Two Heads Are Better Than One

The Midnite Drive-In has often been the source for numerous "double-header" features over the years (as in two movies for the price of one).  I guess we would have to class today's presentation as a "quadruple header"...

 

 

There is a standard catch phrase often used in some circles that "two heads are better than one". Of course, in the standard use of the idiom, people usually mean that two people working together on the same goal usually have better success than just one person by his or her self. This handy little motto has been around for centuries.  A passage from the Bible is one of the earliest examples I found of this:

"Two heads are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up." (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)

But this is referring to two separate bodies of people.   What happens if both those people are sharing the same body however?  There are examples of the concept when one body is occupied by two people in film. All of Me, a Steve Martin comedy had Martin's character, Roger Cobb, being co-occupied by the spirit of Lily Tomlin's Edwina Cutwater, to comedic effect as both tried to work together to make the co-habitation work. 

You could add some of those demonic possession movies to this list, but, really, those are a different kind of animal all together, because the evil spirit in question completely dominates the character and the real owner of the body has no input into the decisions. 

On the other hand, there are these two examples. Each one involves a fully functional head attached to a body (with the original head still intact). That Biblical bit about helping each other becomes decidedly problematic.  Especially when the two heads are diametrically opposed to each other in principles or thought.  

 

 

The Thing with Two Heads (1972): 

Dr. Max Kirschner (Ray Milland) is a brilliant doctor. Well, brilliance and demented go hand in hand in these kinds of movies, so he is also a bit off his rocker.  

As per the norm, Max has been doing some decidedly strange work in the operating room.  What he has done is grafted a second head onto a gorilla. (That's Rick Baker in that gorilla suit, and also the designer of much of the more exotic special effects in this feature.)

Max is elated with his success. Except the two-headed gorilla is not exactly emotionally stable.  It breaks out of it's cage and runs rampant down the city streets outside the hospital. Eventually the gorilla is caught in a supermarket. It turns out he wasn't a rampaging savage creature... he was just hungry. The ultimate plan for the gorilla was to let the new head become acclimated to the body and then remove the original head.  (You didn't think he was just trying to create a new hit exhibit at the local zoo, did you...?)

The reason why Max has been working so diligently at this experiment is that he is dying.  And like most of us, he doesn't want to die just yet.  Fortunately he is a brilliant doctor, with his own medical research facility and the funds to change his future.  Unfortunately he is rather unprincipled as to his methods. He has a subordinate seek out an acceptable body. Then, when he gets his "victim" the plan is to attach his head to the body, and of course, ultimately take it over.

This movie is classed as a "horror/comedy" so there are several things that are spliced in to the film to get to that "comedy".  For one thing, at the outset it is established that Max is a racist. He had recently hired a new doctor for his facility, apparently without an interview or even a working knowledge of his new hire.  Because when he finds out that Dr. Fred Williams (Don Marshall) is an African-American, he tells the new doctor that the contract that Fred signed is null and void. 

Fred insists that Max has to keep him on for the trial period otherwise there will be some serious legal issues, so Fred is assigned to a desk job to keep him out of the way.  Meantime, Max's subordinate is seeking that body.  An effort is made to convince an inmate on Death Row in prison to agree, and they manage to get Jack Moss (Rosey Grier) to accept.

But wait. Jack is a black man. Won't that be a situation that Max would reject outright? Unfortunately he has no say in the matter, because he is basically going in to a coma and is about to die. So the doctors under him decide they have to act right away in order to save him.  Of course, when Max wakes up he's not entirely pleased the operation was a success...

For that matter, Jack is not entirely happy with having another head in the game. The comedy part comes into play in full force after this (although whether it's actually funny is a matter of opinion.) Jack only agreed to this situation because he is innocent of the murder he was convicted and sentenced for, and having this cranky old geezer just doesn't help matters much. 

(And just as a side note: How the hell long has Jack been on Death Row anyway? In these days when appeals can keep a Death Row inmate on there almost until death actually takes his life before the government does, it seems that Jack has had a short time on it.  The movie indicates he is due to be executed forthwith, the reason he is granted a stay of execution.) 

