The Man with Nine Lives is a 1940 American horror science fiction film directed by Nick Grinde and starring Boris Karloff.

Plot

Dr. Tim Mason (Roger Pryor), a medical researcher experimenting in "frozen therapy" visits the deserted home of Dr. Leon Kravaal (Boris Karloff), the originator of the therapy, who has been missing for ten years. After discovering a secret passage in the basement, Dr. Mason and his nurse (Jo Ann Sayers) discover Kravaal frozen in an ice chambers. The doctor and nurse successfully revive Kravaal and Kravaal explains in flashback how he and five other men came to be frozen ten years earlier. One man is found dead. However, the other four men are located and revived. Because of closed-minded prejudice against science, one of the four men destroys Kravaal's formula for "frozen therapy." In an act of rage and self preservation, Kravaal isn't able to stop the man in time from destroying it and shoots and kills him. Not having memorized the formula as of yet, Kravaal holds everyone captive in order to use them as guinea pigs, hoping to unlock the key to "frozen therapy" for a second time.