Dark Eyes Of London

Dark Eyes of London was the first film to be certified “H” for HORRIFIC by the British Board Of Film Censors

*          *          *

Dark Eyes of London (75 minutes)  US Title: The Human Monster

Filmed at Welwyn Studios over 18 days in March and April, 1939

Produced by John F. Argyle for Argyle Films

Directed by Walter Summers

Assistant Director: Jack Martin

Screenplay by Walter Summers, John Argyle and Patrick Kirwan

Additional dialogue by Jan Van Lustil

Based on the novel by Edgar Wallace

Cinematography by Brian Langley

Camera Operator: Ronnie Anscombe

1st Assistant Camerman: Jerry Massey-Collier

Clapper Boy: Dustin Dempster (aka Hugo)

Edited by E.G. Richards

Art Direction by Duncan Sutherland

Music composed and arranged by Guy Jones

Organ Music by C. King Palmer

Production Manager: Hamilton G. Inglis

Production Assistant: George Collins

Recording supervisor: Harry Benson

Sound Recording: A.E. Rudolph

Make-Up: Bob Harris and Bob Clarke

Filmed on Agfa negative film with Vinter cameras

Processed at Denham Laboratories

Cast

Bela Lugosi – Dr. Feodor Orloff/Rev. John Dearborn

Hugh Williams – Inspector Holt

Greta Gynt – Diana Stuart

Wilfred Walter – Jake

Edmund Ryan – Lieutenant O’Riley

Alexander Field – Grogan

Arthur E. Owen – Dumb Lew

Gerald Pring – Henry Stuart

Julie Seudo – Secretary

May Haliatt – WPC Gregg

Charles Penrose – Drunk

Brian Herbert – Walsh

*          *          *

*          *          *

*          *          *

Variety, March 22, 1939

Bela Lugosi to sail New York to London on Queen Mary March 24. Lugosi went from Los Angeles to New York this week.

Bela Lugosi to star in Edgar Wallace’s “Dark Eyes of London,” which Argyle Films is doing for Associated British.

*          *          *

Variety, March 29, 1939

Noel Coward and Bela Lugosi sailed March 25 on Queen Mary to London.

*          *          *

The Southern Echo, March 30, 1939

ROUND the PORT

Queen Mary Home

Having crossed the Atlantic between the Ambrose Channel Light Vessel and Cherbourg Breakwater in four days, 11 hours at a speed of 29.25 knots, the Cunard White Star Line’s Queen Mary reached Southampton yesterday afternoon.

Passengers who made the voyage numbered 844, of which 302 travelled cabin, 309 tourist, and 233 third-class.

The big ship sails for the States again on Saturday at 9.30 a.m., and the bulk of the passengers will embark to-morrow night. Estimated bookings for the voyage total 1,250 travellers, namely, 350 cabin, 500 tourist, and 400 third-class.

*          *          *

Bela as Dr. Feodor Orloff

Courtesy of www.doctormacro.com

*          *          *

To-Day’s Cinema News and Property Gazette, March 30, 1939 (front page)

Bela Lugosi in Argyle Film at Welwyn, Friday

Bela Lugosi, star of “Dracula” and many other films, arrives in this country to-day and will start work at the Welwyn studios to-morrow in a John F Argyle production.

The picture is an Edgar Wallace subject entitled “Dark Eyes of London” and is to be directed by Walter Summers who co-operated with Patrick Kirwan on the script.

Supporting Bela Lugosi in the leading roles will be Hugh Williams, Greta Gynt, Wilfred Walter and Alexander Field. Shooting is expected to take four weeks.

“Dark Eyes of London” will be distributed by A.B.P.C.

*          *          *

To-Day’s Cinema News and Property Gazette, March 30, 1939 (page 2)

For Argyle

INVITED to meet Bela Lugosi this evening at Waldorf Hotel whence he arrives from U.S. en route for Welwyn where he will star in Argyle picture “Dark Eyes of London.” Lugosi famed for “Dracula” and roles of sinister nature undoubtedly suited Edgar Wallace subject,look forward to making acquaintance! Incidentally, “Dracula” currently doing successful re-issue business particularly in line with “Frankenstein.”

