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Murders in the Rue Morgue Movie Review

Murders in the Rue Morgue is a 1932 horror film directed by Robert Florey and starring Bela Lugosi. It is a flawed, but mostly very interesting and artistic Pre-Code horror.

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“Eric’s blood will be mixed with the blood of man!“

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A mad scientist seeks to mingle human blood with that of an ape, and resorts to kidnapping women for his experiments. Based on the 1841 short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe, the movie is faithful to the original story only to a certain degree. Interestingly, in showcasing what happened before the murders depicted in the source material, the film effectively became a prequel, which was quite rare for Hollywood back then.

The third act is where the classic story is fully adapted along with the climax that depicts a gorilla taking a girl to the roofs, which makes you think whether or not this feature served as an influence on next year’s iconic ‘King Kong’. The two movies are eerily similar in their endings. The detective elements are mostly forsaken in favor of pure horror, which was a good move as the original story wasn’t really suitable for the big screen treatment.

The film is tonally inconsistent. There are long stretches of comedy mixed with sheer horror, and that doesn’t always work, but some of the humorous moments were quite charming nonetheless. In terms of those horror elements, it is clearly a Pre-Code feature in regards to very sexual overtones and bestiality suggestions. However, the main issue here is that the movie is simply not scary, and it wasn’t really creepy even back then.

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But Murders in the Rue Morgue succeeds in its atmosphere because in its artistic backgrounds and gorgeous production design it evokes the wonderful movies of German Expressionism, especially ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’. The Parisian backdrop, particularly the rooftops and the angular streets are lovely to behold. The foggy look to the outside scenes also elevated the atmosphere, making it creepier, which was necessary as the film’s plot itself was far from horrific. The score here was terrific as well and the entire production design was simply mesmerizing.

Bela Lugosi is the acting standout. His Dr. Mirakle is the greatest addition to this story as this mad scientist who is highly intelligent, but also most certainly very dangerous. The campiness and over-the-top qualities are present in his performance, but this type of acting fits this particular role like a glove, so that’s why he was perfectly cast in it. Unfortunately, that is where my praise for characterization and acting ends as the supporting players are all rather mediocre. Sidney Fox is pretty, but hardly memorable. Leon Ames is okay as possibly the movie’s protagonist. But neither of the two actors delivered a particularly strong performance and their roles were seriously underwritten, resulting in a film that was in a desperate need for more striking personalities besides Dr. Mirakle.

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The gorilla is both played by a real ape and by a man in a suit. This dual approach to the monster’s depiction was actually fine for me as the suit was surprisingly solid and not at all campy. It’s one of the more realistic 30s movies in terms of effects. The romantic sections were unnecessary, but they still contained that one stunningly shot and executed swinging on a swing sequence that really worked. The overall film has these very artistic moments that elevate the messiness of the script significantly. The dialogue is pretty solid, though indecisive in its mixture of more modern colloquialisms and more antiquated speeches.