Oct 061935
 
three reels

A rash of murders in a small village have the citizens blaming an unseen giant bat.  The kindly professor Paul Kristan (Ralph Morgan), nearly worshiped by the townspeople, has no solution.  Worse still, he finds himself ill, blacking out at night as his marriage to a young girl approaches.

The poorly titled Condemned to Live is a well acted, entertaining stage play on film.  The camera rarely moves and most rooms are shot from the same side every time.  It is dialog-rich, with minimal movement by the characters.  There are a few too many sets for your typical live performance group to manage, but with very little alteration, I could easily imagine this coming to a stage near you.

Of course this isn’t a play, but a movie.  And a movie should be far more dynamic, using the tricks and skills of the art of filmmaking, not theater.  However, if you know what you’re getting into, and you can enjoy a bit of theater on a screen, Condemned to Live won’t disappoint.  One of the better “Poverty Row,” cheaply made, horror films of the 1930s, its story strongly resembles that of The Vampire Bat, made two years earlier by the same director, Frank R. Strayer.  In both, there is the good doctor, the strange murders, and the innocent man accused of the crimes.  In this case, it is the loyal hunchback, Mischa Auer, that the townspeople chase with torches.

While the problems are traced back to vampire bats, this is more of a lycanthrope film than a vampire one.  The killer isn’t evil, but a man afflicted by a curse.  Remove the comments about bats and add a wolf mask, and Condemned to Live becomes a standard werewolf movie.