*          *          *

Bela as Rev. John Dearborn

*          *          *

The Daily Film Renter, April 1, 1939

The reception the other evening to Bela Lugosi (writes a colleague) was one of those pleasant and informal affairs which, although yielding comparatively little in the way of news, made a very nice break. Having met the “horror merchant” on a previous visit to these shores some years back, I wasn’t surprised to find Lugosi a mild and charming individual, who in real life looks as much unlike his screen counterpart as one could imagine. In fact, he’s a happy family man, and a proud father; got quite a kick out of showing photographs of his young son to assembled Press boys. Lugosi is here to film in “Dark Eyes of London,” Edgar Wallace thriller , to be made by John Argyle at Welwyn, for Associated British release. Arthur Dent, of course, was there, while a particularly interesting visitor was Hamilton Deane, who is now playing Dracula on the stage. He and Lugosi spent quite a while comparing notes!

*          *          *

Variety, April 5, 1939

Bela Lugosi, due in London this week for a vacation, is set to appear in “Dark Eyes of London,” British production. Lugosi will do “The Shadow Creeps” when he returns from Europe, with Universal releasing.

*          *          *

The Welwyn Times, April 13, 1939

Film Activity

Bela Lugosi, star of Dracula and many other films, started work in Welwyn last week in a John F. Argyle production. The picture is an Edgar Wallace subject, entitled Dark Eyes of London, and is to be directed by Walter Summers, a well-known former resident of Welwyn Garden City. Other players in leading roles are Hugh Williams, Greta Gynt, Wilfred Walter and Alexander Field. Shooting is expected to take four weeks. Lugosi , who usually stars in roles of a sinister nature, in real life is a mild and charming individual, quite unlike his screen counterparts.

Bela’s past and future on view at the Pavilion cinema in Welwyn during filming of Dark Eyes of London

*          *          *

The Mail (Adelaide, Australia), June 10, 1939

Hollywood Parade

THAT big werewolf-and-vampire man, Bela Lugosi, is back after completing his chore in Welwyn Studios, England, where he’s been starring in a film version of Ed gar Wallace’s thriller ‘Dark Eyes of London.’ The day after he arrived in Hollywood, he was due to report for work on Universal’s ‘Shadow Creeps.’ Chilly work, but profitable

*          *          *

Sunday Times (Perth, Australia), July 9, 1939

Argyle Productions, an English concern, has signed Bela Lugosi for “Dark Eyes of London”

*          *          *

 The Canberra Times, July 18, 1939

FLICKERS FROM THE FILMS

HOLLYWOOD AS I SEE IT

Bela Lugosi is back in Hollywood from London, where he made “Dark Eyes of London.” He reported at once to Universal Studio for his next assignment, “The Phantom Creeps.”

*          *          *

Hugh Williams and Bela

*          *          *

To-Day’s Cinema, October 20, 1939

The Cinema News, October 25, 1939

This adaptation of one of Edgar Wallace’s best-known “thrillers” has an “H” certificate and deserves it. The macabre nature of the story – an investigation into a series of murders by drowning – is emphasised by its grisly concomitants. It is to some extent located in a house for the blind, and among its highlights are the murderous assaults of a blind and hideously deformed killer and the deliberate and cold-blooded drowning of a helpless blind deaf-mute in the sight of a bound girl. Juveniles not being able to see the picture, its justification depends on its quality as adult entertainment. And this, fortunately, is very good. Walter Summers has handled his promising material in a way that will prove eminently satisfying to unsqueamish adults. The Edgar Wallace authorship is, of course, an added attraction.

Inspector Holt is aided in his investigation into a drowning-murder case by the victim’s daughter, whom a mysterious and suspicious Dr. Orloff gets employed as secretary to the blind chief of the above-mentioned home. Strange things happen. A blind mute is cruelly rendered deaf by Orloff; the girl, due to benefit by a revision of an insurance policy, is attacked by the monster and saved only just in time; and at last she discovers (what some of the audience may have already “twigged”) that her chief and Orloff are one and the same. Coolly and deliberately he drowns the blind-deaf mute in front of her eyes, while she is bound helpless, and then is about to deal with her when the monster turns on him and hurls him to a muddy death in the Thames.

