Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

"Murders in the Rue Morgue" has been rather unfairly regarded over the years. It's actually quite difficult to judge this film as 15 minutes of footage was removed before the film went out on general release in 1932.Bela Lugosi steals the film as the crazed scientist. The supporting cast ranges from being tolerable to downright poor.Director Robert Florey was offered "Murders in the Rue Morgue" as a consolation prize after being removed from the 1931 "Frankenstein" movie.According to various sources, "Murders in the Rue Morgue" didn't satisfy Florey half as much as "Frankenstein" would have. Be that as it may, the above film has many effective scenes and is quite violent for 1932. The photography is outstanding as the cameras roam along the streets that represent 1840s Paris. The atmosphere is well sustained throughout. The comedy interludes are CRINGEWORTHY though. There is simply no place for it in this film. However, the damage is minimal.The film works itself to a thrilling climax.

It would be difficult to find a more tragic Hollywood figure than winsome, pert, diminutive Sidney Fox. Here she is at the apex of her career, appearing as the number-one star (Bela Lugosi was second-billed) of Universal's fascinating if somewhat unbalanced entry in the thriller cycle, Murders in the Rue Morgue, adapted from the story by Edgar Allan Poe by director Robert Florey, with additional dialogue by John Huston (his third screen credit and we sincerely hope that his contributions are the best of a rather mixed sample). Oddly, Florey's direction is a bit inconsistent. The scenes of menace are handled most effectively, but Florey seems less able directing some of the dialogue scenes particularly all those that revolve around Bert Roach's comedy relief material. The ambitious over-acting by Leon Ames doesn't help either. Nevertheless, some of Florey's directorial touches are nothing short of masterly particularly in the scenes depicting Mirakle soliciting a prostitute, Fox's dizzying ride on a swing, and the rapid cutting in the murder scene. These touches are nothing short of sheer genius.

"Murders in the Rue Morgue" is perhaps the most atmospheric film in the Universal canon, which is really saying something. More then any other, it is deeply influenced by "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and other silent horrors. Paris, as portrayed in this film, is composed of dank homes squeeze into each other, with huge sloping roofs. Triangular buildings stab upwards towards the dreary clouds, dark shapes on the skyline. The entire city is obscured in giant walls of fog. The villain's lair, with its single askew window and slithering staircase is the oddest set in the film. The titular morgue is shown with a huge square at the back, rows of corpses on each side, a sinister black cross hanging overhead. Not to mention the movie's frequent use of shadows. On a purely visual level, "Murders in the Rue Morgue" makes perfect midnight viewing.After Lugosi passed on "Frankenstein," this film was devised as a vehicle for him. It's easy to see why the verbose, speechifying Dr. Mirakle appealed to the actor. Even more sinister then Dracula, Dr. Mirakle is Lugosi at his cruelest, darkest level of villainy. The character is an archetypical mad scientist, obsessed with his bizarre studies, utterly immoral in his scientific pursuits. When the experiments fail, he shouts. He lightly chats with the murderous gorilla and has a dark-faced assistant. A mad evolutionist, Dr. Mirakle injects a prostitute with gorilla's blood, dumping the dead bodies in the river through a trap door. Why the film only implies it, there's definitely a suggestion of bestiality in the doctor's work. Just a few years later, in the post-Production Code era, these topics would undoubtedly be off-limits. Surprisingly, the movie doesn't take any particular stance on evolution. The film's hero, Dupin, is a rational medical student, a believer in crime scene forensics, and intrigued by the mad doctor's theories.Dupin, despite his Kentucky accent, makes for a fairly convincing hero. He has a funny back-and-forth with his roommate, turning down dinner in order to study more. His girlfriend takes up a lot of screen time. Their romance is unremarkable but never annoying. She does work fantastically as a damsel in distress, when being threatened by a glaring Lugosi or kidnapped by the ape. Some of the film's comic relief, such as the no-nonsense morgue attendant, has aged very well while other's aspect, like the xenophobic apartment tenants arguing about their different countries of origin, has aged less well. The movie is incredibly well shot, with a POV shot of a moving swing being my favorite. While the gorilla suit isn't horribly convincing, the film handles it well, only using the suit in long shots and cutting to an actual chimp's face in close-up.At only an hour long, the movie zips by. The chase across the rooftops of Paris makes for a fantastically suspenseful climax. The ape attacks are gruesomely tense, while the scene of Dr. Mirakle abducting the prostitute is still creepy. The simple, compact story makes the inevitable conclusion, the mad scientist's creation rebelling against him, deeply satisfying. "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a surprisingly grim gem from horror's golden age.

In 1845 Paris, handsome Leon Ames (as Pierre Dupin) and his rotund roommate Bert Roach (as Paul) take their giggly dates to see carnival attraction Bela Lugosi (as "Doctor" Mirakle) and his monstrous ape "Erik". The ape-man walks upright and is called, "The beast with a human soul!" When pretty Sidney Fox (as Camille L'Espanaye) gets close to his cage, "Erik" seems smitten with Mr. Ames' date and grabs her bonnet. Meanwhile, Mr. Lugosi reveals he is mixing the blood of man and ape to show evolution. We also see Lugosi save streetwalker and future "What's My Line?" panelist Arlene Francis; then, he gives her the needle...Naturally, Lugosi sets his sights on Ms. Fox, and then Ames must try to save her...This is a ridiculous story, and not true to the Edgar Allan Poe original; but, it is interesting and stylish. The common assertion that our simian cousins are "evolving" is still being repeated - usually by those sarcastically seeking to disprove evolution. This is incorrect, of course. Today's apes and humans are not evolving into each other; they merely have a common ancestral tract, which has been shown in ways one could relate to Lugosi's examination of blood in this film. Lugosi's lurid and torturous patient preparation of Ms. Francis and the expressionist sequences photographed by Karl Freund are highlights.******* Murders in the Rue Morgue (2/21/32) Robert Florey ~ Bela Lugosi, Leon Ames, Sidney Fox, Bert Roach