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Scotland yard are alerted when a suspiciously large amount of mens bodies start showing up in the Thames. At first all the deaths appear to be accidental death but every single victim has one common connection they all have life insurance with insurance broker Dr Orloff. Dr Orloff is also the in-house doctor for a local home for the blind where a disfigured man is also a resident and a sort of servant to Dr Orloff who is involved in the insurance scams is master is spear heading.
I really like the story and how it was playing out at the beginning but soon it started to get a little boring and slow. The introduction of the detective from America didn't help with him being the comedic element of the film that the film never needed which made this character completely pointless. It really takes until the hour mark before the film really gets going and unfortunately the film is only 1 hour 15 long. There is no twist or guess work needed we know pretty much from the start who the villain is. The final 15 minutes is entertaining and its a real shame we didn't get more of those part earlier in the film but its a common thing from most films of this time that they just try cram so much into the final few minutes and everything is wrapped up all of a sudden.
My real problem with this film is that it takes the whole hour before Lugosi comes into his own before that we only get a few scenes which are all in his office and are pretty non eventful really getting only a few very brief glimpses of his true character but really its just the camera zooming on his face while his voice turns sinister and then he is back to normal again. I always feel that Bela has a natural ability to be creepy and sinister so there is never a need to force it in a lot of these films and mini series he did it always feels like his evil characters felt too manufactured and so it removes the real feeling of the character and thats what makes it so cheesy or gimmicky way too often in his film. Dracula and The Raven are perfect example of Lugosi at his best and if he got to play all his roles as naturally scary as those early films these later films would of been much better regarding his roles at least.
Sadly not the best film and Lugosi not used to his full potential as usual.