Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Caveman: Special Back-to-School Edition

Now Playing: Monster on the Campus (1958)

Pros: Good production values, cinematography and direction
Cons: The clumsy, slow-witted protagonist provides unintentional comedy and gives science a bad name; Monster makeup is disappointing

So, are we human beings violent by nature or not? Typically, the scientists whose job it is to investigate this stuff tend to hedge their bets. Well, yes, they say, there is some evolutionary advantage in aggressiveness. It's easy to see that we've evolved into one of the most violent of species.  Yet the latest interpretations of fossil and archaeological findings show that early humans lived largely in peace, and weren't constantly bashing each other over the head with large clubs like our popular culture suggests.

Popular culture has long thrived on speculations about our essential nature. Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll found a potion for distilling and freeing the evil in himself, which came to dominate and then entirely replace his "good" self. H.G. Wells' Dr. Moreau discovered that no matter how much you try to civilize the beast, tooth-and-claw always reasserts itself. And in his epic prelude to 2001: A Space Odyssey, director Stanley Kubrick brilliantly and succinctly burned the image of the dawn of man, fueled by homicidal violence, into our brains.

"Oh man, that's the third bucket of KFC I've polished off today!"

Ironically, even as modern man demonstrates his capacity for mindless violence over and over in the 24 hour news cycle, our early ancestors have been getting huge image makeovers in research articles and Geico commercials. Kubrick’s hairy killers have somehow morphed into gentle, awkward beings who are sensitive about their looks. Science has chipped in with an almost complete rehabilitation of everyone’s favorite Pleistocene scapegoat, the Neanderthal. The prevailing view now is that they were as smart as our direct ancestors of the time, competent toolmakers, creators of art and jewelry, and compassionate caretakers. Kind of like the Geico caveman. It’s enough to make you think that maybe the real clumsy, unreasoning brutes are your contemporary friends, neighbors and elected officials ... not some poor hairy slob with a sloping forehead and protruding brow meandering around in the dim past.

Monster on the Campus brings paleo-man and modern man together in the body of one earnest, yet inexplicably clumsy scientist, Dr. Donald Blake (Arthur Franz). Blake becomes a sort of updated Jekyll and Hyde when he inadvertently (and repeatedly) exposes himself to the blood of a coelacanth (a prehistoric-like fish) that he’s studying. This being ‘50s sci-fi, Blake’s inner caveman is a ravening, unthinking, murderous beast. Back in those days, we just didn’t have the benefit of sophisticated paleo-archaeological studies painting a much different portrait of primitive man. It’s a good thing too, because I don’t think Blake transforming into a hairy, insecure and easily offended forerunner of the Geico caveman would have been nearly as entertaining.

Remember kids, don't try this at home!

It all starts with the delivery of the coelacanth to Blake’s cozy laboratory. In his excitement to get the specimen into the lab, bloody run-off from the packing crate sloshes into the street, where a German Shepherd belonging to one of Blake’s students laps it up. The dog suddenly turns vicious, attacking Blake and his fiancee Madeline (Joanna Moore). Blake and Jimmy, the deliveryman and the dog’s owner, manage to wrap the beast up in a blanket and stash him in a cage to be tested for rabies.

When the local doctor’s nurse comes over to the lab to pick up saliva samples for testing, Blake tells her the dog has no rabies symptoms. He’s just vicious, and has very long teeth, like a prehistoric wolf’s. Before they run back to the doctor’s office with the samples, Blake picks up the coelacanth to move it to cold storage, cutting his hand on the dead thing’s teeth. As he struggles to put the specimen away, his cut hand slips into the water that the fish had been resting in.

