The Mad Ghoul *** (1943, George Zucco, David Bruce, Evelyn Ankers, Turhan Bey, Robert Armstrong, Charles McGraw, Milburn Stone, Rose Hobart) – Classic Movie Review 6130

‘A NEW SENSATION IN HORROR!’ It’s a bit of an old sensation, but anyway, a good sensation. Director James P Hogan’s 1943 Universal horror movie tells the enjoyably ghoulish tale of a psychotic scientist, Dr Alfred Morris (George Zucco), a chemistry professor who has found an ancient Mayan formula for a gas that turns men into zombie-like ghouls. But he has to conduct grisly operations to keep his life-after-death experiments with poison gas going.

David Bruce plays Ted Allison, his medical student co-worker, who becomes Morris’s guinea pig. Ted is the fiancé of singer Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers), the heroine whom Morris understandably also takes a shine to. Robert Armstrong plays reporter Ted McClure, who probes the mad scientist when he finds serial killings coincide with Isabel’s concert tour dates.

It is an entertainingly daft, minor chiller with only a few shocks and just the odd touch of gore. But the players keep this fairly spirited hokum very watchable and fun.

And Zucco is rather splendid as the Mad Ghoul in this neglected Universal horror movie, which packs in a huge lot in just 65 minutes.

Also in the cast are Turhan Bey, Robert Armstrong, Charles McGraw, Milburn Stone, Rose Hobart, Andrew Tombes, Addison Richards, Gus Glassmire, Gene O’Donnell, Bess Flowers, Lew Kelly, Cyril Ring, Hans Herbert, Isabel La Mal and William Ruhl.

It is written by Brenda Weisberg and Paul Gangelin, based on a story by Hans Kraly, shot in black and white by Milton R Krasner, produced by Ben Pivar, scored by Hans J Salter and designed by John B Goodman.

To save money and time, Pivar used Lillian Cornell stock recordings for Ankers’ singing.

George Zucco (11 January 1886 – 27 May 1960).

English character actor George Zucco (11 January 1886 – 27 May 1960) made nearly 100 movies over two decades from 1931 to 1951, often playing a mad doctor, as here, or a suave villain.

He played Professor Moriarty in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) and a Nazi spy in Sherlock Holmes in Washington.

He appeared in After the Thin Man, Fast Company, Arrest Bulldog Drummond, Charlie Chan in Honolulu, The Cat and the Canary, My Favorite Blonde, The Mummy’s Hand (1940), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), The Mad Monster (1942), Dead Men Walk (1943), The Mummy’s Ghost (1944), House of Frankenstein (1944) and Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6130

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