The Neanderthal Man

source: The Neanderthal Man

The Neanderthal Man

Scientist Robert Shayne developes a serum that reverses evolution. He uses it on his housekeeper and regresses her to a cavewoman state, then he tries it on himself and ends up stalking the area as an ugley, hairy-faced monster. Several transformation scenes are shown, but they aren't very well done, and the makeup consists of a stiff mask, completely without mobility. He uses it on his house cat and produces -- a saber toothed house cat! Co-starring Richard Crane (TV's "Rocky Jones - Space Rangers"). Directed by E. A. Dupont, who did much better things earlier in his career. Ah, but just for fun, suppose Shayne had used the serum on a few lizards, a squirrel, and an elephant in the local zoo. Persto! A herd of stop-motion dinosaurs, a giant tree sloth, and a wooly mammoth! Gee, why am I the only one who thinks of these things?

A rip off of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", this takes a lot of patience to tolerate Household cats become giant beasts and a moody scientist turns into a prehistoric man, growing more facial hair than the wolf-man. His friends and family suspect that something is up but let him be. When people start being attacked he feigns sympathy. Of course, where there is caveman, there must be cave-woman and that is where the film dissolve s into absolute silliness. Shots of big jungle cats passing as prehistoric cats fools nobody. As the truth of what is going on is revealed, the film moves into melodramatic drivel that seemed more appropriate for the decade before when Lon Chaney Jr. was making films like this by the dozen.

While Superman was on hiatus Robert Shayne who played Inspector Henderson got roped into doing this combination ripoff from Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde and The Invisible Man. Shayne's out doing some nasty experiments on cats among other things including himself. He's developed a serum that has the subjects revert to the primeval. Little house cats turn into sabre tooth tigers and pretty lame ones at that. And Shayne when he injects himself goes all Hyde. What was Shayne thinking when he signed on for this? Or players like Richard Crane, Beverly Garland, William Fawcett and others. Shayne overacts outrageously to cover up how bad this is. The SPCA should have gone after this film for cruelty to animals as well as the critics. One stinkerooney with an ending totally ripped off from Claude Rains and The Invisible Man.

Ewald André Dupont, an absolutely unknown name in the film business. However, Dupont was a very prolific filmmaker, working in Germany, United Kingdom, Hollywood. As a director, Ewald André Dupont worked also with big names like Charles Laughton, Ronald Reagan, etc. Here are some unknown but very good, very convincing actors. The story is ridiculous, but the quality of the direction and the actors make the movie worthy of being seen. Beverly Garland and Richard Crane they worked together in a much better Horror, Sci-Fi, "The Alligator People" (1959).

Before watching this on YouTube, I saw a video of Hotlegs' single "Neanderthal Man" which had some members of a later group called 10cc and also some scantily clad young women dancing. This horror film is pretty talky and the makeup to turn someone into the title character is pretty dreary to the modern viewer but if you're familiar with the way transformation was done in these old movies, it's quite a hoot to watch as is the way a normal tiger is suddenly made to look huge and have saber teeth in one hilarious insert! There's also some pretty women like frequent B-movie starlet Beverly Garland who looks quite gorgeous here, I must say! Overall, this was both a little cheezy and dramatically entertaining. Next, I'll watch a more modern take on caveman-in-present-time movie called Iceman...

Neanderthal Man, The (1953) * 1/2 (out of 4) Poor horror film about a mad scientist (Robert Shayne) trying to bring man back to the stone age. He turns his pet kitten into a saber-toothed tiger, he then injects himself with his magical serum and turns into the title character. This film only runs 78-minutes but it felt like three hours considering not too much ever happens. The neanderthal man looks silly but the makeup is certainly memorable. The only problem is that he's not on screen enough. Some of the close ups of the tiger gets a few laughs since you can tell it's just a toy. It's also interesting that most horror films from this period try to play the scientist in a sympathetic view point but that's not the case here. The scientist here has got to be the biggest jerk ever to grace a horror film.