Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952)

 

Director: William Beaudine

Screenplay: Tim Ryan (with additional dialogue by Leo 'Ukie' Sherin and Edmond Seward)

Cast: Bela Lugosi as Dr. Zabor; Duke Mitchell as Duke Mitchell; Sammy Petrillo as Sammy Petrillo; Charlita as Nona; Muriel Landers as Saloma; Al Kikume as Chief Rakos; Mickey Simpson as Chula; Milton Newberger as Witch Doctor Bongo; Martin Garralaga as Pepe Bordo; Ramona, the Chimp

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #255

 

Don't mind my friend. He has a one-syllable brain.

For what was considered one of the worst films ever made, this requires having to unpack an entirely different era of pop culture few may know of to explain why this even exists. That effectively, with this premise starting Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell, producer Maurice Duke  felt there was an opportunity to cash-in on the craze of films by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, a popular duo at the time, without having to hire Martin and Lewis. To contrast those figures, you have a young Duke Mitchell, who would go on infamously to self-fund two cult films in the seventies, Massacre Mafia Style (1974) and Gone With the Pope (1976/2010), whilst Sammy Petrillo was known for doing Jerry Lewis impressions and even worked with Lewis at one point. Paramount Pictures producer Hal B. Wallis, who then had Martin and Lewis under contract at the time, even sued the creators of the film, with a compromise likely to be found in burning the negative. Why that did not happen is to speculate, but it led to this film to gain the infamy it has.

The strange thing is that, even with Lugosi in the cast as a star, this is not a horror film. It really is not substantial (nor funny) enough to be a comedy. It is a complete oddity, as Mitchell and Petrillo end up introduced stranded on a Pacific Island "Kola Kola", one where the natives are (mostly) very white actors masquerading as non-white people in tribal dress. Pointing out insensitive cultural appropriation here is like pointing out the practicalities of sculpting a fire guard from chocolate. Instead, knowing the infamy of this film, the obvious point is still the most important thing to point out, that it is an awkward film. Sammy Petrillo in particular has the ignoble job, as a visibly young man in this film, of replicating Jerry Lewis, who act was an acquired taste anyway. Contrasting him, Duke Mitchell calmly coasts through with ease, about to sing very well even when his character is turned into a gorilla by Dr. Zabor, played by Bela Lugosi, for eyeing up his native assistant Nona (Charlita).

This is the type of low budget film where no one bats an eye about a gothic castle in the jungle existing, all because this is aware of what it is. It wants to play to the Jerry Lewis-Dean Martin films of a Lewis figure going for yucks, the Martin figure being suave and crooning songs, whilst playing off the reputation of Bela Lugosi even if at this time he was badly in need of work, even having a meta joke about Lugosi playing someone who looks like Dracula. This is the type of film on paper which sounds compelling to witness, but the film itself watching is surprising in how much even time seems to drag. It is strange, after all the years I have heard of this film, actually watching the film as see how a horror icon, an act meant to cash-in on a huge comedy duo, a jungle set and a barely cohesive narrative are meant to be bolted together.

It is a film where the MVP, even with Bela Lugosi in the cast, is Ramona the chimpanzee, a cute trained simian who plays a comedic foil to Petrillo. Only knowing, even if likely an infant, that this type of animal casting was stopped for a reason undermines the fun of this character, plus knowing that an adult chimpanzee is strong enough to rip appendages off human beings with ease and willing to if provoked. Even Ramona feels abruptly placed in, for a film which never finds a point to itself baring the vaguest of variety shows in filmic form. All of the obvious thoughts that, yes, this film lives up to its reputation as a bad film do not actually explain that this film also is a curious experience, felt with less pain than a strange apathy fascinating. More so as this is effectively a comedy - a comedy where none of the humour worked for me, which made it a perplexing movie.

Large portions are spent with Petrillo prating about. There is a dance sequence. There is a romance with Nona and Duke Mitchell, but he and Petrillo playing themselves, with a very educated daughter of the island's leader. Yet nothing here even turns into a slog but just exists. More so as well that the film does feel unfinished, with no ending to a narrative of one of your leads being turned into a gorilla and an evil scientist baring, to spoil this and the aforementioned film, the conclusion of the 1939 The Wizard of Oz. The director William Beaudine became infamous for films like this in his career, despite being a journeyman who worked in a variety of genres, and honestly, as a simplistically shot movie, he does not take the blame. It looks average, but even the fake stage bound jungle sets have a fascinating artificiality. Bela Lugosi, even at the time with a drug addiction where he would eventually encounter Ed Wood Jr., is charismatic here as a significantly older man, managing to wear white in the jungle without it being stained. Even Duke Mitchell when stuck in a gorilla suit, even if dubbed over, is vaguely amusing to see the weird trope of cheap gorilla suits for comedy. That is the really strange thing, in that having seen the lowest of low even next to this film in my viewing experiences, no one here is really the blame for dropping the ball. Even the cinematographer Charles Van Enger worked with Ernst Lubitsch and The Phantom of the Opera (1925).

It is really the point where you have to sit and ponder its existence. Only Sammy Petrillo really stands out as egregious trying to mimic Jerry Lewis, as a younger man, with a heightened shrillness, but beyond the jokes being dumb, this is innocuous. In fact, most barely register, almost sweet in their lack of impact. The script is to blame but I do not want to really criticise the screenplay either. The rest is perversely anti-entertainment, which could sound gimmicky to say, but in the sense that, whilst a narrative film, it leads nowhere, leads to no humour or subversion for this, and is entirely a conservative film of conservative jokes with problematic cultural appropriation, yet completely innocuous in spite of this. In a way, it is admirable for a film to achieve this state of existence, of a form of nothingness, even if in truth, one would rather prefer a film that tried for this tone but with more on the table. Or a film which, with its history and content - ripping off a famous comedy duo, Bela Lugosi, men being turned into gorillas by cheap suits - was more over-the-top then this, which is just a weird film instead.