The fact that the cooperation of the National Institute of the Blind had been sought indicates the care of the presentation. Settings, whether of the home, Scotland Yard, or ordinary interiors, leave nothing to be desired. The performances also, are entirely appropriate. Bela Lugosi does not miss the “sinister” opportunities in the role of Orloff, but is neer freakishly bizarre; he leaves that to Wilfred Walter, whose make-up as the Frankenstein’s monster would have done credit to Lon Chaney. Hugh Williams is a manly young inspector, and Greta Gynt a definitely attractive heroine, who in moments of tension, whether viewing her father’s body or being attacked by the monster, is dramatically convincing. Edmond Ryan, as a visiting American detective, adds some small light relief and heads a competent supporting cast.

*          *          *

Full-page trade show advertisement

*          *          *

The Daily Film Renter, October 23, 1939

Welwyn here gives us a forceful adaptation of Edgar Wallace’s thriller, which provides an ideal vehicle for Bela Lugosi’s first British film (sic). He is seen as Dr. Orloff, head of a small insurance company, whose speciality is to take out policies on the lives of certain persons, drown them and throw their bodies in the Thames, collecting heavily from the underwriters. His latest victim, however, leads Scotland Yard to suspect murder, and, with the aid of the dead man’s daughter, the police are able to unmask Orloff at a blind home, which he ran as a cover to his activities, although not before he has been killed at the hands of a blind monster who has helped him.

There are definite thrills and chills in the picture, yielded mainly by the deformed monster who puts Orloff’s victims out of the way, although he fails when he tries his hand at the girl, the Scotland Yard inspector arriving just in time. The climax, too, at which the monster turns the table against his master, is timed to yield the right suspense, with the fate of the girl undecided to the last.

Apart from Lugosi, there is a smooth portrayal by Hugh Williams as the inspector, Greta Gynt is very pleasant as the girl, Edmund Ryan provides the lighter touch as an American detective, while Wilfred Walter is brilliantly disguised as the blind monster.

*          *          *

Bela and Greta Gynt

*          *          *

Kinematograph Weekly, October 26, 1939

Spectacular thriller, suggested by one of Edgar Wallace’s best-sellers, concerning the nefarious activities of a mad doctor who organises and commits wholesale murder in the course of his insurance frauds. Death by drowning is the method most favoured by the killer and his Frankenstein assistant, and the planning and carrying out of the crimes and their reconstruction by the police lead to a breathless succession of hair-raising situations.

Superb grand guignol workmanship is guaranteed by first-rate acting and resourceful and showmanlike direction. Excellent picture of its type, carrying, in addition, watertight box-office insurance in its irresistible author and title values.

Story. – Orloff, a mad doctor, makes a comfortable living by taking over and forging insurance policies and dispatching the original holders in circumstances that allay suspicion. The Dearborn  Home for the Blind is his operating centre, and Jake, a Herculean half-blind half-wit, is his chief assistant. Henry Stuart, an inventor, is Orloff’s latest victim. Inspector Holt of Scotland Yard is put in charge of investigations. His colleague is Lieutenant Riley, a New Yorker, who has come to England to study police methods. Contact is made with Diana, the victim’s daughter, and when Orloff learns of this he marks her down as next on his list. However, he makes the fatal mistake of offending Jake by mutilating one of Jake’s friends, and Jake’s revenge results in Orloff being put on the spot he had made for others. Following the arrival of Nemesis, Diana and Holt discover that they have many things in common.

Acting. – Bela Lugosi is effectively sinister in the Jekyll and Hyde role of Orloff and Dearborn. Hugh Williams is true blue as Inspector Holt and Greta Gynt is a patient yet brave Diana. Wilfred Walter strengthens the sinister aspect with the eeriness of his make-up as Jake, while essential comedy relief is in the competent hands of Edmond Ryan, cast as wise-cracking Riley.

Production. – There are no half-measures with this picture and nothing is left to the imagination. Cold-blooded murder is witnessed in practically every reel, and each crime is a stepping-stone to bigger and more breath-taking thrills. The homicidal and by no means profitless all the picture; there is plenty of authentic police detail, comedy and romance consolidate appeal.

The “H” certificate is certainly not lightly earned, nor should it prove a handicap. There is box-office magic in the author’s name to underwrite full patronage.

