Whilst
Universal was gearing up to unleash its second wave of horror icons on the
public, 1939 saw the genre overhauled with a new added ingredient to add extra
zing to the potion, that of comedy. Toward the end of the year ex-Vaudevillian
turned Broadway star Bob Hope would provide the laughs in the winning remake of
The Cat and the Canary and into the
1940s Universal would collide its Horror Hall of Fame figures with ex-Burlesque
double-act Abbott and Costello in a successful series, but in May 1939 another
stage team would feverishly mine chuckles with chills in Twentieth Century Fox’s
The Gorilla. This familiar mansion murder-mystery
plot was based on a play by Ralph Spence that had already been filmed in 1925
and 1930 and was remade again as a vehicle for the Ritz Brothers, a real-life
sibling act whose energy compensated for what they lacked in subtlety.
The Ritz
Brothers hailed from New Jersey, first begun by vaudeville dancer Al before younger
brothers Harry and Jimmy joined the act. They gradually introduced more comedy
into their shows till this became their main selling point. Despite being real
brothers, their true surname was Joachim and allegedly Al chose the Ritz surname
after seeing the logo on a laundry truck. They were inevitably compared to the superior
Marx Brothers but without the consistent distinctive characters of Groucho,
Harp and Chico, it was hard to tell the trio apart except that Harry was generally
the ring-leader of the troupe. Another comparable team of the period was the Three
Stooges; indeed they shared the bullying chaos, mugging and cowardly ‘woo-woo’
squeaks of the other three-ring circus.
The Gorilla was the Ritz Brothers’ eighth movie
feature following a stage tour and the final one of their contract with Fox.
This was caused by a dispute between the studio and the Brothers over the delay
to the filming schedule. They were meant to begin shooting at the end of
January of 1939, however their father died so they did not come in to work. The
studio sued the team for $150,000 citing a breach of contract for missing their
start date. The Brothers finally showed up to begin shooting in March and never
worked for Fox again.
The screenplay, such as you can wade through whilst being
hit with shtick bamboo, is based around the perceived crooked dealings of Lionel
Atwill’s Walter Stevens, a wealthy businessman who stands to be co-inheritor of
the family estate along with his ward Norma (Anita Louise). Crippled with debt
and about to be targeted by a ‘professional murderer’ known as the Gorilla, he
appears to be tempted into bumping her off to be sole beneficiary. On the
obligatory rain-lashed stormy night, he has hired three private detectives (the
Ritz Brothers) to uncover the murderer in time to save him while a real (as in
human-in-a-suit) gorilla has escaped onto the premises. Although the horror
movie form was developing, somehow producers still couldn’t let go of the
early 1930s man in a monkey suit trope.
.
.
Other
occupants of the house, or more fittingly onlookers as we shall see, include
Bela Lugosi as the butler, Patsy Kelly as Kitty the Maid and Edward Norris as the
other half of the requisite makeweight romantic couple with Louise.
The defective detectives Garrity, Harrigan and
Mulligan turn up and immediately swing into inaction, their combined three
watts of lily-livered brain power make the Stooges sound like the Algonquin Set,
manifesting as witless interrogation, expertly inept role-playing and internecine
“Why I oughtta-” fraternal squabbling. To be fair, their quick-fire repartee
forged on the tough theatre circuit is fast and furious enough that if you don’t
like one gag, there’ll be another you can ignore coming right up. Juss joshin’
witya – they do have at least a couple of moments that earn a grin; the planned
synchronisation scene where one mutters “Remind me to put some hands on this
watch” – and a great sustained series of eye-popping facial mugs by Harry worthy
of Jim Carrey when seeing the hairy gorilla for the first time. His
reaction along with the occasional hairy disembodied arm is really the only
concession to fear in the film.
Such is the
Ritz trio’s high-voltage prowling and barked one-liners that the rest of the
cast are allowed to relax in the background without taking collateral damage.
Bela Lugosi serenely surfs the waves with Hungarian cool in an utterly wasted
role bereft of any edge or purpose. Lionel Atwill provides exposition at the
beginning and end and is basically along for the ride sandwiched between his more
dignified releases of The Hound of the
Baskervilles and Son of Frankenstein
before his career-ruining court case. Only Patsy Kelly seeks to match the
crackers style of the Ritzes with her own dialogue delivered as gratingly loud ‘ba-dum
tish’ banter with them as though the foursome are in a fast-paced Broadway
show of their own within the movie.
The Gorilla is finally caged within a hurried
climax where Joseph Calleia’s darkly mysterious Stranger, career typecasting
for him before playing Pete Menzies in Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, is unmasked as the murderer version of the Gorilla. By this point the audience is past caring now
that their sporadic amusement and understanding has been monkeyed with enough.
Both better and worse comedy-horror hybrids were to come over the next few years.
Their success would be determined by the quality of gags, energetic playing and
where possible one or two genuine frissons.
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