There is a conflict when Jack takes control of his body and escapes the hospital.  He has the advantage, however, because most people who see him run away rather than try to help capture him. (That extra head just might come in handy after all...) At first they try to commandeer a car, conveniently the car owned by Fred (remember Fred?). But with police chasing him and this car being a less than acceptable example of a getaway car, they end up crashing. But not to worry.  Jack manages to get a hold of a dirt bike. 

And with that, a chase through a dirt bike track and an open field with Keystone Kops in cars chasing them, the movie takes a weird turn.  I didn't time it, but I bet that police chase takes up at least 20 or 25 minutes of the film. And since this was BEFORE The Blues Brothers, it may be a source that John Landis got his iconic chase scenes from in that classic film.  This movie had a much lower budget, however, so there are only about a dozen police cars. And apparently the budget was stretched thin because several times the car that crashes in a scene already shows signs of having been in a previous crash.  (There is one scene, even, where the car that crashes flips, and it's obvious there is no engine under the hood...)

Eventually Jack and Max and Fred escape the cops and make their way to Jack's girlfriend, Lila (Chelsea Brown). She is surprised to see Jack, and even more surprised to see his new addition, but she apparently takes it into stride, rather than running and screaming for the hills.  She does, however have a bit of curiosity about Jack's new situation because she delivers what is probably the best line in the movie...

"Is there anything else you've got two of?"

A valid question, if you ask me...

Well evil Max has plans to get rid of Jack's head, even if his body is not one that Max is happy with, but jack is not ready to go so gently into that good night.  Ultimately Jack wins out, but being that this is a good-natured comedy more than a horror film, Max is still alive, albeit in need of a new body.  The last scene features Jack, sole possessor of his body, traveling down the road with Lila and Fred, singing:

"Oh, happy day! Oh, happy day! When Jesus washed my sins away!" (REALLY!!! Would I lie?)

There is one big hole here, plot wise.  For one thing, Jack is still a convicted (and now escaped) felon. And on top of that, the issue of who actually committed the murder that Jack was on death row in the first place is never really resolved. So maybe that "Oh, happy day!" is a little bit premature. But then no one ever overestimated the coherency of these kinds of movies.  Maybe they were looking towards a sequel.

The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971):

From the trailer: 

 "No woman is safe from his deadly embrace! No man is safe from his killer lust!" (And no audience member is safe from the devastating ennui...)  

The story here is that Bruce Dern plays a demented (there's a stretch...) scientist. Dern plays Dr. Roger Girard, a man who lives with his wife, Linda (Pat Priest) and his assistant, Max. 

 

Dr. Girard

Linda

Max (with Linda)

 

Why is he demented? Well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that he still holds a grudge over getting canned from his previous job. Or maybe it's because he has such a friendly relationship with Casey Kasem. But possibly it's just because he likes to, in his spare time, graft the head of one animal to another.  No reason, just because no one else is doing it...

Roger has a friend, a fellow doctor named Ken Anderson (Casey Kasem) who comes around to visit him. Ken is concerned because Linda has told him that Roger spends WAAAY too much time in his lab, to the detriment of neglecting his newlywed wife. But since Roger has much more interest in his secret scientific experiments, he doesn't really see the negative effect he is having on her.

 

Ken

 

Roger and his assistant, Max, are planning on the next phase of his experiments, that is to graft a head onto the body of a fully functioning body of another.  The ostensible reason is that they may be able to prolong the life of a valuable intellectual whose body is deteriorating.  It later comes out that Max has much more invested in the success of this experiment because he is suffering from a debilitating disease but wants to go on living.

When a really psychotic criminal, Manuel Cass (John Cole), escapes from a maximum security prison ("maximum security" apparently meaning the door is locked...), and ends up on Roger's estate, he is shot by Roger as he tries to do some bad things to Linda. 

Cass (with Girard)

 

Just prior to this he has killed Roger's estate caretaker.  The caretaker's son, Danny (John Bloom) is distraught.  Danny is also mentally disabled.

Danny (pre-op)

 

Max sees the opportunity to test Roger's head transplant theory, since Cass is now dead, and Danny can only be improved in mental capacity by the procedure. Psychotic brain of a criminal being considered a vast improvement on mental deficiency, take it as you will.  This is not Casablanca quality theater, you know.

As you might expect, Danny is not pleased with the change in situation, nor is he pleased with the fact that this psycho seems to have taken over every aspect of control of it's new body.  Danny can only look on in horror as Cass manipulates his new body and takes up his preferred method of dealing with life; killing and molesting people.