Points of Appeal. – Exciting, suspenseful and tremendously thrilling plot, grand guignol atmosphere, first-rate acting, good title and an author who’s box-office.

*          *          *

Wilfred Walter and Arthur E. Owen

*          *          *

The Monthly Film Bulletin, published by The British Film Institute

Volume 6, No.71, November, 1939

Dark Eyes of London, The (1939)

Horrific thriller. Scotland Yard is baffled by a series of mysterious deaths which seem to link up with big insurance money. Inspector Holt begins by questioning Dr.Orloff, head of the Greenwich Insurance, and his suspicions are aroused when another victim, Henry Stuart, is found drowned, and is linked with Orloff and also a Home for the Blind run by a Mr. Dearborn. Diana Stuart, the daughter, is convinced her father has been murdered, but likes and admires Orloff, who finds her a job as secretary at the Home. Then the horrors come fast. Frightened by the blind monster Jake, baffled by strange clues, Diana’s suspicions soon go the same way as the Inspector’s and her life is soon in danger.

A sinister tank; the mud flats of the river at low tide; the dual personality of the “blind” philanthropist Dearborn; the wretched fate of Lou, a blind inmate; all these and more add to the intensity of an excellent melodrama which cleverly does not depend only on gruesome make-up but succeeds by appealing to the nerves and imagination. Not for the timid or over-sensitive, but well constructed and well acted. Bela Lugosi adds much to the eerie atmosphere, and Hugh Williams as a keen young inspector is comfortably reassuring.

*          *          *

*          *          *

The New York Times, March 25, 1940

The Screen

‘The Human Monster,’ Featuring Bela Lugosi, at the Globe, Latest Horror Picture

By B.R. CRISLER

Even connoisseurs of the horror film will doubtless be constrained to admit that nothing quite so consistently horrid as “The Human Monster,” at the Globe, has ever befallen this hapless city. Brooded over by the batlike spirit of Bela Lugosi, it comes like an evil visitation compared to which the hunch-backs of Notre Dame (first and second string); the two Doctors Jekyll and Messrs. Hyde, and both King Kong père and fils are about as intimidating as Ferdinand the Bull. To begin with, all Mr. Lugosi has to do is to look at people and they either get hypnosis or cramps from laughing. Our personal reaction was more hysterical than horrified, but that’s a matter of taste.

Up to now, the most popular screen grotesqueries have had a certain lightness of touch; when Quasimodo, for instance, was beaten by louts in the cathedral square, the camera mercifully averted its lens, or gave the streaming blood the merest glance, purely for verificative purposes. Not so “The Human Monster,” in which not only is Wilfred Walter more unglamorous than even Charles Laughton as the hunchback, but is totally blind in the bargain. Consequently, his homicidal technique is the more deliberative and, so to speak, stately, giving the camera plenty of time to dwell with sadistic relish on the more recherché details of his method of doing his victims in. But Jake, as the Monster is more familiarly known, is just a stooge, a sort of shipping clerk for Bela, who does a wholesale business in select and artistic submersions.

Bela, in fact, covers the waterfront with highly insured clients (he solicits insurance in his spare time) and so annoys Scotland Yard with this marine Blitzkrieg of bodies that even the conservative Yard is compelled to assign its brightest inspector (Hugh Williams) to the case. A pretty, blond daughter of one of the victims, who floats a loan with Bela and then goes floating down the Thames himself, is mixed up very attractively in the matter, and there are numerous incidental people who give a good if sometimes barely intelligible account of themselves, as is sometimes the wont of English actors. In fact, if the British accent gets much worse, they will soon have to provide incidental titles for America.

THE HUMAN MONSTER, directed by John Argyle, screen play by Patrick Kirwin, Walter Summers and J. F. Argyle, based on “The Dark Eyes of London” by Edgar Wallace; produced by Mr. Argyle for Monogram Pictures. At the Globe.
Dr. Orloff . . . . . Bela Lugosi
Inspector Holt . . . . . Hugh Williams
Diana Stuart . . . . . Greta Gynt
Lieut. O’Rielly . . . . . Edmon Ryan
Jake (The Monster) . . . . . Wilfred Walter
Grogan . . . . . Alexander Field
Dumb Lew . . . . . Arthur E. Owen
Secretary . . . . . Julie Suedo
Henry Stuart . . . . . Gerald Pring
Walsh . . . . . Bryan Herbert
Policewoman . . . . . May Haliatt
The Drunk . . . . . Charles Penrose

