Condemned to Live

Plot synopsis:
Professor Paul Kristan [Ralph Morgan] doesn't know that his mother was bitten by a vampire bat just before he was born. The doctor who delivered the baby some 40 years ago in a bat-infested cave within earshot of angry native drums in the darkest reaches of Africa, handed the bundle of joy to his colleague, Doctor Anders Bizet [Pedro de Cordoba], who raised the boy as his own son. Paul is now a grown man, beloved by everyone in the village because of his "goodness", and engaged to be married to the flower of the village, the beautiful Marguerite Mane [Maxine Doyle].Then the murders start. Three victims have been found lying in the caves, their throats torn open and the blood drained from their bodies. The cry goes up that this the work of a huge and loathsome vampire bat that kills during the dark of night and then carries the bodies into the caves. Only young David [Russell Gleason] cannot accept that there is a bat large enough to carry a human body. The good Professor isn't certain that it's a bat, but he is sure of one thing...the creature strikes only in the dark. Therefore, he suggests that everyone stay home after dusk and keep their lights burning.After bringing some roses to the good Professor, Marguerite meets David in the garden. David has been her friend since childhood, and he's in love with her. However, Marguerite is intent on marrying Professor Kristan because...well...he's so good. David attempts to convince Marquerite that what she feels is respect, admiration, and reverence but not love. Marquerite won't hear of it. She is honored that Professor Kristan (she's trying to learn to call him "Paul") has chosen her, and she intends to make the good Professor a good wife.That night, after seeing his last patient, Paul retires to his study to read his books by candlelight. The night gets darker, Paul falls asleep, and the candle burns out. When he awakens, it is dark outside. Suddenly, his face twists in pain. The good Professor has become the vampire. He climbs through the window of a sleeping girl (Katrina) and attacks her. Somewhat later, his faithful servant, the hunchbacked Zan [Mischa Auer], carries Katrina's body into the caves. When the villagers learn that Katrina has disappeared, they run to the good Professor for guidance. He advises them to go quickly to the caves, but it is too late. Katrina is dead.Meanwhile, back at the good Professor's house, his housekeeper Mother Molly [Lucy Beaumont] has received a surprise visitor...Paul's foster father, Dr Bizet. Bizet is surprised at all the candles that Mother Molly has lit. She explains about the killer vampire bat who only attacks during the dark. Bizet looks concerned. At that moment, Paul and Zan return home. Mother Molly leaves the room to prepare a room for Bizet, and Paul takes the moment to tell Bizet about a problem he has been lately having with headaches followed by "vagueness and exhaustion." Again, Bizet looks concerned but says nothing.That afternoon, Paul introduces Bizet to Marguerite. Marguerite takes Bizet on a tour of her garden, and Bizet uses their time alone to question her about her feelings for Paul. Later, Bizet relays to Paul his belief that, although Marguerite loves him...nay, worships him...she is not IN LOVE with him. Bizet suggests that Paul talk to her to confirm his suspicions. A bit later, Paul decides to walk over to Marguerite's house and talk with her. He takes a lantern to protect him from the vampire bat. Along the way, however, he trips, and the light goes out. Now in the dark, Paul transforms into the vampire. When Bizet finds that Paul is headed to Marguerite's house, he goes after him.Along the way to Marguerite's house, Bizet runs into Paul being carried by Zan. Zan admits that he was afraid for his master and followed him. Paul remembers only that his lamp went out. The three of them continue on to the Mane house and find that the vampire has murdered Marguerite's maid. One of the servants exclaims that he saw a figure...a man...running from the house. "Then David was right," Paul sighs. "The monster is a man." After a town meeting in which the good Professor again warns everyone to go home and keep their lights burning, he also warns John Mane [Carl Stockdale], Marguerite's father, to keep watch over his daughter and never allow her to be alone with anyone. "With anyone at all," Bizet stresses.Who could be committing these heinous crimes? Suspicion falls on Zan, and the villagers unite to look for him. Paul is concerned because each time someone was murdered, he had fallen into a swoon and couldn't remember his whereabouts. Considering this strange malady that seems to have befallen him, Paul decides that it would be best to call off his marriage to Marguerite...so he takes a lantern and heads back to her house. Zan begins to follow, but Bizet holds him back and wrests the truth...it is the good Professor who is the monster, and it is Zan who has been carrying and disposing the bodies in the caves.Meanwhile, David has been visiting