Gorilla Brains

 

 (wikipedia)

THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL-1941-The first half of this horror/sci-fi story is told in flashbacks. During a trial it shows how Scott Webster (Phillip Terry) was convicted for the murder of a guy named Stanton. He was actually framed by a bunch of gangsters lead by Mr. Bruhl (Paul Lukas). Webber's sister Susan (Ellen Drew who also narrates) tells a story about how she unknowingly married gangster Larry Reed (Robert Paige). At a surprise party everyone gets drunk and Reed disappears but it's all a scam to make Susan a call girl. Webber is sentenced to death but at “the big house” he's visited by Dr. Carey (George Zucco), a scientist who wants Webber's brain after he's dead. Meanwhile Sam Daniels (Ron Cameron), a reporter, tries to help Susan. In his rather large lab Carey transplants Webber's brain into that of a gorilla. The operation is a success but the gorilla (George Barrows) has revenge on his mind and breaks out and kills the DA (Onslow Stevens) who convicted Webber. Every bone in his is broken. Web-grilla visits Susan at night and kills another gang member (Gerald Mohr). When the gang boss Deacon (Joseph Calleia) goes to kill an unreliable thug (Marc Lawrence), it's two for the price of one gorilla killing! Carey tips off a policeman that the gorilla has a human brain but the cop doesn't believe him. Webber/ape kills the last two gang members but is shot and killed by the police while sis watches. 

This kind of crazy Paramount release came under fire from many censor boards and was eventually pulled from release. Director Stuart Heisler also made the seldom scene AMONG THE LIVING the same year. He later directed Gary Cooper in ALONG CAME JONES, Bogart in two features TOKYO JOE and CHAINED LIGHTENING and made I DIED A THOUSAND TIMES, a remake of HIGH SIERRA with Jack Palance and Lon Chaney.

(imdb)

Thanks for reading!

Meow

 

 (imdb)

THE CREEPER-1948-A doctor's daughter sleepwalks with her dad's gun. At a medical facility, Dr. Jim Bordon (Onslow Stevens) argues with Dr. Cavigny (Ralph Morgan) about his experiments with cats. Nurse Gwen Runstrom (June Vincent) reports that their special serum has been destroyed. The other nurse Dora (Janis Wilson), Cavigny's gun toting sleepwalker daughter, seems more than a little bothered having had a fever when they were in the West Indies. Bordon has some experimental cats sent to him. Meanwhile Dr. Van (Eduardo Ciannelli) listens secretly to the whole debate. Van works with Dr. John Reade (John Baragrey) across the hall researching allergies. It seems Reade and Gwen are engaged. Dora freaks out when she meets Reed's cat named "Creeper" (is that a cat name?). 

Later Dora relates to Reade how she caught a fever and later had an episode at a Chinese restaurant.(run by Phillip Ahn). She has several dreams she's being menaced by a giant cat paw. When her dad is murdered she's arrested. She's let go for lack of evidence but the cat handler Andre (David Hoffman) is killed by what appears to be a man size cat but only a shadow is seen. A police inspector (Richard Lane) snoops around. 

There's not much except a few more murders and a kind of dumb ending. Director Jean Yarbrough doesn't have much to work with here but keeps this low budget 20^th Century Fox release quick and short.

Raise The Dead

 

LIFE RETURNS-1935-Three young doctors Robert Cornish (Robert Cornish), Louise Stone (Lois Wilson) and John Kendrick (Onslow Stevens) conduct experiments with a potion to bring the dead back to life but the obsessed Kendrick accepts a grant from The Arnold institute. After rising in his medical practice, marrying a socialite (Valerie Hobson) and doing many experiments, the director (Frank Reicher) and Arnold himself (Richard Carle) see no commercial or beneficial use for his research. They refuse to buy him an expensive piece of equipment. Since he's obviously a self absorbed bastard who's used to getting his way, neglecting his practice and family, feeling his research into bringing the dead back to life is much more important this comes as quite a blow to him. When he explains his theory he's ridiculed. 

Years later he's toiling away and getting nuttier. His wife dies and his young son Jimmy is going to be hauled off to juvenile court. Jimmy runs away and hides out with some tough kids. Later when Jimmy's dog is gassed to death Kendrick gets the body and has Cornish perform the operation to reanimate him. (Real operation footage is shown). While several doctors look on the dog is restored to life. 

This is just a tedious promotion disguised as a human interest story and advertised as a horror film. It's based on the actual experiments of co-star Robert Cornish. For more on Cornish and, in my opinion, his dubious experiments go here:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Cornish

LIFE RETURNS was produced by Universal Pictures who pulled it from general release after they thought it was too gruesome. This is only one of four movies director Eugene Frenke made. In 1958 he produced THE BARBARIAN AND THE GEISHA with John Wayne.