*          *          *

Reading Eagle, May 5, 1940

Ad for the Park Cinema

*          *          *

American Newspaper, 1940

Jake’s the Name; He’s Bela’s Chum in Crime

By EARL N. POMEROY

At The ESQUIRE, “The Human Monster”

Chiller Melodrama produced in England and directed by

Walter Summers with the following in cast:

Dr. Orloff………………………….Bela Lugosi

Inspector Holt……………Hugh Williams

Diana Stuart……………………..Greta Gynt

Lieutenant O’Reilly……..Edmond Ryan

Jake…………………………….Wilfred Walter

Grogan……………………..Alexander Field

Henry Stuart……………….. .Gerald Pring

Dumb Lew…………………….Arthur Owen

MAMA, bogey man’s here again!

That would be Bela Lugosi, specialist in monstrous murder, habitually hatching homicidal hooliganism, devilish deviser of dire developments. We’ll hex him, mama, with alliteration and a gypsy charm.

But you should see his charming chum in crime. Name’s Jake, not Jocose Jake nor Japery Jake, just Jake, jowled, jaundiced, jim-jam gem. And, oh mama, his invidious, insidious incisors. He’s a paleolithic, pyorrheic problem. Wants to gouge and garrot.

And the noises he makes! Sometimes grr-ur-un-gwobble. Sometimes goo-ur-un-woth. We like the latter better. It is more sibilant on final upbeat. But there is something to say for the former, especially in the last two syllable. Liquid. Like air, bubbling through bluddd! Yep, we like the gwobble one, too.

Now for the diabolical dynamics: There is a Dr. Orloff, head of an insurance firm and a most charitable man. But soon you say, “Oh, yeah?” when you find him in one of his charities, a home for the blind. He insures the unseeing, he does, and then, one by one, he kills them in the hospital he runs in connection with the place. And he gets the money, see? And this Jake person is his stooge. Well, there is a lot of excitement when Scotland Yard’s bloodhounds take up the trail. There is a rather pretty, young gal mixed up in it all, too, and when Jake starts some stylish strangulation on her, well, you want to yell “Lemme out!”

But, ricker-racker, firecracker, Yard’s detective is a crackerjacker.

He is a personable, smart, young chap with an eye for beauty, too, when he sees it.

Get a rip-saw, get a buck-saw,

Get a buck-saw, rip-saw, boom,

Hippity-hop, clippity-clop,

He saves the girl from doom.

Sam Berg, Esquire manager, says that the undue chill must be ascribed to screen, not air-conditioning unit which properly is performing its function. Selah!

Photo caption:

Jake. Not the sweetheart of Sigma Chi, and not to be regarded a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball fan.

*          *          *

American promotional mask

*          *          *

Ottawa Citizen, May 16, 1941

*          *          *

Ottawa Citizen, May 17, 1941

 *          *          *

American Lobby Cards

*          *          *

Trailer for the American release

*          *          *

American Posters

Poster for the Colony cinema in Baltimore

*          *          *

American cinema advertising

courtesy of www.doctormacro.com

*          *          *

Cinematographer Bryan Langley recalls Dark Eyes of London

Bryan Langley enjoyed a long and varied career. The son of the opera singer and actor Herbert Langley, he was born in Fulham, London, on December 29th, 1909. His first experience of the film industry was as an unpaid assistant during his school holidays with the HB Parkinson Company where his father was acting and singing in silent two-reel opera shorts. When he left school at 17 in 1927 his father arranged for him to join the company as a trainee. During his three years there he learned every discipline of the filmmaker’s art from negative cutting to lugging a tripod around the streets of London. Eventually gravitating to camera work, his first photographic assignment was shooting street scenes for Norman Lee’s The Song of London in 1930. He moved to British International Pictures at Elstree Studios the same year, starting as assistant cameraman to cinematographer Jack Cox before becoming a director of photography himself. While at BIP he worked on many productions including Alfred Hitchcock’s Murder, Rich and Strange, The Skin Game, and Number Seventeen.

