The Monster Maker (1944)

The story starts OK, we meet the crazy mad doctor and his assistant, and the young woman the doctor is infatuated with, her famous piano playing father (the monster), and her boyfriend. All decent actors. I especially liked some of the crazy acting by the doctor's assistant. The problem here is the story and the dialogue. It's just boring and seriously implausible. The doctor is annoying the young woman by sending her flowers, because she resembles his late wife. Her father goes to the doctor to put an end to it. The doctor knocks out the father and injects him with a serum that turns him into the elephant man. Now the doctor is blackmailing the father, by exchanging a cure for the disease for his daughters hand in marriage. Side not, also, I believe the doctor tells his assistant that he killed his wife because she was having an affair with someone else. And also, the doctor is not a doctor, he actually killed the real doctor and took his place. But he's still doing research on some rare disease that he's the only one that can cure. There's also a man in a gorilla suite. And a gorilla in a man's suite (the doctor's butler).This thing is a freaking mess. There's a scene where the fake doctor explains to his assistant that he killed his wife, and killed the real doctor and took his place. The assistant freaks out and tells him she's going to the police. He tells her to shut up and get back to work. She calms down and goes back to work. Later when she goes to bed, the fake doctor lets out the gorilla from the cage to attack the assistant. We see the gorilla open the assistant's door, she screams. Let's not forget the dog. The lab dog comes to the rescue of the assistant. Next scene the assistant is in the lab with the doctor like nothing happened. This is some full on garbage. I don't care what time period this was made in.OK, the butler gets knocked out while trying to kill or tie down the assistant. The elephant guy is wrestling with the doctor who is holding a gun. The gun goes off. The doctor is dead. The assistant unelephants the piano player. Next scene the piano player is playing a concert, the young woman and her boyfriend, and the assistant are happily watching the show. The Freaking End.I give this movie a D, or 3 stars. Mainly for the acting and the music. The story is garbage. The dialogue goes along with the story, crap. This could have been a decent little film. The film makers had no idea what they were doing. They had a story and ran with it. Nobody said, wait maybe we can find another story or find some other angles.I recommend instead to watch Bela Lugosi's best film "White Zombie", or "Messiah of Evil", "Footprints on the Moon", "Last Man on Earth". Better to watch these films a hundred times than watch The Monster Maker. The only way to watch the Monster Maker and enjoy it is if you approach it as a comedy where the filmmakers are involved in the joke. Thank you, good night.

How can such a stinker of a film remind one of Shakespeare? Indeed, "The Monster Maker" is slightly reminiscent of "Measure for Measure." In both, a powerful man holds the key to another man's life -- and he'll save that life only if a pure and innocent woman accedes to his lust. In neither work does the woman get defiled; both dramas end happily with the villain's comeuppance. But that's where the similarities end.The "problem play" "Measure" ain't half bad; this movie's just plain stupid. J. Carrol Naish is somewhat compelling as the bad guy, but his inamorata, played by Wanda McKay, is a bore. I read on Wikipedia that the actor portraying Lawrence was Ralph Morgan, older brother of the guy who played the Wizard of Oz. (The latter went on to a more stellar career than unfortunate Ralph.)A tremendous flaw in this film is the use of a man in a gorilla suit who is supposed to inspire terror but simply looks ridiculous. The German shepherd in this film was Ace the Wonder Dog, an apparently less-talented competitor to Rin Tin Tin. The dog did so little in this movie I'm surprised he was credited.

The Monster Maker is a PRC movie that is certainly better than most of their other efforts in the horror genre. For once it doesn't look too cheap, has a convincing "monster" make-up job and decent performances to boot.The plot concerns the barking mad Igor Markoff (J. Carrol Naish), a research scientist who falls for the daughter of famous concert pianist Anthony Lawrence(Ralph Morgan) Seeing a strong resemblance to his late wife in her, he begins to shower her with unwanted attentions. A specialist in Acromegaly, he later injects Lawerence with the disease to force her to his will.The film is slightly over-talky but never boring; heavily criticised upon it's original release for excessive nastiness (Morgan's disfigured appearance is certainly effective even today) time has been quite kind to it. There's a largely redundant sub-plot involving a gorilla (why does every mad scientist have one?)and much of the story appears derived from The Raven and Mad Love. Naish is suitably seedy in the title role and there's a good performance from Tala Birell as his assistant Maxine. The movie lacks atmosphere but the director keeps things ticking over nicely.The Monster Maker is certainly worth a look.

