Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

TinsHeadline Touches You

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

JohnHowardReid Director: SAM NEWFIELD. Screenplay: Martin Mooney, Pierre Gendron. Story: Lawrence Williams. Photography: Robert Cline. Film editor: Holbrook N. Todd. Art director: Paul Palmentola. Set decorator: Harry Reif. Make-up: Maurice Seiderman. Music: Albert Glasser. Music supervisor: David Chudnow. Production manager: Bert Sternbach. Assistant director: Mel DeLay. Sound recording: Ferrol Redd. Producer: Sigmund Neufeld. Copyright 15 April 1944 by PRC Pictures, Inc. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 15 April 1944. Never theatrically released in Australia. 7 reels. 62 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Evil scientist discovers a cure for a rare disease but wants victim's daughter in exchange.COMMENT: The unbilled actor in the gorilla suit is one of the better players in this cheapjack picture which has little else to recommend it other than Misses Tala Birell and Wanda McKay. Mr Naish is a boring actor at the best of times. In the lead part, he is super-boring. Only Ralph Morgan can match him for dullness, but his part here is smaller so he has to be content with second place. And in third place, we have Terry Frost. What a trio! Mr Newfield is one of those directors who can shoot a complete movie in two days or less-which is not too bad a drawback when dealing with a reasonably entertaining or exciting script. Unfortunately the screenplay which Messrs Mooney and Gendron have fashioned is one of those talk-talk-talk fiestas in which the characters do plenty of empty posturing but very little-aside from a brief spurt from the gorilla (and even that is disappointingly cut short)-actually happens.

qmtv The story starts OK, we meet the crazy mad doctor and his assistant, and the young woman the doctor is infatuated with, her famous piano playing father (the monster), and her boyfriend. All decent actors. I especially liked some of the crazy acting by the doctor's assistant. The problem here is the story and the dialogue. It's just boring and seriously implausible. The doctor is annoying the young woman by sending her flowers, because she resembles his late wife. Her father goes to the doctor to put an end to it. The doctor knocks out the father and injects him with a serum that turns him into the elephant man. Now the doctor is blackmailing the father, by exchanging a cure for the disease for his daughters hand in marriage. Side not, also, I believe the doctor tells his assistant that he killed his wife because she was having an affair with someone else. And also, the doctor is not a doctor, he actually killed the real doctor and took his place. But he's still doing research on some rare disease that he's the only one that can cure. There's also a man in a gorilla suite. And a gorilla in a man's suite (the doctor's butler).This thing is a freaking mess. There's a scene where the fake doctor explains to his assistant that he killed his wife, and killed the real doctor and took his place. The assistant freaks out and tells him she's going to the police. He tells her to shut up and get back to work. She calms down and goes back to work. Later when she goes to bed, the fake doctor lets out the gorilla from the cage to attack the assistant. We see the gorilla open the assistant's door, she screams. Let's not forget the dog. The lab dog comes to the rescue of the assistant. Next scene the assistant is in the lab with the doctor like nothing happened. This is some full on garbage. I don't care what time period this was made in.OK, the butler gets knocked out while trying to kill or tie down the assistant. The elephant guy is wrestling with the doctor who is holding a gun. The gun goes off. The doctor is dead. The assistant unelephants the piano player. Next scene the piano player is playing a concert, the young woman and her boyfriend, and the assistant are happily watching the show. The Freaking End.I give this movie a D, or 3 stars. Mainly for the acting and the music. The story is garbage. The dialogue goes along with the story, crap. This could have been a decent little film. The film makers had no idea what they were doing. They had a story and ran with it. Nobody said, wait maybe we can find another story or find some other angles.I recommend instead to watch Bela Lugosi's best film "White Zombie", or "Messiah of Evil", "Footprints on the Moon", "Last Man on Earth". Better to watch these films a hundred times than watch The Monster Maker. The only way to watch the Monster Maker and enjoy it is if you approach it as a comedy where the filmmakers are involved in the joke. Thank you, good night.

