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aka Dr. Cadman's Secret

Horror/Sci-Fi     Not Rated

England, 1872. The night before he is to be hanged for a murder he did not commit, young Dr. Gordon Ramsey is visited in his cell by his old mentor, eminent surgeon Sir Joel Cadmund. Cadmund offers to see that Ramsey gets a proper burial and gives him a sleeping powder to get him through the night, which Ramsey takes, unaware it is really an East Indian drug, "nind andhera" ("the black sleep"), which induces a deathlike state of anesthesia. Pronounced dead in his cell, he is turned over to Cadmund, who promptly revives him and takes him to his home in a remote abbey. Cadmund explains he believes Ramsey is innocent and needs his talents to help him in an project, which he is reluctant to immediately discuss further. In fact, Cadmund's wife lies in a coma from a deep-seated brain tumor, and he is attempting to find a safe surgical route to its site by experimenting on the brains of others, whom Ramsey comes to learn are alive during the process, anesthetized by the "black sleep", and are taken to a hidden recovery room in the abbey from which few emerge, though they still live...

Stars Basil Rathbone, who is great as the mad man, and Herbert Rudley as the hero. Also features horror legends Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi (In his last intended role) and John Carradine, who, while giving fine performance, are wasted, as there roles could just have easily been filled by any character actor of the time. Also very briefly features Ed Wood regular Tor Johnson in a heroic turn, and good performance from both Akim Tamiroff, and Patricia Blake (aka Patricia Blair)

An exposes brain,

None

Although it wasted most of the talents involved, and the plot in its most vague forms, was very generic, I found the story to be mostly enjoyable. The detailed portions of the plot are not a generic as the basics, and it had better production values than most films of its time, which in the end made for an unexpectedly enjoyable movie. It does however have to be penalized a bit for the lack of creativity, and, like so many movies of the time, trying to sponge off the fading careers of big names such as Lugosi and Chaney. Still worth watching if you can find it somewhere (which isn't easy, but I hear its on Hulu).