Danny (post-op)

 

The cops have surmised that Danny is a prime suspect, because apparently, by the footprints found at the scene of the crime, there can be only one person with that big a footprint. But when they try to find Danny to question him, they are told by Roger that Danny and his father left town a week before. Not entirely buying the story they keep looking, especially after bodies keep piling up that suggest the culprit is the same person. Although, by now, they are aware that Cass has escaped.

Eventually both Linda and Ken (remember Ken?) find out the truth and, with Roger and Max,  begin their own search for the monster Roger and max created.  And we find out that Max wants to capture him/it alive because he wants to use Danny's body for his own head transfer (so who is more demented... Roger or Max?)

You already know pretty much how this HAS to turn out. All of the bad people are killed in a cave in in an old mine, and Ken and Linda escape.  Of course, neither of them are going to reveal to the police what REALLY happened, just that Roger and Max and Danny were killed in the cave-in. (They don't even mention Cass, so I guess the escaped lunatic is officially still on the loose.)   

In summary, Harry and Michael Medved, in their book The Golden Turkey Awards, had a category "The Worst Two-Headed Transplant Movie". In it, these two movies competed with a third movie, a Japanese entry in the genre: The Manster: Half-Man, Half-Monster (not reviewed here). In their opinion, the winner of "the Worst" was The Thing with Two Heads.  Having not even seen the Japanese movie, I can't exactly make a completely knowledgeable decision, but if I were to make one just on these two movies I would have picked "The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant.

Well, folks, the one head I have is telling me it's time to head home.  And thankfully I won't have to compete with a second head.  Driving the Plymouth is a tough thing to do by myself.

Drive safely.

Quiggy

 

 

Queen and King

 

I have started a new trend in my blog, I think. Not long ago I posted a review of The Blob and I Married a Monster from Outer Space, which was inspired by an old newspaper drive-in ad. Coming up in October to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Midnite Drive-In, I am going to another such review. I recently ordered a book called Ad Nauseum: Newsprint Nightmares from the '70s and '80s, which is sure to inspire more such posts.  I found this one on the internet, however.

Queen of Outer Space (1958):

I have been meaning to review Queen of Outer Space because it crops up quite often as a bad movie, and you know how much I love to go to great lengths to test that "bad movie" appellation.  Queen of Outer Space is corny beyond belief. The script was written by Charles Beaumont. Yes, the same Charles Beaumont who gave us many classic Twilight Zone episodes, such as "The Howling Man", "The Jungle", "In His Image" and "Valley of the Shadow", as well as one of my favorite movies, "The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao" (which was actually based on another source, but the script WAS good). It was also written by Ben Hecht, and there comes a real puzzler. Hecht was the guy who wrote hundreds of phenomenally great screenplays and stories,  like The Front Page and Some Like it Hot, and even won a couple of Oscars.

In this movie you get some pretty dippy dialogue. At least, it is in Larry's place, who I guess is supposed to be the comic relief. But, I found out that this movie isn't quite as a straightforward serious movie as I thought.  At least one podcast I watched post movie says it is meant to be a parody. Which is why Larry reminds me so much of Joey Travolta's character  in Amazon Women on the Moon (which in turn seems to have been inspired by this movie, so now it makes a little more sense).

The movie starts off with three astronauts, Capt. Neal Patterson (Eric Fleming), Lt. Mike Cruze (Dave Willock) and. Lt. Larry Turner (Patrick Waltz), waiting to see their commander.  Instead of getting the assignment they expect, checking a trip scheduled for exploring Mars, they get the job of being Uber drivers, taking a scientist, Professor Konrad (Paul Birch) to the local space station.  It seems there are some strange goings on up there. They are told not to talk to anyone about their mission. 

Needless to say they are a little disappointed.

One of the first scenes, just before the blastoff, Neal asks where his lieutenant, Larry is. Larry is saying goodbye to his girlfriend. And I guess Larry thought that part about not talking to anyone didn't include his girlfriend...

 

Larry and his woman of the moment

 Dippy Dialogue #1:

Larry's Girlfriend: "Oh, Larry! Spaceships are dangerous! I mean, what if you should get lost up there? Or blow up or something? I don't know what I'd do without you."

