The Mad Ghoul (1943)

I'll tell you why so serious

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

It's entirely possible I am over-familiar with Universal's better known horror films from the 30's and 40's, so watching one for the first time is a doubly pleasurable experience. Tremendous actors like George Zucco, Evelyn Ankers and Turhan Bey often play supporting characters, but in this they take centre stage without a Chaney or a Karloff to share the limelight with. And it impresses what a huge amount of dialogue they are given in each scene, and how convincingly they convey it. Lesser-known David Bruce is the titular creature here, playing Ted Allison, who becomes a slow thinking, shambling zombie-like henchman for Zucco's Alfred Morris and his nefarious activities, a ghoul who is reliant on the life-force from human hearts to avert his death.The film itself is slim, never designed to be a blockbuster, and comes complete with typical wisecracking cops and journalists, luckily only featuring briefly. And so it is Morris we are captivated by, and his machinations. His idle playing of the piano waiting for his student to fall under the power of the deadly steam in the next room is a good example of his evil – he craves the love of Isabelle (Ankers), Allison's disillusioned beau. The 32 year gap between them was more acceptable then than it seems to be now – and Allison is a likable character, not saddled with the bland smugness of hero-types of the time. However, when Morris discovers Isabelle has eyes only for her pianist Eric (a slick and fascinating Turhan Bey), he instructs Allison's alter-ego to kill 'the Turkish delight', as Bey had been dubbed due to his suave ways (at only 21 years old, he was the baby of the picture).'The Mad Ghoul' is reminiscent of 'Man-Made Monster' from a couple of years earlier, wherein Lionel Atwill conducted similarly debilitating experiments on Lon Chaney.The finale, when it comes, is solid and includes just desserts for Morris, who succumbs to the lethal Mayan gas. He transforms into a shambling ghoul and is last seen clawing at a grave in a bid to find a vital life-giving heart, but runs out of time. His death is cut off too quickly by the over-zealous end credits.

Evil professor George Zucco has the hots for singer Evelyn Ankers. He's also been experimenting on animals with an ancient Mayan gas! Zucco decides to clear a path to Ankers by using the gas on her boyfriend (David Bruce). This turns Bruce into a murderous ghoul who needs human hearts to survive. Little does Zucco know Ankers was already planning on dumping Bruce for Turhan Bey. As Homer Simpson would say: "D'oh!"Fun, lively Universal B horror movie with a nice cast and an interesting plot. George Zucco is awesome. I would watch this classy actor in anything. Evelyn Ankers is lovely as she always was in her Universal films. David Bruce, an actor I'm not overly familiar with, gives a sympathetic performance here. Turhan Bey has little to do. Robert Armstrong plays the obligatory wise-cracking reporter. If you're a fan of Universal horror films or George Zucco, you'll enjoy this a lot. It's not one of Universal's best but it's pretty good.

George Zucco plays University professor Dr. Alfred Morris, who has discovered an ancient Mayan gas that was used to control the human sacrifices made in their rituals. David Bruce plays his student Ted Allison, who is recruited to be his assistant for the summer. Unfortunately for Ted, his professor is quite ruthless, and uses him as an experiment to try his recreation of the Mayan gas on. He succeeds, but Ted turns into the "mad ghoul" who helps the doctor rifle graves to cut out their hearts for more experiments in overcoming the gas, though this won't do poor Ted much good... Evelyn Ankers has a small role as his girlfriend. Good "ghoulish" premise, but film is strangely meandering and unconvincing, not to mention overly talky and dull. Good cast makes it semi-watchable, but film still fails, though does have a poetic final fade-out.

Mad Ghoul, The (1943)** 1/2 (out of 4) Decent Universal chiller has a doctor (George Zucco) experimenting with a Mayan gas that can bring life to the dead. He uses the gas on his partner (David Bruce) turning him into a zombie-like creature but one who still has feelings for his girlfriend (Evelyn Ankers). It also turns out that the gas eventually wears off so the doctor is constantly in search of fresh hearts to keep his zombie/assistant going. THE MAD GHOUL will never be confused with the Universal classics but at the same time it's actually on the mark with many of the studios outings from this period. I think the biggest problem with the film is its actual screenplay because once "The End" comes up you'll realize that not too much happened throughout the 65-minutes. Many elements are borrowed from 1935's THE RAVEN including the relationship between the doctor and his assistant. As in the Karloff-Lugosi picture, the relationship here as the doctor being the evil one and the film tries to get us to have sympathy for the monster who is actually the innocent victim. One really shouldn't come into this thing expecting any sort of logical story because once you really look at the material you'll probably have quite a few unanswered questions including how the zombie, who isn't suppose to remember anything, still manages to be a brilliant surgeon in his dead state. I'd also question how on Earth the doctor was able to discover this mysterious gas but that's another issue. What makes the film worth viewing are the performers as they all fit their roles nicely and add to the entertainment level. Ankers wasn't the greatest actress in the world but there's no doubt she was the Queen of this period of Universal films. Whenever she appears you can't help but have a smile on your face and in the films she's not in you often find yourself wondering why the studio didn't put her in the part. Bruce is pretty good as he manages to make you believe he is this smart character and he also handles the part of the monster and makes us feel for him. Zucco could play this type of role in his sleep so he delivers the goods as usual. Robert Armstrong appears briefly as a newspaper man trying to solve the case. He gives a good performance but I think the film could have done just fine without his comedy bit. Jack Pierce's make-up effects are rather cheap but effective. I liked the white face make-up and the skeleton like look that he gave the actor.