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10
= Highest Rating |
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Cheap,
dull and poorly scripted, this wartime Monogram
potboiler can be a real chore to sit through.
Barely over an hour's running time feels more
like two. Even the always watchable Bela Lugosi
can't save it —
though his presence is the only reason to bother.
Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor six members
of Japan's nationalistic Black Dragon society
are transformed by plastic surgery into exact
doubles of prominent American industrialists.
Switched for their counterparts, once the war
is underway these 'deep cover' agents use their
high positions to sabotage the U.S. war effort
and gather vital information about new weapons
projects, troop deployments and the like. The
Black Dragon spy ring operates with apparent impunity
until one by one its members start turning up
murdered on the steps of the now-closed Japanese
embassy in Washington D.C., a ceremonial dagger
clutched in each victim's hand. U.S. intelligence
agents are completely baffled by the case; they're
still in the dark about the true identities of
the murdered men. (Apparently any autopsies performed
on the bodies failed to uncover signs of plastic
surgery.) All they know is that each of the victims
attended a dinner party held at the mansion of
a wealthy D.C. physician, Dr. Saunders (George
Pembroke), who has suddenly fallen ill and remains
secluded in his room. The only people with access
to Saunders are his faithful butler and a mysterious
houseguest, one Monsieur Colomb (Lugosi), an "old
friend" of the doctor's who showed up the
night of the fateful party.
"Colomb"
is in reality Dr. Melcher, a diehard Nazi scientist
and the Third Reich's foremost plastic surgeon.
His services were loaned to Japan by Hitler but
he was double-crossed by the Japanese once he'd
completed the transformation of the six Black
Dragon agents. Imprisoned because he alone knows
the identities of the spies (and the men
they've replaced), Melcher somehow escaped from
Japan and made his way to America under the alias
'Colomb'. Now he's exacting an insidious revenge
by bumping them off one by one. I suppose the
idea of simply leaking his knowledge of the spy
ring to U.S. authorities never occurred to him...
Black
Dragons is the kind of creaky potboiler
that makes flicks like The
Devil Bat look good in comparison. Despite
the plot don't expect any 'spy smasher' serial-type
action. It owes more to the 'Old Dark House' formula
than anything else, with Lugosi creeping around
Saunder's mansion, eavesdropping on conversations,
slipping in and out undetected, hiding bodies,
etc. He's kept on his toes when Saunders' pretty
niece Alice (Joan Barclay) shows up for a visit
and government agent Dick Martin (future Lone
Ranger Clayton Moore) comes snooping around. But
for the most part nothing really happens.
The ending is incredibly contrived,
and the explanation of who Colomb really is and
what motivates his revenge is tacked on via flashback
in the last five minutes of the movie. About the
only pleasure to be derived from Black
Dragons — even for serious Lugosi fans
— comes from a few passages of truly abominable
dialog, the goofiest of which is recreated below:
Alice: I heard
a strange noise, like a body falling.
Colomb: Why,
I was stumbling. I was awkward.
Alice: Yes, but...
there were gurgling sounds.
Colomb: Oh! I
was humming. Is my voice as bad as that?
And that's about as
good — or rather
unintentionally humorous —
as the film gets. Only rabid acolytes of
Lugosi will want to waste their time.
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| Black
Dragons
is another Alpha budget release which can be found
in some retail stores for around five dollars ($8
online). The public domain print used for the disc
is in much better shape than that of The
Phantom Creeps but don't expect miracles.
Sound is a bit muffled, with audible hiss throughout.
Basically, it's just like a UHF TV broadcast of
the flick back in the days of set-top rabbit ears
— certainly watchable considering the low price.
The evocative keepcase cover art (something Alpha
excels at) is a nice boon. 3/18/03 |
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