The night before Halloween, we watched "The Monster Maker"(1944) which I know we've seen before but I can't find an earlier review, so here goes. It's a weird little horror film from PRC and house director Sam Newfield, outside their usual metier of cowboys, slapstick and crime. Sometimes, though, PRC surprises us with ambition. The movie opens at a recital in which pianist "Anthony Lawrence" (Ralph Morgan) is playing to an enraptured audience. His beautiful daughter "Patricia" (Wanda McKay) is in the theater with her boyfriend. But seated across from them is Mad Scientist "Dr. Igor Markoff" (J. Carrol Naish) and his assistant "Maxine" (Tala Birell). Dr. Markoff can't take his eyes off Patricia; it's so distracting that she asks her boyfriend "Terry" (Bob Baker) to change seats. After the concert, Markoff goes backstage to introduce himself. "I am sorry I stared at your daughter, but you see, she exactly resembles my deceased wife." The Lawrences find him odd but harmless.
Back at his laboratory, where he tests glandular formulas on apes and dogs, he tells Maxine, "I've got to have that woman." He sends Patricia so many flowers that she finally asks her Dad to go see Dr. Markoff and ask him to stop, but when her father does this, an argument begins, and Markoff knocks Anthony Lawrence unconcho. Then, he injects him with the hormone for acromegaly! I must cut in to say that I first heard of acromegaly (a pituitary disease) in connection to an actor named Rondo Hatton, whose picture I saw in a book of Hollywood monsters when I was about 17. The caption stated that his distinctive "look" was attributed to acromegaly, a word that got my attention. Hatton had enlarged facial bones and features, and, in researching the condition after the movie, I see that Richard Kiel and Ted Cassidy and a whole bunch of guys had it, but fortunately to lesser degrees than in this film.
Because when Dr. Markoff injects Anthony Lawrence with acromegaly, he turns into a version of The Elephant Man. and - because we have our little game show here at the blog, called: "You Know That Director Saw This Movie!" - we have to say "You KNOW David Lynch saw 'The Monster Maker'". I mean, just take one look at Ralph Morgan lying in his bed with his gigantic face and head, then watch John Hurt in "The Elephant Man" and tell me that Lynch didn't crib it. It's that obvious. But yeah, so Anthony Lawrence now has acromegaly, and a really bad case of it, too. At first, it gives him so much energy that he can't stop walking all day and playing his piano all night. But then his hands get too big to play, and his head gets huge and misshapen. He can't perform in public anymore, and now Dr. Markoff - who's perfected an antidote - is in a position to bargain for the hand of Anthony's daughter. "Tell Patricia to marry me and I'll cure you".
The subplot is that Markoff's assistant Maxine has always loved him, and she knows a secret: he's not even the real Dr. Markoff, whom he killed and assumed his practice! Whoever this guy is, he's not even an MD nor an endocrinologist! You keep thinking his ape is gonna get him, but it was probably just a chance for Ray Corrigan to put on his gorilla suit.
But i mean....good grief, man! How deviant, how cruel, do you have to be to inject someone with acromegaly? Even if you injected them with the word itself, it would be bad enough. Who the hell is the guy who comes up with the words for disfiguring diseases? Someone needs to tell him he's doing too good of a job! Acromegaly? That's adding insult to injury, to call a disease that awful with a word that hideous. Aww, hell. Screw it.
But Markoff goes down, and collects his just reward when Patricia refuses to marry him, and all heck breaks loose at the end.
By PRC standards, it's a minor gem. and for sure it influenced David Lynch. Two Bigs for the movie, Two Huge for the concept. It's a must see in its own simple but very strange way. The picture is good not great. ////
The night before (Oct. 29), we had "The Blob"(1958), which - when I saw it on TV at 6 years old - scared the bejibbers out of me, in the same way that the Big White Smothering Beach Ball still does in "The Prisoner". Now, The Blob, as a monster, isn't scary anymore, but it's iconic because it's a piece of Americana. The movie also has, arguably, Steve McQueen's best performance, and he may have agreed with me: at the time of his death he had a Blob movie poster on his wall. I have to briefly cut in to tirade on the director who calls himself "Steve McQueen". He's some British guy. He'd probably say, "Yeah, well that's my name", and I'd say, "Oh yeah? Well change it! Because you AREN'T Steve McQueen! Steve McQueen is Steve McQueen. WTF are you thinking, directing movies under his name?! What if your name was George Washington? Would you go around calling yourself that? I can guarantee you a guy named Adolph Hitler isn't gonna use it in the credits. So stop using Steve McQueen, even if it is your real name." End of tirade.
I wouldn't get so upset, except Steve McQueen (the real and only one) was the King of Cool, or he became that after movies like "Bullit". But here, in "The Blob" he's an Earnest, Sweatered Youth (he was 28), playing a guy named "Steve" who's trying to stop an alien life form from taking over his beloved small town. It all starts when he's parked on a hill with his girl "Jane" (Aneta Corsaut), watching shooting stars. Then one shoots right down to the ground. Jane says, "It could be like lightning, far away when you think it's close," but Steve says "No, it's on the other side of the hill." They check it out and find the shell of a meteor. The audience has already seen an old man find it first. He poked it with a stick and wound up with a gooey glove on his arm. The man's doggie runs off (played by Ace the Wonder Dog), and Steve and Jane find him. They also find the old man and take him to the doctor, but while they're getting ready to drive away, they see The Blob devour both the old man and the doctor and his nurse.
There is hijinx before this, of hotrodding teenagers, to set up a teens vs. adults motif. "Lieutenant Dave" (Earl Rowe), a cop, sympathises with "the kids", who have a car club. They also like spooky movies and are going to see one that night at the corner cinema. This is where the movie becomes a snapshot of the real life Happy Days, as the director isolates groups of townspeople in 1950s American Dream locations, at night, i.e the time of isolation. In chasing the dog down, Steve and Jane become isolated in the grocery store (pre-supermarket). The adults are isolated in the movie theater, and others are isolated in the diner, as The Blob grows bigger, expanding through vents and door frames.
I must say, that - for a teen or adult audience - I don't know how they thought they'd get away with this Blob as a scary monster, but that may have been the point; to have it as minimally "special effective" as possible, to simplify The Blob, so as to make it a symbol for...what? Pop Culturists have stated the obvious, that's it's a symbol for atomic war, radiation, cold war paranoia; 1950s stuff. But I think it's exactly what they say it is, A Freaking Blob from Another Planet that eats people. But the movie is as much about the townsfolk - and the teenagers - as it is about The Blob.
And no one ever calls it The Blob, by the way. Steve McQueen is The Hero, who runs between the isolated locations to save people. Dave the Policeman helps him, as do his hot-rodding monsterfilm friends. An angry Sergeant is the movie's nemesis, but not in a major way, because even he has to admit that The Blob is taking over.
I'd give the lighting director an Academy Award for setting the Night Mood throughout the film. You have the Isolation Factor at work, set at Iconic American Institutions (grocery store, theater, diner), and you have the darkness of the night, The Blob, and only Steve McQueen can save you. It's a teenager-as-smarter-than-adults deal. In this way, the film is also a time capsule of the advent of rock and roll.15 years before "American Graffiti", there were flicks like The Blob and I Was a Teenage Werewolf.
McQueen discovers the secret to defeating The Blob in the last five minutes of the movie. Two Big Thumbs Up for the story, but Two Huge for the overall film, with Color by Deluxe when my Dad was VP, and an awesome title sequence. ////
And that's all for today. Did you have a good Halloween? I'll report on mine in the next blog. No music this time (just writing fast to rush it out). I send you Tons of Love, as always! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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