Thanks for reading!

Them!

 

THEM!-1954-In this classic 1950's "giant bug" science fiction story giant ants are breeding in the New Mexico desert (9 years after a nuclear bomb blast) and killing humans. After police Sargent Ben Peterson (James Whitmore) finds a shell shocked little girl (Sandy Descher) wandering around and his partner is killed, FBI agent Robert Graham (James Arness) is called in. So is ant expert Dr. Medford (Edmund Gwen) and his daughter Patricia (Joan Weldon). They discover and kill one of the ants and later with the help of General O'Brien (Onslow Stevens) and Major Kibbee (Sean McClory) the army wipe out the colony. 

Unfortunately a couple of queens escape and take up residence in the sewer drains of LA. A frantic search ensues and along the way many familiar characters show up (Fess Parker, John Beradino, Willis Bouchey, Olin Howland, Richard Deacon, Ann Doran, Dean Fredericks, William Schallert, Dub Taylor, Dick Wessel, Harry Wilson and of course Leonard Nimoy). 

The finale in a crumbling section of sewer, where besides destroying the nests, they must rescue two boys trapped there.

Arguably, this is the best giant insect mov-ie. It's very forward, scientific and has solid acting. Director Gordon Douglas had a varied and interesting career, making entries into "The Great Gildersleeve", Our Gang shorts, ZENOBIA (with Oliver Hardy and Harry Langdon), ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY (with Brown & Carney) be-fore THEM! Later in the '60's, he made bigger budgeted movies for Bob Hope, Sinatra and Martin, Jerry Lewis, IN LIKE FLINT, two Tony Rome detective movies (also with Sinatra), the missing link drama SKULLDUGGERY, THE CALL ME MR. TIBBS and SLAUGHTER'S BIG RIPOFF! Some res-ume!

Thanks for reading!

Couch Killer

 

THE COUCH-1962-A psychopath Charles (Grant Williams; THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN) under the care of a psychiatrist Dr. Jantz (Onslow Stevens in his last role) murders random victims at 7 pm and tips off the police before hand. He's screwy because he hated his father and made his older sister his mother substitute after mom died. Despite this he somehow romances the shrink's niece Terry (Shirley Knight). He lies to her about most everything and they plan to marry! He makes a fatal mistake though when he decides to kill the doc who doesn't die as planned. Charles disguises himself as a surgeon and wants to sabotage the surgery. Fortunately he cracks up before he can kill the doc who he believes is now his father. Disappointing conclusion but funny final scene. 

Hal Smith and Harold Gould have unbilled roles. Robert Bloch penned this psychological  drama from a story by Blake Edwards. Director Owen Crump didn't make many feature films.

Thanks for reading!

The Last House of Universal

HOUSE OF DRACULA-1945-In his castle laboratory the kindly eminent Dr. Edleman (Onslow Stevens) conducts experiments with the assistance of two nurses Nina (Jane Addams) and Miliza (Martha O'Driscoll) a hunchback. One dark night Count Dracula using the alias "Baron Latos" (John Carradine) visits Edleman. The urbane count says he wants to be cured of his vampirism. He sounds sincere but almost immediately sets his hypnotic eyes on Nina. While doing blood tests on Drac, the doc also receives a visit from Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr., now with a mustache looking none the worse for wear especially since he was killed by a silver bullet in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN) who wants a cure for his curse of lacanthropy. Edleman thinks he can help Larry but he must first  attend to the count who's getting way too flirty with his nurse. Larry makes a big point about his condition by having the local police chief (Lionel Atwill in his last finished movie) lock him up during a full moon. and he transforms right in front of their eyes.

During a blood transfusion Drac makes Edleman and Miliza go to sleep. He then reverses the transfusion and injects his blood sucking blood into the doc's! He plans to fly away with Nina. Edleman is revived in time to thwart the count's plan but he becomes a paranoid power crazed vampire type creature intent on reviving the Frankenstein monster (he and Talbot found it early with the skeleton of the monster's last would be savior Dr. Niemann; this is the only connection to HOF that makes any sense). The new blood seeking creature has a scary leer, watches his mirror image fade and (thanks to scenes from previous entries in the series) has a weird dream with the monster helping him attack the local town. He occasionally snaps out of his curse and plans on helping Miliza but she insists he operate on Talbot first. He does and the operation is a success! The full moon doesn't affect him! After vampire Edleman kills one of his workers (Ludwig Stossel) he begins tinkering again with the monster (Glen Strange). Miliza discovers this and Edleman promptly strangles her. Talbot enters just as the monster awakens. Meanwhile an angry mob lead by the dead worker's brother (Skelton Knaggs) storms the castle. In a rather sad (in more ways than one) ending the just cured Talbot shoots the crazed Edleman who seems to have a relieved look on his face when he dies. The monster gets mad, flails around a bit and tries to attack Talbot who starts a fire which it would appear kills the mistreated monster for good.

