He’s the Piano Man

What I’ve Been Watching: The Monster Maker (1944).

Who’s Responsible: Sam Newfield (director), Lawrence Williams, Pierre Gendron, and Martin Mooney (screenwriters), J. Carrol Naish, Ralph Morgan, and Tala Birell (stars).

Why I Watched It: From the fifty.

Seen It Before? Yes, in 1978.

Likelihood of Seeing It Again (1-10): 7.

Likelihood the Guys Will Rib Me for Watching It (1-10): 2.

Totally Subjective BOF Rating (1-10): 4.

And? The legendarily prolific Newfield (né Samuel Neufeld) is best known for the huge number of ultra-fast, ultra-cheap films he made for his brother Sigmund’s Poverty Row studio, PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation) Pictures. These include two prior entries in our fifty-film extravaganza: The Mad Monster, in which George Zucco injects wolf’s blood into slow-witted handyman Glenn Strange, with predictable results, and Dead Men Walk, in which Zucco plays twins, one of them a vampire, complete with minion Dwight Frye. Instead of Zucco, we get intermittent genre presence Naish, who could not possibly have ended his career on a lower note than with Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein.

Morgan (who strongly resembled his younger brother Frank, best known for the title role in The Wizard of Oz) is concert pianist Anthony Lawrence, whose latest recital is avidly watched by his adoring daughter, Patricia (Wanda McKay), and business manager, Bob Blake (Terry Frost), Pat’s beau. Until, that is, she notices she’s getting the fish-eye from Dr. Igor Markoff (Naish), a creepy dude sitting in the next box with his assistant, Maxine (Birell). Igor wangles his way backstage to apologize for his “seeming rudeness,” and to explain that Pat is the spitting image of the wife he’d lost under tragic circumstances, but with the feminine intuition we’ve come to know and love, Pat is still creeped out by him.

In short order, Pat is subjected to a tidal wave of flowers and weird notes from Igor, and becomes so distressed that Lawrence volunteers to go and dissuade him, unwisely turning down her suggestion to have Bob join him. Things get a bit heated between the two men, especially when Igor announces his intention to wed Pat, and after he clouts Lawrence on the head, the doc gets a brainwave and injects him with a dose of acromegaly. Scientific absurdity is hardly unknown in PRC films, but it’s no coincidence that Igor just happens to have a sample of this rare glandular disease (which enlarges the extremities and caused actor Rondo Hatton’s disfigurement) because he’s been working on a cure for some time.

Maxine is already aware that her boss killed the real Igor, stealing his identity and work, although he clearly knows his way around a pituitary gland, because he’s found a serum to halt the disease’s progression, and is on the verge of an actual cure. She now divines that this is not the first time he has deliberately given it to someone; the real Igor was his romantic rival, and under the “if-I-can’t-have-her-nobody-will” rule, “Igor” gave it to his wife, who then killed herself. Igor’s plan to silence Maxine by leaving unlocked the cage of his gorilla (Ray “Crash” Corrigan, whose many simian stylings include the title role in another of the fifty, The Ape) is foiled when Ace the Wonder Dog fends off her attacker.

Lawrence, who has been given an unusually fast-acting version of the disease, not only starts to look like the Elephant Man but also, because of his enlarged digits, cannot play the piano. Igor (whose orderly Steve is also played by the towering Strange) knows that Lawrence will have no choice but to turn to the expert in the field, and having perfected his cure, he’s ready to swap it for Pat’s hand. Luckily for all concerned—except Igor—the captive “monster” breaks free from his restraints and shoots his tormentor, whereupon Maxine announces that he can be cured, and by the fade-out of this somewhat twisted yet undeniably diverting opuscule, Lawrence is contentedly back at the keyboard once again.

Addendum: I note with amusement that TV Guide’s critic seems to have slept through the bulk of the film, describing Naish as “an evil doctor who experiments with transplants on a pianist.” WTF?