The Manster (1959)

”That girl's not wearing underwear."
   A complete stranger uttered these words to me as I tried to enjoy breakfast seated at an Eat 'n Park counter. I lifted my face from my Morning Smile breakfast special and saw him grinning at me through his handlebar mustache. Then, as if eye contact from me meant, "Please continue!", he did.
   "That girl behind us in white pants is bending over and I don't see any panty lines. Take a look." Embarrassment would have rushed through my veins if it hadn't been blocked by all the cholesterol I was consuming. As he persisted, I looked down at my sunny-side up and wished I could somehow crawl inside the yoke to escape this man. And even if I could, would he continue to talk to me? Or would he simply speak closer to the egg adding, "She's leaving! Hurry up!" The embarrassment didn't bother me as much as the burning question: Why does this complete stranger want me to do this? Was it some kind of passage to manhood like in Viking days? Or did he simply misunderstand the restaurant's slogan, Eat 'n Park is the Place for Smiles? I decided to ignore him for fear that a voyeuristic breakfast would create some sort of bonding experience with this jerk.

   It's difficult to defend yourself from jerks because they're hard to recognize. Back in the 1980's, they could be easily identified by their red, fishnet, sleeveless t-shirts, but now it's not that simple. Sometimes jerks can even be inanimate objects. The biggest jerk I know is my 200 ft. heavy-duty extension cord which, even if properly maintained by the Army Chore of Engineers, will implode into a tangled bird's nest the moment I try to use it. Not to mention my constantly weather-scrambled satellite dish and those heavily-glued cereal box tops that rip way too easy.

   Fortunately, monsters are never jerks. Sure, they're labeled "bad guys" (what with their killing and all) but you've never seen a mummy place an empty beer bottle behind the tire of a parked car. This type of mean-spirited behavior is what sets The Manster apart from other b-movies. It's about a man named Larry who transforms into a creature that is half-man and half-monster (Doesn't being "half-monster" make you a monster?). But here's the twist: During his long transformation, Larry becomes the world's biggest donkey's rear end. (Not literally, that would be an idea for an altogether different b-movie.)

The Manster is set in Japan and opens with women bathing in a waterfall heated by a nearby volcano. Suddenly, the silhouette of a beast kills them and blood splatters the screen behind squiggly letters spelling out ... The Manster. After the gruesome opening, we are transported to a secret lab located inside a cabin where genetic scientist and madman Dr. Suzuki practices extreme science. He informs his lovely assistant Tara that a monstrous test subject called Genji has escaped his cell and has killed some nice women bathing in a waterfall heated by a volcano (you may have heard of them).

   Dr. Suzuki, who must get sick of motorcycle jokes, grabs a gun saying, "There's only one thing to do with Genji now." He wanders through his lab filled with jail cells containing hideous monsters from experiments gone wrong. One cage contains a deformed woman named Amico who has one eye and those brown, rubber teeth you can buy from a gumball machine. The lab features a mutated plant that looks like a giant asparagus, a standard chem set and the staple of every evil lab, the Jacob's Ladder. When Genji returns, Dr. Suzuki reveals that Genji is his brother (Trumpets blare)! Suzuki fills him full of lead, then throws him into a giant furnace, which is also concealed in this little cabin.

   Moments later, the star of our movie, foreign correspondent Larry Stanford, climbs the side of the volcanic mountain to interview Dr. Suzuki. When Larry finally reaches the cabin, he's annoyed that Tara won't let him in complaining, "I just climbed the last few hundred yards up a mountain like a goat!" (Well, then it's a good thing you planned ahead and wore a suit!) Larry interviews Dr. Suzuki and they discuss his experiments in the field of evolution. Suzuki, desperate for a new guinea pig, seems extremely interested in Larry's health, asking all sorts of intrusive, personal questions, including if Larry's been faithful to his wife back in New York. Larry  responds, (and this is important:) that he and his wife were having marital problems, but when he's finished his interview he's returning to New York for good to patch up their relationship.

Fearing his new lab rat may take flight, Dr. Suzuki slips Larry a mickey. (Let this be a lesson: Be wary of cabin-fevered genetic scientists who ask if you're in good health before suddenly offering you a strange drink. It's probably common knowledge, but be careful just the same!) Just before Larry regains consciousness, he is injected with the new enzyme. Before dazed Larry leaves the cabin, Dr. Suzuki offers him "one for the road." Because a doctor knows that when dealing with a patient who had just passed out, it's a good idea to dehydrate him with alcohol before climbing down a volcanic mountain.

