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Very well executed

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Life Returns (1935) ** (out of 4)Dr. John Kendrick (Onslow Stevens) is obsessed with bringing the dead back to life but everyone laughs at him. This pretty much forces him out of the profession and before long his wife dies and his young son ends up in a gang where his life goes all wrong. Pretty soon a chance comes along and the doctor can prove his scientific theories.LIFE RETURNS is often confused as to being a Universal horror movie but that's not the case. Thsi was just distributed by Universal for some reason but it wasn't actually produced by them. Another bit of confusion is that Valerie Hobson has a brief role here and we know she appeared in Universal's BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and WEREWOLF IN London the same year. If you're expecting a flat out horror film then you'll certainly be disappointed as this is more family drama mixed with science fiction.The weirdest thing about this ultra weird movie is the fact that it tries to do so many things yet it isn't successful at any of them. For starters, this is a personal drama dealing with the doctor losing everything while he battles to try and prove himself. The film also rips off the Our Gang shorts with the story of the son who falls in with a group of misfits. I'm really not sure why Universal would want to distribute this film because even for a "C" studio this thing would be pretty embarrassing.Onslow, who would eventually appear in HOUSE OF DRAULA, at least manages a decent performance and I'd also argue that Hobson is better here than in the two Universal horror movies she appeared in. The problem is that there's just nothing overly interesting here. This was based on the life of Robert E. Cornish but I'll let you look up what he did and how. As far as the film goes, LIFE RETURNS briefly hits the "horror" genre with the doctor trying to bring life back to a dog but the weirdness level of the picture keeps it somewhat entertaining.

"Life Returns" is another example of a film Universal produced during their horror golden age that, despite sometimes being included among those classics, is not actually a horror film. Instead, it's a maudlin drama with only the slightest science fiction trappings.This film is loosely based (Very loosely based) on a real life incident where scientist revived a dead dog. The filmmakers, for some reason, choose to build one of the most hackneyed melodramas I have ever seen around that premise. You've got a young, ambitious scientist who's dreams of reviving the dead are crushed by the cold harsh realities of corporate commercialism. His wife dies of reasons never further elaborate on. His young son can't sell newspapers and is constantly threatened with "Juvenile Hall," as if that was the worse fate imaginable. Soon, the kid meets up with a gang of young rapscallions, right out of friggin' Little Rascals. After the kind of mean, sadistic dog catcher that only exists in lousy movies like this steals his beloved pet, the kids do a daring escape and release all the dogs from the pound. Meanwhile, Little Jimmy's Dad kind of sits around, getting more depressed. Eventually, the beloved dog is killed and we finally get to the central gimmick the whole movie is built around. Instead of recreating the actual experiment, the characters in the film look just off-screen at the actual stock footage of real scientist doing their thing.I'm sure in real life the scientists just killed a dog for the expressed purpose of reviving it. And I'm fairly certain, after they brought the animal back to life, the beloved owner didn't kneel before the operating table and cuddle. The movie's in the public domain and is widely available on Youtube. Turning the hilariously incoherent self-generated close captioning on actually makes the film somewhat entertaining. Somewhat.

Struggling scientist Dr. John Kendrick (an embarrassingly overwrought performance by Onslow Stevens) creates an experimental serum that can restore life. However, he can't get the necessary funds to continue with his research. In addition, Kendrick gets so caught up in his work that he neglects his son Danny (a supremely annoying portrayal by George Breakston). Flatly directed by Eugene Frenke and James P. Hogan, with a very sappy and talky script by L. Wolfe Gilbert and John F. Goodrich, a sluggish pace, too much goopy sentiment (the maudlin ending in particular is enough to make one puke thanks to its sickening bathos), a rambling narrative that spends a majority of screen time on a gang of obnoxious little kids instead of focusing on the more interesting serum premise, two unappealing central characters, and a slushy score by Oliver Wallace and Clifford Vaughan, this picture alas turns out to be quite the arduous chore to endure. On the plus side, Lois Wilson provides a little much needed (and appreciated) spark as the sunny Dr. Louise Stone and Robert H. Planck's black and white cinematography boasts neat use of fades and dissolves. But overall this clunker still rates as a real wash-out.

I'm a huge fan of the classic horror & sci-fi films of the 1930s and 1940s, particularly those of Universal. So when I came across this obscure title, starring Onslow Stevens and Valerie Hobson (both of much better Universal titles), I thought I'd struck paydirt. Unfortunately, I struck just plain old ordinary dirt. For starters, this movie looks cheap. If you're expecting any of the Universal polish that you find in most of their classic films, forget it. This looks like the kind of Poverty Row cheapie Bela Lugosi would be doing in years to come. The story is basically about bringing dead dogs back to life. The main selling point is supposedly this guy Robert Cornish, who appears in the movie but hardly speaks and rarely has the camera focused on his face when he does. Apparently for about 5 minutes back in the day he made headlines for bringing a dog back to life. The actual footage of that is crammed into this movie and it's about as cheap and bland as you might expect. Although seeing the guy give the dog mouth-to-mouth is worth a gander. However, despite this movie basically only being made because of Mr. Cornish, he's not the real star of it. The star is Onslow Stevens, turning in a dreary performance as Dr. John Kendrick. He staggers around in a daze for most of the picture (when he's not acting crazy, that is). But it's not entirely his fault. The character is written so unlikeable that you can't root for him even though the movie's objective is to make you do just that. After suffering ONE setback, Dr. Kendrick turns into a total loser wandering around like he's lost and looking disheveled. The guy lets his practice go to ruin, lets his wife die and kid live on the street, all the while whining and moping. He's a mess. Speaking of the kid, he's very annoying and the actor playing him is awful ("Scoota! Scoota!"). Anyway, the best part of this whole movie to me was a minor tidbit. When they show the newspaper article announcing Kendrick's engagement, the headline below that reads "Dog Saves Lad From Wasps." That would have made for a much more interesting film, I think. I was pretty disappointed in this movie and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody but Universal completists and people who like movies they can make fun of.