A Bela e o Monstro

After the horror revival of the late thirties, Paramount decided to get in on the act with this rare excursion into "monster movies." But this is a weird hybrid, as if a film about a white slavery ring was in production and the powers that be decided to tear off the last half of the script and graft a ham-fisted (or banana-fisted) monster subplot onto it. It certainly makes for fascinating viewing, as long as you know what's coming. A tenuous similarity could be considered with 'From Dusk Til Dawn' wherein a story about two hostage-taking killers on the run suddenly switches gears half-way and becomes an outlandish vampire gore-a-thon. This 1941 release does have a resemblance to Karloff's 1939 'The Man They Could Not Hang' (Karloff a hanged scientist brought back to life with electricity proceeds to kill off the jurors that convicted him.) Nonetheless, this film's bifurcated storyline is almost delightful if only from the sheer crackpot audacity of trying to pull it off.

No need to recount the plot, it's simple enough. It's thirty minutes of trial and flashback to the white slavery set-up, then thirty minutes of Frankenstein-ian ape-crazed nonsense with a quick wrap up. The only hurdle to overcome is the amateur performance of Phillip Terry as the condemned man Webster. He drudges his way through as if told he was in a zombie movie, then behaves like a Stepford Wife in the flashback, then later does an over-the-top hysteria jag in his last scene. Inept. But he doesn't play the ape, thank goodness! That job is performed by Charles Gemora (who played the martian in 1953's 'War of The Worlds') and he does it subtly and effectively. Considering the highly-charged second half, it's too bad the writer and director didn't take advantage and really play up the tension and the murder scenes. Here's a case where a film could have run a little longer for a change. And thankfully the ape doesn't talk and Webster's sister (Ellen Drew) doesn't do that "I recognized him by his eyes" nonsense that it looks like it was heading for. There's also a terrific cast of familiar second-tier actor faces employed including Marc Lawrence, a young Rod Cameron, Joseph Calleia, Abner Biberman, Cliff Edwards and even Bud Jamison (Jamison familiar to Three Stooges fans). Granted the film's short running time doesn't give them much screen time (but oddly enough, the faceless unknowns Robert Paige, Terry and Drew get most of the camera-time). And one last enjoyable note is seeing George Zucco as the transplant doctor hovering throughout the film. In the first part of the film he is just hanging around, given little attention, as if waiting like the rest of us to get to the 'monster' part of the story. Then after he does his movie-changing brain transplant, he once again hangs around mostly in the background (at each murder scene), with no one really asking him why he's always there. It's all part of the oddness of this little curio.

I learned about this movie from a sidebar to an article on "horror noir" in Films in Review, where it was highly recommended.

It does mix horror and film noir in its own peculiar fashion. It starts off more noir than horror. A woman addresses the camera, surrounded by smoke or fog, to tell us a tale. We're taken to a courtroom, where a stoic man is being tried for murder. The woman from the introduction enters the court as a spectator, and a couple of the other spectators call attention to her.

The man on trial doesn't say much in his defense, speaking in a monotone. The woman jumps up to insist on speaking. She seems like a tough dame, and it turns out she's the man's sister. What she says doesn't help much, and she isn't a credible witness; it's implied she's a prostitute.

Through a flashback to better days, we see the siblings when they were much more animated and happy. She wanted to leave their small town, but when she goes to the city she finds it hard to get work. She meets a man she falls in love with, and gets married, but when she wakes up after a party on her wedding night, he's disappeared. A strange man is in her bedroom informing her how much she owes for the room and party, and offers her work in a cabaret entertaining men...

The brother goes to the city to find the missing husband, and gets framed for murder by a criminal conspiracy by the men his sister now works for. Back in the courtroom, he's convicted, vows revenge, and is executed, but not before he agrees to donate his brain to science.

Post-mortem, his brain is implanted into an ape. It's not clear what the scientist hopes to accomplish by that. Something about evolution, perhaps seeing what the ape's potential is if its brain is upgraded. For some reason, the scientist seems to expect an intelligent ape, rather than a man's mind in an ape's body. It isn't clear to what extent the executed man's brain retains its personality or memories, but the ape does carry out his vow of revenge, and his own dog seems to recognize him.

There were several other primate horror movies Universal made, among them the three titles in the Paula the Ape Woman series: Captive Wild Woman (1943), Jungle Woman (1944/I), Jungle Captive, The (1945), and then the Bela Lugosi film Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). It's a funny thing about primates and horror, they go back pretty far. The Doctor's Experiment, The Professor's Secret, and The Monkey Man (all 1908) are three of the earliest ones, the latter one even involving a brain transplant!

..which seemed inspired by the Val Lewton productions at RKO. The story stars off as court room melodrama. Scott ( Philip Terry) is on trial for shooting a gangster- but in one of several flashbacks we can see that he was framed. He was defending the honor of his sister Susan (Ellen Drew) who had been tricked into becoming a prostitute. Scott is found guilty and sentenced to death and now the film becomes a mad scientist movie. Dr Perry (George Zucco )convinces Scott to let him transplant his brain into a gorilla (because this is somehow going to help humanity?!) Scott laughs at the thought but agrees anyway. The censors were not happy with the white slavery angle and it was cut but it's obvious what poor Susan is forced to do.

There is also a subtle gay angle between big city gangster Bruhl (Paul Lukas) and one of his henchmen who he refers to as " his favorite thorn" . The movie has one very effective Lewtonesque scene in which the ape stalks one of his victims with the aid of Skippy the dog. The film is out on an excellent blu ray the Universal Horror collection from Shout /Scream factory.

Monster and the Girl, The (1941)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Strange but effective film from Paramount mixes the noir and horror genres. Mobsters frame an innocent man for murder but before his execution he swears vengeance on them all. After his death a scientist (George Zucco) experiments by putting the dead man's brain into the body of a gorilla who goes out for revenge. The biggest problem with this film is its short running time of 65-minutes, which isn't enough time for the two stories to work. We get a fast paced and fun movie but it could and should have been a lot more. This is certainly a very weird film that noir and horror fans should check out.

This one's weird in the best way. Starts off like some kind of urban drama about a small town girl (Ellen Drew) who comes to the big city and, as often happens in films, finds herself forced into prostitution. Her brother (Phillip Terry) comes to the city to rescue her and winds up framed for murder. This was all interesting enough but the movie really kicks into high gear when it becomes a horror movie as "mad" scientist George Zucco transplants Drew's brother's brain into the body of an ape. The ape brother then seeks revenge against the men who turned his sister into a hooker and framed him for murder.

Really good cast for this little B gem. George Zucco is always worth the price of admission but you also have Paul Lukas, Joseph Calleia, Robert Paige, Onslow Stevens, Marc Lawrence, and Gerald Mohr! Also Edward Van Sloan in an uncredited part as the warden. This is a pretty amazing lineup for a little-known B horror flick. The bad guys are so completely rotten you can't wait to see them get theirs from the killer ape. Speaking of killer apes, that's often a particularly anemic subgenre of horror. This one's exceptional of its kind. The ape suit is really good. Just compare it to "The Ape" or "The Ape Man," made from around the same time, and you'll see what I mean.

Seedy subject matter mixed with fun horror staples -- the mad scientist and the guy in an ape suit. Very cool stuff. If you're a fan of old school B horror and gangster pictures you should like this one a lot.