Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #171937 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-06-29
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 69 minutes

Customer Reviews

Lugosi Rises Above Another Abysmal Movie
"Black Dragons" is a film that, as most Bela Lugosi fans know, was made for Sam Katzman and his Banner Productions, and then released by Monogram Pictures. So forget about plot; plot in a Katzman flick is only incidental to the shoddy sets, direction, and acting. The truth be told, this is one of those pictures that, if it didn't have a Lugosi, would not have been made.

OK, here's the plot . . . and don't ask me to repeat it: Seems a group of prominent American businessmen are being slain. We also know that it is Lusosi doing the slaying, because it's revealed very early on in the film as to what he's up to. Now, here's the twist. The American businessmen are really Japanese, having been trtansformed by none other than Dr. Lugosi, in this picture a Nazi Evil Scientist (Boo!) and sent here as a fifth column.

It immediately strikes our sense of logic that it would be far easier just to send over a geoup of Germans or Italians than go to all the trouble of changing a person's race. But this is a Katzman flick, so logic is the first thing a viewer leaves behind when entering. Of course Lugosi is caught (by a pre-Lone Ranger Clayton Moore), thus getting his at the end. It is amazing to me that no matter how ridiculous the plot, Lugosi remains solidly professional rather than go down the chute with the movie. One reason why I become angry when someone tries to tell me that he was a bad actor.

If this picture were set in today's age, Lugosi would do quite well as a dream-come true to Michael Jackson and Joan Rivers, among others.

The quality of the film is dark and murky - apparently no effort was made to clean things up, but you can't go wrong for the price, especially if you are a fan of the genre or Lugosi. Perhaps the film will resurface in Bela Junior's restored series of his father's films. I certainly hope so.

Colorized Black Dragons.
No movie with Bela Lugosi in it can be a total bore, but this one comes too close. It deals with a Nazi doctor performing surgery on Japanese spies to make them pass as Americans. This is done to ease their schemes at sabotaging our war effort. It is a cheap movie, a slow movie, but would not even suffer too much for these flaws if it did not also rely on a long and awkward flashback sequence near the end, snuffing out what suspense had been built. The quality of the tape is not bad, but either you like colorized movies or you don't. This reviewer does not. Die-hard Lugosi fans (are there any other kind?) may want to purchase Black Dragons, but others will find it too ... ehh.

Don't buy this film on its own.
This is one of Lugosi's poverty row movies, from the period when his career really started to go downhill (although he did make Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man later than this one). There's a series of murders and people go around trying to figure out what's going on, and it all ends up in a second world war era anti-Japanese anticlimax ending. It's quite boring, definately one of Lugosi's worst movies (although not as painful or embarrassing as "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla".

Of course, Bela Lugosi fans know that no matter how bad a movie was, Lugosi's acting was always sincere. He always did a good job, and you will want to see this no matter how bad I (a fellow fan) say it is. But do yourself the favour and get it in a multi DVD set, for example the Horror Classics 50 movie pack, instead of wasting several dollars on it alone.