User reviews

Another Universal pleasure, spinning out a horror framework behind a story of three men in love with the same woman. Evelyn Ankers is the beauteous object of affection, playing a concert singer engaged to a handsome college student (David Bruce), but she's fallen for her pianist (Turhan Bey), while the student's mad scientist mentor (George Zucco) is hopelessly smitten. The scientist achieves a "living death' syndrome to his unwilling student, eventually using it as a tool to rid the pianist. The stars are great, earnest and engaging, particularly Bruce and Zucco. Grand soundtrack and fog-shrouded, shadowy scenes abound. A fun, time-capsule flick from the masters.

"The Mad Ghoul" deserves to be as well known as the majority of Universal genre product of its time. Granted, it IS a little light on horror elements, but its mad scientist, played by the incomparable George Zucco, is right up there with the maddest of the bunch. On the way to the big finale, we get repeated scenes of grave robbing, and a mad scientist lab full of equipment.

Zucco plays Dr. Morris, an ambitious professor / scientist who's managed to replicate the poison gas used by an ancient culture (just which culture that is, is never explained). He uses it to manipulate his impressionable student / guinea pig Ted Allison (David Bruce) into a career of, well, ghoulish activities. Also, the fiendish Dr. Morris wants Teds' girlfriend Isabel Lewis (gorgeous Evelyn Ankers), a successful singer, all to himself. This, despite the fact that Isabel has actually fallen out of love with Ted and is involved with her piano accompanist Eric Iverson (Turhan Bey).

"The Mad Ghoul" is devilish fun, in large part thanks to this great cast (also including Robert Armstrong of "King Kong" fame as an aggressive reporter, Milburn Stone, Andrew Tombes, Rose Hobart, Addison Richards, and a young Charles McGraw). Zucco is just a deliciously evil bad guy, spurring his unfortunate assistant to action; Ted is a young man who's as much a victim as other characters in the story. The film is not as thickly atmospheric as the best films in the Universal catalogue, but it does have decent graveyard scenes.

Bruce is a sympathetic instrument of destruction, covered in typically good - but not overdone - makeup by that master of Universal horror effects, Jack P. Pierce. And Ankers is a luminous leading lady. (She would have liked to do her own singing, but producer Ben Pivar dubbed her with old recordings by Lillian Cornell.)

Worth a look for fans of this studios' famed genre output.

Seven out of 10.

George Zucco plays University professor Dr. Alfred Morris, who has discovered an ancient Mayan gas that was used to control the human sacrifices made in their rituals. David Bruce plays his student Ted Allison, who is recruited to be his assistant for the summer. Unfortunately for Ted, his professor is quite ruthless, and uses him as an experiment to try his recreation of the Mayan gas on. He succeeds, but Ted turns into the "mad ghoul" who helps the doctor rifle graves to cut out their hearts for more experiments in overcoming the gas, though this won't do poor Ted much good... Evelyn Ankers has a small role as his girlfriend. Good "ghoulish" premise, but film is strangely meandering and unconvincing, not to mention overly talky and dull. Good cast makes it semi-watchable, but film still fails, though does have a poetic final fade-out.

Of all the Universal stars and stock character actors, the one that seems to get lost in the shuffle the most is George Zucco. It is a shame as I can never say I saw him give a bad performance despite the lack of depth in the cinematic vehicle he was appearing in. Zucco is the star of Mad Ghoul and does a wonderful job playing a man obsessed with a pretty singer played by Evelyn Ankers. Zucco works with the fiancee of Ankers, both scientists working on what keeps life after death..in a zombie form at least. Ankers, however, is not quite sure she loves David Bruce still, and is having a relationship with the pianist touring with her, Turhan Bey, who has little to do in his role. Zucco somehow induces Bruce to become a zombie/ghoul at times...thus telling his pretty fiancee things that cool down the relationship so old George can have a crack at her..or so he thinks she might be so inclined toward him(not knowing about Bey of course). The Mad Ghoul is a wonderful film because it has some great scenes and dialogue for George Zucco. Zucco shines as a sinister man with a battle between moral conscience losing to his base desires. The rest of the cast is good(look for Robert Armstrong of King Kong fame), the scenes and graveyard sets in particular are very appropriate. Don't forget the Mad Ghoul when catching up with your list of Universal horror films. It is worth seeing if for no other reason than seeing Zucco in one of his finest performances.

