The Black Sleep (1956) on Netflix
London, 1872. Dr. Gordon Ramsay faces hanging for a murder he denies. Sir Joel Cadman offers to save him with a drug that fakes death, in return for help with experiments.
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- IMDb6.0/102,403 votes
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Trailer
Plot summary
In 1872 London, Dr. Gordon Ramsay waits in a prison cell to hang for a murder he says he did not commit. The surgeon Sir Joel Cadman visits him there and offers a way out: a potion he calls the black sleep, which leaves a person in a deathlike state. Ramsay takes it, is pronounced dead, and wakes at Cadman's remote abbey, where Cadman asks for his help in mapping the functions of the human brain by experimenting on living subjects kept under the same drug. Cadman's wife Angelina lies comatose from an inoperable brain tumor, and he needs a safe way to operate.
Cast
- Sally Yarnellas Nancy--Female Monster
- Peter Gordonas Sgt. Steele
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Black Sleep (1956)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Bela Lugosi insisted on having some lines of dialogue, so director Reginald LeBorg shot a few close-ups of him without sound just to pacify him; the takes ended up on the cutting room floor.
- The Black Sleep marked Bela Lugosi's last complete role before his death in August 1956, though later-shot scenes of his were used in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space.
- Bela Lugosi was ill during shooting and recovering from a drug addiction, so director Reginald LeBorg gave him the role of the deaf-mute manservant Casimir.
- Reginald LeBorg added dialogue to a scene of Dr. Cadman discussing his wife to build sympathy for him, and consulted a neurosurgeon so Cadman's operation on a living brain would look realistic.
