TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Scarecrow-88 A murderous fiend is destroying Parisian lovelies and law enforcement seems powerless to stop him. But who is it and what drives him to savagely attack beautiful women at night? Is it even a man? Zoologist Dr. Marais (Karl Malden) could hold the answer to the killer in Paris. A mean-spirited remake of Robert Florey's atmospheric 30s chiller starring Bela Lugosi, with Malden in the Dr. Mirakle role of devious scientist who can control ape to heinously kill women, implicating friend Professor Paul Dupin (Steve Forrest), a teacher of psychology, by placing items he had given to his fiancé, Jeanette (Patricia Medina; who Malden is in love with) at crime scenes.With glossy sets and nice production value, "Phantom of the Rue Morgue" shows the destructive aftermath of the killer ape's rampage, with rooms laid to waste, female (and a male) bodies discovered bloodied, and the familiar "wrong man" scenario utilized (imprisoned innocent man trying to get police to believe that he didn't and couldn't commit the murders he is set up by Malden for). Malden implements "psychotic eyes" to convey his madness, simmering to the surface when Jeanette, who Marais is infatuated with, he feels betrayed because she denies his advances. Predictable and lacking real chills, "Phantom of the Rue Morgue", to me, is an interesting failure, probably of interest to horror fans for Malden's involvement and its status as a remake of an underrated classic. Not that well known, "Phantom of the Rue Morgue" has a dark streak, to be sure, and was perhaps pretty potently violent in its time. The melodramatic score adds to the Hollywood gloss of the picture; I felt this was an affectionate homage to Universal studios 30s/40s horror. The ending, where Malden's antics come back to haunt him, closing at his zoo, goes through the motions and lacks atmospheric thrills which came easily even with the lesser Universal studios' B-movie efforts, like the inferior Mummy series. Claude Dauphin is Paris Inspector, Bonnard, persistently assured that he has caught the right man for the crimes...even when it is obvious no human could commit the crimes where a great deal of strength would be needed and superior agility to escape from such heights. Anthony Caruso has a fun part as a surly one-eyed assistant to Marais, killing an acquaintance who knows too much about the ape in a memorable scene. There's a great knife throwing scene and an acrobatics demonstration, both providing some decent suspense. Good cast helps, even if the film never quite becomes altogether involving.

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Remake of the original "Murders in the Rue Mourge" both in color and 3-D with the added attraction of Charles Gemora repeating his role as the gorilla, he was an over-sized chimpanzee in the original, Sultan. Gemore does an excellent job swinging on fire escapes and rooftops despite being 22 years older and having a touch of arthritis in his arms and legs.It's when there's a series of brutal murders at the Rue Mourge district in Paris that the bumbling Paris police inspector Bonnard, Claude Daphin, feels that the murders were committed by psychology professor Paul Dupin, Steve Forrest! That's only because he happened to be on the scene of one of them. It's when one of Paul's fellow tenants Camille,Dolores Dorn, is found murdered in his apartment house and stuffed up the chimney that Inspt. Bonnard has him arrested for her as well as the two other Rue Morgue murders. While Inspt. Bonnard and the Paris Police are barking up the wrong tree or chimney the real killer, the gorilla, escapes the scenes of his crimes through the Paris sewer system.The gorilla who was a baby when he was caught by one-eyed Jacques, Anthony Caruso, in far off Madagascar was raised by Jacques' boss Dr.Marals, Karl Malden, back at his zoological center outside of Paris. It's Dr.Marals in is his experimenting on the nature of both man and beasts has come up with a way to turn on or off a person's or gorilla's aggressive behaviors. And most of all what makes them violent and how to control that violence. Dr. Marals who's wife left him by killing herself is obsessed with pretty Jeanette, Patricia Medina, who just happens to be Paul Dupin's fiancée! It's in trying to frame Paul in the Rue Morgue murders that the crazed and love sick Dr. Marals thinks he can win Jeanette over! That's if he keeps on fooling the police and Inspt. Bonnard that it's Paul and not him and his pet gorilla-Saltan-who's been doing all the killing!It takes a while and a number of murders for Paul to convince the somewhat muddled headed Paris Police Insector Bonnard to realize what's reallying going on in the Rue Morgue but by then Dr. Marals had kidnapped Jeanette and locked her up, with the gorilla standing guard, in his mansion. With the police hot on his tail Dr. Marals releases his zoo animals, lion tigers and leopards, to distract them with the gorilla climbing up to his secret study room where he's holding Jeanette hostage!***SPOILERS**** Trapped on a tree, after dropping Jeanette to safety below, with nowhere to go the gorilla in refusing to give himself up is then shot down to the ground by a barrage of fire by some half dozen police sharpshooters. But before he finally expires he gets his hands on the handcuffed Dr.Marals who ordered sultan not to surrender but to kill everything in sight and ends up ringing his neck thus killing him instead! The gorilla like we in the audience had realized what a total nut case his master Dr.Marals really was. It's when he started to mess around with Jeanette, whom the gorilla was madly in love with, that Sultan went totally bananas! And it was Dr. Marals as well as his assistant the one-eyed Jacques, whom the big monkey killed earlier in the movie, who ended up paying with his life for it!

