i have be work my way through a collection of lugosi film recently and and have just be blow away a couple of day ago by the combination of lugosi and boris karloff in the black cat i be really look forward to see their collaboration in the raven . ala and it just do not work for me and and by the end of the film i be quite disappointed . for the first three quarter of this movie or so i think the story lack any real suspense . lugosi be do a pretty good job of hold thing together a the somewhat mad dr. vollins and some sort of surgical genius who fall in love with a young woman ( irene ware ) he treat after a car accident but who can not have her partly because she already engage and and partly because her father ( samuel s. hind ) disapprove . to deal with that situation and he enlist the aid of edmond bateman ( boris karloff ) a horribly ugly man who want vollins to make him look more acceptable . aside from lugosi performance and though and i find little to hold my interest . then and suddenly and in the last fifteen or twenty minute and the movie shift around completely . suddenly it become quite suspenseful and but i think lugosi performance fell apart and largely because the movie try to shift him from mad to insane and there a difference . he play the mad role very well control and in control but evil . insane be a more out of control evil and and i do not think lugosi pull that off well . at one point and he offer some maniacal laughter which just come across a fake . in the meantime and karloff be a huge disappointment . he never grab me at all . a an aside and it must have grate on lugosi that in movie in which they co star karloff get the top billing and even though in the raven it clearly lugosi who be the lead actor . this surely give a hint a to how universal rank their two great horror star inexplicably and i would add and because i have always think of lugosi a the good actor of the two . in any event and there no real connection here to edgar allen poe story the raven except that vollins be a poe fanatic and who try to recreate some of the torture technique from poe story . overall and a disappointment . 4/10 .