the genuine article, she was in fact a fake, but she had the ability through her electro magnetic energy force to open the door for disembodied spirits like the Doc's late wife Helen to communicate with the world of the living!Moving, with both Karl & Mrs. Walters to the quite seaside New England town of Brasham Harbor to conduct his secret experiments in human brainwaves Dr. Blair soon started to suffer, by working day and night for weeks at a time, from a severe case of burnout with the evil Mrs. Walters taking over his experiments. It's then when everything went bananas for the poor and by now mentally and physically exhausted Doc. It's when Dr. Blair's maid Mrs. Marcy, Dorothy Adams, tired to sneak into his secret laboratory, at the insistence of the local sheriff-or Mister-Ed, that things really got out of control!Getting herself killed, when she accidentally turned on the brainwave machine, Mrs. Marcy's now distraught husband Seth, Walter Baldwin, blamed Doc Blair for her death and whipped up the local townspeople, who had no use for Doc Blair anyway, into a bloodthirsty lynch mob. With pitchforks and torches in hand the mob headed out to Doc Blair's place to pay him a very very unfriendly and unannounced visit!***SPOILERS*** Working against time with the mob bearing down on him Dr. Blair did in fact make contact with his dead wife through his brainwave machine using his daughter Anne as the connection between the world of the both living and dead. This all went to pot when the Doc overloaded his brainwave machine with enough juice that could power the entire city of Boston! In a flash everything that Dr. Blair accomplished over the last ten or so years went up in flames but in the end, even though he was not around to see it, his experiments in brainwave communications turned out to be a smashing success!

Devil Commands, The (1941) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Boris Karloff plays a scientist working with brain pulses. Once his wife dies he learns that even after death her brain still has these pulses so he tries to contact her. Decent, if not overwhelming, horror thriller features a good performance from Karloff but that's about it. The supporting cast is rather dull and the middle of the film really drags down, which isn't good when you consider the film is only 65-minutes. Worth watching if you're a fan of Karloff but not worthy of $20.

In the 1930s, Boris Karloff was initially with a relatively important studio (Universal) and was enjoying a lot of success. Later, he did some dandy films for Warner Brothers, but he also made some grade-Z films for poverty row studio, Monogram. All these films were fun to watch and often a bit silly, but the Monogram ones were known for their very low production values and silly plots. After THE APE (1940), Karloff was thrilled to get out of his contract with Monogram and ready to go on to better things. It SHOULD have been that way when he made THE DEVIL COMMANDS for Columbia. Sure, like Universal in the 1930s, Columbia was not the biggest of studios but it did have decent budgets and production values and I expected this to be a much better style of film than THE APE....but unfortunately, it seemed a lot like the exact same old style of film and nothing more. Like THE APE and the rather bland Mr. Wong films for Monogram, this one was nothing special.It stars Karloff as a kindly scientist with the best of intentions that ultimately becomes a mad man--using science to create abominations. Considering how often he did this, the whole thing seems very, very derivative and stale. We've seen this all before and there is nothing that makes this film stand out from many others just like it. Also, the narration and the epilogue just seem heavy-handed and unnecessary.Is it fun and worth a look (particularly to lovers of B-horror films), yes. But it could have been so much better.

One of several "Mad Doctor" films Boris Karloff made for Columbia Pictures in the '40s and often considered one of the best of that group by many fans. It's not bad, but it's only a notch above average in my estimation. Here we have Karloff as a scientist who has discovered a device for reading people's brain waves and then becomes obsessed with the idea of trying to communicate with his recently deceased wife. He enlists the aid of a somewhat eccentric phony mystic (Anne Revere) who becomes the dominant force in the partnership and sets the course for some potentially disastrous events.This movie was directed by Edward Dmytryk, so at least it enjoys some spirited dashes of mood and dreary lighting, which is one thing that elevates it just over the line of the ordinary. It's interesting to see long-time Three Stooges foil Kenneth MacDonald as a sheriff who suspects that strange goings-on are underfoot in Boris' mysterious house, and Anne Revere's stoic and power-hungry medium is an added benefit. Still, there's something which seems to be lacking here to keep this one from rising above "B" level. Karloff is quite good as the eager but harried scientist, emitting a range of different emotions during the course of the picture. **1/2 out of ****