Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954) / notes

 

I was doing a little reading and it amused me to know that right after this film, Karl Malden was cast in "On the Waterfront". In Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954), he's wild-eyed mad by film's end. His psychologist (who swears by Freud) and zoologist, we learn, had his controlled ape murder multiple women who favored his wife because they wouldn't replace her (the wife committing suicide because she didn't want to be with him). The colorization of this film really stands out, especially around the eyes of the likes of Patricia Medina. 

I watch this and "House of Wax" really bears its influence, especially in the color process and period flavor of that film. This really feels like it could happen during the same time. The morgue was a bit more well used in the '39 "Murders of the Rue Morgue" and "House of Wax", though. The carnage in the wake of the ape's rampages and the blood-curdling screams of its female victims are probably what I think this film is most memorable for. One neighbor of a victim is thrown out a window, down apartment stairs, the impact killing him almost instantly.

The film's stupid inspector, Inspector Bonnard (Claude Dauphin), never even entertains what Professor Dupin (Steve Forrest) tells him until the damn ape goes on a rampage, hippity-hoppity across the street from a demolished store. The trapeze gymnast failing to move as the ape does across the building without falling into a net, how a female victim is stuffed in her chimney (a direct callback to "Murders of the Rue Morgue" (1939), as well as, witnesses failing to actually identify who was in the vicinity during the murders), and the sheer evidence of destruction to apartments and victims without any cuts or marks on Dupin...Inspector Bonnard never fails to look ignorant and stubborn. Malden does his best "House of Wax"/Vincent Price madman. And like "Murders of the Rue Morgue", Malden's trained ape is a man in a gorilla costume, a victim itself thanks to its inconsiderate owner. Much like Lugosi in "Murders of the Rue Morgue", Malden is also mauled by the very monster he created.