Dec 6, 2021
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)
"Heresy? Heresy? Do they still burn men for heresy? Then burn me, monsieur. Light the fire. Do you think your little candle will outshine the flame of truth? Do you think these boards and curtains are my whole life? They are only a trap to catch the pennies of fools. My life is consecrated to a great experiment! I tell you, I will prove your kinship with the ape."
#Murders in the Rue Morgue#edgar allan poe#american cinema#pre code#horror film#robert florey#bela lugosi#sidney fox#leon ames#bert roach#Betty Ross Clarke#Brandon Hurst#D'Arcy Corrigan#Noble Johnson#arlene francis#Charles Gemora#Herman Bing#Agostino Montani#Torbin Meyer#LOVE that poster. absolutely beautiful. this film however... well. a frustrating case of near greatness: visually thrilling‚ drawing on#german expressionism and close gothic forebears. fx are impressive for the era and there's some lovely little touches (Lugosi writes on#paper with a letterhead of a gorilla's face!) and of course most importantly there's the central performance by Bela. He's incredible here#channelling pure electricity as the crazed scientist whose evil crusade is confused by the fact that he's technically correct (he's trying#to prove the theory of evolution‚ just in a Hugely unethical way). The problem is the parts where Lugosi is offscreen; his theatricality#carries the film‚ and the other leads and their medical school romances simply don't have the same gravitas. The film drags whenever Lugosi#is off having fun with his monkey pal (another issue with the film is how adorable said monkey is compared to the horrifying sight he's#intended to be). There's more things: the emphasis on blood purity and foreign threats in a film from 1932 is alarming‚ although granted#a lot of blame for that lies with Poe and the source material. There's also a badly judged 'comic' impromptu trial scene which goes on much#too long and simply isn't funny. but very worth watching all the same for some incredible scenes of Lugosi railing against superstition and#small mindedness in period Paris