Scared to Death ** (1947, Bela Lugosi, George Zucco, Molly Lamont, Roland Varno, Nat Pendleton, Joyce Compton, Dorothy Christy) – Classic Movie Review 3,746

The intriguingly and amusingly eerie and exotic 1947 horror thriller film Scared to Death is the only colour film to star Bela Lugosi and is possibly the first film to be narrated by a corpse.

Director Christy Cabanne’s intriguingly and amusingly eerie and exotic 1947 horror thriller film Scared to Death stars Bela Lugosi in his only colour film, apart from his brief unbilled appearance in 1931’s Fifty Million Frenchmen (which now exists only in black and white) and Viennese Nights in 1930.

Unfortunately, Scared to Death is shot in the cheap Cinecolor process, so the colour looks as muted as if the film is colorised. However, the poster claimed it was ‘Photographed in FULL NATURAL COLOR’. But, anyway, it’s Bela in colour!

Morgue examiners reveal that a beautiful woman, Laura Van Ee (Molly Lamont), has died of fright. She was married to Ward Van Ee (Roland Varno), the son of a doctor, Dr Joseph Van Ee (George Zucco), the proprietor of a private sanatorium, where she was being treated against her will.

The doctor’s cousin, Professor Leonide (Lugosi), a stage magician in Europe, arrives, accompanied by a threatening dwarf, Indigo (Angelo Rossitto).

The film’s best elements are as a American gothic horror thriller film, but its campy, sometimes daft tone slightly undermines it, though it is still very watchable, especially for Lugosi’s turn.

Scared to Death is based on a one-act play Murder on the Operating Table by Frank Orsino, which in turn was based on a real-life 1933 murder case involving Dr Alice Wynekoop.

It is possibly the first film to be narrated by a corpse! This idea was later used in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950) and the 1994 Danny Boyle thriller Shallow Grave.

The only other colour footage of Bela Lugosi is in a wartime short giving blood for the war effort.

George Zucco replaced a dying Lionel Atwill as Dr Joseph Van Ee.

It was shot at Yorke-Metro Studios, 1329 Gordon Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles, in March and April 1946, but not released until 1 February 1947.

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