Tag: Duke Mitchell

The Gorilla (1939)

THE GORILLA (1939) *

When you have Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill in the cast, make them supporting players, and focus instead on the Ritz Brothers and Patsy Kelly, I call that a major failure.

The Gorilla, distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox and not surprisingly based on a stage play given the film’s limited sets and overall stagy feel, made that very choice. Lugosi earns more laughs than the execrable Ritz Brothers just by playing it straight. Yes, I found Al, Jimmy, and Harry execrable, as they fumbled bumbled and stumbled their way and I conversely grumbled my way through The Gorilla, a horror comedy that fails miserably at both genres. I read the Ritz Brothers walked away from The Gorilla because of the shoddy quality of the script and that’s never a good sign when the stars themselves grumble. They were right, though, because The Gorilla is shoddy, but the Ritz Brothers don’t get let off the hook. Not so fast.

The Ritz Brothers have been called a poor man’s Marx Brothers. No way, they’re not even good enough for that. Granted, to be fair, The Gorilla marked my first exposure to Al, Jimmy, and Harry, so maybe they did their best work elsewhere. Based on The Gorilla, though, I could not differentiate between Al, Jimmy, and Harry, who might as well be any Tom, Dick, and Harry off the street. They blended into one grating personality. I mean, Groucho, Harpo, and Chico created their own distinctive trademark comic personalities and they provided us a wealth of great comic material when they worked at their best (Horse Feathers, Duck Soup).

Laurel and Hardy did this horror comedy number much, much, much better in the 28-minute The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case from 1930. Watching The Gorilla, there’s one recurring gag involving a chair, a desk, a light, and disappearance that specifically makes it clear The Gorilla ripped off The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case, which parodies silent films The Cat and the Canary and The Bat. Paramount released a The Cat and the Canary remake starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard on Nov. 10, 1939, only about five-and-a-half months after The Gorilla.

We’ve all seen The Gorilla before, possibly many times before, through other movies, not only the fumbling bumbling stumbling detectives but also the maid who loves to shriek in just about every other scene, the wealthy uncle and the lovely young niece and her male friend and the inheritance plot, the butler who did not do it but who seems to show up at exactly the wrong time so he becomes an obvious suspect for the murders afoot, and both a killer named ‘The Gorilla’ and a real gorilla escaped from the local zoo on the loose and in the same house.

I believe that we talked about Lugosi and his great cinematic love for apes and gorillas back when I reviewed Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. I gave that one three stars, but it actually has almost a full point lower average rating than The Gorilla on Internet Movie Database. Big whoop! I found Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin knockoffs Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell a whole lot more endearing and funny than Al, Jimmy, and Harry Ritz, and Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla is not a snooze fest hopelessly dedicated to one set like The Gorilla.

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952)

LUGOSI GORILLA 1953 OWENSBORO

BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA (1952) Three stars

They don’t make bad movies like BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA any more and that should bring sadness to genuine bad movie connoisseurs everywhere.

It was filmed in six days with a mighty mighty production budget of $12,000. (I have read other reports that have the film down for nine days and $50,000.)

William “One Shot” Beaudine (1892-1970) directed BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA and his credits between film and TV amounted to a staggering 372 with his final theatrical features JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER and BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA both released in 1966. Beaudine’s directorial career began in 1915, the year of D.W. Griffith’s landmark feature THE BIRTH OF A NATION; in fact, Beaudine assisted Griffith on both THE BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE (1916).

Beaudine is not the only legendary Hollywood figure associated with BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA.

We have, of course, Mr. Lugosi, no stranger to bad movies, especially in the later stages of his career. He always played a good game, though, and never failed in elevating anything that he was in. One of the all-time greats, Lugosi (1882-1956) even gave great performances in death in both the Kinks’ “Celluloid Heroes” (“Avoid stepping on Bela Lugosi / ‘Cause he’s liable to turn and bite”) and especially Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA does not represent peak Lugosi, of course, and it’s not even as good Lugosi as Ed Wood’s GLEN OR GLENDA and BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, but any Lugosi is still good Lugosi.

Martin Landau, who earned an Academy Award for portraying Lugosi in ED WOOD, said that he prepared for his role by watching BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA three times (hopefully not in a row). Landau said the film was so bad that it made Ed Wood’s films seem like GONE WITH THE WIND by comparison. Now, there’s a pull quote for the ads: “Makes Ed Wood’s films seem like GONE WITH THE WIND.”

Lugosi made THE GORILLA in 1939 with the Ritz Brothers and Lionel Atwill and THE APE MAN in 1943, a film directed by Beaudine. All three ape films are public domain.

No, please wait, we have not even got to the best part yet. There’s nightclub duo Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell, who play themselves in BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA. They are really playing Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, though, and you might be forgiven for mistaking Petrillo for Lewis and Mitchell for Martin if you missed the opening credits.

I raised my grade by at least one star once I found out that Martin and Lewis considered suing Petrillo and Mitchell for appropriating (misappropriating) their act for BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA.

From a 1952 story by the United Press’ Aline Mosby, “The latest ‘Martin and Lewis’ are Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo. They look, talk, laugh, and sing like Dean and Jerry, and they’re in the movies now, too. … Mitchell and Petrillo have the same haircuts, expressions, gestures and even ancestries of Martin, who’s Italian, and Lewis, who is Jewish.”

Mitchell and Petrillo insisted they did not see any resemblance. (Despite the film poster, “They look like Martin & Lewis … You’ll not know the difference … but they are really SAMMY PETRILLO DUKE MITCHELL.”)

After stating that Charlie Chaplin was the only original comic and everybody in show business is a combination of everybody else anyway, Petrillo added, “If it wasn’t for Minosha Skulnic, Harry Ritz and Gene Bayless, Jerry Lewis wouldn’t have an act. And that trick he does with his upper lip he got from Huntz Hall.”

“I’m a combination of Billy Daniels, Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaughn,” Mitchell said. “Sometimes I get up to sing and I feel like Vaughn Monroe. Nothing’s original in show business. Who do you think Martin is? Crosby. Mel Torme’s like Sinatra, and he did all right.”

Mitchell and Petrillo only made BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA and Martin and Lewis split in 1956 after 17 films together beginning with MY FRIEND IRMA (1949).

Mitchell died in 1981, Martin 1995, Petrillo 2009, and Lewis 2017.

BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA is one of those movies where you can remember Leonard Maltin’s entire review, let’s see here, “BOMB. One of the all-time greats. Mitchell and Petrillo (the very poor man’s Martin and Lewis) are stranded on a jungle island, where Lugosi is conducting strange experiments. Proceed at your own risk.”

After positive reviews for THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN, KING KUNG FU, THE KILLING OF SATAN, and TROLL 2, I see no problem writing one for BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA, although I have mentioned that it’s a bad movie several times. C.M.A., that’s all, folks.