At Doc Cole’s office (Whit Bissell), Blake complains that he’s not feeling well. Nurse Molly (Helen Westcott) agrees to drive him back home. When they get to his place, Blake is comatose, so Molly lets herself in to call Dr. Cole. As she’s on the phone, a shadow looms over her. She turns around and screams at what she sees…

Madeline starts to worry when Blake is a no show for their date. She arrives at Blake’s house to find the house torn up, and her own picture torn in half. She hears moaning coming from the back yard, and finds Blake lying face down, barefoot and semi-conscious. They’re not alone-- the dead body of nurse Molly is hanging by her hair (!?) from a nearby tree.

"So detective, would you like to stay for cocktails?
Don makes a Bloody Mary that's out of this world!"

It all looks very suspicious to the police -- especially since the dead woman was clutching Blake’s tie clasp -- but a huge thumbprint on the torn photo and a misshapen hand print on a windowpane let the professor off the hook.

The police begin to think that Prof. Blake has a deformed enemy who’s trying to frame him for murder. They decide to assign a plainclothes cop to keep an eye on him. Meanwhile, Jimmy’s dog has reverted to his normal, lovable self, and exhibits no evidence of long, wolfish teeth. Blake insists that the dog had prehistoric characteristics, and is frustrated with everyone’s skepticism.

Before he’s had a chance to figure out what happened to the dog, he, Jimmy, and Jimmy’s girlfriend witness a two-foot long prehistoric dragonfly buzzing around the laboratory. Using the coelacanth as bait, Blake and Jimmy throw a net over the monstrous insect, but Blake has to stab the thing through its midsection to keep it from ripping through the net. Blake remembers seeing a normal dragonfly alighting on the fish specimen earlier in the day. Hmmmmm, something to think about in the privacy of your office while puffing away on your favorite pipe… a pipe that just happened to be under the huge dragonfly, leaking bloody fluid like a sieve as Blake moved it over to an examining table.

The monstrous, misshapen brute strikes again, this time tearing up the lab and killing the plainclothes cop shadowing the professor. Again, Blake is found at the scene, clothes ripped and semi-coherent. Blake may not be the brightest small-town college scientist ever, but the latest incident moves him into high gear. He calls the folks in Madagascar who supplied the fish and learns that it had been irradiated to for preservation purposes. So, to review (pay attention, there may be a quiz): radiation + coelacanth blood + accidental exposure/ingestion = regression to a primitive evolutionary state.

Time to call Orkin!

Blake’s department chair and prospective father-in-law, Prof. Howard (Alexander Lockwood) seems more concerned about the huge long-distance charges to Madagascar Blake has racked up than all the murders and chaos going on. He suggests that the discombobulated scientist take some time off, offering his cabin in the woods.

Blake, finally (!!) suspecting that he himself may be at the center of the bloody mystery, repairs to the remote cabin to experiment on himself and perhaps document one of the most astounding scientific discoveries of all time.

If Monster on the Campus is representative in any way of science as it was practiced in the twentieth century, then it’s a wonder that we managed to cure cancer, eliminate obesity, and enhance the IQ of every man, woman and child on earth through genetic engineering. (Oh wait, I double-checked and we haven’t done any of that. Hmmmmm……)

Dr. Blake gives absent-minded professors a bad name. He is a clueless, careless menace to himself and others. First, he hires a well-meaning but inept college student to deliver the precious specimen to the lab. Jimmy (played by soon-to-be teen heartthrob Troy Donahue in his first movie role) has about as much experience handling delicate lab specimens as the local butcher.

"Hmmm, maybe it's time to switch to one
of those fancy Gillette razors..."

Blake himself seems to know next to nothing about handling fragile specimens. He picks the ugly thing up with his bare hands to move it, promptly cutting his hand on its teeth. He leaves it out on a lab table for long stretches at a time, practically inviting dogs, dragonflies, microorganisms and anything else that might be wandering in and around the lab to feast on it.

Then he absentmindedly leaves his smoking pipe near the thing, and sure enough, Murphy’s Law goes to work-- as the fish gets jostled, more irradiated, bloody effluent drips unseen into his pipe. Later, as he takes a long draught from the pipe, he crinkles his nose at the strange smell and taste, but then continues to puff away!

