The Brute Man (1946)

User Rating:

2.8/10   

Director:

Jean Yarbrough

Writers:

Dwight V. Babcock (story)
George Bricker (writer)

Release Date:

1 October 1946 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

His brain cried "Kill, kill, kill!"

Plot:

A facially deformed and mentally unhinged man wreaks his revenge on those who deformed him with a series of brutal murders.

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Disfigurement | Football | Manhunt | Pawnshop

Cast

Tom Neal	...	Clifford Scott
Jan Wiley	...	Virginia Rogers Scott
Jane Adams	...	Helen Paige
Donald MacBride	...	Police Captain M. J. Donelly
Peter Whitney	...	Police Lieutenant Gates
Fred Coby	...	Young Hal Moffet
Janelle Johnson Dolenz	...	Joan Bemis
Rondo Hatton	...	Hal Moffet AKA 'The Creeper'

Also Known As:

The Brute

Runtime:

58 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Unrated

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

Although produced by Universal Pictures, the company was in the process of a complicated merger with William Goetz's International Pictures (merger completed July 31, 1946). To complicate matters, J. Arthur Rank's United World Pictures had a hand in the studio's management since the previous November, when this picture was still in production. With the impending change in management, studio brass dictated that B-pictures would no longer be produced. As a result, this poorly made low budget horror film became an embarrassment and it was sold to PRC after completion.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Police Dispatcher: Attention all cars, attention all cars: general alarm. Car 22, go to 733 Spring Avenue, it's a 341, that is all.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Brute Man (#8.2)" (1996)

Where for art thou, Brute Man?

In this flick Rondo Hatton plays the Creeper, a horribly disfigured serial killer. Rondo suffered from agromaly and required no special make-up for the role, so afterwards he was probably a shoo-in for the Lowest Self-Esteem in America award.

The Creeper's origin reads like an Archie comic gone horribly wrong: Archie tricks Reggie (Rondo) into staying late in chemistry class so he can go out with Reggie's girl Veronica (or is it Betty?). Anyway, the chemistry project explodes, appallingly mangling Rondo's once handsome good looks. It also changes his body type, voice, and personality, so several years later Rondo emerges as The Creeper to snap in half all the people who were in anyway connected to his accident. Why did it take so long for him to enact his revenge? I dunno, maybe he went on to study chemistry in Grad school or something.

We're treated to lots of depressing, poorly-lit shots of the Creeper creeping around a depressing, poorly-lit city. As bad as the movie is when Rondo's on screen, it's even worse when we have to spend time with the other characters in the movie. From the dull, doughy cops hunting him to the dull, doughy would-be victims, no one displays any attributes that would make us care even a little when Rondo tries to break them across his knee. There is a delightful scene starring a bitter, hate-filled old grocer who constantly berates his young delivery boy, who is obsessed with The Creeper's antics: "Creeper, creeper, creeper- you give me the creeps!" the old man yells.

In a depressing sub-plot, Rondo falls for a blind girl and tries to get money for her eye operation, and this proves to be his undoing. Rondo's unsuccessful heist attempts prove that he should stick to what he knows: Creeping. This has got to be one of the most depressing movies of all time, of no entertainment value what so ever. And there's no character referred to as "The Brute Man", either.