''The Devil Commands'' is a 1941 American

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apo ...

directed by

Edward Dmytryk Edward Dmytryk (September 4, 1908 – July 1, 1999) was an American film director. He was known for his 1940s noir films and received an Oscar nomination for Best Director for ''Crossfire'' (1947). In 1947, he was named as one of the Hollywood ...

and starring

Boris Karloff William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (), was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstein'' (1931) (his 82nd film) established ...

. The working title of the film was ''The Devil Said No''.Young, 2000, p. 154 In it, a man obsessed with contacting his dead wife falls in with a sinister phony medium. The Devil Commands is one of the many films from the 1930s and 1940s in which Karloff was cast as a

mad scientist The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or " insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly a ...

with a good heart. It was one of the last in line of the low-budget horror films that were produced before

Universal Studios Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...

' '' The Wolf Man''. The story was adapted from the novel '' The Edge of Running Water'' by William Sloane.Stephen Jacobs, ''Boris Karloff: More Than a Monster'', Tomahawk Press 2011 p 265

Plot

Dr. Julian Blair is engaged in unconventional research on human brain waves when his wife Helen ( Shirley Warde) is tragically killed in an auto accident. The grief-stricken scientist becomes obsessed with redirecting his work into making contact with the dead and is not deterred by dire warnings from his daughter Anne (

Amanda Duff Amanda Duff (March 6, 1914 - April 6, 2006) was an American actress on stage and in films. Biography Duff was born in Fresno, California, and grew up in Santa Barbara, California. She went on to study music at Mills College and later to study pi ...

), his research assistant Richard (

Richard Fiske Thomas Richard Potts (November 20, 1915 – August 10, 1944), known professionally as Richard Fiske, was an American film actor. He appeared in over 80 films between 1938 and 1942. Career Born Thomas Richard Potts, Fiske was born to Frank a ...

), or his colleagues that he is delving into forbidden areas of knowledge. He moves his laboratory to an isolated

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian province ...

mansion where he continues to try to reach out to his dead wife. He is aided by his mentally-challenged servant Karl ( Ralph Penney) and abetted by the obsessive Mrs. Walters (

Anne Revere Anne Revere (June 25, 1903 – December 18, 1990) was an American actress and a progressive member of the board of the Screen Actors' Guild. She was best known for her work on Broadway and her film portrayals of mothers in a series of critical ...

), a phony medium, who seems to exert a sinister influence over him. When their overly curious housekeeper discovers the truth about their experiments, her death brings the local sheriff in to investigate.

Cast

as Dr. Julian Blair *

as Dr. Richard Sayles *

as Anne Blair *

as Mrs. Walters * Ralph Penney as Karl *

Dorothy Adams Dorothy Adams (January 8, 1900 – March 16, 1988) was an American character actress of stage, film, and television. Early years Adams was born in Hannah, North Dakota. She later moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, and was educated there. ...

as Mrs. Marcy *

Walter Baldwin Walter Smith Baldwin Jr. (January 2, 1889 − January 27, 1977) was an American character actor whose career spanned five decades and 150 film and television roles, and numerous stage performances. Baldwin was born in Lima, Ohio, into a theatr ...

as Seth Marcy * Kenneth MacDonald as Sheriff Ed Willis * Shirley Warde as Helen Blair

Reception

From retrospective reviews, Tony Rayns reviewed the film in ''

Sight & Sound ''Sight and Sound'' (also spelled ''Sight & Sound'') is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). It conducts the well-known, once-a-decade ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, ongoing ...

'' as part of the ''Karloff at Columbia'' blu-ray set. Rayns compared the films to '' The Black Room'', ''

The Man They Could Not Hang ''The Man They Could Not Hang'' is a 1939 American horror film directed by Nick Grinde from a screenplay by Karl Brown. It stars Boris Karloff as Dr. Henryk Savaard,Stephen Jacobs, ''Boris Karloff: More Than a Monster'', Tomahawk Press 2011 pp ...

'', '' The Man With Nine Lives'', '' Before I Hang'', and ''

The Boogie Man Will Get You ''The Boogie Man Will Get You'' is a 1942 American comedy horror film directed by Lew Landers and starring Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. It was the final film Karloff made under his contract with Columbia Pictures, and it was filmed in the wake o ...

'' noting that stand out of the set was ''The Devil Commands''. with "Karloff denouncing fake spiritualists and seeking a scientific way to contact his beloved late wife."

Notes

References

* *

External links