By 1942, Bela Lugosi was turning out many low budgeted films just to keep working. He did a string of nine features for Monogram and Sam Katzman. The Corpse Vanishes is probably one of the best of the series. In it, Bela portrays a botanist who attempts to keep his 80-year-old wife young by injecting her with the bodily fluids of virgin brides. He induces a deathlike trance in virgin brides at their wedding through means of a rare orchid and its fumes which he has developed. Once the brides are pronounced dead, he steals their “bodies” and takes them to his home where he extracts the bodily fluid that rejuvenates his 80 year old wife and temporarily makes her young and beautiful. He then salts away the sleeping brides as sort of a blood bank for future use. A female reporter (Luana Walters) begins to sense a story in the Dr. and visits his home along with a young and handsome Tris Coffin who just happens to be going there on business and provides her with a ride. A dwarf, half-wit and their mother aid the mad Doctor. Secret panels and staircases abound in the house and soon the young female reporter is hot on the trail of what is going on. A throw-back to the Dracula days has Bela and his wife sleeping at night in matching silk-lined coffins. The actress who played his wife (Elizabeth Russell) was so taken aback by the coffins that she refused to lie in hers and a double had to be used in the scene. The half-wit Angel becomes too much for the Dr to deal with and he kills him, much to the mother’s chagrin. The young reporter sets up a fake wedding to prove to the authorities what is going on, but the Dr. suspects what she is up to and kidnaps her instead. As he attempts to speed away, the police shoots his dwarf assistant and he leaves him for dead. When he arrives home, he makes hasty plans to retreat to a new base of operations, but not before he can drain fluid from our heroine. The Mother of the dwarf and halfwit is out of her mind with grief and knifes the good Dr. for what he did to her sons and he chokes her into unconsciousness. Too late, he cannot complete his plan and dies over the body of our heroine. The wife now growing older by the second is killed by the dying Mother. and the hero bursts in to rescue his intended bride. The film ends with the marriage of the two leads with nobody passing out except the comedy relief. Roan has found a pretty fair print of this old movie and while it does have some scratches in places, they have brightened it up with a good transfer and enhanced the sound to Dolby Digital. On the reverse side of the disc is Bela in his PRC “classic” THE DEVIL