The Mad Ghoul is one of the many horror movies Universal made during the Second World War and like most of the ones I've seen, is quite good.

In this one, of the regular stars to appear in these, George Zucco is a mad scientist experimenting with an ancient nerve gas and is a success on a monkey, but only for a short while. To keep his experiments a success, he has to rob graves and kill people to obtain a fluid from their hearts and he turns one of his pupils he teaches into a ghoul to do this.

The Mad Ghoul is creepy in parts, especially the foggy graveyard scenes shot in the dark.

Joining George Zucco in the cast are other sci-fi/horror regulars: Robert Armstrong (King Kong), Evelyn Ankers (The Wolf Man), Milburn Stone (Invaders From Mars) and David Bruce.

The Mad Ghoul is a good way to spend just over an hour one evening. Enjoyable.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

Lovely concert singer Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers) is engaged to marry medical student Ted Allison (David Bruce.) When she unexpectedly falls in love with her pianist Eric Iverson (a very suave Turhan Bey), she turns to Ted's laboratory boss Dr. Morris (George Zucco.) But it happens that Dr. Morris is in love with Isabel himself, and he decides to get rid of his assistant by subjecting him to ancient Mayan gas! Unfortunately for Ted, this gas is of a particularly nasty sort: it transforms him into a zombie-like creature. Under the control of Dr. Morris, Ted then participates in gathering the human hearts he must have for injections that allow him to return, temporarily, to normal.

The idea for this story seems to arise from a number of sources, most particularly the silent classic THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, the various versions of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, and THE RETURN OF DR. X--the latter a particularly peculiar B-flick featuring an unexpected Humphrey Bogart as a lab-created vampire of sorts. It other hands, the concept might have worked quite well, but although the cast is accomplished and the production values are generally quite good, the make-up effects are hardly up to the Universal standard, the pace is slow, and the script is quite dire.

The film makes no effort to create any sort of "transformation" when actor David Bruce goes from golly-gee lab assistant to shambling zombie; it is a straight cut-away, cut-back-to shot, and the latter finds him in uninspired make-up and with very untidy hair. Director James P. Hogan maintains a pace every bit as leaden-footed as the zombie, and as for the script... well, it is probably this sort of script that Evelyn Ankers, the studio's "Scream Queen" of the 1940s, had in mind when she walked away from Universal a year later. Given the talents of the cast and the overall look of the film, which (make-up effects aside) is handsomely mounted, I find it difficult to give this film less than three stars. All the same, I greatly doubt that THE MAD GHOUL will have any appeal for those outside the circle die-hard Universal horror fans.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

"The Mad Ghoul" is the only one of its kind. George Zucco gives the best performance in this film as a mad professor. (how often did he play those??)

David Bruce as the luckless student is OK, Evelyn Ankers does her usual and Turhan Bey is about as wooden as they get. Not longer after "The Mad Ghoul," his career came to an end and he was forgotten. Robert Armstrong as the journalist is good and he livens up the proceedings. A shame he couldn't have had more screen time.

The production values are pretty much what you would expect. The make-up used to make David Bruce look ghoulish works very well. The film has a fair bit of incident and being only on for about 65 minutes, works to the films advantage.