If you want to enjoy a film which fills out all criteria for the MST3k treatment, but which still doesn't deserve such a heinous fate, there is nothing better for a rainy night's entertainment than the 1944 Poverty Row anti-classic 'The Monster Maker'.It's cheap, silly, dreadfully Un-PC and I may have seen a picture of it the last time I looked up the word 'derivative'. But it's a joy to watch and has never worn out it's welcome. The film boasts a set-up right out of Freund's 'Mad Love'(1935): A mad surgeon who frequently attends a stage-performance falls madly in love with a woman, begins stalking her and sending her gifts constantly, but she soon is forced into his clutches by a medical ailment befalling a loved one and the Doctor turns him into a monster of sorts. However, whereas in most Poverty Row films they simply dumbed down events they would derive from other, better films, here they make things even more twisted and unpleasant than the original! While the film has nothing as fantastic as 'Mad Love's transplanted hand and impersonation of a resuscitated dead man, it has a truly seedy and unpleasant feel. Here, the Doctor, who calls himself 'Markoff'(played by J. Carrol Naish, giving a performance obviously patterned after Peter Lorre as Dr. Gogol in 'Mad Love' but just as enjoyably perverse)is a genuinely twisted individual with no redeeming qualities, he lusts after the daughter of a pianist named Lawrence because she resembles his dead wife(See 'The Mummy' 1932), but this is not a touching or sentimental tragic romance that was not meant to be, no, it turns out his 'wife' was his employer's wife, who he murdered to win her over, she refused, so he disfigured her with Acromegaly so no man would ever want her, so she killed herself and he then impersonated his employer(see 'Maniac' 1934) thereon, making him not a true mad scientist, just a madman who knows how to spread diseases, so you can't even admire him for his scientific genius like you can other evil scientist villains. He is covered up for by his female aide who secretly loves him who is also a mad scientist(see 'The Devil Doll'1936) but whose love he does not return. This is one sick individual.And it gets worse, after 'Markoff' goes too far in his advances, the girl's father(the always reliable Ralph Morgan)goes to see him, and is knocked out and injected with Acromegaly. This causes him to become disfigured(He looks very much like deformed character actor Rondo Hatton, who probably modeled for this) gradually. He spends his days hidden in his room with a locked door, having his dinner brought to him secretly(see 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde', yes, the book and not any of the film adaptations), he still takes joy in playing the piano, though, until he is intruded upon and his hideous face is glimpsed while playing(see 'The Phantom of the Opera') and eventually, Lawrence is forced to bargain with 'Markoff' in return for curing his disfigurement(see 'The Raven' 1935; for both the disfiguring blackmail plot and daughter angle). 'Markoff' also tries to kill his assistant with a gorilla he sets loose(see 'Murders in the Rue Morgue').I could go on, but I think I've made it clear how much of a cornucopia of stolen ideas this film is. But what's also amazing, is how much the film may itself have inspired others. The scenes of Lawrence hiding his face and having his meals brought to him secretly were imitated in 1958's 'The Fly' and the EC comic's story 'RX Death', the 'secretly being injected with Acromegaly' scenes obviously inspired a similar sequence in 'Tarantula', and the 1987 film 'Phantom of Death' also features a pianist who acquires a slowly disfiguring disease. So for a film as derivative as it is, 'Monster Maker' also gives as much as it receives.What's also disturbing is that, ignoring the silly trappings like the Gorilla, the accelerated effectiveness of the Acromegaly and the complex back story for 'Markoff', this is all disturbingly plausible. A man deliberately infecting people with debilitating diseases could easily happen, and in fact, since Lawrence poses no threat to anyone at all, one sees him not as a 'Monster', but as what he would be in the real world; A dying man going through hell at the hands of a malicious madman posing as a doctor who mocks him with hope for a cure. And keep in mind that this was advertised as a horror film with promotional art implying Lawrence was the villain and on a rampage, even though he's a good guy with a disease that infects hundreds of people in the real world. That's sick, and worse if you imagine them actually casting Rondo Hatton in the role. Pretty heady stuff for a Poverty Row film that barely lasts an hour, and more disturbing than most of what Universal was producing at the time. Good acting also helps. Naish is brilliant as the slimy surgeon, probably one of the most irredeemably evil characters in 40's horror films. Morgan elicits pity for Lawrence very easily, as he loses everything he has that makes him happy one by one. The rest of the cast is good too, no standouts, but everyone seems natural and talk like real people(well, mostly).No classic, not even up there with other Poverty Row horror films like the disturbing 'Bluebeard'(1944) or the dreamlike 'Strangler of the Swamp'(1946) but definite proof that Poverty Row could make seedy and tasteless horror films as well as anyone else at the time.~