The Best Laid Plans of Not-So-Nice Madmen

We’re all waiting with bated breath as the world’s finest medical and scientific minds tirelessly work to come up with a vaccine for the coronavirus. When it happens, it will rank among humanity’s greatest medical achievements, right up there with Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin and Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine.

The difference being that there will almost certainly not be an individual man or woman to point to as the latest hero of the 21st century (although no doubt some politicians will try to take credit). The complexity of the challenges and the resources needed to address them dictate that literal armies of brilliant minds work cooperatively and collectively, versus leaving it up to an eccentric lone wolf scientist burning the midnight oil in a secluded lab.

"It's okay doc, I'm feeling much better now... really I am!"

Society is deeply ambivalent when it comes to brilliant lone wolves. On the one hand, we say we cherish individualism, ambition and initiative, and yet also seem to be smugly satisfied when some modern-day Icarus flies too high and comes crashing back down to earth.

One of the purest expressions of that love-hate relationship is the B-movie mad scientist. Whether they’re busy stitching together body parts and animating them with life, or concocting serums that can turn human beings into mind-controlled zombies, there’s nothing more fascinating or more deserving of punishment than the mad doctor dabbling in things better left alone.

It seems as if we value intelligence up to a certain point -- then, when we’re confronted with extraordinary genius, we’re deeply suspicious that such a gift is a license to disregard the value of “normal” human life. The movies help us work out the conundrum and restore order to the universe, at least on celluloid.

The mad doctors and scientists profiled below -- represented by some of the greatest names in classic horror -- are all inheritors of the Frankenstein tradition of lonely brilliance, a tendency to flout society’s norms, and hubris bordering on a God-complex. They up the ante by being willing to experiment on live people; no digging up subjects from the local graveyard for them.

While the mad theories, serum formulas and lab equipment vary from film to film, some plot elements pop up time and again:

• A brilliant but highly eccentric scientist is denounced and/or ostracized by his colleagues for his mad theories
• Seething with resentment, he locks himself away in an isolated lab, often in a large, remote mansion, working round the clock to prove himself to the world
• To anyone who will listen, the scientist compares himself to the great thinkers of history who were misunderstood in their day
• An innocent woman -- a daughter, niece, sister or colleague -- initially stands by the beleaguered scientist, holding out a slim hope of redemption for him
• The scientist is not just content to prove his discredited theory, but has to exact revenge on his disbelieving colleagues, even those who still respect him but don’t understand his mad obsession
• A young man, the boyfriend or fiance of the scientist’s daughter/niece/colleague (and often a newspaper reporter), becomes suspicious and starts nosing around

Please note: Thanks to the amazing Embed-O-Magic process, the full-length movies shared on this page are queued to a clip illustrating each mad doctor’s peculiar modus operandi. If you want to see how he gets his just deserts for flouting the laws of humanity and Nature, you’ll have to watch the full movie.

The Man Who Changed His Mind (aka The Man Who Lived Again, 1936)

The Man: Dr. Laurience (Boris Karloff)

The Plan: Dr. Laurience is a brain specialist whose eccentric theories got him kicked out of the research institute he was working at in Genoa. Now on his own, Laurience hires brilliant neurosurgeon Clare Wyatt (Anna Lee) to assist him with his experiments.

Laurience claims that he can “take the thought content from the mind of a living animal and store it as you would store electricity.” This content can then be transferred to another living being. To Clare’s amazement, he exchanges the minds of two chimpanzees, one gentle, the other fearful and aggressive.

Against his better judgment, the doctor takes up the offer of Lord Haslewood (Frank Cellier), a newspaper mogul and patron of the sciences, to relocate his equipment and experiments to Haslewood’s institute.

When Laurience presents his theories to a distinguished group of colleagues and is promptly ridiculed as a fraud, Haslewood fires the doctor and tells him that all his equipment and notes are the mogul’s property to do with as he sees fit. Laurience decides on the spot that he has the means to make the rich blowhard change his mind…

Man Made Monster (1941)

The Man: Dr. Paul Rigas (Lionel Atwill)

The Plan: When Dan McCormick (Lon Chaney, Jr.) becomes headline news as the sole survivor of a bus crash into power lines that electrocuted 5 other passengers, electro-biologists Dr. John Lawrence (Samuel S. Hinds) and Dr. Paul Rigas (Atwill) offer Dan room and board on Lawrence’s sprawling estate if he will agree to let the doctors examine him to find out why he is so immune to electricity (yes Virginia, there really is a branch of science called electro-biology).

Lawrence has a normal scientific curiosity with regard to Dan, but Rigas sees the potential for so much more: “I believe that electricity is life, that men can be motivated and controlled by electrical impulse supplied by the radioactivities of the electron. That eventually, a race of superior men can be developed, men whose only wants are… electricity!”

Lawrence’s niece June (Ann Nagel) and her fiance, newspaper reporter Mark Adams (Frank Albertson) are leery of Rigas. Adams sums up his impression of the doctor: “I bet he spent his childhood sticking pins in butterflies.”

While Lawrence is away at a scientific conference, Rigas pumps poor Dan with higher and higher doses of electricity in an effort to create an electro-man obedient to his will. When Lawrence returns and finds out what Rigas is doing, the madman must silence his colleague…

The Mad Monster (1942)

The Man: Dr. Cameron (George Zucco)

The Plan: Cameron’s mad theory -- that you can pass on the characteristics of animals to humans via blood transfusions -- has gotten him denounced by his colleagues and dismissed from his prestigious academic post.

When he succeeds in transforming his simple-minded gardener Petro (Glenn Strange) into a wolf-man, he imagines bringing together all his critics for an “I told you so” session:

“Just picture gentlemen, an army of wolfmen, fearless, raging, every man a snarling animal! My serum will make it possible to unloose millions of such animal men, men who are governed by one collective thought -- the animal lust to kill without regard to personal safety. Such an army will be invincible!”

But Cameron is not satisfied to just deliver tongue-lashings in his daydreams. He devises a diabolical plan to get his chief rival, Professor Blaine (Robert Strange), alone in a room with Petro, and have Blaine himself inject the handyman with the serum that turns him into a mindless killer…

The Ape Man (1943)

The Man: Dr. James Brewster (Bela Lugosi)

The Plan: Brewster, a famous gland expert but a sloppy scientist, uses himself as a guinea pig in his experiments and ends up as a hairy, hunched over human-ape hybrid. With the help of his colleague Dr. Randall (Henry Hall) and his sister Agatha (Minerva Urecal), he stages his own disappearance and hides out in the cellar of the family manor, desperately seeking a cure for his condition.

There is one hope, but there’s a catch. Human spinal fluid might help him return to his normal self, but it has to be harvested from living bodies, meaning instant death for the donor. When Randall draws the line at killing people, Brewster explodes in a fit of self-pitying rage: “It’s my life against somebody else’s -- I don’t want to live the rest of my life this way, and I WON’T!”

