performance and off- beat, almost dream-like line readings. We enter the scene in media res as the prostitute whimpers and screams, Mirakle in- sisting that the pain will last only “a little while longer.” Here the doctor’s psycho-sexual sadism is made evident by the fact that he is only re- moving blood from the prostitute’s arm, lead- ing to the conclusion that Mirakle has taken a leisurely route to reach this otherwise simple goal.
Some of Lugosi’s best scenes in the film show Mirakle conversing with Erik in a strange simian dialect.
stands there and screams as the two men, behav- ing like alpha-male primates, murder one another. Ironically, the woman is spared the fate of becom- ing a living prize for either one of the first two hu- man primates only to fall into the hands of Mirakle, who wishes to hand her over to a genuine primate. (Let’s pause for just a moment for an interest- ing side note that demonstrates the continuing influence of Florey’s film on subsequent writers and artists. The bestselling 1980s graphic novel V FOR VENDETTA by Alan Moore and David Lloyd begins with a scene in which the anarchist V saves a prostitute from the fog-strewn streets of London under very similar circumstances. Later in the story, V puts the girl through a series of physical and psychological tortures as part of his own “great experiment.” On the first page of the graphic novel, the reader catches a glimpse of V’s secret lair. One of the decorations hanging on the wall above his vanity mirror is an original movie poster for none other than Robert Florey’s MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE.)
In the film’s next scene, Mirakle has the prosti- tute crucified to a large wooden crossbeam in a series of shots redolent with perverse religious im- agery made even more twisted by Lugosi’s manic
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Mirakle puts the blood sample under a microscope. When he discovers that the woman has “rotten blood” (no doubt a euphemism for some form of sexual dis- ease), Mirakle grows en- raged and shouts in her face: “Your blood is rot-
ten because of your sins! Your beauty was a lie!” Mirakle requires a “pure” woman for his experi- ment, chooses to kidnap a prostitute instead, then flies into a homicidal rage when she turns out not to be “pure.” Mirakle has set up for himself and his victims an almost impossible set of standards, similar to the inquisitors in the Salem witch trials who condemned any woman who caused a mar- ried man to have an erection to prolonged torture and execution. After all, any woman “impure” enough to illicit such a reaction in a church-going man could only be a witch.
The woman’s crime is not that she fails to meet Mirakle’s standards. She fails to meet the stan- dards that Mirakle has established for Erik the Ape. Ironically, the woman’s blood must be pure enough to mingle with that of the beast, not the other way around.
The line between human and primate is blurred throughout the film. Many of the actors and ac- tresses have a bestial look to them. Mirakle’s own bizarre uni-brow makes him resemble something vaguely half-animal. The Morgue Keeper (D’Arcy Corrigan), who plays a prominent role in the film, possesses features more akin to ape than human. The Morgue Keeper’s assistant, who delivers to
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