The Boogie Man will Get You (1942), dir. Lew Landers, Columbia Pictures
Jumping ahead a few years, and Lorre was trying to shake his horror persona. He was still getting big pictures but they tended to be small parts. Working with Boris Karloff probably didn't help shake the horror image either.
Professor Billings (Karloff) is desperate for money. He needs a fast source of capital if he is going to complete his work of creating a race of electric supermen capable of destroying the world!
For the war effort, you understand. Billings may be a mad scientist but he's an American mad scientist by gum!
He sells his home, an 18th Century tavern, to Winnie Layden (Jeff Donnell) on the condition that he allowed to stay in the basement and continue his work. Winnie's ex-husband Bill (Larry Parks) stays on after the sell. After the new owners have settled in, several folks complain of a howling noise. Bill is convinced they are trying to scare everyone away so he finds the lab...and the dead body of a traveling salesman (Eddie Laughton).
Bill does the sensible thing and hightails it to Sherrif Lorencz (Lorre). The Sheriff seems a business opportunity in all this and decides to start hunting up some volunteers for the doc. If they aren't willing to be test subjects, well, the sheriff can be persuasive.
A wartime thriller and comedy to boot? Lorre and Karloff perfectly lampoon their on screen personas but the rest of the cast simply doesn't stack up.
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