The Black Sleep (1956 film)
Encyclopedia
The Black Sleep is an American
black-and-white horror film
, scripted by John C. Higgins
from a story by Gerald Drayson Adams
developed for producers
Aubrey Schenck
and Howard W. Koch
, who had a four-picture finance-for-distribution arrangement with United Artists
. The film was re-released in 1962 as Dr. Cadman's Secret.
The film
was directed
by Reginald LeBorg and included in its starring cast Bela Lugosi
in his last true film role. Also featured were Basil Rathbone
, Lon Chaney, John Carradine
, and Akim Tamiroff
in a role originally written for Peter Lorre
. In a "prominent" supporting role was Ed Wood regular Tor Johnson
.
. Due to medicine's state of the art at the time, he does not know how to reach the tumor without risking brain damage or death to the woman he loves, so he undertakes to secretly experiment on the brains of living, but involuntary, human subjects who are under the influence of a powerful India
n anesthetic, Nind Andhera, which he calls the "Black Sleep". Once he has finished his experiment, surviving subjects are revived and placed, in seriously degenerated and mutilated states, in a hidden cellar in the gloomy, abandoned country abbey where he conducts his experiments.
of its two decades of "monster movies" through Screen Gems
, under the package title of Shock Theater
. It may or may not be coincidental that writer Higgins, director LeBorg, and stars Rathbone, Chaney, Carradine, and Lugosi had all been significantly associated with Universal "horror films" or related B movies. It certainly recalls two "houseful of monster" films of Universal in the mid-40s, House of Frankenstein
and House of Dracula
, only relying on a completely new cadre of human monsters.
United Artists released The Black Sleep out as the A-film in a double feature
with The Creeping Unknown
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
black-and-white horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
, scripted by John C. Higgins
John C. Higgins
John C. Higgins was an American screenwriter. During the 1930s and early 1940s, the Winnipeg, Canada-born scribe worked on mostly complex murder mystery films including the James Stewart film Murder Man...
from a story by Gerald Drayson Adams
Gerald Drayson Adams
Gerald Drayson Adams was a former business executive and literary agent when he began writing for films in the 1940s. The Oxford University-educated Adams specialized in action/adventure and western films...
developed for producers
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
Aubrey Schenck
Aubrey Schenck
Aubrey Schenck was a film producer from the 1940s through the 1970s. In the 1930s, Schenck, a nephew of Joseph and Nicholas Schenck, was a practicing attorney in New York City. He wrote a story and submitted it to 20th Century Fox, with whom he had business and legal connections, and they agreed...
and Howard W. Koch
Howard W. Koch
Howard Winchel Koch was an American director and producer of motion pictures and television.Born in New York City, he attended DeWitt Clinton High School and the Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey...
, who had a four-picture finance-for-distribution arrangement with United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
. The film was re-released in 1962 as Dr. Cadman's Secret.
The film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
was directed
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
by Reginald LeBorg and included in its starring cast Bela Lugosi
Béla Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
in his last true film role. Also featured were Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone
Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...
, Lon Chaney, John Carradine
John Carradine
John Carradine was an American actor, best known for his roles in horror films and Westerns as well as Shakespearean theater. A member of Cecil B DeMille's stock company and later John Ford's company, he was one of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood history...
, and Akim Tamiroff
Akim Tamiroff
Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff was an Armenian actor. He won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.Tamiroff was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire , of Armenian ethnicity. He trained at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school. He arrived in the U.S. in 1923 on a tour with a troupe of actors...
in a role originally written for Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
. In a "prominent" supporting role was Ed Wood regular Tor Johnson
Tor Johnson
Tor Johansson , better known by the stage name Tor Johnson, was a Swedish professional wrestler and actor....
.
Plot
Set in early 19th-century England, the story concerned a prominent, knighted surgeon whose wife has fallen into a coma caused by a deep-seated brain tumorBrain tumor
A brain tumor is an intracranial solid neoplasm, a tumor within the brain or the central spinal canal.Brain tumors include all tumors inside the cranium or in the central spinal canal...
. Due to medicine's state of the art at the time, he does not know how to reach the tumor without risking brain damage or death to the woman he loves, so he undertakes to secretly experiment on the brains of living, but involuntary, human subjects who are under the influence of a powerful India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n anesthetic, Nind Andhera, which he calls the "Black Sleep". Once he has finished his experiment, surviving subjects are revived and placed, in seriously degenerated and mutilated states, in a hidden cellar in the gloomy, abandoned country abbey where he conducts his experiments.
