The Lady and the Monster
| The Lady and the Monster | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | George Sherman |
| Produced by | George Sherman |
| Written by | Curt Siodmak (novel Donovan's Brain) |
| Screenplay by |
Frederick Kohner Dane Lussier |
| Starring |
Vera Ralston Richard Arlen Erich von Stroheim |
| Music by |
Walter Scharf Marlin Skiles |
| Cinematography | John Alton |
| Edited by | Arthur Roberts |
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Production
company |
Republic Pictures
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| Distributed by | Republic Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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86 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Lady and the Monster is a 1944 American science fiction horror film from Republic Pictures, directed by George Sherman, and starring Vera Ralston, Richard Arlen and Erich von Stroheim.
The film is about the attempts to keep alive the brain of a multimillionaire after his death, only to create a telepathic monster. The man then takes over the medical assistant's mind, and the "lady" of the title has to fight it.
Professor Franz Mueller (Erich von Stroheim) is the proud owner of his self-built advanced scientific laboratory set in an old castle in the middle of the dry Arizona desert. Mueller specializes in research on the human brain and is quite obsessed conducts experiments on brain tissue, believing that a human brain can be maintained even after a man's death. He also believes that the knowledge contained in a deceased person's brain can be transferred to another person.
Mueller is assisted in his attempts to prove his theory by another scientist, Patrick Cory (Richard Arlen), and his young Czechoslovakian-American ward, Janice Farrell (Vera Ralston).
Mueller is painfully aware of the fact that his assistants Cory and Janice are attracted to each other, but since Mueller himself is in love with Janice he does everything in his power, including abusing his powers as a boss to assign Cory to additional late night work and use the fact that the young man is far too devoted to his work, to keep the two love-birds apart and improve his own chances. When a plane crashes in the desert close to the laboratory one night, Mueller is asked by the rangers investigating the crash cause to take care of the only surviving man until a physician arrives. The man dies before the doctor gets there and is declared dead. The physician, Dr. Martin, reassures Mueller that someone will come to take care of the body the next day, but while waiting for that person, Mueller decides to test his theory about brain maintenance. With the help of his instruments Mueller is able to decide that the man's brain is still alive enough to use. Before the body is reclaimed he and Cory removes the brain. They are also able to determine, from searching through the dead man's clothes, that the body belongs to an infamous investment banker named William H. Donovan.
In the morning the wife of the late banker, Mrs. Chloe Donovan (Helen Vinson), arrives with the family lawyer, Eugene Fulton (Sidney Blackmer), to transport the remains from the castle. Upon arrival the lawyer inquires Mueller about the late Donovan's last words and Mueller tells him that there were none, since the man died without regaining his conscience after the crash. Not believing that Mueller is entirely truthful, Fulton remains in the nearby area to further investigate the last hours of Donovan's life before he was declared dead. Despite Janice's pleading Cory insists on staying at the castle to finish the experiment with the brain. Through spying on the castle Fulton finds out that Donovan's brain is still intact in a container, but he doesn't act to retrieve it from the scientists, but lets them continue the experiment, well aware of that Donovan didn't leave a penny for his wife in his will. Fulton has his own interest in the matter, since he is Mrs. Donovan's lover, and he secretly hopes that the scientist succeed in making the brain work, so he can extract information about where Mr. Donovan has hidden away his fortune.
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