Condemned to Live (1935)
Now here we have a definite fulfillment of my promise to do a bit of obscure now and again. If you’ve actually heard of this low-budget film from the 1930s, then I’d wager you are one of few.
Condemned to Live was directed by Frank R. Strayer, whose major achievement in life seems to have been directing a long line of movies based on the comic strip Blondie. We won’t hold that against him too much here. We’re loving that way. The only other notable thing I can seem to gather about the cast and crew is the man playing the lead role, Ralph Morgan, is the brother of Frank Morgan who played the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz. Cool beans.
I quite enjoyed this little movie with its 1930s horror ways. As you can see from the screencaps I took (bottom of article), you have your vampire bats, your hunchbacks, and your angry mobs with torches. What more can you want? Most of the sets and costumes were actually re-used from the higher-budget Frankenstein pictures to save money, and it was done to good effect.
The plot revolves around a small European town of unknown geography in which a strange series of murders has taken place. Young girls are having their throats torn out in the dark. Grisly. Rumors are spreading around the town that a giant bat is swooping down on people in the dark and carrying them off to its cave nearby, where the bodies are then found. Professor Kristan, the learned man who the village people always turn to for help, is at a loss to explain the incidents and believes the stories might be true. David, a young man in the village, doesn’t believe it’s a bat at all, but rather a man performing the hideous murders. What is the truth? Who will be the next victim!? I love this stuff.
Now we are entering spoiler territory. I will try to put a warning of this variety any time I do this for anything no matter how old. It’s almost useless for this movie because the plot summaries I’ve seen pretty much give the entire thing away, but at least I can have the decency to warn people. I should also say if you want to pick up this movie to watch before continuing it is on Netflix and Amazon. Anyway, to spoilertown.
What I think I really enjoyed about this movie was how it doesn’t have a real villain. There is no monster, just a poor man that can’t help himself. It also plays a bit with outer appearances and what people expect. The entire village becomes convinced at one point that Zan, the Professor’s servant, is the murderer simply because “no good ever came from a hunchback.” The movie takes parts of Dracula, werewolf lore, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame to make something new that I’d say works successfully.
As we come to realize fairly early in the movie, the murderer is actually Professor Kristan, who has been plagued by headaches and blackouts as of late. People aren’t dumb, it takes only one or two murders for many of the people close to him to either find out or get suspicious. What makes it all the more heartbreaking is the Professor is really and truly a nice man. His mother was bitten on the neck by a vampire bat just before he was born in Africa, and that’s what lead to his current sorry state.
The great tragedy is many of the murders could have been prevented if Zan had simply told Kristan right away what was happening, but with the best of intentions he kept it a secret and tried simply to stop further incidents from occurring. Unfortunately, he only succeeds in the final attempt on the Professor’s fiancee. I know it might seem kind of silly, but it felt just a bit refreshing to see a horror movie where everyone acts pretty straightforward and smart. Usually only dumb people populate movies in this genre.
The movie is only 67 minutes long, and that allows a brisk pace. The ending was quite sad when Professor Kristan finally realizes what he’s done during his blackouts, and runs to save Zan, who is about to be burned by a mob in the nearby caves. Once he arrives, he announces to the mob that he was the murderer and they watch in shock as he throws himself into a crevasse. Perhaps even sadder is Zan, who loved his master very much, jumps in after him.
Is it great cinema? I don’t know. I think it had a lot of heart on its side, though. Especially when compared to some of the movies I’ve seen. Anyway, once again I feel this post was a little lacking somehow, but I’ll probably always feel that way. All I can do is try to do better next time, I guess. See you next time.
