Themes: Mad Scientists, Mental Breakdown, Mind Games
Main Cast: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Stanley Ridges, Anne Nagel, Anne Gwynne
Release Year: 1940
Country: US
Run Time: 70 minutes
Plot
Told in flashback as Dr. Ernest Sovac (Boris Karloff) is marched into the gas chamber, Black Friday concerns kindly college professor George Kingsley (Stanley Ridges), who is seriously injured when he is caught in the middle of a gangster shootout. Kingsley's best friend Sovac performs an emergency "brain-ectomy", replacing Kingsley's gray matter with that of dying gangster Red Cannon. Though the operation is successful, the mild-mannered Kingsley occasionally lapses into Cannon's more brutal personality, and it is during one of these spells that he reveals the existence of a cache of stolen money. Hoping to use these ill-gotten funds to finance his neurological research, Sovac hypnotizes Kingsley into "becoming" Cannon, and while thus entranced the poor fellow commits several murders, including the elimination of his chief rival, mobster Eric Marnay (Bela Lugosi). Ultimately, Sovac is forced to kill Kingsley/Cannon "for the good of mankind", which brings us full circle to Death Row. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Black Friday is, of course, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in modern clothing and with a "scientific" explanation, and it is probably no coincidence that Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale was being readied at the time by MGM as a vehicle for none other than Spencer Tracy. Although they didn't employ anyone of that caliber, Universal had both Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi on the payroll and much have been said in recent years about the studio's failure to bring the horror icons together in Black Friday. For the more casual viewer, however, such trivia means little, especially since the real star of the thriller is Stanley Ridges, a veteran character actor who earned the role of a lifetime playing both the kindly and learned Professor Kingsley and the homicidal gangster Red Cannon. Ridges is a revelation, and, like Tracy, attempts the difficult task of creating two very different characters with little to no makeup. To Ridges' eternal credit, he succeeds where Tracy would fail. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Karloff plays a famous doctor, Dr. Ernest Sovac, whose best friend, a bookish college professor (played by Stanley Ridges), is run down while crossing a street. In order to save his friend's life, Sovac implants part of another man's brain into the professor's. Unfortunately, the other man was a gangster who was involved in the accident. The professor recovers but at times behaves like the gangster, and his whole personality changes. Sovac is horrified but also intrigued, because the gangster has hidden $500,000 USD somewhere in the city. The doctor continues to treat his friend and, when the professor is under the influence of the gangster's brain, Karloff attempts to have the man lead him to the fortune. Bela Lugosi plays a gangster also trying to get his hands on the cash.
The original script cast Lugosi as the doctor and Karloff as the professor. For unknown reasons, Karloff insisted on playing the doctor. Rather than a straight switch though, Lugosi was given the minor role of a rival gangster, while character actor Stanley Ridges was brought in to play the professor.[1]
The film provided a rare opportunity for the now forgotten Ridges to display his considerable acting ability,[1][2] and gave him one of his finest screen roles (Ridges was nearly always one of many supporting cast members, and seldom was cast in roles where he could really make an impression. He is also remembered as Professor Siletsky in the original To Be or Not to Be, and as the Scotland Yard inspector in the Charles Laughton thriller, The Suspect).