Herbert Langley as Valentine in Faust

By the time the Second World War broke out Bryan was working as a freelance cameraman in Amsterdam. He returned to England and in 1941 joined the Army Film Unit as an official cameraman, filming conflicts in West Africa, Europe and the Far East. He also trained the Indian Army’s Public Relations Film Unit.

After the war Bryan resumed his career at Welwyn Film Studios in 1946 before moving to Pinewood, where, as a special effects cameraman, his films included Piccadilly Incident, The Lavender Hill Mob, Reach for the Sky, A Town Like Alice and The Weaker Sex. In 1958 he joined the BBC Television Studio at Ealing and photographed drama serials such as Bleak House, Maigret and The History of Mr. Polly. Ever looking for new challenges and opportunities, Bryan began a new career in 1960 as an international film technician and cameraman for the United Nations Relief Work Agency. On his return to England he once again set up as a freelance cameraman, mainly for the BBC, where he worked on episodes of Doctor Who, and also for industrial documentary company Hugh Baddeley Productions.

Bryan setting up a shot on Kathleen Mavoureen (1937), which featured Old Mother Riley

I first contacted Bryan in June 1996 while researching Dark Eyes of London. Initially cautious, he asked me, “What do you want to know, and, importantly, why?” When I explained that I was working on a proposed biography of Bela Lugosi, he threw himself wholeheartedly into assisting me by answering my endless questions and delving into his personal archives. He was delighted to help because, as he said, “You are, in my view, what it’s all about. You are a fan and thus we in films are in your debt.”

Bryan’s answers to my questions, however, were often surprising. When I asked him about his memories of Bela Lugosi, he told me, “I’m afraid that I have no memories whatsoever of Bela Lugosi. To me, as a cameraman, he was just another actor who stood in front of my lens as and when the script prescribed.” He also told me, “I’ve never seen the film because I was a freelance cameraman pre war and on completion of Dark Eyes I went to Highbury Studios to shoot Mrs Pym of Scotland Yard and from there to Amsterdam to shoot De Spoek Trein (The Ghost Train) and was there until the invasion of Poland. Fortunately production was ending at the time so I scurried home just in time for the kick off of World War Two.”

Bryan was curious to see the film and asked to borrow my video of it. Surprisingly, he didn’t have a video player of his own, so he took the video to his daughter’s house. I waited eagerly to hear his verdict. When it came, it proved to be another surprise. He wrote,

“I watched Dark Eyes on Saturday and was utterly shattered by recalling nothing whatsoever of the film, other than the quick-sands sequence which was not much to write home about.

What upset me mostly was the horrible print and the diabolical dissolves. Nothing was much good other than the playing of the two parts by Bela Lugosi, and of these I preferred him in the ‘blind man’s’ role. (Greta Gynt was also good).

In reality, my shock at seeing Dark Eyes is a reflection of how far the film/television business has progressed over the past 57 years. I saw it ‘cold’, with no intimation that it was so awful and thus the shock. And to think that I was proud of what I did and wrote so in my diary.

We live and learn, I’ll not ‘flash-back’ to what I did more than 50 years ago, best to remain in happy illusion.”

Bryan’s shock was no doubt compounded by the shamefully poor quality of pre-recorded videos in Britain during the 1990s. Perhaps his reaction would have been different had he had the opportunity to watch a pristine print on the big screen.

Captain Walter Summers, director of Dark Eyes of London

The diary to which Bryan referred was one of his ‘photo-diaries’. Spread over five albums, they contain technical information on all the films he shot, production stills, letters, cuttings, and other memorabilia. At the beginning of Bryan’s career, H.B. Parkinson had emphasized the importance of keeping a record of all the films on which he worked, including the technical details. Bryan followed his advice and maintained a diary until 1960 when he joined the United Nations. Before his death, he donated his diaries to the British Film Institute.

His entry for Dark Eyes of London states that it was the 88th film he had worked on and the 44th he had lit. His assessment of the 18-day shoot was, “Very good for me – good make-up.”

After he retired, Bryan was urged by his daughter to write down his memories of his career. Although he said that he remembered very little of Dark Eyes of London, he did recall the amusing attempts of the crew to recreate quicksand and film the climactic scene of Bela Lugosi’s character drowning in it. Bryan wrote the following account before seeing Dark Eyes of London for the first time, and did not appear to recall that “the actor who falls into the quicksands” was Bela Lugosi.

