The Horror!? 43: The Mad Monster (1942)

PRC had the dubious honor to be a Poverty Row studio even more budget deficient than Monogram. So if they needed (equally dubious) star power, they couldn't even afford poor old Bela Lugosi but had to use someone like George Zucco as their own kind of star. Which doesn't mean Zucco was a bad actor. In fact I would call him a better actor in a traditional sense of the word than Lugosi. At least he made a damn fine mad scientist. In the case of The Mad Monster he is the only participant who can be described with the word "actor" at all. I am at a loss what word to use to describe the person who "plays" our hero, young reporter Tommy, though "Jimmy Olsen" probably fits.
My personal hero is of course Zucco's Dr. Cameron, who has been -mostly through the words of four colleagues- discredited in the public eye as well as in the scientific community. In truth he has invented a way to transfer animalistic characteristics to humans, namely his favorite human guinea pig, his mentally handicapped handyman Pietro (or Pedro, as Jimmy Olsen calls him), thus creating a wolf man. He even thought of a useful application for his serum: He plans to sell it to the US Army and help create an army of uncontrollable, murderous wolf men, who will win the War (and probably eat the civilian population of Europe, but oh well). Dr. Cameron is a man with clear priorities, though, so he initially proceeds to let his own private wolf
man kill the men who are responsible for his disgrace (and a few innocents, but oh well).
All this is very, very entertaining for people who like this kind of stuff, especially since Zucco is great, the script merely stupid, and Sam Newfield's direction at least not too terrible (which is more than you can ask for of the director of White Pongo). I even found one relatively clever moment: The early grand exposition scene is handled by letting Zucco hold an impassioned speech to his enemies - or to be more precise, his hallucinations. If this is not a wonderfully budget conscious way to inform the viewer of all things of import and interest, including the good doctor's state of mind, I don't know what is.