Horror,Mystery,Crime,Romance
United States of America
Murders in the Rue Morgue is a 1932 horror film directed by Robert Florey and starring Bela Lugosi. The film is loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story of the same name.
The film is set in 19th-century Paris and follows Dr. Mirakle (Bela Lugosi), a mad scientist who is obsessed with proving that there is a link between humans and apes. He begins abducting young women from the streets of Paris, injecting them with ape blood, and performing experiments on them. However, his experiments always end in failure, as the women either die or turn into savage monsters.
Meanwhile, Pierre Dupin (Leon Ames), a medical student, becomes involved in the case when his girlfriend Camille (Sidney Fox) is kidnapped by Mirakle. With the help of a detective (Bert Roach), Pierre sets out to rescue Camille and stop Mirakle's deadly experiments.
As Pierre gets closer to Mirakle, he discovers that the mad scientist has a gorilla named Erik, whom he began to regard as his own son. Mirakle believes that Erik possesses the human soul, and he plans to perform surgery on him to give him the ability to speak and prove his theory of ape-human kinship.
The film is notable for its atmospheric depiction of 19th-century Paris, as well as Lugosi's intense performance as Dr. Mirakle. It is also famous for its climactic sequence, in which Erik the gorilla goes on a rampage, killing several people and eventually falling to his death from Notre Dame Cathedral.
Murders in the Rue Morgue is considered a classic of early horror cinema and is often credited as one of the first American horror films to feature a mad scientist as the central villain.
