UNIVERSAL HORROR COLLECTION: Vol. 2 Blu-ray (Universal/Paramount, 1933 - 1943) Shout! Factory

Without Universal Studios, the world of cinema would be bereft over the loss of a major contributor to the horror genre. Those who do not ‘love’ horror movies likely have never taken the time to properly understand or analyze them. That there have been far too many ‘bad’ horror movies – or rather, horror movies, done badly, and, also given the confusion today with the term ‘horror’, synonymous with salacious ultra-gore (how many ways can we show a human head being split open with an ax) is likely another reason ‘horror’ continues to rank among the red-headed stepchildren of the arts, despite its lucrative appeal at the box office. Horror, in its purest form is not about what is seen, but what remains unseen – and unknown – thereupon, stirring our eternal skin-crawling dread. For better or worse, and without psychoanalyzing ‘horror’ to death (pun intended), most of us love a good adrenaline-inducing scare. Boo! There, made you look! Thrill-seekers are the extreme form of this sort of junkie. But for the rest of us, an otherwise harmless ‘jolt’ to the system – now and then – is cleansing for the soul; at the very least, life-affirming from the relative safety of our armchairs and/or theater seats.

And so, horror, in its various permutations throughout the decades, endures, despite its naysayers who continue to consider it mere campy tripe. Universal Studios, at least, in its heyday, and in the form of Carle Laemmle Jr., positively adored hand-crafting new ways to make audiences cringe. Those who have dismissed Uni’s unique fascination with the macabre are truly missing out on one of the finest watershed epochs in horror’s hallowed history, with an obvious nod to RKO and Val Lewton’s masterpieces in direct competition for the box office throughout the 1940’s. But Universal, if nothing else, except for its sheer output from approximately 1920 to 1950, and, for all intent and purposes – was horror incarnate – or as critics then dubbed it, Hollywood Transylvania. It is far too tempting, and, a false representation to label the studio’s cycle of these early supernatural oddities as unsophisticated relics, since far too many teem with an intuitive, nee religious fervor to hold us spellbound in the dark; wed to intelligence, innovation and an all-pervading dark ambiance. By now, Uni’s unique legacy has been well-documented on home video. Indeed, all the greats from its archives are well represented in hi-def, with the lesser known back catalog now re-emerging for renewed consideration. In point of fact, it is these ‘lesser’ offerings I find quite fascinating; without pre-sold marketability or a reputation un-anchored in Gothic literary masterpieces. Just simple little tales of the beastly, brooding and barbarous ilk, where mystery abounds and villains with dark and sinister purpose skulk and stalk their victims with immunity until the hour of retribution is at hand. Remember, in censor-bound Hollywood, evil always had to be relinquished before the final fade out, though not before the body count had exponentially risen.

The movies culled together for Shout!/Scream Factory’s Universal Horror Collection: Vol. 2, represent 3 home-grown oddities (1942’s The Strange Case of Dr. X, and, The Mad Doctor of Market Street, and, 1943’s The Mad Ghoul), and one, (1933’s Murders in the Zoo) pilfered outright from MCA’s 1958 acquisition of pre-fifties’ Paramount back catalog.  Although Uni’s fascination with horror stayed fairly close to the Gothic template throughout the 1930’s, by 1940 the fad for cobwebbed castles and morbid flights into the supernatural had given way to a wickedness more closely aligned with the warped human psyche. Universal, however, never gave up on a trend. Alas, in their eagerness to capitalize on what became known as the ‘monster mash-ups’ (putting 2 or more of their time-honored horror creations into multiple sequels) the powers that be effectively hastened their diminishing returns at the box office, before unearthing an even greater insult to their supremacy, by making them endless figures of fun, played strictly for laughs in their Abbott and Costello franchise.