When a wisecracking reporter (Wallace Ford) and his photographer (Louise Currie) start snooping around the manor, the pressure is on. Brewster, with the aid of his pet gorilla, takes matters into his own hands to secure the precious spinal fluid…

The Unearthly (1957)

The Man: Dr. Charles Conway (John Carradine)

The Plan: Conway runs a private sanatorium in the middle of nowhere, where a number of people, including the beautiful but vulnerable Grace Thomas (Allison Hayes), are convalescing. They’ve been referred to the sanatorium by a duplicitous crony of Conway’s, Dr. Wright (Roy Gordon), to become unwitting guinea pigs in Conway’s secret experiments with glands (there are those glands again!) None have any family members who will notice if they go missing. Lobo (Tor Johnson), a hulking giant with the mind of a child (and a product of Conway’s experiments), is on hand to make sure the “patients” stay put.

In his research on human glands, Conway has found a way to “control the flow of vitamins” to them in order to create giants like Lobo, but he has also created a new artificial gland that in theory is the key to eternal youth: “I can prolong life for thousands of years, perhaps forever! Think of it, to be always, exactly as you are now. Suppose you could wake up every morning and see your face untouched by time!”

But to prove his theories, he needs a “completely sound physical specimen, mentally and physically perfect!” He thinks he has such a specimen in Mark Houston (Myron Healey), a fugitive criminal that Lobo found lurking around the property, and whom Conway has blackmailed into sticking around.

In the meantime, Conway continues to experiment on the other patients who have been lured to the house of horrors…

What Might Have Been: The Universal Monster Rally You Never Saw

When the Metzinger Sisters at Silver Scenes put the call out for participants for their Imaginary Film Blogathon, I experienced a flashback (the cinematic kind of course -- I hardly ever drop acid anymore). I saw a skinny, pasty-faced 10 year-old-boy wearing a Dracula cape and directing a motley assortment of neighborhood kids in short plays based on the Universal monster rallies he'd recently seen on the late night horror show (specifically Gravesend Manor, central Iowa's Saturday night horror fest broadcast by WOI Channel 5, and hosted by Malcolm, the Duke, Esmerelda and Claude). The plays were held in my parents' garage, with the garage door used as a very noisy curtain. The audience consisted of extremely patient, slightly bemused parents, with a few semi-curious siblings and friends also parking their butts in the folding chairs.

As you can imagine, this was in a place and time far away and long ago: a.) neighbors actually knew each other and would hang out together; b.) adults would occasionally find the time to sit still for the nerdy neighbor kid's monster movie-inspired plays; and c.) garages were still used primarily for parking cars vs. storing a lifetime's worth of accumulated junk, and could therefore easily be converted into a makeshift theater.

Alas, from those promising beginnings I failed to become another Steven Spielberg or George Lucas (or even a Joe Dante for that matter), but from time to time over the years, I've thought about what I might do with a Universal monster mash-up. Frankenstein meeting the Wolf Man was a revelation for the 10-year-old me. (At the time, I wasn't the sharpest pencil in the box -- I wondered why Bela Lugosi was listed in the credits but didn't seem to appear in the movie. It took me some time to realize it was dear Bela under all that Frankenstein monster make-up!) Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man was a tasty appetizer, but the chefs at Universal outdid themselves with the sumptuous feast of House of Frankenstein! (On the other hand, House of Dracula, while certainly moody and atmospheric, left a taste in the mouth like Tuesday leftovers. Can you tell it's getting close to dinner time as I write this?)

For a kid who's very, very into monsters, two in the same film is great, but three classic monsters is sublime. Sometimes, more is indeed more, and the best recipes come from piling on the ingredients: starting with a base of Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man, throw in Boris Karloff as a mad, vengeful doctor, add the gaunt, debonair John Carradine as Dracula, and you've got the perfect monster stew! (Yep, it really is getting close to dinner time.) Sure, the various plot lines don't coalesce very well, and the monsters don't really meet up with one another, but there's just something very satisfying and likable in the attempt to merge three classic monster universes. And for those of you who like a side dish or two of pathos with their monster main course, I challenge you not to shed a tear for the lovelorn hunchback Daniel (J. Carrol Naish) or the tragic gypsy girl Ilonka (Elena Verdugo) who loves a wolf man. (Okay, I'm taking a break and getting something to eat…)

(Alright, I'm back.) I know that as a responsible adult, I'm supposed to revere Universal's classic monsters of the '30s and disparage the make-a-quick-buck kiddie matinee monster rallies of the '40s, but as a lover of B's, I can't bring myself to be that high-minded. Frankly, the original Frankenstein, Dracula and Mummy are slooooowwwww-moving and sleep inducing compared to the frenetic, wacky energy of the rallies. One of the greatest horror movies of all time, The Bride of Frankenstein, is essentially an intellectual exercise in spite of its B horror trappings. In contrast, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein engage the cheesy fun center of the brain. And that's not a bad thing, as I've tried to demonstrate with this blog.

Make no mistake, cheesy fun is hard to pull off. Like good comedy, it requires a delicate balance. Try just a little too hard, and you've got something that's patently artificial and just plain bad. Did the producers of Universal's monster rallies of the '40s fail miserably? Look at it this way -- these films have been issued on VHS and DVD multiple times, are still in print, and have been rated by thousands of fans and analyzed by hundreds of reviewers on sites like IMDb. Glenn Strange, the B western actor who donned the Frankenstein monster makeup for several of the rallies, over the years has become the iconic monster, more so perhaps than Boris Karloff. Not bad for throwaway kids' stuff, huh?

So, it is only with the deepest respect for the later films that I try my hand at conceptualizing a Universal rally that might have been. Mixing and matching monsters is no easy task. Naturally, any similarity in what follows to an actual B movie is purely coincidental.

Now Playing: Chamber of Horrors (1944)

Pros: Brings together neglected and underrated Universal monsters in an atmospheric setting
Cons: Script is a confusing mess (okay, so I'm not a screenwriter!)

Directed by George Waggner
Cinematography by George Robinson
Cast: Henry Hull (Kruller), Claude Rains (Cedric Griffin), Evelyn Ankers (Isabel Lewis), Turhan Bey (Eric Iverson), Martin Kosleck (Peter Hoffman), Bela Lugosi (Ahmet), George Zucco (Andoheb), Lon Chaney, Jr. (Kharis), Acquanetta (Ananka)

In their comprehensive and cheesily fun survey of Universal Horrors: The Studio's Classic Films, 1931-1946 (McFarland, 2nd Ed. 2007), Tom Weaver and John and Michael Brunas note that the penultimate monster rally, House of Frankenstein, had something of a shaky start:

"On June 7, 1943, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Universal was developing a new shocker entitled Chamber of Horrors with an all-star cast of goons including the Invisible Man, the Mad Ghoul, the Mummy and 'other assorted monsters.' George Waggner was named as the ringleader of this three-ring circus of horrors. The cast read like a who's who of cinemacabre: Karloff, Chaney Jr., Lugosi, Lorre, Rains, Zucco, Hull and … James Barton (!). Chamber of Horrors never saw the light of day."

(However, the film that was eventually released as House of Frankenstein did get the green light in the summer of 1943 under the working title The Devil's Brood.)

