In last month's issue, we examined some of the films in which Bela Lugosi was featured-- oftentimes not as the movie's actual monster or mad villain, but merely as a distraction to fool audiences as to whom the real baddie was.  In this second and final installment, we look at some more examples of Lugosi as a popular audience distraction, wrapping up our survey of...

By JOE WINTERS

(Note: This is the second of a two-part series that examines the many roles that cast Bela Lugosi as a menacing manservant, usually to fool the audience as to who the real heavy was.  You can read the first part of this series here.  Some of you might not want to see the "spoilers"--the solutions to some of these movies...but, if you do, just click on the "red herring" you will see at the end of a few of the paragraphs.)

Last issue, we began our look at the red herring roles of Bela Lugosi, where his evil screen persona would serve to make him the logical suspect in a number of horrific whodunits. So many times he didn’t turn out to be the killer, to the point where the surprise would be if he did commit the crime.

By the end of the 1930’s, this extended to casting him as the butler who might have done it, but in most cases, didn’t. The Gorilla (1939) and Night Monster (1942) got the ball rolling, along with The Black Cat (1941) casting Bela as the suspicious gardener.

In You’ll Find Out (RKO, 1940) Bela wasn’t the butler, but as fake medium Prince Saliano, he was on the list of suspects, along with Judge Mainwaring (Boris Karloff) and Professor Fenninger (Peter Lorre), any one of whom might have been plotting to kill a young heiress. The movie was a musical-comedy-thriller with bandleader Kay Kyser and his orchestra providing two thirds of that equation, while Lugosi, Lorre and Karloff played it straight for shudders. Were they actually the villains?

In the comedy-mystery Spooks Run Wild (Monogram, 1941), Lugosi, as Nardo, roamed the cemetery and basement corridors in evening clothes and cape and was the prime suspect in a series of brutal killings.

Nardo's ability to dematerialize and his leering at an attack victim’s wound would seem to clinch his guilt. But was he really everything the East Side Kids thought he was?

Whereas Night Monster, covered in Part One, had a more serious slant, but with comedic elements, One Body Too Many (Pine-Thomas, and distributed by Paramount, 1944) was a good example of Lugosi light with more emphasis on comedy, but with some macabre touches.

Insurance agent Albert Tuttle (Jack Haley) plans to sell a policy to millionaire Cyrus Rutherford, not realizing the old boy has recently passed caring about insurance or anything else. Old Cyrus is dead, and his relatives are assembled for the by now familiar reading of the will. There’s Cyrus’ sister Estelle (Fay Helm), married to nincompoop Kenneth Hopkins (Lucien Littlefield). There’s niece Margaret Davis (Maxine Fife) and fun-loving nephew Jim Davis (Lyle Talbot).

Cyrus’ will also recognizes niece Carol Dunlap (Jean Parker) as less selfish than most, and nephew Henry Rutherford (Douglas Fowley) as not causing too much trouble, although Henry’s greedy wife Mona (Dorothy Granger) "wears too much makeup."

Also singled out is butler Merkil (Bela Lugosi) "who for twenty years padded the household bills," while Matthews (Blanche Yurka) "kept house in a haphazard sort of way." Other interested parties include Professor Hilton (William Edmunds), to whom Cyrus owed his knowledge of the secrets of the heavens, and attorney Morton Gellman (Bernard Nedell) whom Cyrus trusted "as far as I could throw an elephant."

As a student of the stars, Cyrus wants to be exposed to them forever in a glass-domed vault. After interment, the will can be opened. Meanwhile, of course, the heirs have to stay on the premises. If the requests are not met, the terms of the will shall reverse, and the person getting the largest share will get the smallest and vice verse. These shares range from five hundred thousand dollars to a dollar-fifty for cab fare.

On his way to prepare coffee, Merkil takes time out to listen in on Gellman place a call to the Atlas Detective Agency to arrange for a guard to make sure that Cyrus’ body isn’t buried. In the kitchen, Murkil reaches for some poison and remarks to Matthews that "there are too many rats in this house. They should be done away with." Shortly, he offers coffee to the guests, assuring them that it will not keep them awake. Alas, nobody wants coffee.

The detective is overpowered before he can reach the house, Carol gets a note warning her to leave, and Albert Tuttle arrives and is mistaken for the detective. Merkil offers him coffee, but it’s percolated and Tuttle is a self-professed "drip." Soon after being locked in the room with Cyrus’ body, Albert realizes there’s a mix-up as to his own identity. Carol urges him to stay anyway, and outside the two barely escape being crushed by a stone loosened from the tower.

Later, Albert is conked out and Cyrus’ body is stolen. Henry accuses Jim who takes a swing at Henry, hitting Albert instead, who hits the wall which opens a panel, and out pops the body of Cyrus!

Privately, Gellman persuades Albert to pretend to leave, but really to hide in Cyrus’ coffin, in case of more mischief. Sure enough, Kenneth, Jim and Margaret, thinking that they’re getting the short end of the inheritance, plan to move the body again. Meanwhile, a shadowy figure knocks Albert out and locks him in the coffin. The aforementioned trio shortly shows up to move the coffin to the pool. Carol sees them from her window and quickly drains the pool in time to rescue Albert.

Next, the two discover Gellman’s dead body. That’s one body too many, and Albert gathers the suspects, all of which seem to have turned in, except Merkil, still dressed and with mud on his shoes. Claiming to merely being prepared for the next occurrence, the butler had also taken time out to let the cat in from the rain. He also informs the others that the bridge is out, and so any thoughts of going to town for the authorities are washed out. More coffee is offered, and refused, leaving Merkil disheartened once again.

