Phantom Of The Rue Morgue (1954)......existed solely to combat that new scourge that frightened studio heads and theater managers like no other affliction......
We speak of those bulky wooden boxes with the little glass screens. They were popping up like cockroaches in living rooms all across 1950's America.......
And once one of these infernal overpriced pieces of furniture parked in the house, family members tended to gather round, stay home and stare at it all night........and forget to do other vital, important things in life.
Like go to the movies. Damn that miserable little box!
They called it.......television.
Hollywood's first response......"okay, let's give 'em something they'll never get on that tiny little black-and-white screen"
Hence, the first attempts to make 3-D movies. Movies that required those flimsy color-tinted cellophane glasses to watch. Movies that hurled stuff at audiences enough to make them jump. Cars, trains, people, wild animals, paddle balls......woo hoo.
Audiences showed up for the first of these films, like 1952's "Bwana Devil", 1953's "House of Wax" and even Hitchcock's "Dial M For Murder".
.....much in the same way, they slowed down on the highway to pass by a car wreck
By the time "Phantom Of The Rue Morgue" skulked on to the screen, moviegoers were already tired of the gimmick. Besides that, the studios had already come with a bigger, better bauble to entice them away from their television sets.......wide screen CinemaScope.
........and CinemaScope didn't require you to don those cheap paper glasses.
There's not much else to say about "Rue Morgue", a creaky corny contraption loosely inspired by the Edgar Allen Poe short story about a mad killer ripping girls to shreds in 19th century Paris.
At regular intervals, people and assorted objects get flung into the camera......no doubt designed to make audiences duck out of the way.
As if to compete with the new process, the actors tend to overplay a bit, especially Karl Malden, as the mad, mad scientist who hypnotizes an abused gorilla to go out and tear apart women who'd rather not date a loony-tune still obsessing over his late wife.
The true star player here is none other than Charles Gemora and his trusty gorilla costume. For the endless amount of films in which Gemora growled, jumped and leaped around in his monkey suit, we can only hope he periodically sent it out for dry cleaning.
(Personally, we much prefer his iconic portrayal of the spindly, clumsy three-eyed martian in the classic George Pal version of "War Of The Worlds"......)
The only other appearance, you might notice is a small brief role for future talk show and game show titan Merv Griffin..........long before his creation of "Jeopardy" and "Wheel Of Fortune" made him a multi millionaire several times over. For this film, he got $250 a week......(even the losers on 'Jeopardy' walk away with a thousand for one day.....that's inflation for ya....)
Not quite as much fun as "House of Wax"......after all, that one featured its heroine stripped naked in preparation for the ultimate wax job. But for those of you who enjoy stumbling upon an antique like this, it's good for a few silly chuckles.
2 stars (**) Without the 3-D, Charles Gemora never lands in your lap while he's going all ape.....he just lands into the lens.
No comments:
Post a Comment