Universal Horror Collection: Vol 2, bears witness to one of horror’s unsung personalities – character actor, Lionel Atwill. There was nothing about Atwill, who, in his youth, had studied architecture before being bitten by the stage bug in 1904, to suggest he might go on to have a lucrative career as the perennially sinister plotter of mayhem in the movies. Indeed, his Broadway pedigree was far more diverse and beyond reproach, appearing in such legendary productions as The Lodger (1916), A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, The Wild Duck (all in 1917), Tiger! Tiger!, and, Another Man's Shoes (both in 1918), and, The Outsider, and, Caesar and Cleopatra (both in 1924). Hollywood never could see past Atwill’s bulbous head and bug-eyed brow, chronically casting him as the evil un-doer of men and lascivious stalker of women, in movies like Doctor X (1932), The Vampire Bat, Murders in the Zoo, and, Mystery of the Wax Museum (all 1933), although Atwill did get the opportunity to ‘play good’ as the one-armed Inspector Krogh in Son of Frankenstein (1939), and, as merely one of the suspects in 2oth Century-Fox’s classy launch of their short-lived Sherlock Holmes franchise, in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), only to return to the Universal reboot of that franchise as the reviled Professor Moriarty when Uni acquired Arthur Conan Doyle’s back catalog.

In director, A. Edward Sutherland’s Murder in the Zoo, we are introduced to Atwill’s stealthy big-game hunter; wealthy zoologist, Eric Gorman, who slithers across the screen with scarcely a traceable change in his overall demeanor, but nevertheless reveals his uber-jealousy toward any man who might fancy his much younger wife, Evelyn (Kathleen Burke). The Seton Miller/Philip Wylie/Milton H. Gropper screenplay opens with a truly perverse vignette; Gorman, in the deepest, darkest jungles of Africa, binding the hands and stitching with needle and thread the mouth of one of his fellow hunters, Bob Taylor (Edward Pawley), just because he deigned to kiss Evelyn. Later, Gorman feigns casual astonishment while being informed Taylor was eaten by wild tigers.  Returning to America with a cargo hold full of his latest captured prey, Gorman is eager to offer his collection to a major zoo. Perhaps instinctively knowing Taylor met his demise at her husband’s hands, Evelyn now begins a rather promiscuous affair with Roger Hewitt (John Lodge). Given Gorman’s insane jealousy, Evelyn and Roger make little effort to conceal their burgeoning romance. So, naturally, once back home, Gorman plots to do away with this latest paramour.

As the zoo has run into financial trouble, its Chairman has hired a new press agent, Peter Yates (Charles Ruggles), to spruce up interest in Gorman’s latest acquisitions. Aside: Ruggles is this movie’s Achilles' Heel, hamming it up as a newly reformed alcoholic, petrified of all wild animals, and so utterly/idiotically frenetic he all but diffuses what little suspense otherwise plays out, after Yates elects to hold a lavishly appointed fundraising banquet amidst the cages housing Gorman’s latest acquisitions. Aside again: I can only imagine the smell!  Seizing upon this opportunity to exact his revenge on Roger, Gorman presumably releases a poisonous mamba to strike and kill Roger with its venom. Actually, she has hand-crafted a rather ingenious mechanical mamba, borrowing venom extracted earlier at the zoo’s laboratory by its chief research assistant, Jack Woodford (Randolph Scott), who is feverishly working on an antitoxin for the snake's fatal bite. Too little/too late for Roger – who is mortally wounded and almost immediately dies. Suggesting the real mamba is on the loose, the hoi poloi panic and run from the banquet staging area. Evelyn accuses Gorman of being the murderer. Outraged, he attacks her, but not before she discovers the mechanical mamba head hidden in his desk. Determined to reveal all to Woodford, Evelyn is too late to save herself.  Gorman stalks his wife over the narrow footbridge overlooking the alligator paddock, tossing her over its rickety wooden guard rails and observing with pleasure as she is dragged under by the devouring reptiles and torn to pieces.  

