The Devil Commands Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

The Devil Commands Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 7, 2021

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as a part of Karloff at Columbia.

Boris Karloff has one of the more amazing filmographies in the annals of show business history, with the IMDb listing over 200 (!) acting credits for the venerable performer. One of the kind of interesting if at times kind of weirdly unstated aspects of that success is the fact that Karloff managed his career in at least some of the 1930s and 1940s without the traditional “seven year contract” that was regularly doled by the major Hollywood studios in the Golden Age of filmmaking. In fact, many online biographies of Karloff don’t even mention any contracts, though the fact that a 1931 contract Karloff signed with Universal fetched over eleven thousand dollars in an auction is certainly more than enough evidence that (of course) some kind of contract was signed for various appearances. That said, Karloff at Columbia provides clear separate evidence that Karloff, unlike many other major stars of that same general period, was never officially tied down to one particular studio (many film fans almost automatically associate Karloff with Universal during this period), at least for any extended period of time. The fact that Karloff was also a guiding light behind the then nascent Screen Actors Guild may give credence to the hunch that Karloff was eerily prescient in being able to see that a studio’s contractual “hold” over a performer was something to be avoided, not chased, in an awareness that arguably came years before such heavyweights (and, notably, women) as Olivia de Havilland and Bette Davis started actual legal proceedings to chip away at the “seven year indentured servitude” that studios often required of their stars. Eureka Entertainment has now assembled six of Karloff's Columbia features made between 1935 and 1942 (the same period when Karloff was also appearing in films bearing the studio imprimaturs of everyone from Universal to Monogram to RKO) in an appealing set that may not include any outright masterpieces, but which show quite clearly just how versatile an actor Karloff was.

The Devil Commands is probably the most unabashedly gonzo of the Columbia Mad Doctor films starring Boris Karloff, but that fact in and of itself may make it the easy favorite in this particular subgenre. Karloff is another supposedly kindly doctor, in this case Julian Blair, and the bulk of the story is actually told in flashback by Dr. Blair's daughter Anne (Amanda Duff). Anne relays what has made her father such a feared and even hated man, and weirdly it traces back to the tragic death of Julian's wife and Anne's own mother. Blair had been researching "brain waves" and had invented a (kind of comical) metal suit people put on which then would allow Julian to "transcribe" their own fingerprint like brain wave. Before his wife's unexpected demise, she had had her brain wave memorialized, and Julian has become obsessed with "contacting" her again from beyond the grave. A charlatan "medium" named Mrs. Walters (Anne Revere, pretty much walking away with the film) gets involved even though Blair knows she's a fake, but the absolute weirdest "scientific" element in the story is that Blair decides to chain together corpses in addition to Mrs. Walters, all in their own metal suits, in order to create some kind of electromagnetic current (or something like that) that will finally allow him to contact his dead wife. It's all almost mind bogglingly bizarre, but the fact that there's a foundation of actual human emotion at play due to the loss of a spouse somehow makes this play believably, at least within its ludicrous context.

The Devil Commands Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Devil Commands is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka! Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. This presentation suffers from some noticeable, if again relatively minor, signs of age related wear and tear, with quite a few nicks, scratches and especially flecks showing up with pretty fair regularity. Just as noticeable are consistent brightness fluctuations and flicker, something that becomes even more apparent in some of the darker scenes in the film. Grain is heavy but resolves naturally.

The Devil Commands Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Devil Commands features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track that does show some very slight distortion during the opening theme, and occasionally tiptoes around it in some later underscoring in particular. Dialogue and effects make it through the gauntlet of time and tide fairly well, all things considered, and there are no issues with outright damage or dropouts. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Devil Commands Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman


• Stills Gallery: Production Stills (HD)


• Stills Gallery: Artwork and Ephemera (HD)

The Devil Commands Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I wouldn't be surprised if people think my general 3.0 score for this film is overly generous, but any film that offers a bevy of corpses wearing metal suits and gathered in a quasi-seance with a similarly outfitted Anne Revere is aces in my book. It probably goes without saying that this film is patently ludicrous, but incredibly it has just the barest hint of honest human emotion lying just beneath the surface. Video and audio encounter intermittent issues, but the accompanying commentary is very enjoyable, for those who are considering a purchase.