Black Friday (1940 film)

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Black Friday
Reprint of Black Friday movie poster
Directed by	Arthur Lubin
Produced by	Burt Kelly
Written by	Curt Siodmak Eric Taylor
Starring	Boris Karloff Bela Lugosi Stanley Ridges Anne Nagel Anne Gwynne
Music by	Hans Salter
Cinematography	Elwood Bredell
Editing by	Phil Cahn
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	April 12, 1940
Running time	70 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Black Friday is a 1940 science fiction film starring Boris Karloff. Bela Lugosi, although second-billed, has only a small part in the film and does not appear with Karloff.

1 Plot summary
2 Cast
3 Production
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Karloff plays a famous doctor, Dr. Ernest Sovac, whose best friend, a bookish college professor (played by Stanley Ridges), is run down while crossing a street. In order to save his friend's life, Sovac implants part of another man's brain into the professor's. Unfortunately, the other man was a gangster who was involved in the accident. The professor recovers but at times behaves like the gangster, and his whole personality changes. Sovac is horrified but also intrigued, because the gangster has hidden $500,000 USD somewhere in the city. The doctor continues to treat his friend and, when the professor is under the influence of the gangster's brain, Karloff attempts to have the man lead him to the fortune. Bela Lugosi plays a gangster also trying to get his hands on the cash.

[edit] Cast

Boris Karloff as Dr. Ernest Sovac
Bela Lugosi as Eric Marnay
Stanley Ridges as Professor George Kingsley / Red Cannon
Anne Nagel as Sunny Rogers
Anne Gwynne as Jean Sovac
Virginia Brissac as Mrs. Margaret Kingsley
Edmund MacDonald as Frank Miller
Paul Fix as William Kane

[edit] Production

The original script cast Lugosi as the doctor and Karloff as the professor. For unknown reasons, Karloff insisted on playing the doctor. Rather than a straight switch though, Lugosi was given the minor role of a rival gangster, while character actor Stanley Ridges was brought in to play the professor.^[1]

The film provided a rare opportunity for the now forgotten Ridges to display his considerable acting ability,^[1]^[2] and gave him one of his finest screen roles (Ridges was nearly always one of many supporting cast members, and seldom was cast in roles where he could really make an impression. He is also remembered as Professor Siletsky in the original To Be or Not to Be, and as the Scotland Yard inspector in the Charles Laughton thriller, The Suspect).