Maniac
Tags: insanity, violence, murder, melodrama

Plot synopsis:
(00:00) The film starts with a written introduction: "FOREWORD: The brain, in and of its physical self, does not think any more than a musical instrument can give forth melody without the touch of the musicians hand. The brain is indeed the instrument of thinking, but the mind is the skilful player that makes it give forth the beautiful harmony of thought It is because of the disastrous results of fear brought not only on the individual but on the nation, that it becomes the duty of every sane man and woman to establish quarantine against fear. Fear is a psychic disease which is highly contagious and extraordinarily infectious. Fear thought is most dangerous when it parades as forethought. Combat fear by replacing it with faith. Resist worry with confidence. --- Wm. S. Sadler, M.D., F.A.C.S., Director of the Chicago Institute of Research and Diagnosis. [William Samuel Sadler (1875-1969), American medicine doctor as psychologist, psychiatrist and surgeon at Chicago for over 60 years, teacher of Psychology at the McCormick Theological Seminary.] Unhealthy thought creates harped attitudes which in turn create criminals and manias. The Chicago Crime Commission made a survey of 10.000 (exact number impossible to read in the video copy; possibly higher multiple of 10.000) convicted criminals and found them all suffering from some mental disease."(02:20) In a laboratory, Dr. Mierschultz (HORACE CARPENTER) is putting his finishing touches to some chemical mix in a big hypodermic syringe, while his assistant is doing some electric experiences on a strange apparatus. "Tonight, my dear Maxwell, I'm ready to try my experiement on a human. Yeah In the morgue, there is a little guest suicide." Maxwell (BILL WOODS aka William Woods) is obviously distressed, "Have you made arrangements?"
The Doctor is taken aback: "No! You know that I do not work under prying eyes! You shall find a way for me to work without detection. It is your chance to show me your gratitude for my generosity, and protection!"
Maxwell stands up, towering over the sitting Doctor: "I'll never forget what you have done, and I'd do anything to help you - but the morgue! Dead people! What if I should be caught?"
The Doctor almost spits his answer: "How many times have you told me of your impersonations, that you never had a chance!... May be now your art will serve you, after all! You have seen the Coroner, why not impersonate him? That's it! Impersonate him! The time has come when you can repay me for what I have done."
Maxwell tries to plead, but at the same time he voices his disapproval for the old Doctor's experiments: "To bring back life is not natural," he says he has arranged for other guinea-pigs, a dog, and a cat. Satan, the black cat, snarls from his pillow, as on cue.
"Once a ham, always a ham! [meaning, an actor who overacts in a bad way] You, an actor? (derisive smile) But dont forget, my dear Maxwell, the police would be very glad to find you."
Maxwell looks up at the ceiling, I didn't mean I wouldn't..." "Of course not. In time, you may become a great man!"
Both men strip their long white shifts, and leave the laboratory. Satan the black cat is seen on the basement running after a rat, and then a lonely ginger cat.(05:17) At the morgue, Maxwell in disguise with a monocle, accompanies the undisguised Doctor in the search for a human corpse.
The Doctor chooses the body of a beautiful young blonde, "This is the one here!" he says, uncovering her head.
Maxwell reads from a plate on the corpses wrist, "Number 5-6-9-4-1, Maria Altura (Uncredited), 24, suicide, carbon monoxide gas, not clean."
The doctor checks for a heart bit with a stetoscope, then applies an injection in both carotids. "We have to work fast," he says.
In the next room, the Embalmer (J.P. WADE) and his Assistant (Uncredited) are complaining that with so many deaths, and suicides yet, they have to work overtime.
The Doctor massages the body's cold arms, and the girl starts moving her head a little. The Doctor decides she must have some oxygen, so they'll bring her outside through a side door.
The Embalmer comments to his Assistant that the Coroner is making extra working hours, performing an autopsy on the beauty that had been brought in earlier [insinuating an act of necrophilia].(08:45) At the Bureau of Missing Persons, Captain Jones is hearing the deposition of the baldhead Embalmer and the Coroner (BILL WOODS in a double role, Uncredited), about the disappearance of Maria's body; the Embalmer gives a description resembling Dr. Meirschultz. The Coroner admits that the Doctor is a bit strange, but denies the possibibility of him being a body snatcher. Meanwhile, the police receives an official inquest on the whereabouts of Don Maxwell, a vaudeville impersonator by profession, who has disappeared in town. Detective Collins (Uncredited) is put in charge of the case.At the laboratory, Dr. Meirschultz is waiting for Maria to recover fully in a few hours. While his assistant is overly impressed with giving back life to a dead person, the Doctor says, "This is but one step. Cases like these have an element of doubt, but what I want is a victim with a shattered heart! Yes! A heart (There is a pulsating heart, kept in a large bowel on the labs main desk.) - that I may exchange for this thing I've been keeping for years. Ah! Ah! Ah! You! You shall bring it to me, Maxwell. It will be my supreme accomplishment!"
