The Frozen Ghost (1945)

A stage mentalist involved in a mysterious death and a discredited plastic surgeon are among the assorted characters involved in mysterious goings-on in an eerie wax museum.

Director:

Harold Young

Writers:

Bernard Schubert (screenplay), Luci Ward (screenplay)

Stars:

Lon Chaney Jr., Evelyn Ankers, Milburn Stone

Cast

Cast overview:
Lon Chaney Jr.	...	Alex Gregor / Gregor the Great (as Lon Chaney)
Evelyn Ankers	...	Maura Daniel
Milburn Stone	...	George Keene
Douglass Dumbrille	...	Inspector Brant
Martin Kosleck	...	Rudi Polden
Elena Verdugo	...	Nina Coudreau
Tala Birell	...	Mme. Valerie Monet
Arthur Hohl	...	Skeptic

Storyline

Stage mentalist Gregor the Great becomes enraged when a drunken audience member belittles his act. When the man dies suddenly, Gregor convinces himself that his hypnotic powers are to blame. Guilt-ridden, he retires from performing to Valerie Monet's wax museum. He becomes increasingly stressed when he is pursued romantically by Valerie, her niece, and his former stage assistant, Maura Daniel. When Valerie mysteriously disappears, it is apparent that sinister forces are at work in the museum.

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Plot Keywords:

psychotronic film | stage | wax museum | audience | death | 

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Taglines:

It'll turn your blood to ice-water! (lobby card).

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Genres:

Horror | Mystery | Romance

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 June 1945 (USA)

Also Known As:

Aparição Sinistra

Filming Locations:

Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

61 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Part of the original Shock Theater package of 52 titles released to television in 1957, followed a year later with SON OF SHOCK, which added 20 more features.

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Goofs

In the opening scene, stage hypnotist Alex Gregor invites a drunken heckler to the stage and attempts to hypnotize him. A real stage hypnotist would never work with a subject who was under the influence because alcohol interferes with the brain's ability to receive hypnotic suggestions.

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Connections

Follows Calling Dr. Death (1943)

User Reviews

Eyes that can kill?

Right in the beginning it seems to be the same old story with spiritualists and fake mediums: 'Gregor the Great' (Lon Chaney Jr.) hypnotizes his beautiful medium Maura (Evelyn Ankers) during his obviously quite successful radio broadcast to read the thoughts of some of the people in the audience. She evades difficult questions, and so a drunkard starts grumbling that it's all a phony - and Gregor accepts the 'challenge', invites him up to the stage and tries to hypnotize him... and the man drops dead!

From now on, although the autopsy proves that the alcoholic died of a perfectly natural heart failure, Gregor is absolutely convinced that he killed the man: he'd wished him dead because he threatened to spoil his radio broadcast, and then he'd hypnotized him and killed him that way - nobody, not even Maura, his fiancée, can get that obsession out of his mind. So his manager George suggests that he should spend some time at Mme. Monet's Wax Museum, a nice, secluded place - with murder scenes made out of wax all around, and a VERY weird young artist, a former plastic surgeon, who talks to the wax figures and is himself obsessed by Mme. Monet's pretty young niece Nina...

This fourth one of the six movies made from the hugely successful radio program "Inner Sanctum" certainly IS scary, a mixture of a murder mystery and a horror movie (Universal Studios were masters at that...); the cast is quite good, Lon Chaney Jr. is once more teamed with Evelyn Ankers (they co-starred in eight movies altogether), and once more seems doomed by a strange kind of fate to do bad, like in "The Wolf Man"... Although "The Frozen Ghost" is nothing too inventive, it's QUITE a treat for fans of the genre!