But the real kicker is Blake’s inability to add 2 and 2 to get 4 (something of a deficiency for a scientist). He’s able to see quickly enough that ingesting bloody, irradiated coelacanth water causes living things to revert to primitive evolutionary states. And he’s aware that the murderer who appears to be stalking him has left misshapen hand and footprints more characteristic of a primitive anthropoid than a human being. He even comes to the conclusion that the killer must be someone with access to his lab who perhaps cut himself on the fish or otherwise exposed himself to the blood… uh-huh.

Let’s see now, we have two victims of a murderous subhuman thing, and in both cases, the befuddled doctor was found unconscious at the murder scene. Okay, so 2 and 2 is, uh, uh… As we watch Blake furrow his brow trying to piece it together, smoke practically coming out of his ears, we realize that denial is not just a river in Egypt, it is a state of being with poor professor Blake. It’s enough to make you want to throw your popcorn, or remote, or shoe at the screen.

Fortunately, Monster on the Campus is redeemed from such moments of unintentional comedy by good production values and solid direction. Russell Metty’s cinematography is top-notch. Much of Monster is shot at night, with ominous shadows looming everywhere and creepy clutching hands emerging out of the inky blackness. At times it has almost an “old dark house” mystery feel, and at other times it reminds you of sci-fried film noir.

"Hey, is that the pizza already? You guys really are fast!... uh-oh..."

The aftermath of the first murder is particularly well-staged. Donald’s moans from the backyard sound strange and half-human. As Madeline helps him stand up, in the background, like a luminescent specter, is the upright body of nurse Molly. Cut to a two shot, where we see Donald’s anguished face as he focuses on the body over Madeline’s shoulder. Madeline looks around and screams. Cut to a close-up of the body, which we see is hanging by its hair from the branch of a tree. Blood-curdling stuff for ‘50s sci-fi!

Of course, shadows and suggestion are not enough of a pay-off for drive-in audiences, so we do finally see the monster when Blake sets up his experiment at the cabin. The pay-off here is meager, as the stuntman doing all the heavy monster lifting (uncredited Eddie Parker) is outfitted with an unconvincing rubber mask complete with obvious eye-holes. More shadows and less rubber mask are clearly called for here. On the other hand, Blake’s old school, Wolf Man-inspired transformation is nicely done.

"Is it my aftershave?"

Arthur Franz has been featured on this blog before. Like fellow B leading men John Agar, John Carradine and Robert Hutton, Franz was all over ‘50s sci-fi, taking a Flight to Mars in 1951, battling Invaders from Mars in 1953, testing The Flame Barrier in 1958, and commanding The Atomic Submarine in 1959.

Of course, director Jack Arnold helmed some of the greatest, most iconic sci-fi films ever, including It Came from Outer Space (1953), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). Monster on the Campus is not in this league, but its deficiencies are not Arnold’s fault. His expert hand clearly overcomes a weak script and monster effects to make something very enjoyable, albeit campy. Arnold biographer Dana M. Reemes relates how the director, upon his return to Universal-International after pursuing other projects at MGM and Paramount, was assigned an exploitative B thriller tailored for the teenage drive-in market. A first time producer was also assigned. Arnold was not exactly thrilled:

"Joseph Gershenson was a very fine man who wanted like crazy to be a producer. Universal finally gave him his chance with Monster on the Campus and I was assigned to direct. The science fiction craze was dying out and I didn’t want to do this kind of picture. But as a contract director I had little choice. I had to do it or risk being suspended. There were many problems with the script, but the studio liked it and wanted us to go right ahead with the picture. I tried very hard to do the best I could with it but we had a very tight schedule. If I had to do all over again with more time and a little rewriting I could make it a good picture. It’s not one of my favorites." [Quoted by Dana M. Reemes, Directed by Jack Arnold, McFarland, 1988]

Jack is a little hard on himself and his retrogressive monster movie. It’s an atmospheric, enjoyable B that scores high in repeat watchability. And it has an important message for all of humankind. As Prof. Donald Blake himself says,

"Unless we learn to control the instincts we’ve inherited from our ape-like ancestors, the race is doomed."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

---

Where to find it:

Oldies.com

“Horror that waited a hundred million years becomes a terrifying reality!”

