Scared to Death
| Scared to Death | |
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| Directed by | Christy Cabanne |
| Produced by | William B. David |
| Written by | W.J. Abbott |
| Starring | Bela Lugosi George Zucco Nat Pendleton Molly Lamont |
| Music by | Carl Hoefle |
| Cinematography | Marcel LePicard |
| Editing by | George McGuire |
| Distributed by | Screen Guild Productions |
| Release date(s) | February 1, 1947 |
| Running time | 65 min. |
| Language | English |
Scared to Death (1947) is a horror film directed by Christy Cabanne and starring Bela Lugosi. It was filmed in Cinecolor, is one of only three color pictures Lugosi made, and the only one he starred in. The film is notable for its narration by a dead woman — she describes the events leading up to her death.
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[edit] Synopsis
Scared to Death opens with the disclosure by morgue examiners that a beautiful woman has literally died of fright. The plot reveals how she reached the fatal stage of terror.
The woman is married to the son of a doctor, the proprietor of a private sanatorium, where she is under unwilling treatment. Both the son and the doctor indicate they want the marriage dissolved. Arriving at the scene is a mysterious personage identified as the doctor's brother who formerly was a stage magician in Europe. He is accompanied by a threatening dwarf.
After it is apparent that the wife is terrified of the foreigners, it is disclosed that she is the former wife and partner of a Paris dancer known as René, who had been shot by the Nazis. Attempts to draw a confession that she had betrayed her dancer husband and had collaborated with the Nazis led to the use of a device employing a death mask of the dead patriot, which literally frightens her to death.
Although the young newspaperman hero and his sweetheart guess the answer to the story, they allow the diagnosis "scared to death" to stand.
[edit] Cast
- Bela Lugosi as Prof. Leonide
- George Zucco as Dr. Joseph Van Ee
- Nat Pendleton as Bill Raymond
- Molly Lamont as Laura Van Ee / Laurette La Valle
- Joyce Compton as Jane Cornell
- Gladys Blake as Lilybeth
- Roland Varno as Ward Van Ee
- Douglas Fowley as Terry Lee
- Stanley Andrews as Pathologist
- Angelo Rossitto as Indigo
- Lee Bennett as Rene
- Stanley Price as Autopsy Surgeon
[edit] Trivia
- The film was featured on an episode of Deadly Cinema.
- This film and Buck Privates Come Home were Nat Pendleton's last films.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Scared to Death at the Internet Movie Database
- Scared to Death is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
- Scared to Death at AllRovi
- Paul Lewis, 2009: Review of Scared to Death at DVDCompare
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