The Mad Ghoul

Another Universal pleasure, spinning out a horror framework behind a story of three men in love with the same woman. Evelyn Ankers is the beauteous object of affection, playing a concert singer engaged to a handsome college student (David Bruce), but she's fallen for her pianist (Turhan Bey), while the student's mad scientist mentor (George Zucco) is hopelessly smitten. The scientist achieves a "living death' syndrome to his unwilling student, eventually using it as a tool to rid the pianist. The stars are great, earnest and engaging, particularly Bruce and Zucco. Grand soundtrack and fog-shrouded, shadowy scenes abound. A fun, time-capsule flick from the masters.

During the 1940s, George Zucco made a ton of horror films--most of them for crappy little studios and with microscopic budgets. However, occasionally he'd appear in a decent film--one with higher production values and plots which made a bit more sense. This is the case with "The Mad Ghoul", as Zucco appeared in a film by Universal--a studio that made horror films just a bit better than everyone else.

Ted is in love with Isabel. He apparently can look past her annoying singing (it's very operatic and you either like it or hate it--most folks today would hate it). However, Ted doesn't know that the professor he's working for, Dr. Morris (Zucco), is a maniac who will do anything to possess Isabel. Eventually, Morris uses a gas he's created to turn Ted into a maniac who will do whatever the doctor tells him---including kill. What's next? See the film.

The acting is a tiny bit better than the usual B and the plot, though a bit silly, quite enjoyable if you like this sort of thing. Worth seeing.

1943's "The Mad Ghoul" remains a sadly neglected entry during a year in which horror was in short supply at Universal, positioned at the bottom of a double bill with Lon Chaney's "Son of Dracula." Lionel Atwill had scored as mad scientists in both "Man Made Monster" and "The Mad Doctor of Market Street," but since then only John Carradine carried on the tradition with "Captive Wild Woman," spawning two sequels in its wake, "Jungle Woman" and "The Jungle Captive." On just this one occasion George Zucco received the call to star as Dr. Alfred Morris, whose experiments result in tragedy as delusions of unrequited love are not reciprocated. Dr. Morris is teaching classes at University City, selecting skilled surgeon Ted Allison (David Bruce) to become his prize pupil, after discovering the secret behind the Mayan technique of human sacrifice, cutting out the hearts of living donors not to appease their gods but to restore life to victims of a deadly gas that leaves the subject in a fearful state of 'death in life,' feted to die without treatment. The doctor has been able to recreate the gas and indoctrinated a monkey as a guinea pig, requiring Ted to perform a cardiectomy on another monkey for the heart substance, when mixed with certain herbs serving as a cure for the zombie-like condition. The little creature seems totally unaffected by its ordeal and all goes well, Dr. Morris also rejoicing in Ted's relationship with concert singer Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers), as he secretly covets the young lovely for himself. Once Morris becomes aware of Ted's intention to marry Isobel he sets a trap for his naïve assistant, who becomes a human victim of the Mayan gas, a slave to the will of his master. Unfortunately, the happy go lucky monkey soon falls back into his living death state, the cure merely a temporary one, too late for Dr. Morris to make amends so he and Ted follow Isobel's singing tour from town to town, every relapse requiring a desecration of the recently interred for heart substance. More grim than the usual Ben Pivar production, the extensive gruesomeness is kept off screen, but as one caretaker supplies a fresh heart, so too does a (too) clever reporter (Robert Armstrong) pretending to be a corpse lying in a coffin, his accurate hunch proving to be a fatal one. George Zucco only received star billing at Poverty Row's PRC in titles like "The Mad Monster," "Dead Men Walk," "The Black Raven," "Fog Island," and "The Flying Serpent," so to essay a more nuanced villain at Universal was a nice change, though he does indulge his bulging eyes toward the end of the film when confessing his indiscretion to Ted (we reveled in Atwill's madness but never felt sympathy for him). His previous mad scientists at Paramount ("The Monster and the Girl") or Fox ("Dr. Renault's Secret") were smaller roles rather than the lead, an established supporting fixture at Universal in "The Mummy's Hand," "Dark Streets of Cairo," "The Mummy's Tomb," "The Mummy's Ghost," and "House of Frankenstein," so at least here he's allowed to effortlessly carry a star vehicle for a major studio. Top billed David Bruce only had one other genre credit opposite Lon Chaney in "Calling Dr. Death,," wearing a close facsimile of Boris Karloff's makeup as Ardath Bey in "The Mummy," later worn by Chaney himself in "Man Made Monster," a Jack Pierce application meant to show the character's gradual disintegration into a dessicated corpse.

The Mad Ghoul is one of the many horror movies Universal made during the Second World War and like most of the ones I've seen, is quite good.

In this one, of the regular stars to appear in these, George Zucco is a mad scientist experimenting with an ancient nerve gas and is a success on a monkey, but only for a short while. To keep his experiments a success, he has to rob graves and kill people to obtain a fluid from their hearts and he turns one of his pupils he teaches into a ghoul to do this.

The Mad Ghoul is creepy in parts, especially the foggy graveyard scenes shot in the dark.

Joining George Zucco in the cast are other sci-fi/horror regulars: Robert Armstrong (King Kong), Evelyn Ankers (The Wolf Man), Milburn Stone (Invaders From Mars) and David Bruce.

The Mad Ghoul is a good way to spend just over an hour one evening. Enjoyable.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

One of the lesser Universal horrors is a still enjoyable if decidedly silly outing. The former is due largely to the typical low-budget atmosphere (from intermittent graveyard raids, for plot purposes, down to the recycled music cues), George Zucco's equally reliable presence as the obligatory mad scientist (with this in mind, the title – actually referring to the 'human monster' of the piece – has always struck me as kind of desperate) and, to a lesser extent, Robert Armstrong ditto as the fast-talking but ill-fated reporter who cracks the case. The 'monster' (afflicted by sudden 'attacks' which transform him, in a matter of seconds, into a scruffy and wizened zombie) is a student in love with a renowned singer (resident Universal scream queen Evelyn Ankers), predictably also desired by the elderly Professor - deluding himself, a' la the Bela Lugosi of THE RAVEN (1935), that she corresponds this affection - but who has herself fallen for the accompanying pianist (the just-as-ubiquitous Turhan Bey) of her concert tour. Obsessed with the Ancient Egyptian ritual of death-in-life (improbably involving a release of poison gas followed by an impromptu heart transplant!), Zucco first experiments with a monkey but soon turns his attentions to a human specimen…for which his naive assistant (a surgical genius no less) fits the bill perfectly (however, no attempt is made to explain how he manages to operate repeatedly on himself – since, naturally, it transpires the effect of the revivification is only temporary – without being fully conscious of the fact!). As I said, this is standard low-grade fare – not quite as good as even the minor classics among Universal's second outburst within the genre, though certainly nowhere near as bad as the worst of the lot - THE CAT CREEPS, SHE-WOLF OF London and THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK (all 1946).