The Mad Monster

1942 mad scientist/monster movie

Rating: 5/20

Plot: A wacky scientist, ticked off at the rest of the scientific community for scoffing at his ideas, finds a way to turn a mild-mannered, extremely dopey handyman into a bloodthirsty, sort of dopey wolf man.

I was thinking that George Zucco made a pretty good mad scientist, so I looked him up. He acted in 98 movies from '31 to '51. In 20 of those movies, he played a character named Dr. _____, an average of one doctor role per year. In a handful of others, he played a professor. He played 8 different doctors from 1941-43. That's almost three doctors a year! Anyway, his acting in The Mad Monster wasn't any good, but it was still probably the best thing about the movie. This is a frequently dull B-movie with a derivative plot and goofy dialogue. If you pay attention and generally enjoy this sort of thing, you might be entertained by some really poor lighting and some repetitious set use. The monster's inconsistent coiffure is also pretty fun. The monster itself is actually less entertaining than the dopey gardener alter-ego who is just unbelievably dumb. I mean, I can suspend disbelief and accept that a guy's been turned into a wolf man unleashed to do an evil mad scientist's bidding, but I couldn't believe a person could be as dumb as this gardener. Too bad Universal's The Wolf Man came out in 1941; otherwise, this could have been the definitive wolf man movie.