One of the lesser Universal horrors is a still enjoyable if decidedly silly outing. The former is due largely to the typical low-budget atmosphere (from intermittent graveyard raids, for plot purposes, down to the recycled music cues), George Zucco's equally reliable presence as the obligatory mad scientist (with this in mind, the title – actually referring to the 'human monster' of the piece – has always struck me as kind of desperate) and, to a lesser extent, Robert Armstrong ditto as the fast-talking but ill-fated reporter who cracks the case. The 'monster' (afflicted by sudden 'attacks' which transform him, in a matter of seconds, into a scruffy and wizened zombie) is a student in love with a renowned singer (resident Universal scream queen Evelyn Ankers), predictably also desired by the elderly Professor - deluding himself, a' la the Bela Lugosi of THE RAVEN (1935), that she corresponds this affection - but who has herself fallen for the accompanying pianist (the just-as-ubiquitous Turhan Bey) of her concert tour. Obsessed with the Ancient Egyptian ritual of death-in-life (improbably involving a release of poison gas followed by an impromptu heart transplant!), Zucco first experiments with a monkey but soon turns his attentions to a human specimen…for which his naive assistant (a surgical genius no less) fits the bill perfectly (however, no attempt is made to explain how he manages to operate repeatedly on himself – since, naturally, it transpires the effect of the revivification is only temporary – without being fully conscious of the fact!). As I said, this is standard low-grade fare – not quite as good as even the minor classics among Universal's second outburst within the genre, though certainly nowhere near as bad as the worst of the lot - THE CAT CREEPS, SHE-WOLF OF London and THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK (all 1946).

1943's "The Mad Ghoul" remains a sadly neglected entry during a year in which horror was in short supply at Universal, positioned at the bottom of a double bill with Lon Chaney's "Son of Dracula." Lionel Atwill had scored as mad scientists in both "Man Made Monster" and "The Mad Doctor of Market Street," but since then only John Carradine carried on the tradition with "Captive Wild Woman," spawning two sequels in its wake, "Jungle Woman" and "The Jungle Captive." On just this one occasion George Zucco received the call to star as Dr. Alfred Morris, whose experiments result in tragedy as delusions of unrequited love are not reciprocated. Dr. Morris is teaching classes at University City, selecting skilled surgeon Ted Allison (David Bruce) to become his prize pupil, after discovering the secret behind the Mayan technique of human sacrifice, cutting out the hearts of living donors not to appease their gods but to restore life to victims of a deadly gas that leaves the subject in a fearful state of 'death in life,' feted to die without treatment. The doctor has been able to recreate the gas and indoctrinated a monkey as a guinea pig, requiring Ted to perform a cardiectomy on another monkey for the heart substance, when mixed with certain herbs serving as a cure for the zombie-like condition. The little creature seems totally unaffected by its ordeal and all goes well, Dr. Morris also rejoicing in Ted's relationship with concert singer Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers), as he secretly covets the young lovely for himself. Once Morris becomes aware of Ted's intention to marry Isobel he sets a trap for his naïve assistant, who becomes a human victim of the Mayan gas, a slave to the will of his master. Unfortunately, the happy go lucky monkey soon falls back into his living death state, the cure merely a temporary one, too late for Dr. Morris to make amends so he and Ted follow Isobel's singing tour from town to town, every relapse requiring a desecration of the recently interred for heart substance. More grim than the usual Ben Pivar production, the extensive gruesomeness is kept off screen, but as one caretaker supplies a fresh heart, so too does a (too) clever reporter (Robert Armstrong) pretending to be a corpse lying in a coffin, his accurate hunch proving to be a fatal one. George Zucco only received star billing at Poverty Row's PRC in titles like "The Mad Monster," "Dead Men Walk," "The Black Raven," "Fog Island," and "The Flying Serpent," so to essay a more nuanced villain at Universal was a nice change, though he does indulge his bulging eyes toward the end of the film when confessing his indiscretion to Ted (we reveled in Atwill's madness but never felt sympathy for him). His previous mad scientists at Paramount ("The Monster and the Girl") or Fox ("Dr. Renault's Secret") were smaller roles rather than the lead, an established supporting fixture at Universal in "The Mummy's Hand," "Dark Streets of Cairo," "The Mummy's Tomb," "The Mummy's Ghost," and "House of Frankenstein," so at least here he's allowed to effortlessly carry a star vehicle for a major studio. Top billed David Bruce only had one other genre credit opposite Lon Chaney in "Calling Dr. Death,," wearing a close facsimile of Boris Karloff's makeup as Ardath Bey in "The Mummy," later worn by Chaney himself in "Man Made Monster," a Jack Pierce application meant to show the character's gradual disintegration into a dessicated corpse.

