
The
Alligator People (1959)
Although
"they" would have you believe the mad scientist in this movie
is to blame for the creation of the alligator man, I contest
that it is actually the nameless orderly who doomed poor Paul Webster
(a.k.a. the alligator man) to a life of fish-snappin' doom! But I'll
get to that in a moment.
Beverly Garland (It Conquered the World) portrays Joyce Webster, an
ambitious trouble-shooter in search of her missing husband Paul. We know
her husband's name is Paul because that name is constantly being screamed
throughout the movie.
With
Joyce's cooperation, neuropathologist Dr. McGreg and his colleague
Dr. Larmer inject her with truth serum so that Joyce's unconscious
mind
can reveal the terrible secret she's been hiding! It seems that Joyce
is not her real name and she has subconsciously hidden the truth from
herself concerning some horrible ordeal she experienced. Hooked up to
a lie detector, and with a reel-to-reel tape recorder rolling in the
background, Joyce begins to tell her terrible tale via drug-induced,
barely intelligible mumblings.
Joyce's
story begins on her honeymoon train ride where she and Paul discuss
their plans
for the
future. After being served champagne by a
black cabin steward who was probably told to sound like Mr. Bojangles
("Yessuh! Nosuh! Thank YOU, suh!"), we learn that Paul has
recently survived a plane crash that broke every bone in his body (people
often walk away from plane crashes with broken bones) yet
appears to be unharmed! The steward hands Paul a mysterious telegram
that upsets him and he flees the train, leaving his new bride
behind screaming, "Paul!...Wait, Paul!...Paul!!...Paul!!!!"
Joyce
devotes her life to locating her husband. She finds an address where
Paul stayed
while
in college. The house happens to be located next
to the swamplands. Arriving in a small town, she meets the creepy Manna,
a hook-handed handyman played by Lon Chaney. Manna is more terrifying
than any
of Chaney's Wolfman
or Frankenstein roles. Manna has a thirst for liquor
and a hatred for all 'gators. Sure the Wolfman was scary, but can you
imagine getting a lift from a big sweaty guy with a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing
grin saying, "I'll give you a ride! Go ahead...get in my truck!
It's OK!" I just wanted to yell, "Are you nuts, Joyce?! Don't
accept a ride from this guy! He's evil incarnate!!" But accept she
does and soon Joyce is on her way to the house where Paul stayed in college:
The Cypresses Plantation.
Now
at this point of the movie, if feminists aren't ticked off by an esteemed
doctor
asking how pretty
his new patient is, then ecologists
really aren't going to like Manna driving over, what I sincerely
hope was, a "stunt gator". Following
Manna treating an alligator as a speed bump, he and Joyce arrive
at a mansion where Mrs. Hawthorne resides. But she denies ever
having heard of Paul Webster. With
Joyce stuck in town for the night, she agrees to let her stay until morning.
Mrs. Hawthorne almost pulls off the innocent act until she demands that
Joyce be locked in her room. Hmm...nothing suspicious
going on here!
Frightened
Mrs. Hawthorne races to a nearby lab where a certain Dr. Sinclair
is working
on an experiment. The next 10 minutes
can be labeled, "What do we do about the girl?". The viewing
aucience is then informed that Sinclair has been working on a formula
that enhances growth. No, it's not Viagra, but a serum that allows human
limbs to regenerate after being severed.
Then
Hawthorne reveals that she is Paul's mother. Now don't you think Joyce
would've already met Paul's mother? These are the 1950s! Oh
Joyce, if you had gotten to know your inlaws a little better, maybe
you wouldn't be terrorized by Alligator People. A lesson for kids planning
to elope! If Joyce had only asked for a little for information from
Paul before marrying him. The conversation might have sounded like
this:
" So, Paul, what does your father do for a living?"
" He conducts experiments that involve injecting
human beings with experimental alligator enzymes," he might
have replied.
"
Get away from me you sick weirdo...this wedding's off!"
In
any case, Joyce and "mom" plan an intervention for Paul (maybe
for guys who leave their wives on trains) but he runs
away, leaving her to chase him in the rain, screaming his name
over and over again. Joyce gets lost in the swamp and, after
tripping over a phony, wooden alligator, is rescued by the despicable
Manna. The slimey Manna takes Joyce to his shack where she can "get
out of those wet things." When she refuses, Manna
punches her in the face! You read correctly. Luckily,
this is just a Hollywood punch, so instead of suffering a broken
jaw as she would in real life, she later appears unharmed. She is then "rescued" (a
little too late) by the now half-mutated Paul. Paul's stunt double pounds
Manna's stunt
double
into submission.
Paul takes Joyce back to the lab where everyone decides to combine
X-Rays with radiation from Cobalt 60 to reverse his condition (that's
just crazy enough to work!) But as they begin Paul's treatments with
a really cool ray machine that lowers from the ceiling, the relentless
Manna bursts onto the scene looking to kill the alligator man.
Here
is where some really strange stage direction occurs: When Manna enters
the lab, a
big, muscular
orderly/security guy says to Mannna, "Hey,
you can't go in there!" Then Manna says, "Out of
my way!" and
just walks past the guy! Manna proceeds to ruin
the experiment and the orderly/security guy is never seen again! Where
is this coward?! If he had just held Manna for
a second, Paul would've been cured! Why even
have
him
in the scene if he's just going to stand there??? It's clear to me
that this movie's tragic ending is entirely the fault of the orderly.
Paul
and Manna battle briefly until Manna's hook gets caught on some wires
and he is char-broiled Cajun-style! What follows is a confused, frightened
alligator man running through the swamps fighting stuffed alligators
in a battle
royale which can only be called a Crocodile Rock. While a battle
to the death with another alligator would've been an ironic
ending, Paul defeats the 'gator, takes two steps and
sinks into the quicksand. The End. No wait..."Paul! Paul! Paul!"
When
Joyce's hypnotic tale is concluded, the two respected doctors decide
not to "upset" her
by playing her taped subconscious confession, but to instead, let
her live a lie! The End.
Although I've obviously picked on some of the film's campier moments,
this movie is a lot of fun to watch and I highly recommend it. It's non-stop
fun from start to finish.
Comment
on this movie |

One
of the best b-movies of all time. An
entertaining film without any dull scenes. If a guy wearing
an alligator's head is your idea of a great leading man, this movie's
for you.

Dr.
Larmer: "On the phone you
said you were having a serious problem with a young girl."
Dr. McGreg: "Yes.
Mary's here, as a matter of fact."
Larmer: "Pretty?"
McGreg: "Here's her case study." (Hands
him file and photo).
Larmer: "Jane
Marvin"
McGreg: "That's
the name she's using. Very complicated girl."
Larmer: "and pretty!"
Physician: "What
brings you here?"
Joyce: "An
old address, the Cypresses, that I found in Paul's college records."
Physician: "You
came all that way, traveled hundreds of miles on nothing more tangible
than that?"
Joyce: "I've
traveled much farther on even less."
Dr. Sinclair (creator of the alligator serum): "Paul,
I'll never be able to tell you how sorry I am."
Paul (laying on an operating table, with scales all over
his face): "Don't
blame youself. I certainly don't. You couldn't have known. You're not God."
Sinclair: "No,
but I feel as though I've been playing God and now I've been punished!"
Paul: "Forget
it."
Dr.
Larmer parks his car at the sanitarium but exits the vehicle by sliding
over to the passenger side.
The
only thing Manna hates more than 'gators is rejection
from women.

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