Marguerite, again trying to convince her that she loves him, not the good Professor. Confused in her feelings, Marguerite asks David to leave, just as her father returns home. When Paul arrives a few minutes later, John admits him to the house and leaves him alone with Marguerite so that they can talk. Paul begins to explain to her about his strange malady. When he covers his eyes with his hand, Marguerite assumes it is because of the light, so she blows out the candle. Paul panics for a moment, but nothing happens, so he explains that he cannot marry her until he is cured. When he covers his eyes again with his hand, Marguerite turns off the lamp, leaving only one candle burning. Again, nothing happens.Paul decides to come totally clean with Marguerite. He confesses that he may be the fiend who is killing the villagers. Marguerite refuses to buy it. In order to prove that he's not the monster, she blows out the one remaining candle. Suddenly a cloud passes in front of the moon, plunging them into total darkness. "A light!" Paul screams but the transformation has begun. He lunges at Marguerite, who screams. David, who is still hanging around outside, breaks into the house, followed by Zan, Bizet, and the villagers. Zan runs, and the villagers take off after him.Paul lies in a swoon on the floor, and Marguerite has fainted. When she comes to, she tells how the monster went for her throat, after which Zan came through the window, proving that it couldn't have been Zan. Unfortunately, she can't remember the fiend. David chases after Zan to save him, while Bizet waits for Paul to come out of his swoon. When he does, Bizet finally tells him the truth about his mother and the vampire bat whose bite has condemned him to live with the mark of the vampire. In time, he explains, Paul will eventually become fully a vampire. When Bizet tells Paul how Zan has led away the villagers in order to buy some time for his master, Paul realizes that Zan is in danger, and he and Bizet go after him.Zan has gone to the caves. Just as the villagers corner him and are trying to decide whether to hang him, burn him, or seal him in the caves to rot, David catches up and informs the villagers that Zan is not the fiend. Paul and Bizet arrive a few minutes later, and Paul confesses that it is he who is the fiend. After making David promise to love and cherish Marguerite, the good Professor jumps off a cliff. Zan follows suit. The villagers gasp and take off their hats. David holds Marguerite in his arms. [Original synopsis by bj_kuehl].

Tags: violence

Review:
Ralph Morgan plays a kind-hearted doctor, known throughout his community for his wisdom and charity, that has a terrible secret he does not even know.
It seems when he was born he was marked by a vampire bat....and now in his middle age the terrible strain of over-work has caused his affliction to surface.
Ralph Morgan, brother of the Wizard of Oz'z Frank Morgan gives an interesting performance.
The rest of the cast is pretty good too with Mischa Auer standing out as a hunchback and Pedro de Cordoba excelling as a friendly doctor.
"Condemned to Live" is one of those movies that make you feel sorry for the monster.
The creature seemed to me to be a cross between a vampire and a werewolf although which one it actually is, is really unimportant to the movies plot.
Ralph Morgan, the star of this film, is the brother of Frank Morgan, who played the Wizard of Oz. I just don't want anyone to be misled by the other reviewer's comment.
As with most sympathetic "monsters" the Morgan character is doomed - his mother was bitten by a vampire, and his engagement to a much younger woman has evoked his vampiric tendencies, which are more akin to lycantropy than vampirism.
Mischa Auer is also commendable in his role as a hunchback, loyal to Morgan, and who has been keeping Morgan from discovering the truth about himself..
The plot of this is very similar to another movie (I believe "The Vampire Bat).
The main character, Paul, was cursed from birth to become a horrible creature with bat-like tendencies.
It's a little slow at times, but the gentle goodness of the characters, contrasted with the evil forced on them, makes it work..
Good story holds up despite aged film style.
I'd never heard of this film but it's worth a look for those who can put up with 1930's style film-making and especially for genre fans.The story has elements of Jeckyll and Hyde and it has psychological overtones of the main monster character that help it.
But the aftermath of the killings and good acting of Ralph Morgan help.
The final scene is suspenseful as well and of course the whole thing is over pretty quickly, but still manages, thanks for Karn DeWolf's script to pack in quite a bit of character complication.Nice production values but the director, Frank Strayer, shows little flair.
Condemned to Live (1935) ** (out of 4) A Professor (Ralph Morgan) learns that his mother was attacked by a vampire bat while pregnant with him and soon he begins to fear that he is the vampire stalking his small town.
