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And yes, this should have been my first Roundtable entry, but technology intervened…
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…in which a mad scientist transforms a female gorilla into an attractive young woman, as the first step in his quest to create a race of supermen.
Though overall this exercise in extremely mad science is spoilt by too much stock footage of circus animals being “trained”, John Carradine is a delight in his first ever genre film—which, as in his second genre film, finds his schemes being thwarted chiefly because he underestimates the female sex.
Hmm…
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Liz Kingsley is the insane genius behind And You Call Yourself a Scientist!
#1 by Luke Blanchard on June 1, 2015 - 3:20 pm
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Regarding whether Atwill actually killed the snake in MURDER IN THE ZOO, I haven’t seen the film, but I think having the actor actually kill the snake on set would be impractical. He might get bitten, the snake might get away, and the scene might go on too long. So the logical thing to do would be to have him fake beating it to death and drug it so he could pick it up.
#2 by lyzard on June 5, 2015 - 6:30 pm
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Luke, I’d love to believe that, but the sad fact is that until very recently it was a basic film-making credo that actually killing an animal was a lot easier and cheaper than faking it. Particularly when dealing with something like a snake, which didn’t even have the defence of the warm fuzzies.
#3 by Luke Blanchard on June 6, 2015 - 5:19 am
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I did wonder if they killed the snake rather than drugging it, as that would be even simpler. But it’s very unlikely it was killed during the shot. A cameraman has to track an actor as he moves across a set. He couldn’t do that smoothly if the actor were moving about unpredictably, chasing something.
If the scene is continuous from the snake’s release they may have used two snakes, the one released and the limp one. If the mamba doesn’t fully emerge from its cage in shot its tail may have been secured.
If they hired the green mamba, rather than buying it, it may have been too valuable to its owner to kill. But they may have killed some other, cheap snake to supply the limp body.
In the 80s I saw a documentary about the making of a girlie calendar that had a sequence where a model was photographed sitting in the desert with a cobra in the foreground. My recollection is the cobra was packed in ice so it would be inactive. But animal treatment standards were different by then.
#4 by lyzard on June 13, 2015 - 9:05 pm
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I can assure you that no real mamba got within many miles of this production. 🙂
Yes, I suspect that a “pre-whacked snake” was used; it’s very limp, and it doesn’t look rubber…
#5 by ronald on June 2, 2015 - 11:17 am
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comments, part one
This is as good a place as any to mention that I don’t know where the question that “The B-Masters Ask” in the Carradine Thou Wayward Son banner came from but I think it would’ve been a better idea to leave it there. So I got that much done, anyway.
>>> (Okay, I guess I got started after all…)
Yes, but *we* didn’t *get* you started, so there’s that.
>>> (she’s losing weight…and she’s upset!?)
Well, *inexplicably* losing weight generally is a cause for concern, yes. Also, I’m pretty sure that western civilization’s standards of female [the secret word for today is] Pulchritude were a bit different back then.
>>> Nails of Beast Press Through Back of Neck Severing Spinal Cord
The improper use of present tense aside, I can’t help thinking it was really the fingers that did most of the work, not the fingernails. Oh well.
>>> Whipple’s fretting wins no more response from Mason than a shrugging, “I wouldn’t worry about it.” After all, it’s just a homicidal gorilla; what could possibly go wrong?
Well, surely, someone with Mason’s “expertise” in wildlife knows very well that gorillas are a peaceful herbivorous species who rarely if ever pose a threat to humans. Except when they do, of course.
Besides, Cheela killing Gruen qualifies as a revenge killing, so Mason’s all “Not to worry, boss, Cheela’s not carrying any other grudges that I know of.”
#6 by ronald on June 2, 2015 - 11:18 am
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>>>we are denied the sight of John Carradine and Fay Helm manoeuvring an unconscious 100 kg gorilla onto an operating-table
How do you get a 100 kg gorilla onto an operating table? Any way she wants you t…no, wait…
>>>Walters begins transfusing Dorothy’s hormone-heavy blood into Cheela.
Dr. Walters’ efforts in the field of human-to-gorilla transfusions were later mirrored by Dr. Krallman’s subsequent efforts in the related field of gorilla-to-human transfusions, as chronicled in “Night of the Bloody Apes.”