The zoo is on lock down. Nevertheless, a group of precocious children manage to sneak in and discover the tattered remains of Evelyn’s dress floating in the pond. Woodford becomes suspicious and deduces Gorman is behind the murders of Evelyn and Rodger. Again, Gorman is too diabolical to be stopped, disposing of Woodford with the same mechanical snake head.  Mercifully, Woodford’s assistant, Jerry (Gail Patrick) injects him with the experimental antitoxin he had created from the mamba poison. It saves his life. Knowing Gorman is responsible for the apparent mamba attack, Jerry sets off the zoo's alarms, leading to a police chase through the zoo. To distract his pursuers, Gorman releases the various big cats from the carnivore paddock. Alas, this decision backfires when a lion turns on Gorman. Trapped inside the cage of the boa constrictor, Gorman is slowly strangled to death by the serpent. In the swift epilogue that follows, Jerry attends a convalescing Woodford in hospital. Consumed by the stresses of the last 24-hrs., Yates falls off the wagon and fearlessly swats the nose of a lion that is stalking him.

As a brisk pre-code, hour-long programmer, Murders in the Zoo offers up some weird touches but never comes off as anything better than an odd, and not terribly engaging ‘spook show’ with a few innovative bits of business and a lot of junk thrown in, just to fill run time. Since we already know what monstrous acts Gorman is capable of only a few moments into our story, there is no surprise thereafter when he escalates his villainy, simply to preserve and advance his own predatory agenda. Far too much time is spent beefing up Charles Ruggles as the picture’s ‘comic relief’. Yet, this just seems an ill fit, minimizing the peril to the point of making it a jejune diversion at best. Atwill’s Gorman is menacing. And his madness is clear, concise and bone-chilling at intervals – especially, in the movie’s opening scene – as he serenely sews up the mouth of his amorous competitor with cool, calculated satisfaction.

Similarly, Atwill plays deranged again in director, Joseph H. Lewis’ The Mad Doctor of Market Street; this time as quack ‘physician’ Ralph Benson, who is actually a medical scientist willing to murder people in order to test his theories of suspended animation. Alas, his first victim, William Saunders (Hardie Albright) firmly believes Benson will be able to restore him to life later on and thus succumbs to Benson’s experimentation to ensure a sizable stipend for his cash-strapped wife. Dying on the operating table, Saunders is discovered by his wife (Anne Nagel) and the police, who thereafter put out an A.P.B. to have Benson arrested for murder. With considerable stealth, Benson, now assuming the identity of Graham, is discovered comfortably observing passengers on a cruise ship bound for New Zealand; the list of potential subjects to include dotty Margaret Wentworth (Una Merkel) and her forthright niece, Patricia (Claire Dodd), boxer, Red Hogan (Nate Pendleton), chicken-livered ship’s officer, Dwight (John Eldridge), and potential ‘leading man’/ship’s mate, Jim (Richard Davies). When one of the other passengers on board discovers Graham and Benson are one in the same, he is knocked unconscious by Benson and thrown overboard. The crime, witnessed at a distance by Jim, Benson now sets fire to the ship’s boiler room. The fast-spreading inferno engulfs the ship, resulting in chaos and Benson’s escape to relative safety yet again, in a row boat with Margaret, Pat, Red, Dwight and Jim.

Stranded on a remote island, these castaways fend for themselves until they are captured by natives. Their chief, Elan (Noble Johnson), believes ‘the white devils’ have brought a curse upon his already ailing wife, Tanao (Rosina Galli). Preparing to perform their ritual sacrifice, the survivors are spared when Benson promises Elan, he can resurrect Tanao from the dead, and proves it by injecting her with a shot of adrenaline that restores her to health. Elan declares Benson a god and allows him dominion over the tribe. Now, Benson reveals to his cohorts who he really is and plots a rather sinister itinerary to continue his experiments; first, to marry Patricia against her will.  The last act of The Mad Doctor of Market Street relies heavily on H.G. Wells’ timeless classic, The Island of Doctor Moreau, mutating the novel’s notion of selfish gains to present us with the even more diabolical notion of a serial killer on the loose.  Yet, there is something of a fatal betrayal in the way we discover Benson is actually not really interested in unlocking the secrets of life and death, but rather heinously obsessed with committing cold-blooded murder, simply because he can.  Once the natives discover his game, Elan put Benson to the ultimate test of resurrection, or he will be cast into a burning pyre.

