"Maniac" (1934) by director Dwain Esper

This blog was begun Monday night April 6th and completed the following day :

Have you ever heard of a movie called "Maniac"? Not the sicko slasher flick from 1980 starring Joe Spinell. We all know that one, which even my friends and I avoided as it was said to be awful. No, I'm referring to a different "Maniac", one made in 1934 by a director named Dwain Esper. Have you heard of that one? Neither had I, until I began my recent jag of public domain films. It kept popping up as a "recommended" movie in my Youtube searches, and until tonight I paid it little notice because I've been looking for Ultra Weird Science Fiction films and the title - "Maniac" - while exceptionally good, just didn't fit the bill. But tonight, there it was again with it's familiar endorsement : "Recommended for you", so I took it up on it's suggestion, and........

It turned out to be one of the weirdest, most twisted movies I've ever seen. The Hays Code was enforced beginning in July 1934; Esper must've snuck this one in under the wire, either that or it wasn't noticed because he was working so far off the grid that the MPAA never screened it. I don't know, and I'd never even heard of Dwain Esper until tonight, but apparently he was a producer of exploitation films that drew on titillating, "forbidden" subjects of the day, like sex and drugs. Rock n' roll hadn't been invented yet or he'd have probably used that too. He and his wife worked as a team: she wrote, he directed, and if "Maniac" is any indication, they were way ahead of their time as far as shock value is concerned, or should I say schlock-value, lol. Everything in this movie is so over-the-top outrageous that the Espers could be considered the John Waters of their day, give or take a transvestite or two.

An actor named Bill Woods stars as the assistant to a Mad Doctor (Horace B. Carpenter, in one of the scene-chewingest performances in movie history). Woods plays a former vaudvillian with a dark past. Some undisclosed crime has him under the Doctor's thumb. He has to obey the Doc's wishes or be reported to the police. This generally poses no problem, because Woods is pretty nutty himself and game for just about anything. For instance, the Doc has been trying to bring animals back to life (dogs and cats), he's had some success and now he wants to try out a human. One of Woods' stage talents was impersonation, so he volunteers to go to the mortuary made up to look like the local coroner. There, he requests the removal of a recent suicide "for further inspection". So you see, he more or less goes along with whatever the Doctor orders. But there's a place where everyone draws a line, and for Woods it comes when the Doctor tells him to shoot himself. Let me explain : you see, the suicide victim was a young woman who left the engine running, shall we say. Her heart was still in good shape; they've removed it and have it floating in a jar, pumping away vigorously. But the rest of her body is unsuitable for reanimation due to the carbon monoxide poisoning. The Doc's brilliant idea is to have Woods take her place. "We have come so far, we must not abandon the experiment"! He hands Woods a rifle. "Here, you will shoot yourself and I will bring you back to life with her heart"!

But as I've mentioned, Woods is a nutjob himself, and it will turn out that he's crazier than a Hoot Owl, so the Doc gets more than he bargained for. Several title cards will be displayed throughout the movie, presenting clinical descriptions of varying types of psychosis with which Woods appears to be afflicted. One is basic paranoia, which is obviously gonna be stirred up by the Doc's suggestion. Woods begins to hear voices, and it is here that director Esper shows some inventiveness, using old footage of Silent Film demons double-exposed over the tormented Woods. If I'm not mistaken, they come from the film "Haxan", but at any rate, onscreen it is made to look as if they are "inside Woods' head", influencing him in a malevolent - but ingenious! - way. All of a sudden Woods is laughing, then in hysterics because he's been given a brilliant idea. Instead of shooting himself, he shoots the Doctor! Now several problems are solved at once! With the Doc dead, Woods no longer has the threat of prosecution hanging over him, and - even better - his can use his talent for impersonation to become the Doc! Now he can carry on the experiments himself, in his own way!

For the rest of the 50 minute picture, Woods will become Doctor Meirschultz, using his makeup kit to create an identical look. He takes the Doc's body and walls it up inside a chimney. A cat will get stuck in there too, which will cause a problem later on, when the owner of a nearby cat farm comes looking for his missing felines. I'd never heard of a cat farm before, but this one looks like it was the real thing, located somewhere in Hollywood. Much worse for Woods, however, will be when his estranged wife tracks him down. "I wonder if he's still working for that doctor"?, she muses to her friends. Well, she's about to find out! There'll be a cat-fight of the human kind, and of Epic Proportions, when Woods' wife meets up with his co-hort "Mrs. Buckley", who's now in cahoots with Woods to get rid of her husband.

Look, don't ask me to figure it all out. This movie is as crazy as it sounds, as crazy as the title insinuates, and it's all a bit confusing in a train-wreck can't take your eyes off it kind of way. The acting apes that of German Expressionism in the Silent Era, but with sound, so every exaggerated gesture and facial expression is accompanied by an equally overamplified line of dialogue. The decadence is also turned up to 11, so you might say that this is the "Spinal Tap" of horror movies, except it's no parody - it's sick rather than funny (well, you could say it's got some humor of the Black variety.....extremely Black!). I'm gonna give it Two Solid Thumbs Up, but I'll leave it up to you to decide if you can handle watching it, with a caveat that it is not for the squeamish or demure viewer in any way. We aren't dealing with the noble but misguided Dr. Frankenstein here, nor his grotesque but pitiable Monster. The characters in "Maniac" - not just Robert Woods but all of 'em - are Weirdos of the First Order, and the story is just plain macabre so viewer beware, but if it's a Freak Show you're after, then this one is "recommended for you", haha. /////

That's all I have for the moment. It's now Tuesday Evening (a Moody Blues sequel?), and raining yet again. I hope to get another walk in before the hour runs late, but for the moment I'll return to my book and some music. It's gotta be instrumental because for some reason I can't concentrate on reading when there's a singer. Therefore a little French Organ Music, perhaps? Sounds good.....:):)

See you tonight at the Usual Time. Stay well.

Tons of love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)