Where’s Charleton Heston When You Need Him?

Our second horror feature Saturday night was The Mad Monster (1942), again starring George Zucco (um, for anyone just tuning in, this is a continuation of yesterday’s post).

This time out, Zucco plays a scientist who is all evil. He has a nice wolf in a little tiny cage. If that’s not evil! I hated that part of the movie. The wolf looked just like a dog. The evil doctor also has a big guy strapped to a bed, but I always feel less sorry for people than for animals.

Before anything too dramatic happened, Evil Doctor starts arguing with some guys that just magically appear around the table. That part confused Steven, who had left the room briefly to get ice cream. Apparently the guys were other scientists who had kicked Evil Doctor out of the club for being mad. Regular readers will guess that I readily understood this part of it, seeing as I spent part of Lame Post Friday explaining about how I have imaginary conversations in my head with various critics. This was a graphic depiction of that phenomenon.

Having mentally disposed of his enemies and promising to dispose of them more literally later on, Mad Scientist (isn’t that a better name than Evil Doctor?) proceeds to turn the big guy into a werewolf. I thought he looked more like something out of Planet of the Apes. Where’s Charleton Heston when you need him?

As the movie progresses we learn that the big guy is Mad Scientist’s gardener and apparently was not clear on all the job duties when he accepted the post. He’s half-witted (these movies abound in half-wits) and, if I’m not mistaken, has a crush on Mad Scientist’s daughter. The daughter believes her father is a brilliant scientist who has been maligned. She sent her boyfriend, who just happens to be a nosy reporter, away, apparently at Dad’s request. She is loyal buy lonely.

I confess I was not following things very well once the murders started. Second feature slump? Or a dull movie, despite the “marvelously theatrical” George Zucco “effortlessly stealing the show” (see previous post for quote sources). To be honest with you (as I usually am) I don’t quite remember how it ended. I seem to think that Mad Scientist got his comeuppance and his beautiful daughter ended up in her young man’s arms. Isn’t it funny that I can’t remember how the werewolf died, as I’m pretty sure he did. At least there were no spurious claims of beauty killing the beast, like in King Kong (the 1933 version, of course; I don’t remember how the remake ended).

I may have liked the movie better if I had been able to catch all the dialogue. For that we can blame my old television (purchased sometime in the last century) or, more likely, the cheap DVD (ten bucks for fifty movies, what do I expect?). However, as a second feature, it was enjoyable enough. As a blog post, I hope it entertained.