Larry: "I'm sorry, baby, but I don't have any other choice. I'm the navigator and they can't make a move without me."

Mike is talking with Neal complaining about the mission and mentions that they should get better assignments because they were the first astronauts to orbit the moon. (Wait a minute... They've gone from just orbiting the moon to building a space station AND they are in line to orbit Mars... all within their lifetime???) More ridiculous than that, while they are still fueling the rocket the Professor tries to light a cigarette and Neal has to tell him that's a bad idea.  Well, they're not rocket scientists, I guess...  But I thought at least  the Professor WAS...

 

Our intrepid crew

 

Don't miss the rather low tech way these guys strap in for takeoff. Those seats look more like  Barca Loungers or even hide-a-beds,  and not even remotely safe for the G-forces they are going to encounter. 

 

Waiting for the game to kickoff

 

Upon entering space and drawing near the space station, they notice some strange beams coming from somewhere. Ultimately one of the beams blow up the space space station. Then as more light beams head their way, they try to outrun them. (Yeah, you probably just had the same thought I did...) 

Another beam hits them, although instead of blowing up, it ultimately causes them to crash land on a planet. They aren't initially aware of which planet, since a lot of the equipment has malfunctioned, but investigation eventually reveals they are on Venus. Of course, as anyone who has even a limited knowledge of Venus, this is astounding, since science had postulated that Venus was not a planet conducive to life. But since this is the movie sci-fi world, that idea is proven wrong. Even the Professor admits he COULD have got his data wrong.

The crew are not long on the planet before they encounter the residents of Venus. The residents, however, appear to be all female, leading to the speculation that life on Venus may not involve procreation. 

Dippy Dialogue #2:

Professor Konrad: "Perhaps this is a civilization without sex."

Larry: "You call that civilization?"

This is a male fantasy in movie form. A planet of all women, with the four interlopers being the only males on the planet.

 

The supermodel army cometh

 

The men are captured by the aggressive female soldiers and taken before the Queen (Laurie Mitchell). The Queen and the rest of the ruling council all wear masks. It's not yet apparent why they wear masks although  it is speculated among the men it's may be something like hiding the faces of the rulers to keep them from being seen by the "hoi polloi".

 

Earth's Got Talent: Episode 1

 

The Queen determines they are a threat, despite the captain's insistence that the landing was an accident, and that they have no aggressive intentions. The Professor seems to think that the beams that destroyed the space station and knocked them off course may have originated from Venus, however, so maybe their landing was not entirely accidental.

Dippy Dialogue #3:

Mike: "Oh come off it.  How could a bunch of women invent a gizmo like that?"

Larry: "Sure, and even if they did invent it, how could they aim it? You know how women drivers are."

 (Gotta love that Larry. He makes this movie funny, regardless of intentional or not...)

A scientist, Talleah (Zsa Zsa Gabor), insists on visiting these prisoners. 

 

"This dress was designed by our planet's greatest costume designer!"

 

 

She tells them they are in great danger.  The Queen has plans to destroy the Earth because it obstructs her view of Mars. (No, that's Marvin the Martian...) Actually the Queen is going to destroy the Earth before it can be a threat to Venus.  (Talk about preemptive strikes...)

 

The (cardboard) disintegration ray

Talleah and some of the rebel faction of the planet want to take the Queen down a peg or two, and she thinks these Earth boys could be of help. It seems that years ago Venus was involved in a war with another planet.  The Queen took over, because the men of the planet didn't take her seriously. (Never underestimate the power of a woman, I guess.) She killed off most of then, however the ones she needed like scientists are now in a prison colony on a moon orbiting the planet (which the real Venus doesn't even have one...)

The palace guards come to take Neal to see the Queen, although Larry tries to wangle the invitation for himself, but Neal breaks the bad news to him.   

Dippy Dialogue #4:

Neal: "Sorry. I don't think Yllana's your type."

Larry: "What do ya mean? If she's a woman she's my type."

Meanwhile after Neal leaves, Talleah starts to show her true colors.

Dippy Dialogue #5:

 Talleah: "I hate her! I hate the Queen!"   

Larry: "She's jealous!  26 million miles from Earth and the women are all the same!" 

(BTW, Venus is actually about 59 million miles from Earth... I told you they weren't rocket scientists... at this point I'm actually starting to wonder whether they're actually astronauts...)

