Phantom of the Rue Morgue

Yet another chapter in the Rue Morgue opus. This one is fun because Karl Malden is quite good. He makes an admirable villain. Even the ape is pretty convincing. The downside is the head of the police who wants to arrest anyone that moves. No evidence. No logic. There is a ridiculous scene where a circus acrobat tries to recreate a possible method for the murder of a woman. When he fails, the cop still ignores his eyes and won't release the young man. This is really shot will with vibrant color and and almost expressionistic outside set.

A top notch horror thriller for it's time when it was released in the 1950s.....not a slasher film, those types of movies were not even considered during that time period....story concerns some very brutal murders of beautiful young women in and around some Paris France nightclubs in the very early 1900s....women are mutilated and the local gendarmes (police) are mystified....how could they be so badly beat up and decimated....the local police question everyone and the local inspector pays too much attention looking for suspects at the local college.....no clues are to be found.... finally after another gruesome murder a local student is implicated since he was near the area looking for the murderer himself...the local cops are very anxious to pin the murder on the student since they have no other suspects and the heat is on to find the killer (s). After some serious head scratching the student, Steve Forrest puts two and two together and figures that no man could be physically capable of crashing through glass ceilings and mutilating and stuffing corpses up a chimney and severing limbs....the evidence points to an animal such as a gorilla...naturally the local gendarmes do not believe it a first. After the gorilla escapes from his local pen at the zoo and murders again, police have to release Forrest from custody. Evidence points to the local zoo and its curator Professor Marais (Karl Malden) Police quickly rush to the zoo to find the ape carrying around another potential victim, the fiancé of Forrest. The cops kill the gorilla and in a somewhat funny scene the ape lands on Malden and gives him a Mike Tyson working over...ugh!! This film was released in 3D in 1954 during a period when Hollywood was trying to figure out how to keep its audiences away from television.....3D was a silly gimmick that gave a few thrills by wearing plastic glasses to enlarge and somewhat make more believable the image on the screen...it looked like the image was coming right at the viewer more explicitly than in regular format. All in all this is a good, decent horror thriller for it's time...the music composed by David Buttolph is pretty good and adds a touch to the mystery. The guy in the gorilla costume is very believable and you feel almost compassionate seeing the gorilla in his cage responding to affection from the fiancé of Forrest. Decent little thriller.

Rory Del Ruth directed this film supposedly based on the classic Edgar Allen Poe story 'Murders in the Rue Morgue' though showing only the slightest resemblance. A number of young women are brutally murdered and all evidence points to Professor Dupin (Steve Forrest). However, Dupin continues to protest his innocence but his attempts to prove it to exasperating Inspector Bonnard (Claude Daulphin) are ignored by the abhorrent police officer.

I found this movie to be quite entertaining. To begin with the story moves slowly and one has to question where this movie is going? However, the final twenty minutes or so are very tense leading up to an almost blistering and highly exciting finale. Steve Forrest is great as Dupin, the university professor apparently caught up in the middle of a very elaborate murder plan, and commands his role as if it were written for him. Unfortunately the rest of the cast did not seem to perform to the same standard in my opinion with the exception of Karl Malden in the role of Dr. Marais. Even though Malden certainly hammed it up a bit his performance was still of a high quality and during a particular scene gave one of the more fearsome horror performances I have been privileged enough to witness.

Phantom of the Rue Morgue's finest quality is in its thriller aspect. As all murders are off-screen and only the aftermaths are shown the film searches out for a different type of brutality and succeeds but unfortunately rather late on. During the first half of the film 'Phantom.' remains a pleasant crime thriller but suffers somewhat from slowness in places. All this changes when it becomes obvious to us all who the killer is and what their motive is for doing so. Upon acquiring this knowledge we are given an insight into one of the more disturbed killer minds in horror and also some marvellous final scenes.

Despite the occasional slowness and poor acting I still quite liked this film. Though I must admit I found the first half to be of only average quality and reasonably dull when the story eventually become more interesting 'Phantom of the Rue Morgue' managed to regain my attention. I can understand its low rating on IMDb but I don't think it's a true representation of this film. 'Phantom.' certainly has flaws but is worth watching if only for the blistering finale. My rating for 'Phantom of the Rue Morgue' - 6.75/10

If you've never seen this Parisian outing in 3-D, you must. It's been decades since the last time I enjoyed it at a temporary 3-D revival, but I remember the effects quite well. I won't discuss the story because too many commentators have already discussed how it is modified from Poe's original, but the script works. It is a horror movie, after all, which makes me think the writer who critiqued the "over the top" and "stilted" acting, doesn't realize that like fair rides we go to these movies to be thrilled and shudder. By current slasher film standards, this movie is very tame ... but it effectively depicts enough to give you nightmares, if you really think a bout what's going on. As mentioned, the 3-D effects are stunning. No, this movie is not as good per se as "House of Wax" but it is definitely worth a look. Why the devil doesn't Warner Brothers release both HoW and PotRM on DVD in 3-D using the shutter process utilized for the Imax releases?

Although not in the same league with Warner's HOUSE OF WAX, at least this version of the Edgar Allen Poe story has some interesting ingredients that make it passable entertainment. First and foremost, the always dependable KARL MALDEN as a sinister man terrifying Paris with his ape and a pleasant supporting cast that includes CLAUDE DAUPHIN, PATRICIA MEDINA and a very young and slim MERV GRIFFIN.

David Buttolph's music adds some flavor to the improbable Poe story and the sets and costumes provide additional quality. But the basic story is so silly that none of it seems quite credible. You just have to suspend your disbelief long enough to enjoy the tale, expanded a bit from Poe's original short story with only modest returns.

STEVE FORREST, as a man wrongly accused, gives the film's most earnest performance but it's KARL MALDEN and his ape companion that you're most likely to remember.

At any rate, a vast improvement over the stilted '32 version directed by Robert Florey with a very young Leon Ames as the romantic lead and Bela Lugosi providing the only thrills.