Bryan’s typed notes

“Another memory is of a film called Dark Eyes of London. It starred Bela Lugosi, a well known American actor, and was directed by Captain Walter Summers. It was shot at Welwyn Studios in the spring of 1939, the year the war started. Incidentally, this film has been preserved and was seen recently on television, but not by me. I have two production stills of Bela Lugosi. Other than those photos, all I can remember of the film is as follows…..I will try to describe the scene…..SCENE….“a man falls from the loading platform of a Thames side warehouse into a quicksand which is revealed only at low tide, the man is sucked under and lost from sight. His fall is the result of Murder!!”

In order to construct a quicksand they opened up the Studio Tank, its area some 10 by 12 feet and about 7 feet deep, it may have been larger. On the far side of the tank was built the warehouse wall and its projecting loading bay. The tank was loaded with cart load after cart load of farmyard muck in the belief that this puddled into the tank would form a quicksand. Set building and tank filling went on for several days whilst we were shooting on the other stage. The edges of the tank were smothered with sand and riverside debris, green marine growth, a few rib-like planks and a dead cat. It all looked very real.

Whilst the tank was being filled we heard stories of people slipping into the tank and having their shoes pulled off by the terrible suction of the quicksands. It was all rather sinister and scary; some wondered whether the stuntman doubling for the actor who falls into the quicksands, would survive the peril.

The stuntman finally braves the murky shallows of the studio tank

And so, on the day of shooting the quicksand scene, we waited for the stunt man to inspect the job. He thought it best if somebody else was lowered on a chain into the mire to test the suction, and so a double for the stunt man was obtained.

A chain was tied around his chest and he was lowered link by link into the tank and its quicksand. His feet, legs, hips and waist slid into the morass like a hot knife through butter, but he stopped descending when chest deep, the chain slackened whilst he looked around.

Bela up to his neck in farmyard muck

Somebody surmised that an idiot had left a table in the tank. The stunt man’s double on the end of the chain was told to shuffle around and find the edge of the table with his feet. He never did find the edge, the mud and muck had sunk to the bottom of the tank to form a solid mass some four feet thick, leaving some three feet of muddy slimy water above.

Captain Summers, the director, was no doubt inwardly furious, but he had a schedule to complete and thus had to improvise. He told the stunt man, who by now was fearless, that when falling into the tank he must thresh around with his arms whilst gradually sinking down into the water, to take a deep breath and then go right under and all the time make motions as though corkscrewing down. That shot was made to the satisfaction of all. We used two cameras of course.

Bela takes a deep breath before going under

Next was the close shot of the ‘real’ actor. He was inserted into the muddy water at the tank’s edge and told to repeat the action of the stuntman. Unfortunately, each time he submerged, his feet shot up out of the water. This in exactly the same way as happens in the Dead Sea where one cannot submerge without feet rising from the bottom. All the muck poured into the tank had produced a ‘Dead Sea’ effect. In the end, weights had to be tied to the actor’s ankles to enable him to submerge in close up. We learnt afterwards that a better way to simulate quicksands is to fill the tank with a mixture of sawdust and old engine oil. This remains fluid.”

Bryan died on January 31st, 2008, aged 99. Although he had been suffering from heart problems, he maintained a busy schedule of interviews right up to his death, which prevented the completion of three different sets of interviews scheduled for February.

*          *          *

Turkish Poster

Belgian Poster

Spanish Poster

Reverse of Spanish Teaser

*          *          *

Italian Lobby Cards

Courtesy of Benito Medela International Movie Poster

Courtesy of Benito Medela International Movie Poster

Courtesy of Benito Medela International Movie Poster

*          *          *

Stills

Greta Gynt

Bela, Wilfred Walter and Greta Gynt

Bela and Arthur E. Owen

Bela and Greta Gynt

Bela and Greta Gynt

Bela and Greta Gynt

Greta Gynt and Wilfred Walter

Bela

Wilfred Walter and Bela

*          *          *

German filmbook

National Telefilm Associates TV pressbook circa 1955

*          *          *

Super 8

Ad from Screen Thrills Illustrated magazine #7, February 1964