JoeB131 This is an interesting film where they took a film noir plot and transplanted it (pun intended) into a monster movie. So a nice guy from a small town goes looking for his sister who has been tricked into a 'white slavery' ring (They never do outright say, "Prostitution" because Hayes Board and stuff) and ends up getting framed for the murder of a gangster by rival gangsters. The hilarity begins when Mad Scientist George Zucco transplants the nice guy's brain into the body of a gorilla, because that never goes badly in these kinds of movies. The movie then proceeds as the gangster's henchmen are slowly picked off by the Gorilla, which has mysteriously acquired stealth ninja skills in addition to being, you know, a gorilla. Kudos to the guy in the monkey suit, as he pulls off his scenes with a bit of pathos, like when he encounters his old dog who knows its him. This movie has a lot of really nice touches like that, but it's mostly just fun cheese. I also think it is interesting as a snapshot of how society was back then, not being able to talk frankly about sex but lots of smoking scenes.

bkoganbing Back in its salad days Paramount was a studio that did not go in much for the horror genre. So this film The Monster And The Girl is something of an anomaly for them. I'm sure Cecil B. DeMille, Preston Sturges, or Mitchell Leisen never had this script on their desks.Philip Terry gets framed by Paul Lukas and his mob for murder and despite the earnest pleas of girl friend Ellen Drew gets sentenced to die. Dr. George Zucco in one of his patented mad scientist roles asks Terry for the use of his brain after he's deceased and Terry agrees to it.After Dr. Zucco transplants Terry's brain, strange things are happening. Like the gorilla with the Terry brain inside and that brain has some scores to settle. Settle them the Terry gorilla does and in a most gruesome manner.Perhaps had Universal done this one it might rate as a classic as they knew how to serve these up. Still despite some mediocre production values The Monster And The Girl should satisfy the die-hard fans of the horror genre.

vandino1 After the horror revival of the late thirties, Paramount decided to get in on the act with this rare excursion into "monster movies." But this is a weird hybrid, as if a film about a white slavery ring was in production and the powers that be decided to tear off the last half of the script and graft a ham-fisted (or banana-fisted) monster subplot onto it. It certainly makes for fascinating viewing, as long as you know what's coming. A tenuous similarity could be considered with 'From Dusk Til Dawn' wherein a story about two hostage-taking killers on the run suddenly switches gears half-way and becomes an outlandish vampire gore-a-thon. This 1941 release does have a resemblance to Karloff's 1939 'The Man They Could Not Hang' (Karloff a hanged scientist brought back to life with electricity proceeds to kill off the jurors that convicted him.) Nonetheless, this film's bifurcated storyline is almost delightful if only from the sheer crackpot audacity of trying to pull it off.No need to recount the plot, it's simple enough. It's thirty minutes of trial and flashback to the white slavery set-up, then thirty minutes of Frankenstein-ian ape-crazed nonsense with a quick wrap up. The only hurdle to overcome is the amateur performance of Phillip Terry as the condemned man Webster. He drudges his way through as if told he was in a zombie movie, then behaves like a Stepford Wife in the flashback, then later does an over-the-top hysteria jag in his last scene. Inept. But he doesn't play the ape, thank goodness! That job is performed by Charles Gemora (who played the martian in 1953's 'War of The Worlds') and he does it subtly and effectively. Considering the highly-charged second half, it's too bad the writer and director didn't take advantage and really play up the tension and the murder scenes. Here's a case where a film could have run a little longer for a change. And thankfully the ape doesn't talk and Webster's sister (Ellen Drew) doesn't do that "I recognized him by his eyes" nonsense that it looks like it was heading for. There's also a terrific cast of familiar second-tier actor faces employed including Marc Lawrence, a young Rod Cameron, Joseph Calleia, Abner Biberman, Cliff Edwards and even Bud Jamison (Jamison familiar to Three Stooges fans). Granted the film's short running time doesn't give them much screen time (but oddly enough, the faceless unknowns Robert Paige, Terry and Drew get most of the camera-time). And one last enjoyable note is seeing George Zucco as the transplant doctor hovering throughout the film. In the first part of the film he is just hanging around, given little attention, as if waiting like the rest of us to get to the 'monster' part of the story. Then after he does his movie-changing brain transplant, he once again hangs around mostly in the background (at each murder scene), with no one really asking him why he's always there. It's all part of the oddness of this little curio.

Mike-764 Scot Webster is looking for his brother-in-law who mysteriously left his wife and left her in at the hands of a racketeer and his mob. Webster is later set up with the murder of a mob enemy, convicted and set to die, but swears revenge on those who set him up. He donates his brain to science and it is later put into an ape, which proceeds to carry out Webster's venegance. The plot sounds pretty good for its genre, but the Webster's trial takes up a little too much time plus the scenes with the ape just seem to be lacking the excitement that this movie should generate. 5 out of 10.