{"id":6789,"date":"2024-10-25T11:17:16","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6789"},"modified":"2024-10-25T11:17:16","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:17:16","slug":"maniac-1934","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/maniac-1934\/","title":{"rendered":"Maniac (1934)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Maniac<\/strong> (1934)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Roadshow Attractions\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 51 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (violence, nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Dwain Esper\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Hildagarde Stadie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: N\/A\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: William C. Thompson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 11, 1934 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Bill Woods, Horace Carpenter, Ted Edwards, Phyllis Diller, Theo Ramsey, Jenny Dark, Marvel Andre, Celia McCann, Maria Altura, J.P. Wade, Marion Blackton, Satan (the Cat).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\n

\u00a0Almost 90 years after the fact, a few key cast members of the 1934 exploitation movie Maniac<\/strong> are still not identified. It doesn\u2019t take a super-sleuth to figure out why. One look at the finished product tells you all you need to know. Would you want anybody to know you had an active role in creating one of the worst movies ever made? How would the actor playing the cat-loving neighbor ever explain it to his grandchildren? For his sake, I hope they have a sense of humor should they ever uncover this embarrassing family secret.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Maniac <\/strong>comes from the same school of cinema as Reefer Madness and Sex Madness in that it purports to be an educational film informing the public of a great social ill, mental illness. Titles are interspersed throughout identifying various types of mental illnesses and describing their symptoms. The descriptions provided don\u2019t shed a lot of light on the matter. Licensed psychiatrists would have a difficult time understanding them. It\u2019s a perfect example of how thoroughly incompetent Maniac<\/strong> truly is in its supposed purpose.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Its educational intent is a mere fa\u00e7ade for what Maniac<\/strong> really is, a schlocky pre-Code horror piece that leans heavily on Edgar Allen Poe\u2019s short story \u201cThe Black Cat\u201d. I\u2019ll come back to that later. There are actually two maniacs in Maniac<\/strong>. The first one is Don Maxwell (Woods), a former vaudevillian reduced to playing Igor to mad scientist Dr. Meirschultz (Carpenter), the second maniac. It seems that Dr. M has created an elixir that brings the dead back to life. All he needs is a corpse, preferably a recently deceased one, to test it out. As luck would have it, Don\u2019s specialty back in his show biz days was impersonations. He impersonates the coroner in order to gain access to the morgue where he and Dr. M steal the body of young woman who committed suicide (Altura, one of the uncredited ones). The doc injects her with the formula and she starts showing signs of life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Next, the doctor wants to attempt to revive the dead with a heart transplant. The heart he plans to use is beating away in a beaker on his table. Yep, he gave it a shot of his magic potion. When his assistant fails to procure a corpse, Dr. M demands that he shoot himself in the head so that he may proceed with his diabolical experiment. Don shoots the doctor instead and takes his place when the wife (Diller, NOT the one you\u2019re thinking of) of a mental patient (Edwards) shows up asking for help. Don, as Dr. M, originally plans to inject the patient with water, but he accidentally grabs the wrong syringe and ends up giving him a shot of adrenaline. Naturally, it makes him go berserk. He snatches the zombie-like reanimated woman and runs off with her. BOOBIE SHOT! Maniac<\/strong> is pre-Code, remember?<\/p>\n

\u00a0So where does Poe come into it? I\u2019m about to tell you. When the mental patient\u2019s wife finds the body of the real Dr. M, she blackmails Don. He decides to hide the body in a wall in the basement. When he isn\u2019t looking, a black cat jumps in and stays there while he finishes rebuilding the wall. It meows when the cops show up later, alerting them to the hidden body. I can\u2019t say for sure, but I have a feeling the author would be amused by how they used his material. Perhaps I ought to explain further.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At some point, Maniac<\/strong> cuts to a scene of four scantily-clad women having a conversation in their apartment. One of them, Alice (Ramsey), is Don\u2019s estranged wife. One of her friends shows her a story in the newspaper about her hubby being sought by the executors of the estate of a rich uncle who just died. It seems he\u2019s the sole inheritor, but they can\u2019t locate him. Luckily, Alice knows where to find him. She shows up at the lab to deliver the news only for fake Dr. M- i.e. Don- to tell Alice her husband isn\u2019t there at the moment. He asks her to come back that night. With the intention of killing two birds with one stone (if you\u2019ll excuse the expression), he lures the mental patient\u2019s wife to the lab with the intent of pitting both women against each other. YAY, CAT FIGHT! They go at each other with hypodermic needles in the basement. That\u2019s when the cops finally show up and find Dr. M\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Retitled Sex Maniac soon after its initial release, Maniac<\/strong> is terrible under any title. To its credit, it\u2019s terrible to the point of unintentional comedy. I haven\u2019t laughed this much in a long time. It\u2019s so bad, it\u2019s GREAT! Its highlight has to be the wild overacting. The performances give new meaning to OTT whether it\u2019s Woods\u2019 loopy portrayal of a man descending into madness or Carpenter\u2019s overwrought depiction of a wild-haired mad scientist who laughs maniacally as he explains his latest experiment. At times, he acts like he\u2019s delivering a Shakespearean soliloquy. The dialogue they\u2019re given to recite is God-awful and riotously funny at the same time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0HOWEVER, nothing either one of them do compares to Edwards who takes his performance to a level not of this world. When injected with the wrong needle, he writhes and twitches and contorts his face as he transforms into a primal state. It must be seen to be fully appreciated. The dialogue that accompanies it makes it even funnier: \u201cOH! Stealing through my body! OOH! Creeping through my veins! Pouring in my blood! OH, darts of fire in my brain! Stabbing me! Agony! I can\u2019t stand it, this torture! This torment! I can\u2019t! I can\u2019t! I won\u2019t! I won\u2019t!\u201d I dare say, Dave O\u2019Brien- the guy who played Ralph in Reefer Madness- took acting lessons from this guy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Written and directed by the husband-wife team of Hildagarde Stadie and Dwain Esper, Maniac<\/strong> was clearly made on the cheap. It\u2019s a public domain title if that tells you anything. Most of it is shot on the same eight-square-foot set with different props; that is, except the for the basement scenes which look like they were really shot in somebody\u2019s basement. Its disjointed narrative makes it feel like it was stitched together by Dr. Frankenstein in his laboratory. There are numerous shots of cats running about or fighting. In the movie\u2019s most infamous scene, Don\/Dr. M squeezes a cat\u2019s head until its eyeball pops out then eats it (the eyeball NOT the cat). The scenes of Don losing his mind are accompanied by superimposed images of demonic figures from the 1922 Danish film Haxan.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There is much to laugh at in Maniac<\/strong>, a movie kept mercifully short by its makers, running less than an hour. At 51 minutes, it doesn\u2019t have time to wear out its welcome. It is inept in every way and in every sense of the word. That it tries to take itself and its subject seriously makes it all the funnier. In its defense, Maniac <\/strong>is NOT unwatchable. On the contrary, it\u2019s extremely watchable. You won\u2019t be able to avert your eyes or divert your attention. It\u2019s so awesomely bad, it\u2019s AWESOME!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maniac (1934)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Roadshow Attractions\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 51 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (violence, nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Dwain Esper\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Hildagarde Stadie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: N\/A\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: William C. Thompson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 11, 1934 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Bill Woods, Horace Carpenter, Ted Edwards, Phyllis Diller, Theo Ramsey, Jenny Dark, Marvel Andre, Celia McCann, Maria Altura, J.P. Wade, Marion Blackton, Satan (the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cool-cult-flicks","category-guilty-pleasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Maniac-1934-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6789"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7218,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6789\/revisions\/7218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}