The Lady and the Monster (1944)

Undescribable Perfection

One of my all time favorites.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Fantastic!

...And she still has the worst line delivery in screen history!Perhaps it was the melodramatic performance of Erich Von Stroheim or the strange set or the way this "A" feature from a "B-" studio was filmed. Perhaps it is because it is a more detailed film of "Donovan's Brain" with excellent character development and even better story telling than the good United Artists remake from just nine years later. So somewhere in the Arizona desert is a gloomy looking mansion where doctors Erich Von Stroheim and Richard Arlen are doing experiments on animals to see if their brains continue to work after the animal's heart has stopped beating and they have been pronounced dead. A monkey dying of lymphoma is experimented on, and the brain continues to thrive for an hour after the poor cute little creature has passed on. This inspires the bellowing Von Stroheim to take the step further: to try it on a human! He has his hands full, being domineering to his nurse (Ralston) who is in love with Von Stroheim's assistant (Richard Arlen) whom Von Stroheim considers unworthy of her. A convenient plane crash gives Von Stroheim an excuse to interrupt Arlen and Ralston's date, sending them to the sight of the crash to retrieve the dead body of a passenger (named Donovan, an alleged financial wizard) for an autopsy. Realizing that while Donovan is dead, his brain is still functioning makes Von Stroheim decided to remove the brain for further experimentation in hopefully using this for the good of society to keep the great deeds and words of great men going. But was Donovan really the great man they believe? A visit from his widow opens up that can of worms, and Arlen is soon used as a vessel to bring Donovan's spirit back to life, not necessarily a good thing.It's easy to see why Herbert J. Yates, the head of Republic Studios, thought he could make a silk purse actress out of a sow's ear non-actress, as Ralston is very photogenic here, but unfortunately, that never transfers onto the screen as either great acting or star quality. She's very hesitant in taking chances, and as a result, comes off bland and unsure of herself. Making matters worse is pairing her opposite two film veterans from the silent era. Arlen, still handsome, is very good in going between his noble assistant and the increasingly evil Donovan, while Von Stroheim blasts his lines as if he was Harry James or Glenn Miller leading their bands. Mary Nash, as Von Stroheim's Mrs. Danvers like housekeeper, gives a slow volcanic rising performance, initially cool and dark, and as she begins to see the sinister things rising around her, daring to stand up to Von Stroheim in some shocking ways. Helen Vinson, as Donovan's widow, and Sidney Blackmer, as her attorney lover, are also memorable in their smaller roles, but the screaming Juanita Quigley as a young girl involved in a plot twist involving Donovan, is majorly annoying.Aided by excellent photography, lighting and the genuinely ghoulish atmosphere, this thriller has enough of an edge to keep you hooked, and for that reason, I rate it two stars higher than its better known 1950's remake. Von Stroheim keeps in character throughout, manages to emote over dramatically without somehow becoming too campy or over-the-top, and Arlen gives it a true touch of class. Even with the complete non-acting of Vera Hruba Ralston, the film stays devoted to its theme of how mankind should not interfere in extending life beyond its expiration date, and how when they do, it turns out to be a complete disaster for everybody involved.

Let's start with the great things. Direction and cinematography are top notch. Pacing is great, exciting. Fantastic Gothic atmosphere at the Castle. Set design and construction were superb; not just the stupendous Gothic castle and mad scientist laboratory, but the creamy art-deco nightclub straight out of a Fred Astaire/Busby Berkeley musical, and the fancy lawyer's office that oozed money. Gorgeous matte paintings and model work. Specialized lighting effects were used liberally and effectively. Good job to all those technicians on all their hard work.Now to the bad things. Putting aside the way-out concept, I can accept that. After all, this is a science fiction story. But some of the writing is just atrocious. Badly phrased dialog abounds. And why a Gothic castle in the Arizona desert? What was that all about? And ye Gods, Vera Hruba Ralston is just a TERRIBLE actress. I don't see the appeal at all. She's not even really THAT pretty. Richard Arlen is a little stiff. Erich Von Stroheim is awesome at what he does, but certainly no one will ever praise him for his versatile range as an actor.Yes, much less effective and respectable than the 1953 version, "Donovan's Brain." Check that one out first if you haven't seen it. This movie is a fun little low budget genre flick that does have some advantages to it, but it's certainly not hall of fame material.

