The Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 30 - The Bride of the Monster

Ah Ed Wood. After spending time in the nasty subconscious made film that is Troll 2 it’s almost a pleasure to be here with Ed watching the stock footage and the stolen giant octopus and Tor Johnson bump into things. And of course Bela.

1955’s bride of the monster is commonly held to be Ed Wood’s best film. Now that is not saying that it is a good film, it’s just that compared to say Glen or Glenda or Plan Nine this has a semi coherent plot with a beginning middle and end – of course there are Ed Wood things all over the film – single takes, cheap sets weird off kilter dialogue and this guy with a bird.

After the credits (lots of rain) we see two hunters lost in the swamp – apparently a lot of people have been lost in the swamp here over the past few months, missing without a trace– which of course begs the question why these idiots are here and why didn’t bother to at least listen to the weather report before setting out into a swamp. They run around in the storm – and they are really soaking wet being an Ed Wood Extra was no bed of roses I have to say. They come across the creepy old house in the middle of the swamp and damn if Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson are living there. The sight of Tor drives the hunters into the night. Bela goes inside, makes a motion to Tor and then with a touch of button opens up a secret passage inside the fire place.

As always with these things, several questions come to mind, One – who did the construction work? Are their firms that specialize in this sort of thing – what springs to mind is a dr. evil moment “I’m just asking for a frickin’ secret passage that opens in the fireplace” “well doc the thing is we’d have to cut through some support beams and well is going to be a lot of trouble.” “How much trouble” “About 25K more trouble.”

Also if there is a fire place one assumes it gets cold from time to time so could he use the fire place? I don’t think so.

So Bela emerges into a modern well equipped mad scientist laboratory complete with fake looking octopus behind a glass view screen – it’s part of the lore of this film that the octopus was stolen from a studio but Ed’s crew forgot to steal the motor that ran the arms so it just sits there. I’d have to say I can’t imagine the motor would made it look any more realistic than it does here.

We then go to stock footage of a real octopus then back to our wet extras – one is eaten – we assume – by the octopus, actually he rolls around and has to garb the arms himself to make it move. The other is grabbed by Tor Johnson (in this film he’s called Lobo and we shall call him that from now on.) which is hard to believe even in a storm and watching your friend being killed by a giant octopus the idea that an enormous Swedish man could sneak up on you beggars the imagination.

The captured man wakes up and discovers he is tied to the gurney in Bela’s Modern well equipped Mad Scientists’ lab and Bela explains to him that he is attempting to turn people in to 10 foot tall giants with the strength of twenty men but up until now every attempt has ended up killing the subject. Which it does here.

Again you wonder – when the two hunters showed up at your house wouldn’t have been easier to have had them come inside and then I don’t know drugged them if you needed unwilling subjects for your experiments. The whole thing with the octopus and Lobo seemed rather baroque.

And there is the other factor – what if you succeeded – you’d be dealing with a ten foot tall giant with the strength of twenty men who was probably going to be very very angry at you. I really don’t think Bela had thought all of this out.

So cut to the police station where the police captain – who does some comic relief stuff with a bird that makes you go huh? He talks over the case with Lt\. Dick Craig (played by someone as the legend goes – who’s dad had money to put into the film – Ed did what he had to do to get it done) and the female lead Janet who wears the rather frighten bullet style bras that Madonna would later use to make some sort of point. Janet is a newspaper reporter hot on the trial of the monster that has caused the disappearance of 12 people – you know you’d think at about disappearance number six the police would have assigned more men to the case but there you are.

After a bit of not so funny sparring – Janet takes off – in about the largest car I’ve ever seen – does a little digging and finds out the old house in the middle of swamp has been bought a while ago. This apparently hadn’t occurred to anybody to check on this before now.

Meantime a man claiming to be an expert on monsters shows up at police headquarters. This guy they listen to seriously even though he can’t seem to keep his accent straight. But he is not al he seems.

Janet takes off in her car and then promptly crashes it in the swamp. There she is menaced by stock footage and then by a very fake rubber snake. She is saved by Lobo who for a big guy can really get around – Janet is wearing an argyle wool hat which Tor takes a fancy to.

Next day the monster expert reveals himself to be an agent of the country Bela was born in – he offers to take Bela home and then for a moment there is a real emotion on the set as Bela does the “I have no home” speech – it’s a nice piece and deservedly famous – however right after that Lobo conks the agent on the head and we’re back to the nonsense as the agent is tossed to the octopus.

Janet meantime is a guest/prisoner of Bela. Making it more uncomfortable is that Lobo is quite taken with her. But Bela has plans for her.

Lt. Dick (I can’t help but think that this name is no accident – buy your way into my movie? Well this’ll show you) who is engaged to Janet although well there is nada chemistry between them blunders into the swamp as well. They all end up at the lab. He is shackled to the wall and forced to watch as Bela orders lobo to bring in Janet dressed in a brides outfit – the original title was bride of the Atom so well here she is. Bela wants to try the giant making thing on Janet. Why the brides dress? I don’t have the foggiest idea. I’m sure it was explained in the script somewhere (maybe – this is an Ed Wood film) but due to costs didn’t shoot that scene.

But lobo revolts and frees Janet – who then frees Dick (yes I admit I liked writing that line) who just gets his but stomped by Lobo (in the process getting his shirt ripped in a very very fey looking way) Lobo then puts Bela under the giant making ray and this time it works.

Giant Bela kills Lobo then takes Janet – meantime the police have arrived including the captains’ very put upon desk sergeant who is about as useless as Dick is.

Somehow the house burns down – then Bela drops Janet then everybody shoots Bela – there is a boulder that rolls down a hill and then Giant Bela is killed by the fake octopus in a manner similar to the guy at the start of the film. Man rolling about screaming and pretending the arms are grabbing him. The rest of the Octopus I must say doesn’t look that interested.

Bad movie legend has Bela doing this last bit but he didn’t. it was the stunt guy who played giant Bela.

After that there is stock footage of an atomic explosion which the cast just kind of stare at as they absorb I don’t know how many rems of gamma particles and what not.

The captain says “He tampered in God’s Domain” bringing the last huh of the night. Really is god in the practice of kidnapping folks and trying to turn them into giants? The line doesn’t make sense otherwise.

Well it’s an Ed Wood film. Sense gets clubbed in the head and left in an alley sometime during the first reel.

Enjoy with Calamari.