During the 1940s, George Zucco made a ton of horror films--most of them for crappy little studios and with microscopic budgets. However, occasionally he'd appear in a decent film--one with higher production values and plots which made a bit more sense. This is the case with "The Mad Ghoul", as Zucco appeared in a film by Universal--a studio that made horror films just a bit better than everyone else.

Ted is in love with Isabel. He apparently can look past her annoying singing (it's very operatic and you either like it or hate it--most folks today would hate it). However, Ted doesn't know that the professor he's working for, Dr. Morris (Zucco), is a maniac who will do anything to possess Isabel. Eventually, Morris uses a gas he's created to turn Ted into a maniac who will do whatever the doctor tells him---including kill. What's next? See the film.

The acting is a tiny bit better than the usual B and the plot, though a bit silly, quite enjoyable if you like this sort of thing. Worth seeing.

In between the films with Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, and the Wolfman, Universal Pictures occasionally turned out the oddball horror film not belonging to anyone of the series they did. Such a film is The Mad Ghoul and it stars a whole lot of players most familiar with the Gothic horror genre.

Head of the cast is George Zucco who gets control of the mind and soul of David Bruce who was a former medical student of his before Zucco turned to ghoulish experiments. He's discovered an ancient gas used by the Mayans to turn people into mindless and soulless killing machines who obey commands by whomever controls the gas flow.

In this case Zucco has a mad case of ghoul type lust for Bruce's fiancé Evelyn Ankers who is a concert singer on tour with her accompanist Turhan Bey. And Bruce is jealous of Bey being around Ankers and working so close with her.

Later on in the Forties Zucco did some horror films for poverty row Monogram Pictures. This one is far from as bad as those were, but compared to other Universal fright fests it's second rate.

Others in the cast are cops Milburn Stone and Charles McGraw and reporter Robert Armstong whose quest to find the Mad Ghoul ends in tragedy. They all make The Mad Ghoul better than a typical Monogram product, but that's not saying much.

Evil professor George Zucco has the hots for singer Evelyn Ankers. He's also been experimenting on animals with an ancient Mayan gas! Zucco decides to clear a path to Ankers by using the gas on her boyfriend (David Bruce). This turns Bruce into a murderous ghoul who needs human hearts to survive. Little does Zucco know Ankers was already planning on dumping Bruce for Turhan Bey. As Homer Simpson would say: "D'oh!"

Fun, lively Universal B horror movie with a nice cast and an interesting plot. George Zucco is awesome. I would watch this classy actor in anything. Evelyn Ankers is lovely as she always was in her Universal films. David Bruce, an actor I'm not overly familiar with, gives a sympathetic performance here. Turhan Bey has little to do. Robert Armstrong plays the obligatory wise-cracking reporter. If you're a fan of Universal horror films or George Zucco, you'll enjoy this a lot. It's not one of Universal's best but it's pretty good.

Curious about the effects of an ancient Mayan nerve gas used in human sacrifices, Dr. Morris (George Zucco) asks one of his eager pupils, Ted (David Bruce), to assist him in his experiments. Morris has managed to put a monkey into a 'dead' state, and Ted manages to revive it by giving it the fluid of another heart. Morris has an ulterior motive however, and plans to put the moves on Ted's musician girlfriend Isabel (Evelyn Ankers), who has grown tired of Ted and longs for someone else who shares her love of music. Afraid of hurting his feelings, Isabel confides in Dr. Morris to help Ted understand, but Morris exposes Ted to the Mayan gas, turning him into a mindless zombie that Morris can control. He has to rely on human hearts to survive, so Morris and Ted leave a trail of murders and grave-robbing behind them, as Morris turns his attention to Isabel's new beau, pianist Eric (Tuhran Bey).

