Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Classic Universal Horror, 15 Aug 2001
By A Customer
The third great classic horror movie from Universal Studios starring "Dracula" himself, Bela Lugosi. He plays the evil Dr. Mirakle who attempts to mate an ape with a human. The drama is played out in highly stylized sets which are a direct homage to the great German Expressionist movies like "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". As in most movies of this age it has its' flaws, namely highly intrusive comedy relief. Overall though it is a thoroughly entertaining movie with a great Lugosi performance.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Darwin and Dr. Mirakle are equally unfair to luscious babes and a passionate ape, 13 Oct 2008
"I'm not a side-show charlatan...I'm not exhibiting a freak, a monstrosity of nature, but a milestone in the development of life," says the intense Dr. Mirakle (Bela Lugosi) to the gape-mouthed ticket buyers seated in the small tent. "The shadow of Erik the ape hangs over us all...I tell you I will prove your kinship with the ape. Erik's blood shall be mixed with the blood of man!" Or, more precisely, with the blood of luscious young Parisian éclairs. It's Paris, 1848. A mad scientist has been abducting young women and injecting them with blood from his ape. They die soon after and are dumped in the Seine. Dr. Mirakle is determined to prove Darwin was right...that young women crave apes. No, no, I mean the other theory, which Dr. Mirakle says can be proved by mixing the blood of ape and human.
This early Lugosi horror movie has a lot of charm, even if at only 61 minutes it doesn't have much time to linger on characterization, plot development or subtlety. It makes up for this by its style. Dr, Caligari could have been the set designer and photographer. (Karl Freund was the cinematographer. He'd worked with Murnau and Lang in Germany). Freund and the director, Robert Florey, are expert in layering moody, threatening, off kilter shots that range from Paris street scenes and roof tops at night, to Dr. Mirakle's dungeon of experimental science (featuring a semi-crucifix on which his assistant strings up the young women), to the dank morgue, to the gaslit carnival and side-shows, to the...you get the idea. Scene after scene stands out, even if the acting, in most cases, doesn't. Lugosi does a fine job as the unctuous, mad Dr. Mirakle. His under-the-chin lighting and the Unified Theory of Bushy Eyebrows Growing Together make Dr. Mirakle a medical man to avoid. The standout actor after Lugosi for me is the amusing, pungent performance of D'Arcy Corrigan as the morgue keeper. Corrigan plays him as aged, gaunt, with a long nose and a sunken mouth, and with long hair parted in the middle and oiled down on either side of his head. He has an unpleasant habit of inspecting his handkerchief every time he blows his nose.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
very good but rather controversial horror yarn., 8 Mar 2007
this is a good horror film and it shows bela lugosi at his best, but there is something rather sordid about the whole thing; the murder scene and lugosi conducting his experiments justify the video's "12" certificate.
i'm not sure if this version is the uncut one as some film books state the running time as 75 minutes.
the film sets are very imaginative, as they convey the story well.
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