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[Bud Brewster]

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All Sci-Fi member Phantom presents us with reviews for three classic flims, one from the 1950s and two from the 1930s. The movies range from people who turn into alligators, animals that turn ino people, and man who turns into a monstrous killer!
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The Alligator People (1959)



When her husband disappears off a train, his wife searches for him and ends up in an old mansion in the middle of a swamp where scientific experiments are being conducted.

Beverly Garland plays Joyce, newly married to Paul Webster, a man she barely knows, including the fact that he was severely injured during the war, although not a trace of his scars are evident. She is at her wit's end by the time she tracks down his mother in their ancestral home in the bayou, but is abruptly rebuffed and told to leave.

Garland earned every penny of her paycheck in this movie, whether stumbling through the swamp dodging alligators or dashing around an old shack dodging a drunken Lon Chaney (probably for real).

Chaney sports a hook for a hand that was taken off by a 'gator and mostly lumbers around the set shooting every reptile in sight. That is, when he is not trying to rape Garland, who spends a good part of the movie screaming like a banshee in a blender at nearly every turn of events.

Undaunted, Joyce eventually discovers that Paul is the subject/victim of Dr. Mark Sinclair, a humanitarian who thought he had discovered a scientific way to replace missing limbs of war amputees with a combination of radiation and a serum derived from alligator glands. Too late, he and Paul discover that the treatments are turning his subjects into reptiles.

Richard Crane (of Rocky Jones fame) is Paul, and he is excellent in the role of a man poised half way between being human and becoming a reptile. The make-up at this point in the film is exceptionally well done, and Crane wrings a great deal of poignancy out of the character with a gruff, almost strangled vocal delivery shaded with genuine pathos.

George Macready's appearance as Dr. Sinclair, who is feverishly attempting to correct the unintended consequences of his experiment, is the most surprising casting in the film. Macready had a long career as a dependable character actor careening between A-level classics (Paths of Glory), action movies (Tarzan's Peril) and dozens of television episodes. If he seems an odd choice to show up in a horror film with a sensational title, he certainly could have done far worse, like Ray Milland in The Thing With Two Heads.

The film unwinds like a detective thriller with horrific overtones for three quarters of the way through and the hothouse atmosphere and choice of two women adversaries (Joyce and Paul's domineering mother) works very well.

Unfortunately, after he is strapped to the table for a final attempt to cure him of his affliction, the movie implodes, as Crane stalks around the set in a laughable human-alligator suit.

It's a major disappointment, especially after so much of the movie has successfully created the proper atmosphere of dread. The ridiculous costume makes you long for some of the great, iconic monsters of the fifties (Creature From The Black Lagoon, Metaluna monster). With a little care and bit more money and imagination, The Alligator People could have gone out with a cheer instead of derisive laughter.

As is, however, it certainly deserves a bit more attention for what it accomplished on a meager budget with fine actors and a better than average script that reads like something written by Tennessee Williams on Acid.
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)



Nearly every spooky movie scared me as a kid, and they are some of the best remembered moments of my early life. Only two movies ever raised the hair on my head as an adult. The Exorcist, which I saw in early —74 and the 1931 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a revival house in NYC in the eighties.

The movie disappeared from catalogues in 1941 due to a contractual obligation fomented by MGM that had purchased the screenplay from Paramount in order to remake it as a (scene for scene) star vehicle for Spencer Tracy. The studio did not want the March film to show up as competition. As a result, the movie was virtually unseen for the next forty years, except in film museums and private showings.

Kids growing up as the post WWII generation were unacquainted with the film, unless they came across references to it in the pages of fan magazines like "Famous Monsters of Filmland" (which did a terrific article on the 1920, 1931 and 1941 versions).

Unfortunately, despite several tantalizing photos, the opportunity to catch any revivals was practically nil. The Tracy picture was re-released in 1956 (and scared the jujubes out of me), but showings of silent features on television in the fifties was less frequent than experiencing a heat wave in Fairbanks, Alaska.

As in the case of Warner Bros Mystery of the Wax Museum (a lost film for several decades), critics speculated on just how good the March movie really was, and if it could stand up to scrutiny by modern audiences. When it finally became available for general audiences around the late seventies, the consensus was that its reputation was solidly intact and even exceeded expectations (not the case, unfortunately, for Mystery of the Wax Museum, but that is for another thread).

Paramount, not usually associated with the horror genre, appeared to be trying to outdo Universal, which had had tremendous success with the release of Dracula and Frankenstein. Dr. Jekyll was released only a few months after the Karloff film and basically followed it into theatres, delivering a one-two punch to audiences who thought they had made it safely through Whale's Chamber of Horrors, only to discover R.L Stevenson's mad creation waiting to finish off the job with even more highly charged mayhem.

And highly charged is the correct description of the movie, directed with great flair by Rouben Mamoulian and acted with memorable panache by Fredric March. The late William K. Everson stated that March's separation of Hyde from Jekyll was so entirely distinct it was as if two different actors were playing the parts. March's make-up was disturbingly simian, so much so that in recent years charges of racism have been labeled against the movie, but it is more than likely that makeup artist Wally Westmore was simply attempting to depict Hyde as Neanderthal and not as a metaphor for any racial class.

In any case, the make-up was a terrible ordeal for the actor, particularly the final transformation at the end of the movie, which was so severe it could have seriously scared March's face forever. It was this final transformation that raised my temperature when I finally saw it in the late 1980's. The make-up is truly hideous.

Competing step for step with March is Miriam Hopkins as cabaret singer Ivy Pearson. Hopkins is an acquired taste for some film fans who find what is commonly called "over the top" acting annoying. I prefer to call it "larger than life" or simply "bravura" acting. When it is done right, it is far more thrilling and entertaining than most examples of "psychological" emoting. The actress infuses the role with an electric sexuality that is seriously toned down in Ingrid Bergman's performance in 1941.

And there is a great moment when Ivy first lays eyes on Hyde. Her startled reaction is almost worth the purchase price of the movie, itself.

Also along for the ride are several excellent character actors, including perennial butler Edgar Norton, Holmes Herbert, and the incredibly named Tempe Pigott (dammed it I know how to pronounce it!).
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Island of Lost Souls (1932)



This is a genuine classic of the bizarre and one of the grimmest science fiction-horror films of the decade. I can only think of Kongo (a remake of Chaney's West of Zanzibar) to equal its slithery atmosphere.

William K. Everson described Laughton's performance as a mad scientist crossed with a demented child with a god complex.

The scene in which the manimals, led by Lugosi, approach the camera, emitting a series of grunts, growls, squeals and unearthly sounds is the stuff of nightmares, topped only by the grisly finish in the House of Pain.

Kathleen Burke was only about 19 when she portrayed the Panther Woman. She's a knock-out.

I have the blu-ray edition. Unfortunately, it brings out all the defects in the cinematography, particularly grain that looks like a sand storm during certain scenes.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)