The Undying Monster

The Undying Monster belongs to the same genre of films that Val Lewton was producing at RKO in the forties: something I call 'gothic noir'. Lucien Ballard's rich black and white photography hints of his future work on noir classics like Laura and The Killing, and John Brahm's assured direction makes the absolute most of the rather pedestrian scenario. There are some simply amazing compositions for what was obviously a second feature, and the cast is buoyed by stalwarts Halliwell Hobbes and Holmes Herbert (I love the way their names sound together!). There's even a brief scene that features a shaky cam in extreme closeup--half a century before Blair Witch Project. Highest recommendation for noir fans, though blood and guts horror mavens will probably be disappointed.

With a little over an hour's running time, this film is one of a number of very short,second features that were made in abundance during the forties. Always in black and white, they starred familiar faces that never really made it to the "A" list (with a few exceptions). They also featured players on their way down. Heather Angel, who was the female support in the classic "The Informer", was reduced to starring in programmers like this one. Be that as it may, this film is a step above most second features. The cinematography is good......eerie and fog shrouded (maybe to hide lack of sets). The actors all rise to the occasion and are generally quite good. There is a little too much forced humor which is out of place in the context of the story. I never knew why they insisted on doing that......many a good "B" picture was ruined by injecting unfunny schtick in otherwise dramatic stories. No guts and gore here....just a compact, tight storyline about a family curse which appears to be coming true. It won't keep you guessing but it will keep you interested throughout and is one to watch on a rainy Saturday afternoon. I think you'll enjoy it.

A curse has been killing the men of Hammond Hall for centuries on cold nights. In 1900, Helga Hammond (Heather Angel) tells the butler that curses don't exist. There are screams from outside the mansion. Helga orders a carriage to be brought round for her while the servants wring their hands and worry. So begins this low budget film from 20th-Century Fox that moves at breakneck speed trying to get in all the plot in just over an hour's running time.

The movie is filled with behind-the-scenes talent that was two years away from peaking. Director John Brahm would hit his stride in 1944-45, when he directed "Guest In The House, "The Lodger (both 1944) and "Hangover Square" (1945) consecutively. Composer David Raksin, best known for the "Theme from "Laura" (1944) scored one of his first films here. Lucien Ballard, who did the atmospheric, skewed photography that plays with the viewers' sense of proportion and reminded me of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1919), filmed both "Laura" and "The Lodger" (both 1944). The sets were designed by Richard Day and Lewis Creber.

"The Undying Monster" is an marvelous "B" movie that should be better known.

"B material given A execution" is how film historian Drew Casper describes 20th Century Fox's first horror movie, 1942's "The Undying Monster," in one of the DVD's extras, and dang if the man hasn't described this movie to a T. The film, a unique melding of the detective, Gothic and monster genres, though uniformly well acted by its relatively no-name cast, features a trio of first-rate artists behind the camera who really manage to put this one over. And the film's script isn't half bad either. Here, Scotland Yard scientist Robert Curtis (James Ellison) comes to eerie Hammond Hall, a brooding pile on the English coast, sometime around 1900, to investigate some recent attacks ascribed to the legendary Hammond monster. Viewers expecting this legend of a voracious predator to wind up being explained in an anticlimactic, mundane fashion may be a bit surprised at how things play out. Ellison is fine in his no-nonsense, modern-detective role (he uses a spectrograph to analyze various clues!), and Heather Angel (who does have the face of one), playing the house's mistress, is equally good. But, as I've mentioned, it is the contributions of three men behind the scenes that really turn this little B into a work of art. Director John Brahm, who would go on to helm Fox's "The Lodger" and "Hangover Square," and DOP Lucien Ballard have combined their formidable talents to make a picture that is noirish, moody and fast moving, with superb use of light and shadow. And composer David Raksin, who two years later would achieve enduring fame for his score for that classiest of film noirs, "Laura," has co-contributed some background music here that is both mysterious and exciting. Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck apparently had hopes that "The Undying Monster" would be the opening salvo in his studio's bid to challenge Universal's monster domination, and in retrospect, it does seem like a fair way to start. This DVD, by the way, looks just fantastic, and sports more "extras" than you would believe capable of accompanying a minor B. All in all, a very pleasant surprise.

The Undying Monster is a screenplay of a mystery novel about the legend concerning a particular old English family (the Hammonds), and as such, is an excellent outing. The Sherlock Holmes mystery adventure,'The Hound of the Baskervilles' received great acclaim even though at the conclusion, the legend proved to be a hoax, whereas in 'The Undying Monster' the legend was based on the 'real deal'. The unique story (with it's unexplained incidents throughout the family history, the unanswered questions, the hints,clues,innuendos,insinuations, and so on) plus the production values essential for an effective suspense atmosphere (the sets, musical score,sound effects, and a pace that was kept fresh by diversionary light humored relief which is necessary to keep the viewer engulfed in an old english mystery story and not losing them through drama fatigue) are all there.