Neal goes to see the Queen and she reveals that she had an attraction to him, despite her worries that Earth is planning to attack Venus. In the process of trying to charm her sensitive side he removes her mask and reveals a disfigured face due to radiation. It seems only the women in charge suffered radiation burns, however. The rest of the women are beauty contestants by comparison. (And I think most of the "actresses" playing the women actually were beauty contestants and models. It's a sure bet they weren't actresses by profession).

 

"Women on Earth just use mud masks, sweetheart..."

 

Talleah and her rebels agree to help the men find the disintegration ray hidden in the jungle and sabotage it. But, since this IS a male fantasy film at it's heart we gotta have the obligatory make out session.  And by the way: The girl making out with Larry? That's Lisa Davis, who either was already, or at least soon would be married to the actor playing Larry.

 

Larry and his woman of the moment (or until death do us part...)

 

Ultimately the boys do succeed, although not necessarily by their own initiative. Talleah becomes the new Queen.  When they get into contact with Earth they are ordered to stay on the planet for at least a year, because of extenuating circumstances, and none of them are complaining about that... (Wait a minute, Larry... what about your girlfriend back on Earth? Guess he forgot about her.)

 

Waiting for her man. (He might not be coming back, babe.)

 

Surprisingly, although wikipedia claims it got generally positive reviews Queen of Outer Space sits at only 18% on the Tomato-meter. Now it should be noted, concerning those supposedly positive reviews, that most movie reviewers in 1958 were male. Once again, I repeat, this is basically a male fantasy film. I mean what red-blooded heterosexual male WOULDN'T want to be stranded on a planet of all women? But, though I enjoyed the movie from that aspect, I have to admit it isn't all that good.  Most of the dialogue is kind of cringy and laughable. On the other hand, it was apparently supposed to be a parody.  It is definitely a candidate for the camp movie archives, if nothing else. 

A fun thing to do when watching this movie are spotting some recycled stuff from previous movies. I won't go into detail on each of them, but one in particular is worth pointing out.  The girl that Larry ends up with on Venus, (credited as "Motiya" although I can't recall her being addressed by a name). is wearing the same dress that Anne Francis' Alta wore in Forbidden Planet.

 

Remote (Altair IV) fashion sense

Local (Venus) fashion sense

Those astronaut uniforms are the same, too...

 

The Queen of Outer Space and Frankenstein 1970 were released together as a double feature when they came out in 1958.

 

Boris Karloff was nearing the end of his career at this point, but surprisingly, this is the first time he had ever played a member of the Frankenstein family (as opposed to the monster, which he had done 3 times in the 30's and 40's.  

I think that Karloff might well be the king of horror, although Vincent Price and Bela Lugosi might give him a run for his money for that title. But given that he, as well as the aforementioned Price and Lugosi virtually became typecast in the genre, that may be a blessing, but it may also be a curse. Price, for his part, never had to make schlocky knockoffs (my opinion), but Karloff basically ended his career by becoming a caricature of his former heyday. (You could argue the same for Price, but then again, much of Price's whole career was as a caricature... again, my opinion...)

Frankenstein 1970 (1958):

We open with a scene where a woman is being chased by a lumbering, hulking figure.  It seems to me if she'd just stop pausing to look back and scream, she ought to be able to outrun her pursuer, but then how would we get any suspense out of that? Eventually she finds herself trapped with a pond behind her and the pursuer in front of her.  The monster grabs her and begins to drown her...

 

 

 

"CUT!"

It turns out they were only filming a scene for a movie. There is some repartee between cast and crew. including the director's jealous ex-wife, the movie's script consultant,  who seems to think the lead actress in his film is is nest conquest. And the lead actress is a typical prima donna who is complaining about the roles she has been getting recently.

 

 

 

The reason they are filming this particular movie is to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the original Dr. Frankenstein and his mad genius in creating a monster. In this film, at least, Mary Shelley's novel had a real historical background, which is only right, because otherwise we wouldn't have the current Baron Victor von Frankenstein (Boris Karloff). And, being unmarried and childless, he says he is "the last of the house of Frankenstein".

