Halloween Die-ary #8
It’s September 16 again. That time when I honor the memory
of a mother who liked neither booze nor horror movies by drinking gin and watching
a Boris Karloff flick on the anniversary of her death. The concept is far more
sincere than that sounds.
I won’t go into the history of this little tradition. You
can read it here, but it’s unnecessary for reading this post. It’s a boozy Boris
Karloff movie review. I just do this now.
This year, on this day, we found ourselves at a cottage on a
beach in Cape Cod. Which is not a strange place to find oneself generally, but
for us and at this time of year it is. The place was small, with a TV in
proportion. But it was connected to YouTube, and YouTube offers a solid
selection of Boris Karloff movies.
I flirted with the idea of finding a nautical themed Boris
Karloff movie to match our surroundings, but before I got deep into that search,
I found a movie called The Boogie Man Will Get You. I couldn’t turn down that
title. And it took place in Massachusetts. I couldn’t turn down that state.
Then I saw Boris was starring in it alongside Peter Lorre. I couldn’t turn down
that actor.
Turns out, it’s a comedy. Like every Karloff-Lorre joint. And
outrightly so, despite the posters I saw, one of which had a hooded faceless
ghoul with glowing eyes and the other ghosts in the O’s of the word Boogie.
Lindsey and I made martinis and settled in, only to be
interrupted not long after the title card when our six-year-old (the middle
child) came in asking to watch with us. It was late, and she was supposed to be
in bed, but she’s always trying to find a reason not to go to bed. I figured
this was a good reason. So all three of us settled in (I didn’t give her the
backstory either; she was two when mom died) and watched the movie.
It’s from 1942, and Boris Karloff plays…a mad scientist.
Like again. Like that was all he ever got to play half the time. Put all of his
mad scientists together and he’d be his own Legion of Doom. But this time, he’s
not the intense, maniacal, obsessive delver into the most esoteric secrets of
science. He’s the bumbling, upbeat, polite scientist who treats the dead bodies
from his failed experiments like slightly burned casseroles.
The story sounds awesome. A woman tries to start a hotel in
an old house while a mad scientist kills people in the basement. Fantastic. I
wish they’d have played the concept straight. But even as a comedy it should
work.
Karloff is basically trying to turn door-to-door salesmen
into flying humans. That’s it. That’s what he wants. Human beings who can soar
through the air. And not just door-to-door salesmen. They’re just easy pickings
(buy their whole briefcase of goods, and they’ll more than willingly sit in a
box while you throw switches). Lorre plays the town sheriff and landlord and
coroner and notary public and other civic roles. Your basic rich guy in a small
town with his hand in everything. In this case, he partners up with Karloff to
fund his experiments.
Meanwhile, Karloff needs to get out of his mortgage (which
Lorre holds), so he sells the old house to a woman who wants to turn it into a
hotel. Then there’s her ex-husband trying to stop that plan. Then there’s the
choreographer with a secret. Then there’s the revolutionary with a bomb
strapped to his chest. It’s like every time the door to the house opened,
somebody from the wrong set walked in.
And although the comedy doesn’t age well the way most
comedies don’t age well, the movie’s biggest flaw was that it lacked the edge
it was pretending to have with that title and those posters. Laughs where the
teeth don’t bite.
Many point out the similarity of the movie to Arsenic and
Old Lace (although the movie version of Arsenic wouldn’t come out for two years
after The Boogie Man Will Get You, the play was popular, and starred old Boris
himself). Both are madcap buffoonery with corpses and villains. But Boogie
lacks the strong straight man role that Arsenic had and, worse, it defangs the
entire concept at the end of the movie with a twist I won’t reveal here.
It’s…maybe worth seeing. I don’t know. I’ll watch Boris and
Lorre stand on a street corner together and talk bus schedules. But both
Lindsey and my daughter fell asleep about halfway through the meager 67-minute
runtime. Granted, the day was full beach visits and oddity hunts. My vacations
are often more exhausting than my regular days.
But you tell me. I’ve embedded the movie below. Get your mellowcreme
pumpkins and gin-and-whatevers and let me know what you think. And pour a
little out in remembrance of Mom, would you?
I will say that the next day the six year-old told us
without any prompting, “I liked watching that old movie last night. The black
and gray one. I want to do that again.” And she wasn’t even drinking martinis.
Not that night.
But it’s true, settling into the dark with an old “black and gray” is always a cozy time, especially the ones with Boris.
