The Ghoul starring Boris Karloff is a highly entertaining little excursion into mysticism and monstery doings.
The movie was made when Karloff, after the success of Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, and The Mummy went back home to England to patch things up with his family. While there he made this little movie for Gaumont Studios.
The movie was thought lost for decades and then turned up in a private collection. Thanks goodness for that, as it's a right entertaining movie.
The plot is pretty typical of monster movies of the era. A reclusive and repulsive Englishman who is dreading death played by Karloff seeks a cure in Egyptian mysticism and makes plans for his life beyond the grave. He then dies.
His butler played by Ernest Thesiger (who is outstanding in this) has second thoughts and seeks to warn Karloff's relatives who are about to inherit his grounds, unaware he plans to return.
Ralph Richardson is on hand as a disreputable lawyer, and along with Karloff and Thesiger gives this movie a real trove of great characters.
There is a bunch of typical 30's banter, but after much running about, the Ghoul is seen and dealt with, though it's a hairy matter for a while there.
Without revealing too much, this one is at once offers a typical scenario but sprinkles it with enough twists to keep it interesting right up to the end.
Karloff himself is outstanding, and I'd rank this as one of his scariest roles.
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This is a Karloff movie that really deserves more attention than it's gotten. It's easily an equal to "The Dark Old House".
ReplyDeleteI didn't even know about this one until a few years ago. When I finally got a copy, I fell in love with this flick. It's got some zany in it, but Karloff is really really creepy.
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