This film comes from the same director as The Vampire Bat, which was made two years earlier.
For me, I didn't enjoy the previous film and this one here didn't work either, although there were a few interesting twists on the vampire legend.
When the local doctor begins to look into the deaths, he discovers the victims were really attacked by some type of vampire-like creature.
The doctor is also startled to find the he may be responsible for the deaths, due to a condition he acquired when his mother was attacked by a creature while pregnant with him," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.No need to wonder about the vampire's identity; it's given away during the first attack.
Although the film goes to dullsville with the idea, it is intriguing to think about a plot involving the offspring of a pregnant female vampire victim.
As does a "love triangle" involving older doctor Ralph Morgan (as Paul Kristan), fresh-faced fiancée Maxine Doyle (as Marguerite), and more age appropriate young Russell Gleason (as David).
Ms. Doyle seems unrehearsed.*** Condemned to Live (1935) Frank Strayer ~ Ralph Morgan, Pedro de Cordoba, Russell Gleason.
A pregnant woman is bitten by a vampire bat.
Years later, a village is terrorized by a series of murders and the woman's baby, now grown and a respected professor, believes he might be the killer.
Romantic subplot about a young woman (Maxine Doyle) in love with a guy while being engaged to Morgan's character, thirty years her senior, is a negative.
I liked this film to a degree: the idea of vampire bats, a murder mystery and a belief that one might be a vampire rolled into a film is a pretty neat idea 1935 and still is today.The acting is good, fine.
The biggest thing is it's easy to solve the mystery, so you are left watching the characters "solve the mystery" when you already know the answer - but it is kind fun watching them solve it.Dr. Anders Bizet is played by Pedro de Cordoba - quite well I must add.
Paul Kristan's mother was bitten at the time of child birth.With aid of Zan the hunchback (Mischa Auer) Kristan is able to hide his vampire qualities until?
This film is ranked #50 in my top 'B' movies with a 7 star rating.
The film has its faults with a poor soundtrack, missing the boat on some occasions completely, the over use of the word swooning toward the end of the film, and the too nice scenes with Kristan and Marguerite (Maxine Douglas) who is very young for Kristan.
Don't look for anything gory in the vampire scenes just enjoy the film for what it is, a good 'B' movie..
Condemned to Live story concerns a physician in a small village in Europe who is born a vampire because his mother was bitten by a vampire when she was pregnant with him.
A Trusted college arrives and helps him finally realizes that he must be the vampire that is murdering the villagers for their blood.Invincible Pictures was a poverty row studio but they did produce some watchable movies.
Condemned to Live was one such movie.
Eventually Invincible was absorbed by Republic Pictures.Ralph Morgan was a notable character actor who became overshadowed by his more famous younger brother Frank.
Mischa Auer plays the doctor's hunchbacked servant who is loyal to a fault.
The rest of the cast is professional enough.Condemned to Live is an interesting take on the vampire legend but there are just too many plot holes and weak performances to make it a really good movie.
Atmospheric little film that won't win any awards but is perfect as part of a horror fest on a dark and stormy night.
Who could it be and how does it relate to the events years earlier when a shipwrecked pregnant woman was bitten on the neck by a vampire bat?
Well made melodrama with horrific overtones take many horror conventions and breathes just a bit of new life in them, Give this movie a good many points for daring to be different in its supernatural tinged tale.
Add to it a great cast headed by Frank Morgan and Misha Auer (as a hunchback) and you get a fine little lost film.
Sure it won't win any awards but as a movie to watch on a dark and stormy night with the lights on low its gangbusters Worth seeing, especially if you program a night of moldy oldie horror films..
Marguerite to marry older saintI love old horror films, so the fact I disliked "Condemned to Live" so much really says a lot about the movie.
But the writing and direction were so sluggish, it felt more like I was watching a community theater production instead of a movie.The story begins with a prologue about some folks stuck on a hellish island with nasty natives and vampire bats.
There you learn that Professor Kristan (Ralph Morgan) is a saintly man, as folks repeat this about 800 times...just to make sure the audience knows.
Not having been exactly impressed by the director's other, more popular genre work (namely THE MONSTER WALKS {1932} and THE VAMPIRE BAT {1933} which, again, this resembles quite a bit), I hardly expected the film under review to change matters; while presenting a novel (if silly) spin on the vampire theme, the approach is so stodgy as to defeat its purpose!