"Hey, where's my invitation to the House of Frankenstein?"

I've always loved Universal's Mummy movies (as well as Hammer's), and I feel badly for dear old Kharis that he never got invited to any of the rallies. As described, Chamber of Horrors has a completely different cast of monsters from the two House rallies. It sounds like after Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, the studio execs wanted to give their other franchises a shot in the arm (and in the case of the one-shot The Mad Ghoul, possibly make it into a franchise). The 10-year-old kid that still occupies a good portion of my brain was tempted to just throw the Mummy into the pot with Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man, but I decided to stick with the concept as originally reported -- although I've played around with the cast somewhat. Here goes!

The story: In the Egyptian desert, a uniformed Nazi SS officer, Kruller (Henry Hull) stands at the opening of a newly excavated tomb, interrogating an old local dressed in a traditional robe and wearing a fez. Andoheb (George Zucco), High Priest of Karnak and protector of ancient secrets, is surrounded by soldiers, but he is unnaturally calm. "Your people have betrayed you and led us to Princess Ananka's tomb," he tells Andoheb. "It's all over-- you might as well turn over the Scroll of Life to us as well. We will find it with or without your help!"

"For defiling Ananka's tomb, you and your men will be cursed for a thousand lifetimes," Andoheb responds defiantly. "The Scroll will never end up in infidel hands like yours!"

Henry Hull

Kruller nods at his men, who grab Andoheb and take him off camera. As a shot rings out, we see a face peering out from behind a large rock near the tomb (and it looks a lot like Bela Lugosi!). Schiller motions his men: "pack up the tomb's contents and ship it to Berlin. The Princess herself will come with me."

Cut to the sleepy college town of Mapleton, New York, where an inquest into the bizarre death of Dr. Alfred Morris is being held. On the witness stand, concert pianist Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers) tells a weird tale of how the seemingly kindly Dr. Morris exposed her fiance Ted to an ancient Mayan poison gas, turning him into a living dead man and mindless slave to the mad doctor. Worse still, Ted had to have regular injections of fluid from fresh human hearts to keep going. After her testimony, Isabel and her new boyfriend, debonair Eric Iverson (Turhan Bey) are approached by a strange, rat-faced little man who introduces himself as Peter Hoffman (Martin Kosleck), a researcher with the newly opened Museum of Metaphysics and Ancient Sciences. When Hoffman insists that Isabel knows more than she's telling and tries to grab her arm, Iverson steps between the two and advises the strange man to get lost. Regaining his composure, Hoffman apologizes and invites the couple to visit the museum. Fade out.

Night. The camera slowly zooms in on what looks to be a deserted house. The night wind moans through the gnarled branches of the trees surrounding the house. Close-up of the front door, and a nameplate: Dr. Alfred Morris. The doorknob starts turning by itself. Inside the house, a chair is knocked over by an invisible body, and another door opens by itself. We see a large room set up as a laboratory. Beakers are brushed aside by an invisible arm, file cabinets open by themselves and disgorge their contents, and finally, a cabinet door flies open and a test tube seems to float through the darkened room.

Martin Kosleck

Cut to another night shot, where Hoffman is entering the gate in front of a large, ramshackle mansion. A sign over the gate reads "Museum of Metaphysics and Ancient Sciences." As he walks up to path to the house, a shadowy figure observes him from a hiding place behind a gnarled old tree. The wan light from the house illuminates his face, and we see it's the same man who watched Kruller and Andoheb at the excavation site. Hoffman proceeds into the house, passing by bizarre tableaux with wax figures depicting ancient Egyptian burial rites and blood-curdling Mayan sacrifices. He touches an ornamental dagger hanging on a nearby wall, and a secret door creaks opens to reveal a passageway.

Cut to a large, underground laboratory lit eerily by torches. Kruller, now dressed in civilian clothes, is hovering over an open sarcophagus. He looks up momentarily as Hoffman enters from the steep, narrow stairway. "It's all coming together now Hoffman!" he says triumphantly. "First we stole Griffin's invisibility formula from the British, who had forgotten it even existed! Then we recovered Morris' secret for creating the living dead from right under the noses of these ignorant townspeople. And we're close -- very close now -- to discovering the Egyptian secret of eternal life!"

"Berlin will be very pleased," Hoffman responds. "Ah yes, Berlin…" Kruller says with a smirk, "we'll keep all of this to ourselves for right now… at least until the final piece is in place." Hoffman frowns. "Do you think it wise that we openly advertise ourselves with this museum? Won't it attract suspicion?" "That's the beauty of it Hoffman! We're hiding in plain sight, and scholars with knowledge of the esoteric arts are coming to us, unwittingly giving us the information to uncover these dark secrets. To them it's all an academic exercise, good for a scientific paper or two. But it will be Germany that will reap the rewards! We'll create whole armies of invisible soldiers, turn our enemies into living dead slaves, and while we're at it, help ourselves to eternal life courtesy of the Egyptians!"

As he finishes his speech, Hoffman's eyes widen in horror. Both men look down at the sarcophagus, where a moldering, bandaged body is slowing sitting up. After emitting a low moan, the mummy slowly and painfully lays back down. "Don't be such a mouse Herr Hoffman," chides Kruller. "I administered the tana leaves to the princess, but by themselves, they can only animate the body for a moment or two. It's the Scroll of Life that we need. We'll find it eventually. But for now, we'll concentrate on Prof. Morris' discoveries. Our test subject here," nodding at Ananka's mummy, "might still be revived with fluid from the hearts of some, shall we say, volunteers.

Bela Lugosi

Cut to the ruins of the Banning house (site of the fiery climax of The Mummy's Tomb). The lurking man previously seen shadowing Kruller is standing just outside the charred foundation of the house. His face is lit by a single candle. "Kharis, your work here is not done. I, your loyal servant Ahmet, have traveled to this strange land to call you yet again to your sacred mission. I have read from the Scroll of Life. It is time to arise again to avenge the House of Karnark and reclaim your Princess!"

The earth in front of Ahmet (Bela Lugosi) stirs, and a clutching, bandaged hand breaks through the clods of dirt. Close-up of Ahmet's grim face as a shadow falls across it. Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) stands in front of his summoner, his face and body blackened by fire and dirt. Cut to Kruller's basement laboratory. Closeup of Ananka's mummy. As Kruller and Hoffman converse in the background, the Princess stirs and takes a gulp of air through the moldering bandages. Fade out.

Isabel, with Eric by her side, is being interviewed by a wire service reporter about her recent brush with the living dead. She recaps the story of how Prof. Morris, madly in love with her, gassed her fiance Ted Allison with his deadly Mayan poison. The reporter mentions in passing that he also interviewed a Dr. Kruller and his assistant Hoffman at the new museum, who seem to know a lot about the recent tragedy and Morris' macabre discoveries. Isabel and Eric exchange glances, recalling their encounter with Hoffman at the inquest. "Maybe it's time we visit this museum, since we were so graciously invited," Eric suggests. The reporter suggests that if they're going to visit the museum, they should get in touch with Cedric Griffin (Claude Rains), son of Britain's notorious Invisible Man. He's heard that the museum staff have been researching Griffin and the invisibility formula, and he's traveled all the way from London to interview them.