Not counting the next film to feature the three classic Universal monsters (ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN), HOUSE OF DRACULA brings to a close the horror series that really began with the original FRANKENSTEIN in 1931. It's not exactly a fond farewell despite having Earle C. Kenton as director. He'd done ok with the previous entries (HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN; FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN) but the story here is rushed and the monster is wasted with just a couple of brief cameos before being destroyed. The acting is good especially from Stevens and O'Driscoll but the story is kind of mean spirited with Miliza after all her dedication to Edleman and his work winds up being strangled and her corpse thrown haphazardly aside. 

Thanks for reading!

The Blue Room

THE SECRET OF THE BLUE ROOM-1933-On the onset of Irene Van Hoffler’s 21 birthday, she (Gloria Stuart, who was in James Cameron's TITANIC 64 years later,,,) gathers with her father Robert (Lionel Atwill) and her three best friends (all male). After the youngest of the trio Tommy (William Janney) confesses his love for her, Irene sings a weird operatic song. They all want to know more about the legend of the blue room which had been locked for 20 years after three murders had occurred there.  On a dare Tommy decides he will stay overnight in the cursed room. Meanwhile the butler (Robert Barrat) has a disheveled visitor at the back door who he tells to come back the next night. Irene is very nervous about Tommy staying in the room. The next day Tommy has disappeared and a window overlooking the moat is open. Possibly he committed suicide but the others find it hard to believe. They search for him but find nothing. Then Irene is “attacked” by a man whose shadow looks suspiciously like the guy the butler put out. That night their novelist/friend Frank (Onslow Stevens) stays in the room. While playing the piano, he's shot to death and the door is locked from the inside. A police commissioner (Edward Arnold) is called in to investigate. He questions everyone and finds a few lying. The  killer is eventually captured, though it's never explained who committed the old murders. Paul Lukas plays Capt. Brink, the one friend who manages to stay alive. (SPOILER: He's not the killer!). This is one of the earliest full length features directed by Kurt Neumann who went onto make many low budget dramas and several TARZAN films. In 1958 he was immortalized in the Sci-Fi genre when he directed THE FLY! 

Wow! Lionel Atwill was a busy actor in 1933! Besides BLUE ROOM he also starred in THE VAMPIRE BAT, MYSTERY IN THE WAX MUSEUM and MURDERS IN THE ZOO!

Thanks for reading!

Bomba

BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY-1949-A photographer Charles Harland (Onslow Stevens) and his daughter Patricia (Peggy Ann Garner) come to “the jungle” to get some photos. After showing some footage to Andy (Charles Erwin), “a glorified game warden” and his servant Eli (Smoki Whitfield) they set off on safari and see lots of animal stock footage. Patricia is saved from a leopard attack by Bomba (Johnny Sheffield), a white curly haired jungle boy. He wants to be nice but she pulls a gun on him so he walks away. Later she asks for his help but he wants none of her (“You try hurt me”). He cools to her and she tries to explain what a family is. He tells her about an old guy who taught him English. He gets shot for his efforts but later shows her around the jungle and his cave home (and animal friends). She dons a cave dress and they even go swimming together. When danger threatens in the form of some hunters Bomba saves everyone by starting a fire. There's also some talk of Bomba being left alone after his father (?), a misanthrope named Cody died.

 It's based on a series of books by Roy Rockwood (probably not a real person)and often sighted for it's racist overtones. The prolific Ford Beebe directed it and a number of others in the series (there were 12 entries in all). DC even published a few comics based on the character in the 1960's.  

Thanks for reading!

Jungle Jim

MARK OF THE GORILLA-1950-Johnny Weissmuller as Jungle Jim returns! After a narrator (un-billed Holmes Herbert) tells us about a jungle preserve, a gorilla kills a messenger carrying an important letter. Fortunately Jim's faithful crow retrieves the letter. It turns out a million dollars is buried on the preserve and some unscrupulous bad guys led by Onslow Stevens (HOUSE OF DRACULA) as Brandt want it so two of them disguise themselves as apes. It's a switcheroo! This time it really is suppose to be a man in a gorilla suit! A princess (Trudy Marshall) also gets involved looking for the lost treasure of her people. Jim gets to fight a lion, leopard and has a underwater fight with a giant snake. The princess is taken prisoner by the phony gorilla men but Jim saves her by donning his own gorilla suit! 

Much of this Sam Katzman production was filmed at the famous Bronson Canyon in LA. Director William Berke would do several more in the series.

Thanks for reading!