Brides are dropping dead at their weddings and then the bodies are being stolen. Female journalist Patricia Hunter (Luana Walters), wanting to prove herself to her boss and male colleague, is out to get the scoop. She finds a poisonous orchid that leads her to Dr. Lorenz (Bela Lugosi) and his youthful wife who has the organs of an 80-year-old.
Another Lugosi “poverty row” picture from the ‘40s, this barebones feature combines a mad doctor with vampire paraphernalia and a go-getting reporter to make something vaguely entertaining and completely ludicrous. The outlandish plot has Lugosi sending brides-to-be a flower that sends them into a death-like coma. He then steals them in broad daylight and takes them to his secret lab where he extracts fluids to keep his wife young. It’s handy that the brides put on the orchids without comment (most girls I’ve known who were about to be married were not keen on last minute changes to their wedding appearance). It’s hard to come up with a worse plan. If you need young girls, why take brides? Why not kidnap girls on deserted roads, maybe ones not surrounded by friends and cameramen? But what would be the fun in that?
Lugosi is in full, melodramatic mode, playing up the not-very-scary, fiendish scientist angle. Around him are generic horror helpers: his cruel wife, a crone, a hulking idiot, and a dwarf. Dr. Lorenz and his wife sleep in coffins, not because they have any supernatural need, but because they find it comfortable, and it adds another “eerie” element.
When Lugosi is off screen, things turn light. The reporter is a typical comedy character and her dialog, particularly with her boss, is played for laughs. There’s even a left-field romance tossed in. It makes me wonder if two different directors were at work on the project.
If you like Logosi, The Corpse Vanishes is a fine way to spend an afternoon, but otherwise it has little to offer.