While not as famous as some of their other collaborations (such as THE BLACK CAT and THE BODY SNATCHER), this is a dandy little horror film even though the casting decisions were a bit odd. Boris Karloff plays Dr. Janos Rukh, a weird scientist who lives in the Carpathian mountains--near where the Dracula character's home town. Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Benet--whose nationality was never discussed though the name certainly sounds French. I really think it would have made sense to have the two switch roles, as the Carpathian role seems tailor made for Lugosi--especially with his accent. However, despite this unusual twist, the two still did excellent jobs. Karloff's was definitely the lead role, but Lugosi acquitted himself well as a relatively normal person--something he didn't play very often in films!! It seems that Dr. Rukh is a bit of a pariah, as other scientists (especially Benet) think his theories are bizarre and nonsensical. However, over the course of the film, Rukh turns out to be right and Benet is especially generous in his new praise for Rukh. But, unfortunately, the wonderful new element that Rukh discovered has the nasty side effect of turning him into a crazy killing machine (don't you hate it when that happens?). While this could have just been a simple nice scientist turned mad story, the plot was well constructed, the characters nicely developed and the mad Rukh was NOT a one-dimensional killer, but complex and interesting.
This film is bound to be enjoyed by anyone except for people who hate old horror films. You can really tell that Universal Pictures pulled out all the stops and made a bigger-budget film instead of the cheap quickies both Lugosi and Karloff unfortunately gravitated in later years. Good stuff.

Elfriede Jelinek, not quite a household name yet, is a winner of the Nobel prize for literature. Her novel spawned a film that won second prize at Cannes and top prizes for the male and female leads. Am I a dinosaur in matters of aesthetic appreciation or has art become so debased that anything goes?
'Gobble, gobble' is the favoured orthographic representation in Britain of the bubbling noise made by a turkey. In the film world a turkey is a monumental flop as measured by box office receipts or critical reception. 'Gobble, gobble' and The Piano Teacher are perfect partners.
The embarrassing awfulness of this widely praised film cannot be overstated. It begins very badly, as if made to annoy the viewer. Credits interrupt inconsequential scenes for more than 11 minutes. We are introduced to Professor Erika Kohut, apparently the alter ego of the accoladed authoress, a stony professor of piano. She lives with her husky and domineering mum. Dad is an institutionalised madman who dies unseen during what passes for the action.
Reviewing The Piano Teacher is difficult, beyond registering its unpleasantness. What we see in the film (and might read in the book, for all I know) is a tawdry, exploitative, nonsensical tale of an emotional pendulum that swings hither and thither without moving on.
Erika, whose name is minimally used, is initially shown as a person with intense musical sensitivity but otherwise totally repressed. Not quite, because there's a handbags at two paces scene with her gravelly-voiced maman early on that ends with profuse apologies. If a reviewer has to (yawn) extract a leitmotif (why not use a pretentious word when a simpler one would do), Elrika's violently alternating moods would be it.
A young hunk, Walter, studying to become a 'low voltage' engineer, whatever that is, and playing ice hockey in his few leisure moments, is also a talented pianist. He encounters Elrika at an old-fashioned recital in a luxury apartment in what may or may not be Paris. In the glib fashion of so much art, he immediately falls in love and starts to 'cherchez la femme'.
Repressed Erika has a liking for hardcore pornography, shown briefly but graphically for a few seconds while she sniffs a tissue taken from the waste basket in the private booth where she watches.
Walter performs a brilliant audition and is grudgingly accepted as a private student by Erika, whose teaching style is characterised by remoteness, hostility, discouragement and humiliation.
He soon declares his love and before long pursues Erika into the Ladies where they engage in mild hanky panky and incomplete oral sex. Erika retains control over her lovesick swain. She promises to send him a letter of instruction for further pleasurable exchanges.
In the meantime, chillingly jealous because of Walter's kindness to a nervous student who is literally having the shits before a rehearsal for some future concert, Erika fills the student's coat pocket with broken glass, causing severe lacerations to those delicate piano-playing hands.
The next big scene (by-passing the genital self-mutilation, etc) has Walter turning up at the apartment Erika shares with her mother. Erika want to be humiliated, bound, slapped, etc. Sensible Walter is, for the moment, repulsed and marches off into the night.
At this point there's still nearly an hour to go. The viewer can only fear the worst. Erika tracks down Walter to the skating rink where he does his ice hockey practice. They retire to a back room. Lusty Wally is unable to resist the hands tugging at his trousers. His 'baby gravy' is soon expelled with other stomach contents. Ho hum.
Repulsed but hooked, perhaps desirous of revenge for the insult so recently barfed on the floor, Walter returns to Erika's apartment. Can you guess what happens now? It's not very deep or difficult. Yes, he becomes a brute while Erika becomes a victim. One moment he's locking maman in her room and slapping Erika, the next he's kicking her in the face, having sex with her and renewing his declarations of love.
Am I being unfair in this summary? Watch the film if you want, but I'd advise you not to.
Anyone can see eternity in a grain of sand if they're in the right mood. I could expatiate at the challenging depiction of human relationships conveyed by this film if I wanted. But I 'prefer not to', because this is a cheap and nasty film that appeals to base instincts and says nothing.
I'm supposed to say that parentally repressed Erika longs for love, ineffectively seeks it in pornography, inappropriately rejects it when it literally appears, pink and throbbing, under her nose, belatedly realises that she doesn't like being hurt, blah, blah, blah.
The world has, for reasons not explained, stunted her. She apparently makes a monster out of someone who appeared superficially loving - but surely we all know that any man is potentially a violent rapist, because that's his essential nature however much he tries to tell himself and the world otherwise.
At the end, if you have the patience to be there, there's a small twist. Before going to the final scene, where she's due to perform as a substitute for the underwear-soiling student with the lacerated hands, Erika packs a knife in her handbag. For Walter?
Yes, you're ahead of me. She stabs herself in a none life-threatening area and leaves. Roll credits.
If this earned the second prize at Cannes, just how bad were the rest of the entries?