THE CLIMAX (1944)
Article #394 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 4-13-2002
Posting date: 9-6-2002

An opera singer loses her voice when she becomes involved with a doctor who believes her voice belonged to the woman he loved and which he is intent on silencing.

This movie marked Karloff’s return to Universal in the forties, and I have no doubt they thought they were doing him a favor by putting him in such a classy production, what with the color and the opera and everything. It’s a pity they didn’t come up with a better story; this largely comes across as a blatant attempt by Universal to repeat the success of their earlier PHANTOM OF THE OPERA rather than to produce a good horror movie. So we have lots of pretty colors, lots of beautiful scenery, lots and lots of opera, Karloff and Gale Sondergaard both wasted, and a story which ends up revolving around an opera singer being obsessed with an atomizer. Altogether, it is easy to see why this was perhaps the least of the movies Karloff made for the studio, despite the budget.