Man-Made Monster *** (1941, Lon Chaney Jnr, Lionel Atwill, Anne Nagel, Frank Albertson, Samuel S Hinds) – Classic Movie Review 2679

When Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi dropped out of director George Waggner’s sci-fi horror movie co-feature, Lon Chaney Jnr took over the role intended for Karloff and made his horror film debut. Thus he gets his first taste of the monster business that was to keep him in regular work, though not always good work. 

Lionel Atwill steps in to the role intended for Lugosi as the mad doctor, Dr Paul Rigas, filling bus crash survivor Dan McCormick (Chaney Jnr) with electricity so he’s immune to shocks, becomes a walking hulk of electricity and goes rampaging. Alas audiences don’t get too many shocks either, or a tremendous charge. The film was shot in three weeks and was the cheapest film made by Universal Studios in 1941.

However, the playing is fine, the direction pacy and the fun dated special effects are in order. The excellent performances of Chaney Jnr and Atwill, the satisfyingly bizarre subject matter and the compact running time of just 59 minutes combine to help this to be enjoyable vintage pulp sci-fi horror.

Samuel S. Hinds co-stars as Dr John Lawrence, a distinguished elector-biologist, who introduces McCormick to his assistant Rigas. But when Lawrence tries to stop the experiment, Rigas orders McCormick to kill him. Anne Nagel plays  June Meredith, Lawrence’s niece, and Frank Albertson is newspaper reporter Mark Adams.

Joseph West’s screenplay is based on the story The Electric Man by H J Essex, Sid Schwartz and Len Golos. That title is one of the film’s alternative titles, along with The Atomic Monster.

Man-Made Monster was re-released under various titles including The Electric Man and The Mysterious Dr R. In 1953, it was re-released by Realart Pictures under the title The Atomic Monster on a double bill with The Flying Saucer (1950).  Producer Alex Gordon already had a film called The Atomic Monster and sent his attorney Samuel Z Arkoff to meet Realart representative James H Nicholson to discuss the matter. The three men started their own film company that became American International Pictures.

The initial plan was for Karloff to play the role of Dan McCormick and Lugosi Dr Rigas in The Electric Man, but Universal decided the concept was too similar to another Karloff-Lugosi movie, The Invisible Ray (1936).

Chaney Jr is fondly remembered for playing the title role in the 1941 film The Wolf Man and its various crossovers, as well as portraying other monsters such as The Mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster, and Count Alucard (son of Dracula) in Universal Studios horror films.

Atwill’s most memorable roles were as the crazed, disfigured sculptor in Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) and as Inspector Krogh in Son of Frankenstein (1939).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2679

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