 

 

 

But, you see, the Baron is in serious need of money to continue his own experiments. He is trying to get a nuclear reactor to continue his quest. (And apparently the scriptwriters in 1958 thought that by 1970, you could just go down to the local nuclear reactor dealership and buy one of the lot...)  So he has to deal with the presence of a bunch of people he's much rather not have around.  

Primarily, one of the most annoying people in the Victor's mind, is that director, Douglas Row (Don Barry). Row is much too friendly, and Victor finds him extremely bothersome. Not so, the female lead, Carolyn (Jana Lund). When Row intimates he's going to rewrite the whole script and include a part for Victor, he immediately turns on the charm and exudes some typical "it would be my pleasure to do a scene with so lovely a woman"... It seems age has not affected his libido.

There is some background to the Victor's madness.  Victor had some rather unpleasant dealings in the past with the Nazis who had taken over the country.  Apparently they didn't take to kindly to his refusal to help them in their quest to dominate the world. He survived, but his animosity towards them seethes inside. He keeps his experiments to himself, not even telling his confidante, Gottfried (Rudolph Anders) of his true intentions. But Gottfried has his suspicions, especially given Victor's current dealings with the director of the local morgue...

 

In a secret lab the access to which is hidden, conveniently, by the crypt on the first floor, Victor has some gadgets that his ancestor could only ream of, including the fact that the rooms in which his guests are residing during their stay are wired so he can listen in to them. And also the body on which he is conducting his secret experiments.

But there is a fly in the ointment.  Because his butler, Shuter (Norbert Schiller) discovers Victor's secret entrance by accident, and in succession, Victor's secret experiments.  So Shuter becomes Victor's first victim.  Because, after all, the creature must have a brain, and Shuter as a faithful servant, would make a faithful creature to serve Victor.  And he will live forever, isn't that every man's dream?  Well, maybe not Shuter, since he will be losing his current life...

Of course, even with careful planning, things can go awry.  Although Victor is successful in transplanting Shuter's brain, when he goes to retrieve the eyes he has stored in his refrigerator he drops the jar.  Oops.  Now he needs a new set of eyes.  Not only that, but Gottfried is getting more and more wise.  Victor's claim that Shuter  "went to visit relatives" won't hold water because Gottfried knows Shuter has no living relatives.

 

But since Victor is so deep in his experiments and his hoped for success, even Gottfried's suspicions are not going to deter him. Victor has the help of his creature, which, although it has a newly transplanted brain courtesy of Shuter, it is still in need of other body parts. One by one members of the film crew disappear, sort of.  The monster is the guilty party, although Victor keeps positing likely scenarios to cover the fact that he and his accomplice are accruing the necessary accoutrements.

The last 10 minutes of the film run pell-mell towards the end, seemingly as if someone in the front office told the director his budget was running short and there were no more funds.  it basically wraps up as the creature revolts against Victor and causes both of them to die. And the final denouement is when the bandages are taken off of the monster to reveal that the creature is none other than an exact replica of Victor!

 

Karloff is probably at one of his worst here, but give him credit, at least he didn't have to resort to making  ALL his final movies as a cheap shadow of his former self.  Whatever you think of them, the three he made in the 60's The Terror, The Raven and The Comedy of Terrors were all pretty decent.  And one of his final movies Targets, Peter Bogdanovich's first movie, in which he basically play himself, an aging horror movie star, is one that ranks high in my book.  

So of these two, I highly recommend you give Queen of Outer Space a whirl. Frankenstein 1970 is probably only for the completist who want to see EVERY Karloff movie, or every movie featuring Frankenstein.

Hope you got a kick out of this trip into 1958. Come back in  October for the 10th anniversary of The Midnite Drive-In and catch a few more 1958 movies.

 

Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

 

Gorilla Of My Dreams

This is my first entry in the It's In the Name of the Title Blogathon hosted by Realweegiemidget Reviews and Taking Up Room

 Way back in the early 2000's, I was in the habit of ordering a pizza on Saturday nights.  On one occasion the pizza place I did business with had a deal.  Pizza and a Movie.  What the deal was, you order a large pizza and along with it came a DVD of some movie,

They only did it a few times. It probably wasn't all that profitable. You didn't get a big budget gonzo movie. To be honest, the ones I got in those deals were public domain movies that I could have gotten anywhere on multi-disc sets for a few dollars.  I only have two of them, now, 20 years later.  One was Abbott and Costello meet the Mummy, (which came with a bonus episode of the TV show The Munsters, so it must've been a Halloween promotion.) The same thing could probably be said about today's movie. 