The Mad Doctor of Market Street has some bone-chilling soupçons to admire, but on the whole is an unremarkable entertainment. Apart from Atwill’s Benson, the castaways are a nondescript lot who make the least of their mediocrity and never make us care what happens to them. In place of Charles Ruggles we get Una Merkel as the dotty madcap, brain already pickled – or rather, scattered – and Nate Pendleton playing the muscled dumb body without two neurons firing selectively together. Atwill is convincingly sinister. But he is hampered by a screenplay that goes nowhere once these unfortunates are marooned. The story really does come to a screeching halt thereafter, leaving what was supposed to be its interesting denouement something of an already foregone and ho-hum conclusion. The outlook for Atwill was not improved by his next venture in director, William Nigh’s The Strange Case of Doctor Rx, chiefly due to the fact Atwill’s Dr. Fish is literally the movie’s red herring. It also does not help that Nigh was forced to begin shooting this claptrap without a finished script, resulting in many sequences being ad-libbed, but with the ultimate result that a lot of the secondary plot points never get resolved.  The screenplay from Clarence Upson Young loosely follows the exploits of renown private investigator, Jerry Church (Patric Knowles), convinced by D.A. Dudley Crispin (Samuel S. Hinds) to reexamine the clues surrounding a string of murders committed by the mysterious Dr. Rx, who always leaves his ‘calling card’ with an insignia. Against the pleas of his new wife, Kit (Anne Gwynne), Jerry begins to investigate and soon discovers virtually all of Rx’s victims were criminals acquitted of murder by Crispin. Closely observing Jerry’s progress with great interest are the ominous Dr. Fish (Lionel Atwill); also, Jerry’s ex-partner, Captain Hurd (Edmund McDonald) and his new bumbling assistant, Det. Sgt. Sweeney (Shemp Howard).

After a sixth murder is committed, the lead detective on the case goes utterly insane. Haunted by the trauma, Church agrees to drop the case. Alas, he is kidnapped; then, blackmailed into continuing his investigation by another criminal (Victor Zimmerman) whom the police suspect as the real killer, but who actually wants his name cleared by Church, as he too is not the real Dr. Rx.  A short while later, Church is abducted by Dr. Rx – none other than Crispin who, having proven the dexterity of his brilliant, if sincerely warped, legal mind in getting criminals off, now seeks a more divine retribution by murdering the killers he set free. Crispin informs Church he plans to implant Church’s brain into a gorilla to advance its intelligence.  Leaving Church in the same cage as the gorilla, the next day Church is discovered unconscious and rushed to hospital where it is now revealed he was actually working with Dr. Fish to plot Crispin’s capture. When the newly appointed D.A. Mason (William Gould), already suspicious of Crispin, asks to borrow his pen, Crispin instead reveals it to be a poison dart gun, fatally shooting himself in the chest to escape incarceration. Now, Church reveals he was merely ‘faking’ unconsciousness, to expose Crispin’s unseemly crimes.

The Strange Case of Doctor Rx would have a lot going for it, except that the story – badly mangled – never comes together as expected; the movie’s noir-ish tone, superbly realized by Elwood Bredell’s cinematography, and a cast – comprised of mostly competent to down-right quality actors – is thoroughly squandered in Young’s idiotic patchwork of prose. Atwill’s Dr. Fish is such a transient character in this story he all but disappears into the background. Worse, we are never entirely certain of the picture’s narrative focus. It’s not a mystery – not really. It’s something of a suspense, with a dash of comedy, but otherwise pointlessly strung together and loosely assembled, merely to waste an hour in as much ado about nothing. The most endearing quality here is the winning – if interspersed – on-screen chemistry between Patric Knowles and Anne Gwynne, who pull off newlyweds with a charming effectiveness. Aside: I’ve always though Patric Knowles was under-appreciated and under-utilized as an actor.  

