The script of Florey’s film is peppered with allusions to race and miscegenation throughout, as in this scene where the people of Paris leer and frown at brown-skinned Arab dancers.


In these exchanges, we see “civilized” white men lusting after dark-skinned, “lesser” females, and yet the men feel compelled to disguise their lust as playful jokes. Even in 1932, and certainly as far back as 1845, following through on their desires would have been seen as tantamount to bestiality... or at least one’s priest would have said so from behind the pulpit on Sunday morning. And the product of such a sinful union would have been considered an inferior person, a “half-breed.” What the movie audience, as well as the audi- ence at the carnival, does not yet know is that the story’s antagonist, Dr. Mirakle (Bela Lugosi), plans to prove his theory concerning the connection between mankind and simians by mating a hu- man female with an ape. Mirakle, however, would never consider the product of such a sexual union to be a “half-breed,” as he believes humans and apes to be members of the same species. Even in the pre-Code days of Hollywood (the censorious Motion Picture Production Code was not estab- lished until 1934), Universal could not have got- ten away with stating Mirakle’s intended goal quite so bluntly, though Florey attempted to do so in the earlier drafts of the screenplay. In order to sug- gest the same idea in a more oblique fashion, Florey and his screenwriters have Dr. Mirakle claim


that he is attempting to “mix” Erik’s blood with that of a human— a polite euphemism for the bestial-rape-as- controlled-experiment the doctor intends. The first shot of the civilized Parisians leer- ing at females of an “inferior” race paral- lels the obvious lust later expressed by Erik the Ape (portrayed by Charles Gemora) for Pierre’s girlfriend, Camille. Florey is bringing civilized man down to the level of an ape—or, conversely, raising civilized man up to Erik’s level. Florey seems inter- ested in blurring the traditional line of racial identity, not just in the story itself but in sev- eral other aspects of


the production. Mirakle’s servant/slave “Janos” is portrayed by the African-American actor Noble Johnson (who also appeared in several other clas- sic genre films of the period such as THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, THE MUMMY and KING KONG). Though Johnson is listed in the credits as “Janos, the Black One,” Florey chose to have Universal makeup chief Jack Pierce make him up in whiteface. Though plenty of white actors por- trayed black men in early Hollywood films, rarely did black actors portray white men. Matters of race and sexuality hang over the entire film like a shadow, not just in a metaphori- cal sense but in a Jungian sense as well. In Dr. Carl Jung’s psychological framework, a “shadow” is the innate self that rests within us, that mirrors choices by antithesis. In the context of the human ego and self perception, the Jungian Shadow is an ostensibly malignant being; however, the con- cept of a Jungian shadow may also encompass an incomplete ideal, stifled hopes or inhibited thoughts, those hidden aspects of ourselves we do not wish to recognize. Erik the Ape is that shadow.


After seeing the exotic dancers, Pierre and his friends are lured into the tent of Dr. Mirakle by the lurid promises of a sideshow barker: “Attention!


19

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