The Undying Monster (1942)*

August 08, 2015

The Undying Monster (1942)*

A werewolf emerges in director John Brahm's The Undying Monster

I have plans to re-evaluate Universal's She-Wolf of London from 1946 starring June Lockhart (and early, cool connection between her and genre stuff dealing with subject matter I enjoy), when The Undying Monster (1942) came to my mind. I have no plans to watch either of these films in October, so I thought I give both of them a go this month. I actually think both of these films would make a nice double feature actually.

I think The Undying Monster (which doesn't cop-out at the end like She-Wolf does) is a fine example of how a fabulous movie studio (in this case, 20th Century Fox) can make a low-budget B-picture look like an A-class production. The sets are just first-rate. That, and I am an absolute John Brahm fanboy. I LOVE his "20th Century Fox Trilogy". If you pick up the triple feature of Brahm films, The Undying Monster is kind of unfortunately a casualty of being among two masterpieces. The Lodger (1944) and Hangover Square (1945) feature the gone-too-soon Laird Cregar, who provided two distinctively developed and cultivated performances that were rich in nuance, torment, and mania. The Undying Monster felt more like an answer to Universal films popular at the time; I think, when you look at the other two films, that wasn't the case. But if you are going to direct films similar to what was hot at a time (Columbia Pictures did this with the 1943 Bela Lugosi "unofficial Dracula" film, The Return of the Vampire), then do so this well. Brahm was so specially prolific, and no genre was too difficult for him. Television was a medium he adapted to without difficulty. But I love to look at something not all that celebrated--in this case, The Undying Monster--and enjoy the superior filmmaking talents on display.

It is also kind of neat to see the early days of forensics (called science, with lots of tubes and chemicals lining tables in a lab) used to uncover clues that might describe a person (or, more preferably, a thing) that attacked two people, eventually leaving a nurse dead. There's this old mainstay in the horror genre: the cursed family. That is at play here, as the Hammonds have been plagued, supposedly, with lycanthropy for generations, the most recent death a suicide (the grandfather of a brother and sister living in the family manor high on a cliff overlooking the ocean at rest in the English countryside on the outskirts of London).

The cast has a butler and his wife, a maidservant, both of whom act suspiciously as if they have something to hide (loyal to the Hammonds, their bosses, it seems they would almost do anything to protect them, such as destroying evidence that might help conceal a suspect of his or her crimes). You have a younger maid just shaken by the circumstances involving Oliver Hammond (John Howard), left wounded but alive while the nurse perished after succumbing to her injuries while in a coma. There's a good scene where a heavily bandaged Oliver tries to describe what happened, and this experience is all quite vague and muddled as if a victim attempting to explain an incident that is practically hard to communicate due to the horrible nature of it. Helga Hammond (Heather Angel, more of a factor in the early going of the film, and soon kind of fading into the background) and her butler/staff hear the howling of the wolf, proving her courage (stupidity?) by getting a carriage ready so she can go out there and find Oliver. Her life could be in danger due to her name. Sure enough, the ending finally gives us a werewolf, and Helga, no surprise, is the intended victim, carried right out of her room on the shoulder of something.

Called to investigate is a Scotland Yard scientist and his folklore-loving assistant, Robert Curtis (James Ellison; later to be seen in I Walked with a Zombie) and Christy (Heather Thatcher). They will try to solve this very unusual case. It is possible that the nurse was poisoned by cobra venom, with the local area doctor (Bramwell Fletcher) soon becoming a suspect due to his efforts to impede Robert, attempts to get Helga to shoo Robert away, and a moment where he intentionally scuffles through dirt to damage footprint evidence.

This is more of a murder mystery, Sherlock Holmes-ian in its approach, than a Universal monster movie. Clearly, Brahm and company wanted to avoid the highly disregarded "camp" nature of the Universal B-movie and instead explain lycanthropy scientifically. The camerawork and lighting are as impressive as the sets (the Hammond manor is so expansive and richly detailed, with large rooms, grandfather clock, stairwell leading to a number of rooms, far-reaching windows, and art direction that recognizes the decor of affluence representative of a wealthy old family; there's a curvy road that scarily winds around a mountain with hills that lead right down in a rocky plummet where the nurse was attacked and Oliver was found), with Brahm leading a nice "lookabout" of the Hammonds manor at the very beginning, where the only illumination were from the fireplace and lanterns, as the butler surprises Helga unexpectedly. There's the wonderfully atmospheric mausoleum with its tombs of past relatives decorated by authoritative statues, designed to signify their stature as soldiers. The canine statues you see (very wolf-like in appearance) often are a motif specific to the Hammonds. Helga herself has a pet Dane that serves as a barking protector.