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The Monster and the Girl (1940)

Director: Stuart Heisler

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From Time Out Film Guide

No masterpiece, but an unusually lively B shocker, engagingly mixing ingredients as Drew, a girl tricked into white slavery prostitution by gangsters, is avenged by a gorilla into which her brother's brain has been transplanted (he was framed by the gang for murder and duly executed) by Zucco's mad doctor. It sounds wild and it is, but opening with a mesmerising shot of Drew looming up out of the mist to tell her story in flashback ('I'm Susan, the bad luck penny; I bought a million dollars' worth of trouble...for everybody'), it generates a bizarre conviction. Surprisingly well acted, it is also directed with real flair, notably in a sequence where the gorilla (constantly threatened with betrayal by a puzzled dog who recognises his master somewhere in there) stalks the rooftop in parallel with his gangster-prey strolling in the deserted nighttime street below.

Author: TM 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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Cast & crew

Director: Stuart Heisler

Producer: Jack Moss

Cast: Ellen Drew, Robert Paige, Paul Lukas, Joseph Calleia, George Zucco, Rod Cameron, Onslow Stevens, Phillip Terry full cast

Genre(s): Horror

Duration: 65 mins


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