Isabel and Eric meet Cedric in the lobby of the hotel he's staying at. Cedric tells them that there was a break-in at the university housing his father's papers, most of which have disappeared. Cedric is concerned that Griffin's formula will fall into the wrong hands. Even in the right hands it's dangerous stuff, since the serum still creates madness in anyone foolish enough to take it. Cedric has learned through the academic grapevine that Kruller and Hoffman have studied his father and his research extensively, and they're his only lead to tracking down the papers.

Claude Rains

The three agree to visit the museum together, and arrange a special night tour with Hoffman. Cut to the museum, where Kruller and Hoffman are standing amidst the macabre tableaux in the main room. Hoffman is clearly nervous. "It's not just the singer and her escort visiting tonight, it's Griffin's son as well! I tell you he knows something-- why else would he travel all this way to our humble little museum? It's time to tell Berlin everything we know and get out!"

"Why so faint of heart now Hoffman, when we're so close to capturing the secrets of the ages?" Kruller sneers. "Besides, the bureaucrats in Berlin wouldn't have the faintest clue what to do with our discoveries! Forget them! We hold in our hands the power to kill our enemies without being seen, make others into our slaves, and to live for eternity. With that power, we can move nations, we can rule the world! Now's the time to be a lion Hoffman, not a mouse!"

Hoffman backs away, his mouth agape. Kruller's hands, which had been balled into fists, suddenly turn pale white, then translucent as capillaries and veins pop into view. Kruller opens his hands and brings them up to his face as they disappear altogether. "It's treason!" Hoffman sputters, "you can't mean it!" "Ah, I thought I had more control over it," Kruller mutters to himself. He grins evilly as his dark eyes bore into Hoffman. Kruller advances toward the subjective camera, two handless arms stretched out in front of him. "Here Hoffman, come with me to the lab. It's time we tested Morris' discovery on a living subject. Take heart Mouse, it's all for a good cause…"

Evelyn Ankers

When Isabel, Eric and Cedric arrive at the museum, Kruller, his hands swathed in bandages, greets them. He makes his apologies for Hoffman, who's off on an errand, and explains that he scalded his hands making tea. The visitors exchange glances among themselves as Kruller walks them through the tableaux in the main room. Kruller's face is unnaturally pale, almost translucent as he explains the research he's doing into ancient, occult arts. "We can learn much from what we formerly dismissed as superstition and cheap mysticism," he explains. "The Griffins and the Morris's of the world have proved that…" When Cedric presses him on what he knows about his father's work, Kruller apologizes to the group that he's not feeling well, and needs to retire. At this point, his head is entirely in shadow. The group mumbles their good nights as Kruller, his bandaged hands covering his face, quickly escapes to a back room.

Out in the night air, the three shake their heads in near disbelief. "What an odd duck!" Eric exclaims. "He's clearly hiding something," Cedric says with a frown. "And what do you make of those grotesque displays?" Isabel asks. "Not the work of serious scholars," replies Cedric. Eric finishes his thought: "More like a chamber of horrors!" Isabel suddenly stops walking and shudders violently. Eric grabs her. "What's wrong?" "It felt like a cold hand reached out and brushed my face!" she says breathlessly, her face pale.

At that moment, a horse-drawn wagon noisily bursts out of the dark, nearly sideswiping the group by the side of the road. It clatters on down the road and vanishes in the darkness. "Did you see that?" Cedric exclaims. "I don't think there was anyone driving it!" "Well, we've survived the Chamber of Horrors and a driverless wagon tonight," Eric says drily, trying to lighten the mood. "Let's get out of here before our luck runs out!"

Turhan Bey

In the morning, Eric and Cedric meet at the hotel to compare notes. Cedric shows Eric a copy of the local newspaper, and taps his finger on the headline. "Here's the explanation for the driverless wagon!" "Local Junk Man Found Dead," the headline reads. "The corpse was mutilated, the poor man's heart cut out. Sound familiar?" Cedric asks. "Except that Morris and Ted are dead," Eric responds. "Something's not right here," Cedric observes. "Kruller's evasiveness, and his strange skin condition, and now this murder happening practically on his doorstep… He seems to know an awful lot about Prof. Morris' monstrous work, and my father's … and now the old horror seems to be playing out again. We need to find out what's going on at that so-called museum, and not by taking tours from evasive hosts."

That night, the two men meet nearby the museum to discuss strategy. "I've got to get into the house to look at records, see what they're up to," Cedric says. "Stay here where you have a good view of the whole house, and whistle if anyone gets near while I look for a way in."

Just then, a shadowy figure emerges from the back of the house. Cedric squints. "Too short to be Kruller -- must be Hoffman. Well, one less to worry about," he says as he moves stealthily toward the house. With Cedric seemingly confident about breaking in undetected, Eric decides to follow Hoffman. He shadows the figure through dense forest, then hides behind a tree as Hoffman stumbles into a cemetery. In the light of the moon, Eric can see that Hoffman's face is unnaturally grey and hideously wrinkled-- a living corpse! The ghoulish Hoffman proceeds to get down on his hands and knees, digging furiously at a fresh grave. Before Eric can react, another shadow looms up behind him and he's knocked out with a large tree branch. Closeup of Ahmet, smiling evilly. Kharis appears behind him and shuffles into the clearing.

The ghoulish Hoffman, obsessed with his digging, looks up just in time to see the 3000-year-old mummy hovering over him. Hoffman stands up just as Kharis clamps a moldering hand around his throat. The ghoul struggles in the mummy's grip, but soon weakens and collapses in a heap on the grave he'd been digging at just a few moments before. Ahmet and Kharis head off into the woods, toward the museum.

Cut to Cedric, who's found the door to the museum conveniently unlocked. He carefully makes his way through the main room, reeling around as a tree branch, blowing in the night wind, taps against a window. He backs up into a bandaged hand, freezing until he realizes it belongs to one of the wax figures-- ironically, a depiction of his father, the original Invisible Man.

Cut to another bandaged hand reaching for Isabel sleeping in her bed. It covers her mouth just as she awakens and starts to scream.

Back to Cedric, who's found a room full of file cabinets. He starts rifling through the drawers.

Back to Eric, who shakily stands up, rubbing his head. He heads off to the museum at a dead run.

Cedric is startled by a noise. He peeks out from behind the office door and gasps at the sight of a headless man in an overcoat, his hands bandaged, carrying the unconscious Isabel. Kruller, now completely invisible, nudges the dagger to open the secret passageway. Cedric pauses, then hurries over to the passageway, slipping through before the door can close. Closeup of Ahmet's face at the window, silently observing, Kharis standing patiently behind him.

Cut to Ahmet's hand opening the passageway. The unholy pair proceed down the staircase.

