Dr Richard Vollin a retired brain surgeon gets a phone call from Judge Thatcher whose daughter Jean has been seriously injured in a car crash . Despite being somewhat reluctant Vollin agrees to operate on her and saves her life . Later on Judge Thatcher returns to Vollin's house and informs that Jean despite being engaged has developed an emotional attachment to him and forbids any contact with Jean , much to Vollin's resentment . Later on a man appears at Vollin's house , an escaped convict called Edmond Bateman who wants the doctor to change his face
Many , many years ago BBC2 used to show a horror double bill in the Summer months and this was shown alongside another Lugosi/Karloff film THE BLACK CAT . It wasn't until the era of the internet that I found out THE RAVEN was the cause of so much controversy on its initial release , so much so that it effectively killed off the Universal horror film for several years . That said there's several factors at play . One is the Hays Code had been brought out the previous year limiting what could be shown on screen and the pre-code film by Tod Browning FREAKS was banned in Britain on its release . Certainly compared to the Browning film THE RAVEN is relatively tame but like FREAKS it too was banned in Britain and THE RAVEN's relatively poor box office in America meant that Universal Studio's the prime producer of horror movies thought the bottom had fallen out of the horror market so concentrated on making other movies
The one aspect the film is very very good at it is its psychological undertones of horror . Watching it today it is slightly bizarre on how it remains restrained and yet it has a rather sadistic edge just waiting to surface . Dr Vollin is played superbly by Lugosi as a sadistic control freak with an obsession with both Edgar Allen Poe and torture devices , devices it transpires that he's all too ready to use when circumstances dictate it . Would a doctor in real life be capable of such cruelty ? Let's not forget in Germany the Nazis had risen to power and were making plans for the worst crimes in human history . The Nazi death camps were governed by medical sadists of which Josef Mengele was the most notorious and was not unique in his crimes . Just over ten years after THE RAVEN was released , a separate war crimes trial took place at Nuremburg called The Doctors Trial where those indicted were tried of conducting the most cruel medical experiments against fellow human beings
Where the film fails quite badly is on a logical level . Vollin is held at gun point by Bateman and agrees to operate on him but Bateman never jumps to the conclusion that Vollin might contact the police while he's under the anaesthetic and one wonders why Vollin never thought of this . Of course as it transpires Bateman is needed to carry out some dirty work . Again the problem is how does Bateman fit in to this plan ? Surely if Vollin wants to torture and kill Judge Thatcher , Jean and her fiancé then he doesn't need Bateman's help to do this and what is Vollin going to do with the other party guests ? Kill them probably because they're witnesses but how likely is it that these seven guests have not told anyone where they'll be staying at that weekend ? Surely if they all disappear that means the police will know where to look for them ? The more you think about it the more the plan starts falling apart . Surely a simpler plan would have been Vollin blackmailing Bateman in to becoming a hit man who goes to Jean's fiancés house to kill him and one wonders why Vollin didn't do this but I guess that means we wouldn't have had a story in that case
As I said this was made just after the Hays Code was introduced and its interesting in how the cinematic morals of the time are played out on screen . If you're about to get married this means you're still not allowed to have sex , you have to stay in separate rooms , get chaperoned by a parent and even if you are married you have to sleep in different beds . The code also stipulates that anyone doing anything bad has to be made to suffer the penalty for their crimes which means the body count of the entire film is rather low at two
Despite being a very flawed horror film THE RAVEN is a very enjoyable one too . You have to meet it on its own terms and constantly remind yourself of the context of when it was made but the film is carried by its two stars . It's also a film dealing with psychological obsessions and it's here the story works very well indeed
Many , many years ago BBC2 used to show a horror double bill in the Summer months and this was shown alongside another Lugosi/Karloff film THE BLACK CAT . It wasn't until the era of the internet that I found out THE RAVEN was the cause of so much controversy on its initial release , so much so that it effectively killed off the Universal horror film for several years . That said there's several factors at play . One is the Hays Code had been brought out the previous year limiting what could be shown on screen and the pre-code film by Tod Browning FREAKS was banned in Britain on its release . Certainly compared to the Browning film THE RAVEN is relatively tame but like FREAKS it too was banned in Britain and THE RAVEN's relatively poor box office in America meant that Universal Studio's the prime producer of horror movies thought the bottom had fallen out of the horror market so concentrated on making other movies
The one aspect the film is very very good at it is its psychological undertones of horror . Watching it today it is slightly bizarre on how it remains restrained and yet it has a rather sadistic edge just waiting to surface . Dr Vollin is played superbly by Lugosi as a sadistic control freak with an obsession with both Edgar Allen Poe and torture devices , devices it transpires that he's all too ready to use when circumstances dictate it . Would a doctor in real life be capable of such cruelty ? Let's not forget in Germany the Nazis had risen to power and were making plans for the worst crimes in human history . The Nazi death camps were governed by medical sadists of which Josef Mengele was the most notorious and was not unique in his crimes . Just over ten years after THE RAVEN was released , a separate war crimes trial took place at Nuremburg called The Doctors Trial where those indicted were tried of conducting the most cruel medical experiments against fellow human beings
Where the film fails quite badly is on a logical level . Vollin is held at gun point by Bateman and agrees to operate on him but Bateman never jumps to the conclusion that Vollin might contact the police while he's under the anaesthetic and one wonders why Vollin never thought of this . Of course as it transpires Bateman is needed to carry out some dirty work . Again the problem is how does Bateman fit in to this plan ? Surely if Vollin wants to torture and kill Judge Thatcher , Jean and her fiancé then he doesn't need Bateman's help to do this and what is Vollin going to do with the other party guests ? Kill them probably because they're witnesses but how likely is it that these seven guests have not told anyone where they'll be staying at that weekend ? Surely if they all disappear that means the police will know where to look for them ? The more you think about it the more the plan starts falling apart . Surely a simpler plan would have been Vollin blackmailing Bateman in to becoming a hit man who goes to Jean's fiancés house to kill him and one wonders why Vollin didn't do this but I guess that means we wouldn't have had a story in that case
As I said this was made just after the Hays Code was introduced and its interesting in how the cinematic morals of the time are played out on screen . If you're about to get married this means you're still not allowed to have sex , you have to stay in separate rooms , get chaperoned by a parent and even if you are married you have to sleep in different beds . The code also stipulates that anyone doing anything bad has to be made to suffer the penalty for their crimes which means the body count of the entire film is rather low at two
Despite being a very flawed horror film THE RAVEN is a very enjoyable one too . You have to meet it on its own terms and constantly remind yourself of the context of when it was made but the film is carried by its two stars . It's also a film dealing with psychological obsessions and it's here the story works very well indeed