The Ghoul

This very atmospheric chiller from 1933 was loosely inspired by a 1928 novel and features horror icon Boris Karloff prominently on the sleeve artwork though not exactly in the film, where he makes an appearance at the beginning and just a little more at the dramatic climax.

Karloff is cast as eccentric and ‘heathen’ Egyptologist Professor Morlant, a man with a frightfully ghoulish appearance even before his death! Morlant is on his deathbed, surrounded by Egyptian relics, his club-footed manservant Laing (the peculiar Ernest Thesiger), and his shady solicitor Broughton (Cedric Hardwicke). Shortly before expiring, Morant instructs the trusty but religious Laing to place a sacred and precious jewel called The Eternal Light in his palm and to wrap the hand, Egyptian style, for safe-keeping. However, Morlant is also convinced that after coming back to life and by offering the jewel to Anubis, the deity will grant him immortality. This of course Laing does not believe and dismisses it as yet another one of his master’s ‘queer fancies’, thus only pretending to wrap the jewel but in reality hiding it in the heel of his clubfoot, only later to hide it in a coffee tin (as you do). Meanwhile, creepy solicitor Broughton gets hold of Morlant’s diary and gets wind of what is going on. Discovering that the jewel is not in the dead professor’s hand, he rightly suspects Laing of having liberated it. Morlant furthermore instructed Laing to leave the key inside the tomb allowing him easy aggress out after his ‘resurrection’.

Professor Morlant left the bulk if his gloomy Yorkshire estate to his pushy nephew Ralph (Anthony Bushell) and the charming young Betty Harlon (Dorothy Hyson) who is the daughter of an old flame. Laing takes a train to make his way to Blandford Street (presumably London) and hand-deliver a note to Betty informing her of an inheritance. The ensuing scenes are particularly eerie and particularly well photographed what with foggy and gas-lit streets abounding. When Betty leaves her flat with the letter to make an urgent phone call regarding the will, she is attacked and has her handbag snatched by the unscrupulous Broughton. Despite this little incident, the heirs to be are soon assembled in the old creaky mansion, including Betty’s spinster flatmate Kaney (Kathleen Harrison in a rather pointless comic-relief part). We also have bogus vicar Nigel Hartley (Ralph Richardson), a mysterious Egyptian sheik called Mahmoud (D.A. Clarke-Smith) and last but not least, the resurrected Morlant who was in fact not dead at all but was buried alive in a cataleptic state. Do I have to tell you that all hell breaks loose? I don’t think so!

Karloff, who in a mere two years had established himself as Hollywood’s ‘King of Horror’, was brought over to the UK especially to star in this vehicle but unfortunately seems rather wasted. He only has a few lines at the beginning and none after his resurrection. The actual star is the inimitable Ernest Thesiger, who in the previous year had starred again with Karloff in The Old Dark House and was a little later to achieve cinematic immortality as the dotty ‘Doctor Septimus Pretorius’ in James Whale’s brilliant Bride Of Frankenstein (with Karloff yet again).
Cedric Hardwicke as his usual dark and grim self, while Ralph Richardson is always Ralph. On the female front, Dorothy Hyson is pleasing and despite her later title as Lady Quayle (wife of actor Sir Anthony Quayle) does not come across as posh as some of her contemporaries. Unfortunately, Kathleen Harrison in the role of the naïve spinster is more on the irritating rather than the pleasing side.

Director T. Hayes Hunter was actually an American mainly known for his work during the silent era, in particular The Crimson Stain Mystery (1916). Special mention must go to little known cinematographer Günther Krampf, perhaps best remembered for the 1926 German silent classic The Student Of Prague, starring Conrad Veidt. It must be mentioned that composer Louis Levy leans heavily on ‘Siegried’s Funeral March’ by Richard Wagner and it serves the doom-and-gloom mood of The Ghoul more than well.

This restored Blu-ray release contains the following SPECIAL FEATURES:

* Feature commentary by horror experts Kim Newman and Stephen Jones
* Extensive image galleries
* Commemorative booklet by Stephen Jones