JohnHowardReid 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. Carpenter (villagers), Jean Handel (old crone). PROLOGUE: Barbara Bedford (woman), Ferdinand Schumann-Heinck (man), Robert Frazer (doctor). Director: FRANK R. STRAYER. Original screenplay: Karen DeWolf. Photography: M.A. Anderson. Film editor: Richard D. Reed. Art director: Edward C. Jewell. Music director: Abe Meyer. Title music composed by David Broekman. Production manager: Lon Young. Assistant director: Melville Shyer. Sound recording: Richard Tyler. Producer: Maury M. Cohen. Filmed on standing sets at Universal Studios. Copyright 5 September 1935 by Invincible Pictures Corporation. U.S. release through Chesterfield: 15 September 1935. No recorded New York opening. 7 reels. 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. The sets are also highly effective, and I must commend the director's decision not to use wolfish make-up for the monster but to let the actor concerned register his transformation simply by changing his facial expression from bland to menacing.

utgard14 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. Is he a vampire? Probably not or else this might be more well-known.Well this is interesting. A neat little (sort of) vampire movie I'd never heard of nestled away in 1935, the same year as Mark of the Vampire. Ralph Morgan stars as the professor. There's also a hunchback played by Mischa Auer. Shot on Universal sets, which helps a lot. 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. Doyle was not a good actress. At least there was no annoying comic relief. The movie never quite lives up to the strong opening but it's perfectly watchable and even atmospheric in some scenes. Slow-going but worth a look for classic horror fans who think they've seen everything.

MARIO GAUCI To begin with, I acquired this only a couple of hours before I watched it; I was in no particular hurry to check it out but, knowing I had the somewhat similar DEVIL BAT'S DAUGHTER (1946) on the schedule anyway, I opted to go with this one beforehand since, of course, it came first. 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!). Eventually, a family friend of Morgan's comes along and he realizes that the doc is unsettled by his condition and, suspecting the truth, asks him to release the girl until he is cured. 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!). The film, then, is at least watchable for trying to be different but, ultimately, it emerges as nothing more than a curious footnote in the history of the (sub)genre.

Michael_Elliott 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. If you enjoyed that Lionel Atwill film then you'll probably enjoy this one as well. 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. I think the biggest problem for the film is that it's pretty much all talk from start to finish without very much happening. Whenever something exciting does happen it's usually off screen and we only hear about it through more dialogue scenes. Morgan delivers a fine performance but the rest of the cast are rather boring. The direction is also off to the point where the film, for me at least, drags quite a bit and the 65-minute running time seems very long. I enjoyed the relationship between the Professor and a hunchback but this is about the only thing that worked for me. It's far from a really bad movie but it is rather slow and dull. It's also worth noting that the movie was shot on the same sets as Bride of Frankenstein.