#295: Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla

Release Date: October 8th, 1952

Format: 16mm (New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, CA)

Written by: Tim Ryan

Directed by: William Beaudine

3 Stars

During tonight’s triple-feature of William Beaudine movies starring Bela Lugosi at the New Beverly Theatre, I found the first two pictures, The Ape Man and Voodoo Man, to be quite charming. Sure, you’ll need to calibrate your expectations a bit considering the budgetary constraints of both films, but I liked them, and so did the rest of the close to capacity theater.

But then, as the second intermission wound down and the projectionist queued up Quentin Tarantino’s personal 16mm print of Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, you could feel the energy in the room change. Having never seen it, I had a sneaky suspicion that this screening might be a different experience. 

“A different experience” is actually a good way to describe Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. The plot involves a song and dance duo, Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo (played by the real-life Mitchell and Petrillo, who made their names with a blatant Martin and Lewis ripoff act that they would perform in nightclubs in the early ‘50s), who get stranded on a tropical island. The island is inhabited by a native tribe, and Duke quickly falls in love with Nona (Charlita), the future queen. The island is also inhabited by Dr. Zabor (Lugosi), who performs mysterious experiments in his castle atop the island’s mountain.

Turns out that Dr. Zabor has the hots for Nona, too, and in an effort to get rid of her younger suitor, Duke, injects him with a serum that turns him into a gorilla. Comedy ensues (not really) when Duke must convince his loyal friend Sammy that he’s actually Duke, and they gotta get off this screwy island! 

The climax of the film involves Sammy taking a bullet for Gorilla Duke, when Dr. Zabor ambushes both men with a gun.

As a testament to how grating and annoying these two protagonists are, Sammy Petrillo especially, the theater audience at the New Beverly burst out into spontaneous applause when he gets shot. Somebody yelled, “Good!” from the back of the theater. 

And when the movie’s final scene begins to roll, and we learn that it was all a dream, that Sammy simply fell asleep in the green room of a New Jersey night club, the audience transitioned from cheering to booing immediately. No! No! No! Let him be killed, please!

I had a great time with Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. It’s not a B-movie charmer like The Ape Man or Voodoo Man, but rather a strange oddity, with a couple comedy hacks nobody asked for starring alongside the great but diminished Bela Lugosi. 

It’s got a cheap studio set, some song and dance numbers, an real-life ape (Ramona), two guys in gorilla suits (including the legendary gorilla performer Ray “Crash” Corrigan), and the indefatigable director, William Beaudine, in charge of turning it into a something worth watching. 

Well done Mr. Beaudine. I had a great time.