Directed by:
Reginald Le BorgScreenplay:
John C. HigginsCinematography:
Gordon AvilComposer:
Les BaxterCast:
Basil Rathbone, Akim Tamiroff, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Bela Lugosi, Herbert Rudley, Patricia Blair, Phyllis Stanley, Tor Johnson, Claire Carleton (more)Plots(1)
The night before he is to be hanged for a murder he did not commit, young Dr. Gordon Ramsey is visited in his cell by his old mentor, eminent surgeon Sir Joel Cadmund. Cadmund offers to see that Ramsey gets a proper burial and gives him a sleeping powder to get him through the night, which Ramsey takes, unaware it is really an East Indian drug, nind andhera ("the black sleep"), which induces a death-like state of anesthesia. Pronounced dead in his cell, he is turned over to Cadmund, who promptly revives him and takes him to his home in a remote abbey. Cadmund explains he believes Ramsey is innocent and needs his talents to help him in an project, which he is reluctant to immediately discuss further. In fact, Cadmund's wife lies in a coma from a deep-seated brain tumor, and he is attempting to find a safe surgical route to its site by experimenting on the brains of others, whom Ramsey comes to learn are alive during the process, anesthetized by the "black sleep," and are taken to a hidden recovery room in the abbey from which few emerge. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Basil Rathbone
South Africa
Best movies:
The Mark of Zorro (1940)
Captain Blood (1935)
We're No Angels (1955)
Akim Tamiroff
Russian Empire
Best movies:
The Reluctant Saint (1962)
Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Lon Chaney Jr.
USA
Best movies:
Of Mice and Men (1939)
The Defiant Ones (1958)
Love Is News (1937)
John Carradine
USA
Best movies:
Captains Courageous (1937)
The Invisible Man (1933)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Bela Lugosi
Austria-Hungary
Best movies:
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
Ninotchka (1939)
The Phantom Creeps (1949) (TV movie) - a.f.
Herbert Rudley
USA
Best movies:
Rhapsody in Blue (1945)
The Court Jester (1955)
The Jayhawkers (1959)
Patricia Blair
USA
Best movies:
The Black Sleep (1956)
The Electric Horseman (1979)
The Ladies Man (1961)
Phyllis Stanley
UK
Best movies:
Thunder on the Hill (1951)
Strange Lady in Town (1955)
Sidewalks of London (1938)
Tor Johnson
Sweden
Best movies:
Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
State of the Union (1948)
Houdini (1953)
Claire Carleton
USA
Best movies:
The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
Mildred Pierce (1945)
Westward the Women (1951)
Aubrey Schenck
USA
Best movies:
The Black Sleep (1956)
Clive Morgan
UK
Best movies:
Gaslight (1944)
If I Were King (1938)
The Young Lions (1958)
George Sawaya
USA
Best movies:
L'Aventure du Poséidon (1972)
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)
Hands of a Stranger (1962)