Attention, ladies and gentlemen! Behind this cur- tain is the strangest creature your eyes will ever behold! Erik the Ape Man, the monster who walks upright and speaks a language, even as you and I! The ruler of the jungle whose giant hands can tear a man in half! Erik the Ape Man! The beast with a human soul! More cunning than a man and stron- ger than a lion!” Inevitably, our protagonists fol- low the siren’s call and enter the sideshow. The triangle-shaped entrance into the tent is decorated with the painting of an ape, its bowlegs straddling the arch. It seems as if the carnival-goers are ac- tually penetrating a cavity between the ape’s legs, as if to suggest that the characters are entering the ape’s womb—or perhaps reentering the ape’s womb? This would be appropriate, as these un- suspecting Parisians are about to hear a lecture about humans having emerged from apes long ago.
Mirakle’s own sexual attraction toward Camille is made apparent from the start when he suggests that she take a seat in the front row where she can have a better view of the proceedings. Perhaps Mirakle wants a better view of her—or, even more perversely, wishes Erik to have a better view of the demure ingénue.
Now comes Mirakle’s presentation, Lugosi’s chance to display all the strange mannerisms and disjointed line reads that made him so effective in
the role of Dracula a year before. Standing in front of a painted backdrop decorated with illustrations of sea life evolving into apes and apes evolving into humans, Mirakle paces back and forth across the stage as he delivers a blasphemous lecture about humans’ kinship with simians: “Here, the story of man!” He points toward the chart behind him. “Crawling reptiles grew legs. Eons of ages passed! There came a time when a four-legged thing walked upright. Behold, the first man!” He gestures toward Erik in his cage.
Sidney Fox in a gag pose with Charlie Gemora’s Erik the Ape.
The audience’s reaction to Mirakle’s theories are heated, to say the least—and probably mirror the reaction of many moviegoers in the South and Midwest who wandered into a film called MUR- DERS IN THE RUE MORGUE expecting a typical murder mystery, only to be assaulted with a lec- ture about evolution from Bela Lugosi 10 minutes into the movie. This is almost a metafictional, postmodern moment. As the camera draws in on Lugosi’s leering face, the carnival audience stand in for the audience watching the movie; just as Mirakle lures the carnival-goers with the promise of sensationalistic entertainment, only to pull the rug out from under them and assault them with heretical scientific theories, Florey as director pulls the same bait-and-switch. One wonders if Mirakle is echoing Florey’s own thoughts when he says, “Do you think these walls and curtains are my whole life? They are only a trap to catch the pennies of fools!”
A man erupts from the audience and accuses Mirakle of spreading heresy. Mirakle replies, “Do they still burn men for heresy? Then burn me, Monsieur. Light the fire. Do you think your little candle will outshine the flame of truth? My life is con- secrated to great experi- ment!” Florey very nearly breaks the fourth wall when Mirakle stares directly into the camera—perhaps at the audience in the movie the- ater itself—and whispers, “I tell you, I will prove... your kinship... with the ape!” Extreme close-ups of Lugosi’s face, particularly his hypnotic eyes, almost be- came a motif of 1930s hor- ror films, appearing and
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