...I mean Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla? Just Lugosi's name suggests horror.  Unfortunately for Lugosi, he got typecast, although given the career he had under that typecast, I would have been happy with it, even if, as I have heard, he wasn't necessarily so happy. But at any rate, even if it wasn't for Halloween, it was a decent bonus to go along with pizza.

The DVD itself, I mean, not necessarily the movie on it.  But, as I've said before, I enjoy low budget trash as much as those huge budget epics, sometimes even more so. I like pushing the envelope and see if I can get a reaction from people.  

A few of the movies I've reviewed over the course of the history of this blog fall into a category of what I would call "Really??? That's your movie choice?"  (I can imagine the consternation of some of my fellow bloggers with the choices I came up with to join heir blogathons.)

Case in point.  A few years ago I posted a review of a double feature: Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter  (both directed by the same guy who directed today's feature, BTW). Neither of these movies would be on the radar of most people (in fact, most people have probably never even HEARD of them).

So back to the focus of today. Some interesting tidbits of trivia:  Sammy Petrillo, half of the comedy duo of Petrillo and Duke Mitchell, got his start because Jerry Lewis saw him perform and liked the almost dead-on imitation of Lewis that Petrillo had perfected and gave him his first role (as a baby version of Jerry Lewis on his own TV show}.  But apparently there was a falling out at some point, because by the time this movie came out, Lewis was ready to sue over the obvious similarity between the two characters and his and Dean Martin's comedy pairings.

William Beaudine, famously referred to as "One Take Beaudine" for his tendency to stay on budget by going with the first take of filming no matter how bad, is often ranked with Ed Wood as one of the worst directors to ever come out of Hollywood (Make room, Ed...). He had a huge career. From 1915 until 1970 he directed over 400 movies.  None of which are all that memorable. He did direct a slew of movies featuring The Bowery Boys, so those who are interested in 40's and 50's comedies may have seen his films (albeit maybe not know it was him behind the camera...)

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla was one of the movies that Martin Landau watched to get a feel for Bela Lugosi in preparation for his role as the actor in Tim Burton's biopic of Ed Wood. Landau commented on Beaudine's film that it was "so bad it makes Ed Wood films look like Gone with the Wind. " (Ouch!) 

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952):

First thing you notice in this film is the title sequence. After the movie title it lists the cast. "Introducing Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo" comes immediately after the title, followed by a list of the rest of the cast that merited getting listed, including the major roles played by Charlita as Nona and even Ramona as Ramona (the chimp).

Missing from the cast list is Bela's name... Wait a minute! I thought this was Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla... Is Lugosi not in it? Well, you get his name in the title, so maybe that counts for saying "Starring Bela Lugosi"...

The movie opens with one of those old-style documentary featurettes, featuring some stock footage of jungle creatures and a voice over: "This is the jungle..." which ends with the camera on two bearded men lying on the jungle floor while the announcer says "Who are these men? What can they possibly be doing in this cruel tropical wildness?"

The men are Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo (playing themselves), a comedy/singing duo who were on their way to do a show for Armed Services personnel, but end up on the jungle floor.  Waiting to be discovered by... what else... jungle natives. 

Duke and Sammy

The head medicine man (Milton Newberger) is insisting that they kill them (At least, that's what I think "hoo li ga vahntay" and slicing his hand across his throat means...) But the two have a savior in the person of the daughter of the chief, Rakos (Al Kikume) of the tribe who doesn't want them to be killed (OK, so that is what the medicine man is insisting..) Instead they get cleaned up and shaved.

Upon awakening, the two introduce themselves to their savior, Nona (Charlita) and the rest of the tribe. And the real reason that Nona has saved them from sacrifice becomes evident... she has the hots for Duke.  And her baby sister, Saloma (Muriel Landers), has a likewise attraction to Sammy,

Nona and Rakos

Saloma

Dean and Jerry, I mean Duke and Sammy, perform a song from their act for the tribe, with Duke singing one of the two songs featured in the film, " 'Deed I Do".  But they want to get off the island and back to civilization.  Fortunately (coincidentally..) for them, Nona works part time helping a scientist on the other side of the island, Dr. Zabor (Bela).  