The assistant cowers again at the idea, "Not from the morgue!..."
But the Doctor is relentless, "I dont care where you take it from the morgue, the streets, the undertaker! Get going! The end will justify the means."
(13:25) Maxwell goes out, rampages through a tunnel into the undertaker's office (looking like the laboratory's basement). Two ginger snarling cats are there fighting (apparently tied to each other by a piece of string). One cat darts between Maxwell's legs, frightening him so that he runs away by the front door. As he runs through a green park, he passes by a white dog versus a black cat fighting on the road.
(14:05) At first, the doctor is displeased on the assistants failure, "Coward! You are a fool! You've failed me." But then, looking at the throbbing heart in the glass jar, he has an idea. He takes a revolver from a drawer, and says, "Yeah! You have seen the extent of my powers; you have worked with me; you have faith in me. Here, take this (he hands the revolver to him). You'll take your own life, and I'll give it back to you. I'll give you the new heart, and you'll live again. Ah! Ah! Ah! You'll live!... Ah! Ah! Ah! Live!... The assistant shoots. The revolver falls. Dr. Meirschultz hangs briefly to the table, than falls on the floor, dead.(16:05) DEMENTIA PRAECOX is the next films title, describing the most important of the psychosis, both because it constitutes the highest percentage of mental diseases and because recovery is so extremely rare. Dementia praecox patients show blunting of the emotions, serious defects of judgement, development of fantastic ideas, belief that they are being forced to do things or are being interfered with. [Dementia praecox (precocious madness) is a term first used in 1891 in this Latin form by Arnold Pick (1851-1924), a German professor of psychiatry at Charles University in Prague.]Maxwell inspects the doctors notes, to find the formula to bring him back to life, only to find there is none. [Montage of a laughing Pluto and his minions, from the film _Maciste in Hell (1924)_ (qv).] Mrs. Buckley (PHYLLIS DILLER, 1897-1972; not the TV comedienne 1917-... who has a longer nose, and a much longer career) comes for urgent consultation with the doctor, for her husband is having a delusion of being a killer ape. She is prepared to wait, but demands to see the doctor. Maxwell, under strain and not wishing to give away his crime, turns to his old box of Make-up Artist, adds a wig and the doctors eye-glasses, and comes to a resolution: Meirschultz would be missed - Maxwell never would! So, he impersonates the Doctor (figuratively commiting the suicide the Doctor had ordered him to do).
Maxwell talking in a strong voice, tries to convince himself of the perfect impersonation: "Not only do I look like Meirschultz, I am doctor Meirschultz! (bulging his biceps) I'll be a great man!"(21:50) APARESIS is the general paralysis of the insane the most serious disorder for the criminologist. There is marked failure of memory, poor retention, impaired judgement, and failure on the part of the patient to curb his primitive tendencies. -- according to a text quoted from Philip A. Parsons, Ph.D., Crime and Criminal.As Maxwell progresses in his insanity, he is unable to cope with the injection he is preparing in the lab for Mr. Buckley (TED EDWARDS) who fancies himself as a killer ape; instead of giving him an injection of water, which would do no harm (?!), he administers a dose of "super-adrenaline." "Do you feel better?" he asks.
Mr. Buckley contorts himself in pain, speaking out his suffering and twisting his body, feeling fire in his brain. The wife is worried, "Doctor - he doesn't seem to be getting better, but worse!" and, "Doctor, what was in that hypo?"
Buckley frightens his wife, who tumbles into the laboratory, then he jumps at the fake doctor, overpowering him and throwing him to the ground easily despite being a smaller man.
Maria Altura, in a long, white negligee, walks in from behind a folding screen, and is immediately abducted.
Mrs. Buckley, trying to raise from the floor, sees the late Meirschultz's corpse hid behind the desk, and shouts, "Doctor! What have you done? This looks like murder!..."
He denies, and tries to convince her that it was his assistant who had shot himself. But then, he commits a "lapsus linguae", and says that he killed him to bring him back to life with his experiments.
(27:30) Meanwhile, Maria Altura is being stripped to the waist in an apparent swoon, as Mr. Buckley keeps walking through a wood, screeching like an ape. [The topless stand-in is a brunette with very long hair.]