DS3520 This version of "Phantom of the Rue Morgue" is far superior to the earlier Bela Lugosi version in virtually every respect! Firstly, the music score by David Buttolph adds a sinister spine tingling note that heightens the element of fright. The cast members, all of them, led by Karl Malden and the underestimated Claude Dauphin as the Inspector, move the plot along and ably hold the audience's attention as the story unfolds. The mood, the period, the locale of turn-of-the-century Paris are all re-created very well by Director Roy Del Ruth. The garish hues of Warner Color, too, heighten the imagery. Having first seen this flick more than half a century ago as a young boy, I was terrified then. Given some of what makes it to the screen these days, "Phantom" is, indeed, quite tame by comparison! Nonetheless, it is a very entertaining horror flick of the period

MARIO GAUCI I recall watching this as a kid, though not the opinion I had made of it back then. With this in mind, I am baffled by its maligned reputation (the "Leonard Maltin Film Guide" gives it a measly **); mind you, I would not say that I prefer it to the classic 1932 Bela Lugosi version but it is more readily enjoyable (and faithful to its source). The film, in fact, is quite stylish in color – with special care given to the art direction – and a worthy follow-up to Warners' success of the previous year HOUSE OF WAX (1953); like that one, it was one of the numerous genre efforts from the early 1950s to be made in 3-D (though, typically, it was used gratuitously more often than judiciously). The cast is effective, too: Karl Malden adds an Actor's Method sensibility to the lead role of biologist/misogynist, Claude Dauphin is fine as the Police Inspector investigating the various gorilla slayings, Steve Forrest ideal as the handsome hero/accused and Anthony Caruso as Malden's loutish henchman/gorilla keeper. The murders are well-done, suggesting the animal's brutish strength without actually showing it – even the 3-D process comes in handy here as one of the victims throws something at the ape in defense and the latter responds by throwing a chair back at the girl!; there is, however, a goof in the scene depicting the killing of the circus performer (assisting her jealous husband in a knife-throwing act) as she is seen taking off the tell-tale bracelet but is then unaccountably back at her hand in a shot of the mangled (albeit conveniently covered) body! On a personal note, Malta's name comes up a number of times throughout the film: the Maltese cross on a sailor's (eventually revealed to be Caruso) scarf and his inopportune meeting in a dingy tavern with a drunken former 'colleague' (sealing his fate by unwisely disclosing his knowledge of the ape's existence). The latter stages, veering from the Poe tale, actually feel closest to Universal's earlier adaptation – as Malden cannot hold back his obsession with heroine Patricia Medina (engaged to his former student, and presently incarcerated, Forrest), an impulsive move which can only lead to the expected poetic justice of the climax in which the villain meets his own grisly come-uppance at the hands of the trained (read: abused) gorilla. By the way, having included a handful of films during this challenge in which this type of animal was featured as a menace (two more followed in quick succession), I came to realize just how many were made over the years. Finally, as I said in the beginning, this is pretty much underrated both as horror/monster movie and as adaptation of a highly-influential literary work.