Lady and the Monster, The (1944) ** (out of 4) Professor Franz Mueller (Erich von Stroheim) and his assistant Dr. Cory (Richard Arlen) are doing experiments on keeping the brain of an animal alive but they get their chance at a human one after a rich man named Donovan dies. They end up saving Donovan's brain but soon it begins to take control of Cory and sends him out to finish his bad deeds. Curt Siodmak's novel "Donovan's Brain" has been filmed countless times over the years and there have been even more rip-offs. I've never been a huge fan of the story because none of the film versions have really worked. This includes the first version, which is this Republic chiller that has a few good performances but sadly the end result just isn't all that good. One of the biggest problems is the incredibly slow pace by director George Sherman who never gets anything going. The entire movie runs 86-minutes but it feels nearly twice as long because we just get one boring sequence after another. A lot of the problems are long dialogue sequences that really don't add up to anything. This includes just about everything dealing with the dead man's widow who is trying to figure out where he late husband hid all of his money. The stuff dealing with Cory trying to close out various deals of Donovan's just don't work. Even worse is the silly love connection between Cory and another assistant (Vera Ralston), which really slows the movie down. It's funny to see that the movie would be re-released in 1949 but with nearly nineteen-minutes worth of footage cut out. I'm not one who supports studios cutting down movies but there have been many times where a shorter version helped and I'm going to guess that this is such a case. There are some good elements here and they're mainly the performances. I was really surprised to see how effective Arlen (ISLAND OF LOST SOULS) was. Not only was he very believable as the scientist but his turn as the bad guy was also well handled. The actor did a very good job at mixing the good and the bad and he certainly made the film much better. von Stroheim is also fun in his part, although at the same time you can't help but shake your head when seeing such a great talent playing in a film like this. Ralston is quite annoying in her part but perhaps that was on purpose. THE LADY AND THE MONSTER hasn't had a wide release since it first came out and after finally seeing it I can't say that it was worth the wait.

Although I did like my two viewings of Felix E. Feist's 1953 film version of Curt Siodmak's DONOVAN'S BRAIN (with Lew Ayres and Gene Evans), somehow I have yet to acquire it for my home video collection; besides, I am also familiar (from an age-old Italian TV screening) with the later Freddie Francis version entitled VENGEANCE aka THE BRAIN (1962) where Peter Van Eyck and Anne Heywood had the leading roles. What I did acquire very recently, however, is the even rarer original version directed by the reliable George Sherman and starring the great Erich von Stroheim, Contrary to expectations, the latter is neither the monster of the title nor (for the initiated) the man taken over by the dead financial wizard's brain; that unlucky guy is Richard Arlen – the hero of ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932) no less – who, as Stroheim's unlikely assistant in his underground experiments, gets to become even more obsessed with their celebrated cerebral specimen than his crazed mentor! From the rest of the cast, Vera Hruba Ralston may have later become Mrs. Herbart J. Yates (when she married the head of Republic Pictures, the studio behind this film) but, frankly, she brought very little to this particular film; on the other hand, it was nice to see Sidney Blackmer – best-known for portraying Adrian Marcato in Roman Polanski's ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968) – albeit in a supporting role of the suspicious attorney. Incidentally, the sequences depicting the blooming romance between Arlen and Ralston and those between Blackmer and Donovan's wife can mostly be written off as mere padding; small wonder, therefore, that the film was shorn of 19 whole minutes (cut down from 86 to 67!) for a later re-release…not to mention being saddled with the highly ludicrous (and utterly misleading) alternate titles of TIGER MAN and MONSTER AND TIGER MAN!! Speaking of titles, despite the sheer similarity to the earlier Paramount horror entry THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL (1941), as can be gleaned from my own reviews of both films, they have nothing whatsoever in content (other than being of the same era and genre). Despite these flaws, I generally liked the film more than I was expecting to and that fact is mostly down to two simple factors: the presence of Erich von Stroheim in front of the cameras and that of celebrated cinematographer John Alton behind them! Even though the quality of the copy I acquired was fairly fuzzy at best, Alton's atmospheric lighting came through just the same – particularly during the atmospheric laboratory sequences and the eerie scenes showing Arlen's 'possession'.