The Brute Man

Rondo Hatton was a former reporter who began acting in films in 1930 when he was covering a film being made in Florida. During the 30s and 40s he was mainly seen in small roles, often as hulks, due to his large body size and the fact the he had contracted acromegaly after being gassed during the first world war. In 1944 he was cast as The Hoxton Creeper in a Sherlock Holmes film, The Pearl of Death, and achieved brief stardom-or at least cult stardom-until his early death from a heart attack at age 52 in 1946 (he had suffered a milder heart attack the previous year as a direct result of his condition).

In this, one of his last films, not only does Hatton get the starring role, he has a great deal of dialogue and proves that he could be a good actor when given the chance. It is unusual for audiences to feel as much sympathy for a killer-especially one who has killed several times-but we do for Hatton. His scenes with Jane Adams, playing Helen, the blind piano teacher, are especially moving. Helen sees the inner man without being able to see the physical one, and although as I said he's a killer he gives the impression of a very human, tragic figure. Helen wants to touch his face, but he won't let her; this gives one a strong impression of a mirroring of the life of the actor himself. Just like the character he plays, Rondo Hatton was an athlete when younger, and excelled at football.

All of the cast play their parts well. Donald MacBride, frequently cast as the dumb cop, plays a very canny and intelligent one here, and he's ably supported by Peter Whitney-looking handsome and slim!-as Police Lieutenant Gates. The photography is well-done-especially considering the budget (or lack thereof) and there are some nice angles and lighting, especially when Hatton is prowling around the city.

Note: This film was actually made at Universal, who sold the rights to it to PRC shortly after it was completed (and Rondo Hatton died).

1946's "The Brute Man" was a follow up to "House of Horrors," from the same producer (Ben Pivar) and director (Jean Yarbrough), plus the same star, Rondo Hatton, who filmed "The Spider Woman Strikes Back" in between (none were released until after his death in February 1946). Hatton's own back story inspired much of the plot of this low grade thriller (his last film), actually a prequel to the far superior "House of Horrors," taking place before the events of the earlier film. The Creeper stalks his victims slowly, snapping their spines in two, before befriending a blind girl (Jane Adams), who naively finds sympathetic qualities in the fiendish killer. Hatton's performance consists of wandering the dark streets from one incident to the next, while the police investigation adds up to a game of 'pass the buck.' Jane Adams had just finished playing the hunchbacked nurse in "House of Dracula," and would end her brief career with 1949's Bowery Boys horror-comedy, "Master Minds." Jan Wiley, from "The Strange Case of Doctor Rx" and "She-Wolf of London," was about to end her own brief career. Another actress of note, billed last in the credits, is Ja Nelle Johnson, a radio performer who apparently made just one other screen appearance, wife of actor George Dolenz (television's COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO), mother of singer-actor Micky Dolenz (THE MONKEES), and grandmother of actress Ami Dolenz. She gets one opening scene, and another in a later flashback, filmed when Micky was about 8 months old (November 1945). In the ultimate tribute to his mother, who kept the family stable through George's untimely death in 1963, Micky ended up recording a bedtime lullaby she used to sing, titled "Pillow Time," from the October 1969 Monkees lp, THE MONKEES PRESENT. Her credited co-author was fellow actor Matt Willis, best remembered as Bela Lugosi's werewolf servant in Columbia's "The Return of the Vampire" in 1943 (both had definitely worked at Universal).

For such a low budget movie and from PRC as well, The Brute Man is quite good.

As a result of an experiment going wrong at university, Hal Moffat becomes disfigured and some years later, starts killing people. His victims include a grocer's delivery boy and a jeweller. He makes friends with a blind woman but nearly kills her after shopping him to the police and is arrested in her home after she set him up.

The Brute Man is shot well in black and white and is certainly one of the better efforts from PRC.

I've never heard of any of the cast in this, with Rondo Hatton in the title role.

This is worth checking out. A good way to spend an hour one afternoon or evening.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

The Brute Man (1946)

** (out of 4)

Hal Moffat (Rondo Hatton) was once an up and coming doctor but he was brutally attacked and left as a deformed monster. Now with vengeance in his heart he sets out as The Creeper to seek revenge on those who left him in his condition.

Poor Rondo Hatton. You can read up on his medical condition, which led him to look the way he did but basically Universal exploited his looks and threw him into a number of their horror films over the last two years of Hatton's life. Hatton would end up dying before this film would be released and this would stand as his final picture.

I must admit that I have a hard time watching his films simply because of knowing his true story and it's pretty sad seeing him exploited. With that said, there's no question that he was an amazing presence on the screen and it's easy to see why the studio would want him in the movies. He certainly does a fine job here playing the victim as the studio obviously went for sympathy towards his character and threw in a subplot dealing with a blind woman, which seemed to be a wink back to the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

As far as the film goes, it's pretty much a routine horror film but at just under a hour it's certainly entertaining enough for what it is.

First, before I begin, I would like to point out that this film may very well be the first Hollywood prequel, with THE BRUTE MAN being a prequel to HOUSE OF HORRORS(1945). Most so called "expert" film critics claim 1949's ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST (a prequel to THE LITTLE FOXES) as the first Hollywood prequel. They are wrong I tell you! As I have pointed out else where, film firsts should be noted and applauded, even if the film(s) is/are otherwise unremarkable. Now that I've gotten that out of the way...

THE BRUTE MAN is not a very good film. The film has good a opening scene with Hal (Hatton) being chased by police. These opening scenes have an effective "film noir" feel to them. However the film quickly goes down hill after this and plods around from incident to incident. The film is not helped at all by the fact that Hatton was not an actor at all. He was more of human prop. He has just to much dialog, which he often seems to stumble over (I don't know if his condition made speaking difficult.) He would have been far more effective if the script didn't require him to deliver a lot of lines, or none at all as in his horror star debut PEARL OF OF DEATH, where he was mute and was used effectively. When ever Hatton utters a line, he becomes comical, not frightening. Over all THE BRUTE MAN is basically just another sub par horror thriller.

What makes THE BRUTE MAN so worthy of scorn is the tasteless way the film mirrors Hattons real life story. In the film Hal is a handsome college athlete who becomes disfigured when exposed to gas. In real life Hatton was a handsome high school athlete who was exposed to a deadly gas while fighting in World War 1. He suffered for years in great pain from the attack and was in and out of hospitals. Hatton claimed his exposure to the gas brought about his disfiguring condition. To exploit his tragic real life story in a cheap horror film was in pretty bad taste. Now, I understand Hatton was paid well for his role, but I wonder if he ever felt uncomfortable having his tragic real life story being exploited in a cheesy horror picture like this.

Hatton died before this film was released. So did Hollywoods interest in making horror films. So did the "old" Universal, being bought out and merging with International pictures. It's almost certain if Hatton lived, he would have had his contract dumped by the studio's new owners and gone back to being what he had been before his short, dubious fame as a horror film star; a full time sports writer and occasional bit player.

One note: This film was produced by the old Universal, but by the time this film was ready for release, Universal was now Universal-International. The new studio was now a "prestige" studio, and horror films were not prestigious. So the studio had minor studio Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) release the film. Some reviewers in 1946 were fooled into thinking that film was produced by PRC and noted that the film had better production values than previous PRC films, not knowing the film was actually a Universal production.