Wed 13 Feb 2013
Reviewed by Dan Stumpf: HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (1959).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews[10] Comments
HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM. American-International Pictures, 1959. Michael Gough, June Cunningham, Graham Curnow, Shirley Anne Field, Geoffrey Keen, Gerald Anderson, John Warwick. Director: Arthur Crabtree.
Horrors of the Black Museum is a gaudy comic book of a movie, best enjoyed if you park your good taste and critical faculties with the gum under your seat. The story, by Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel (the team that brought us such classics as I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein and Berserk) posits that a best-selling True Crime writer (Michael Gough, masticating the scenery with sadistic relish) gets his insights by committing the crimes himself — or having them committed by a young assistant in hypnotic thrall to him.
The murders themselves are fairly grisly, including the opening bit (featured in all the previews) with a pair of booby-trapped binoculars, and are all practiced against lissome young ladies, but they have the redeeming value of being so far over the top (like Gough’s acting) as to provoke the odd chuckle.
At one point, for instance, we are asked to believe that the killer snuck into a woman’s apartment and built a guillotine over her bed which she doesn’t see until she lies down in just the right position for it to — well you get the idea. Even better is Gough’s sanctum sanctorum, filled with acid vats, S/M apparatus and some sort of machine mounted with dials, lights and levers that seems to serve no function at all.
Okay, admittedly the writing is perfunctory, and the acting mostly capable but undistinguished. There’s also some fairly prominent homophobia running through all this, what with the tastefully appointed bad guy keeping his handsome young assistant enslaved so they can victimize women. But I found Horrors suffused with a redeeming energy and engaging carelessness that kept me entertained throughout.
February 14th, 2013 at 8:19 am
I remember seeing this when I was a kid and, of course, the binocular scene is the one that sticks (so to speak) in the memory. Gough’s scenery chewing was also in evidence in the semi-classic KONGA, another Herman Cohen-penned gem, this one of the giant ape variety.
I’m sure Dan is quite familiar with it.
February 14th, 2013 at 12:04 pm
This movie came out the year I graduated from high school, but I don’t think a movie as gory as this ever played in the small town in northern Michigan where I grew up. Maybe soon after, but not by 1959.
Or I just don’t remember, but you’d think I would.
February 14th, 2013 at 3:08 pm
Jeff mentioned Konga, and I remember reading an interview with the composer who did the music for both of the movies.He said that Cohen had complained about some of his musical cues in KONGA sounding similar to those in BLACK MUSEUM. He responded “You’ve got the same actor in the same sets doing the same things in more or less the same script and you’re worried that my MUSIC sounds too similar?”
February 14th, 2013 at 5:19 pm
In short, Academy Award stuff .
The Doc
February 14th, 2013 at 5:52 pm
Our local Saturday Night Creature Feature played this one night a group of us 7th-grade girls happened to be having a slumber party. You should have HEARD the screams at that binocular scene! I’m sure the host girl’s parents fairly levitated off their bed upstairs, at the sudden frightful racket!
February 14th, 2013 at 9:28 pm
I remember seeing this one at a Saturday matinee. Great stuff for impressionable kids. The other movie that equalled MUSEUM’s shock factor was THE HYPNOTIC EYE.
February 15th, 2013 at 5:11 pm
This was one of those utterly grotesque movies I just ate up when I was a teenager. Anyone who has seen it will never forget those spiked binoculars. Terry’s memory of the slumber party is a hoot! I also thrilled at the idea of such a museum acutally existing. When I discovered there really was such a place in Scotland Yard I wanted it to be the first spot I’d visit if I ever made it to London. Nearly three decades had passed me by when I finally got to London. The first place I went was to was a used bookstore on Charing Cross Road. I had forgotten about the Black Museum. Until today.
February 15th, 2013 at 8:54 pm
John,
There was a radio show narrated by Orson Welles titled “The Black Museum”. Supposedly true Stories from Scotland Yards “BM”. Even a Welles fanatic like me could only listen to a handful. Too bad Welles only narrated and didn’t have a starring role, ala the Harry Lime radio show.
February 17th, 2013 at 5:48 pm
BRADSTREET says:
“Jeff mentioned Konga, and I remember reading an interview with the composer who did the music for both of the movies.He said that Cohen had complained about some of his musical cues in KONGA sounding similar to those in BLACK MUSEUM. He responded ‘You’ve got the same actor in the same sets doing the same things in more or less the same script and you’re worried that my MUSIC sounds too similar?'”
Yeah, but KONGA has all that and a guy in a monkey suit too!
February 19th, 2013 at 4:54 pm
Michael Gough turned up in so many Hammer and other horror movies, and it became a kind of sport among us kids to try to pronounce his name:
Was it GO?
Or GOW?
Or GOUGE?
Or GOWG?
Or GOO?
Or … ???
It wasn’t until Tim Burton’s Batman came out, and Michael Gough started giving interviews, that we all found out at long last:
GOFF
… and some guys I know still don’t believe that …