Here, in fact, we have a man (Ralph Morgan, who would return to the genre with a couple of somewhat better efforts i.e. NIGHT MONSTER {1942} and the recently-viewed THE MONSTER MAKER {1944}) who transforms – a' la Jekyll & Hyde and complete with inhuman slurping sounds – into a bloodsucker (actually preceding in this regard the 1957 THE VAMPIRE by more than two decades!) because his mother was bitten by a vampire bat during pregnancy.
The irony is that, being an eminent doctor, the community looks up to him after every new attack (he is himself unaware of his nightly depredations which occur during periodic blackout spells – hilariously and repeatedly described as "swooning" to the point that the film has been disparagingly described by some as CONDEMNED TO LIVE aka I SWOONED!) As usual, he is about to marry a much-younger girl that is loved by another man, who is most vociferous about the fact that the fiend is human as opposed to supernatural.Incidentally, what triggers Morgan off is complete darkness(!?), so that he has the townsfolk keep a candle burning at all times of the nightbut, when he begins to feel the blackout coming during a visit to his girl, she unwisely turns out the lights one by one (which sends him off in a fury every time!).
In the meantime, the attacks continue – with Morgan's devoted hunchback (future comic Mischa Auer who was also in THE MONSTER WALKS) always lurking behind to save his master from being apprehended as well as finding out about his true nature, even if this means that Auer is himself fingered as the vampire on more than one occasion!
Just as THE VAMPIRE BAT was filmed on standing sets from James Whale's much-superior THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932; with which it had even shared leading man Melvyn Douglas), this one uses leftover scenery from that same genre master's BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) and, it seems to me, even some from his FRANKENSTEIN (1931), not that these are adopted in any imaginative way given CONDEMNED TO LIVE's relentlessly talky approach!
In the end, Morgan bows out not by the traditional stake through the heart but by simply leaping, of his own free will, from a clifffollowed in quick succession by Auer himself (apparently, the latter saw no point in living if he cannot be with his beloved master – make of that what you will!).
It all surrounds a kindly doctor (Ralph Morgan) who finds himself suffering from blackouts as a brutal vampire-like killer strikes in his small community.
Morgan is in love with pretty Maxine Doyle, who admires him tremendously but is not in love with him in spite of being engaged to him.
As the list of victims increases, Morgan becomes more confused by his headaches, and his hunchback assistant (a touching Mischa Auer) keeps close tabs on him.
Haunting photography, above average performances (for this type of film) and strident pacing make this a must for classic horror fans..
Ralph Morgan (Professor Kristan), Maxine Doyle (Marguerite Mane), Pedro de Cordoba (Dr Bizet), Russell Gleason (David), Mischa Auer (Zan), Lucy Beaumont (Mother Molly), Carl Stockdale (John Mane), Heida Shope (Anna), Marilyn Knowlden (Maria), Paul Weigel (doctor), Edward Cecil (Manservant), Ted Billings (bell ringer), Charles Slim Whitaker, Harold Goodwin, Dick Curtis, Frank Brownlee, Horace B.
67 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A small European village is terrorized by a monster bat.
COMMENT: Despite its second-string cast (only Maxine Doyle as the pretty heroine and Mischa Auer as the devoted hunchback make any sort of impression), this little "B" emerges as a fairly effective horror yarn, thanks to Strayer's suspenseful direction and Anderson's atmospheric lighting.
'Condemned ' doesn't repeat Strayer's earlier movie about bloodsucking in a peaceful village.
'Condemned ' is about _vampirism, it has much more drama (which would of required a better cast), no comedy.
For those who complain about humor in suspense movies, we are completely spared of it, the chills are straight.A peaceful village, a cave and its pit .
The eeriness in both is basically natural: a disease here (and the giant bats are real, though they live in the depths of Africa), the hypnosis in the earlier movie.The script depends much more on drama (and here, the cast dis-serves it), not at all on comedy, Kristan, as played by R.
Morgan, is wholly bland, though doomed, a bland altruist stricken by a disease; Maxine Doyle is banal, and more naughty and knowledgeable than a village ingénue.
The cast has Auer, whose role was smaller than advisable; in an earlier movie, also by F.
The script offers a romantic drama, but Kristan (one of the medicine professors who practiced in peaceful villages) should of been more keenly characterized, while Maxine Doyle looks nothing like her role.
