Murders in the Rue Morgue

Much creepier than any mad scientist and his monkey movie has a right to be. Much of the credit must go to cinematographer Karl Freund (The Last Laugh, Metropolis) who gives the movie the feel of a German horror film. Charles D. Hall's distorted sets also help make this often resemble a sound remake of "The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari." The script has a very European flavor as well with lines that sometimes sound as if they were translated from another language. The ape is more convincing than all those later films because of quick cutting between an actual ape's snarling face and a man in a suit, the latter shown not enough to destroy the illusion. At one point stop motion is used to show the ape carrying a woman across the top of buildings a year before "King Kong!" There are three failings, however. Near the end is a long attempt at humor concerning French bureaucracy that hurts the build-up of tension. The other two failings come from the lab. They lay over one sequence a fog effect with the fog blowing at hurricane strength despite no apparent wind anywhere else in the shot. And at the end is a very obvious matte shot with lots of squiggly lines around the characters.

Murders In The Rue Morgue casts Bela Lugosi as one of the many mad scientists he played in his long career. To make ends meet he has a carnival act, but it's really a blind for some gruesome experiments involving sex. InterSpecies sex that is.

If Charles Darwin is correct and man is related to the other primates than it follows, reasons Bela apes should be looking to mate with man given the proper stimulation. So for his horny gorilla he kidnaps women and injects them with simian blood. In the Paris of 1845 Bela's experiments are working pretty good as his ape is let loose on these injected women and the young women of Paris are in danger. Women of all classes as streetwalker Arlene Francis discovers to her tragic regret.

King Kong never eyed Fay Wray with more lust than Bela's simian had when he was checking out Sidney Fox. In fact King Kong should prove the hypothesis Lugosi was advancing. The climax of Murders At The Rue Morgue is very similar to King Kong with Leon Ames playing the Bruce Cabot part.

Some really great sets and beautiful cinematography are the main attraction of Murders At The Rue Morgue which bares only the slightest resemblance to Edgar Allan Poe's story. Lugosi is fabulously sinister and lustful, he's checking out Fox and the others himself. It's not Dracula for him, but what is?

After the enormous success of Tod Browning's "Dracula" in 1931, producer Carl Laemmle Jr. finally proved that his vision had been correct and that the horror genre was an excellent source of stories to film. With that in mind, he began to work immediately in a follow up for that success with an adaptation of Mary Shelley's immortal novel, "Frankenstein", in the expressionist Gothic style of Browning's film. The film was set to be written and directed by French director Robert Florey and starred by the recently discovered Hungarian star of "Dracula": Bela Lugosi. However, people at Universal changed the plans and assigned the film to British director James Whale, who had a different idea for the movie and replaced Lugosi with Boris Karloff. Owing a film to both Florey and Lugosi, Universal gave them a project based on a tale by Edgar Allan Poe: "Murders in the Rue Morgue".

Set in Paris during the late 19th Century, "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is the tale of a series of unsolved crimes where women are abducted and murdered by an unknown method. Since the murders began to take place after a carnival arrived to the city, young medicine student Pierre Dupin (Leon Ames) suspects that Dr. Mirakle (Bela Lugosi), a scientist who owns one of the sideshow attractions, is behind the crimes, but so far he finds himself unable to prove it. His suspicion has its source in the fact that Mirakle has claimed to be looking for a way to finally prove that man and ape are related, and apparently has been experimenting on his sideshow attraction: an intelligent ape named Erik, which Mirakle claims is the missing link. Dupin fears that Mirakle's experiments are related to the murders, but the truth is far more horrible than what he thinks.

"Murders in the Rue Morgue" is not exactly a faithful adaptation of Poe's short story, as the script (written by Tom Reed, Dale Van Every and Robert Florey himself) focuses more on the reasons behind the murders than on the investigation done to solve the case. It is because of this reason that it is Dr. Mirakle who is in the spotlight while Poe's famous character, Dupin, has been transformed from cunning detective to a young student of medicine. With this change, the writers allow themselves to completely focus on horror, and deliver one of the darkest and most violent stories among Universal's classic horrors. However, as many have already pointed out, the story is not only an exploration of Poe's tale, but also a charming tribute to German expressionism's most celebrated triumph, "Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari", as the plot mirrors the classic silent film in more than one way.

The tribute to "Caligari" is not only a part of the script, as director Florey, aided by the legendary cinematographer Karl Freund and the wonderful art direction by Charles D. Hall, extended the tribute to the overall visual look of the film, following the expressionist style to the letter with an amazing use of light and shadows to create a powerful and haunting atmosphere. However, not everything is lifted from German expressionism, as Florey adds his own realist style to the mix resulting in a powerful combination that enhances the violence of the script. As the film was done before the Production Code was introduced, Florey manages to bring to life a lot of the vicious images of the script with an amount of detail that would be impossible a few years later. Sadly, Florey's skills at directing actors aren't as good as his skills with the camera, and some bad performances end up damaging the movie a lot.

