Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

Fun, if minor, Universal horror flick which casts Bela Lugosi in his trademark role as a screen icon of pure evil. This is a very loose adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story; the locked-room murder does occur towards the end of the movie, complete with a body stuffed in a chimney, but this is only part of it. Instead, MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE focuses on Lugosi's mad scientist and his Darwinian theories that humans are descended from apes (the setting being Paris in 1845, this idea is widely pooh-poohed). In order to prove this, he attempts to mate a girl with an ape, and his plan involves injecting girls with gorilla blood which results in a series of strange deaths. Lugosi ingeniously dumps the bodies into the river under his house and the victims are simply described as victims of drowning.Of course it's not long before an irritating medical student is on the case to foil Lugosi's plans, but he's interrupted in his task when the ape goes berserk and murders Lugosi itself. This leads to an exciting rooftop finale which acts as a miniature forerunner to KING KONG with the ape kidnapping the young female victim and escaping from roof to roof as her suitor gives chase. A well-placed bullet sends the ape to a watery grave, thus ending the film at the incredibly short hour mark. MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE is an understandably dated film with many aspects to alienate it to modern audiences. Like Dracula, there's no music in any scenes which make it look more like a stage play than a movie. The special effects involve closeups of a cute chimpanzee interspersed with a clumsy man in a poor costume pretending to be an ape and are extremely poor in the modern light.However, all is not lost. As mentioned on the back of the box, the film does recall the classic German Expressionist movies in the use of lighting and shadows, and strange backdrops which really help to give it a unique look. There's a fair amount of brooding atmosphere built up in the backstreets of a dirty Paris and plenty of ghoulish humour in the morgue (as well as some unwanted over-the-top comedy and acting at a police inquest). The film also benefits considerably from one of Lugosi's best roles as a crazed, demented scientist who talks to his pet ape and shocks people at a carnival with his insane evolutionary theories (the irony being, of course, that he was correct in his assumptions). Lugoi's wild-haired mad man gets to wear some great costumes which emphasis his skeletal body and delivers his lines with an evil relish. The same quality cannot be said of the rest of the cast, especially the boring hero and his policemen chums, whom we have no interest in whatsoever. Thankfully Sidney Fox makes for quite a fetching beauty and can scream with the best of them. MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE isn't one of Universal's best movies, but it remains a solid (if dated) piece of entertainment with much to commend it to classic horror fans.

Svengoolie is often the way to go when it comes to the lesser known Olden Days Universal type Horror pictures and he is usually pretty spot on with the choices. This one ... not so much ! He always gives a "who-is-who" spiel but with Rue Morgue he was a little late. The young lady who gets killed on a pre-Hays cross is identified as being played by Arlene Francis of "What's My Line" fame BUT not until well after she is dead and gone from the film. (CHECK FOR SPOILER BOX... OK ... IT'S ON ! whew) Sadly, the plot didn't really clearly tell what was going on and what he was trying to do or even how. Seems he was injecting, not withdrawing, blood... big difference ! (yup, spoiler still active).Leon Ames as young man was a great surprise and a treat to see his younger self. The voice had seemed so familiar. Supporting cast was, as usual, good and interesting. The very corpse like morgue attendant reminded me of my guide in Les Invalides in Paris ! The rather silly chubby room-mate was just plain not needed, annoying and pointless. All of his scenes could have been cut with no ill effect. We won't go into the whole baboon / gorilla / chimp thing. It's just too darn sad to mention ! Lugosi himself - over the top even for Lugosi. The V-shaped-uni-brow and lighting from under the chin didn't make him look scary or menacing .. just foolish. No wonder the poor man turned to drugs ! Unless you are a compulsive "Gotta see them all" for any of the cast or the classic era horrors.. skip this one !

This movie is tagged with genres horror, crime, mystery and romance. But in none of these aspects it really shines. I think it's a curiosity at best. The only interesting scenes were towards the end when the gorilla abducted the girl and was trying to escape with her over the rooftops. Maybe that scene gave movie makers eventually the idea to make King Kong as it really reminded me a lot of the legendary film ape. Plot and characters are not at all interesting. The character of Dr Mirakle is nice and fitting for Bela Lugosi even though I do prefer him as count Dracula. It's a plot with potential and they try to do make it mysterious even though as viewer we already know from the beginning the intentions of Dr Mirakle. I found it boring and predictable most of the time. There was even a bit of humor in it with the 3 men arguing about the language the suspect spoke which was amusing but served mostly a filler in my opinion. How interesting if Dr Mirakle really succeeded in his experiment, now that would have been interesting!

I saw "Murders in the Rue Morgue" when I was just a child in the sixties and wasn't impressed. But now that I've seen the uncut original on Universal's Lugosi collection, I believe "Murders" is one of the most under-rated films from the golden age of horror.Direction by Robert Florey, cinematography by Karl Freund, and art direction by Charles Hall will satisfy the cravings of atmospheric horror fans. And the sources that Florey uses—the Poe story and the silent classic "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"—dovetail nicely. What seems rather silly in the Poe story (an ape escapes from a sailor to commit senseless murder) is more plausible and horrific when the ape's owner becomes Dr. Mirakle, a mad scientist intent on proving humans and apes are evolutionary cousins. Why else inject ape's blood into nubile young women if not to find a suitable mate for his side show attraction Erik? I was also impressed by the way director/writer Florey zeroed in on one of Poe's themes. The confusion of tongues scene from Poe's story in which people of different nationalities (ear-witnesses to a murder) mistake the ape's language for unintelligible human speech, demonstrates that humans are no different from Erik, another species of savage primate inhabiting the planet. Seeing Dr. Mirakle talk with Erik and translate for the carnival audience doesn't seem as far-fetched today considering the recent research into primate communication.These thematic elements, together with Lugosi's sinister but surprisingly low-key (for him) performance, and the scene in which Dr. Mirakle injects the street walker with ape blood (Arlene Francis made a good screamer), and in which fiendish assistant Noble Johnson (who made an art of playing such roles) cuts the ropes that bind her Christ-like between crossbeams, releasing her body through a trap door into the river, make this one of the most daring of pre-code horror films.The print Universal included in its Lugosi collection looks fine, much better that the one I saw in the sixties. And neither the bland performances of the romantic leads, nor the man in the ape costume detracts from the over all effect. The inter-cutting between the actual animal and the costumed double is really not that jarring when you consider what was being done elsewhere in this era.