Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

“My life is consecrated to great experiment. I tell you I will prove your kinship with the ape. Eric’s blood will be mixed with the blood of man!” – Dr. Mirakle

Number of Times Seen – 1 (15 Mar 2020)

Brief Synopsis – A scientist kidnaps and kills numerous women in order to mix their blood with an ape in order to find the perfect mate for his pet gorilla.

My Take on it – This is another film that I knew very little about before coming across it during my quest to watch more movies from the 1930’s.

This is a story based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe and is an obviously horror story.

Unfortunately, the way that this story is presented is done in a pretty lackluster fashion and it never reaches a point where it is engaging enough.

The acting comes across as being very wooden and they never seem to find a way to keep these characters interesting to watch or even care about what will happen to any of them.

This is another example of a story that works much better in the imagination of the mind via the novel than in its transition to the screen since it never looks convincing enough in any way.

The potential for this story is much greater than realized here and that in and of itself is quite a shame.

Bela Legosi plays the lead character yet never seems to make us enjoy this kind of performance especially given the fact that it isn’t among his very best performances.

Bottom Line – Fine horror story that just doesn’t manage to stay engaging enough to the audience. The acting is pretty wooden and they fail to find a way to keep us interested in the characters and what they do. The story works much better on paper than in the transition to the screen because it just doesn’t look realistic enough in all that it does. This is a Poe story with lots more potential than is realized here and that’s quite a shame. Legosi is ok in this role but it’s very far from being among his best performances on screen.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Many censors cut parts of the death scenes of the woman (Arlene Francis) of the streets, eliminating her stabbing and her being tied to the cross beams. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (5/10)