As most of the heirs again retire for the night, Albert gets cleaned up, then clad only in a towel, locks himself out of his room which leads to a series of time fillers involving secret passages and a hiding place hamper. Later in his robe, he escorts restless Mona to her room. Immediately after, he and Carol find Mona dead! Now under suspicion himself, Albert is locked up in the tower room by Jim, Kenneth and Merkil who volunteers to take him out and push him off the ledge, but the others consider that a bit extreme.

Carol refuses to believe Albert is guilty and visits him in the observatory where they find Cyrus’ body, this time stuffed in the telescope, a bizarre sight indeed! With the guests roused once again, Carol looks for one that’s missing. She finds a man that turns out to be the detective alive but tied up in a passage. Unfortunately, nearby is the murderer. Is it Merkil?

Surely after all this excitement, the guests wouldn’t refuse coffee! Well, they do. Albert follows Carol into a secret passage for a romantic ending, while Merkil and Matthews are left to enjoy the coffee themselves. It’s satisfying and perfectly harmless all along…the coffee, and, the movie.

Billed above Bela in One Body Too Many was Jack Haley (1898-1979), best known as the Tin Man in The Wizard Of Oz (MGM, 1939). While Haley’s level of reaction to scares is not up there with such masters as Bob Hope, Lou Costello, Mantan Moreland, or Don Knotts, he still comes across as likeable.

As does Lyle Talbot (1902-1996), who was a leading man in the 1930’s, playing opposite Ginger Rogers in a couple nifty comedy thrillers, The 13th Guest (Monogram, 1932) and A Shriek In The Night (Allied Pictures, 1933). A reliable character actor, his poverty row thriller credits also include Torture Ship (Producers Distributing Corp., 1939) and A Night For Crime (PRC, 1943).

He played Commissioner Gordon in the 1949 Columbia cliffhanger serial Batman And Robin, and was criminal mastermind Lex Luthor in the studio’s serial Atom Man Vs. Superman (1950). Apparently not one to pass up work anywhere, Talbot voiced the narration for the laughably bad Mesa Of Lost Women (Howco, 1952). He even found time to work for Edward D. Wood Jr. in Jailbait (1954), Glen or Glenda (1953), and Plan Nine From Outer Space (1959), the latter two co-starring Lugosi himself.

As for Bela, more butler roles and red herring parts loomed in his future, as well as some more villainous portrayals thrown in for good measure. In The Body Snatcher (RKO, 1945) he played the manservant Joseph, an eavesdropping, blackmailing, would-be- collaborator, and eventual victim of crafty cabman Gray (Boris Karloff).

For the comedy-thriller Genius At Work (RKO, 1946) he was back in the butler business and partner in crime to Lionel Atwill. The filmmakers made it clear early in the game that Lionel and Bela were up to no good, so we’re really not giving anything away.

Scared To Death (Golden Gate, 1947) was a different matter. Bela traded in his butler tails for a new cape, his old hypnotic powers and his only film in color. Among the other suspects are frequent villain George Zucco and frequent Lugosi dwarf sidekick Angelo Rossitto. From a slab in the morgue a woman’s thoughts detail in flashback the events leading to her death. Did magician Leonide (Lugosi) play a part in that death?

During the last ten years of his life, Bela Lugosi would experience few high points, such as Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (Universal International, 1948) and more low points, such as his association with Ed Wood. Not counting the footage of Bela that, after his death, found its way into Wood’s Plan Nine From Outer Space (1959), Lugosi’s last role in life would be that of a servant.

As the mute Casimir in The Black Sleep (Bel-Air/United Artists, 1956), the 73-year-old Bela was joined by several of his old sparring partners, Basil Rathbone, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine and Tor Johnson.

Rathbone was impressive as ruthless brain surgeon Sir Joel Cadman. The reliable Akim Tamiroff provided dark humor in a role intended for Peter Lorre as a supplier of live bodies for Cadman’s experiments. The remaining who’s who of horror were relegated to roles that didn’t even require dialogue, except for Carradine who was allowed to rant a bit as one of Cadman’s failed experiments. Was Bela the butler part of the scheme?

Lugosi fans often ignore or scoff at his servant roles, yet these parts often set the tone for most of his 1940s output, except at Monogram where he had more commanding portrayals in smaller films, and in Columbia’s Return Of The Vampire (1943). Did too many red herring roles dilute Bela’s effectiveness as a movie menace?

By (inevitable) comparison, Boris Karloff was seldom, if ever, treated lightly on screen. Even when he didn’t turn out to be the main heavy, he was generally not to be trifled with. Most of his red herring characters were still a force of evil. Perhaps not having that aura of menace repeatedly compromised in his movies was one of the reasons Karloff’s effectiveness and star status did not diminish.

Whatever the reasons, throughout the remaining two decades of his own career Bela Lugosi couldn’t afford to be too choosy, but even as a seemingly harmless butler he remained a welcome addition to most any household. And you’d better keep an eye on him, just in case.

Thanks, Joe.  As you said, Lugosi just didn't receive the respect that other horror actors such as Boris Karloff enjoyed, and it was easy and convenient to simply cast him as a sinister servant to spice up a thriller.  But the fact remains that he did indeed add a needed bit of "spice" to some otherwise drab productions and when he had a good role, such as in You'll Find Out or One Body Too Many, he displayed a fine comic sense.   Whether butler or actual boogieman, Lugosi rarely failed to please.  

Article copyright © Joe Winters

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