Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

BallWubba Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

MartinHafer "Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allen Poe is considered to be one of the first detective stories. While it's been made and remade several times for the big screen, I've yet to see a version that sticks very closely to the original. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the Poe story lacks the excitement of many of the films and the story is a bit brief. So, I can cut the makers of "Phantom of the Rue Morgue" some slack for taking some rather large liberties with the story. And overall, it's a decent film.Before I talk about the plot and my feelings, I should point out that this film must have either been 3-D originally or they planned on releasing that way in theaters. This is because again and again, the camera points directly at things as they are tossed at the camera---cheap 3-D tricks which were common in these films. It is also a color film...a bit unusual for 50s movies but not for 3-D pictures.As for the story, several women have been horribly murdered-- mutilated by a killer with immense strength and acrobatic abilities. The Inspector is a total idiot and comes up with a theory and then attempts to make the facts fit it--a common theme in B-mystery movies. The unlucky guy who gets arrested for the crimes (Steve Forrest) obviously didn't commit the murders and couldn't have if he'd wanted to do so. The only logical solution to the problem is an ape. Oddly, while it's an orangutan in the Poe story, here it's a gorilla and I assume it's simply because they had a gorilla suit handy! The mystery isn't just the ape, however, it's also who is behind all this and why--elements that simply weren't in the original tale....but were entertaining nevertheless.Not a brilliant horror/mystery film but an enjoyable time passer. It's also fun just to watch it and count the cheap 3-D moments where things are aimed at the audience...making this an excellent movie to be used as a drinking game with friends.By the way, it doesn't harm the film in any way, but Karl Malden's character was described throughout the film as a psychologist. At this point in history, they were not called that nor were folks doing conditioning experiments like you see in the film. No biggie, however.

howardmorley Being an amateur artist I paid particular to the voluptuous actress Veola Vonn as (Arlette)who is posing and playing an artist's model.In the unfinished painting (where work has stopped because the light has gone), the artist has already painted a blue sheet covering her on the bed but Arlette is holding up a green sheet to her body.Also freeze framing the scene where she impulsively gets up from the bed in an attempt to slash the unfinished work, clearly shows she is wearing panties even though she is playing a nude model.Of course censorship took its' toll in 1954.My DVD came with the option of French sub-titles or just English dialogue but I would have appreciated French dialogue dubbed on the soundtrack.For example I like to put on Italian dialogue for my DVD of "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" for the Jennifer Jones/William Holden classic from 1955 as Jennifer sounds really sexy with her voice dubbed in this language.The above user comments do not register when you input "La Phantome de la Rue Morgue" into the search box on IMDb.com only the English title which I found surprising as this is how my copy was sold to me.There are some entertaining scenes so I awarded this film 6/10.

mhrabovsky6912 A top notch horror thriller for it's time when it was released in the 1950s.....not a slasher film, those types of movies were not even considered during that time period....story concerns some very brutal murders of beautiful young women in and around some Paris France nightclubs in the very early 1900s....women are mutilated and the local gendarmes (police) are mystified....how could they be so badly beat up and decimated....the local police question everyone and the local inspector pays too much attention looking for suspects at the local college.....no clues are to be found.... finally after another gruesome murder a local student is implicated since he was near the area looking for the murderer himself...the local cops are very anxious to pin the murder on the student since they have no other suspects and the heat is on to find the killer (s). After some serious head scratching the student, Steve Forrest puts two and two together and figures that no man could be physically capable of crashing through glass ceilings and mutilating and stuffing corpses up a chimney and severing limbs....the evidence points to an animal such as a gorilla...naturally the local gendarmes do not believe it a first. After the gorilla escapes from his local pen at the zoo and murders again, police have to release Forrest from custody. Evidence points to the local zoo and its curator Professor Marais (Karl Malden) Police quickly rush to the zoo to find the ape carrying around another potential victim, the fiancé of Forrest. The cops kill the gorilla and in a somewhat funny scene the ape lands on Malden and gives him a Mike Tyson working over...ugh!! This film was released in 3D in 1954 during a period when Hollywood was trying to figure out how to keep its audiences away from television.....3D was a silly gimmick that gave a few thrills by wearing plastic glasses to enlarge and somewhat make more believable the image on the screen...it looked like the image was coming right at the viewer more explicitly than in regular format. All in all this is a good, decent horror thriller for it's time...the music composed by David Buttolph is pretty good and adds a touch to the mystery. The guy in the gorilla costume is very believable and you feel almost compassionate seeing the gorilla in his cage responding to affection from the fiancé of Forrest. Decent little thriller.

kyle_furr A total rip-off of Edgar Allan Poe's short story. The plot is a bunch of crap, it has something to do with an animal running around killing woman. This reason why he does it is also a bunch of crap. Karl Malden is a good actor but totally wasted here. Watch house of wax instead.