By GENE DORSOGNA

The second Universal Studios horror cycle lasted from 1939 till 1946. Sandwiched between the high of Son Of Frankenstein and the low of She-Wolf Of London. there are a bewildering number sequels all featuring enough marauding mummies, hell-bent-on-revenge invisible men, grunting Frankenstein monsters, crazed scientists, dumbbell henchmen, and screaming heroines to populate a small city.

Alas, as everyone knows, the longer you squeeze an orange the less juice can be rendered. Thus was the fate of the grand horror films of the thirties: to be used up by the less grand (albeit fun) horror films of the forties.

By the end of this second cycle, the monster had been reduced to the status of a sluggish, staggering wind-up toy. Kharis the mummy (never the most energetic of fiends) ended as a lumbering bundle of dirty bandages. Dracula became a sort of an effete, soulful-eyed Balkan nobleman.

The Invisible Man, in his various incarnations, became far less the misguided scientist and far more a two-dimensional sociopath. All of the second generation monsters the studio cooked up never amounted to much: Paula the Ape Woman of the "Wild Woman" series was little more than a prepubescent boy’s idea of the worst (most hirsute) blind date imaginable.

Universal it seems was even trying to develop a franchise out of the Spider Woman, even though she traveled under the dual monikers of Adrea Spedding (in The Spider Woman, wherein she clashed with Sherlock Holmes) and of Zonobia Dollard (in you-know-who Strikes Back, as the worst neighbor in the world). Fortunately, the cycle petered out all together before much could be made of her.

For the most part, the same can be said of the one-shot villains. Poor Dynamo Dan McCormick, the "Electric Man" of Man Made Monster, was at bottom just Lon Chaney, Jr. being a ten-thousand kilowatt version of Lennie Small (anyway, the picture really belonged to Lionel Atwill as the outrageously over-the-top Dr. Rigas who, in the finest tradition of Hollywood mad scientists is as interested in lechery as much as in science!). The She-Wolf, The Mad Doctor Of Market Street and the others were nothing more than cheats and red-herrings.

And of course, poor Rondo Hatton, that gentle soul forced to market his own terminal, disfiguring disease to put bread on his table, was exploited in House Of Horrors and The Brute Man (as well as several other titles where he played support) that, despite their undeniable "let’s look at the freak" pull, are uniformly bad.

Thus it comes as a most pleasant surprise that sandwiched almost right in the middle of the cycle of growing standardization appeared a film that sported a creation that Universal never milked; a one-shot creature and his nutty scientist pal that went through their paces and were heard no more. I am referring to Dr. Alfred Morris and his student-cum-zombie Ted Allison, known to his friends as The Mad Ghoul.

The Mad Ghoul was cooked up as the "B" support for the more ambitious Son Of Dracula . Itself a pretty good sequel (despite the miscasting as Chaney, Jr. playing Drac as Lenny Small with a mustache), Ghoul far outdistances Dracula in vigor and fun. For one thing, it is not drenched in the (very)pseudo-Lewtonian poetry of death, which in the wrong hands quickly becomes romantic twaddle (which, to its credit, Son--in its best moments - managed to avoid).

The purpose of Ghoul is frankly to entertain for an hour; there are no higher purposes intended. Also, it has no previous mythology to which it is shackled and can, therefore, work from whole cloth. And what a piece of yard goods!

Briefly, it is the story of the aforementioned Dr. Alfred Morris, a dedicated university professor who in his spare time has rediscovered a poison gas used by the ancient Mayans to induce a state of death in life. The only apparent use for this substance is to render the subject impervious to the pain involved in removing his heart--so that a component of that organ can be used to reverse the state brought on by the gas (the fact that the victim, needless to say, would have little use for the antidote is never one, I guess, the Mayans stumbled upon. This faulty planning no doubt explains why the Spaniards knocked over their civilization so quickly).

Dr. Morris quickly deduces that he could create an army of zombies that would be at his command. Flushed with this notion, he shares his discovery (but not his motive) with his star pupil Ted Allison. Allison, who idolizes his teacher, introduces him to his fiancee Isabel Lewis, a concert singer. Morris becomes infatuated with Isabel and immediately abandons his wider plan (world domination) and narrows the aim of his experiment (he wants to get laid).

He flummoxes Ted into inhaling the gas and turns him into a zombie. With unimpeachable logic, the doctor thinks that with Ted out of the way, he will have an inside track with the lovely Isabel. Realizing, however, that he might have a hard time explaining why Ted has become--er--somewhat different (and also having an opportunity to test his theories), Allison uses Ted to cut the hearts out of the recently deceased and uses the enzymes obtained to return Ted to a semblance of temporary normalcy.

As Ted’s condition worsens (he starts changing into a Ghoul spontaneously, without benefit of poison gas), Isabel draws away from Ted. Morris makes his move over drinks, but Isabel is unaware of his love. She takes his advances for avuncular concern. She tells him she doesn’t love Ted but rather is in love with her accompanist, Eric (Turhan Bey). Morris becomes furious, and decides to use Ted as an instrument of revenge against both Isabel and Eric. Along the way to this end, he takes time out to use Ted to rub out a snoopy reporter (our old friend Robert Armstrong, the bumptious filmmaker from King Kong).

