Sat 1 Oct 2022
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: THE UNDYING MONSTER (1942).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews[4] Comments
THE UNDYING MONSTER. 20th Century/Fox, 1942. James Ellison, Heather Angel, John Howard, Bramwell Fletcher, Heather Thatcher, Aubrey Mather. Based on the novel (1922) by Jessie Douglas Kerruish. Director: John Brahm.
The Undying Monster offers that archetypal cowboy of the Hoppy films, Jimmy Ellison, as a Scotland Yard forensic investigator (!) assisted by Heather Thatcher as a distaff Watson, looking into the Mysterious Curse that haunts John Howard (a Ronald Colman look-alike who starred in Paramount’s Bulldog Drummond series) and his sister, Heather Angel.
This is an oddity: A Werewolf movie almost totally lacking in excitement. It’s directed by John Brahm, a director who had his moments (Hangover Square, The Lodger, Guest in the House), so it’s not without some atmosphere and plenty of nifty camerawork, but overall, there’s just too little going on to sustain it.
October 1st, 2022 at 8:58 pm
I like this much better than Dan, but I came to it from the novel by Jessie Douglas Keruish that added all the background brushed over in the film involving Viking berserkers, abnormal psychology, and something of the atmosphere of Conan Doyle and Algernon Blackwood.
That Victorian bugaboo atavism raises its head and is neatly dealt with in what proves to be a much HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES country as traditional werewolf novel.
October 1st, 2022 at 9:38 pm
I did some digging, and voila:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=73685
October 1st, 2022 at 9:48 pm
I had completely forgotten the prior review, which completes the picture along with Dan’s assessment. I think all the players are adequate or better, and it all looks fine, but the second half does not deliver the goods. Too bad.
October 6th, 2022 at 12:35 am
The aptly named, Heather Angel! An evanescent beauty famed for her appearance in Hitchcock’s ‘Lifeboat’. Many’s the time I’ve fallen for damsels with that selfsame fey, delicate countenance. Unfortunately, her personal life was (as I recall) more torrid and tangled than one would intuit from those porcelain-like features.