Horrors of the Black Museum (1959)

User Rating:

5.9/10   

Director:

Arthur Crabtree

Writers:

Herman Cohen (writer)
Aben Kandel (writer)

Release Date:

24 November 1959 (Japan)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

It Actually Puts YOU In The Picture - Can You Stand It?

Plot:

The promotion announced that this film was released in "Hypnovision" which gives an idea of the story...

Plot Keywords:

Binoculars | Murder | Police | Author | Stockings

Cast

Michael Gough	...	Edmond Bancroft
June Cunningham	...	Joan Berkley
Graham Curnow	...	Rick
Shirley Anne Field	...	Angela Banks
Geoffrey Keen	...	Supt. Graham
Gerald Anderson	...	Dr. Ballan
John Warwick	...	Insp. Lodge
Beatrice Varley	...	Aggie
Austin Trevor	...	Commissioner Wayne
Malou Pantera	...	Peggy (Gail's roommate)
Howard Greene	...	Tom Rivers
Dorinda Stevens	...	Gail Dunlap
Stuart Saunders	...	Strength-Test Barker
Hilda Barry	...	Woman in Hall
Nora Gordon	...	Woman in Hall

Also Known As:

Crime in the Museum of Horrors (USA)

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:Unrated | UK:X (original rating) | UK:15 (video rating)

Filming Locations:

Merton Park Studios, Merton, London, England, UK

Company:

Carmel Productions

Trivia:

Last full length feature of Beatrice Varley.

Quotes:

Bancroft: No woman can hold her tongue. They're a vicious, unreliable breed!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in How to Make a Monster (1958)

Fiendish Fun!

"Horror of the Black Museum" is incredibly dated, unimportant and overly silly but it remains great fun to watch and watch it again. The opening sequence is delicious and definitely the best part of the entire movie. It involves the supposedly third strange and random murder in the London region and shows a poor woman getting her eyes gouged out by a pair of ingeniously spiked binoculars. A better opening to a colorful horror movie is hard to imagine and you're automatically preparing yourself to see a blackly comical and sadist horror gem. The quality-level of this intro naturally can't be held up throughout the entire movie but the script remains involving and surprising enough to keep you amused for a good 80 minutes. Scotland Yard hasn't got a clue where to begin their investigation and – on top of that – they're constantly annoyed by the vain columnist and pulp-novelist Ed Bancroft. The mysterious killer's identity isn't kept secret for long (I even assume it wasn't meant to be a secret) but his/her insane persona is imaginatively deepened. The "Black Museum" is a technical term to describe the police archive of bizarre and unusual murder weapons that were used in murder cases. The killer here has such a private collection himself which provides the film with a couple of utterly cool gimmicks, like the previously mentioned binoculars, an acid-bath and even a mini-guillotine! Michael Gough is seemly having a great time portraying the cripple cynic Bancroft. His performance is more than decent yet I agree with another reviewer here who already claimed that this role would be even more fit for Vincent Price. This film was the first entry of a Sadian horror trilogy, the others being the 1960 "Circus of Horrors" and "Peeping Tom". "Horror of the Black Museum" is the weakest of the three but still a terrifically odd and sensational genre highlight.