bkoganbing Before cryogenics was a term that lay people even used Boris Karloff was using it to kill and cure cancer. In fact another medical researcher Roger Pryor is using a technique which Karloff published before he mysteriously disappeared up in the northern woods. After having the scientific community rap him on the knuckles Pryor and nurse Jo Ann Sayers are up to the place where Karloff was last heard from. It seems as though Karloff had a place on and island in the middle of a lake where he did his experiments. He and a few others including the sheriff, the coroner, and a young heir went on a boat out to said island and were never heard from again ten years earlier.What was interesting about The Man With Nine Lives is that Karloff's experiment did have some validity which Pryor's work kind of bears his theory out. That's movie science not necessarily the real thing. Still when Pryor and Sayers go out and find Karloff and the others Karloff has really gone haywire on the subject. As for the others their actions really cause what happens in the climax.This one will satisfy Boris Karloff fans and others as well.

classicsoncall From the vantage point of today (6/21/2014) as I write this, it seems incredible that a film made in 1940 treated the subject of cryogenics as if it were as common as, well, the common cold. The opening scroll mentioned that medical science agreed that disease can be arrested and life can be prolonged by freezing human beings. I'm aware that the concept is still being researched with significant results, as in lowering body temperature to treat victims of drowning, but you'd think a whole lot more progress might have been made by now.Well I'm surprised it took me so long to run across this little Karloff gem. It turned up this morning of all places on Antenna TV, generally better known for it's airing of old TV programs from the Sixties. Actually it was in the Sixties when my dad gave me the run down on actors like Karloff, Chaney and Lugosi and I've been a fan ever since. The film includes elements of horror and sci-fi with a little bit of murder mystery to boot, featuring Karloff once again as a mad, but seemingly normal scientist working for the betterment of humanity. It's only when his work is threatened that he resorts to killing an antagonist. Actually, the scene where he shoots Bob Adams (Stanley Brown), in the back no less for destroying his formula, seemed to me to be a bit over the top. Granted, I'd be PO'd too, but gee, I don't think I'd kill anybody over it.Probably the best part of this flick was the set design of Dr. Leon Kravaal's (Karloff) impressive lab, one of the better ones this side of Frankenstein. And not just one, he had multiple labs in different parts of his house. Which made me wonder, how long would it have taken the good doctor to set up his working lab through a secret tunnel and another hundred feet under ground? That's some kind of dedication.There were other things I had to think about as well as the story got under way. Why would Dr. Mason (Roger Pryor) and his nurse/fiancée Judy Blair (Jo Ann Sayers) embark on their mission to find Dr. Kravaal's missing research wearing business suits. That seemed just a little too formal for me, particularly when they started crawling around through Kravaal's tunnels and labs. Not that this was unusual for films of the era, but I don't understand what would motivate anyone to be attired that way.But you know what really blew me away? When the doc and his assistant rented the boat from old Pete Daggett (Ernie Adams), do you know what the fee was - twenty five cents per hour plus a dollar deposit!!! Holy smokes, and I thought the whole concept of freezing human bodies was scary!

AaronCapenBanner Nick Grinde once again directs Boris Karloff, this time as Dr. Kravaal, a pioneer in cryogenic research who was interrupted in his cancer research when a relative of the wealthy man he was operating on brings in the authorities, who force Kravaal to take them to his island home to prove his work viable. Unfortunately, their interference leads to the patient's death, and all five men end up frozen for 10 years, until Dr. Mason(played by Roger Pryor) and Nurse Blair(played by Joanne Sayers) visit his home and revive him, but Kravaal picks up right where he left off, endangering all their lives... Good thriller with another fine performance from Karloff; good sets and atmosphere aid imaginative plot.

wdbasinger As a science fiction and shudder story buff, I thought this was the best of Karloff's Columbia "B" pictures. The "Black Room" (1935), "Behind the Mask" (1932), "The Devil Commands" (1941) (Probably my second favorite), "The Man They Could Not Hang" (1939) (Probably a close third favorite), and "Before I Hang" (1940). In terms of special effects and plot outline, this one keeps you on the edge of your seat to the very end.The laboratory scenes in the proximity of a large underground glacier are unique. The chemistry lab including the "heavily concentrated poisons" is hair-raising indeed. With the right combination of lighting and shadow, as Karloff prepares the chemical experiments, the scenes within the underground laboratory are extremely eerie.The maddest doctor of them all was clearly Boris Karloff.Worth watching many times.