85 Years Ago, Boris Karloff Cemented His Legacy As Film History’s Greatest Mad Scientist
After pivoting away from monsters in makeup, Karloff made his mark on another horror genre.
Boris Karloff stands tall as one of film history’s most iconic performers, particularly within the horror genre. Foremost known for portraying some of the most iconic monsters in film history, from his work as Frankenstein’s Monster in Frankenstein, Imhotep in The Mummy, or voicing The Grinch himself, Karloff had a few distinctive attributes that made him one of the most memorable stars of the era. Beyond his intimidating glare, corresponding intensity, and charismatic presence, Karloff commanded the screen even when he wasn’t caked in world-class monster makeup.
When Universal’s 1938 double-bill of Dracula and Frankenstein blew up the box office, Universal upped their horror production. It prompted Columbia Pictures to sign Karloff to a five film contract, but without a monster movie FX budget, they had to get a little clever. They opted for a series of films featuring Karloff as an obsessive mad scientist. In a few years' span, Karloff played the resurrection-obsessed Dr. Henryk Savaard in The Man They Could Not Hang (1939), the cryogenics-obsessed Dr. Leon Kravaal in The Man With Nine Lives (1940), and the age-obsessed Dr. John Garth in Before I Hang (1940) before landing on 1941’s The Devil Commands.
Directed by Edward Dmytryk, the film follows pioneering scientist Dr. Julian Blair (Karloff), who is working on unique research into human brain waves. When his beloved wife Helen dies in a tragic accident, Blair becomes (you guessed it!) obsessed, this time with finding a way to use brain waves to communicate with the dead. It’s a horror film, so it turns out that was a bad plan. While it’s obvious that there’s a lot of repetition between Karloff’s five-film Columbia contract (the fifth, The Boogie Man Will Get You, was a horror-comedy about a superhuman-obsessed scientist), The Devil Commands turned out a fine film that cemented Karloff’s legacy in the cinematic mad scientist hall-of-fame.
Film history is positively drowned in mad scientists who are at best irresponsible, at worst nefarious. For a few examples, Ex Machina’s Nathan, Prometheus’s Peter Weyland, Re-Animator’s Herbert West, and almost any incarnation of Dr. Victor Frankenstein are monomaniacal narcissists with a god complex. The James Bond, Marvel, and DC franchises are replete with scientific villains whose lust for power and/or profit provoke horrific choices. For Karloff, as with the many lovestruck monsters of the Universal canon, many of his scientists are contrastingly sympathetic.
Could Not Hang’s Dr. Savaard is working on a revolutionary artificial heart, Nine Lives’ Dr. Kravaal is in noble pursuit of a cure for cancer, while Before I Hang’s John Garth hopes to reverse aging, all before getting in the authorities’ crosshairs following a misunderstanding when something goes awry. Despite its ominous title, The Devil Commands is the culmination of this trajectory. It doesn’t feature Lucifer, and here the mad doctor is mostly commanded by grief, universally portrayed as a decidedly empathetic motivation that the audience is allowed to feel.
Karloff proved he was a horror icon even when he wasn’t caked in monster makeup.
Early on, Dmytryk allows Dr. Blair’s brain scanning equipment to analyze his wife Helen (a charming Shirley Warde). It’s clear the Blairs are mutually enamored and happy, before their happiness is cut short one rainy night when a car sideswipes their own. She dies, and it’s a tragic introduction whose aftermath is well sold by Karloff. Dr. Blair is trying to violate the laws of nature, sure, and listens too closely to the ice cold medium Mrs. Walters, but he’s sympathetic instead of murderous.
The Devil Commands also involves a genuinely interesting and unsettling set piece in the table that Dr. Blair ultimately utilizes to attempt contact with Helen. It’s certainly unique and used in the finale to great effect, building towards a memorable ending full of irate, weapon-brandishing townfolk and destruction. Blair arguably goes mad by the film’s end, but it’s evident that it stems from the loss of his love. Karloff gets to showcase his dramatic chops in a way that stands out despite having shot three similar films a short time prior, and despite Columbia’s relatively small allocated budget, it’s a bold and creative ending.
The Devil Commands wasn’t the last of his Columbia mad scientist films, but it was both his last serious one and his best. In allowing Dr. Blair to proceed from a tragic place of love and grief, and to stay in that emotional space, it adds a level of relatability and audience empathy to the tale that’s often missing in mad scientist stories. The Man They Could Not Hang may have pivoted Karloff into mad scientist history, but The Devil Commands solidified his legacy as the greatest mad scientist portrayer to ever grace the silver screen.
