“Bowery at Midnight” (1942)

Bowery at Midnight

Brief Description:

Kindly soup kitchen operator and professor of criminology Brenner uses his soup kitchen as a front for a criminal gang who commit a series of daring robberies and murders.

Date: 1942

Genre: American horror film

Running time: 1 hour

Cast: 

Bela Lugosi (Professor Brenner)

John Archer (Richard Dennison)

Wanda McKay (Judy Malvern)

Tom Neal (Frankie Mills)

Vince Barnett (Charley)

Anna Hope (Mrs. Brenner)

John Berkes (Fingers)

Dolan J. Farrell MacDonald (Capt. Mitchell)

Dave O'Brien (Peter Crawford)

Lucille Vance (Mrs. Malvern)

Lew Kelly (Doc Brooks)

Wheeler Oakman (Stratton)

Ray Miller (Big Man)

Bernard Gorcey (Clothing Shop Proprietor)

Director: Wallace Fox

Production/Distribution Company: Banner Productions & Monogram Pictures

Wikipedia Page

Watch on Archive

(watched on Tubi)

Setting/Aesthetic/Feel: 3/5

No notes, really. Felt very 1940s. I enjoyed the secret staircases and sliding doors. 

Characters: 3/5

The only likeable person throughout was Judy, and my favourite—Peter Crawford, the detective who wants to settle down and get a family. 💙 I felt sorry for Mrs. Brenner though, of course. And Fingers was fascinating, if awful. 

Plot: 2/5

Tubi, which seems to have a thing of really bad blurbs, completely confused me by listing this as, "A seemingly kindly criminology professor secretly runs gang operations out of a soup kitchen. Anyone who gets in his way winds up dead—and zombified." The zombification barely figures. It's never explained. And it's extremely confusing. Brenner's double life and criminal activity was interesting, anyways, and Dennison's sociology experiments. 

Romance: 3/5

Cute little romance between Dennison & Judy, though I wasn't his biggest fan sometimes. 

Content: 3/5

1 kiss. 

Violence: 2/5

Mild violence & death. 

Overall: 2.5/3

Just kinda dumb? I feel like I wasted my time.