Scott LeBrun Dr. Julian Blair (Boris Karloff) is experimenting with brain waves, and determines to continue his work especially after his wife (Shirley Warde) dies. His daughter Anne (Amanda Duff) and his young associate Dr. Sayles (Richard Fiske) try to make him see reason. Meanwhile, Julian hooks up with a (mostly) phony medium (Anne Revere) and a hulking brute (Cy Schindell), and moves to a new town so as not to get in trouble with the law."The Devil Commands" has its entertaining, unusual touches, such as the sight of various corpses propped around a table, clad in what can only be described as space suits, in mockery of a traditional seance. But it's basically a routine B movie in the end, albeit capably directed by Edward Dmytryk, who was still years away from mainstream success with films such as "The Caine Mutiny"."The Devil Commands", taken from a story by William Sloane, has a very tight running time of 65 minutes, and tells its tale in a concise enough manner. It does have an adequate amount of atmosphere for any sci-fi / horror tale from the era, with some effective looking equipment. But Karloff remains the primary reason to watch, as he did with so many of the B pictures that he headlined. He's just so wonderfully sincere and plaintive, that your heart does go out to him ever so slightly, no matter if he is as mad as mad scientists get. The supporting cast is fine in general, especially Ms. Revere. Dorothy Adams has appeal as a housekeeper in the doctors' employ, and Kenneth MacDonald is solid as a sheriff trying to keep a mob from enacting some vigilante justice that, for all he knows, might possibly be unjustified.A decent viewing that won't take up a lot of your time.Six out of 10.

classicsoncall Boris Karloff's at it again, unlocking the secrets of the human brain and doing so in a surprisingly short run time of just over an hour. His character is Dr. Julian Blair, driven to near fanatical obsession to make contact with his dead wife via his brain wave recording invention. Convincing a phony psychic (Anne Revere as Mrs. Walters) to become his lab assistant, Dr. Blair is encouraged by her admonition that "If you can do what you're trying to do, you'll rule the world"! It must have been that ten thousand volts of electricity coursing through her body that warmed her up to the Doc.However it didn't appear to me that Blair was interested in ruling the world as much as simply getting in touch with the Mrs. Unable to function in the home they once shared, Blair sets out for Barshan Harbor, where he eventually comes under suspicion for a number of bodies that turn up missing. Those bodies wind up in an odd looking assortment of containment suits set up in séance position for Blair to continue his quest. Blair's own daughter (Amanda Duff) as it turns out, proves to be the most effective medium for getting in touch with Mrs. Blair in the great beyond.Karloff gives it his all as the mad genius here before meeting his end in a Frankenstein inspired mob scene ending. Perhaps not as convincing as it could have been, at least the good doctor went out with proof of life after death. Until the next time.

Hitchcoc I mostly enjoyed this film. Once there's that willing suspension of disbelief with the science. Karloff goes from a kind and loving man (like he was in "Before I Hang") to a rapt, utterly driven character that believes communicating with his dead wife is worth the lives of any other person, including his daughter. All we ever see are the marks on a graph from some polygraph or electroencephalogram like thing. She is supposedly speaking to him, but what is she saying? What is to do with this date anyway? In the mix is a phony medium who seems to provide some electric connection to his experiments. Even though she is a charlatan, she has properties necessary. It turns out she is the true villain in all of this, driving Boris to despair. She, of course, is in it for the cash and you never forget this. It's another of those ideas that gains momentum and then bogs down. He is obsessed with the death of his wife, but he loses his soul. One weakness is that it's never clear where he hoped to get. The movie would have benefited with a success of some sort.

bkoganbing Though the science involved in what Boris Karloff is trying to do is very flawed, in The Devil Commands Karloff gives a very good performance as a man obsessed with contacting his late wife. Unfortunately he falls into the clutches of a fake medium played by Anne Revere who takes advantage of him.The first few minutes of the film show a happy well adjusted Karloff married to Shirley Warde with daughter Amanda Duff also getting ready to marry scientist Richard Fiske. After a car accident where Warde dies in his arms, Karloff goes off the deep end as he becomes obsessed with the idea that Warde is trying to communicate with him via electrical impulses. His efforts to combine science and the occult lead him to Revere and ultimately to tragedy.The electrical devices in his laboratory have the familiar Frankenstein like look about them, no doubt Edward Dmytryk in one of his early directorial efforts was trying to capture the mood of the Frankenstein films from Universal. Though the rest of the cast is pretty bland, Karloff and Revere play well off each other and carry the film.One exception to the blandness is that of Dorothy Adams whom I recognized immediately as Bessie the maid from Laura. Her part here is similar to that one and her acting has some real bite to it.The Devil Commands is from Columbia's B unit and it's not invested with a lot of production values. Still it's a good horror film from the master himself.