The Gorilla

Given the eerie opening shots of this film, a viewer might expect a silent era precursor to King Kong: we're in a shadowy urban setting, gazing at skyscrapers at night, as the silhouette of an enormous gorilla glides across them. It's an impressive opening although, as it turns out, it has little to do with what follows. These shots are symbolic: the city is being terrorized by a ruthless strangler known as The Gorilla, a killer with a powerful grip.

Once that's established, our setting switches to a gloomy old mansion in Westchester County. The masters of the house are the wealthy Townsend brothers. Cyrus is a sour-faced miser with lots of enemies, while William is a spendthrift with lots of creditors. Other members of the household include Cyrus' pretty daughter, his male secretary, a handsome houseguest, the butler, and the maid. When Cyrus discovers a substantial amount of money missing, everyone is suspected. And then -- Cyrus is lured to a room upstairs where he is strangled, by a killer with a powerful grip. (Of course, we don't see the killer's face.) Once the news spreads through the house, a phone call is made, and two detectives soon arrive to solve the case.

Despite the grim tone up to this point, what follows is a comedy! But perhaps you knew that already. The same source material --a popular play, a spoof of the 'old dark house' genre-- was remade in 1939 with The Ritz Brothers, and that version has been shown on TCM and elsewhere. But this first screen adaptation was believed lost for decades, until a print turned up in Italy. The newly restored version premiered at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival earlier this year.

Here, the detectives who arrive to straighten everything out are Fred Kelsey (as Mulligan) and Charles Murray (as Garrity). The cigar-chomping, derby-hatted Kelsey was born to play comic cops, and did so many times. Tex Avery's classic 1943 cartoon Who Killed Who based its central cop on Kelsey --and indeed, he looks and acts like a caricature come to life. Murray, meanwhile, is familiar from many Mack Sennett comedies: a skinny older guy with a rubbery face. Some of the funniest bits in this film come when he simply reacts to what's happening around him, especially at the finale, when The Gorilla appears on the scene and looms, for a long, long moment, just behind Garrity.

Director Alfred Santell keeps the proceedings rolling along, and provides occasional flamboyant cinematic touches, as when the camera swoops upward along a winding staircase, or swoops in for a closeup of a startled face. This comedy is entertaining overall, though I'd say it could have used stronger gags. It's lightly amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny. But that's okay. I was fortunate enough to see The Gorilla at MoMA this week in an auditorium full of happy viewers, and "lightly amusing" suited everyone there just fine!