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Black Friday (1940)

 
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Bud Brewster
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 1:08 pm    Post subject: Black Friday (1940) Reply with quote

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Curt Siodmak wrote the screenplay for this fascinating examination of the idea that a damaged brain can be repaired by grafting on healthy parts from a donor brain.

"Black Friday" suggests that such a brain would combine the personalities and memories of the two.

College professor Stanley Ridges and a notorious gangster are both involved in auto accidents and brought to a hospital. Surgeon Boris Karloff attempts to repair the professor's damaged brain by borrowing portions from the brain of the injured gangster. The strange procedure is an apparent success because Ridges lives.

Another gangster (Bela Lugosi) wants to find out where the dead gangster hid $500,000, so he takes Ridges to New York, hypnotizes him, and convinces him that he is the dead gangster.

*------*------Spoiler Alert!-----*------*

This story is so imaginative I can't help discussing it in detail, but if you don't want to know what happens, don't read on. Very Happy

Ridges commits several murders and then visits the dead gangster's girl friend, displaying intimate knowledge which only the dead gangster would possess. Ridges gets the hidden loot and then kills both Lugosi and the girlfriend for trying to double cross him. In a twist ending to beat all twist endings, Karloff must kill Ridges when the professor-gangster threatens Karloff's own daughter — and then Karloff is sent to the electric chair for murdering the man he turned into a killer by saving him with a procedure that killed the murderer who donated the brain parts!

An incredible film from director Arthur Lubin, music by Hans Salter.

Lugosi was originally cast (and filmed a few scenes) as the man whose brain is saved by Karloff's odd surgery, but the footage was scrapped and Ridges replaced him. Lugosi took the gangster role instead.

A bizarre experiment was performed by the filmmakers when they shot a scene in which Lugosi's character suffocates in an airtight closet. With reporters present on the set to witness the event, Lugosi was put into a trance by a professional hypnotist and told that he was actually suffocating.

As a result, the scene has a disturbing strangeness about it, even for viewers who know nothing about the odd circumstances under which it was filmed.

_________________
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Tue Sep 20, 2022 2:04 pm; edited 6 times in total
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Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17558
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sun Apr 17, 2016 11:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Watch the trailer to hear the story of how Bela Lugosi was hypnotized and placed inside a closet after being told he was suffocating, in a misguided attempt to get a very realistic performance from him.

I've heard the story is true, and it worked too well. Decide for yourself. Here's the trailer and the movie.

Enjoy! Very Happy


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____________Black Friday - 1940 - Official Trailer


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_______________________Black Friday (1940)


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_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Fri Jun 07, 2024 12:19 pm; edited 5 times in total
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Rick
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Joined: 25 Feb 2016
Posts: 106
Location: New York City

PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2016 11:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
Lugosi was originally cast (and filmed a few scenes) as the man whose brain is saved by Karloff's odd surgery, but the footage was scrapped and Ridges replaced him. Lugosi took the gangster role instead.

That's news to me, that Lugosi filmed some scenes in that role. I'm not sure you're correct about that. I feel pretty sure that filming started with the three stars already in the roles they would wind up with. Could be wrong, but...

When this showed up on Shock! Theater back in '62, they showed the trailer the week before ("Coming next week on Shock!"), and the footage of the 'hypnotized' Lugosi in the closet dazzled me. But by the next week, when they actually showed the movie...I had become somewhat doubtful. Maybe. Maybe.

I'm now convinced that the hypnotism was fakey fake fake.

The movie is a disappointment, particularly for what is supposed to be a Karloff/Lugosi horror film. Stanley Ridges, though, is just great. And he seemed to specialize there for a while in double roles or split roles or twins. In THE PHANTOM SPEAKS he plays very much the same sort of thing he plays in BLACK FRIDAY. In the Hopalong Cassidy movie SILVER ON THE SAGE, he plays twins who use their resemblance to provide alibis for their crimes. And, not quite the same thing, in TO BE OR NOT TO BE, he is killed and then impersonated by Jack Benny. So it's not a double role, but is sort of one role played by two people.

He was a very strong actor, probably should have had a bigger career.

_________________
Man need not kneel before the angels,
Nor lie in death forever,
But for the weakness of his feeble will.
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Bud Brewster
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17558
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2024 11:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

I got that stuff about the hypnosis stunt and the casting change from a film reference book back in the 1990s (don't remember which) when I wrote the above review (along with 680 others, just for fun). All reference books are hit-or-miss when it comes to accuracy, so your suspicions on this matter are probably right.

Ditto for the questionable accuracy of IMDB's trivia items (which I've contributed to myself quite often, so they'll obviously let just anybody submit those things . . . Rolling Eyes
)

IMDB trivia wrote:
According to contemporary publicity reports, Bela Lugosi was put under hypnosis by technical advisor Manley P. Hall to make his death scene more realistic and harrowing.

IMDB trivia wrote:
Bela Lugosi was originally cast as Dr. Sovac and Boris Karloff as Kingsley/Cannon, but Karloff's interpretation of the gangster was unconvincing and he was replaced by Stanley Ridges. Karloff instead got the role as Dr. Sovac and Lugosi got a minor role, although his second billing remained. (Bojarski, "The Films of Bela Lugosi", 1980)

But in this case, another IMDB trivia confirms your suspicions that the hypnosis story was just hype! Get this:

Quote:
Long after Bela Lugosi's death, it was revealed that the "hypnosis" angle was a complete hoax, but Boris Karloff played along at the time of the film's release, stating that he was convinced that Lugosi had been hypnotized, because he had never seen his fellow co-star keep his back to the camera so long.

So, there ya go! The Rickster strikes again! Very Happy
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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