BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT-1942-Prof. Brenner (Bela Lugosi) is a criminology teacher by day and at night he's Karl Wagner who runs a Bowery mission that's a front for robbery and murder. Sgt. Crawford (Dave O'Brien) investigates. Wagner's M.O. is to kill one accomplice at the scene of a crime. He recruits psycho killer Frank Mills (Tom Neal; he'd star in DETOUR in 1945) to help. Wagner's nurse Judy (Wanda McKay) doesn't suspect but her boyfriend Richard (John Archer) goes undercover as a bum to study the underprivileged and winds up dead. The nutty ending has an insane doctor resurrecting Wagner's dead victims who in turn kill him. Since Richard comes back to life he and Judy live happily ever after. When Richard is on the Bowery he meets two oddballs almost in a row. One is played by Pat Costello and the other by Bernard Gorcey! Wheeler Oakman, Victor Adamson and Snub Pllard have small roles.
Director Wallace Fox made several "East Side Kids" comedies (that were set in The Bowery) and directed Lugosi in THE CORPSE VANISHES the same year. After making PILLOW OF DEATH, one of the Inner Sanctum series of film at Universal he drifted into low budget westerns then went into TV (The Gene Autry Show, Ramar Of The Jungle). He dies in 1958.
https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2020/01/vanishing-bride.html
Sam Katzman was the executive producer of this low budget quickie released through Monogram but it's not bad despite some lapses in reason!
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