Michael_Elliott Lady and the Monster, The (1944) ** (out of 4) Professor Franz Mueller (Erich von Stroheim) and his assistant Dr. Cory (Richard Arlen) are doing experiments on keeping the brain of an animal alive but they get their chance at a human one after a rich man named Donovan dies. They end up saving Donovan's brain but soon it begins to take control of Cory and sends him out to finish his bad deeds. Curt Siodmak's novel "Donovan's Brain" has been filmed countless times over the years and there have been even more rip-offs. I've never been a huge fan of the story because none of the film versions have really worked. This includes the first version, which is this Republic chiller that has a few good performances but sadly the end result just isn't all that good. One of the biggest problems is the incredibly slow pace by director George Sherman who never gets anything going. The entire movie runs 86-minutes but it feels nearly twice as long because we just get one boring sequence after another. A lot of the problems are long dialogue sequences that really don't add up to anything. This includes just about everything dealing with the dead man's widow who is trying to figure out where he late husband hid all of his money. The stuff dealing with Cory trying to close out various deals of Donovan's just don't work. Even worse is the silly love connection between Cory and another assistant (Vera Ralston), which really slows the movie down. It's funny to see that the movie would be re-released in 1949 but with nearly nineteen-minutes worth of footage cut out. I'm not one who supports studios cutting down movies but there have been many times where a shorter version helped and I'm going to guess that this is such a case. There are some good elements here and they're mainly the performances. I was really surprised to see how effective Arlen (ISLAND OF LOST SOULS) was. Not only was he very believable as the scientist but his turn as the bad guy was also well handled. The actor did a very good job at mixing the good and the bad and he certainly made the film much better. von Stroheim is also fun in his part, although at the same time you can't help but shake your head when seeing such a great talent playing in a film like this. Ralston is quite annoying in her part but perhaps that was on purpose. THE LADY AND THE MONSTER hasn't had a wide release since it first came out and after finally seeing it I can't say that it was worth the wait.

Prichards12345 The Lady and The Monster is a fairly watchable version of Curt Siodmak's novel Donovan's Brain. Siodmak himself, who authored or co-authored such films as Black Friday, The Wolf Man, I Walked With A Zombie and Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man was never much taken with this version of his story from Republic Pictures. True, it takes quite a while to get going, but it's a pretty good movie overall.Richard Arlen is quite convincing as the research assistant taken over by the mind of a ruthless financier, at times glacial and on other occasions domineering and aggressive. Eric Von Stroheim plays the scientist who keeps Donovan's brain alive after the businessman's body dies in a plane crash. He's a pretty obvious villain from the start without an ounce of sympathy; and headlining is Vera Hruba Ralston as his assistant. She delivers an almost expressionless and deadening performance, and as the direction and cinematography are no great shakes it's left to the story itself to hold the interest. Thankfully it does.The best part of the movie for me is when Arlen's character goes into high gear. Controlled by Donovan, he will stop at nothing to get his unacknowledged son off a murder conviction (it was the financier himself who did the killing), including attempting to run down a school girl witness in the street.This is not really a horror movie despite the title but it does have some of the trappings of the genre - a laboratory sequence slightly patterned after the Frankenstein movies, the mad scientist, Arlen as a sort of monster etc. Perhaps it might have worked better with superior handling and budget. At 90 minutes the pace occasionally slackens but it's well worth a look.

MARIO GAUCI Although I did like my two viewings of Felix E. Feist's 1953 film version of Curt Siodmak's DONOVAN'S BRAIN (with Lew Ayres and Gene Evans), somehow I have yet to acquire it for my home video collection; besides, I am also familiar (from an age-old Italian TV screening) with the later Freddie Francis version entitled VENGEANCE aka THE BRAIN (1962) where Peter Van Eyck and Anne Heywood had the leading roles. What I did acquire very recently, however, is the even rarer original version directed by the reliable George Sherman and starring the great Erich von Stroheim, Contrary to expectations, the latter is neither the monster of the title nor (for the initiated) the man taken over by the dead financial wizard's brain; that unlucky guy is Richard Arlen – the hero of ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932) no less – who, as Stroheim's unlikely assistant in his underground experiments, gets to become even more obsessed with their celebrated cerebral specimen than his crazed mentor! From the rest of the cast, Vera Hruba Ralston may have later become Mrs. Herbart J. Yates (when she married the head of Republic Pictures, the studio behind this film) but, frankly, she brought very little to this particular film; on the other hand, it was nice to see Sidney Blackmer – best-known for portraying Adrian Marcato in Roman Polanski's ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968) – albeit in a supporting role of the suspicious attorney. Incidentally, the sequences depicting the blooming romance between Arlen and Ralston and those between Blackmer and Donovan's wife can mostly be written off as mere padding; small wonder, therefore, that the film was shorn of 19 whole minutes (cut down from 86 to 67!) for a later re-release…not to mention being saddled with the highly ludicrous (and utterly misleading) alternate titles of TIGER MAN and MONSTER AND TIGER MAN!! Speaking of titles, despite the sheer similarity to the earlier Paramount horror entry THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL (1941), as can be gleaned from my own reviews of both films, they have nothing whatsoever in content (other than being of the same era and genre). Despite these flaws, I generally liked the film more than I was expecting to and that fact is mostly down to two simple factors: the presence of Erich von Stroheim in front of the cameras and that of celebrated cinematographer John Alton behind them! Even though the quality of the copy I acquired was fairly fuzzy at best, Alton's atmospheric lighting came through just the same – particularly during the atmospheric laboratory sequences and the eerie scenes showing Arlen's 'possession'.

jim riecken (youroldpaljim) THE LADY AND THE MONSTER is the first version of Curt Siodmak's often filmed novel "Donovan's Brain". This first version is largely forgotten, and those that recall it usually dis-miss it as inferior to the 1953 version DONOVAN'S BRAIN with Lew Ayres. While the 1953 version is superior in almost every way, THE LADY AND THE MONSTER is still an entertaining, atmospheric 1940's thriller.The plot is basically the same, but in this version the living brain of Donovan possesses the mind of scientist Richard Arlen to clear his illegitimate son who has been wrongly convicted of murder. The brain also wants to get revenge on his daughter, whom is just as money hungry and ruthless as Donovan was in "life." Even though Donovan's goals are good, his disembodied brain is still ruthless; he orders the possessed Arlen to kill a girl who gave false testimony at his son's trial.We can always tell when Donovan is about to possess Arlen, the lighting and Arlen's make-up changes. The 1953 version employed no such tricks, and relied entirely on the acting skills of Lew Ayers. (See my entry on that version). Erich Von Stroheim plays the elder scientist, and as with any film he was in, he was always a commanding presence. There are hints of him having an unhealthy infatuation with Vera Ralston, but this doesn't lead anywhere.Overall, LADY AND THE MONSTER isn't as good as the later 1953 version, but it is still a decent 1940's horror thriller.