Directed by: William Nigh
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Joan Barclay, George Pembroke
Wow, this is a totally different kind of role for Bela Lugosi! You see, instead of his normal sort of creepy guy role, he’s instead… a creepy guy who hypnotizes and kills people. Well, stick with what you’re good at, I guess.
In Black Dragons, five industry big-wigs are methodically killed after attending a party that Bela crashes, and the cops have to figure out who’s doing it and why! If you’re confused about how the phrase “Black Dragons” has anything to do with this, I’ll let you in on the end of the flick where the entire plot is explained. I’m pretty sure nobody cares all that much about the ending of a 70 year old Bela Lugosi movie, right? All right, it turns out that the five guys were actually Japanese spies who got plastic surgery from Lugosi back when he was working for the Nazis, and the name of the squad was the Black Dragons. Makes sense, right? It sure would’ve been great if there were ANYTHING in the film before the end recap to suggest anything even close to what was going on.
That’s the thing with mysteries, you have to throw the audience a bone or two, or they lose interest and just get angry at the end when it turns out it was such a ridiculous premise that there was no way they could’ve figured it out. I guess it’s possible that some people watch movies like this and don’t try to figure out what’s going on, but I’m certainly not one of those people. Does that make me strange?
Films in Boxes 
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