******SPOILER****** At first sight "Maniac" seems to be some kind of educational film about the causes and effects of mental illness with a forward to the movie about the mind and how it works and effects us in our everyday way of life. But as soon as you see Dr. Meirschultz, Horace Carpenter, and his assistant Maxwell, Bill Woods, and how insane they act in Dr. Meirschultz's laboratory you start to realize that your in for a long and bumpy ride on the Loony Express.
"Maniac" would have been effective just as an unintentional comedy if there was a sense of continuity to the story. Where you can at least follow and understand just whats happening no matter how nutty the story is; but there are at least two giant gaps in it.
The first plot-hole has to do with Maxwell, a failed actor, whom Dr. Meirschultz seems to have something on him in regard to his being on the lamb from the police.Yet the movie never bothers to explains why? Is being a "ham actor" a crime? In another confusing scene in the movie Buckley, Ted Edwards, kidnaps the zombie-like Maria El'tura whom Dr. Meirschultz had brought back to life and takes off in the woods with her were we last see both of them.
Mrs. Buckley, Phillis Diller?, not that one but another Phillis Diller, tells Dr. Meirschultz that she would help him with his plans if he, after he kills her husband Buckely, puts a new brain in Buclely's skull that will make him totally obedient to her. Yet we never see Buckely again in the movie even though Mrs. Buckley is in the movie helping Maxwell until almost the end. That's where she has a ferocious cat-fight with his wife Mrs. Maxwell, Thero Ramsey! Did the budget for the film run out of money for Buckley's brain-transplant?
Dr. Meirschultz got very agitated earlier in the film when he couldn't get any human bodies for his experiment, which he felt were nearing completion, when Maxwell came back from the morgue empty-handed. Dr. Meirshultz then stupidly handed Maxwell a gun telling him to shoot himself! Dr. Meirschultz then promises Maxwell that he would reward him by bringing him back to life with a new heart that he has ready for him! In fact there was never any mention up to then or even later that Maxwell had any heart problems?
Maxwell after taking the gun instead shoots the insane Dr.Meirschultz and using makeup and wigs and a false beard took over Dr. Meirschultz's identity. Playing doctor his first patient is Buckley who's wife tell Maxwell that he's very tense and needs a sedative to settle him down.
Trying to inject Buckley with a syringe of harmless water Maxwell mistakenly injects him with super-adrenaline. This has Buckley go into a crazed and insane fit where he grabs the just revived from the dead Maria and they both check out never to be seen again in the movie.
Meanwhile Maxwell who at first tried to kill Dr. Meirschultz's black cat Satan who immediately check out of the laboratory. It turned out that Satan ate the heart that Maxwell wanted to use for his own experiments with dead bodies and continue what Meirschultz started. Later Maxwell sealed Dr. Meirschultz body into the wall of his basement with bricks, not knowing that Satan snuck inside the wall too, to keep up his charade of being the great Dr.Meirschultz. It's after they raided the place that the police found Meirschultz's body when they entered the basement and heard Satan meowing. At the end of the film we see Maxwell behind bars raving mad and obviously insane bragging about how he fooled the world with his brilliant impersonation of Dr. Meirschultz.
P.S Due Hollywood's failed attempt to explain the reasons and causes of mental illness to the movie-going public "Maniac" lost out to "It Happened One Night" for best film of the year in 1934.
