The Devil Commands (1941)

Director:

Edward Dmytryk

Writers:

Robert Hardy Andrews (screenplay)
Milton Gunzburg (screenplay)
(more)

Release Date:

3 February 1941 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

KARLOFF TURNS KILLER IN A HORROR-CRAMMED THRILLER! (original 11x14 title card)

Plot:

Scientist becomes obsessed with the idea of communicating with his dead wife.

Plot Keywords:

Dead Wife | Scientist | Experiment | New England | Medium

Cast

Boris Karloff	...	Dr. Julian Blair
Richard Fiske	...	Dr. Richard Sayles
Amanda Duff	...	Anne Blair
Anne Revere	...	Mrs. Blanche Walters
Cy Schindell	...	Karl (as Ralph Penney)
Dorothy Adams	...	Mrs. Marcy
Walter Baldwin	...	Seth Marcy
Kenneth MacDonald	...	Sheriff Ed Willis
Shirley Warde	...	Helen Blair
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ernie Adams	...	Elam (uncredited)
Lester Allen	...	Dr. Van Den (uncredited)
Wheaton Chambers	...	Dr. Sanders (uncredited)
Earl Crawford	...	Johnson (uncredited)
Harrison Greene	...	Mr. Booth, Bakery Proprietor (uncredited)
Erwin Kalser	...	Professor Kent (uncredited)
Eddie Kane	...	Professor Walt (uncredited)
George McKay	...	Station Agent (uncredited)
Al Rhein	...	Truck Driver (uncredited)
John Tyrrell	...	Postmaster (uncredited)
Jacques Vanaire	...	Dr. Hartley (uncredited)

Directed by
Edward Dmytryk

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Robert Hardy Andrews		screenplay (as Robert D. Andrews)
Milton Gunzburg		screenplay
William Sloane		novel "The Edge of Running Water"

Produced by
Wallace MacDonald	....	producer

Cinematography by
Allen G. Siegler

Film Editing by
Al Clark

Art Direction by
Lionel Banks

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
George Rhein	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Philip Faulkner Jr.	....	sound engineer (uncredited)

Special Effects by
Franz Dallons	....	props
Oscar Dallons	....	props
Paul Dallons	....	props

Music Department
Morris Stoloff	....	musical director
George Antheil	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Gerard Carbonara	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Sidney Cutner	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Werner R. Heymann	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Ben Oakland	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Karol Rathaus	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Gregory Stone	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)
Victor Young	....	composer: stock music (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Columbia Pictures Corporation

Distributors

• Columbia Pictures (1941) (USA) (theatrical)
• Columbia Pictures (1955) (USA) (theatrical) (reissue)
• Columbia TriStar Home Video (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• Image Entertainment (????) (USA) (DVD)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

65 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Completed December 1940, released February 3, 1941.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Dr. Julian tells Mrs. Walters she had 10,000 volts pass through her body. Volts do not flow or pass, amps do.

Quotes:

Dr. Van Den:I know one thing, Julian - there are things human beings have no right to know!

Movie Connections:

Featured in 100 Years of Horror: Mad Doctors (1996) (V)

Don't open that door!

Corny and cliche'd as The Devil Commands may look to the superficial gaze, it's a powerful expression of the inextinguishable and far from trivial human wish to believe that death is not the end and that the dead we loved are not forever lost to us. Karloff starred in a whole sub-genre of films on this theme from the middle 1930s to the early 1940s (cf The Invisible Ray, Before I Hang, The Man They Could Not Hang, etc), invariably as a misunderstood scientific genius, embittered by tragedy or injustice, whose desire to conquer death clashes fatally with the prerogatives of the Almighty.

Whether one believes in an afterlife or not, it would be a coarsely reductionist mind that could consider the subject ridiculous. What gives these films (and this one in particular) their eerily modernist slant on the matter lies in the way they reflect the public's awe of science in the first half of the twentieth century, when astonishing developments such as radio and television (and that weird form of immortality, the motion picture), made it seem believable that technology might solve the supernatural as well as the physical mysteries. It is worth remembering in this context that the contemporary electrical wizards Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, classical Mad Scientists both, attempted to build machines with which to talk to the dead.

In this morbidly obsessive cinematic byway The Devil Commands stands out as one of the most insidiously poignant and nearly blasphemous films of its kind, sailing very close to the emotional and spiritual wind in its depiction of Karloff's bizarre attempts to communicate with his dead wife. As a mad-scientist entertainment it contains some of the most magnificently deranged laboratory scenes ever filmed, surpassed in this context only by James Whale's Frankenstein and Bride Of Frankenstein. I still succumb to its mournful fascination. And if your first viewing doesn't scare you half to death, you can't be more than half alive.