Boris Karloff, Mad Scientist

"Very rarely is the purpose (of a movie doctor) to save a life or effect a cure . . . The favorite purpose of an operation on the screen is either disfigurement or the creation of a monster . . . Perhaps the most frightening aspect of this pseudo and sadistic science is its immaculateness . . . The blacker the heart of the surgeon the more fastidious he is likely to be in his professional methods . . . Ghosts and goblins that used to lurk in dark corners to pounce upon the unwary pale into ineffectual shadows before the grim figure of the demon surgeon brandishing his scalpel." (The Times, London, August 4, 1936, as quoted by David J. Skal in The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror, p. 195)

The Ape (three stars total) Whenever I hear Boris Karloff speak, I can't help thinking of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966 TV special). Fortunately his role as Frankenstein's monster doesn't include too many lines of dialogue, so I can still watch that undistracted. His appearance changed more from film to film than Bela Lugosi's did on the six that they made together. Personally, I'll take his devil-worshipping widow's peak on The Black Cat (1934) or his eye hanging out of its socket on The Raven (1935) over Lugosi's consistent formalwear and supposedly "hypnotic" stare, which could be mistaken for constipation (it turns out he suffered from sciatica and that's how he became a painkiller addict). On The Ape (1940), Karloff wears a moustache so that - I'm assuming - he'll look grandfatherly and he wears glasses so that - I'm assuming again - he'll look smart. Like a medical doctor. Or like a mad scientist, because the lenses make his eyes look bigger. Why is it that crazy people are always portrayed with eyes opened as wide as can be? This was Karloff's fourth film to derive its title from an animal (the first was The Sea Bat, 1930, about killer manta rays off the coast of Mexico). Silent film fans sometimes complain about the unbelievable number of "old dark house" mystery plots involving apes (giant or otherwise, it's usually just a guy in a gorilla suit). Karloff flips that here by actually revealing himself to be the guy in the gorilla suit in a twist ending and practical explanation for the cheap special effects. If you're a Universal monsters enthusiast, you may recognize the name of Curt Siodmak on the opening credits for screenplay. The very next year he would write The Wolf Man (1941), along with the stories for Son of Dracula (1943) and House of Frankenstein (1944), plus a dozen or so other horror titles. This is the fifth film I've reviewed from Mill Creek Entertainment's $10 Horror Classics double-sided DVD collection (The Corpse Vanishes yesterday; Nosferatu last week; both The Phantom of the Opera and White Zombie last year, 10/5/09 and 10/6/09, respectively). You can look forward to Bluebeard and Carnival of Souls next week. If I never watch another title from the set, I'll still have paid less than $2 each for almost ten hard-to-find and historical hours of entertainment!