Mrs. Buckley sums the situation up: "Doctor, I've heard of uncanny experiments but this tops them all. But I think we speak the same language... Am I right? When youll bring your assistant back to life, he will do as you direct. You can do the same with my husband. Only he will do... as I direct."
(28:32) In the woods, Buckley is upon his victim, apparently strangling her to death, or worse.
Maxwell decides he must bring the real doctor back, but first, he has to find out the formula.
Maxwell is distracted again, this time by his Neighbor (Uncredited), a man who was calling after two of his cats that had escaped from the house. Maxwell denies using cats for his experiments, stating, "I think too much of Satan to use cats for experiments."Meanwhile, in the laboratory, Satan had got out of his favourite pillow, overturned the jar, and eaten the heart [in a heavily cut scene]. Maxwell is undecided about his priorities, and now decides to dispose of the body. He carries the corpse downstairs to the basement. While he works feverishly to hide the corpse behind a wall of bricks, he sees Satan spying on him from the stairs, and chases the cat mounting the steps cat-like. Finally he corners Satan, grabs forcefully at the animals head and pressing with his thumbs, he dislodges the cats left eyeball.
(32:02) [The stand-in cat for Satan is the ginger cat seen earlier, who had been a one-eyed cat before this scene.] Once free, the stand-in cat jumps against a glass window, breaking it, and disappears.
When Maxwell looks down and finds the cat's eyeball on the ground, he compares it to an oyster, or a grape, "But the gleam is gone! Ah! Ah! Ah!" And eats it. Then, he returns to the basement, and finishes sealing Dr. Meirschultz's body inside the brick wall of his basement.(32:55) PARANOIAC This is an extremely rare but very serious disease. Characteristics of it are fixed suspicions, persecutory delusions. The paranoiac is often particularly dangerous because of the difficulty of detecting his disease.Distracted by his inner phantasms, Maxwell stops adding bricks to the wall for a moment, just in time for Satan to dart inside, joining his late owner. Next morning, Detective Collins is the neighbourhood asking questions, first from a Woman sweeping her frontporch, and then a Man who has a cat breeding farm; nothing useful comes out of it, except that shots were heard but were not reported, and that may be they were not heard at all.
Cat Breeder Neighbor: "I have everything figured out. You see, rats breed faster than cats; cats skins make good furs; cats eats rats; and rats eat raw meat; but that means they eat the carcass of the cats. So, the rats eat the cats, the cats eat the rats, and I get the skins..."
Detective Collins: "Rats eating cats! Well, that IS news."
Cat Breeder Neighbor: (Gleeful) "Simple ain't it..."
Detective: "Did you hear any gunshots last night?" Cat Breeder Neighbor: "I dunno..."(36:15) Maxwell had forgotten all about his wife, and her, him - until...
This films inter-title introduces a living room with three young women in various degrees of undress, plus Maizie (JENNY DARK), a blonde who wants to be clean, and is taking her time in the adjoining bathroom. Alice Maxwell (THEO RAMSEY) is a plump silver blonde who rents the apartment (and looks and speaks like Mae West); Jo (CELIA McCANN) is a pretty, long haired brunette with a funny, shrill voice; and Marvel (MARVEL ANDRE) is a beautiful young blonde, in knickers and skin-colour bra, doing gymnastics. The brunette is ironing some underwear, Alice takes off her dark robe and is using an electric equipment to massage her buttocks and belly, while Maizie who had changed her bath towel for a flimsy negligee sits, reading the newspaper. Then, Maizie reads from the newspaper that some man died in Australia, living a fortune to his nephew, Maxwell, a well known impersonator artist who has disappeared. With good reason, Alice remembers her fugitive husband, and that the last she heard of him, he was staying with that good professor...
[There's a cut scene, in which detective Collins informs Mrs. Buckley that her husband has been found in a very serious condition, near a dying woman, and that Dr. Meirschultz is suspect of wrong doing. She tells a false story about what had taken place at the laboratory, covering up both for her husband, and for the Doctor.]
