One would hope that in combining the talents of Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre in a horror comedy styled after Karloff's current Broadway sensation ARSENIC AND OLD LACE it should result in a better film than "The Boogie Man Will Get You," last of the five 'Mad Scientist' vehicles for Boris at Columbia from 1939 to 1942 (all were included in SON OF SHOCK). Producers Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse would not allow Karloff to reprise his cherished Jonathan Brewster opposite Lorre in the Frank Capra movie version (Warners nixed their idea of borrowing Humphrey Bogart to temporarily replace him!), so Boris remained in New York as Raymond Massey essayed the part instead. Columbia's attempted cash in arrived some nine months later, and must have seemed a pretty poor crumb indeed by comparison, despite offering the actor a more lighthearted rendition of his stock mad scientist as Prof. Nathaniel Billings, merely trying to preserve life by transforming unwary salesmen into supermen who will never age and be able to fly on their own as perfect weapons against the Axis. He conducts these experiments in a basement laboratory in the old Billings lodge dating back to 1775, with a housekeeper who imagines herself an egg laying hen (Maude Eburne), and a handyman who lives with pigs (George McKay). Among this menagerie arrives pretty Winnie Slade (Jeff Donnell) and her ex-husband (Larry Parks), trying to adjust to a new career running this old tavern as a hotel; add a would be choreographer (Don Beddoe), a powder puff salesman with an inferiority complex (Maxie Rosenbloom), and an inept anarchist (Frank Puglia), all the ingredients for cinematic disaster. Only Peter Lorre provides the saving grace as Dr. Arthur Lorencz, who performs all the functions of this tiny New England community, terminating the Billings mortgage with Winnie's unlikely cash payment before playing sheriff when he looks into the professor's murderous activities (it's all right so long as he can turn a profit by it). All ends well for everybody in a way, as none of the corpses actually stay dead, the whole soufflé collapsing in a heap after an hour of cloddish behavior. Karloff proves a delight though Lorre's improvisational style suits the nonsensical surroundings best, it's just the other characters that wear out their welcome in no time. '(Miss) Jeff Donnell' was an underrated actress who brightened a number of the studio's pictures over the following decade, but Boris was now finished with Harry Cohn, not returning to Hollywood until ARSENIC's run concluded in the spring of 1944 (my rating is 2 stars, one for each chuckle).