Black Friday
1940  NR  SCIENCE FICTION  1h 10min
CAST— Boris Karloff, Béla Lugosi, Stanley Ridges, Anne Nagel, Anne Gwynne
MUSIC— Hans J. Salter, Frank Skinner  DIRECTOR— Arthur Lubin

     A medical switcheroo gets things going in this fairly entertaining thriller. Slightly mad scientist Boris Karloff is heading for ol’ sparky. “But why?”, one might ask. A reporter reading Karloff’s notes is the first to know everything. The story begins when Karloff’s BFF, an absent-minded lit professor (Stanley Ridges) is run down by a speeding gangster. With both the gangster and the professor severely injured, Karloff tries to save Ridges by inserting the gangster’s brain into the prof. For some reason it comes as a shock when the professor begins to act a bit off. Karloff suggests that he and Ridges take a New York vacation, batch it up, ostensibly so that the professor can unwind and recuperate. But Karloff’s true agenda is that he hopes to reawaken the gangster on his home turf and get him to spill the beans about a hidden cache of cash. But things go an unexpected route when the gangster within begins bumping off the old pals who double crossed him. Because who would suspect a gentlemanly professor on holiday of a rash of gangster slayings? Though the film is technically science fiction it’s easy to think of this as a dramatic revenge picture. Never escapes its B-movie feel but memorable, nevertheless.
OUR RATING— ** ½