The Monster and the Girl (1941)

In a flashback that never ends, but does include multiple other flashbacks we learn that Susan Webster (Ellen Drew) left her small town for the big city, only to fall in with gangsters (Robert Paige, Joseph Calleia, Gerald Mohr, Marc Lawrence, and Paul Lukas) who trick her into becoming a prostitute. <Nope, hold on. The Production Code Administration stepped in at this point and nixed the white slavery, requiring a rewrite.> So Susan is tricked into becoming a bar maid. Susan’s straight-laced brother Scot (Phillip Terry) – and yes, only one “t” – comes to town to find his sis, which works out badly as the gangsters set him up to take the fall for a murder, and railroad him into the electric chair. Then, out of nowhere comes Dr. Perry (George Zucco), who can’t help Death-Row-Scot, but can offer him the chance to help all of mankind by having his brain transplanted into a gorilla. How this will help all of mankind is not specified. I kinda think it’s the sort of thing that should be spelled out, but Scot’s game with no more information. Once a gorilla, however, he’s got his own plans, and breaks free to seek revenge.

With a movie this oddly structured, something had to have gone seriously wrong behind the scenes. The obvious culprit is the censors, since it’s known they had their hands all of the script, but that seems only a partial explanation. Perhaps it’s simply that it was Paramount, a studio that shouldn’t get anywhere near a horror film in the ‘40s, much less a mad doctor flick. They simply didn’t know what to do. Still, this feels like the kind of mess Warner Bros would make, not Paramount. The problem is that this is two movies that shouldn’t be anywhere near each other. The first half is a typical WB gangster film, except they’d have done it better. It’s too melodramatic to be taken seriously, and too real-world to be any fun. OK, the opening is funny, where Susan walks out of the clouds to say that she was a “bad little penny” who “bought a million dollars worth of trouble for everybody.” Now that’s dialog, or at least, something related to dialog. OK, not too closely related. As she doesn’t die in the film, I am very curious where she is supposed to be telling the story from.

For the next 28 minutes, of a 64 minute movie, we get a drab trial with a nearly comatose defendant and a bunch of flashbacks. And then… MAD DOCTOR TIME! No foreshadowing of this. No indication that the movie was science fiction of horror. But now the always welcome George Zucco shows up and it’s a new movie. I’d expect the mad doctor to become the main character, but he’s mostly out 10 minutes later, and half that time was spent with Susan. So we’re 37 minutes before Gorilla-Scot breaks free. We don’t see that, mind you. Instead we see the faces of the gangsters and hear breaking glass. Did they forget to film the escape?

With only 27 minutes left, the movie becomes fun, with tension and deaths. Now it’s a monster movie, and oddly, it’s shot better. Significantly better. The credits only list one director and one cinematographer, but I don’t buy it. Somebody changed behind the camera. In his video review, Robin Bailes pairs the scene of the Gorilla stalking a gangster from the building top with a similar scene, sans gorilla, from The Godfather Part II, and yeah, once you see that, it sticks with you. Was Francis Ford Coppola cribbing from a second rate ‘40s monster movie?

This is a hard movie to sum up because it doesn’t feel like one movie. I can’t image anyone enjoying the first half, and I certainly have no desire to see it twice (even though I already have), but the ending is a good time. In these modern times, I suppose you can watch while scrolling on your phone until it gets good.