Distribution
Produced during 1955, the film went into theaters in the early summer of 1956, just ahead of the TV syndication by Universal PicturesUniversal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
of its two decades of "monster movies" through Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....
, under the package title of Shock Theater
Shock Theater
Shock Theater was a package of 52 classic horror films from Universal Studios released for television showings in October 1957 by Screen Gems, the television subsidiary of Columbia Pictures. The Shock Theater package included Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man and the The Wolf Man...
. It may or may not be coincidental that writer Higgins, director LeBorg, and stars Rathbone, Chaney, Carradine, and Lugosi had all been significantly associated with Universal "horror films" or related B movies. It certainly recalls two "houseful of monster" films of Universal in the mid-40s, House of Frankenstein
House of Frankenstein (1944 film)
House of Frankenstein is an American monster horror film produced in 1944 by Universal Studios as a sequel to Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man the previous year. This monster rally approach would continue in the following film, House of Dracula, as well as the 1948 comedy Abbott and Costello Meet...
and House of Dracula
House of Dracula
House of Dracula was an American horror film released by Universal Pictures Company in 1945. It was a direct sequel to House of Frankenstein and continued the theme of combining Universal's three most popular monsters: Frankenstein's monster, Count Dracula and The Wolf Man...
, only relying on a completely new cadre of human monsters.
United Artists released The Black Sleep out as the A-film in a double feature
Double feature
The double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.The double feature, also known as...
with The Creeping Unknown
The Quatermass Xperiment
The Quatermass Xperiment is a 1955 British science fiction horror film. Made by Hammer Film Productions, it was based on the 1953 BBC Television serial The Quatermass Experiment written by Nigel Kneale. It was directed by Val Guest and stars Brian Donlevy as the eponymous Professor Bernard...
.
The Cast
- Basil RathboneBasil RathboneSir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...
as Sir Joel Cadman - Akim TamiroffAkim TamiroffAkim Mikhailovich Tamiroff was an Armenian actor. He won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.Tamiroff was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire , of Armenian ethnicity. He trained at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school. He arrived in the U.S. in 1923 on a tour with a troupe of actors...
as Udu the Gypsy - Herbert RudleyHerbert RudleyHerbert Rudley, , was a prolific character actor who appeared on stage, in films and on television.Rudley was born in 1910 in Philadelphia, and attended Temple University. He left Temple after winning a scholarship to Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre.He began appearing on stage in 1926...
as Dr. Gordon Ramsey - Patricia BlakePatricia BlairPatricia Blair is an American television and film actress, primarily on 1950s and 1960s television. She is probably best known as Lou Mallory on the classic Western series The Rifleman where she co starred in 22 episodes with Chuck Connors, Johnny Crawford and veteran actor Paul Fix; and as...
as Laurie Munroe - Phyllis StanleyPhyllis Stanley-Selected filmography:* Too Many Millions * Command Performance * Sidewalks of London * There Ain't No Justice * The Law and the Lady * Take Me to Town * The Black Sleep...
as Daphnae - Lon Chaney Jr. as Dr. Monroe aka Mungo
- Bela LugosiBéla LugosiBéla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
as Casimir - John CarradineJohn CarradineJohn Carradine was an American actor, best known for his roles in horror films and Westerns as well as Shakespearean theater. A member of Cecil B DeMille's stock company and later John Ford's company, he was one of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood history...
as "Bohemund" - Tor JohnsonTor JohnsonTor Johansson , better known by the stage name Tor Johnson, was a Swedish professional wrestler and actor....
as Curry - George SawayaGeorge SawayaGeorge Sawaya was an American stuntman and actor. He acted in almost one hundred different films and television episodes, but always as minor characters...
as Sailor Subject - Sally Yarnell as Female Subject
- Peter Gordon as Det. Sgt. Steele
- Claire Carleton as Carmoda Daily
- John Sheffield as Det. Redford
- Clive Morgan as Roundsman Blevins
- Louanna Gardner as Angelina Cadman
- Aubrey SchenckAubrey SchenckAubrey Schenck was a film producer from the 1940s through the 1970s. In the 1930s, Schenck, a nephew of Joseph and Nicholas Schenck, was a practicing attorney in New York City. He wrote a story and submitted it to 20th Century Fox, with whom he had business and legal connections, and they agreed...
as Prison Coroner's Aide (uncredited)