While Florey doesn't seem to direct his actors as good as he does with the visuals, Bela Lugosi shows off his talent in a tremendous performance that's probably among the best of his career. As Mirakle, Lugosi is incredibly believable as a demented scientist, and despite being one of his most menacing roles he even manages to be sympathetic at times. The sadly ill-fated Sidney Fox is also good as Camille, the damsel in distress of this eerie horror, but sadly her counterpart, Leon Ames, isn't up to the challenge. While he later proved to be a talented actor, in this movie Ames delivers an awful performance that looks stagy and simply out of place in the movie. Bert Roach, who plays his sidekick, is not much better, as his delivery of comic relief is mediocre at best and ludicrous at worst.

This varying quality of the performances and the sharp contrast between them and the superb visual look of the movie may had played a part in the relatively disappointing reception the film had at box office, but the main reasons the movie failed was probably the fact that the audience wasn't ready for the dark nature of the plot and the violence displayed on screen. In fact, there are rumors stating that Universal removed almost 20 minutes of the original cut, taking away scenes supposedly too violent for being released. Anyways, whether this rumor is true or not is ultimately irrelevant, as the film's main problem is still in the actors' performances and that's something that missing footage hardly could improve. It is a shame that one of Lugosi's best performances ends up in the same film as one of Ames' worst.

Despite its many troubles, Robert Florey's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is still an effective tale of horror and mystery that keeps the classic Universal feeling to the max. Dark and atmospheric, it is also an unusual movie due to its raw portrayal of violence on film. While not exactly a classic of the level of Universal films like "Frankenstein" or "The Black Cat", this movie is definitely a must see if only for Karl Freund's masterful cinematography and Bela Lugosi's amazing performance. 7/10

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

King Kong was released by RKO in 1933, a story of an ape captured by white hairless apes and brought to a foreign land. And this is exactly the beginning of the 1932 Rue Morgue, as Bela Lugosi, playing Dr. Mirakle, appears as flamboyant sideshow impresario with an ape in a cage. His trick (if it is one) is knowing how to translate ape talk to English (or French, maybe, since we are in Paris). His point is that the apes are us, that evolution is true. "Can you understand what he says? Or have you forgotten?" Not the most honorable spokesman for science, no doubt, but he is a mad scientist, and is setting out to create some kind of unexplained human/ape hybrid.

The movie is filled with dramatic innovations, and a very high technical standard (for Universal, a minor studio player until this time). And the transfer to DVD is terrific. Ten minutes into the film, Lugosi breaks the fourth wall and looks into the camera to challenge the viewer to accept evolution and its consequences.. (The Scopes trial was 1925, so this is a hot topic.) Watch for the camera attached to the swing about 32 minutes in. There are echoes of Frankenstein (1931) with the madman and his doltish assistant, as well as the angry mobs. And there is Lugosi himself, with all the aura carrying over from his breakthrough in Dracula (also 1931).

The cinematography by Karl Freund is totally amazing. There are not astonishing tricks, just consistent, brilliant framing and lighting, scene after scene. (If only he had shot Dracula--oh, he did! Yes...check that out, too.) 1920s German Expressionist films find a true expression here (not Caligari, for sure, but a high water mark for American movies of the time). Simple things like shadows and angles, of course, but also moving camera in subtle ways (the camera falling slightly when approaching someone in a window, for example). Completely first rate.

It's common in these movies to have eccentric villains, grotesque monsters, and Gothic settings with wild special effects. And to have the common person as a balance to all this madness. These apply a little comic relief but in a silly way from our perspective. (The "common" person at the time in other movies was far more vivid and timeless, like Crawford or Cagney, but that would overwhelm the villains as well as the budget). In this case, one of the common folk is a resourceful doctor, and this search for the bad guy takes on a larger role than in the other monster movies.

The movie isn't a sparkling masterpiece. The acting throughout (even by Lugosi, really) isn't always spot on, but it works overall, and is consistent. There is a comic moment near the end (when we are most anxious for action) where the character have an argument in different languages, and it's so perky I'm assuming they felt they couldn't take it out, but it doesn't advance the plot. It does deal with Logosi's characteristic odd accent. And for fun, there is an anachronism, half an hour in, when a bicycle rides through the little town, decades before they were made like that.

It won't matter if you don't believe in evolution. The movie plays loose with the concept, and Dr. Mirakle says at one point, with his beady eyes: "Do you think your little candle can outshine the truth?"

Having decided not to do the Frankenstein monster, Bela's next film for Universal was this rather stagey thriller about a demented doctor trying to mix the blood of an ape with a virgin. The story is a bit far-fetched, and Lugosi is as over-the-top as he can get, but for the most part the film is good, solid entertainment. The film is a bit slow, and its has no music in the background. Add to this some stoic acting on the part of the cast as a whole(Lugosi excepted of course)and some frequent, flat direction from Florey(say that a few times quickly). Florey shows flashes of brilliance(many of them coming through the magic of Karl Freund's camerawork) with scenes such as Lugosi's pitch in the carnival tent, Lugosi murdering a street prostitute, and the finale of Paris above ground. Florey is also remarkably mundane in many scenes too, adding little depth to many of the characters as well as not creating enough suspense where always needed. Florey does deliver more often than not, however. This film is a good example of the traditional Universal horror film, as well as vehicle to display the talents of one Bela Lugosi. Look for Arlene Francis(of What's My Line fame) as a prostitute tied to a cross of woodbeams(possibly one of the best sequences in the film).