Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla

Bela and Jerry Lewis clone Sammy make this oddity worth watching at least once. This film was made for DVD...so you can rapidly forward through some boring romantic scenes. Amazingly this silly film sort of grows on you like a fungus with multiple viewings; somehow it is goofy-innocent in all its dumb or dumber glory. "Gorilla" kind of reminded me of Lugosi's early 1940's hammy Monogram films despite the lack of musical numbers in the earlier films; not that anyone needs Duke Mitchell's singing (which reminded me of Elvis with a chest cold). This is one of the few non-European films of Lugosi's I had never seen, so it was a fresh experience. The DVD I bought had amazing picture clarity and sound quality; just the opposite of what is usually released at $6.99. Still, without Lugosi, the "Gorilla" probably would have decomposed in its film can long ago, and I'll admit the film is primarily of interest to bad film fans.

Yes, Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo were attempting to ripoff Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Lewis had to take Petrillo to court to make him stop the impersonation (Interesting to note, Lewis was copying black vaudevillian Jimmy Cross' act himself and becoming famous for it, while Cross' race would hold him back). Mitchell is no Martin, but if I had to choose listening to either one, I would choose Mitchell over Martin's crooning. I thought Mitchell had much more life in his singing.

Other than that, had I been Jerry Lewis and I had seen a guy who looked this much like me, I would have signed him up immediately. Petrillo is so strong at resembling Lewis, they could have been boggling portraying twin brothers in a movie, but as the egotistical rift tore between Martin and Lewis, you could just imagine how Petrillo would have gone at it with Lewis. In some scenes, you can see Petrillo is masking animosity as comedy. From beginning to end the only thing that held my attention was 'That's not Jerry Lewis from the telethons.' If Mitchell had bore a resemblance to Martin, the illusion may have been even more convincing. Muriel Landers was a welcome, a rotund woman who is flirtatious and pursuing while not being threatening, something virtually unseen even today in film and television. Not a film to see for entertainment, but to just study and contemplate what is and isn't popular. Lewis was famous, Petrillo wasn't. See if you can tell the difference.