>>>It isn’t clear what Miss Strand thought the purpose of this experiment was
“Why?! Because it’s SCIENCE, that’s why!” — Dr. Clayton Forrester
Really, though, I’d imagine that people who work for mad scientists learn pretty quickly that it’s not a good idea to ask questions.
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If one pursues the moderately interesting line of thought that all of the mad scientists played by Carradine were actually the SAME mad scientist, constantly vanishing and resurfacing under another name (this can work with Lugosi, Karloff, and others too), Walters survived Cheela’s attack and escaped to the Louisiana bayous, where, as Dr. Max Heinrich von Altermann, he pursued an entirely different approach to “creat[ing] a race of supermen” while simultaneously developing treatments for his heretofore unknown wife in “Revenge of the Zombies.” Following that debacle, he was next heard of as an apprentice of Dr. Richard Marlowe in “Voodoo Man”; using the name Toby, he demonstrated clear signs of having suffered brain damage (“She’s not here. She must be somewhere else!”), which, coupled with Marlowe’s obvious extrapolations of Von Altermann’s work in the treatment of HIS wife, is clearly indicative of something or another. After recovering and parting company with Marlowe, he shifted fields of expertise to become Dr. Peter Drury in “The Invisible Man’s Revenge.” Later, he (now Prof. Gilmore) reunited with Marlowe (now Prof. Dexter) in the Arctic Circle and “Return of the Ape Man,” following which there was more stuff after that. It was in 1957 and “The Unearthly,” that, as Dr. Charles Conway, he finally found an assistant who was “truly a scientist at heart,” Dr. Sharon Gilchrist, who was actually eager to kill a patient BEFORE Conway planned to do so anyway, not that it helped him any.
#7 by The Rev. on June 2, 2015 - 8:39 pm
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“We also learn that human beings have 48 chromosomes [!], though this doesn’t seem to be Dr Walters’ own assertion.”
At which point Tool’s “Forty Six & 2” started playing in the Rev’s head and would not stop.
Anyway, I loved Lyz’s anger at the animals not attacking Mason (“Dammit, lion!”) throughout the review.
Hey Lyz: Carradine in this, or Chow Yun-Fat in Seventh Curse?
#8 by Jen S 1.0 on June 5, 2015 - 2:27 am
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Don’t make her choose! I couldn’t!
Lyz, if you’re interested, there’s some really terrific short stories by Connie Willis about ape independence: Samaritan, and Cat’s Paw.
#9 by lyzard on June 5, 2015 - 6:38 pm
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Don’t make her choose!
…which was in fact going to be my response. Great minds! (and good taste 🙂 )
Haven’t read any Connie Willis yet, but I will put those on The List, thanks!
#10 by ronald on June 5, 2015 - 3:25 am
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No one thought any of that was interesting, huh? Oh well, better luck next time, me. 😉
#11 by lyzard on June 5, 2015 - 6:55 pm
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Gimme a break, I’ve already written eleven pages on this stupid film. This stupid 60 minute film. 🙂
#12 by RogerBW on June 8, 2015 - 5:04 am
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I suppose the original audience wouldn’t have been familiar with the idea of a “native wife”, or at least wouldn’t have admitted it if they were.
You know who first said cigarettes were bad for you? The Nazis, that’s who! (Seriously. Though this was probably because they were philosophically opposed to them anyway, and were looking for reasons.)
I don’t think you could mention pelvic pain in 1943.
Miss Strand’s death certificate will presumably read “terminal lack of genre savvy”. My favourite moment of that is in an early Doctor Who story, where someone more or less says “sorry, I’m going to have to post this report that will ruin your company, just as soon as I get back from my two-week holiday during which nobody will expect to hear from me”.
My word, Beth’s hat during the rescue scene!
#13 by lyzard on June 13, 2015 - 9:14 pm
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It’s always amusing watching what was dealt with openly in the 1930s show up in a bowdlerised and cowardly form in the 1940s.
Kirk Douglas’s outburst in A Letter to Three Wives is the first mainstream denunciation of cigarettes that I’m aware of, and also the last for many years. Since he says it apropos of criticising advertising, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a push-back from that direction.
I’m very sure you couldn’t mention pelvic pain! – although it seems strange that they’d choose a real condition whose symptoms many of the audience must have been familiar with; why not just nonspecific “overproduction of sex hormones”?
Miss Strand is only one in a long, long line of fatal denunciators!
My word, Beth’s hat during the rescue scene!
Better yet—that outfit is what she’s chosen to wear to the circus!