(39:45) Alice goes to Dr. Meirschultz's and is received by her husband in disguise; she tells him that Maxwell has inherited a fortune, and she wants to reunite with him. He dismisses her, saying that her husband will be there by 8 p.m.(40:20) MANIC DEPRESSIVE PSYCHOSIS is the lead of the next piece of scientific text. There are three phases of the manic-depressive psychosis: the manic phase, the depressed phase, and the mixed phase. In the manic phase, ideas come so rapidly that there is no time to select the proper reaction and judgement accordingly appears impaired. Such patients are often liable to commit sex offenses.There's a moment of fantasy, in which the false Doctor fancies to be kissing a young, long haired Brunette Patient, who had come to him for an injection. She is seen wearing only large cotton knickers, peering from behind a folding screen; and then, sitting on a table covered with a white bedshit, incongruously wrapped up in a black negligee. [She is the stand-in for Maria Altura in the rape scene.]
Next, Don Maxwell (WILLIAM WOODS), speaking to himself, is fascinated with the gleam in the Patient's eyes, and he recalls the gleam in Mrs. Buckley's eyes, and concludes that it means she wanted to kill her husband. The same gleam in Alice's eyes means that she wanted to kill him, when she came searching for Maxwell. "She wants to murder me thats what she wants to do!" (The long clawed hands of Pluto and other devils reappear in an insert, superimposed to the scene.) He forms a plan to get rid of both women.He starts by telling Mrs. Buckley (PHYLLIS DILLER) that she must help him, that Mrs. Maxwell (THEA RAMSEY) is crazy, and shell be here any minute. She thinks I murdered her husband! To prevent her from goping to the police with such an accusation, he needs help. "Down in the basement, there is a secret vault! We will put her down there. You will quieten her by jabbing this in her arm (placing an hypodermic syringe in Mrs. Buckleys right hand), and in the meantime, I'll go get Buckley."
"It sounds alright - except the fact that she's crazy," objects Buckley's wife.
Foot steps announce the approaching Alice Maxwell, and the false doctor dismisses the woman's objection lightly, sending her to the next room.
In his interview with Alice, Maxwell tells her that her husband told him he was ready to go with her to get the inheritance, but first there is a dangerous woman in the bext room, who puts both their lives in danger. "I will take her to a room downstairs, I will give her a shot, and you'll take care of her until Im back."
"What about me getting help? (listening) She is quiet now, isn't she?"
Maxwell cuts in, "Yeah, but she can break up any minute. She is not afraid of a woman, so if she happens to get wild, just shove this into her arm. (placing an hypodermic needle in her hand) Keep it, and all will be well."
Maxwell puts his hands on his wife's shoulder, as he walks her to the adjoining room. He enters first, and says in an unnecessary high voice: "Alright, Mrs. Buckley. We'll go downstairs now, I've a special treatment down there!..."
The fortyish woman goes in front, wearing long coat and a design hat, plus a fox fur wrapped around her neck and a large ring in her middle finger, followed shortly by Alice, wearing dark jacket and long skirt and a hat. They had not time to see each other, and as they go down the staircase to the basement, Mrs. Buckley, turns around a couple of times trying to see the twenty-something woman behind her. Her husband follows her, but then he quickly turns back, closing the trap door on both women, who suddenly find themselves in the dark basement, alone with a candle light and a couple of rats.(45:45m) Fear leads them to lose control, and to attack each other wildly. The screaming will be heard all through the entire sequence, and despite they are closed in a basement without walls, the noise can be heard in the laboratory, too. Mrs. Buckley screams, and turns around, hitting Mrs. Maxwells arm, who loses her syringe that rolls between the feet of the entangled pair. Alice jumps at the other woman, grabbing her arms and making her lose her hold in her own hypo. [The syringes with the deadly venom will be seen occasionally on the floor, but never re-taken.] They shove each other around, then Alice tries to strangle the older woman.
Upstairs, Maxwell is going even more mad, and laughing maniacally (insert images of clawed hands reappear).
The Cat Breeder Neigbor comes to spy through a window, and disappears in fear of the look on the false doctors face.
Alice goes down on her rump, but as she is grabbing her attackers arms, she has the leverage to get up on the rebound as Buckley stands back. Alice throws down Buckleys wife, and looks for some kind of weapon in the filthy basement, plunged into darkness, and rat infested. The older woman is fast to get up, and goes after Alice, who turns around to face her foe. Face to face, they grab each others by the neck, strangling each other. In the fierce struggle, both disentangle their necks, and slap each other to face and body. The older woman wrestles Alice down, and pulls her jacket, effectively stripping it off the jacket of the blonde, leaving her in a white shirt, that she rips with her clawing fingers. Alice goes down twice, and stands up again, her breathing hard, coming to hands again with the other woman. This time, Alice sprangs up from the floor, and the two women engage in a double head-lock, going down together, first hard, on their knees, then twisting sideways, slumping to the floor in a close embrace, and rolling around for a moment. Alice seems to dominate the fight, staying on top for a moment, and punching her foe twice. she forces Mrs. Buckley in a tight clinch, both grabbing the opponents neck to breaking point, and tumble and roll entwined and screeching. Alice disengages, and applies a couple of punches to the fallen foe.In the night, three cops on motorcycles precede a 1927 Studebaker Commander police car, all sirens on - possibly called by the curious neighbour.