   This is where the story gets good because instead of simply locking Larry up in a cell to monitor his transformation, Dr. Suzuki takes him out for a night on the town in Tokyo! Larry and Suzuki now seem to be stars of their own buddy movie, getting hammered and partying with geishas! Larry, obviously determined to rebuild his marriage, makes out with geishas, then later takes one of the girls into a back room. Now, I'm wondering if Larry will blame his philandering on the enzyme, because we haven't seen any real "transformations" going on yet. "Honestly, honey...the enzyme made me do it!"

   The next day, Larry returns to the World Press office hung over and grumpy. When his editor, Ian, expresses concern, Larry excuses his behavior due to the fact that he's been working hard lately. When next we see Larry, he's living it up with Dr. Suzuki in a hot springs hotel. Suzuki even suggests he take a Turkish bath with his lovely assistant Tara. Good ol' Larry is only too happy to accept the invitation. At some point the movie sensors must have taken over because suddenly the age-old tradition of a group bath is suddenly replaced by separate baths divided by windows. Of course this doesn't prevent Larry from trying to sneak a peek through the glass (Yep, Mrs. Stanford in New York City, you are one lucky lady!).

Suddenly, Larry begins to experience a painful transformation! It's hideous! The transformation causes his fingers to curl and his hand is locked in a claw-like position! And then... Oh, that's it. That's all that happens. The pain passes, his fingers loosen up and he becomes "human" again. Whew! That was close! Almost needed make-up for that scene!

   For the next few nights, Larry and Tara are seen dining and dancing in trendy clubs all over Tokyo. One night, they return to his hotel room where Ian and his wife are waiting for him (Trumpets blare when Larry and his wife make eye contact)! "I think we've got some things to talk about," declares Larry's wife. Larry, obviously over-concerned, replies, "Mind if I fix myself a drink first?" His wife gives him an ultimatum: Your new girlfriend or me. Within nanoseconds, he chooses Tara. Larry and Tara return to her Japanese-style apartment where he deduces, "I figured you'd live in a place like this." Larry, having worked as a foreign correspondent for many years, is keenly aware that Japanese people don't live in igloos.

   Tara, scheming with Dr. Suzuki to keep Larry's wife out of the picture, demands that Larry dump his wife. When Larry returns to his hotel room, he finds his wife waiting up for him asleep on the couch. He pours himself yet another drink, then discovers his hand is covered with fur. Freaked out, Larry hides his hand in his jacket Napoleon-style and commands his wife to leave. During their argument she says, "I knew you were a foreign correspondent when I married you but I'd hoped one day you'd settle down." This only enrages Larry further. "Settle down?! Like mud in a pool?!" (Oh, Larry.) She goes on to say that Tara's making him weak. "Weak? You think I'm weak? Maybe it's because I never put you in your place before, never slapped you around when you needed it!" Then he grabs her by the throat momentarily in that special way that makes all the girls crazy for Larry and runs out the door.

   Later that evening, feeling especially Manster-ish, Larry follows a monk into a sacred temple and kills him. The next morning Larry wakes up next to Tara unable to remember anything except for the fact that he enjoys the taste of alcohol in the morning and orders Tara to fix him a drink. He can't help but notice he's wearing Buddhist prayer beads around his wrist, but doesn¹t remember how they got there. The next morning, the headline on the front page of the Far East Times (printed in English) reads: "Temple Priest Slain by Fiend!"

The next morning, Ian finds Larry drunk in a bar and more surly than ever! Larry's so out of sorts that he even turns Ian down for an invitation to go binge drinking (Although you can see Larry consider it for a second). When Ian notices Larry's prayer beads, he says, "Hey, those are Buddhist prayer beads." Larry replies in the most sarcastic tone ever put on film, "YOU DON'T SAY?!" (That alone should be reason enough for villagers to chase Larry with 2x4s!) Ian, having just been punked, tries to explain. "It's just
that you don't see those very often." (Ian is obviously a glutton for sarcastic punishment.) "I'LL BET THERE'S A LOT OF THINGS YOU'VE NEVER SEEN, IAN!" volleys Larry, "In fact, I've learned something interesting about Buddhists, Ian: They mind their own business!"

   Later that evening, monstrous rage takes over Larry once again in a dark alley. He leaps from the shadows and kills an Asian lady. And as the next scene proves, you don't necessarily have to jump out of a dark alley to murder someone. In this scene, Larry is walking down a well-lit sidewalk and he happens to bump into another lady and then suddenly decides to strangle her! I guess it was pretty convenient. How could a Manster worth his salt resist?

