Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Scott LeBrun Dr. Julian Blair (Boris Karloff) is experimenting with brain waves, and determines to continue his work especially after his wife (Shirley Warde) dies. His daughter Anne (Amanda Duff) and his young associate Dr. Sayles (Richard Fiske) try to make him see reason. Meanwhile, Julian hooks up with a (mostly) phony medium (Anne Revere) and a hulking brute (Cy Schindell), and moves to a new town so as not to get in trouble with the law."The Devil Commands" has its entertaining, unusual touches, such as the sight of various corpses propped around a table, clad in what can only be described as space suits, in mockery of a traditional seance. But it's basically a routine B movie in the end, albeit capably directed by Edward Dmytryk, who was still years away from mainstream success with films such as "The Caine Mutiny"."The Devil Commands", taken from a story by William Sloane, has a very tight running time of 65 minutes, and tells its tale in a concise enough manner. It does have an adequate amount of atmosphere for any sci-fi / horror tale from the era, with some effective looking equipment. But Karloff remains the primary reason to watch, as he did with so many of the B pictures that he headlined. He's just so wonderfully sincere and plaintive, that your heart does go out to him ever so slightly, no matter if he is as mad as mad scientists get. The supporting cast is fine in general, especially Ms. Revere. Dorothy Adams has appeal as a housekeeper in the doctors' employ, and Kenneth MacDonald is solid as a sheriff trying to keep a mob from enacting some vigilante justice that, for all he knows, might possibly be unjustified.A decent viewing that won't take up a lot of your time.Six out of 10.

dougdoepke At last, Karloff has met his match. One glance from the steely-eyed Ann Revere (Mrs. Walters) is enough to freeze even Frankenstein. She doesn't need make-up—she's scary enough just walking onto the set. I'd love to see a stare-down between her and an icy Bette Davis. Anyway, the movie is occasionally atmospheric, especially the cliff house scenes. The plot doesn't make much sense—I guess that's why we get the voice-over narration. It's something about getting brain waves from the dead and turning them into talk. Apparently, that requires that Dr. Blair (Karloff) assemble a junk pile in his laboratory. On special occasions, the metal heaps sit around a table in diving helmets and sort of rock out on brain waves. Then there's the live person who puts on a helmet and sticks neon tubes in her ears. Apparently, that triggers an indoor wind, and then wispy ghost-like things appear. The wind doesn't bother them, but it sure musses-up Karloff's hair. It's one wild and crazy lab scene.The cast and crew are an interesting bunch. Director Dmytryk was one of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten, who then decided to sing to the House committee, and so, went back to work. On the other hand, Revere never did sing and stayed blacklisted for a decade or so. There's also young Robert Fiske who plays Dr. Sayles. He has the distinction of being one of a handful of movie actors killed in action during WWII— don't they deserve some kind of Hollywood memorial. And between Dorothy Adams (Mrs. Marcy) and the equally familiar Ellen Corby, housekeeper roles stayed monopolized in Hollywood for about twenty years. Nothing special in this 50 or-so minutes, except for the goofy lab scenes. But something should be said for the great Karloff. Even in this routine programmer, he gives it his all, a spirited performance that almost makes the hocus-pocus believable. I hope there's a place in Hollywood heaven for great old pro's like him.

MartinHafer In the 1930s, Boris Karloff was initially with a relatively important studio (Universal) and was enjoying a lot of success. Later, he did some dandy films for Warner Brothers, but he also made some grade-Z films for poverty row studio, Monogram. All these films were fun to watch and often a bit silly, but the Monogram ones were known for their very low production values and silly plots. After THE APE (1940), Karloff was thrilled to get out of his contract with Monogram and ready to go on to better things. It SHOULD have been that way when he made THE DEVIL COMMANDS for Columbia. Sure, like Universal in the 1930s, Columbia was not the biggest of studios but it did have decent budgets and production values and I expected this to be a much better style of film than THE APE....but unfortunately, it seemed a lot like the exact same old style of film and nothing more. Like THE APE and the rather bland Mr. Wong films for Monogram, this one was nothing special.It stars Karloff as a kindly scientist with the best of intentions that ultimately becomes a mad man--using science to create abominations. Considering how often he did this, the whole thing seems very, very derivative and stale. We've seen this all before and there is nothing that makes this film stand out from many others just like it. Also, the narration and the epilogue just seem heavy-handed and unnecessary.Is it fun and worth a look (particularly to lovers of B-horror films), yes. But it could have been so much better.

Neil Doyle BORIS KARLOFF is a scientist who wants to communicate with the brain waves of his dead wife. His daughter narrates the tale and concludes with: "It is dangerous to communicate with the dead." That's about the impression the viewer gets after seeing what happens in the course of a brisk one hour and six minutes.Columbia produced this low-budget feature and gave the directing chores to Edward Dmytryk, who would later go on to bigger and better things at RKO. But it's an efficient thriller thanks to his direction and the low-key, shadowy photography that makes the absurd story at least come to life on occasion.Enjoyable too are the performances of ANN REVERE as a sinister housekeeper who knows all about Karloff's experiments and what goes on behind the locked doors of his laboratory; DOROTHY ADAMS as an inquisitive servant who agrees to check out the lab and gets locked inside; and KENNETH MacDONALD as the Sheriff determined to find out who is responsible for all the missing bodies from the graveyard.It's typical Karloff stuff and he lends his commanding presence to the role with more dignity than it deserves. If it emerges as a better than average horror vehicle, it's because director Dmytryk is at the helm, but the script is absurd. The low-budget production values are neatly hidden by all the shadowy photography.