The Corpse Vanishes
The music Dr. Lorenz plays on the organ in two separate scenes is "Ave Maria.",In the bar, Peggy the cigarette girl is carrying a tray of cigarettes supported by a strap that wraps around her neck. Patricia then asks to talk to her in the dressing room. When they walk into the dressing room, Peggy is still carrying the cigarette tray, but the strap has disappeared.,Keenan: Aww, now wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me that this Professor Lorenz is a hypnotist as well as a horticulturist?,Edited into Muchachada nui: Episode #1.4 (2007),I had watched THE CORPSE VANISHES (1942) a couple of years ago but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised as to how watchable and engaging it was the second time around. Who'd have thought that such fare was worth a second look? If anything, I found CORPSE to be even livelier than GHOST (which did get to be repetitious and feel constrained by its one setting): although it is never explained why Lugosi is married to an 80-year old woman (except maybe to get into high society given that she's a "Countess") or why she needs to be youthful (it's not like she's parading her "look" anywhere except at the Lorenz household), the film offers an amusing throwback to those 30s hard-boiled reporter movies and predates such rejuvenation-themed horror movies as I VAMPIRI (1956).

I found the film to be quite atmospheric and enjoyable: it was nice to watch Lugosi surrounded by such familiar faces as Elizabeth Russell (from several Val Lewton films), Angelo Rossitto (one of Tod Browning's FREAKS [1932]) and Vince Barnett (who had a memorable supporting role in Hawks' SCARFACE [1932]) among others. That said, the campier elements of the film were sometimes too silly for words: Lugosi whipping his moronic assistant, the proverbial funereal organ-playing, the even more hilarious sight of Lugosi and Russell sleeping in coffins and the final shoot-out with the police in which, of all people, it's Lugosi's dwarfish henchman who gets it!

In the end, I guess I wouldn't mind watching Lugosi's other stuff from this period but I doubt if it will make me enough of a fan to go out and purchase them in their best available prints on DVD.,