   Back at the cabin-lab, Dr. Suzuki gleefully tracks Larry's behavior with a chart and a magic marker. As he suspected, Larry's transformation into a monster isn't happening all at once. Suzuki explains that at peak levels on the chart, Larry is actually a different species of man. (Yeah ... "Homo-Jerkus.") During this scene it's revealed that Amico, the one-eyed lab subject, was once Suzuki's wife (Trumpets blare!) Not a real supporter of marriage, this movie.

   Back at Larry's apartment, we find him snockered! His boss has returned again to reason with him (Is Larry the ONLY reporter at World Press?) Ian has brought along a psychiatrist. "So...you're a witch doctor, eh?", greets Larry, as charming as ever. Then he kicks them out of his apartment. "Let me alone!" screams Larry. He takes off his shirt to discover that his shoulder has grown an eyeball! Upon realizing this, he takes himself to the hospital! No, that would make too much sense. Instead, later that evening, Larry breaks into the office of the psychiatrist he insulted. The doctor is there because nighttime is apparently when psychiatrists do their work.

   The doc sees Larry skulking around the lobby and he phones the police. Larry experiences another painful transformation and accidentally touches a lamp that explodes in his face (Get him, lamp! Get him!) Then, a second hilariously non-threatening head grows out of Larry's shoulder. The head resembles a coconut with eyes and fangs. Larry, and I think we can now refer to him as Manster from this point on, corners the doctor and, before you can say Sigmund Freud, he chokes him to death. Soon the Manster is running through Tokyo like a crazed beast with the police hot on his trail. He defeats a few policemen by throwing small metal containers at them which, somehow, knock them unconscious.

   The Manster returns to his apartment and finds his wife waiting for him. She screams and passes out. She should be grateful Larry's a monster because at least now his yapper's shut! Larry runs again and is soon chased by, and choking to death, many police officers. He goes to Tara's empty apartment (although the Manster can't stop killing, his sense of direction seems heightened) and he begins a destructive rampage through Tara's house that involves tipping over end tables! For some reason, he runs down to the shipyards where he's trapped by, and then eludes the police. How did he elude them all, you may ask? A dozen policemen can't cover much ground when they run as a group.

   Back at the lab, Tara pleads with Dr. Suzuki to save Larry because (hold onto your hat) she's in love with him! I'm dying to know which of Larry's bewitching personality traits did it for her! Suzuki theorizes that an injection of a new serum with the addition of "heat ... lots of heat" (pretty scientific), may successfully separate Larry from his beastial half. Tara guilts Dr. Suzuki into taking his own life with a Japanese ... um ... life-taking sword. Tara calls the police and directs them to the hidden labora-cabin.

   The Manster goes to Suzuki's lab and confronts the good doctor. Suzuki injects the Manster with the new serum! He kills Suzuki (guess how) then goes on one of his famous table-tipping tantrums! Tables are overturned! Bottles, previously placed upon said tables, are tipped over and broken upon impact! Spectacular! Having overturned every table in the lab, the Manster runs outside just as the volcano erupts! The police, having no difficulty finding an ultra-secret lab hidden in a cabin, begin trudging up the side of the mountain like everyone else. Isn't there a road to this place? How did Suzuki get all of that huge lab equipment there, on the backs of donkeys?! Also trudging up the volcano are Ian, the police inspector and Larry's wife who decided to wear a black dress and high heels! DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO DRESS FOR HIKING???

   Meanwhile, the Manster slugs Tara unconscious and carries her to the mouth of the volcano. Then, because of the serum and the proximity of "heat ... lots of heat", Larry divides into two separate beings: Larry's human self and a goofy-looking ape-man! This scene is great because the separation effect is simply Larry and a guy in an ape suit sharing one big shirt and they slowly lean away from each other as if they're subdividing!

   The ape creature tries to grab Tara, who is in turn attacked by now-human Larry (Is Larry trying to save Tara or did he think the ape had a drink in his hand? We'll never know.) Just as the ape creature has Larry on the ropes, Tara wakes up, distracts the creature, saving Larry's life. Unfortunately, this heroic act only gets her thrown into the volcano. But what goes around comes around and before the ape-man can gloat, Larry knocks him into the volcano. Not so funny now, eh ape-man?!  Just as the volcano begins to smell like a barbeque, the police arrive and Larry's wife rushes to her husband's side.

   With Larry in custody for questioning and possibly facing multiple charges of choking and table tipping, Ian and Larry's wife have a little chat. Ian advises her to "Have faith in the good that's still in Larry ... and in all men!" But he says this with his arm around her! That Ian's such a jerk.

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