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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 6, No. 37 |
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BOOK & FILM |
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MURDERS in the RUE MORGUE |
 The 1932 film version featured a character not even in the Poe story |
So far, Poe's famous yarn
treated poorly on screen
of TheColumnists.com
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Plot details of the story and the movie versions are disclosed in this column. If you have not read the story or seen the movies, knowing these details may spoil your enjoyment of "Murders in the Rue Morgue." |
It may be the most famous story in the history of the mystery genre--Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue"--but so far filmmakers haven't paid it much respect, not even once in all the versions of the story put on the screen since the birth of the cinema arts.
Published in 1841, Poe's story long ago earned its place in the history of literature by introducing the first real detective character--Auguste Dupin, a young Parisian whose penchant for crime scene analysis quickly set the tone for nearly every police detective, private eye or amateur sleuth who followed him.
Dupin has a sidekick--the nameless narrator of the story--who became the model for all the Dr. Watson's, Capt. Hastings' and Archie Goodwins' who came after him. Dupin also was an eccentric bachelor with peculiar habits, not unlike Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe and so many other "consulting detectives" in mystery fiction.
"Murders in the Rue Morgue" is also a classic "locked room" mystery, a sub-genre of the mystery that flourished for decades after Poe's story first was printed. And these are just a few of the blueprints for mystery stories one can find in the "Rue Morgue" tale.
Basically, the plot is simple. Dupin is fascinated by newspaper accounts of the grisly murders of Madame L’Espanaye, and her daughter, Camille, which took place in the fourth story apartment they shared in a house on the Rue Morgue (Morgue street) in Paris. Many neighbors and passers-by heard a terrible commotion coming from the room, but when they forced their way in, they found neither victims nor assailants.
Later, they discovered the badly-battered corpse of Camille shoved up the chimney so tightly that it took several men to pull the body down. Still later, they found the body of her mother in the yard four stories below, her neck so brutally slashed with a razor that her head came loose when the body was moved.
But how did the killer or killers escape? The door and all windows were locked from the inside. And what was the motive? The killer left behind all the valuables, including a large number of gold pieces, so it wasn't robbery. Yet the mother and daughter did not seem to have any other enemies.
With the permission of the Prefect of Police, Dupin visits the apartment and examines the crime scene closely. He discovers coarse hairs from neither woman's head on the fireplace hearth. He also discovers one window only appeared to be nailed shut, though it fooled the police. And he finds a tall lightning rod someone might have shinied up to gain access to the apartment through that window.
Ultimately, Dupin reasons that no human being could have committed these murders. So, when he reads an advertisement in the newspaper of a man searching for his lost orangutang, he suspects the ape-like creature may have done the crimes. Running his own ad, he attracts the sailor who lost the beast and elicits a confession from him, proving the animal was the murderer.
Little is known about the first film version
of Poe's story, a short silent film shown in 1914-15, but the
first sound version, Universal's 1932 "Murders in the Rue
Morgue," is regarded by many critics as a "horror classic"
and is still seen frequently today. (It's included in a new "Bela
Lugosi Collection" DVD boxed set coming out this month.)
In 1932, Universal studios was just beginning to realize what
financial promise there was in becoming Hollywood’s primary
source for so-called "horror" movies. Starting with
Lon Chaney’s "Phantom of the Opera" in 1925, then
the spectacular back to back success of "Dracula" and
"Frankenstein" in 1931, the studio clearly had shown
great skill in making and marketing such movies.
Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi was still a very hot property for
Universal in 1932 after starring in "Dracula" the previous
year. But Universal needed another established horror story like
"Dracula" or "Frankenstein" to serve as a
vehicle for Lugosi. So, they assigned writers Tom Reed and Dale
Van Every to reshape Poe’s famous detective story into a
horror picture for Lugosi. They then added a third writer to
handle additional dialogue for the picture: Young John Huston,
the son of actor Walter Huston, whose future was especially rosy.
He became a movie director in 1941 with one of the greatest of
all mystery films, "The Maltese Falcon," starring Humphrey
Bogart as Dashiell Hammett's private eye, Sam Spade.
These writers quickly concluded they needed a lot of changes in Poe's story to turn it into a horror vehicle for Lugosi. For instance, there was no character for Lugosi to play in the story, so they made one up: Dr. Mirakle, a mad scientist whose dream is to prove the theory of evolution by mixing the blood of apes with that of humans. Dr. Mirakle does this under his cover as a carnival sideshow entertainer who exhibits a large ape he calls "Erik."
