This is a misinterpreted film, with reviewers (on another site) believing the opposite of how I understood it; another of those situations when we are likely reviewing different movies, so dissimilar are the ideas, anyway to me Mischa Auer but also Sidney Bracey are the best from the cast, each of the others being also strongly effective and acting professionally, even Lease.
A horror movie with a good cast: Sheldon Lewis as the surviving brother, Sidney Bracey as Wilkes (a reliable old-school role), Mischa Auer (who not only got a good role, but also knew how to play it), Martha Mattox as his mother, W. Best (sadly reduced to a coward manservant, like in a later movie); perhaps not so good were the two leads, either bland (him), or less likable, her (which in fact means good casting, she's the offshoot of a doomed family, and she has to look spooked, but also spooky herself). But even she, is understandably scared, and shaken, and asks to leave twice, the 1st time they make her change her mind and the housekeeper keeps her company, the 2nd time she's handed over to Hanns; she doesn't ask to leave the house more than twice, and each time her request is answered: calming her, and then entrusting her to the cousin she doesn't yet know she has. The plot is mysterious and unnerving, the dialogs well written, and the casting, flawless (quite the opposite of what some reviewers affect to think). The visual style proves intelligent, unlike that of other '30s movies that look like footage for a radio play. Lease, the physician, was somewhat bland, but not unlikable, and certainly not obnoxious.
Hanns is an Expressionist character, something Strayer was fond of, and the player, a '30s character actor, was highly effective as someone who's not at all a simpleton, and his bond with the elder guy is suggested by the impatient way he handles him in a scene; the plot also may remind of that feel, with its suggestions of beastliness, monstrosity, the 'Universal' horrors took over something from the European style. But the horror attempted here is different, starker; it's not an Expressionist horror, Hanns alone reminds of this style, otherwise here the terror is starker, more visceral, punching. A moving frame on the wall, hands seen in the funeral chamber, a clutching hand, a player's silhouette . Then the pulse count reveals half the solution.
Strayer in the early '30s: he was a dependable director. In this tale of a doomed family, where one brother preferred his ape to his daughter, and the other one fathered a gloomy man, the doubles are significant: the caged ape is the daughter's double, but also her cousin's double.
Vera R. has been chosen precisely because she looked spooky herself. In Strayer's movies, the murders are sometimes shown, in this one as well.
I liked the dreary house, the sets, starkly unnerving, I enjoyed the feel, and the dialog, with some likable people, like the physician and the lawyer, behaving as they do, the lawyer made a nice gentleman, and chivalrous, so I approve of the way the characters have been thought out and played; both families, owners and servants, are German, Hanns looks and behaves the way he does, because he is the sickly brother's child, his cousin asks only twice to leave, and it's explained why she remains (as also the ape's presence in the house is amply explained; less obvious is why would Hanns use the unholy glove for his hand, but the ape is his double), and when she was going to leave, she's kidnapped. There are only few funny moments, all by W. Best.
The last joke, the likeness with the ape, seems added for the half-wits, and comes after an hour with two strange German families.
A horror movie with a good cast: Sheldon Lewis as the surviving brother, Sidney Bracey as Wilkes (a reliable old-school role), Mischa Auer (who not only got a good role, but also knew how to play it), Martha Mattox as his mother, W. Best (sadly reduced to a coward manservant, like in a later movie); perhaps not so good were the two leads, either bland (him), or less likable, her (which in fact means good casting, she's the offshoot of a doomed family, and she has to look spooked, but also spooky herself). But even she, is understandably scared, and shaken, and asks to leave twice, the 1st time they make her change her mind and the housekeeper keeps her company, the 2nd time she's handed over to Hanns; she doesn't ask to leave the house more than twice, and each time her request is answered: calming her, and then entrusting her to the cousin she doesn't yet know she has. The plot is mysterious and unnerving, the dialogs well written, and the casting, flawless (quite the opposite of what some reviewers affect to think). The visual style proves intelligent, unlike that of other '30s movies that look like footage for a radio play. Lease, the physician, was somewhat bland, but not unlikable, and certainly not obnoxious.
Hanns is an Expressionist character, something Strayer was fond of, and the player, a '30s character actor, was highly effective as someone who's not at all a simpleton, and his bond with the elder guy is suggested by the impatient way he handles him in a scene; the plot also may remind of that feel, with its suggestions of beastliness, monstrosity, the 'Universal' horrors took over something from the European style. But the horror attempted here is different, starker; it's not an Expressionist horror, Hanns alone reminds of this style, otherwise here the terror is starker, more visceral, punching. A moving frame on the wall, hands seen in the funeral chamber, a clutching hand, a player's silhouette . Then the pulse count reveals half the solution.
Strayer in the early '30s: he was a dependable director. In this tale of a doomed family, where one brother preferred his ape to his daughter, and the other one fathered a gloomy man, the doubles are significant: the caged ape is the daughter's double, but also her cousin's double.
Vera R. has been chosen precisely because she looked spooky herself. In Strayer's movies, the murders are sometimes shown, in this one as well.
I liked the dreary house, the sets, starkly unnerving, I enjoyed the feel, and the dialog, with some likable people, like the physician and the lawyer, behaving as they do, the lawyer made a nice gentleman, and chivalrous, so I approve of the way the characters have been thought out and played; both families, owners and servants, are German, Hanns looks and behaves the way he does, because he is the sickly brother's child, his cousin asks only twice to leave, and it's explained why she remains (as also the ape's presence in the house is amply explained; less obvious is why would Hanns use the unholy glove for his hand, but the ape is his double), and when she was going to leave, she's kidnapped. There are only few funny moments, all by W. Best.
The last joke, the likeness with the ape, seems added for the half-wits, and comes after an hour with two strange German families.