THE CLIMAX
(Universal)
F it is true that the target of the average film producer is the 14-year-old intelligence, then it is equally true that in this case Universal
Pictures have lowered the range by a good ten years. Designed as a harumscarem shocker with technicoloured trappings, and embellished with snatches of Chopin and Schubert (snatches is the right word; the composers are not acknowledged), The Climax presents Boris Karloff as a mad doctor who has already strangled and embalmed = one prima donna and tries to silence another (Susanna Foster) by hypnotising the voice out of her. Since Miss Foster really has quite a good soprano voice, this is pure prejudice, but what with Dr. Karleff moping round the opera house and turning up at rehearsals, and the lovesick attentions of one of the silliestlooking leading men in screen history (Turhan Bey), she never has a chance to do herself justice. Coming so soon after The Phantom ot the Opera, of which it is so obviously such a poor imitation, this film would have been much more appropriately entitled The Anti-Climax.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19450323.2.35.1.2
Bibliographic details
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 300, 23 March 1945, Page 19
Word count
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181THE CLIMAX New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 300, 23 March 1945, Page 19
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