While he delights customers by engaging in spirited "conversations" with the ape in "Erik’s language," he secretly goes about his real business: Snatching prostitutes off the streets of Paris and performing experiments on them in a basement dungeon near the river Seine.
"I'm not a sideshow charlatan," Dr. Mirakle tells his sideshow crowd. He assures them he has consecrated his life to a "great experiment" with this ape and promises those who buy tickets to see Erik will be witnessing "a milestone in the development of life."
Well, ape blood doesn't mix well with hooker blood. His captive hookers all die once injected with simian stuff. (One tormented victim, who dies and is dumped through a trapdoor into the river below, was played by a very young Arlene Francis, later to become one of early television's most beloved personalities on the long-running quiz show "What's My Line?") Naturally, Dr. Mirakle blames it on the hookers because they have "tainted blood."
Soon Dr. Mirakle is attracted by the sweet and innocent Camille. This time she has a boy friend--one "Pierre" Dupin, played by Leon Waycoff, later known as Leon Ames when he became a specialist in "father" roles on the TV shows "Life with Father" and "Father of the Bride." This Dupin is a dippy guy who doesn't look capable of solving a crossword puzzle, but he's the only Dupin we get. He solves the "locked room" mystery pretty much the way Poe's Dupin did, but he gets a special bonus: His "Camille" doesn't get shoved up the chimney. That fate falls to another girl.
The 1932 film ends with the naughty ape carrying Camille over the rooftops of Paris wiht Dupin and the gendarmes in pursuit. He is shot and falls to his death, but not before he kills Dr. Mirakle.
As silly as it sounds--and as disrespectful of Poe's story as it was--the 1932 film looks great because it was filmed with great style by director Robert Florey and has a rich, florid Lugosi performance, his best since "Dracula."
The next version of Poe's story was Warner Bros. 1954 3-D film "Phantom of the Rue Morgue" with Oscar-winner Karl Malden taking over the "mad doctor" role, although playing an entirely new mad scientist character who's also not in the original story. This film has a Dupin, too, but not the right one. This time it's "Paul" Dupin, who's a college professor, played by Steve Forrest, the brother of actor Dana Andrews, who would later become the star of TV's "SWAT."
Again, there's no fealty to the Poe original. Dupin becomes a suspect in the murders perpetrated by an ape Malden keeps in his private zoo. Malden is Dr. Marais, a specialist in "conditioning" animals Pavlov-style. He trains the ape to kill women who wear bracelets equipped with jingling little bells. Once more, the ape is shot to death and manages to kill mad doctor Malden before it gasps its last breath.
The third modern version of Poe's story is the all-time worst: The 1971 "Murders in the Rue Morgue" that doesn't even have a Dupin in it. It takes place in a Grand Guignol-style theater company run by Jason Robards. The bad guy is Herbert Lom, who plays a severely-burned crackpot who's out for vengeance. Lom, who played the Phantom of the Opera, in one of its many remakes, is playing almost the same character in his "Rue Morgue" film.
The most faithful to Poe was the 1986 made-for-TV version starring George C. Scott as an aged, overweight, badly-faded and retired edition of Dupin, who sees an opportunity to resume his detective work if he can solve the Rue Morgue murders. Many of the basic story elements are direct from the Poe story, though finding Scott playing an over-the-hill Dupin in the twilight of his career would be an unpleasant surprise for Poe fans. (Perhaps not as unpleasant, though, as finding Rebecca DeMornay playing Dupin's "daughter" and Val Kilmer as her future husband, a would-be detective.)
Why hasn't anybody ever done the Poe story the way Poe wrote it? Well, I'm sure it's because it wouldn't be any better a movie than the ones I've described above. The original story has very little action and lots of pontificating about Poe's pet theory of "ratiocination," which involves detailed analysis of evidence and theorizing about motives. It's a pretty dull story for today's readers, though not as dull as the only other Dupin stories Poe wrote: "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and "The Purloined Letter."
Poe may have been the father of the detective story, but he'd certainly be on the unemployment line a lot if he were around today and trying to make it as a Hollywood screenwriter.
©2005 by Ron Miller. The illustration is courtesy of Universal studios and MCA Home Video. This column first posted Sept. 19, 2005.
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
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine
and teaches classes in mystery for the Academy of Lifelong Learning
at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or . To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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