El buitre humano

"The Mad Ghoul" is the only one of its kind. George Zucco gives the best performance in this film as a mad professor. (how often did he play those??)

David Bruce as the luckless student is OK, Evelyn Ankers does her usual and Turhan Bey is about as wooden as they get. Not longer after "The Mad Ghoul," his career came to an end and he was forgotten. Robert Armstrong as the journalist is good and he livens up the proceedings. A shame he couldn't have had more screen time.

The production values are pretty much what you would expect. The make-up used to make David Bruce look ghoulish works very well. The film has a fair bit of incident and being only on for about 65 minutes, works to the films advantage.

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.

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.

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.

Of all the Universal stars and stock character actors, the one that seems to get lost in the shuffle the most is George Zucco. It is a shame as I can never say I saw him give a bad performance despite the lack of depth in the cinematic vehicle he was appearing in. Zucco is the star of Mad Ghoul and does a wonderful job playing a man obsessed with a pretty singer played by Evelyn Ankers. Zucco works with the fiancee of Ankers, both scientists working on what keeps life after death..in a zombie form at least. Ankers, however, is not quite sure she loves David Bruce still, and is having a relationship with the pianist touring with her, Turhan Bey, who has little to do in his role. Zucco somehow induces Bruce to become a zombie/ghoul at times...thus telling his pretty fiancee things that cool down the relationship so old George can have a crack at her..or so he thinks she might be so inclined toward him(not knowing about Bey of course). The Mad Ghoul is a wonderful film because it has some great scenes and dialogue for George Zucco. Zucco shines as a sinister man with a battle between moral conscience losing to his base desires. The rest of the cast is good(look for Robert Armstrong of King Kong fame), the scenes and graveyard sets in particular are very appropriate. Don't forget the Mad Ghoul when catching up with your list of Universal horror films. It is worth seeing if for no other reason than seeing Zucco in one of his finest performances.