Starring Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, Frank Moran, Judith Gibson, Michael Ames
Directed by Philip Rosen
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
A pair of scientists succeed in thawing out an ancient caveman, but one of them wants to graft a contemporary brain onto the creature's own, which the other scientist rejects as murder.
One of Lugosi's nine films for Poverty Row studio Monogram Pictures, which has been hard to see for many years until a recent video release, it's by no means a great discovery, but it does offer a chance to see Lugosi and Carradine spar verbally, which was rare on film, although I believe they did at least one radio drama together. The story of a living caveman, frozen in ice, has been better presented in other films, but I can't recall one earlier than this, which does make for an intriguing setup, even if most of the Arctic footage seems to come from an older film (per IMDB that film was Alaskan Adventures from 1926). Although Lugosi's experiments are meant to release knowledge from the caveman of his origins, which would have been interesting, that idea is abandoned, in favor of routine boogeyman chase scenes. However, I can't deny that I enjoy this film, for the presence of Lugosi and Carradine, for the Monogram music cues, and for its rarity. Much has been speculated and written about regarding George Zucco's sharing of the credit as the Ape Man with Frank Moran, although the general consensus is no scenes with Zucco remain in the picture. Had this been a more serious drama, focusing on releasing the knowledge within the caveman's brain, it might have been a fine part for Zucco.
No comments:
Post a Comment