"That's a face?"

The Atomic Submarine (1960)

After the Soviet Union's launch of the first orbiting satellite Sputnik in late 1957, the U.S. had a sort of collective nervous breakdown over the nation's ability to compete in the all-important area of technology, and especially military technology. Many darkly predicted that before long, the Soviets would be lobbing atomic bombs at us from space. Bomb shelters and duck-and-cover exercises at schools became all the rage. One bright spot in the midst of the doom and gloom in 1958 was the first successful submerged voyage across the North Pole by the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571). All but forgotten now, the Nautilus' exploits were big, welcome news to worried Americans, boosting faith in the country's technological future at a time when it seemed all of our space rockets were exploding on their launch pads.

Naturally, the movie industry zealously capitalized on the headlines, turning America's worries into celluloid entertainments featuring atomic mutations, threats from outer space, and, in honor of an American first, atomic submarines. Disney launched the big-budget 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 1954, around the same time that the U.S. Navy launched their nuclear-powered version of Jules Verne's Nautilus. Several years later, the real-life Nautilus' record-breaking voyages inspired such films as 1961's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and the subject of this post, The Atomic Submarine (1960).

Atomic Submarine is set in a not-too-distant future (not too distant from 1960, that is), where nuclear-powered military, scientific, and commercial subs and ships routinely transit the world's oceans, and in particular take convenient short cuts under the polar ice cap. When dozens of these vessels turn up missing or mysteriously destroyed, the military brass summons top scientists and the crew of America's premier atomic sub, the Tigershark, to investigate. The call to duty tears Lt. Commander Richard "Reef" Holloway (Arthur Franz) away from his pursuit of a shapely peroxide blonde, which does not make him very happy (more on the Lt. Commander's, and the actor's, unhappiness later).

The slowest parts of the movie involve the Tigershark's search for a mysterious underwater craft near the North Pole that may be responsible for the mischief, with lots of stock footage and shots of maps with dotted lines tracing the sub's routes, and a portentous narrator solemnly describing the action (or lack of it). Things don't pick up until the crew and the scientists stumble onto a pattern behind the mysterious craft's appearances and subsequent maritime disasters-- a pattern that traces a circle around the North Pole. (Shades of the real-life Nautilus!) They race to the next point where the pattern suggests the unearthly visitor should be, and sure enough, encounter a submerged saucer that they dub "Cyclops" (for the single eye-like light in the middle of its dome).

What Atomic Submarine lacks in budget ($135,000), it makes up for (somewhat) in imagination. Sci-fi flicks of the time were full of needle-nosed spaceships and flying saucers, but this is the only one that I can think of to feature an Unidentified Submerged Object (USO) -- and to top it off, the USO turns out to be a living organism as well!  When the Tigershark's torpedoes fail to do the trick, the Commander (Dick Foran) rams the Cyclops, but can't extricate his sub, and the two sink to the bottom of the icy depths.

The intrepid crew figures out a way to puncture the Cyclops' "eye," providing a way into the craft. But, much to hard-charging Lt. Cmdr. Holloway's chagrin, the only person qualified to steer an experimental diving bell into the eye of the Cyclops is civilian scientist and (gasp!) pacifist Carl Neilson, Jr. (Brett Halsey), son of Holloway's mentor. Holloway mercilessly chides the earnest and idealistic Neilson about his naive views on peace and disarmament. At this point, the film seems more like crude cold war propaganda than entertainment. 

