Professor Morlant, a British Egyptologist, seeks immortality through the power of a jewel buried in the tomb of an Oriental idol. Upon his death, Morlant returns to earth to seek vengeance upon those who removed the jewel from his grave.
Dragore, El vampiro, El resucitado, O Ressuscitado, Dragore, O Fantasma, O Zumbi, Bes: Kletba fantomú, Kleopatran timantti, Le fantôme vivant, Упырь, Вампирът, Ghoul, Der Ghul, Το φάντασμα, Гуль, 食尸鬼
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Maybe my least favorite Boris Karloff film to date. Just an all around snooze with a couple moments that show off why Karloff is such a captivating screen presence. There just needed to be more of them.
"The Ghoul" starts off on a strong note, it has a wonderful brooding atmosphere that sets up an interesting Gothic tone. Boris Karloff stars as an Egyptologist, Prof. Moriant, who upon his death bed sets about the final stages of his resurrection with the help of his reluctant assistant, swearing revenge upon anyone that gets in the way of his ritual.
The first ten to fifteen minutes of the film sets up a really interesting plot, and I was initially enjoying it more than Karloff's previous film "The Mummy". However, as the film progressed it started to lose its way. The film pretty much turned into some kind of weird espionage film, with multiple parties trying to find a piece…
letterboxd.com/zombifan/list/my-hooptober-8-my-homework/
Hooptober...10 films from 10 decades
"An ancient curse is about to be unleashed. "
The Ghoul...1933
Directed by...T Hayes Hunter
Starring...Boris Karloff, Cedric Hardwicke Earnest Thesiger, Dorothy Hyson
This highly atmospheric thriller was considered a lost film for decades.
In a cash in of a type on The Mummy, Boris Karloff is an egyptoligst who comes into possession of a jewel that can grant immortality.
When he dies the gem is stolen, and he comes back as a living dead like creature to get revenge.
It plays out more like a old dark house, who done it type movie, with Karloff only being in it a few minutes and only saying a handful of lines.
It does have Ernest Thesiger to hold fans over when Karloff isn't on screen.
It's Karloff's first Brittish film and Brittan's first sound horror film.
The film has fallen into the public domain and can be watched for free on Youtube.
After the success of Frankenstein and The Mummy, an ultimately short-lived contract dispute allowed Boris Karloff to return to Britain to seek exciting new opportunities, but what? Shakespeare? A screwball comedy? A passion project about a lonely longshoreman finding love on the London docks? Nah, he played an Egyptologist’s reanimated corpse going on the rampage!
Well, sort of. Between Henry Morlant’s death, barely 10 minutes into the film, and his resurrection 20 minutes before the end, there are 45 minutes of exhausting, largely unfunny and, most importantly, Karloff-free vaudeville, and not the good kind. In the cinematic equivalent of a sports team playing for time, we are “treated” to three quarters of an hour—this is an 80-minute film, don’t forget—of…
Come for Karloff (and Ernest Thesiger), grow disappointed by bickering over a jewel. A gem of Anubis worshipped by his dying Egyptologist and one seeing his eventual resurrection. Upon death, guests with ulterior motives snoop around his manor vying for the valuable relic.
So much time is spent with them, Karloff's titular ghoul becomes a sidenote, even after stumbling back to life. He does however have one indelible scene with an Ankh carved into his chest. It's as if this British production didn't grasp how iconic and in his prime the actor was. And having such gothic dressing and not allow the star to tower over the picture is an additional crime. Least this once lost film was found or else mythical status would've grown over what's a so-so reality. Watched via MGM's DVD.
Hooptober 6.0, pt.19- Walk like an Egyptian
6/6- 6 Decades (COMPLETE!)
6/6- Countries Represented (USA, UK, Italy, Mexico, Germany, France) (COMPLETE!)
6/6- Films before 1966 (COMPLETE!)
1st T. Hayes Hunter
One of Britain's first full-length sound horror films, The Ghoul is most interesting for how it blends both the Hollywood and the German styles of horror into a unique, if not entirely successful, blend. The plot, based on a then-popular play, concerns an Egyptologist who appears to rise from the dead to reclaim a legendary jewel that he had requested be buried with him. Said Egyptologist is played by Boris Karloff, triumphantly returning to the country of his birth after the colossal success of Frankenstein. The rest of the cast,…
TCM aired The Ghoul last week, and although I missed that showing (I'm sure I would have enjoyed film historian David J. Skal's intro/outro since I love his DVD commentary for Tod Browning's Freaks), I remembered that I actually bought a copy earlier this year. On paper, the cast looks like a cinephile's dream - Boris Karloff, Cedric Hardwicke, Ernest Thesiger, Anthony Bushell and Ralph Richardson, aka five of the finest British actors of that (or any) era - but in truth the story is deadly dull, and the quality of the MGM-distributed disc is mediocre, displaying an image so dim that I can't properly appreciate Günther Krampf's cinematography and Alfred Junge's art direction. Karloff has remarkably little to do…
Once lost, now found and restored, The Ghoul is an attractive, nigh expressionistic, production with foggy dark streets and gorgeous sets. However, the movie is better-looking than it is good.
A clunky adaptation from its theatrical script, the confused story centers on a sacred thingamajig, now in the hands of a dying Egyptologist (Boris Karloff). A whole smattering of players want to get their hands on this item, from which Karloff’s corpse becomes separated.
I’m with Scrambled Face, agreeing that “you'll be praying to Anubis that Karloff comes back and throttles all of these shrill jokers ASAP.”
Lowered expectations might help, but it is quite a good-looking film.
Also, this Deco movie poster is amazing, too.
Needs more Karloff. Looks and feels like a silent movie, overly melodramatic and far too much time spent on the uninteresting characters while Karloff does his Frankenstein thing in tiny bits. Great makeup though. In some scenes this Ghoul looks more terrifying than Frankenstein’s monster!
An odd mix of self-aware exoticism and gaslit skullduggery--Boris Karloff is his reliable self in an early role, but he's not in it as much as you'd expect, and the middle part in particular with its comic(?) relief and multi-character juggling act may wear out its welcome with contemporary audiences even as period fans find a lot to enjoy.
T. Hayes Hunter’s horror in which an Egyptologist comes back from the dead to take vengeance on those who have dishonoured his tomb. Stars Boris Karloff, Cedric Hardwicke and Dorothy Tyson.
Adapted from the play of the same title by Frank King and Leonard Hines, the story concerns Egyptologist and professor Henry Morlant (Boris Karloff) who considers an old jewel will give him abilities of rejuvenation if it is presented up to the god Anubis. But when Henry perishes, his helper Laing (Ernest Thesiger) abducts the jewel.
While a multitude of interlopers, including a dishonest lawyer (Cedric Hardwicke) and a phony vicar (Ralph Richardson), descend on the professor's manor to take away the jewel for themselves, Morlant comes back from…
This British attempt to cash in on some Karloffian horror looks absolutely fantastic, with atmospheric set design and inventive lighting, but stumbles quite heavily over the dramatic hurdles. Great-actors-to-be Cedric Hardwicke, Ralph Richardson and Kathleen Harrison display too clearly that they had yet to master the art of screen acting, though Ernest Thesiger gets away with it because he remained deliciously over the top for the rest of his career.
