Before cryogenics was a term that lay people even used Boris Karloff was using it to kill and cure cancer. In fact another medical researcher Roger Pryor is using a technique which Karloff published before he mysteriously disappeared up in the northern woods. After having the scientific community rap him on the knuckles Pryor and nurse Jo Ann Sayers are up to the place where Karloff was last heard from. It seems as though Karloff had a place on and island in the middle of a lake where he did his experiments. He and a few others including the sheriff, the coroner, and a young heir went on a boat out to said island and were never heard from again ten years earlier.What was interesting about The Man With Nine Lives is that Karloff's experiment did have some validity which Pryor's work kind of bears his theory out. That's movie science not necessarily the real thing. Still when Pryor and Sayers go out and find Karloff and the others Karloff has really gone haywire on the subject. As for the others their actions really cause what happens in the climax.This one will satisfy Boris Karloff fans and others as well.

Perhaps the most notable of Karloff's 'mad doctor' films made at Columbia: it's enjoyable along the way, with some good dialogue, but the low-budget hurts the overall effort (though the ice-chamber set is impressive and suitably atmospheric) – and, in the end, it can't hold a candle to his Universal films! The plot is intriguing (though it necessitates that Karloff make a rather belated entrance) and the star is in top form in a role which, while confining him to one set, basically allows him to run the whole gamut of emotions (except maybe love, since he's made-up to look as an elderly man) – from commitment to his cause to disappointment at other people's intolerance (especially a fellow doctor, who should know better!), from bitterness at being held from completing his experiments (first, by having his laboratory 'invaded' by authority figures out to arrest him and, then, by having his secret formula – a cure for cancer! – destroyed by a young man for purely selfish reasons: the boy's inheritance having slipped through his fingers because he has unaccountably gone 'missing' for 10 years, he's determined that Karloff won't have his day of glory either!!).That said, the film's major fault – apart from a lackluster supporting cast – still lies within the plot itself, which I find to be chronically silly: when the hero and heroine want to go to Karloff's old place across the water, they're told off by a frightened boatman from the mainland (this ominous device works well in a Gothic setting but it's just stupid in a modern one – though, to be fair to this film, it's also utilized in THE MAN WHO CHANGED HIS MIND [1936]); the figures of authority are so one-dimensional (they're not prepared to listen to Karloff even after having themselves being miraculously revived – talk of gratitude!) as to be really grating and I can't tell you how amused I was when, having it dawned on Karloff that none of them will be missed after all this time, he was free to use them as guinea pigs in his attempt to discover again, through trial and error(!), just what the ingredients of his formula were!! This latter element, however, is perhaps the film's most blatant 'boo-boo': when Karloff is revived, he tells our heroes what happened 10 years earlier and says that he remembered it all like it was yesterday – in fact, in a flashback, we see him take note of the very ingredients which comprise the secret formula, down to the exact dose he needs from each of them for it to work – but then, conveniently for plot purposes, he forgets when the others are revived as well and the paper ends up being thrown into the fire…so, he has to start all over again!! Likewise, during the finale, after having seen a number of times already that it takes several hours for someone to be revived from freezing, the heroine regains consciousness in a matter of seconds – just enough to allow the dying Karloff (having been shot by a brand new 'posse' arriving on the scene) to taste the success of his lifelong labor!! With respect to the DVD transfer, since this was my first viewing of the film, I couldn't compare it to previous editions but, for the most part, I was pleased with the work Columbia has done on this low-budget item (except for the brief drop in quality during the final reel that was mentioned in reviews when the disc first came out). However, I have to report a glitch: at around the 8:15 mark (when the head doctor sends off Dr. Mason on forced vacation leave), the picture froze for an instant and then continued; after I finished watching the film, I took out the disc and noticed a tiny speck of dust on its reading surface – which I'm sure wasn't there when I inserted it! Anyway, after I wiped it off, I tried it out again and this time the disc not only froze permanently at the same point but a hideous noise emanated from the DVD player – my heart almost stopped!! Still, I persisted and made yet another attempt and, now, the picture froze momentarily but resumed soon after...as it had done the first time around! That ghastly sound-thing only happened to me once before with Image's double-feature disc of Mario Bava's LISA AND THE DEVIL (1972)/THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM (1975)...albeit only upon my second viewing of that DVD! (This never used to happen with VHS, that's for sure! God, I hate technology…)

As a science fiction and shudder story buff, I thought this was the best of Karloff's Columbia "B" pictures. The "Black Room" (1935), "Behind the Mask" (1932), "The Devil Commands" (1941) (Probably my second favorite), "The Man They Could Not Hang" (1939) (Probably a close third favorite), and "Before I Hang" (1940). In terms of special effects and plot outline, this one keeps you on the edge of your seat to the very end.The laboratory scenes in the proximity of a large underground glacier are unique. The chemistry lab including the "heavily concentrated poisons" is hair-raising indeed. With the right combination of lighting and shadow, as Karloff prepares the chemical experiments, the scenes within the underground laboratory are extremely eerie.The maddest doctor of them all was clearly Boris Karloff.Worth watching many times.

It's been 30 years since I saw this film, and most of what I recall about it is that I loved it, as a 10-year-old watching at 4 a.m.I distantly recall a tale of bringing life back with a dark, brooding sinister Karloff obsessed with a purpose. There was of course, a young couple in danger. I recall dark sets, with much of the action in a dark room, or maybe it was even a cave. As I mentioned, it's been a long time. I wish I could recall more, and find this film gem. Does anyone know if a DVD or video company sells this classic of the genre?