Cut to Cedric, who slips unseen into the laboratory behind Kruller. The German is completely mad now. The invisible man is almost crooning to the unconscious Isabel: "I may not yet be able to awaken Ananka, but every King must have his Queen, and you shall do nicely for now… and perhaps for eternity!" As he lays her out on the lab table, shuffling footsteps echo from the stairway. Kruller whirls around to confront the centuries-old Kharis shambling toward him, arm outstretched, hand clutching at the air. Behind the mummy, Ahmet is intoning the words of a sacred rite over and over.

Unseen by Kruller, Ahmet's incantation has awakened Ananka in her sarcophagus, who rises slowly, the decaying bandages falling away to reveal… the beautiful and exotic new Universal starlet Acquanetta! Ananka/Acquanetta places her still bandaged hand on Kruller's shoulder. As he turns around again, Kharis is on him, gripping Kruller's invisible throat.

On the lab table, Isabel stirs, sits up, and emits a healthy scream as she takes in the macabre tableau of an ancient mummy and an invisible man locked in mortal struggle. Cedric rushes over to her. Upstairs, Eric has burst into the house and hears Isabel's screams. Trying to locate the source, he reflexively grabs for the dagger on the wall. The passageway opens up, he hears another, louder scream coming from below, and he plunges down the stairs.

He runs straight into Cedric and Isabel, who rush to the exit as the monsters grapple. The quick-thinking Eric chucks the useless dagger, then grabs an old-fashioned gas lantern hanging on a hook. He throws it at a table of lab equipment. The chemicals quickly ignite, and the three stumble up the steps as an intense fire roars through the lab. Ahmet is still chanting even as the flames consume him. Outside of the house, Cedric, Isabel and Eric look back to see that the flames have spread to the main floor, and are now consuming the Chamber of Horrors.

The End.

Imaginary production note #1: Lionel Atwill, king of sinister character actors, was originally slated for the role of Kruller. But health and legal problems caused him to bow out, and the Werewolf of London, Henry Hull, stepped in.

Note #2: Realizing he had other commitments, Universal execs nonetheless tried to entice Boris Karloff to take the small role of Andoheb, hoping to hawk the film as another pairing of the two horror greats, Karloff and Lugosi. When Boris begged off amiable George Zucco agreed to reprise his role from The Mummy's Tomb.

Note #3: The script originally called for a much larger speaking part for Acquanetta, who as Ananka was supposed to be fully revived much earlier in the film. When Waggner showed the producers some test footage, they drastically cut her part and kept her mute.

Note #4: The setting of Mapleton was borrowed from The Mummy's Tomb, but for the purposes of the script, Mapleton was also identified as the setting for The Mad Ghoul.


Trailers for some real Universal monster rallies:

"Hordes of Horror... Spawned by the Devil..."

The Talking Dead

Now Playing: Dead Men Walk (1943)

Pros: George Zucco and George Zucco (playing dual roles); Some good theatrical moments
Cons: Too much talk and not enough walk; Beautiful Mary Carlisle and underrated Dwight Frye are wasted in typed roles; Younger male lead is as stiff as a day-old corpse

I haven't been feeling like my old self lately. I'm lethargic much of the time, I don't feel like eating much, and despite the fact that I live in one of the sunnier climes in the whole country, I have the pallor of a workaholic mortician. I also have trouble sleeping. As the cold rays of the moon stream through my window and the leaves rustle in the night breeze, I dream of large, black shapes hovering outside, tapping, then scratching at the screens, begging me to let them in. I wake up in a cold sweat, listening, scarcely daring to breathe. After what seems like hours, I slowly, carefully lay my head back down to try to catch a few more minutes of fitful sleep.

Just this morning I applied a bandaid to a couple of angry-red marks on my neck. (Okay, so I cut myself shaving-- have you seen how expensive razor blades are these days? I like to make sure mine are good and done before they go in the trash can!) No, my problem isn't vampires -- if only it were that simple! My problem is another type of bloodsucker, the Great Vampiric Marketer Americanus, a foul, relentless creature who will stop at nothing, pursuing its prey to the ends of the earth, to extract every last discretionary cent out its target's wallet and bank account.

Since embarking on my epic move to a new city, I've canceled some services and picked up others. Little did I know that there is an unwritten rule (no doubt soon to become a law) that once you sign up with DirecTV, you can't leave. I learned the rule the hard way after a solid week of two, sometimes three calls a day from agitated DirecTV customer reps demanding to know why I had dropped their service. My protests that I was not a DirecTV number, that I was a free man, capable of making his own decisions, fell on deaf ears. (For more on this fiasco, see my post on Fabulous, Fantastic TV Shows of the Fifties.) On the flip side, I picked up a different internet service in my new home city. Little did I know that there was an unwritten rule that you can't just sign up for internet-- you have to bundle it with a TV package (preferably with premium movie and sports channels) and digital phone service. Now I'm getting calls from the new service's reps wondering when I'm going to do my civic duty and bundle up.

Is that a DirecTV salesman's face at
my window, or just a vampire's?

That, coupled with the fact that now even when I go into a drugstore to buy a pack of gum, I'm hounded about signing up for their club card, or debit card, or I'm commanded to fill out a survey… well, I think you can see that I am a haunted, hunted man. The dark, terrible images of customer representatives, phone marketers, and evilly-grinning cashiers fill my dreams and turn them into nightmares. I'm sure that it's only a matter of time before show up at my door for real, ringing the bell endlessly or scratching at my window panes, demanding to know if I'm going to go for that sweet bundle or that kicking' club card. The horror, the HORROR!

By contrast, Dr. Lloyd Clayton's problems in Dead Men Walk -- dealing with an identical twin, devil-worshiping brother who has come back from the dead as a vampire -- seem positively mundane. Still, Dead Men Walk is worth a look, if only because it offers a double dose of the incomparable B-movie villain George Zucco.

After a somewhat surreal introduction to "the dark-enshrouded regions of evil" by a disembodied head floating above the flames in a fireplace (more on that later), Dead Men begins appropriately enough with a funeral. When the pastor concludes the service by inviting the mourners to pay their last respects to the deceased in the open coffin, only one, Dr. Lloyd Clayton (George Zucco) stands up. He gazes solemnly down at… his own face in the form of identical twin brother Elwyn! His reverie is interrupted by an older woman (Fern Emmett) who has quietly entered the chapel. "How can you defile this sacred house with the body of that evil man, that servant of the devil!" she cries. As she's whisked away, the pastor apologizes to Lloyd: "Poor old Kate hasn't been quite right since the shocking death of her little grand-daughter last year."

At the family mausoleum, Lloyd discusses the deceased twin brother with his niece Gayle (Mary Carlisle) and her beau, young Dr. David Bentley (Nedrick Young): "He always seemed an alien soul, even in childhood. I think he hated me all his life. After he returned from India, Elwyn was like a man obsessed (sic) by a demon, nothing was sacred to him…" (Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to muck around in arcane Eastern religions and practices!)

Dwight Frye plays yet another demented assistant.
Sadly, this would be one of his last films.

