Matrixston
Wow! Such a good movie.
Seraherrera
The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
Raymond Sierra
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
binapiraeus
Well, if you're watching the Ritz Brothers for the first time (like I did), in the beginning you wonder if they're just a dumber edition of the Marx Brothers - and most of all, you wonder what they're doing in a neat little horror-murder mystery as which the film seemed to start out until they appear. Then, for a while, and as the plot becomes more and more complicated, they just don't seem to belong there at all - until at last you get their kind of humor and just take it as it is, and enjoy the whole thing as a wacky little horror comedy.And anyway, there's an element in this one that distinguishes it from many others of its kind: Bela Lugosi, as the gentle but somehow sinister butler, who always seems to disappear and reappear in the strangest moments - but he literally saves the day, and not only for the audience...
bkoganbing
The Gorilla is a low budget picture with a lot of low comedy in it, courtesy of the Ritz Brothers. In this film the three brothers play detectives hired to guard the person of rich millionaire Lionel Atwill. You might want to question Atwill's sanity with that move, but believe it or not there's some method to his and everyone else's madness.This film has a really great ensemble cast with everyone looking like they're having one rollicking good time making this film. In the Atwill mansion on a dark and stormy night where a killer known as The Gorilla has made threats on Atwill's life besides those mentioned are butler Bela Lugosi, maid Patsy Kelly, sailor Wally Vernon, Atwill's niece Anita Louise and her fiancé Edward Norris, disgruntled investor with Atwill's firm Paul Harvey, and a mysterious stranger Joseph Calleia. After a couple neat plot twists, The Gorilla's identity is revealed.I loved Patsy Kelly best in this film, but Bela Lugosi gave a lot of his lines a nice deadpan twist to them. Even Lionel Atwill who also plays mostly sinister characters has a twinkle in his eye here.20th Century Fox did a fine job on this low budget comedy that is still a real treat.
Prichards12345
The 30s and 40s produced some good comedy/horror films - Cat and the Canary, The Ghost Train, One Body Too Many, Hold That Ghost, etc. Unfortunately The Gorilla cannot be added to the list, being a jaw-droppingly unfunny vehicle for The Ritz Bros. Their overripe mugging fails to raise a single laugh...All the elements are there - spooky house full of secret passages, raging storm outside, a rampaging Gorilla at large, a murder mystery, the presence of Lionel Atwill and Bela Lugosi, etc. All this works to some extent - indeed to me the film is only worth watching for the two horror stars. Lugosi wears an amused smile to great effect in most of his scenes, and Atwill is his usual bluff excellent self.Every time The Ritz Bros, show up the film quickly sinks into the mire. This might have worked better with Laurel and Hardy, or The Three Stooges, but the results here are pretty dire. The treatment is also very stage bound, as the action never once leaves the house. The mystery isn't really up to much, either, concerning a mysterious murderer known as The Gorilla threatening his victims with warning notes before bumping them off 24 hours later. Atwill is in line to be his next victim.I wish he'd picked The Ritz Bros....
Polaris_DiB
Slapstick comedy featuring the Ritz brothers. Who are the Ritz brothers? I don't know, I've never heard of them until now, but they seem a very cheap and shoddy imitation of the Marx brothers. They play detectives out to catch "The Gorilla", a man who kills people after sending them threats 24 hours in advance. The Ritz bros. bungle and trip their way to discovering the truth of the matter, and hilarity is supposed to ensue. It doesn't. The comedy falls flat--or maybe not enough, as sometimes it's supposed to--and the plot is completely illogical.The movie gets some props for generally trying to have fun with the hidden passageways motif and Bela Lugosi's usual outrageousness, but the problem with camp is that when it's camp horror, it's funny, and when it's camp comedy, it's not, meaning that this movie is kind of suspended between both by boredom and disinterest.--PolarisDiB