In one of those ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’ movie careers, Knowles was a most ambitious and readily exploited supporting players, recognized for his undeniable good looks and amiable personality, but rather tragically overlooked for his more than competent acting style – deemed ‘good enough’ by the powers-that-be, only to play second fiddle.  Knowles came to everyone’s attention in 1932 and never stopped working until 1973; his emeritus years quietly spent out of the limelight, before dying of a brain hemorrhage in 1995. In Hollywood, he made the rounds from Warner Bros., to Republic, RKO, MGM, and 2oth Century-Fox, appearing in some of the highest profile movies from the period: 1936’s The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood, 1939’s Another Thin Man and 1941’s Oscar-winning, How Green Was My Valley. At Universal, Knowles languished as the pretty boy, and by the late 1950’s, almost exclusively, had migrated to TV work, tirelessly appearing in anthology series.  In the late sixties, he came back to film, but again, as the guy on the side, intermittently to appear on popular television dramas too. Knowles really deserved a better – bigger – career. He had the right stuff, but never quite found his niche.

The final movie in Vol. 2 is director, James Hogan’s The Mad Ghoul, substituting another stock baddie-character actor, George Zucco for Lionel Atwill, as the menacing Doctor Alfred Morris, an academic scientist who unearths an ancient Mayan nerve gas and is all too eager to experiment with its torturous after effects on live human subjects.  Taking on med student, Ted Allison (David Bruce) to assist in the gas experiments, Ted’s enthusiasm, after he and Morris revive a dead pet monkey, Choco, infusing the creature with fluid extracted from the heart of another, takes on a more sinister appeal, particularly after Ted’s gal-pal, Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers) attracts Morris’ affections. Secretly, Isabel confides in Morris; her passion is music – not science. Although she likes Ted, she is not in love with him. However, unable to bring herself to break Ted’s heart, Isabel has allowed the relationship to continue with false hope of an eventual marriage. So, Morris promises to handle the situation for Isabel. Unbeknownst to her, his wicked plot is to destroy Ted by exposing him to the lethal Mayan gas, thereby transforming him into a mindless ghoul who, like Choco, must perpetually rely upon the fluid extracted from newly deceased human hearts to survive.

Ted accompanies Morris on a grave-robbing spree through several towns where Isabel is also performing on tour. Morris attempts to persuade Ted to return home. Alas, when not in his ghoulish state, Ted is obsessed with remaining at Isabel’s side. Meanwhile, Morris discovers, Isabel has evolved affections for Eric Iverson (Turhan Bey); her piano accompanist. Driven mad with jealousy, Morris plots to order Ted, in his ghoulish permutation, to murder Iverson. The attempt is unsuccessful, but Ted obtains another human heart to keep himself alive.  By now, local police, aided by ace reporter ‘Scoop’ McClure (Robert Armstrong), have managed to link the suspicious ‘ghoul’ murders to Isabel’s world tour. Determined to expose the killer, McClure sets a trap in Scranton, the last city on Isabel's itinerary, feigning his own death and pensively waiting in the casket for the ghoul to strike. Tragically, Scoop has underestimated the killers. While Morris distracts Scoop, Ted – as the ghoul – comes into view, murders him and performs another cardiotomy. Police question Isabel. And although she is innocent, gradually she begins to realize Ted and Morris are the only two likely to know how to perform these complex fluid extractions.  As she prepares for her home-coming performance, Morris elects to exploit Ted one last time, allowing him to lapse into his ghoulish state before hypnotically ordering him to murder Eric and then commit suicide.  

However, before the spell can completely take hold, Ted manages to write a letter to Isabel. In it, he explains how Morris tricked him into becoming the ghoul in the first place, and, how he helplessly must serve his master while under the influence of the nerve gas. Now, Ted turns the tables on Morris, exposing him to the gas moments before transforming completely into the ghoul. Unable to help himself, Ted leaves to fulfill Morris’ prophecy, entering the stage area, but mercifully dispatched by detectives, seconds before he is about to shoot Eric. Having discovered the note, Eric now reads it to Isabel, exposing the truth about Morris’ wicked deeds. Meanwhile, Morris, drained of almost all living by the gas, dies next to the grave where he was performing an exhumation that might have saved his life; Ted’s sobering words echoing in his ear: “It's all over, Doctor. There’s nothing left of it now but you, and me, and... death!” The Mad Ghoul is a succinctly written, minor masterpiece of the macabre, told with economy and intelligence.  George Zucco and Robert Armstrong give particularly fine performances.  Running barely 66 minutes, the picture achieves a sort of brooding impiety that permeates almost from the first frame to the last, with Milton R. Krasner’s B&W cinematography one of the unsung stars of our program.  