The overtones of sexual pathology perhaps required better scenes, according to later criteria; but within the age's code, the dissonances are spelled as explicit as possible (the manservant Zan is a double of the professor, and like a son, signifying the inner deformity; the girl is another double, not inner, not interiorly, but as mirroring his repression and denial).'Condemned ' is a movie about _vampirism understood as a disease; it also links this illness with morbid sexuality, the girl's bland sentimentality, guessed by both Bizet and the professor's rival, mirror the vampire's unacknowledged _pulsions, and both the professor and his fiancée are trapped in an unhealthy relationship to deny their genuine leanings (wholly morbid, his; entirely sane and ordinary, hers).
The earlier movie had been a sure recipe, and meant as such; the later one tries a new territory: gloomy drama, and it needed a dependable cast, and even Auer, underused here, had been better filmed by the very same director.There's a bit of effective music I recognized from another '30s chiller.R. Morgan and Maxine Doyle weren't the most enjoyable leads.
In an earlier Strayer movie, Auer had been much better showcased..
"Condemned to Live" was one of her very few budget films but she was in good company.
Ralph Morgan was always a good character actor, excelling in quirky villain roles until he became better known as Frank Morgan's older brother.
He plays Professor Paul Kristan who, along with his apelike assistant, Zan (Mischa Auer) is called to a cave in his village to examine a man that has been killed by a bat.
He is engaged to marry Marguerite (Maxine Doyle) who although she doesn't love him, worships him as a village hero.
Unbeknownst to the village the professor is really a vampire!!!
Paul's mother was bitten by a vampire bat and so Paul carries the curse.
The village believe the killer to be a bat, but David (Russell Gleason) who is in love with Marguerite thinks a human is responsible.
The villagers, thinking Zan is the fiend chase him to the cave until David catches up with them and tells them it is really the beloved Professor.With a plot borrowing heavily from "Frankenstein" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", it is an interesting film.
There is even a little Maria, a village child played by Marilyn Knowlden.Recommended..
American horror films of the 1930's are notorious for unbelievable special effects, degrading female acting, and incoherent plots.
This film is no exception, but Condemned to Live is still entertaining due to the care with which it was made.
It isn't Karloff's Frankenstein, but it's worth a viewing.In an African cave, a pregnant woman is bitten by a vampire bat.
However, Marguerite has fallen in love with her neighbor David, but feels obligated to marry doctor Kristan.
Both are discovered and commit suicide at the end of the film.With such a short running time, a lot happens in Condemned to Live, and most of it happens too quickly.
While it isn't difficult to see this plot twist, Strayer's incorporation of Jeckyll and Hyde personality disorder and vampirism into Ralph Morgan's character add suspense to the film.
Kristan is a knowledgeable man, and he knows he must separate himself from the village in order to continue serving the people.The special effects are also worthwhile and appear as realistic as one could expect from a film so old.
This is why he prefers biting people on the neck, but isn't a real vampire.I may have read too much into the film, but a good film allows an audience to do that.
I've read the plot summary for The Vampire Bat, and feel obligated to warn you that this film is similar but they both have around a 5.0 rating on IMDb. Yes, there are several holes in the plot, but I don't think I can fairly lower the film's score given its age.
The film then fast-forwards to forty years later where a man by the name of "Professor Paul Kristan" (Ralph Morgan) is helping his fellow villagers resolve a recent spate of murders in which the victims have be totally drained of blood.
To further assist him is his loyal servant, "Zan, the hunchback" (Mischa Auer), his fiancé "Marguerite Mane" (Maxine Doyle) and his old mentor "Dr. Anders Bizet" (Pedro de Cordoba) who has just recently arrived.
At any rate, rather than reveal any more I will just say that this could have been a pretty good vampire film if it hadn't been so bogged down with repetitive dialogue and a lack of action.
Professor Paul Kriston(Ralph Morgan) is a well liked and respected doctor in his tiny village.
The beautiful Marguerite(Maxine Doyle)is willing to be his bride in spite of being in love with another man, David(Russell Gleason).
The doctor has a hunchbacked servant(Mischa Auer);this is the clue that this is a horror flick.
Miss Marguerite discovers her fiancée's secret, only after she realizes she's actually in love with her other man.
Things have already turned sinister.This 30's chiller is directed by Frank Strayer.