1944’s The Climax was Boris Karloff first movie in color, specifically Technicolor. I think it is more accurate to say, “well, technically, in colors, mostly peachy-beige and a kind of dark teal” Mostly, elements have a weird kind of pallor to them.
While I might be on the fence about the extent to which it is in color, I can tell you without a doubt it is not a horror film. Karloff is the doctor for an opera company and he strangles to death star soprano June Vincent because she won’t give up her career for him. He then perpetuates a ruse she has gone missing. Not sure why he thought she Would even consider doing that, as she hates him. His response: “I don’t hate you. I hate the thing that’s come between us—your voice.”
Jump to ten years later, and Vincent is still thought to be missing. Karloff is still working as the physician for the opera, and along comes Susanna Foster, a young singer who sounds uncannily like Vincent. He must have really hated the dead woman’s voice, as he now decides to silence Foster as well, though not permanently. Instead, he hypnotizes her to convince her to stop singing. He also gives her an atomizer to always carry around, which will reinforce his subconsciously-placed suggestion.
Turhan Bey is her fiancée and aspiring composer. Jane Farrar is the current star of the opera, who is all too happy to have her new rival lock up on stage and be unable to perform. Thomas Gomez, dependable as always, is the company’s director. He’s getting tired of such drama as Farrar being justifiably outraged when tenor George Dolenz takes the opportunity to grope her on-stage. Lastly, Gale Sondergaard is once again cast in the kind of role she was seemed doomed to play for the majority of her career, basically Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca when producers couldn’t get Judith Anderson.
A similarity to that movie is this is another of those “gaslight” films. By that, I don’t mean it has a plot of deception like the 1944 movie of that title. I only mean it is of an era where the lights were all gas jets. For whatever reason, every aspect of this production is exactly in line with what I have come to expect from a picture shot in Technicolor and set in that time. Some might say “opulent”. I would instead say “stuffy” and “stodgy”.
I will also say “slightly batshit”, as concerns the musical performances. The first has a massive set design which elevates camp right into the stratosphere. Speaking of space, I guess that’s supposed to be a giant mirror in the background, except it is just a gaudy frame around a vast expanse of black matte with a silver grid over it. Is this secretly supposed to be a spaceship and that is their viewscreen? And can I see that movie instead?
I ask because I was absolutely miserable watching this. First, I don’t watch a Karloff movie expecting musical numbers. Second, very little genuine intrigue of any sort happens in the padded runtime.
What might have made this more tolerable would have been if Foster delivered a better performance. When she isn’t singing, she looks like she would rather be anywhere other than here. When she is singing, she doesn’t even breathe the way an opera star would have to in order to project to the rafters like that. Then there’s the voice of whomever she is miming to. I may be a moderate fan of opera, but the performance here is less like singing and more like screaming in tune to accompanying orchestra.
I still try to find one nice thing to say about each film I see, but that’s going to be difficult for this one. How about this: I like how Bey gets so excited watching her debut performance in the opera house that he keeps biting his program. In the end, it is torn to shreds, as if it was a lazy child’s homework assignment eaten by a theoretical dog.
The Climax is a dull, dull, dull film that is completely forgettable. If there is one thing I might remember it for is how the title seems to be completely irrelevant in regards to its contents. Then again, there was that one scene where Foster is getting ready to leave and she is very flustered that she can’t find her muff. Maybe if somebody could give her easy directions to it, then maybe she could climax. Oh, wait, she means she can’t find her muffler. My bad.
Dir: George Waggner
Starring Boris Karloff, Susanna Foster, Turhan Bey
Watched as part of Shout Factory’s blu-ray box set Universal Horror: Volume 4