Of all Universal's regular actors, George Zucco was one of their most prolific, but was usually confined to supporting roles. Here he is given the starring role, and his well-spoken, subtly evil performance proves to be one of the few positives in what is a quite dull affair. Universal's gorgeous set-design and high production values are clear to see, but the story is old-fashioned and weak, offering nothing more than a familiar mad scientist storyline, similar in many ways to Universal's own Frankenstein (1931), but lacking the satirical bite. The make-up, which is usually highly iconic, is uninspired and quite basic, involving nothing more than a bit of powder and messy hair, and features no big 'change' scene, and instead Ted simply raises his head from his hands and is transformed.

Running at just 65 minutes, The Mad Ghoul is clearly lacking ideas, and resorts to lazy scenes of exposition as Robert Armstrong's 'Scoop' McClure gets a scent of Dr. Morris, communicating his ideas and intentions with a girl from his office he keeps happening to come across, helping the audience to understand what's going on. The scenes with Armstrong do offer some light comic relief however, taking the attention away from the mundanity of Morris's quest from Isabel. I'm sure this was made merely for the purpose of playing as a second feature to one of Universal's more accomplished films, but it doesn't excuse The Mad Ghoul from being frightfully pedestrian, with the only real saving grace being the performance of Zucco.

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This is another Universal quickie that is often shrugged off as just another potboiler.Actually there's much more than meets the eye.There's a tight screen play,moody photography and excellent make up as David Bruce changes into the ghoul.Eveyln Ankers exhibits the proper histronics, Turhan Bey,is OK as her partner and Milburn Stone is also along as a cop.David Bruce elicits sympathy as Ankers would be boy friend, who unwittingly becomes George Zuccos agent to carry out the murders.Kudos go to Zucco ,who gives a great performance as the professor,whos desire for Ankers ,leads him to destruction.Robert Armstrong gives a strong performance as a pushy reporter. A short running time of 62 minutes keeps the movie going at a fast pace.Much better film than the title suggests. 6 out of 10 stars.

Crazy chemistry professor Dr. Alfred Morris (George Zucco) deliberately exposes his assistant, student Ted Allison (David Bruce), to an ancient Mayan gas that puts the young man into a zombie-like state. In order to keep Ted alive, Morris needs to repeatedly inject him with a serum produced from the hearts of the recently deceased, the professor turning to grave-robbing and murder for his supply of organs, with obedient Ted aiding him in his nefarious work. With Ted in his control, Morris also plans to 'steal the heart' of his assistant's fiancé, singer Isabel (Evelyn Ankers), although his romantic intentions are in vain, for she is really in love with her suave pianist Eric (Turhan Bey).

The Mad Ghoul is one of those daft B-movies that makes one question the point of the villain's ghoulish experiments. What is the purpose of recreating the gas? Does doing so offer any benefits whatsoever other than providing the makers of this film with a flaky premise for another low-budget chiller? I guess that's why they call them mad scientists. Of course, the insanity of the plot is the kind of thing that we B-movie fans adore, but this one falters (like so many do) by being very monotonous after the initial set-up: Ted repeatedly falls back into zombie mode, Morris is forced to find another heart, repeat.

That said, the film's best moment comes when reporter Ken McClure (Robert Armstrong) lays a trap for the killer by posing as a corpse in a funeral home: rather than capture the maniac as he plans, he becomes another victim of the heart-snatching ghoul - I didn't see that coming! It makes a welcome change for the clichéd reporter character to become the subject of a sensational headline himself.

The film ends predictably, with Morris ordering Ted to kill Eric and then commit suicide, unaware that he himself has been exposed to the Mayan gas.

George Zucco is my favorite horror movie actor. He made the most of any crappy script he was handed and always turned in a great performance. His trademark sinister stare could even give Boris Karloff the shivers. He was always a standout in any movie cast he was a part of. The Mad Ghoul is Zucco's movie. Even though David Bruce plays the title monster it's Zucco who is the true monster and he is delightfully evil as Dr Alfred Morris.