Later, Lloyd decides to purge his evil twin's legacy by burning his "blasphemous" books and papers in the fireplace. He's interrupted by Elwyn's creepy, hunchbacked (!) assistant Zolarr (Dwight Frye), who accuses the doctor of murdering his own brother. Lloyd doesn't deny it, stating, "I fought only to save my own life." Before storming out, Zolarr tells Clayton, "You'll pray for death long before you die!"

Cut to lovebirds Gayle and David, who've decided to get married. Clayton gives them his warm approval, but the lightheartedness doesn't last long. Zolarr is busy extricating his master Elwyn's coffin from the mausoleum, wheeling it to a deserted part of the cemetery. Elwyn slowly rises, classic style, from the satin-lined coffin. "I am not yet strong," he tells the open-mouthed Zolarr, "but I have been given the power to draw ever-lasting life from the veins of the living…" (Apparently Elwyn put all those books and papers to good use before his brother burned them.)

The living dead Elwyn wastes no time drawing blood from a local woman. In the light of day, Lloyd and the town sheriff (Hal Price) investigate the fatality. The doctor observes two puncture marks on her neck, and the fact that she appears to have bled to death. Old Kate, who seems to be everywhere, steals into the bedroom and announces that she knows how the woman died. She blames Lloyd's evil twin. "He's dead Kate, and his evil died with him," he assures her. "But it didn't die, it's growing stronger every day!" she protests. The sheriff runs her off, threatening to have her locked up.

That night, Lloyd is astonished to find out that Kate is right when Elwyn's spectre confronts him in his study. "Am I losing my mind? There was no sign of life in Elwyn's body when it was placed in the vault!" he says to himself, hardly believing what he's seeing. "You'll know that I'm no intangible figment of your imagination when you feel the weight of my hatred," responds the walking dead man. "Your life will be a torment. I'll strip you of everything you hold dear before I drag you down to a sordid death!" Elwyn walks over to the window, looking out at Gayle and David holding hands in the garden. "I'll take life from Gayle," he cackles, "slowly, you'll see her life ebb day by day… and you'll be powerless to save her!" Lloyd has had enough. He grabs a pistol from his desk and empties it into the smirking phantom. Elwyn laughs maniacally and then vanishes.

Split screen shot of evil Elwyn confronting his twin brother. "I'll strip you
of everything you hold dear before I drag you down to a sordid death!"

When Gayle and David hear the shots and rush into the study, the rattled doctor lamely tells them that he thought he saw a burglar. After Gayle goes to bed, David confronts Lloyd and asks him if he's telling the whole truth about the shots. Without going into to detail, Lloyd confesses that he's beginning to doubt his own sanity. David offers to take some of the pressure off the older doctor by taking over part of his practice.

Elwyn makes good on his promise to drain the life out of Gayle. That night, a shadow hovers over Gayle as she tosses and turns in fitful sleep. Talking to himself before he leans down to sink his teeth in her neck, Elwyn reveals his plan to turn her into one of the undead like himself, to be his servant for all time.

Perhaps because he still can't quite believe what happened in the study, Lloyd has taken no precautions to keep his niece safe. But in the cold light of day, the evidence is undeniable. Something is afflicting her, and she's growing steadily weaker. The symptoms suggest an acute case of anemia. And then there are the bite marks on her neck, and Gayle's reports of terrible dreams, in which a huge bat-like creature hovers over her bed. Duh! The doctors decide to give her a transfusion, with the concerned fiance donating the blood. As they're wrapping up the procedure in Gayle's room, Lloyd turns around to see his evil twin's face hovering at the second story window! Elwyn vanishes before David can see it.

In Lloyd's study, the older doctor tries to tell David that Elwyn is behind Gayle's mysterious illness, but the rational younger doctor is having none of it: "the dead have no power over the living," he huffs. Lloyd convinces the reluctant doctor to visit Elwyn's crypt to see the state of the body-- if there's no decomposition, it will be further proof of Elwyn's vampiric existence. They discover that the coffin and body are gone. Ever the rationalist, David guesses that medical students stole it, but Lloyd knows better. At this point David thinks that Lloyd is seriously off his rocker. He proposes marrying Gayle immediately and taking her away. Clayton says he'll think it over.

Elwyn and Zolarr plot further mischief by candlelight.

While he's thinking, a grim David tells the sheriff that he thinks Clayton is trying to kill Gayle. Clayton's talk of Elwyn, sorcery and vampires is way too much for the young man of science. In the meantime, while Lloyd dithers and David voices his suspicions, old Kate, who's just crazy enough to know exactly what's going on, takes the initiative to give Gayle a protective cross to wear around her neck. It prevents another assault by Elwyn, who enlists Zolarr to get the cross so he can continue his depredations.

When the nosy Kate discovers Elwyn's new resting place, Zolarr kills her for her troubles. A local tells the rest of the town that he's seen Dr. Clayton skulking around at night, and the "leading citizens" -- who look like a disorganized assemblage of Gabby Hayes impersonators -- start grumbling about taking the law into their own hands. David, who by now has met the real, undead Elwyn, tries to convince them that gentle Lloyd is not the culprit. The good doctor has a tall order on his hands: convince the townies that his evil twin is really responsible for the murders before they string him up, send Elwyn back to the dark pits from whence he came, and save his beautiful niece from a fate worse than death.

This low-budget, low-energy horror film from the lowly poverty row studio PRC seems like a celluloid Rip Van Winkle that fell asleep in 1933 and woke up ten years later. It plays out as an almost straight, shoestring retelling of Browning's 1931 Dracula, with Lloyd as Van Helsing, Elwyn as Dracula, Gayle as Mina, fiance David as Harker, and Zolarr standing in as a combination Renfield and Fritz from Universal's original Frankenstein (1931). It even takes a minute or two out of a very short 64 minute running time to have Elwyn explain to his mouth-breathing assistant all about how he must rest in his coffin during the day, how he will sustain his immortal life on the blood of the living, etc., as if moviegoers had never heard of vampires or the rules of their game. Considering that in 1943 Universal introduced the Son of Dracula and set up a meeting between Frankenstein and the Wolf Man, and that RKO released three of Val Lewton's frighteningly good B horrors (I Walked with a Zombie, The Seventh Victim and The Leopard Man), Dead Men Walk seems all the more quaint and anachronistic.

Gayle (Mary Carlisle) looks absolutely fabulous as she
gets a blood transfusion in the comfort of her boudoir.

Worse yet, Dead Men wastes the precious talents of a couple underrated performers. Beautiful, energetic Mary Carlisle has little to do but moon at her wooden-faced fiance and look absolutely fabulous in her fur wrap (?!) as she tries to recover from her mystery anemia. (For more on Mary, see my special Halloween write-up of One Frightened Night, 1935). Sadly, Dead Men would be her last film. And poor Dwight Frye, the ultimate victim of Hollywood typecasting, plays yet another standard-issue demented assistant, complete with hunchback. Even accounting for the makeup, Frye looks old, tired and bloated. His story is especially tragic. In his write-up of Dead Men Walk in Poverty Row Horrors! Monogram, PRC and Republic Horror Films of the Forties (McFarland, 1993), interviewer par excellence Tom Weaver quotes Dwight Frye Jr. about the depressing arc of his father's career:

There was in the latter years of his life a lot of discouragement. He'd gotten, unfortunately, into this mold of playing horror characters with lots of makeup or playing Nazis during the war or playing gangsters in the mid-1930s. He got typed and not until just before he died did he have the possibility of breaking out of type… The unfortunate and ironic thing was that when he was in New York originally from 1922 to 1928, he was a big star on the stage playing musicals, comedies and all kinds of light stuff. The moment he went to California that all stopped and he never got the chance to do that sort of thing again. [According to Frye's Wikipedia entry, the break out was to be a role in the A-list picture Wilson, based on the life of president Woodrow Wilson. Frye died of a heart attack just a few days before he was to report to the set.]