The ‘Scream’ division of Shout! Factory delivers the goods – mostly – on all four of these quasi-tragi-horror-melodramas. The weakest presentation here in Murders in the Zoo, looking faded, fuzzy and careworn. Given what we know about MCA’s acquisition of Paramount’s pre-50’s catalog and the relative disregard for concerted preservation over the decades since, it’s a genuine wonder the movie looks even as good as it does. But be forewarned, contrast here is extremely anemic. The image is also excessively grainy. Age-related artifacts are everywhere and there is also some digitally ascribed edge enhancement. If I had to guess, I’d say this is definitely an older 1080p transfer, illustrating Uni’s continued short-sightedness to perform even the most basic digital clean-up to balance and improve overall image quality. Regarding the other 3 transfers in this set: well…Uni has apparently been more proactive with their own catalog. In all fairness, the remaining 3 features hail from a different epoch, one decade younger than the first movie.   

So, The Mad Doctor of Market Street, The Strange Case of Doctor Rx, and, The Mad Ghoul look marginally better. The best video presentation of the lot is ‘Mad Doctor’, with very strong and consistent visuals, excellent grain structure, solid tonality and overall, a very pleasing presentation, minus a few instances of speckling, but with most of the ravages of time expunged to ensure a smooth visual presentation. The ‘stock’ footage otherwise shot under less than ideal conditions remains grainy and excessively damage-riddled. Curiously, The Strange Case of Doctor Rx appears to have been derived from a flawed element with untoward DNR smearing background information and obfuscating fine details. Minor density issues and baked-in flicker also afflict the image.  Finally, The Mad Ghoul’s transfer exhibits adequate crispness with a light smattering of grain looking indigenous to its source. Detail looks grand in close-up, but somehow manages to considerably weaken in medium and long shots. Again, minor built-in flicker and density issues abound with scattered scratches and/or speckling – neither to distract.  The audio for all 4 movies is 2.0 DTS mono; flat, but expunged of mild hiss and pop. Fans expecting the same bountiful outpouring of extras that accompanied Vol. 1 of this franchise will likely be very disappointed this time around.

Murders in the Zoo gets a new audio commentary from author/historian, Greg Mank. It’s not as good a track as I am used to hearing from Mank – very scene specific and rather slavishly devoted to Lionel Atwill’s contributions at the expense of exploring anything else. We also get animated image galleries. The Mad Doctor of Market Street gets only a trailer and an animated image gallery.  The Strange Case of Doctor Rx, includes Mank’s participation on a 19-min. short: Gloriously Wicked: The Life and Legacy of Lionel Atwill, plus another image gallery. Finally, The Mad Ghoul is afforded an audio commentary by author, Thomas Reeder - very comprehensive – plus, an image gallery. Shout! has also assembled a rather perfunctory 12-page insert booklet containing glossy photos of the various cast and crew. Ho-hum. The beat goes on. Bottom line: while the movies in Vol. 2 already suggest Shout! is scraping the lower half of the proverbial ‘barrel’ where Uni’s monster mash is concerned, there is much here to enjoy. Universal Horror Collection Vol. 2 will not win any awards for transfer quality But, what is here is not terrible. Just not as good as it might have been with a bit more due diligence applied. Regrets.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

Murders in the Zoo – 2.5

The Mad Doctor of Market Street - 3

The Strange Case of Doctor Rx – 2.5

The Mad Ghoul – 4

VIDEO/AUDIO

Murders in the Zoo – 2.5

The Mad Doctor of Market Street - 4

The Strange Case of Doctor Rx – 3.5

The Mad Ghoul – 3.5

EXTRAS

2