Maniac (1934)

User Rating:

2.7/10   

Director:

Dwain Esper

Writers:

Edgar Allan Poe (story)
Hildegarde Stadie (writer)

Release Date:

11 September 1934 (USA)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

He menaced women with weird desires!

Plot:

An ex-vaudeville actor is the assistant to a doctor with Frankenstein aspirations. After murdering the doctor...

Plot Keywords:

Doctor | Cat | Disguise | Re Animate | Estranged Wife

Cast

William Woods	...	Don Maxwell (as Bill Woods)
Horace B. Carpenter	...	Dr. Meirschultz
Ted Edwards	...	Buckley
Phyllis Diller	...	Mrs. Buckley
Thea Ramsey	...	Alice Maxwell
Jenny Dark	...	Maizie
Marvelle Andre	...	Marvel (as Marvel Andre)
Celia McCann	...	Jo
John P. Wade	...	Embalmer (as J.P. Wade)
Marian Constance Blackton	...	Neighbor (as Marian Blackton)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Satan	...	Himself

Also Known As:

Sex Maniac

Runtime:

51 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) (DVD) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14A | USA:Not Rated

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Roadshow Attractions

Trivia:

The "Bill Woods" who is credited as playing Maxwell appears to be William Woods, a Los Angeles makeup artist who's skills would have been of great assistance to the plot of the film.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Various times throughout the movie, the "corpses" are visibly breathing.

Quotes:

Mrs. Buckley: Doctor! He seems to be getting worse instead of better!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Mau Mau Sex Sex (2001)

Soundtrack:

La Cooca Rocha

Blazing a Trail for Ed Wood...

I'd venture to guess that HBO could come up with a decent series about gypsy movie producers skirting the Hays Office of the 1930's... guys like Dwain Esper running all over Depression-Era America showing T&A flicks in fraternal lodges and burlesque houses... it's just too bad that the movies they made stink (maybe that's their appeal). MANIAC is patently awful... Framed within chapters straight out of a pre-war DSM manual, MANIAC has so much to mention, all of it bad. Bill Woods is deserves particular notice for his relentless over- errh, I hate to call it 'acting' but in the Land of Hams, he would be king. Rivaling Woods is the uniquely bad Horace B. Carpenter. Everything in MANIAC screams for something better. Actresses appear and vanish (and in one case change altogether) for no discernible reason (although I suspect one probably balked at being topless). There's a couple of gratuitous topless shots--- one of which makes absolutely no sense and Esper has superimposed some (probably, no undoubtedly better) silent movie into the scene where Maxwell goes nutzoid at the end. THE INTERESTING THING: The "cinematographer" William C. Thompson deserves special notice: his work REALLY sucks. Camera movements are terrible, the lighting is horrible and there's a jerky feeling in every scene (lots of shots of cats and rats)... but wait! Thompson would later go on to become ED WOOD'S cinematographer (look... goosebumps!) and would obviously never truly get any real grip on his craft. I suspect Thompson was played by the ubiquitous Norman Alden in Tim Burton's homage to the antithesis of cinematic greatness, 1994's ED WOOD (4-stars!), but his character is unnamed. MANIAC has historic interest as a footnote showing how stupid an independent producer/director could get with a camera and what looks like a $400 budget. Esper must've turned a buck on these things because he was able to keep grinding them out... but it makes the worst drivel spewed out by Educational Films and PRC look like art. NO STARS!