David Bruce was probably the least intimidating monster in any of the Universal horror movies.He plays Ted Allison. Ted is dumped by Isobel and screwed by Dr Morris so he is the chump of the month in this movie In his ghoul make up , he looked like he had stuck his finger in an electric plug at a flour mill.He had kind of a baby face anyway so he was more pathetic than scary.

The beautiful Evelyn Ankers portrays Isabel Lewis the singer who seems to be the object of everybody s sexual desires and is Ted's fiancé. Evelyn was Universals top scream queen and she was in top form in The Mad Ghoul. The fact that for awhile Dr Morris is under the delusion that Isabel loves him reveals his personal conceit and how out of touch with reality he really is. Dr Morris apparently exposes Ted to the lethal gas just to remove him from contention for Isabel...truly rotten.

Turhan Bey is Eric Iverson, Isabel's pianist and the guy she actually digs. Bey had the look of a Latin Lover although he was actually a Turk. During the war, when the top stars in Hollywood were fighting the war, Bey got work as a romantic lead and occasional villain.He had the acting range of the average pine tree. When the war ended and the top star returned Beys career disappeared.

Anyway Zucco turns Bruce into a zombie with an ancient Mayan gas. Bruce has to ingest the serum of the heart of a newly dead human corpse to keep living. Zucco tries to get Bruce while he is in his zombie state to kill Bey and himself so the way will be cleared for Zucco to have Ankers.And so on.

Robert Armstrong,yeah Carl Denham himself ,has the role of a newspaper man. Milburn Stone, yeah Doc Adams on Gunsmoke.plays a police detective. Addison Richards, Rose Hobart , and Charles McGraw all have Featured roles. Its Zucco, however, who makes the movie watchable.

Many reviewers write here about how the professor is smitten with the female role of this film. Well, I suggest we all have another look, and realize that the professor is actually madly in love with Ted, her fiancée. This very clever B film is all about possessive manipulation and unrequited lust... and the thief of hearts is a metaphor for the clearly gay professor lusting after enthusiastic cute blond Ted. It is indeed fortunate that the woman instead loves Eric the piano player, and all this allows the professor to repeatedly use and abuse every character in the film for his own ends... mainly which involve manipulating Ted for his own grisly needs. It is quite and evil premise and well carried out, and as a gay theme of use and abuse it is one of the most definite explicit examples of Hollywood's demonising of a cultured gay character. See the film again and realize the real evil of the film is Hollywood once again telling a straight audience how horrible gay men are and how nice bland people can be used. The film is quite creepy and well worth a look.

A second-rate Universal horror that could be considered a rare addition of the company to the zombie cannon (in the traditional Haitian version), as it shows a modern interpretation of the "ghoul" myth, as a controlled undead human being, much closer to the zombie traits. It's a nice B-movie, even when it's overly talkie, but definitely not part of Universal's biggest achievements.

With the best will in the world, this film (originally developed as 'The Mystery of the Mad Ghoul') is a workmanlike production from Universal, and a far cry from the inventive, carefully made horror films that were made in the '30s. It features their repertoire of reliably wonderful actors like Turhan Bey, Evelyn Ankers and George Zucco and gives them exactly the kind of roles they are known for playing. Instead of Karloff, Lugosi or Chaney as the main monster, we have lesser-known David Bruce playing the titular Ted Allison, a ghoulish henchman whose mission it is to retrieve the hearts of the living.

Luckily the wise-cracking cops and journos typical of this period are kept in check. At a brisk 65-minute runtime, there isn't time for anything much other than the storyline, which doesn't seek to break any new ground. Not unenjoyable, this is the kind of formulaic fare that demonstrated a lack of interest in the dwindling horror genre by this time. I'm sure it was successful enough to justify its modest budget, but it would have been wonderful to have seen the kind of innovation present that pioneers such as James Whale or Karl Freund featured in their earlier, celebrated productions. My score is 5 out of 10.