Greetings!


Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

Thanks for visiting!


Monday, October 2, 2017

The Monster Maker (1944)

Starring J. Carrol Naish, Ralph Morgan, Tala Birell, Wanda McKay, Terry Frost
Directed by Sam Newfield
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A criminal scientist, on discovering the daughter of a concert pianist resembles his dead wife, becomes obsessed with attaining her, and to that end infects her father with a terrible disease.

This low budget chiller from the PRC studio has its share of effective moments, and features one of their best casts, with Naish and Morgan the standouts.  Naish is creepy, speaking his dialogue in a suave but halting delivery, in a role that almost seems as if it might have been written for Bela Lugosi.  The monster makeup on Morgan is well done, and I liked elements of Albert Glasser's music score.  The budget shows however with some limited sets, and the script has some plot holes and weak logic, such as Birell's unwavering dedication as Naish's assistant after he has rejected her romantically.  Film historian Troy Howarth commented to me that he found the film a bit tasteless for exploiting the real disease of acromegaly, and I can definitely agree with that, and wonder if it was coincidental this film was released around the same time real-life acromegaly victim Rondo Hatton was appearing in movies for Universal as a boogeyman.

No comments:

Post a Comment