Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) October 11th, 2023

Murders in the Rue Morgue is exactly the kind of movie I’ve been missing. Bella Lugosi, as the mad Dr. Mirakle, kidnaps Parisian women in 19th-century France and subjects them to inhuman genetic experiments with his captive ape Erik. He subsists on prostitutes until Erik meets Camille, the girl of his dreams played by Sidney Fox, whom Dr. Mirakle will stop at nothing to possess. He coaxes, pleads, and even makes a house call to entice Camille to join him and Erik at their secret circus laboratory, but she always refuses.

Not one to take ‘No’ as a refusal, Dr. Mirakle instead takes things into Erik’s hands and sends the ape into Camille’s room at night to forcefully abduct her. Erik is caught in his crime by Camille’s mother who he promptly murders and shoves up a chimney before absconding with her incapacitated daughter. Camille’s betrothed and the police arrive and delay her rescue with idiotic bureaucracy while Dr. Mirakle and Erik have their way with her. Eventually Dr. Mirakle is discovered and Murders in the Rue Morgue concludes with Erik making a daring escape carrying Camille across Paris rooftops until he’s shot to death and falls into the Seine. Seems likely this sequence inspired another famous ape/girl rooftop escape shot by Merian C. Cooper.

From truly imaginative and creative camera angles to the expressionistic depiction of Parisian rooftops directly aping The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Murders in the Rue Morgue brims with as much excellence as 61 minutes can contain. Lugosi’s famously phonetic performance is livelier than ever as the double-jointed Hungarian sinks his teeth into a role juicer than Dracula. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t guess he struggled with English.

Murders in the Rue Morgue is a surprisingly erotic pre code film. From the thinly veiled bestiality coded as ‘blood work’ to the tongue-in-cheek jokes about prostitution we’re treated to a ribald film that dispels the notion that any generation is classier than the next. Much of the non-torture scenes center around young French lovers on picnics or on dates, making Murders in the Rue Morgue a movie for teens in a pre-teenager world.

While it’s not quite the gothic horror of Dracula, and might be better classified as a detective story or sci-fi thriller, Murders in the Rue Morgue is undoubtedly fantastic. Despite the genre trouble it’s absolutely one of the best pre-code horror movies I’ve seen. Funny, unsettling, and a masterpiece of cinema; Murders in the Rue Morgue deserves all these superlatives and more. We watched on our Scream Factory blu-ray but Murders in the Rue Morgue is also currently available on the Criterion Channel. I’ve even heard there is an alternative cut available as an Easter egg on the Masters of Cinema blu-ray that is so appealing I might have to splurge to supplement my collection.

If you like classic black and white, pre-code, gothic horrors then please watch Murders in the Rue Morgue. Do not watch if you’re an Edgar Allen Poe devotee, because Murders in the Rue Morgue strays from the source material like most adaptations of his work. But who knows? Maybe you’ll be as enchanted with the monkey-love as I.