1952's "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" was Realart's follow up to Lon Chaney's financially successful "Bride of the Gorilla," producers Jack Broder and Herman Cohen looking for a similar hit with another horror star, shot in six days on an even lower budget of $12,000 (working titles "Bela Lugosi Meets the Gorilla Man" and "White Woman of the Lost Jungle"). Hollywood had ignored the chronically unemployed actor during the four years since his last triumph as Dracula in "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein," and here he was opposite another comedy team that only did this lone feature together, from a witless script cobbled together by Tim Ryan, husband of Irene Ryan from THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, better known as a tough guy actor in Poverty Row pictures (the reissue title was "The Boys from Brooklyn"). Nightclub performers known for aping Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Duke Mitchell delivers like Martin with laid back style on two songs, while teenager Sammy Petrillo looks and sounds so much like the genuine Lewis that one might easily be confused. The actual Martin and Lewis surely wouldn't have fared much better playing two entertainers trapped on a Pacific island (parachuting off screen of course) with nothing to do but venture into the castle of Lugosi's mad scientist Dr. Zabor, working on a theory of evolution using primates as guinea pigs. Ramona the chimp falls for Sammy, but the doctor's assistant (Charlita) is sweet on Duke, driving the jealous Zabor to a desperate plan to keep her from straying by transforming the luckless crooner into a gorilla. Both Ray Corrigan and Steve Calvert are available in ratty ape costumes, Duke unable to speak but still able to belt out his signature piece "Deed I Do," giving Sammy ideas for a singing simian living close to the local zoo (while studying the later career of Bela Lugosi for Tim Burton's 1994 "Ed Wood," Martin Landau considered this one so bad that the Wood titles looked like "Gone with the Wind" by comparison). Both Mitchell and Petrillo could have carved out a niche for themselves were they not at the mercy of shopworn material, and by the time the real Martin and Lewis broke up in 1956 they too decided to call it quits (Lewis was more litigious than his partner, but only a great deal of shouting resulted). A native of Farrell, Pennsylvania, Mitchell later worked for Dean Martin himself, a man who certainly appreciated real talent, doing impressions of other singers and making a name for himself as 'King of Palm Springs.' Sammy Petrillo's belief was that Jack Broder had no intention of making their starring feature, expecting a huge payout from Paramount not to do it but went ahead to save face. Sammy truly gives it his all, but a tendency to laugh uproariously at his own lame jokes deadens all attempts at humor well before Lugosi finally makes his entrance at the 21 minute mark. The Bronx-born Petrillo later opened a nightclub called The Nut House in his adopted hometown of Pittsburgh, lending a helping hand to up and comers like Richard Pryor and Dennis Miller. At the helm for this oddity was old pro William Beaudine, of "The Ape Man," "Ghosts on the Loose," and "Voodoo Man," whose only remaining genre titles formed the 1965 double bill "Billy the Kid versus Dracula" and "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter." Veteran cameraman Charles Van Enger also photographed "Bride of the Gorilla," a longtime Universal veteran (including Bela's "Night Monster") with a dozen Abbott and Costello titles on his resume, his most recent being "Meet the Killer Boris Karloff." It's possible that having his name in the title appeased Lugosi in some small way, he's perfectly fine in the role but it's very old and tired, no stretch for an actor so used to playing crazed doctors. The references to Dracula are numerous and not funny, and while Bela is often smiling in the early stages (17 minutes screen time), even he becomes annoyed at Sammy's antics before long, sadly looking forward only to "The Black Sleep" and the Ed Wood trio. After working with Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson, Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe, Joe E. Brown, W. C. Fields, The Ritz Brothers, Kay Kyser, the East Side Kids (twice), Wally Brown and Alan Carney (also twice), and most recently drag act Arthur Lucan, could an ersatz Martin and Lewis really look that bad?

OK, it was a dumb movie. It was an obvious takeoff of Martin and Lewis, but it was good, clean, innocent fun aimed at the "mad scientist and the gorilla" genre that was enjoyed by Abbott & Costello, The Three Stooges, The Bowery Boys, The Ritz Brothers, etc. Any nostalgia buff would get a nudge instead of a kick out of this film. Sammy Petrillo is almost a clone of Jerry Lewis - even his facial expressions are like carbon copies of Lewis'. Duke Mitchell, on the other hand, needed serious help. Dean Martin he ain't. He can't even sing. If just for the pleasure of seeing Bela Lugosi at his sinister best, tune in. For what few snickers it offers, it's worth a look.

Like most everyone else here I picked this up in the dollar bin. The quality of the DVD wasn't bad at all and if, as I've heard, this picture was produced for only $50,000 then they did a hell of a job. It's slickly shot and at least as well produced as your average Universal B feature. None of which is to deny the fact that the movie stinks. I've heard that when BROOKLYN GORILLA came out the producers took some heat from Martin and Lewis' lawyers and it's easy to see why. The only other time I've seen a comedy team's act so blatantly stolen was yonks ago when an obscure group called the Pickle Brothers tried to pass themselves off as the Marx Brothers, and who the hell even remembers the Pickle brothers? At any rate Sammy Petrillo's Lewis impression is positively eerie, and to be fair he's only slightly more annoying than the original. Duke Mitchell is another matter entirely. He's so constricted he seems in the last stages of terminal stage fright, afraid to move and frequently slurring his lines. He sings the old standard "Deed I Do" in what is supposed to be a sexy croak which actually makes him sound like a sort of hipster Walter Brennan.

On the plus side: one or two funny gags (inluding a grotesque impression by Petrillo of a totem pole) and a very attractive leading lady. And as I said, the producers sure knew how to stretch a buck.