In the down and dirty room, the two women keep on their fight; Alice shoves Buckley onto her back against some boxes in a corner, punches her and, as Buckley screams out in pain and disoriented, Alice gets a baseball bat from behind her, and bashes it onto Mrs. Buckleys head - missing, and hitting the wall instead. The second blow is more effective, but delivered by a very tired arm. (Insert of a flying pidgeon.) Buckley manages to stand-up and punch Alice, who falls against a shelf full of glass jars and laboratory equipment. The shelves fall on Alices head, knocking her out momentarily, and the vials break up noisily on the ground.The police vehicles stop by Dr. Meirschultz's place, and two detectives and two uniformed cops go in without knocking on the door. Mrs. Buckley grabs the stunned Mrs. Maxwell by the scruff of her neck with her left hand, and proceeds to strangle her with her right. Alice is almost finished, as her foe stands, picks up a flower pot, and bashes her head with it. Alice still has strength to scream out loud enough to be heard upstairs by the police.
On hearing the woman's scream, Inspector Jones gets inquisitive.
Maxwell candidly enough, assumes its two of his patients who are battling it out in the basement.
"What kind of place is this, anyway?" asks the detective.
Maxwell, trying to explain it in a few words, argues that "These women have the gleam!"
The detective finds the way to the basement and goes down, followed by the two cops forcing the mad man between them.
When the police arrive, the two women are on their knees, still fighting. A police in uniform grabs Buckleys arms, and pulls her off Alice and towards the staircase. The plainclothes detective helps Mrs. Maxwell up and holds her in the opposite corner.
(48:15) The policemen ear another scream from behind the brick wall, and since the fake doctor is not offering any sensible explanation, they bring the wall down. The doctor is there all right, and moving; but thats because of Satan the cat that is standing on his right shoulder. Satan jumps away, and the corpse falls forward, breaking the rest of the brick wall. The film ends with a last scientific text(48:55) COMPLEX: Manias are created by inability to adjust to the world as it is. Insanity is our defence against a world which is not of our making or to our liking. The normal person can make such an adjustment. It is not always easy, but it is being done constantly. The person of inferior mental capacity can not do this. He therefore creates a world in his mind which is his own idea of the world of his choice. He retreats to this world whenever the other world becomes unbearable. This explains the periods of rationalism all mental cases have. The periods of rationalism depends upon the unbearableness of the real world. There are many people of sound mind who find one particular thing unbearable. When this is the case, he is said to be a victim of such a complex.Maxwell is more calm now, behind bars - and he starts a speech on insanity recalling the gleam! He claims he did not want to be a criminal, he only wanted "...to amuse, to entertain. Dr. Meirschult'z is my brilliant impersonation!" (50:55m)

Review: The plot is certainly loopy, but not beyond following._Maniac_ is not a "good" film, but I would not put it anywhere near the running for worst movie of all time.
That honor should be reserved for complete disasters like _Manos, The Hands of Fate_, _Robot Monster_ (which is probably the ultimate "so bad it's good" film), _Glen or Glenda_, _Big Jim McLain_, _Ninja Wars_, _The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant_, or _Dracula vs.
The over the top acting, ludicrous but somehow clever dialogue, and nightmarish imagery (raving madmen superimposed over footage from silent horror classics, way ahead of its time gratuitous nudity, people being shot up with hypodermics the size of harpoons, and a killer catfight between two ferocious and seemingly indestructible women) all combine into a unique and surreal viewing experience.
There's a couple of gratuitous topless shots--- one of which makes absolutely no sense and Esper has spliced in some (probably, no undoubtedly better) silent movie into the scene where Maxwell goes nutzoid at the end.
but Maniac makes the worst drivel spewed out by Educational Films and PRC look like art.
All right, I admit that "Reefer Madness" had continuity one could follow; but after you lose interest in 'counter-culture' naughtiness, that movie does get a little dull quite often.The thing I like about "Maniac" is that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Nor is there any relationship established between these and the recurrent dictionary definitions of various psychoses that appear on title cards with syrupy strings playing in the background.And of course none of it's believable in anyway - especially the make-up when the killer 'disguises' himself as the mad scientist.However, I will say that the pacing here is swift, the dialog hilarious, the acting overwrought to the point of pure self-parody, and, after all, folks - it's only 51 minutes.And it only cost me $2 - one just has to do one's shopping more carefully..
I don't know if it was real--the cat didn't seem to mind much so I doubt it was.This has the feel of an Ed Wood exploitation opus--all over the place story-wise (a guy impersonates a mad doctor to promote his own mad ideas and a lot of people aren't thrilled with it, and some end up dead).
At one point in the beginning of the movie, the mad scientist says to his apprentice:  "Once a ham, always a ham...."  And that pretty much sums up the "dramatic" aspirations of this film.Beyond that, though (and overlooking the cliched and ridiculous plot), the discerning trash aficionado will find a treasure trove of delights.
Many of the classic scenes from "Maniac" have been commented uponhere, I think my favorite is the man who thinks he is the gorilla killerfrom Poe's "Murder In The Rue Morgue." There's a story there, but I'mnot sure I want to know it..
I'm not sure how anyone who would invest the time to watch a movie like this would dislike Maniac.
Some people complain that the actors are overacting, but I find that to be the case in almost all of these old films, unlike today's horror movies which boast plenty of under-acting, I find the former much more enjoyable than the latter.
******SPOILER****** At first sight "Maniac" seems to be some kind of educational film about the causes and effects of mental illness with a forward to the movie about the mind and how it works and effects us in our everyday way of life.
But as soon as you see Dr. Meirschultz, Horace Carpenter, and his assistant Maxwell, Bill Woods, and how insane they act in Dr. Meirschultz's laboratory you start to realize that your in for a long and bumpy ride on the Loony Express."Maniac" would have been effective just as an unintentional comedy if there was a sense of continuity to the story.
Where you can at least follow and understand just whats happening no matter how nutty the story is; but there are at least two giant gaps in it.The first plot-hole has to do with Maxwell, a failed actor, whom Dr. Meirschultz seems to have something on him in regard to his being on the lamb from the police.Yet the movie never bothers to explains why?
In another confusing scene in the movie Buckley, Ted Edwards, kidnaps the zombie-like Maria El'tura whom Dr. Meirschultz had brought back to life and takes off in the woods with her were we last see both of them.
At the end of the film we see Maxwell behind bars raving mad and obviously insane bragging about how he fooled the world with his brilliant impersonation of Dr. Meirschultz.
P.S Due Hollywood's failed attempt to explain the reasons and causes of mental illness to the movie-going public "Maniac" lost out to "It Happened One Night" for best film of the year in 1934..
From its ham-handed exposition (Mad professor to psychotic aide: "You're always telling me about your impersonations...why don't you impersonate the coroner?") to its duh-obvious script (Wife, regarding her out-of-control husband, who has been injected with something very bad: "Doctor - he doesn't seem to be getting better, but worse!"), this is a classic of its kind - and may be the only film OF its kind!
I could not belive what i had seen when i finished watching this.i had to watch it again straight away and my fears were confirmed,i had just seen (TWICE) the worst film ever made.if you are a fan of b-movies dont miss this one,it makes ROBOT MONSTER look like STAR WARS and any ed wood films are like spielbergs compared to this.The acting is terrible throughout the film and the scene where ted edwards is injected with the wrong hypodermic has to be seen to be belived.A classic of ultra bad film making,buy it today and be amazed..
It just doesn't happen often!As far as an exploitation film, it's not as good as, say, Cannibal Holocaust, but it's not as bad as an exploitation-wannabe like Glen or Glenda.A must see for anyone that can appreciate a movie, plain and simple.
Maniac (1934) BOMB (out of 4)Dwain Esper "directs" this notoriously awful horror/exploitation film about an insane vaudeville actor (Bill Woods) who murders a doctor (Horace B.
Carpenter) and then takes over his role, which just leads to women fighting, cat's eyes being ripped out and worse.When people think about the horror films from the 30s their minds usually go towards the Universal films.
After that stuff like FREAKS, MARK OF THE VAMPIRE or even WHITE ZOMBIE will come up but something like MANIAC also need to be discussed because it's clearly the worst horror film of the decade and one of the wackiest movies ever made.
The only thing this movie wants to do is shock you with insane scenes including a doctor pulling out a cat's eye and eating it!
You've got women fighting with needles and a scene of women getting dressed that really stands out in a film like this.Not only is the story insane but so are the performances.
MANIAC is a really, really awful movie but thankfully it's so bad that you can't help but laugh and have a great time with it.
This clunker is probably worse than anything Ed Wood made.....yeah this movie sucks bad.But at least it's so bad it's watchable and you'll wonder who on Earth would or could make such a horrible mess.A crazy assistant to a crazy scientist kills the scientist and assumes his identity using cleverly applied make up.Well it wasn't that cleverly done as the young lab assistant didn't really look like the old scientist but he still seemed to fool everyone in the picture.Anyway in trying to pull off his scheme ,whatever it was,the assistant manages to mistakenly create a crazed lunatic who proceeds to attack and carry off a woman who had been raised from the dead by the scientist before he was killed.Actually I'm not too sure about the plot.It sort of wandered all over the place.The crazed man wandered off in the woods carrying the woman.While carrying her he makes a clumsy swipe to get her nightie off her breasts and I think he made another swipe even after the nightie was already down, raking nothing but boob.And I thought he was crazy!Anyway the crazed man plot is forgotten after the boobies are seen and we move on to something else that may be the plot for a few scenes.......And all during the movie descriptions of mental diseases, using the clunky understanding they had of mental problems back in 1934, were being shown on the screen and then it was right back to the movie.The sets were actually pretty creepy looking.....of course black and white was always the best for horror films anyway and the old dark lab and the underground chambers were pretty cool.A couple of other things make this film at least watchable.....breasts!
That's right ,besides the above described scene there are a few other scenes of bare breasts despite being such an old film.Of course like most films with bare breasts,the only reason to have bare breasts is .....well....to show bare breasts.Also there is a scene where a cat gets it's eyeball popped out and then the crazy lab assistant eats it----I guess to show he was really ,really crazy.Besides the disjointed nonsensical plot the script was awful and the acting was as bad as any movie I've ever see.I mean these guys make Steven Seagal look like a master thespian.An actress in the opening credits was named Phyllis Diller but I'm trying to figure out the math.This stinker was made in 1934,and Diller is in her early 90's today I think and in the film from 74 years ago she would have been 20 or so but she already looked 50 years old so I'm puzzled.Surely there can't have been two Phyllis Dillers?
Oh well all that stuff is what makes a film like this fun to watch.Unlike it's later bad horror movie cousins in the 1950's,at least this movie has some nudity to save it from being a complete waste.(An update-- further research revealed that the Phyllis Diller in this movie is NOT the comedienne Phyllis Diller.Who would have guessed that there were two?).
Being a former Vaudeville star, the assistant uses his makeup skills to become the dead professor and carries on his work while going completely mad.It seems most people consider this film awful.
To the best of my knowledge, Horace Carpenter didn't have an accent (and the one he uses in the movie is god-awful!) But the lines sound like they were meant for a central-European actor...especially one given to long tirades.As for the assistant?
When it's suddenly realized by the assistant that the mad doctor will be missed by his patients (which could get this guy into serious trouble), he uses his old skills as a Vaudeville performer and makes himself look like the doctor he killed.
Still, it was the first time I have actually seen a genuine, authentic black-and-white movie from the 1930s that featured such images as a psycho prying a cat's eye out and eating it (a special effect, but still surely nastier than hell for the time), or another raving loony tearing the clothes off of a big-breasted zombie woman, showing her bare essentials right to the camera.
To watch 'Maniac' is as if the Production Code had never happened, as it abounds with such brazen flouting of the Code as four young cuties sitting about in their scanties discussing current stories in the press in surprisingly highfalutin language, a couple of fleeting glimpses of bare breasts, eyewatering and jawdropping violence such as a scene involving cruelty to a cat lifted (along with much of the rest of the plot) from Poe's 'The Black Cat' and a remarkably energetic, hair-pulling, clothes-ripping catfight in a cellar between Thea Ramsey & Phyllis Diller that escalates from hypodermics to a baseball bat.
Maxwell is an actor, but he's not very good, which is why he's actually working as a lab assistant to a mad scientist who is intent on bringing the dead back to life and performing illegal transplants.
The mad scientist is all about shouting and laughing and screaming and blackmailing Maxwell to dress up as the coroner, or sneak into an undertakers to steal bodies (a truly weird scene, as we get to see cats fighting each other, and dogs fighting catswho knows why).
"Sex Maniac") of 1934 may be a bad film with an absolutely moronic plot, but that does not decrease the fact that it is almost unbelievably nasty for the time it was made.
This film features insanity and perversion, and an amount of sleaze, gore and nudity that is astonishing for its time and must have been scandalous beyond belief back then.Don Maxwell (Bill Woods) is a former vaudevillian actor and master of disguise, who works as a laboratory assistant for the slightly mad, body-snatching scientist Dr. Meierschultz (Horrace B.
The plot concerns a mad scientist and his even nuttier assistant – cue some of the most florid, yet oddly enjoyable, overacting in movie history – who steal a fresh corpse from the morgue (looking more like the basement of Dracula's castle!) in order to revive it by transplanting a beating human heart the doc has somehow acquired.
Also worth mentioning is the liberal but totally irrelevant use of footage from two Silent masterworks – Benjamin Christensen's HAXAN (1922) and Fritz Lang's THE NIBELUNGEN (1924) – in an attempt to emphasize the lead character's deranged state-of-mind, and also the abhorrent treatment of cats on display – among the film's most infamous sequences is that in which a feline has one of its eyes ripped out and eaten (though a completely different and apparently half-blind animal was used expressly for this shot!) but when it is violently thrown against a sheet of glass, this seems all-too-real!!
The plot, if you can make sense of it, involves a mad doctor who wants to bring the dead back to life, but also throws in some Edgar Allan Poe, in particular his "The Black Cat".
Bare breasted women, sexual assault, animals fighting plus an eye gouging & eating scene makes this an early exploitation movie.
I watched "Maniac" last night on my 50 Classic Horror Films DVD collection.
The violence against the reanimated suicide girl was one of the most shocking things I've ever seen in film outside of "I Spit On Your Grave" and far outdoing the much-maligned "Straw Dogs." I don't think this precise scene (in the woods) would be allowed in a trashy cult movie today.
Don Maxwell is an ex-vaudeville ham, wanted by police, who has now found himself as the unlikely assistant to Dr. Meirschultz, a mad scientist in the business of reanimating corpses.
Don Maxwell is an ex-vaudeville ham, wanted by police, who has now found himself as the unlikely assistant to Dr. Meirschultz, a mad scientist in the business of reanimating corpses.
Don Maxwell is an ex-vaudeville ham, wanted by police, who has now found himself as the unlikely assistant to Dr. Meirschultz, a mad scientist in the business of reanimating corpses.
This piece of insanity is the work of Dwain Esper, perhaps the granddaddy of bad movie making, the precursor of such other infamous names as Ed Wood or Doris Wishman.
MANIAC is even worse than his other brainchild, REEFER MADNESS or MARIHUANA,THE DEVIL'S WEED (1936), probably the first film to deal with the effects of marijuana, although Esper's NARCOTIC (1933) covered various kinds of narcotics, I'm not exactly sure if marijuana is covered too (haven't seen that one yet).
Because Dwain Esper wanted it that way.What follows are the infamous cat eye-popping scene, a catfight with two drugged women using baseball bats, homicide, some bare-breasted women, some incredible examples of over-acting and lots more.
With lines like "What I want is a victim with a shattered heart", and "What was IN that hypo?", this X-rated "B" movie is in a league of it's own.That's not to say the film was bad, or even in the "so bad it's good" category.
If you thought it couldn't get any more gross, well just wait a second, and you'll witness mad doc impersonator Don Maxwell (Bill Woods) munch it down for maximum effect.You've got things here you never expect to see - cats chasing mice, cats fighting each other, women fighting each other in a different version of cat fight, hypodermic needles, a dead body bricked up behind a wall, and more, so much more you won't believe what you're viewing.
There's even a dead woman brought back to life, which by the time the film is over, you realize is one of the more believable elements of the story.Chalk this one up to one rare movie going experience.
Positively strange portrait of dementia features Bill Woods as an insane vaudeville actor, Don Maxwell, working as the assistant of a deranged scientist, Dr. Meirschultz(Horace B carpenter) desiring to reanimate the dead.
I say if you've seen enough movies and are tired of the cookie cutter Hollywood films, and want to watch twisted scenes, and even fathom what is going on in the filmmaker's mind to make such a film, and can find some humor in the performances, then you should see this movie.Basic story, mad scientist with a vaudeville performer hiding from the police as an assistant, going to the morgue to inject a serum to a recently dead woman to bring her back to life.
You Will Feel Like a Maniac Just Watching This Movie.
Maniac: 1 out of 10: Mad scientist and a vaudevillian actor raise people from the dead, torture animals and rape woman in this I'm guessing pre-code film what with all the nudity, rape, murder, and animal torture.The Good: There are educational title cards that seem to pop up at random and are quite interesting about the state of mental illness in the mid-thirties.The Bad: The acting...
This early '30s Maniac is one weird film even for bad movie buffs.