MARIO GAUCI I have amassed a number of vintage if low-grade horror efforts and, while I originally had not intended including them during the current "Halloween Challenge", I felt that, since this is the era within the genre that I am most fond of, I would be depriving myself of some inherently entertaining stuff. Following my good impression of both MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET (1942) and THE DRUMS OF JEOPARDY (1931), I opted to check this one out which, clocking at a mere 62 minutes, I could afford to leave for a late hour.The result, again, proved very enjoyable but, thematically, it was highly derivative of Universal's THE RAVEN (1935), so close, in fact, that I am surprised that studio did not sue the Powerty Row company, PRC, who made THE MONSTER MAKER! Here, we also get an eminent doctor (J. Carroll Naish) who falls for a woman – because she is a dead ringer for his dead spouse – who does not correspond his love but, in spite of his respectable position, is not one to take no for an answer. Having made a study of the deforming disease acromegaly (which has often found its way into the genre), he goes so far as to 'infect' the heroine's musician father with it – when he turns up with an ultimatum to stop bothering his daughter – so that, in exchange for a cure (which, as it happens, he has just arrived at), the latter will have no choice but to ask the girl to set aside her romantic illusions (with the young promoter for his successful concert engagements) and accept Naish's advances (and, by extension, marriage proposal)! In this respect, and like THE RAVEN itself, this is quite a nasty little item: actually, the make-up effects (showing Ralph Morgan's degenerating condition and which obviously jeopardize his career) are rather convincing, transcending the limited resources at the film-makers' disposal; this and Naish's committed performance are easily THE MONSTER MAKER's main assets. However, adding to the fun, are the presence of Naish's loving but long-suffering female aide (since he harbors no affections for her and has no qualms about telling her), a sinister male nurse (played by genre stalwart Glenn Strange) and even that old guinea-pig standard, a caged gorilla (which, for some reason, hates the assistant's guts and, consequently, Naish conveniently dispatches it in order to eliminate her when she threatens to expose the mad doctor's nefarious activities…but the woman is saved in the nick-of-time by her courageous and devoted German Shepherd dog).The finale obviously has Naish getting his just desserts at the hands of Morgan himself, followed by the desperation expressed by the latter's offspring at the fact that the old man will have to carry the effects of the 'illness' with him…but now it is Naish's assistant who comes to the rescue as she is obviously adept enough to be able to reverse the acromegaly process(!?) all by herself – complete with a coda wherein Morgan has reprised his tour, with the assistant joining his daughter and fiancé in their balcony (she had earlier shared the adjacent one with Naish himself but, of course, he had eyes only for the heroine).

MartinHafer I give it a 6--it's very enjoyable and novel but it is a less than perfect film, that's for sure! With a title like "The Monster Maker", I was expecting a Dr. Frankenstein sort of film--you know, a film about a man who wants to create monsters in the traditional sense. However, what the film actually turned out to be very, very different--and rather creative.The film begins with a crazy scientist, Dr. Markoff (J. Carroll Naish), seeing a woman at the theater and becoming transfixed on her. It seems that she's the spitting image of his dead wife! What follows is pretty creepy, as the guy comes on VERY strong to her and begins pestering her. He is determined that she must be his wife! Her father (Ralph Morgan--brother of Frank Morgan) goes to the Doctor to tell him to leave his daughter alone--at which point Markoff smacks the guy over the head. You THINK he's just killed the guy, but Markoff has other plans. It seemed that when the guy was unconscious he injected him with a serum that would cause acromegaly--the same disorder that affected the so-called 'Elephant Man'! Can this fiend be stopped? Will Morgan be completely screwed? Will the daughter escape the crazy old perv's clutches? Tune in to this interesting film to find out for yourself.The plot sure is creative and different. After reviewing nearly 9000 films, it sure is nice to see something new and creative--and this cheap PRC film actually does this well. In addition, the acrogemaly effects were, for 1944, exceptional--again, something you would not expect in a 'Poverty Row' picture and it's obvious that the studio spent far more than usual for this dandy little film. Now this is NOT to say that this is a great film or one that you'd mistake for a major production. It still has the awful guy in a gorilla suit (which, incidentally, NEVER looks realistic), some of the actors (aside from Morgan and Naish) were poor, there was needless exposition early in the film (I'll explain about this below) and there is a plot hole (why didn't Morgan just go to the police after Naish attacked him?!). Overall, despite these shortcomings, a neat little B-movie for fans of the genre. Others might be less impressed! Exposition--When characters give long speeches explaining things that were not shown in the plot--particularly things that have happened before the film began. It's a VERY sloppy plot device and shows poor writing when done sloppily--which it usually is. In other words, instead of showing what had occurred or using a flashback, the characters speak very, very unnaturally to explain something to the audience. Real human beings do NOT talk this way. It must be used very, very sparingly or not at all--otherwise the film suffers.