Bela Lugosi is definitely the star of The Corpse Vanishes (1942) as a horticulturist who uses an orchid of his own creation to put young women about to be married into suspended animation simulating death. He then steals these "corpses" and whisks them off to his laboratory so that he can extract fluids from the young women to inject into his aging wife in order to keep her beautiful. He is aided by a family of creeps. Luana Walters plays a reporter uncovering the secret behind the stolen dead brides.
This is a pretty ludicrous movie, even for poverty row, but it is pretty fun to watch. The diversity of the elements involved keeps it pretty interesting, and there's some novelty in the orchestration involved in turning the brides into "corpses" and then abducting them. Elizabeth Russell is an actress with a very otherworldly aura about her, which makes her perfect as Lugosi's ailing wife here, just as it benefitted her in movies such as Cat People and Weird Woman. This is no classic, but it's good for a late rainy night.
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