"An inordinate amount of needlessly sadistic action"

Beebo and I watched an old Gothic adventure movie called "The Black Castle" last night that we really enjoyed, and I would recommend to anyone. It's funny to look up old reviews of genre films like this--at the time of their release, they're often critically received as warmly as a sequel to "Saw" would be today. Here's the New York Times' opinion:

December 26, 1952

At the Palace

O. A. G.

"The Black Castle," a Christmas day offering of questionable taste at the Palace, is one of those dreary "horror" tales manufactured to shiver the souls of the space-suit set. They won't even blink an unclouded eye at this drivel for they know the hero and heroine—in this case, Richard Greene and Paula Corday—will survive the rigors and tortures administered by a molar-grinding, sadistic Stephen McNally in his bleak Bavarian castle in the Black Forest. And they do live through such assorted stupidities as black panthers, crocodile pits and lethal drugs as Mr. Greene strives to ascertain if Mr. McNally killed some of his friends.

Parents are specifically warned that an inordinate amount of needlessly sadistic action is to be seen in this aberration. Adults can pass it up on the grounds that it is a dull dud. To open Universal-International's "Black Castle" at any time is a mistake; to tender it to the public on Christmas Day is remarkably indiscreet.

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Getting to see this movie "at the Palace" on Christmas Day 1952 sounds like great fun to me, even if "O.A.G." is appalled!