Showing posts with label Jean Yarbrough. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jean Yarbrough. Show all posts
In this unofficial sequel to House of Horrors, the Creeper (Rondo Hatton) is back creeping about and periodically snapping people's spines. This time the character is given a name, Hal Moffet, and back story. Moffet was a cocky college football hero whose face was disfigured in a chemistry explosion [Hatton's disfigurement was due to acromegaly due to exposure to poison gas during WW1]. Unlike House of Horrors, which has a few interesting characters and flavorful performances, The Brute Man is comparatively dull and slow-paced. Aside from Hatton, who is fine if limited in the role of the Creeper [Fred Coby actually plays Moffet as a college student], the main character is Jane (Helen Paige), a blind piano teacher who hides Moffet and is befriended by him in turn. Tom Neal is one of Hal's old classmates, and Jan Wiley [Secret Agent X-9], in an especially weak performance, plays Neal's wife. Donald MacBride is the police inspector on the case. Hatton's Creeper character, or at least a variation thereof, also appeared in the modern-day Sherlock Holmes film The Pearl of Death.
Verdict: Not the best of the Creeper. **.
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| Marcel (Martin Kosleck) admires his bust of the Creeper |
HOUSE OF HORRORS (1946). Director: Jean Yarbrough.
Starving artist Marcel De Lange (Great Old Movies' favorite Martin Kosleck) is about to commit suicide in despair when he stumbles across an injured man known only as the Creeper (Rondo Hatton). The Creeper had already committed a series of murders, snapping people's spines, and is presumed dead. Marcel uses the Creeper to get revenge on his enemies, especially the acidic critic Holmes Harmon (Alan Napier), who has no tolerance for the abstract. The main suspect in Harmon's murder, however, is commercial illustrator Steven Morrow (Robert Lowery of the Batman and Robin serial), who was to be the target of his venom in the critic's latest column. Another critic, Joan Medford (Virginia Grey), happens to be Morrow's girlfriend and a champion of De Lange's macabre sculptures. But when she gets too close to figuring out De Lange's deadly secret ... This is a snappy and suspenseful horror thriller, well-directed by Yarbrough, and with an excellent performance from Kosleck, and good back up from Hatton [who thinks his bust is "pretty"], a highly vivacious (perhaps too vivacious considering the goings-on) Grey, and a more than competent Lowery and Napier. Howard Freeman also scores as another art critic, Hal Ormiston, who participates in a scheme to catch the murderer. The beautiful model Stella is played by Joan Shawlee and Lt. Brooks is Bill Goodwin. House of Horrors is an unofficial sequel to the modern-day Sherlock Holmes film The Pearl of Death, in which Hatton also played a Creeper who breaks spines. Oddly the opening credits of Horrors "introduce" Hatton as the Creeper. There were plans to make a series of Creeper films and turn Hatton into a horror star, but the poor fellow, who suffered from acromegaly due to exposure to poison gas in WW1, passed away before House of Horrors opened. Kosleck's most famous part was in The Flesh Eaters. Yarbrough directed She-Wolf of London and many, many others.
Verdict: Highly entertaining horror flick. ***.
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| Henry Armetta |
Mike Ripportella (Henry Armetta) is expecting the day of his daughter's wedding to be eventful, but he has no idea of exactly what a misadventure it will be. Mike works for a construction contractor, Brandon (Charles Miller of Phantom of Chinatown), but has no clue that his boss has been threatened by racketeers, and that he's been promoted because Brandon thinks he's too honest to play ball with them (and may inspire their ire more than Brandon). Then there's the hard, flashy blonde, Fay (Maxine Leslie) who jumps into Mike's car and inspires the jealousy of his wife, Mary (Inez Palange) -- the two women wind up sharing a jail cell after the cops come to arrest Mike, thinking he's a hoodlum. This comedy-melodrama of mistaken identities features a good performance from Armetta and the others. Iris Meredith of The Green Archer plays the daughter, Lucy. William Newell of The Invisible Killer plays the desk cop, Riley.
Verdict: Nothing special but amiable enough. **1/2.