Boris and Bela and Brain Transplants- If it’s Saturday, This Must Be “Black Friday”!

Tonight on MeTV, thank god it's Friday- on a Saturday- as we present a fully loaded program featuring lots of fun Sven offerings, wrapped around a tragic tale of mobster wars and a brain transplant with a Jekyll-Hyde effect- check the calendar - it must be "Black Friday"!

This eerie 1940 film is notable in the fact that Bela Lugosi plays- a gangster! At least Boris Karloff is in more familiar territory- he plays a doctor who wanders into areas of medicine that he perhaps should avoid. He's Dr. Ernest Sovac, whom we meet as he's about to head to the electric chair! We flash back to a certain Friday the 13th in the past- when Sovac's  best friend,kindly college professor George Kingsley, is accidentally caught in a clash between rival mobsters that leaves both himself and gangster Red Cannon in serious condition. Dr Sovac is devastated by his friend's condition- a brain injury that most likely means his demise- but- with the criminal Cannon in sad shape with a broken back, Sovac decides he must sacrifice this lesser man to save his noble friend by transplanting a portion of Cannon's brain into the professor- a somewhat illegal and less than ethical operation.

Amazingly, it works! The professor is on the road to total recovery- but- something strange is happening- he is displaying character traits of the late gangster- who has a huge stash of money from a previous exploit hidden away. Sovac realizes that this jackpot could fund his future research- and opts to take the professor to the criminal's old big city stomping grounds to try to spur latent memories in the transplanted brain cells and get him to remember where to find the loot. By this point, Kingsley's partial gangster brain is  becoming so dominant, he even physically changes to look more like the late Red Cannon- and he doesn't want to follow Sovac's plan- he'd rather take  revenge on his enemies while getting back both his old gun moll and his ill-gotten gains! Things get complicated by a visit from Kingsley's family-  and Bela, as  rival gangster  Marnay, suspecting that something is amiss , endeavoring to claim the stolen money.

This  movie has some really creepy scenes, thanks to  Stanley Ridges and his split personality portrayal. He inherited the job after Karloff was switched from the role of the Professor to that of the doctor- which bumped Bela from THAT role to his part as a crime boss. We'll give you the lowdown on the cast-plus- we'll drag out a "Dragnet" parody; finally present a conversation we had with the fine actor Malcolm McDowell that had previously been scheduled for an earlier program; and visit with an up and coming horror makeup artist- and more!

"Black Friday" runs tonight on MeTV at 10 pm eastern/pacific, 9 central, or check local listings (or www.metv.com) for time and channel in your part of the universe. In Chicago, on our sister station WCIU, the U, viewers can get a second run of "Monolith Monsters" at 11 am.

If you happen to be near our Chicago area, please remember you can join me to do the "Svengoolie Stomp" and contribute to the Make a Wish foundation at the Chicago Ghost Conference this morning at 11 am! You can also meet me later at the Pumpkin Patch Fest in Summit, IL later this afternoon- just check the appearances tab here on our site for details. You'll also find the link to the podcast of our WGN guest shot with Nick Digilio from earlier this week. make sure you check out that appearance section occasionally during this season- a few more items will probably be added.

Wind up your Saturday night with us and "Black Friday" on MeTV!