Like the last film I watched--Universal's The Strange Door (1951)--The Black Castle is a melodramatic thriller that feels like something from the previous decade, if not earlier. The villain of the piece, one-eyed Count Karl von Bruno (Stephen McNally), is reminiscent of Zaroff from The Most Dangerous Game, a wealthy hunter who has turned to murder; trying to bring him to justice is the dashing Sir Ronald Burton (Richard Greene), who goes undercover to infiltrate the Count's castle. As in The Strange Door, Boris Karloff is on hand to help the hero, playing the Count's physician, who suggests a risky plan for Burton to escape the castle with the Count's wife Elga (the gorgeous Rita Corday), the couple having fallen in love.
Nathan Juran's directorial debut is a moderately entertaining gothic B-movie, with a fair few fun scenes helping the viewer through the more mundane moments: a swashbuckling swordfight in an inn, Burton wrestling a leopard, the hero and his love interest maneouvering along a ledge above a pit full of crocodiles, and a tense moment where Burton's manservant Romley (Tudor Owen) fumbles to find the right key to free his master while the enemy closes in on them. All this, plus Lon Chaney Jr. As a hulking mute called Gargon and a nail-biting Romeo and Juliette-inspired finale, adds up to an entertaining movie.
6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.
Nathan Juran's directorial debut is a moderately entertaining gothic B-movie, with a fair few fun scenes helping the viewer through the more mundane moments: a swashbuckling swordfight in an inn, Burton wrestling a leopard, the hero and his love interest maneouvering along a ledge above a pit full of crocodiles, and a tense moment where Burton's manservant Romley (Tudor Owen) fumbles to find the right key to free his master while the enemy closes in on them. All this, plus Lon Chaney Jr. As a hulking mute called Gargon and a nail-biting Romeo and Juliette-inspired finale, adds up to an entertaining movie.
6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.