[HorrorScience] Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952)

There are many famous actors who have ended up making terrible films in order to be able to keep working on what they love and, at the same time, feed their family. One of the most bloody cases is that of Bela Lugosi, who after becoming world famous for his role in Dracula and having a life of luxury in line with his success, he spent the last years of his life making ridiculous and mediocre films, until he came to work with the considered worst film director in history: Ed Wood Jr.

Despite his fame, Wood was not bad enough to earn that title indisputably; There are hundreds of films by other directors as bad as the ones he made or even worse, and unfortunately in some of those films there was also the fallen idol, Bela “Dracula” Lugosi, like in the film I am going to comment on below.

Originally known as The Boys from Brooklyn and later renamed as Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (to take advantage of the little shine left in Bela's name) we find a film that tries to mix the style of classic horror films with the absurd humor of Jerry Lewis, but without Jerry Lewis, and yes, the combination is as bad as it seems.

The film begins by showing us some images of animals taken from an archive recording (a resource used by many directors in their films and series to fill scenes at no cost), and later we see two Western men named Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo who are found by some natives of the Kola-Kola island, where they are now (and yes, they take advantage of the name of the island to make a joke about Coca Cola). Commanding the tribe of natives appear to be a young girl named Nona, her father Chief Rokkas, and a guy dressed as a toucan. Duke (the handsome and serious one in the movie) and Sammy (the stupid and irritating one who is supposed to make us laugh) are well received by the tribe, so the natives prepare a party for them.

After the party Nona tells Duke that there is a scientist on the island and that maybe he can help them get out of there. For his part, Sammy flees from Nona's huge sister who has become infatuated with him, and during this chase we will once again see some archive images of animals running through the jungle interspersed with Sammy's stupid things.

The next day Nona guides the two boys to the island's castle, where they will meet Dr. Zabor (Bela Lugosi), and as it could not be otherwise, Sammy makes a joke about Dracula, a role that immortalized Lugosi in the 1930s.

Dr. Zabor agrees to help the two boys, and offers them to stay in his castle until he can make preparations to help them leave the island. This is how they discover that apparently Dr. Zabor's experimental subject is related to the evolution of species, which is why he has some monkeys in his laboratory, the monkey Ramona being the main specimen. Later they will meet a collaborator of Dr. Zabor named Pepe Bordo and who is apparently the closest thing to a police officer there is on the island.

The next day, everyone decides to eat together with the tribe's chiefs and at that moment Dr. Zabor will discover that Duke and Nona have a quite personal relationship, which bothers him because he is also interested in her, even though she has rejected him previously.

As it could not be otherwise, the scientist decides to use his evolution experiments to get revenge on Duke, reaching the action part of the film, which will try to entertain us until the end.

It is very difficult for me to rate this film and I may be being slightly unfair to it, but in general terms I would say that it is very bad and on top of that it becomes very tiresome, because there are other bad films that are made more enjoyable and can be entertaining because of how bad they are, but this one has moments that make you desperate, especially because Sammy Petrillo, a run-down Jerry Lewis clone who, instead of being funny, irritates a lot. To make matters worse, the first part of the film includes “musical moments” that don't help pass the time either.

In general terms, the first 30-40 minutes are a film with touches of absurd humor and romance, and the last ones are when it approaches an old-fashioned horror film, with a mad scientist included, although that does not exclude the character of Sammy, who appears constantly at all times, and it does not free us from a resolution as simple as it has been used hundreds of times.

The plot of the film is hilarious, but it is not far from what has been seen in others of the same style, it only becomes more regrettable with the added touches of “humor” and regarding Lugosi, well, he plays his usual role (I don't know how many mad scientists he had played at that point in his career, but I'm sure there were quite a few). It's surprising how seriously he takes his character considering the film's overall ensemble, which includes monkey costumes that rival in pathos the unsurpassed Japanese King Kong from King Kong Vs. Godzilla.

Curiosities about the film:

• This movie was shot in a week.
• Jerry Lewis was on the verge of suing Sammy Petrillo for plagiarism, although he ultimately did not do so.
• In order to be able to credibly portray Bela Lugosi in the film Ed Wood (1994) Martin Landau saw many of his films, including the bad ones. In his own words he had to see 3 times Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla since “he couldn't believe what he had seen” and also added that “this movie is so bad that it leaves those directed by Ed Wood at the level of Gone with the wind”.