The Mad Monster

As far as Mad Scientist B-movies go, this was pretty good. George Zucco steals the screen as always, playing his typical mad doctor role to perfection. A pre-Frankenstein Glenn Strange also throws in a decent performance (for this kind of movie) as the grounds-keeper turned into a Werewolf. If you're into this kind of flick like I am, this is highly recommended. Otherwise, you might as well skip it. Most of the actors suck, the story drags, and it borrows *cough*steals*cough heavily from Universal's 1941 film "The Wolf Man". Actually, I say check this out even if you don't normally enjoy this kind of film, you could be pleasantly surprised!

7/10

Thankfully you don't need a lot of "book learnin" to understand where this thing's going... Obviously a poverty row cash-in on Universal's big hit THE WOLF MAN (which was made just one year earlier), this finds the always-watchable George Zucco in another of his patented "mad doctor" roles as brilliant, vengeance-minded scientist Lorenzo Cameron. Cameron, who has set up shop deep in the swamp lands of what I'm presuming is the Louisiana bayou, is plotting revenge against four of his former peers who both humiliated him and forced him to resign from his previous job. You see, they scoffed at his claims of being able to mix man with beast to create an unstoppable army of wolfman creatures that would come in handy during war-time. Thankfully Cameron has found the ideal test subject for his wolf blood injections - a hulking, child-like half-wit named Petro (Glenn Strange). Petro is pretty clueless as to what's going on, doesn't ask too many question and lets the doc strap him down to a table and shoot him up with whatever happens to be in his syringe. This results in a time-lapse change of man turning into a werewolf. Cameron lets him out of the mansion using a secret passageway, so you basically get a big guy (Strange was 6'5") dressed in overalls with a bushy beard, hairy paws and a set of over-sized plastic teeth, running around in the woods the majority of the time. After an eyewitness sees the beast and a little girl is killed, the locals grab their rifles and organize a posse to hunt it down. Dr. Cameron, who can control the beast with a whip and also has a handy antidote to reverse the effect, also drags Petro along to the big city to try to track down the professors who had made a mockery of his original theories and destroyed his reputation in the process. Also hanging around the house is Cameron's daughter Lenora (Anne Nagel), as well as Lenora's nosy reporter boyfriend Tom (Johnny Downs), whose first inclination is that they're dealing with an upright-walking prehistoric creature (!)

Though a typically chintzy PRC flick in many ways, with unimpressive sets, cinematography and make-ups, as well as a fairly bland supporting cast, it remains watchable thanks to the histrionics of star George Zucco. I have no clue why Downs received top billing; he shows up half-an-hour in and really doesn't have a whole lot to do, nor is he all that impressive doing it. This is Zucco's show all the way and he's great ranting and raving, talking to himself while fantasizing that he's talking to his peers ("I'm not interested in your imbecilic mouthings!") and temporarily sliding in and out of sanity. Strange seems to have patterned his performance as the hilariously naive and slow-talking semi-retarded country bumpkin around the entire oeuvre of Lon Chaney Jr., from his turn as Lenny in OF MICE AND MEN, to his performance as the aforementioned WOLF MAN. In any case, Strange and Zucco do a fairly good job playing off one another. My favorite part is when Zucco calls him his "guinea pig" in front of a colleague while Petro just sits there grinning and staring at a doorknob. Some of the foggy swamp scenes are pretty atmospheric, too.

"The Mad Monster" is another of the low budget little horror movies turned out by poverty row studio PRC in the early 1940s. In spite of some of the comments that I've read on this picture, I rather enjoyed it.

Basically the plot involves mad scientist Dr. Lorenzo Cameron (George Zucco) experimenting on his dim-witted assistant Petro (Glenn Strange), turning him into a werewolf. It's the old story of a scientist trying to create a super race in order to build an invincible army and you guessed it, take over the world. At the same time Cameron seeks revenge on those who had publicly humiliated him when he first presented his ideas, by turning his mad monster upon them.

Director Sam Newfield gives us an entertaining little movie. In spite of its limited budget, it provides a creepy mist filled atmosphere, as the monster stalks its victims. It also aided by the casting of Zucco and Strange as the two principal characters.

Strange plays Petro not unlike "Lenny" as played by Lon Chaney Jr. in "Of Mice and Men" (1939). He also does a creditable job as the werewolf of the piece, again not unlike Chaney in the Universal series. Zucco was PRC's resident horror actor, a sort of a poor man's Karloff, and was always excellent in these roles. Strange usually played the Chaney like parts for PRC.

The standard hero Tom Gregory (Johnny Downs) and heroine Lenora Cameron (Anna Nagle) round out the cast.

If you are a fan of the old B & W "B" horror flicks of the 40s, then I'm sure you'll like this one.

.....wow what a dull movie. Here you have 'Sam the Barkeep' from Gunsmoke shambling around in a blatant Lon Cheney knock-off, wearing the world's worst lupine doo while stumbling after George Zucco's ex-colleagues. Zucco himself does his Moriarty routine as always, and is easily the best thing here, while Anne Nagel once again stars in a Monogram poverty-row B flick.

It's a slow, slow movie, where the hillbillies act rather badly, the victims scream in a monotone, and the dry ice is used and abused frequently. I enjoyed the vines in the 'swamp woods'--clearly they doubled as clotheslines.

I have a weakness for old B genre flicks from this era, but this one-is snooze central.

Def. one to avoid unless you are a Zucco fanatic.

** outta ****. Zzzzzzz.

I grew up with this amusing piece of silliness back in the early sixties when it used to show up as regular as the full moon on the local horror host show JEEPERS CREEPERS so I'm inclined to give it a bit of slack. The first half of it moves briskly and is helped considerably by George Zucco's mad Dr. "I'm as nutty as squirrel droppings" act. Glen Strange does a carbon copy performance of Lon Chaney Jr.'s of Mice and Men character Lenny but it's more fun to see him as the abominable snowman parody from the Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck cartoon " What's the matter George?, You don't look so good." Once we've establish the hare brained plot and the first murder is discharged then Mad Monster becomes typical make-out fodder from the forties meaning that you look up only when you suspect a good part is coming. In my case I was sadly alone when I rewatched this film so I came out of the kitchen instead to see a couple of rantings from zucco then back to my lasagna. For horror completists it's not the worst of the lot,certainly better then most of Monogram's rock bottom efforts,but if you don't expect too much you might find it acceptable.