The Soul of a Monster (1944)

Despite its lurid title, Soul of a Monster is much less of a horror film and much more of a religious allegory. A saintly doctor, George Winston, nationally famous for his humanitarianism is dying and no power on earth is able to save him.Because of this his wife Ann has lost her faith in God. She calls on the dark powers to save him. A rather severe and intimidating women appears out of nowhere to save his life. Her entrance into the story is the eeriest and most mysterious part of the film. She arrives at the doctors deathbed with the claim that she can help him and takes over the situation . The woman calls herself Lilyan Gregg and she does bring about Winston's recovery. The doctor has recovered but he is a changed man. He seems to have lost his humanity. He no longer has any empathy with those whom he formerly cared for.He is now cold, aloft and unsympathetic. He comes to reject his wife and friends for a relationship with Lilyan.His wife Ann regrets her plea to the dark side to save her husbands from death for now she must battle Lilyan for his very soul.Anybody who watches Soul of a Monster to see a horror film is really going to be disappointed. It's a cleverly done fantasy film but hardly horrific.Rose Hobart was a talented actress and here she is quite effective as the Devils messenger. She is someone that seems to invite confrontation and she can intimidate just about anybody.Lilyan is the movies most watchable character.George Macready made a career out of playing egotistical, unscrupulous, slightly feminine men who played at being mentally superior but are actually weak and cowardly. I buy him as the soulless George Winston. It's him as the noble and saintly Dr Winston that I just can't picture.Soul of a Monster has a bit of the Devil and Daniel Webster and Cat People and even a bit of Frankenstein written into it's story.As I said Rose Hobart stands out and its her performance that makes the picture worth viewing. Erik Rolf plays Fred Stevens a family friend who is the conscience of the film. He is the Christian voice in the movie. Rolf always reminded me of Nils Asther. Soul of a Monster is really trying to sermonize about keeping faith in God and not losing morality in times of stress. It's not a terrible film but it ain't great either.

Much loved and saintly doctor falls sick and near death. In desperation his wife looks into a fire and asks for some power to save him. A dark woman appears and the doctor is saved…but something seems different. Breezy tale of possession and of evil coming into the lives of the friends and family of a well respected man is good and well acted, but suffers in that once you know what the premise is there really isn't anywhere to go with it. In all honesty the film is similar to numerous other films, radio and TV shows so its easy to guess where its going. I hung with it during the course of it hour long running time in the hope that some new twist would add some spark to the tale, but it never happened, the film just started and went straight on to the end on its appointed course. Not bad, but far from unique or original.

**SPOILERS** Very esoteric and little know film about "Good" an "Evil" that has to do with a man on his deathbed within moment of leaving the world that he gave, in saving the lives of hundreds of people, so much of himself to.Dr. George Winson,George Macready, has done so much and asked so little in helping those who needed his help as a brilliant surgeon and psychologist. Infected by an incurable disease, from one of the patients that he saved, George is now in the hands of the Almighty waiting for his final curtain call. It's then that George's bereaved wife Ann, Jeanne Bates, goes a bit off her noodle, mind, begging for anyone, in this world or the next, to please save her husband from the faith, death, that's now waiting for him.Ann should have known better and left things the way they were but her love for George and wanting him to live turned the man into a monster. Not the kind and caring saint that he was before he fell into the deadly coma that's slowly taking his life away from him. It turns out that Ann summoned this "Evil Spirit" in the form of Lilyan Gregg, Rose Hobart, who despite giving her husband back his life forgot, on purpose of course, to give him his soul back with it. Now fully recovered and in excellent health George was not exactly the person that his friends family and patients knew him as. Stuck up and irritable as well as rude to everyone, including his loving wife Ann, he came in contact with it's obvious that George just isn't himself. It's George's best friend Fred Stevens, Eric Rolf, who soon sees the metamorphose that he went through and in an effort to save George's soul tries to get the poor and confused man help. It's then that Lilyan trying to keep George under her evil control turns George,like a guided missile, on Fred only to be stymied when Fred who happened to find a crucifix, lying there in front of him on the sidewalk, in just the nick of time to stop the crazed and icepick waving George in his tracks.It soon become a struggle between George who's Godly goodness, despite him having no soul, is slowly getting the upper hand over the evil Lilyan. It's then when Lilyan really goes all out to get George to murder his loyal and admiring assistant Dr. Vance,Jim Bannon, and then have him sent straight to the hot seat, the electric chair, for it. It's this way that Lilyan can have George by being sent to the place where the sun don't shine, and where it's hot as blazes all the time, all for herself for eternity.*****MAJOR SPOILERS****The surprise ending is a bit uneven in that it left you up in the air to just what exactly it's trying to tell you. Not in George's mental state but in the condition he finds himself in as the movie ends. Still "Soul of a Monster" is by far one of the best, as well as one of the most unknown, movies about the struggle between "Good" and "Evil" ever to come out of Hollywood. The film is surprisingly nowhere as corny or predictable as you would have imagined, before you saw it knowing it's storyline, it to be and that by far is the biggest surprise, together with the surprise ending, in the movie.

This little-seen Colombia horror film from 1944 is a pretentious, but still interesting film.It stars George Macready, in one of his first films, as a good doctor who is on his deathbed. His wife, played by a solid Jeanne Bates, wishes at the family fireplace for any force from heaven or hell to save him as she has lost faith with her god. Her wish is instantly granted by an unseen Satan as Rose Hobart plays a sort of 'Soul Master' who coldly arrives on the scene and saves Macready. Her action, of course, has a price.Without revealing too much, this seems to have tried to copy the Val Lewton formula, which was popular at the time. The film opens and closes with a narrative quote. The direction is adequate. There is a long "chase" scene in the middle that seems to go on forever. The two characters walk as if elderly people on prozac. It is meant to be suspenseful, but it's just too darned long to keep up the suspense.The film has very few "horror" moments, but some nice cinematic ones. There are shadows aplenty, but the best touch is the arrival and departure of Rose Hobart's character. The film changes to a negative image and then back to positive. I hadn't seen that technique used before in a classic horror film and there were some effective dutch angles that did a good job of building the suspense.A decent film that unfortunately is just never too interesting, it's worth viewing for hard core classic horror buffs only. 5/10