George Zucco serves up a generous portion
of ham as the mad, evil Elwyn.

Predictably for a nothing-budget B, the Dead Men (actually man-- there's only one undead creature in it, despite the title) talk a good deal more than they walk. Even by 1940s standards, there is precious little action -- the most we see is Elwyn slowly leaning over Gayle to deliver the vampire's kiss off camera, the vampire's eerily-lit face at the window (actually quite effective), and Lloyd scuffling with Zolarr and Elwyn at the climax. Coming from the mouths of most of the supporting characters, the surplus of talk is a drag. But when the evil Elwyn talks, you listen, because he's given the juiciest lines, and George Zucco is just the man to deliver them.

We get a taste of the melodramatic language to come with an unusual introduction featuring a hand grabbing a book titled "A History of Vampires" and tossing it into a burning fireplace (a foreshadowing of Lloyd's burning of his twin's blasphemous occult library). An eerie floating head then appears superimposed over the fire, challenging the audience:

"You creatures of the light, how can you say with absolute certainty what does or does not dwell in the limitless ocean of the night? Are the dark-enshrouded regions of evil nothing but figments of the imagination because you and your puny conceit say they cannot exist?"

(The bizarre intro is very reminiscent of the distorted head in the crystal ball that introduced Universal's series of Inner Sanctum mysteries starring Lon Chaney Jr. The first of the filmed Inner Sanctums, Calling Dr. Death, also debuted in 1943.)

These two sinister floating heads both debuted in 1943 to introduce B movie chillers.
(Universal's Inner Sanctum series on the left, Dead Men Walk on the right.)

Zucco as Elwyn handles similarly florid lines with such gusto and aplomb, you can't help but be entertained. By all accounts, Zucco was the complete antithesis of the sinister characters he tended to play in the Bs -- a gentle, educated man who drew praise from everyone he worked with. (For more on Zucco, see my post on The Mad Ghoul, 1943.) If Zucco was embarrassed by the formulaic roles he played in the forties, he didn't seem to show it. At his best, Zucco was able to bring out subtle hints of humanity in his villain roles (The Mad Ghoul is a good example). While there's zero humanity in the irredeemably evil Elwyn, Zucco still delivers his lines with a zeal that's hard to fake. Generous portions of ham may be salty and fatty and bad for you, but if they're Zucco-brand ham, you may find yourself, like me, wolfing them down anyway.

---

Where to find it:

Amazon Instant Video

Oldies.com


"Whence came a story, told in frightened whispers, down through the ages... of witch and warlock, werewolf and vampire, and all the spawn of Hell! "

Of Maya and Madmen

Now Playing: The Mad Ghoul (1943)

Pros: One of George Zucco's better villainous performances; An interesting, varied cast
Cons: A mundane monster; Slow pacing and little suspense

How about them Mayans? (Or rather, how about them Maya people?) More than a thousand years after the collapse of their civilization, they're back in the news with that damned calendar of theirs. If there's anything to this end-of-the-world stuff, then life as we know it (and more importantly, this blog) only has a couple more months left-- until December 21st to be exact. Let's hope there's nothing to it, because I want to reach 500 Facebook friends before I die.

It's a damned shame that a civilization that made so many tremendous advances in architecture, mathematics and astronomy is today known only for that stupid calendar and their bloody human sacrifices (thanks a lot Mel Gibson!).  At least this calendar business has led to a greater understanding of our own culture, namely, that so-called educational television like the Discovery channel will pander to the lowest common denominator to sell eyeballs to advertisers. That is good to know. (Maybe, just maybe, the most important issue this election season really is about saving PBS from the chopping block-- I know Big Bird wouldn't try to sell me an apocalyptic bill of goods about the Mayan calendar!)

A Mayan high priest administers poison gas to a group of
"forty-seven-percenters" who didn't pay any income tax.

So, what then does all this have to do with The Mad Ghoul? Simply this: the film's resident mad scientist, Dr. Alfred Morris (George Zucco), offers an intriguing alternative hypothesis about why the Maya cut the still-beating hearts out of their sacrificial victims… and it's a doozy. The film starts with a very average-looking (for the 1940s) group of college students listening with rapt attention to a not-so-average chemistry lecture delivered by Prof. Morris. Morris shows the class a slide of an ancient Mayan rendering of a masked priest blowing something at a group of peasants, who appear to be writhing on the ground. Morris explains that, according to his research, the Maya discovered a form of poisonous gas that, rather than killing outright, brought "death in life, or if you prefer, life in death!" He also promises to reveal a connection between the poison gas and the elaborate surgical removal of the heart in Mayan ritual sacrifices… next semester (the professor seems to have learned a lot from the cliffhanger serials of the '40s).

After class, he tells star medical student Ted Allison (David Bruce) that he's much farther along in his research than he confided to the class-- that he's discovered how to synthesize the Mayan poison gas, but there's more work to be done before he can make his findings public. Ted eagerly agrees to assist him with his experiments over the summer holiday. Pretty soon, we know why Ted was recruited from among all the other eager-beaver students to assist the great chemistry professor-- he knows his way around a scalpel, a very good skill to have if you're going to be cutting the heart out of assorted living things.

Morris shows Ted a Capuchin monkey that has all the appearances of being dead. When Ted examines him with a stethoscope, he's amazed to discover that the little beast shows vital signs -- outwardly dead, but somehow alive. Morris reveals that the Maya had discovered an antidote for their "death in life" gas by combining the contents of a "fresh" heart from the recently dead with certain herbs and administering the serum to the gassed victim. "I have the herbs… and there's the heart," Morris states coldly, pointing to another cute little monkey in a cage. Ted looks doubtful, but goes ahead with the cardiectomy like a good trooper. Later, as Morris injects the antidote into the first monkey, we get to the blackened heart and soul of all B movie mad scientists:

Ted: I can't help feeling a sense of evil in all this…
Morris: Moral concepts! I am a scientist! To me there is no good or evil, only true or false. I work with one, discard the other.

The randy old professor (George Zucco) is ready to teach
Isabel (Evelyn Ankers) how to read the 'book of life.'

