The Corpse Vanishes (1942)
“He robs the living of youth to feed the dead!”
Streamed free from the Internet Archive · no signup, no cost — this film is in the public domain.
Synopsis
One of Bela Lugosi's most gleefully lurid Monogram vehicles. As Dr. Lorenz he murders young brides with a rare orchid's fumes, steals their bodies, and uses their fluids to preserve his countess wife's beauty. A plucky reporter investigates, aided and menaced by a household of grotesques. The premise is pure pulp mad science.
Cast
About the Director
Wallace Fox — Wallace Fox embraces the material's nastiness, giving Lugosi a coffin to sleep in beside his wife and surrounding him with a dwarf, a hulking brute and a crone. The tone is morbid camp delivered with a straight face.
Why It’s Free: The Public-Domain Story
The film is in the public domain in the United States because Banner Productions and Monogram never renewed the 1942 copyright at the end of its first 28-year term, so federal protection lapsed and the work entered the public domain.
Behind the Scenes
Produced by Sam Katzman and Jack Dietz's Banner unit, it became one of the most widely circulated of all Lugosi cheapies once it fell into the public domain. Filmmaker Ed Wood later paid homage to a Lugosi scene from this film.
Did You Know?
- Ed Wood admired the film and re-staged one of its Lugosi scenes in his own work.
- Lugosi and his on-screen wife sleep in side-by-side coffins, anticipating later horror-comedy gags.
- Angelo Rossitto, a frequent Lugosi collaborator, appears as the dwarf henchman Toby.
Reception & Legacy
Long a punching bag for its absurd plot, it has been embraced by cult audiences as one of Lugosi's most entertaining Monogram outings, exactly because it commits so fully to its ghoulish premise.
Spooks Run Wild
The Ape Man
King of the Zombies
The Devil's Hand