The 2024 Summer Monster Bash Presentation Of GO AND GET IT

 

One of my annual outings is attending the Monster Bash Conference held in Western Pennsylvania. Ron Adams (the head honcho of the festivities) and his hard-working staff do a fantastic job, and the weekend is filled with fun and classic horror/sci-fi fan camaraderie. 

This recent Monster Bash, held the weekend of July 19-21, had a special treat for film geeks. Writer, historian, and commentator Tom Weaver brought a copy of the recently discovered Italian print of the 1920 silent GO AND GET IT. The print was found at the Cineteca Italiana Archive. The movie was shown late Saturday night, and I was in the audience. 

The intertitles of this print were in Italian, but Weaver had them translated, and he, along with Maurice Terenzio and Ron Adams' wife Ursula, voiced the translations during the running of the film. 

Silent movie buffs may have heard of GO AND GET IT due to its subplot involving an executed criminal's brain transplanted into a gorilla. Stills of actor Bull Montana in his gorilla makeup (such as below) have appeared in numerous books and magazines over the years. 

Bull Montana in GO AND GET IT

Before the showing Tom Weaver mentioned to the audience that GO AND GET IT was not a full-fledged horror or science fiction feature, and he was right. It's basically a newspaper melodrama with comedic elements. A young woman who owns a big-city newspaper (Agnes Ayres) suspects that the editor is conspiring to ruin the periodical. The woman takes an alias and joins the paper's staff, and along with the ace reporter (Pat O'Malley), tries to find out what is going on. Along the way the duo become involved in the machinations of a strange doctor (Noah Beery Sr.), who takes the brain of an executed criminal (Walter Long) and plants it in the skull of a gorilla (Bull Montana). The gorilla, now with the memory of the criminal, goes after and kills those responsible for his being convicted. The ace reporter gets to the bottom of the gorilla killings, makes sure his paper gets the story first, and then wins the hand of the paper's owner. 

GO AND GET IT is competently made, but it lacks a certain spark--the pace is very sluggish at times. Agnes Ayres and Pat O'Malley are decent enough in their roles, but they lack charisma. The comedic elements of the story fall flat, and the mixture of genres doesn't pan out. One wonders what a Fritz Lang or a Louis Feuillade would have done with such material. (The credited directors for GO AND GET IT are Marshall Neilan and Henry Roberts Symonds.) 

One thing is for sure--Lang and Feuillade would have given the gorilla subplot way more attention. Noah Beery's scientist is rather bland for the type of work he's involved in, and most of the gorilla's post-operation crimes are committed off-screen. Bull Montana is quite creepy and grotesque as the gorilla, and he does get a chance to show how threatening he is during the climax, but it won't be enough screen time for 21st Century audiences. 

The most notable sequence in the film is when the ace reporter tracks down the scientist's assistant. The reporter gets a plane, which chases another plane, which the reporter climbs aboard, while in mid-air. Getting the info he needs, the reporter climbs back onto the original plane, which takes him to a train, which he drops onto. Finding that the assistant isn't on the train, he hops onto the plane from the top of the train, eventually gets on a plane that is able to land on water, and goes out to the ocean liner that the assistant is on. It's a well-done sequence, with excellent stunts (nothing is faked)....but the result of all this is that the reporter asks the assistant a few questions, and then both men go on their way. The sequence feels as if it comes from another film, or as if the filmmakers were just trying to show off. 

One another thing that needs to be mentioned about the GO AND GET IT cast is the young copy boy who works for the newspaper is played by Wesley Barry--and later on in life he directed THE CREATION OF THE HUMANOIDS. 

The version of GO AND GET IT that was presented at Monster Bash was very sharp and clear, and Tom Weaver told me personally that it was the uncut version (it certainly appeared to me that there wasn't any major gaps in the narrative). Unfortunately the music score attached to this version was very monotonous--it was mostly made up of a tinkling piano that played the same themes over and over again. 

As I mentioned before, the presentation of GO AND GET IT was late Saturday night, after a lot of major Monster Bash activities had been performed. A couple people actually fell asleep during the GO AND GET IT showing, and I have to admit that I was trying hard to stay awake myself. I'm not trying to denigrate the movie or the presentation by saying that--if you attend a Monster Bash on a Saturday, you're going to have a full load of things to participate in. GO AND GET IT wasn't a bad film, but it lacks the excitement or the atmosphere that several greater silent productions made around the same time display. What makes GO AND GET IT important now is that it was the precursor of a number of thrillers that used the "executed criminal is somehow brought to life and goes on a murderous spree of revenge" plot, such as THE WALKING DEAD, THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL, and INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN. 

Whatever the quality of GO AND GET IT, the fact that I was able to personally attend a screening of it was a major film geek experience. Usually only someone living in a major metropolitan area such as New York City and Los Angeles would get such an experience. I'd like to give a big Thank You to Tom Weaver, Ron Adams, and all the good folks involved with Monster Bash for putting this screening together, and I'd like to recommend all reading this to attend the 2024 Fall Monster Bash, which will be held the first weekend of November....and which will feature my great friend Joshua Kennedy as an Official Guest! 

Maurice Terenzio, Ursula Adams, and Tom Weaver getting ready to voice the English translation of the Italian intertitles of GO AND GET IT