Lon Chaney, Jr. plays an idealistic chemist who creates a drug that may cure influenza. His unscrupulous and greedy boss (J. Carrol Naish) wants to release the drug right away but Chaney insists on doing more tests to make sure its safe. Naish releases the drug on the market anyway with tragic results. You really shouldn't tick off Lon Chaney, Jr.

The fifth of six Inner Sanctum movies from Universal starring a mustachioed Lon Chaney, Jr. This one has a somewhat troubled history as it was a remake of an earlier Universal film, The Man Who Reclaimed His Head. The first film was based off of a play by Jean Bart. There was some dispute about whether Universal had the rights to do more than one adaptation of Bart's play. So this one was out of circulation for decades.

As was often the case with the Inner Sanctum series, the cast is excellent. Chaney does some of his finest acting here. Legendary character actor J. Carrol Naish makes a particularly rotten villain. Lloyd Bridges, Milburn Stone, Addison Richards, and beautiful Brenda Joyce round out the cast. This is considered by many to be the best of the series. This may be because it has less in common with the others. There are some who don't appreciate the bizarre and quirky charms of the other films in the series. This one is more straightforward and less fantastic, so perhaps that's why it seems to have a better reputation. Regardless, it's a fine B movie that I happen to enjoy even if I wouldn't go so far as to call it my favorite of the bunch.