Needless to say, things don’t work out as planned for the mad medico despite his impressive schedule of grave-robbings, murders, spontaneous metamorphoses, and aborted dates over cocktails. All of this leaves most everyone in the cast, except Isabel and her sympathetic pianist friend, either dead or nearly so. All in a hectic sixty-five minutes.

In addition to the full plot, there are a few gorgeous B-movie gaffs and plot holes. Dr. Morris, for example, even though a surgeon of renown, has a hard time using his stethoscope and at one point listens to Ted’s heart through his shoulder. And why, you might ask, if Dr. Morris wants to keep his own hands clean of murder does he accompany Ted on all of his midnight rambles to graveyards and funeral homes, even to the point of wearing his best hat? (The better to tell them apart?) But these are small, affectionate little points. Compared to the Monogram or PRC product of the time, Ghoul is a model of continuity. And far more entertaining.

There are lots of reasons why The Mad Ghoul works as such deliriously enjoyable entertainment. Not the least of these reasons is the inspired casting of George Zucco as Dr. Morris. Using little more than subtle modulations of his wonderful voice and an intense gaze that only be described as a combination of lust and cracked zeal, Zucco conveys a sense of weird passion; one gets the feeling that, yes, he’d love to bed Isabel but failing in that he’d settle for a tumble with Ted (watch him sizing up the student early in the film – he looks like a gourmand appreciating a particularly juicy pork roast!).

David Bruce is good as the duped student and a nice change of pace for the usual Universal juvenile leads, although he looks a little old for a college student (and a little callow for the poised and worldly Isabel). Yet one can’t help but feel for him when Dr. Morris turns him into a zombie.

Bruce underplays the transition and also manages to bring a sense of real grief to the role, especially when he finally realizes what has been done to him. Incidentally, becoming a mad ghoul has one positive benefit. As the normal Ted, Bruce sports one of the most retro hairdos ever seen in a forties film; it is swept up and frozen into little waves with more goop than Ronald Reagan ever used, making him look a bit like Rudy Vallee. After his transition, he gets better hair; kind of a modified shag that is more becoming! (But his complexion, on the other hand…)

As Isabel, Evelyn Ankers is on hand. Ankers, the heroine in many of the Universal horrors in the forties, was considered one of the great beauties of her day. Her looks and figure have gone out of fashion, but it is easy to see her appeal to audiences of the time (and she is still attractive in a sturdy way). I can think of few other actors who could portray women who remain centered while being chased around the countryside by werewolves, mummies, and others of that ilk. That she was always obviously much, much more talented than the material allowed her to be is obvious, yet she gamely never condescended to the roles she assayed.

She holds her own with Zucco in a strong scene where he confesses his infatuation with her and also she gives us, the audience, an idea why both these men would want her. We get the sense that had she ended up in bed with Ted, she would have been a sensitive partner; we know in our gut, however, he could never satisfy her. Her relationship with Eric is mature and plausible; they seem to be soul mates. No other actor at Universal in the forties could play independent, multi-faceted women as did Evelyn Ankers. It is her character that holds the wild goings-on together. She will always be a vastly underrated performer.

The make-up and special effects are few, as befits the film’s B status, yet are never less than smooth and professional in the best Universal manner. Ted’s ghoul look (besides the hair) consists mainly of wrinkling his skin and giving him a strange pallor that, had the film been in color, probably would have been greenish. It appears to be much the same process that was used on Karloff in The Mummy. It is simple but effective. The sets themselves are underdressed, given the programmer status of the picture, but there are no puzzling things hanging about like those in the Monogram epics (for example the map of Australia hanging on the wall of Bela Lugosi’s secret office in The Bowery At Midnight).

The plot of The Mad Ghoul is one of the basic plots of the genre, used in one form or another not only by Universal (The Raven, Mad-Made Monster, House Of Horrors, House of Frankenstein, etc.) but also at Monogram, PRC, and other even lesser studios (nearly all of Lugosi’s films at these studios use this basic story: The Devil Bat, The Return Of The Ape Man, just to name a few.) What kept the hoary old story-line fresh at Universal was the conviction and professionalism brought to each retelling.

Universal had a few more enjoyable monster epics left up its sleeve for 1944 and ’45 as well as lots of truly lousy ones and many outright cheats. Yet even with these latter entries, the Universal mystique carries them through at least one watching – and everyone has at least one of them as their favorite guilty pleasure.

George Zucco would never appear in a better horror film than The Mad Ghoul (excepting The Mummy's Hand, where he appeared in support). He whiled away his time in grade Z shockers for the rest of the decade, still managing to appear in subordinate roles in mainstream films. His days on the stage in New York and London were long gone.

Evelyn Ankers married Richard Denning (himself to make a name for himself battling some of the creatures in Universal sub-classics in the Fifties--most memorably The Creature From The Black Lagoon) and gratefully retired from films in the late forties to raise a family. She apparently never missed acting and had a reputation of being an excellent mother and a sterling citizen. She deserved all her happiness.

David Bruce remained a B-picture performer and then graduated to television as the father of the house in the situation comedy Beulah. He then retired from show business entirely.