Off camera, relations between the two actors weren't much better. In a DVD extra interview, Halsey described Franz as cold and aloof. Halsey speculated that Franz thought that the low-budget production was beneath him. Similarly, producer Alex Gordon found Franz "neurotic," and was irritated that Franz insisted on seeing his rushes-- unusual for a modest production on a tight schedule (The Astounding B Monster Book, Dinoship, 2005)

Pacifist or not, Neilson/Halsey performs his job like a trooper, enabling Holloway to lead a crew aboard the Cyclops to see if they can cut the Tigershark loose from the alien ship. The Navy frogmen assigned to the task of freeing the Tigershark note that the area seems more like the ruptured flesh of a gigantic animal than a torn metal hull. Holloway and one of the frogmen hear a disembodied voice that their skeptical companions for some reason can't hear. Like so many extras in sci-fi thrillers, the frogmen work hard to save the day, and get dispatched in grisly ways for their efforts.

At one and the same time, Atomic Submarine reveals its stark low budget, yet manages visuals that had me hiding my eyes as a kid, and stayed with me long after. The Cyclops' interior is a simple sound stage with a couple of ramps, lit in stark black and white. With most of the unearthly ship in total blackness, and disembodied voices calling to select Tigershark crew members, the scene is simply and eerily effective. The ways in which the hapless frogmen meet their demise are particularly gruesome for a movie of this era (if you're curious, see the clip below).

The climactic meeting between the Cyclops' guiding intelligence and Holloway is also quite effective, considering the shoestring effects budget. The creature was an elaborate sock puppet built up around effects man Irving Block's arm, with rubber tentacles around the base manipulated by wires. The whole sequence aboard the Cyclops submersible spacecraft is so tight and effective, that it almost seems part of another, more expensive and sophisticated production. Needless to say, Earth is saved in typical B fashion by well-placed shots-- the first, a shot from Holloway's pistol into the gaping eye of the Cyclops creature, and the coup de grace: one of Tigershark's torpedoes quickly reconfigured as an anti-ballistic missile to intercept the fleeing alien ship in mid-air.

Another reason Atomic Submarine stands out from similar B pictures of the day is its veteran cast. Arthur Franz may have had good reason to be grumpy about being in this shoestringer. By 1960, he already had a long string of leads in B movies, secondary parts in bigger budget movies, and TV roles behind him. Early in his career, he gained notice for his portrayal of a mentally unstable war veteran who snaps and begins shooting women with a high-powered rifle (The Sniper, 1952). While other actors parlayed such noticeable roles into fame and A-list careers, Franz never broke out of the B-list and TV doldrums.

The presence of veterans Dick Foran (as the Tigershark's commander) and Tom Conway (as a member of the scientific team) adds to the fun. Foran is 50 years young in Submarine, and instantly recognizable to fans of old Universal programmers like The Mummy's Hand (1940) and Horror Island (1941) -- not to mention countless westerns. Conway, debonair brother of equally debonair George Sanders, went from genre picture highs like Val Lewton's Cat People (1942) and I Walked With a Zombie (1943), to lows like Bride of the Gorilla (1951) and Voodoo Woman (1957). He made only a couple more films and some TV after Atomic Submarine.

Bill Warren, in his monumental and highly entertaining compilation Keep Watching the Skies: American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties (McFarland), pithily sizes up The Atomic Submarine:

[I]t has a certain odd likability that makes it a more watchable film than it has any right to be. Despite a shortage of action, and especially lame direction by veteran Spencer Gordon Bennet, the film is relatively brisk, and the acting by a crew of old (and young) pros is considerably above average for a low-budget film, although the script by Orville H. Hampton is so full of clunker lines and wildly wrong character reactions as to be frequently hilarious.

Unintentionally hilarious or not, how can you not like a movie with lines like these?

Cyclops creature: At last Commander, we meet as your people say... face to face!
Lt. Cmdr. Holloway: That's a face?

The Atomic Submarine is available for immediate free online viewing at Internet Archive.

Unlucky Tigershark crew members have a bad day aboard the alien craft: