Universal 1940A

Hey, again with the lack of monster, but with the crime thriller, with a bit of a sci-fi twist. This is Black Friday.

A professor gets into a car accident with a bunch of hoodlums leaving him in hospital and the lead criminal dead. However, the lead criminal knows where the money is, and the friend of the professor is a morally flexible doctor who decides the best way to save the professor is to put the criminal's brain into the professor's body, with the benefit of maybe accessing where the money is. When stressed about the criminal's past, the professor becomes the criminal and goes on a killing spree of his old companions, until many many people are dead.

This does have the hook of the brain transplant (which doesn't explain how the new brain has both sets of memories...), leading to the crime thriller. Karloff is the doctor, and Lugosi is one of the crooks, so while Karloff does have something interesting to do, Lugosi just feels like "bad crook #7" and doesn't add anything with his presence. This looks to be due to actor casting shuffling around that leaves Stanley Ridges with the meaty role.

Anyway, I like their crime thrillers, so I'm on board with this.

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