Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla

So here's a tird.

 

This ones bad. I bought at the dollar store and still feel I paid atleast a dollar more than I should have. The film follows the exploits of Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, a second hand Martin & Lewis. The story isn't much to talk about. Duke and Sammy end up stranded on an island for some reason or another ( I forget ). They end up befriending the the natives and eventually end up at Dr. Zabors (Lugosi) house. Zabor is performing some kind of evolutionary experiments or something. Duke sings. Sammy is so annoying that if I ever hear someone yell "Dukie" in that whinny nasally voice again, I swear I'll go deaf. 

 

At some point Duke gets turned into the aforementioned Brooklyn Gorilla. This really has very little to do with the story, cause once this is found out, we find out the whole thing is a dream that Sammy was having. Just one more reason to be annoyed by Sammy if you ask me. It's one of those surprise twist endings that just plain makes you wanna hurt the movie. 

Lugosi is great, as usual. But the rest of the cast just seems to be there to give an excuse for Duke and Sammy to run through their schtick. Which, by the way, gets tired VERY quickly. This movie aged terribly. Probably in no short order do to the fact that once this film was released, Duke and Sammy were served with a cease and desist from Martin and Louis. 

Just a word of warning if you are going to try and stomach this one, keep the remote close by. Duke's crooning will make you glad you did. It's one of those things that scenes are put into the movie to just set up his signing. It barely works and really annoys, quickly might I add. And lastly I have to add that the relationship between Sammy and the monkey was, well, weird. It might have been seen as cute in 1950's, but now it just comes off as an odd form of bestiality. Really, it's that uncomfortable to watch. On the other hand, they seem to be the only scenes were Sammy shows any restraint in regard to the use of his vocal chords.

So, why?

I was thinking it might help a little to give some background as to why I do this. See when I was younger I was obsessed with The Creature From The Black Lagoon. I had a couple of books that had a bunch information about the films and still photos from the films. To say the least, I was constantly mesmerized by these movies. They always seemed to be set in some far off never never land. They had a timeless appeal to me. It didn't matter when I was a child that these movies were easily four or five times as old as me, they captured my imagination and still hold on to it to this day.

I thought that this would be a cool idea. I've seen far too many of these movies to be considered sane and I'm able to look at them with a sense of humor. Some are great, some are ok and some are, well, terrible. 

Some years ago I discovered Mystery Science Theater 3000. Being that it was a local show that had some how gone global was amazing to me. I soon found, like with most things in my life, very few shared my enthusiasm. Oh well. It still makes me laugh too hard. 

When I first started to come up with this idea, I was going to go with a full blown website and all. But, alas, I'm broke. Paying to get a website up and going just isn't going to happen at this time. So I decided to go with the blog idea. And besides, I can finally say I have a blog! I felt it was a way for me to share with all of you my knowledge of these films, both good and bad.

Why do I use my trans status? Easy, it gets attention. It's a low blow, I know. But that's not the point. If nothing else, I can bring a different point of view to this subject. It might not be one that many are going to enjoy or wanna be a part of, but so what. I'm not who I am to offend or hurt anyone. I'm just me. I'm trans. I love old horror films. My friends seem to enjoy my sense f humor. Why not do this? I've got nothing else going on right now.

White Zombie

What can be said about White Zombie? First of all, it's my all time favorite movie. Ever. Period.

It is in essence the perfect gothic fairy tale. The film benefited quite nicely from the Great Depression in that Universal Studios was having to rent out it's back lots to help pay the bills. This had the effect of making White Zombie look much more like a big budget film rather than the shoe string budget shot in eleven days independent film that in fact was. White Zombie was headed up by the Halperin brothers, Victor and Edward, Director and Producer respectively. The film is also regarded as Bela Lugosi's finest role ever and I can't argue. This may in part due to the fact that Lugosi is rumored to have done more of the directing than Victor Halperin did. Rumors have persisted both ways. If anything were to prove this, White Zombie is the only commercial hit the Halperins had during their time in Hollywood. To the contrary though, this could just be that one lucky film they had in them.

The story follows Neil (John Harron) and Madeline (Madge Bellamy), a young couple as they arrive in Haiti. They believe that Beaumont (Robert Frazer) is welcoming them into his home for their marriage with the promise of a job for Neil in the banking industry. Little do they know Beaumont has fallen deeply in love with Madeline and wants her at any cost. He makes a deal with Murder Legendre (Bela Lugosi). After the this deal with the devil of Faustian style we began to see Beaumont become the most complex character. He goes from obsessed to remorseful to victim to hero. 

The film does have it's flaws. The fact that the majority of the cast is pretty much assembled from silent era has-beens did make the acting seem dated even for it's release in 1932. On the other hand, it does serve the film. Most of the film's audio time is spent on the soundtrack and not the dialog (it's rumored that the Halperin brothers were huge fans of silent films).

Seriously though, for me to go into this film top to bottom, would take me far to long. If you are interested in learning more about this film or everything about this film (I mean EVERTHING!); check into Gary D. Rhodes' book White Zombie Anatomy of a Horror Film. The book is every bit exhausting as it is comprehensive. To close I will make one suggestion, if you're going to spend your money on this movie, don't buy one the dirt cheap public domain copies that floating around out there. The Roan Group did a wonderful restoration of the film which usually sells for ten dollars or less. Trust me, it's worth the two or three dollars extra that you'll pay for it.

Until next time

Bethany

Hello

Hi everybody. Let me introduce myself and what this is all about. I'm Bethany. I'm trans, I like horror films and decided it was about time I put two of my favorite things together to make one big mess. How will I do that? Not quite sure I know yet either. The idea is that I'm more or less just gonna blab on about old horror films. They'll mostly come from around the 1920's and run to somewhere around the 1970'2 or so. It's not that I don't like any modern horror, most of it just doesn't do it for me.

But just a word of warning, I am a notorious smart ass. I love Mystery Science Theater 3000 (sometimes too much). So yes, not all of this is going to be glowing reviews for these films. What I hope to do is introduce others to films they may have never heard of or have forgotten.

Thanks for stopping by. I'll be posting the first review soon and am planning to post atleast once a week from here on out.

Bethany