THE BRUTE MAN

 

THE BRUTE MAN could be considered a "lost" Universal horror. It was made by that studio, but sold off to poverty row company PRC in 1946. Various sources state that Universal did this due to a change in policy concerning low-budget genre fare, but when one watches THE BRUTE MAN, and realizes how bad it is, one has to wonder if the studio just wanted to wash its hands of it. 

Rondo Hatton plays the title character, "The Creeper", a vicious killer stalking about in an unnamed large city. Hatton now has near-legendary status among old monster movie buffs, due to the fact that he was the horror actor who didn't need makeup, since he was afflicted with acromegaly. Universal tried to build up Hatton as a chiller star, but this attempt was made at the very end of the studio's classic horror period, and Rondo wound up in some very lackluster features, such as THE JUNGLE CAPTIVE and THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK. 

THE BRUTE MAN is bottom-of-the-barrel when it comes to 1940s Universal horror output. The Creeper is actually a man named Hal Moffat. About 15 years ago, Moffat was a popular football star at the local college, but he disappeared after ruining his good looks in a chemistry accident. Now the Creeper is back, targeting those he knew back in college. While on the run from the police, Hal hides out in the apartment of a lovely young piano teacher named Helen (Jane Adams), who happens to be blind. When Hal discovers that Helen is not afraid of him, since she cannot see his twisted features, he falls for the kindly woman and tries to help her, but his quest for vengeance against his classmates leads to his eventual capture. 

Even though THE BRUTE MAN is only about an hour long, it listlessly plods along, with no sense of suspense or style. Director Jean Yarbrough (a low-budget movie veteran) stages things as generically as possible, and even the Creeper's ramblings and killings have a perfunctory air to them. 

I feel uneasy in criticizing Rondo Hatton's performance, considering what he had to deal with in his too-short life, but the fact is he wasn't very good as an actor. Hatton fails to bring any sort of menace to the role--he just lumbers along, going about things in a very mechanical manner. What little dialogue Hatton gets is still way too much--his raspy monotone displays no sort of emotion. Hatton was much better used as a supporting menace--his most effective Universal role was in the Sherlock Holmes film THE PEARL OF DEATH, mainly because Roy William Neill was a fine enough director to realize that Hatton was best kept as a shadowy, mysterious presence. (The Universal publicity stills of Hatton are far more atmospheric than any of his onscreen appearances.) 

The attempt to gain the Creeper some sympathy through his attraction to Helen is totally negated by the story's flashback, which establishes the young Hal (played by Fred Coby) as a cocky big man on campus with a bad temper. (Hal himself causes the accident which transforms his features, due to his anger.) It doesn't help that Hatton can't provide any sort of proper reaction to Helen--he responds to her as if she's a piece of furniture. Jane Adams is so bright and likable as Helen that one can't understand why she doesn't immediately sense the Creeper is no good. (Adams played a hunchbacked nurse in Universal's HOUSE OF DRACULA, and with her portrayal of a blind person here, the actress must have wondered what the studio really thought about her.) 

Almost all the Universal horror classics of the 1930s and early 40s had wonderful supporting casts. THE BRUTE MAN decidedly does not. Donald MacBride and Peter Whitney play a couple of unlikable police officers (their attempts at comic relief fall absolutely flat), and there is no equivalent to what could be called a leading man role. Tom Neal, who gained some cult fame for the B movie classic DETOUR, appears as one of Hal's old college chums. 

If THE BRUTE MAN is remembered for anything, it is in using aspects of Rondo Hatton's real life in a story about a psychopathic killer. Did Universal do Hatton a favor by giving him the leading role in a film built around him, or were they merely exploiting his tragic condition?? That's up for the individual viewer to decide. Hatton himself never saw the finished film--he died months before its release. (Hatton's passing may have been another reason why Universal dumped the movie onto PRC.) THE BRUTE MAN shows how far the Universal horror series had fallen by the mid 1940s.