DOCTOR ORLOFF'S MONSTER (1964)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*

DOCTOR ORLOFF'S MONSTER is not the ideal title for this Franco film, since Orloff-- who survived his strangulation at the end of AWFUL DOCTOR ORLOF--only appears for a few minutes at MONSTER's opening, to hand off his monster-making technology to the new mad scientist in town. Still, at least the MONSTER title signals to the viewer that it's supposed to carry the same appeal as the earlier film. One alternative title on the subtitled French-language stream I saw was THE MISTRESSES OF DOCTOR JEKYLL, which barely makes any sense, even when one knows that the new mad scientist is named Conrad Jekyll (Marcelo Ariota). An English-language version sensibly renamed the villain "Fisherman."

MONSTER re-uses the main trope of ORLOF, in which a scientist comes up with a way to "robotize" an individual and make this pawn commit crimes. Yet MONSTER, sometimes described as a remake, diverges from the original template quite a bit.  The titular scientist of ORLOF has his pawn run around some city killing women so that the scientist can try transferring their facial tissue to the physiognomy of his disfigured daughter Melissa, though this project eventually seems more about Orlof's obsessions than about benefiting his daughter. A fair number of Franco-philes have described ORLOF as "dreamlike" for its scenes of saucer-eyed pawn Morpho stalking his prey.

MONSTER, though, is much more straightforward in pacing and scenario, and so lacks any strong oneiric vibe. The process by which Jekyll makes his robotic pawn is made more explicitly scientific, in contrast to the first film, in which one never knows what alterations Orlof performed upon Morpho. (This caused me to label the first film "uncanny.") Here, one knows that Jekyll has reanimated a dead body and somehow imbued it with immense strength and invulnerability to bullets, a more explicit play upon the Frankenstein template.

The genesis of the mad scientist's insanity is also more crystal-clear. Conrad discovered his brother Andros (Hugo Blanco) sleeping with Conrad's wife Inglud and committed fratricide. Not content to simply get away with murder, Conrad revived Andros with the late Orlof's technology, while keeping Inglud a virtual prisoner on his estate. He then began seeing various women in whatever German/Austrian town they're supposed to be in, but Conrad only wants to take out his gynophobia on these "loose women." Each of Conrad's paramours gets a necklace with a hidden transmitter inside, and when Conrad activates the transmitter, Andros (the android?) stalks and kills the women. This very much duplicates the dynamic of Freud's repetition-compulsion, in which the criminal repeats his crime because it expresses the psychological conflicts that have yet to be exorcised by his original deed.

But just as Conrad starts to ramp up his crime career, his niece Melissa (Agnes Spaak) shows up at Conrad's mansion/laboratory to settle her late father's estate. Melissa never knew her father, or even saw a picture of him, possibly because her mother knew of the affair and so wrote Andros out of the picture. Therefore the young woman is really less concerned about inheritance than about learning about her vanished sire. To be sure, this isn't her only concern, for her Spanish boyfriend Juan Manuel follows her to the Germanic city and stays in town while Melissa takes up residence at Conrad's mansion.

Andros-- who is merely pop-eyed, not saucer-eyed, and has some inflamed skin around his jawline-- is supposed to stay in a locked room, but eventually he gets free. Despite not having seen Melissa since childhood, Andros recognizes the girl and strokes her hair in sleep. Melissa sees the strange man but does not fully comprehend his identity. Meanwhile, Conrad keeps up his campaign of slaughter, causing the local police to launch an investigation. but Inglud, still forlornly in love with the slain Andros, gives away some of Conrad's secrets. Conrad tries to keep Juan Manuel away from the mansion but seems to court disaster by not sending Melissa away as well. Eventually Conrad 's homicidal urges turn upon his niece, and Andros comes to his daughter's defense.

This is one of the few Franco films in which all of the main characters play vital roles in the narrative, and it even has a fairly developed second act. I suspect the title's use of the "Jekyll" name was just someone's idea of using a more marketable name than Orloff.