Dr Zabor

Seems that Dr. Zabor is working on some experiments in the science of evolution.  And (plot point that drives the last half of the film) Zabor also has the hots for Nona. (Of course, he does.) So Nona takes Duke and Sammy to meet the Doctor.  Who lives in a fairly creepy mansion on the other side of the island with his native manservant, Chula (Mickey Simpson).  Nona is not only acquainted with Dr. Zabor, she also works part time  as his laboratory assistant.  (Which explains how the doc has become so enamored with Nona, she's always hanging around his lab doing assistant things.

Zabor has a monkey named Ramona, who is probably a potential victim of his nefarious experiments in the future.  Ramona takes an immediate shine to Sammy, but Sammy, of course, does not consider Ramona to be much of  an improvement over Saloma...

The first thing that Zabor notices about the two is Nona seems to have an interest in Duke, which makes Zabor a little jealous... (A little?)  So since the doc has his secret experiments on the study of evolution (you know the science that says man was originally a variation of the ape in it's past), he decides to use his knowhow to eliminate the competition.

How?  His experiments have been on how to reverse evolution.  Or at least that's what his ultimate goal is.  He experiments first on Ramona (I told you see was going to be a victim...)  He injects Ramona  with is serum and ends up with a monkey that has reverted to an earlier life form.  He tells Chula that now he can turn a man into a gorilla.  But don't worry Chula, he has another victim in mind to test out this serum...

But the problem is that the serum he used on Ramona did not last, and before he can show off the results of his success, Ramona has reverted back to her normal self.  (And, see, all those tears you were crying for poor Ramona turn out to be tears too soon...)

The terror is only just beginning however.  Remember how I said Zabor wanted Nona for himself and was getting a little peeved that Duke was getting somewhere with her when he couldn't?
  Well he gets Chula to kidnap Duke and, while Sammy and Nona have gone back to the village to look for him, Duke is stuck in Zabor's cages, having been injected with Zabor's new and improved serum. Which is a resounding success.  Duke is transformed into a gorilla, played, as usual, by that whiz who made his living doing gorillas in the 50's movies; Ray Corrigan. I think it was his suit, so it was probably in the contract that he would be the one to wear it... (You didn't REALLY think it was a REAL gorilla, did you...?)

When Nona and Sammy return. Zabor tries to convince that the gorilla is really Ramona.  But Sammy eventually becomes convinced otherwise.  See, even though Duke has become a gorilla physically, he still retains the mind and intelligence of Duke and takes various steps to try to convey the situation to Sammy.  Which may take a bit of effort, since Sammy is a couple of marbles short of a hopscotch game.

While trying to figure out how to resolve the situation another gorilla appears on the scene. The new gorilla turns out to be a female gorilla whose hormones go into overdrive on seeing Duke.  The two manage to escape and get back to the tribe, but they have been followed by Zabor, who has his eyes set on killing Duke.  Sammy jumps in front of duke to save him, but the doctor ends up shooting Sammy instead.

And then, in the classic ending, it all turns out to be a dream. Sammy dreamt the whole thing and everyone he knows was actually a part of the dream (shades of The Wizard of Oz!!), which it turns out he was having while waiting to go onstage with Duke as part of their act.  Nona and the chief were an act that involved, apparently, a trainer and her gorilla, which was actually the chief in a gorilla costume. Chula is apparently a bouncer.  And the guy who is in charge of the theater? None other than Zabor. 

The End.  And since there are no closing credits, Bela is STILL not credited as having been a part of the movie....

Folks, this is one of those films that requires that you leave your brain at the box office and just go in with only your eyes, because you won't need the rest of your body.  Entertaining?  On one level, yes.  But if you are a big fan of the Martin/Lewis pairing, you may have some issues with the more than obvious imitation by Petrillo trying to do Lewis. Which may convince you that Lewis had a good reason to get annoyed by the act.  Of course, this kind of thing couldn't have much to keep it afloat.  Sammy only had 5 roles in movies and Duke only had 9 and as near as I can tell, this was the only one that paired them together.

After this movie, Bela Lugosi was only able to get work with Ed Wood.  Only 4 movies before he passed away and three were with Wood.  A sad ending for man who had a great career scaring the bejeebers out of people for years in his heyday. 

Well, time to get the next boat out of the theater and get back to civilization.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

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