Cast overview: | |||
Erich von Stroheim | ... | Dr. Andre Crespi | |
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Harriet Russell | ... | Estelle Gorham Ross |
Dwight Frye | ... | Dr. Thomas | |
Paul Guilfoyle | ... | Dr. John Arnold | |
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John Bohn | ... | Dr. Stephen Ross |
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Geraldine Kay | ... | Miss Rexford |
Jean Brooks | ... | Miss Gordon (as Jeanne Kelly) | |
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Patsy Berlin | ... | Jeanne Ross - the Child |
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Joe Verdi | ... | Di Angelo |
Dean Raymond | ... | Minister |
Dr. Crespi has a festering hatred for Dr. Stephen Ross, the man who married his ex-sweetheart. Ross must undergo surgery and Crespi, sensing an opportunity, seizes it. Ross "appears" to die but Crespi has given him a drug that places the victim in a trance-like state, but leaves him in possession of his senses. Crespi attends the premature burial of his hated colleague. Dr. John Arnold has his suspicions and calls on Dr. Thomas to to help him. They exhume the body and find Ross alive, albeit now a terrified, ghostly figure given to stalking the hospital corridors. Written by Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Nifty little horror-thriller in which Erich 'The Man You Love to Hate' von Stroheim stars as a mad doctor who paralyses his love rival in order to feign his death. It's inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's The Premature Burial, but bears little resemblance to that work. Von Stroheim is great, especially when gleefully visiting his paralysed victim in the morgue to maintain the dosage and inform him of how it should wear off just as they're tamping down the last sod of earth on his grave.