Maniac (1934 film)
Encyclopedia
Maniac, also known as Sex Maniac, is a 1934
black-and-white
exploitation
/horror film
, directed by Dwain Esper
and written by Hildegarde Stadie, Esper's wife, as a loose adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe
story "The Black Cat
", with references to his "Murders in the Rue Morgue". Esper and Stadie also made the 1936 exploitation film Marihuana
.
The film, which was advertised with the tagline "He menaced women with his weird desires!", is in the public domain
. A restored version was made available in 1999, as part of a double feature
with another Dwain Esper film, Narcotic! (1933). A full length RiffTrax
for the movie was released on November 25, 2009, with commentary by Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett of Mystery Science Theater 3000
fame. John Wilson, the founder of the Golden Raspberry Award, named Maniac as one of the "100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made" in his book The Official Razzies Movie Guide.
impersonator who is working as the lab assistant to Dr. Meirschultz (Horace Carpenter) a mad scientist
attempting to bring the dead back to life. When Don kills Meirschultz, he attempts to hide his crime by "becoming" the doctor, taking over his work, dressing like him, wearing his beard, and slowly going insane.
The "doctor" treats a mental patient, Buckley (Ted Edwards), but accidentally injects him with adrenaline, which causes him to go into violent fits. Buckley's wife (Phyllis Diller) discovers the body of the real doctor, and blackmails Don into turning her husband into a zombie
. The ersatz doctor turns the tables on her by manipulating her into fighting with his estranged wife (Thea Ramsey), a former showgirl. When the cat-breeding neighbor Goof (played by an unknown actor) sees what's going on, he calls the police, who stop the fight and, following the sound of Satan the cat, find the body of the real doctor hidden behind a brick wall.
Cast notes
and Siegfried
, a 1923 silent film by Fritz Lang
.
1934 in film
-Events:*January 26 - Samuel Goldwyn purchases the film rights to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the L. Frank Baum estate for $40,000.*February 19 - Bob Hope marries Dolores Reade...
black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
exploitation
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
/horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
, directed by Dwain Esper
Dwain Esper
Dwain Esper was an American director and producer of exploitation films . Esper died in 1982. He and Hildegarde had two children, Dwain, Jr...
and written by Hildegarde Stadie, Esper's wife, as a loose adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
story "The Black Cat
The Black Cat (short story)
"The Black Cat" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. It is a study of the psychology of guilt, often paired in analysis with Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"...
", with references to his "Murders in the Rue Morgue". Esper and Stadie also made the 1936 exploitation film Marihuana
Marihuana (film)
Marihuana is a 1936 exploitation film directed by Dwain Esper, and written by Esper's wife, Hildegarde Stadie.- Pot :Burma is a confused girl who likes to party. One day, she meets some strangers in a bar who invite her and her group to a party...
.
The film, which was advertised with the tagline "He menaced women with his weird desires!", is in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
. A restored version was made available in 1999, as part of a double feature
Double feature
The double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.The double feature, also known as...
with another Dwain Esper film, Narcotic! (1933). A full length RiffTrax
RiffTrax
RiffTrax are downloadable audio commentaries featuring comedians Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett heckling films in the style of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a TV show in which Nelson was the head writer, and later the host. The RiffTrax are sold online and delivered by digital...
for the movie was released on November 25, 2009, with commentary by Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett of Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
fame. John Wilson, the founder of the Golden Raspberry Award, named Maniac as one of the "100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made" in his book The Official Razzies Movie Guide.
Plot
Don Maxwell (William Woods) is a former vaudevilleVaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
impersonator who is working as the lab assistant to Dr. Meirschultz (Horace Carpenter) a mad scientist
Mad scientist
A mad scientist is a stock character of popular fiction, specifically science fiction. The mad scientist may be villainous or antagonistic, benign or neutral, and whether insane, eccentric, or simply bumbling, mad scientists often work with fictional technology in order to forward their schemes, if...
attempting to bring the dead back to life. When Don kills Meirschultz, he attempts to hide his crime by "becoming" the doctor, taking over his work, dressing like him, wearing his beard, and slowly going insane.
The "doctor" treats a mental patient, Buckley (Ted Edwards), but accidentally injects him with adrenaline, which causes him to go into violent fits. Buckley's wife (Phyllis Diller) discovers the body of the real doctor, and blackmails Don into turning her husband into a zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
. The ersatz doctor turns the tables on her by manipulating her into fighting with his estranged wife (Thea Ramsey), a former showgirl. When the cat-breeding neighbor Goof (played by an unknown actor) sees what's going on, he calls the police, who stop the fight and, following the sound of Satan the cat, find the body of the real doctor hidden behind a brick wall.
Cast
- Bill Woods as Don Maxwell
- Horace B. CarpenterHorace B. CarpenterHorace B. Carpenter was an American actor, film director and, screenwriter. He appeared in 334 films between 1914 and 1946. He also directed 15 films between 1925 and 1934...
as Dr. Meirschultz - Ted Edwards as Buckley
- Phyllis Diller as Mrs. Buckley
- Thea Ramsey as Alice Maxwell
- Jenny Dark as Maizie
- Marvel Andre as Marvel
- Celia McCann as Jo
- John P. Wade as Embalmer
- Marian Blackton as Neighbor
Cast notes
- Several key cast members in the film are uncredited, most notably the cat-farming neighbor 'Goof,' the detective and Maria Altura, the woman who Dr. Meirschultz brings back to life. The identities of the actress who doubles for Altura for scenes that require nudity has also not been identified.
- Horace B. Carpenter was a producer, director and actor from the silent eraSilent filmA silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
who generally portrayed whitehaired characters in Westerns once soundSound filmA sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
came in. - This is only film that Bill Woods performed in. He later became a makeup artist, working in film and television until 1968.
- Marian Blackton is sometimes reported, incorrectly, as appearing in male drag as the neighbor who catches and breeds cats. She plays a female neighbor who is questioned by the detective. The male actor who plays Goof has not been identified. Blackton was the sister of Maniac's assistant director and daughter of J. Stuart BlacktonJ. Stuart BlacktonJames Stuart Blackton , usually known as J. Stuart Blackton, was an Anglo-American film producer of the Silent Era, the founder of Vitagraph Studios and among the first filmmakers to use the techniques of stop-motion and drawn animation...
, founder of Vitagraph StudiosVitagraph StudiosAmerican Vitagraph was a United States movie studio, founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York. By 1907 it was the most prolific American film production company, producing many famous silent films. It was bought by Warner Bros...
and the father of American animationAnimationAnimation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
. - The actress named Phyllis Diller in this film is no relation to the comedienne Phyllis DillerPhyllis DillerPhyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...
.
Production
The footage that is superimposed over the scenes where the actor, disguised as the mad scientists, is descending into madness where from the 1920 Swedish film Witchcraft Through the Ages by Benjamin ChristensenBenjamin Christensen
Benjamin Christensen was a Danish film director, screenwriter and an actor both in film and on the stage. As a director he is most well known for the 1922 film Häxan and as an actor, he is best known for his performance in the film Michael , in which he plays Claude Zoret, the jilted lover of the...
and Siegfried
Siegfried
Siegfried is a German language male given name, meaning "victory peace".Siegfried may also refer to:-People:* Sigfrid of Sweden , English missionary to Sweden and patron saint of Växjö...
, a 1923 silent film by Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
.
External links
- Maniac at BadMovies.org
- Bad Movie Report: Maniac ~ Review of the film.