The experiment in reviving the zombie monkey is a success, and before you can say "ritual cardiectomy," we get to see just what a mad scientist with no moral center is capable of. Ted makes the fatal mistake of bringing his glamorous fiance Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers) over to the professor's for dinner. Isabel is popular radio singer who is getting ready to go on a tour with her dark-and-handsome piano accompanist Eric Iverson (Turhan Bey). The smooth, devious professor gets Isabel alone for a few minutes, and she confides that she's having second thoughts about the engagement. Ted's a great guy and all, but he's still somewhat immature, and then there's the tour to think about…  The self-obsessed professor mistakes Isabel's hesitation with a budding May-December romance, and starts plotting to remove the competition. "It's perfectly natural now that you should turn to a more sophisticated man," he tells the confused Isabel. "A man who can share your great joy in music… a man who knows the book of life, and can teach you how to read it…" (What a dawg!)

Wearing a gas mask, Morris brews up some of his Mayan poison gas, then sends Ted into the lab on an errand. He calmly plays the piano in the other room as Ted collapses. When Ted stands up at Morris' command, he looks like a med student who's been studying for finals and hasn't slept for days on end-- in other words, a shambling, dead-eyed, pasty-faced zombie. (Of course, along with doing bad things to your complexion, the gas takes away your mind and will, making you a pliable tool for any mad scientist or Mayan priest who might be hanging around.)

When a worried Isabel calls the professor wondering why Ted didn't show up to the train station to see her off on her tour, Morris explains that the young man was too ill from tension and overwork. Morris gives Ted the antidote, thinking that he's effectively sabotaged the engagement. Unfortunately for the dirty old man, once Ted recovers his senses he wants more than ever to see Isabel and get married right away, the concert tour be damned.

Soon, another of the madman's best laid plans goes awry. The monkey they revived has a relapse, and it becomes obvious that the antidote's effects are only temporary. Like the cold-hearted one-percenter that he is, once Ted relapses, Morris has the poor zombie-med student dig up a fresh corpse from the local cemetery all by himself and extract the heart to effect another temporary cure. Back to his old self once again (and completely oblivious to his zombie episodes), Ted insists upon seeing Isabel, even though she's busy with her tour. Morris, knowing that Ted could revert at any time, offers to accompany him.

Confronted by the eager Ted after one of her concerts, Isabel finally lets the callow young man down with the 1940's equivalent of the "it's not you, it's me" routine. The stress of losing the love of his young life sends Ted into a funk… and then into a zombie relapse. At the same time, the oily professor comes to realize that Isabel isn't looking for an older man who can "read to her from the book of life," but rather has eyes for a much younger, much handsomer man in the form of suave, sophisticated Eric Iverson. Rather than bowing out gracefully (something that madmen generally don't do well), Morris decides that he has just the plan, and just the zombified tool, to eliminate this latest competitor for the lovely Isabel's affections. In the meantime, the police and the press slowly but surely figure out that baffling murders and grave desecrations seem to follow Isabel around wherever she's touring.

For a B programmer designed for the bottom of a double-bill (it debuted with the underrated Lon Chaney Jr. vehicle Son of Dracula), The Mad Ghoul boasts an outstanding cast. Sure, there's no one named Bela, Boris or Lon anywhere in the credits, but the Ghoul does quite alright without them, thank you very much. Classically trained George Zucco, who by this time was well into his career as a typecast B movie madman, turns in an understated, nuanced performance that finds a bit of humanity in Morris' madness (more on Zucco shortly). Evelyn Ankers spent much of her Universal career being menaced by a variety of monsters, including Lon Chaney's The Wolfman, The Ghost of Frankenstein (Lon again), Captive Wild Woman, Son of Dracula (Lon yet again), and of course The Mad Ghoul. (In the Inner Sanctum series entry Weird Woman she played against type as a haughty villainess.)

A newly created zombie, or just a med student with a very
bad hangover? At this stage it's hard to tell.

Suave Turhan Bey spent a decade or so in Hollywood acting in movies and wooing a considerable number of stars and starlets (and almost marrying Lana Turner!). Turhan passed away recently at the ripe old age of 90. His time in Hollywood was just a small part of a fascinating, richly-led life -- the kind that most of us can only dream about. Contract player David Bruce had the unenviable task of playing the immature, anxious boyfriend and a zombie. The film's concept of a scientifically-generated zombie may have been just a little too clever for this type of B programmer. The first time we see poor Ted under the effects of the gas, he looks more like a frat-boy with an hangover than a loathsome living dead man. Later, after a number of relapses, he looks more corpse-like. Apparently the intent was to show the progressive degenerative effects each time Ted lapsed into his zombie-state.  (Tom Weaver, et al., Universal Horrors: The Studio's Classic Films, 1931 - 1946, 2nd ed., McFarland, 2007).

Unfortunately, the "money" closeup shots of Bruce with the more revolting, parchment-like skin are relatively few and far between. As a zombie, Ted is more pathetic than intimidating. Regardless, Bruce "suffered for his art" under makeup master Jack Pierce (creator of Universal's Frankenstein, Mummy and Wolfman makeups). As he told a Famous Monsters magazine interviewer:

"My makeup was green and it made my hair look red for some reason-- bright red. They tinted me green and combed my hair over my eyes and for the later thing they put the false skin on, which was absolute murder. I wore it for three days and the third time I took it off my skin was bleeding because you had to peel the makeup off. They put on spirit gum and then a layer of cotton and then another layer of gum so this created an entirely false face on top of mine. Then they'd wrinkle it up and the wrinkles would stay in…" (Quoted by Weaver, et al.)

Other cast members to look for are Milburn Stone (best known as Doc Adams on TV's Gunsmoke) as a police detective, tough guy Charles McGraw as Stone's assistant, and King Kong's captor, Robert Armstrong, as an ill-fated reporter. But George Zucco is the main reason to dig up The Mad Ghoul for your viewing pleasure. Zucco gives real, human life to a cliched B movie madman role that others might have been tempted to ham up outrageously. With a glance here and a slight hitch in his voice there, he transforms Prof. Morris from a madman doing evil for evil's sake, to a mere man so overcome by emotions and longing that he's willing to do evil. It's a pearl of a performance in a rough, raggedy oyster of a low-budget horror film.

By all accounts, George was a gentleman's gentleman and a "pussycat." In his opening chapter on Zucco, biographer Gregory William Mank summed up a great and varied career:

"With his Old Vic Shakespearean background, Zucco could (and did) play just about everything, at every studio, with everybody: sparking scenes with such great ladies as Garbo, Harlow, Crawford, Colbert, and Bergman; supporting male legends like Gable, Cooper and Boyer; working with an alphabetical Who's Who of great directors, from Dorothy Arzner to Fred Zinnemann. His film career tallied over 90 movies, from England to Hollywood, from the most prestigious MGM productions to PRC six-day wonders. While Zucco's specialty was villainy, he played every human emotion, from the saintly to the sinister-- posthumously winning regard as one of the cinema's most beloved character actors." (Hollywood's Maddest Doctors: A Biography of Lionel Atwill, Colin Clive and George Zucco, Luminary Press, 1998.)

So what are you waiting for? The Mad Ghoul is available on TCM's Universal Cult Horror Collection, along with such other underrated Universal horrors as The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1942) and Murders in the Zoo (1933).

Poor Ted's in for a big letdown: