|
|
Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 4, No. 43 |
|
DR. RENAULT'S SECRET A HORROR GEM FROM 1942 |
||
|
Finally on video at last:
A forgotten horror gem
of TheColumnists.com
One by one, the rare gems of the horror movie genre are clawing their way out of their moldy graves and walking again...in the home video market. To wit: "Dr. Renault's Secret," an atmospheric little chiller made by 20th Century-Fox in 1942 as a "programmer" for double bills.
This tightly-crafted horror film is now available for $19.95 in a high quality DVD edition via Sinister Cinema, the mail order specialist in genre movies from the past. Located in Medford, Oregon, Sinister Cinema produces reasonably priced editions of the more obscure genre classics, packaged in their own attractive boxes and produced from the best available copies of the original films.
If you find a mainstream film catalog that lists "Dr. Renault's Secret," it probably won't be rated very highly because it doesn't have a highly original plot and features second tier stars George Zucco and J. Carrol Naish, who usually played supporting roles in films starring the real big names in the genre. (Zucco and Naish, for instance, played support to Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. in Universal's "House of Frankenstein" in 1944.)
But that didn't stop me from seriously craving a copy of this movie, which I hadn't seen since its original release, when I was a little brat of three or four years. Naturally, I didn't remember much about it--except that it ended with a furious battle in an old mill with a slowly-turning waterwheel.
Now I'm proud to discover my childhood instincts were on the mark. I can see why "Dr. Renault's Secret" scared me so much in 1942. It's beautifully photographed with lots of sinister shadows on some very atmospheric sets--and it boasts a very good performance by Naish, the underrated film actor who's best remembered as the star of the 1940s radio comedy show "Life with Luigi."
The movie owes much of its plot to H.G. Wells' classic horror novel "Island of Dr. Moreau," which was filmed masterfully in 1932 as "Island of Lost Souls" and less masterfully in 1977 and 1996 under its original title. The "secret" of Dr. Renault (Zucco) is that he has turned a captured ape into a human being (Naish), who now lumbers about Renault's compound in rural France as a rather surly manservant.
When a young, handsome
scientist (John Shepperd) turns up to claim Renault's daughter
(Lynne Roberts) as his bride, Renault orders him killed and sends
two of his henchmen to do the job at the nearest inn, where the
traveller has been stranded by a washed-out bridge and a power
failure. The henchmen are the ape-like Naish and the equally
ape-like Mike Mazurki, the former pro wrestler-turned movie heavy,
who has no excuse for his simian qualities since the doctor didn't
convert him from a gorilla.
In order to make a story like this produce thrills, the director
(Harry Lachman) and the cinematographer (Virgil Miller) need
to get stylish and use shadows and angles effectively, which
they do in "Dr. Renault's Secret." They're also aided
much by a moody score by David Raksin and Emil Newman. Raksin
would produce the haunting score of Fox's "Laura" just
two years later.
But the greatest assist comes from Naish, who seems to take the role of the ape-man very seriously. He invests his performance with the same air of pathos Lon Chaney gave Quasimodo in "Hunchback of Notre Dame." Naish knows he's not a regulation human and yet he's no longer an ape either. He's a man with no real intimate friends and nowhere to go except into the cage Dr. Renault locks him up in whenever he shows a little spunk.
Naish's ape-man also has developed a strong feeling for Renault's daughter, who has always treated him with kindness and respect, though unaware of the fact that he used to be a jungle animal. Consequently, his painful eyes are always filled with longing when she's around. If you want to get him riled up, just call him "monkey" or put a hand on that lovely young woman.
"Dr. Renault's Secret" is only 58 minutes long, the standard "just about an hour" length for films designed to be the lower half of a double bill. That means it gets to the point pretty quickly and doesn't muck about with minor details like character development or back story. If you come to it expecting a programmer, you should be pleasantly surprised by the quality execution of what might have been an intolerable "quickie" if it hadn't been made at a major studio instead of a "poverty row" grist mill like Monogram or PRC.
You can order "Dr. Renault's Secret" or write for the company catalog from Sinister Cinema, P.O. Box 4369, Medford, OR, 97501-0168. Their phone number is 541-773-6860 and their website is at www.sinistercinema.com.
Ron Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently teaches classes in mystery and related topics at Whatcom Community College and Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.
| Home | About Us | Archives | Talkback | Shopping Mall |