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Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952) More at IMDbPro »

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40 comments in total

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16 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
Bela Meets the Clone, 28 May 2003
Author: wsureck from Streamwood, IL

Bela and Jerry Lewis clone Sammy make this oddity worth watching at least once. This film was made for DVD...so you can rapidly forward through some boring romantic scenes. Amazingly this silly film sort of grows on you like a fungus with multiple viewings; somehow it is goofy-innocent in all its dumb or dumber glory. "Gorilla" kind of reminded me of Lugosi's early 1940's hammy Monogram films despite the lack of musical numbers in the earlier films; not that anyone needs Duke Mitchell's singing (which reminded me of Elvis with a chest cold). This is one of the few non-European films of Lugosi's I had never seen, so it was a fresh experience. The DVD I bought had amazing picture clarity and sound quality; just the opposite of what is usually released at $6.99. Still, without Lugosi, the "Gorilla" probably would have decomposed in its film can long ago, and I'll admit the film is primarily of interest to bad film fans.

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18 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
But It's Bella Lugosi, 18 February 2002

Author: Der_Vampyr from Staten Island, New York

OK, so the stars are a poor (very poor) imitation of Martin & Lewis. Yes, the movie is a lot on the low budget and bad side. Yet, it's Bela Lugosi! From great movies like Dracula, Island of Lost Souls and The Black Cat to bombs like Plan 9 from Outer Space, Bride of the Monster and Mother Riley Meets the Vampire, Bela makes it worth your time in one way or another.

I like this film. It's silly and not very good, but it makes me laugh. Therefore, I'm entertained and that's the whole idea.

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13 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Not at all Entertaining, But Interesting to Watch, 10 February 2002
Author: richard.fuller1

Yes, Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo were attempting to ripoff Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Lewis had to take Petrillo to court to make him stop the impersonation (Interesting to note, Lewis was copying black vaudevillian Jimmy Cross' act himself and becoming famous for it, while Cross' race would hold him back). Mitchell is no Martin, but if I had to choose listening to either one, I would choose Mitchell over Martin's crooning. I thought Mitchell had much more life in his singing.

Other than that, had I been Jerry Lewis and I had seen a guy who looked this much like me, I would have signed him up immediately. Petrillo is so strong at resembling Lewis, they could have been boggling portraying twin brothers in a movie, but as the egotistical rift tore between Martin and Lewis, you could just imagine how Petrillo would have gone at it with Lewis. In some scenes, you can see Petrillo is masking animosity as comedy. From beginning to end the only thing that held my attention was 'That's not Jerry Lewis from the telethons.' If Mitchell had bore a resemblance to Martin, the illusion may have been even more convincing. Muriel Landers was a welcome, a rotund woman who is flirtatious and pursuing while not being threatening, something virtually unseen even today in film and television. Not a film to see for entertainment, but to just study and contemplate what is and isn't popular. Lewis was famous, Petrillo wasn't. See if you can tell the difference.

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10 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Silly, but cute..., 23 July 2000
Author: Teenie from Warwick, Pa.

OK, it was a dumb movie. It was an obvious takeoff of Martin and Lewis, but it was good, clean, innocent fun aimed at the "mad scientist and the gorilla" genre that was enjoyed by Abbott & Costello, The Three Stooges, The Bowery Boys, The Ritz Brothers, etc. Any nostalgia buff would get a nudge instead of a kick out of this film. Sammy Petrillo is almost a clone of Jerry Lewis - even his facial expressions are like carbon copies of Lewis'. Duke Mitchell, on the other hand, needed serious help. Dean Martin he ain't. He can't even sing. If just for the pleasure of seeing Bela Lugosi at his sinister best, tune in. For what few snickers it offers, it's worth a look.

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9 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Rockin'& Rollin' in the Jungle, 25 March 2004

Author: sol from Brooklyn NY USA

****Some Spoilers**** Hilariously funny grade-D movie about two entertainers, Duke Mitchell & Sammy Petrillo, who drop in unannounced in the tropical island of Cola Cola only to end up being used by the evil Dr. Zabor, Bela Lugosi, The mad scientist on the island in his experiments on the mysteries of the evolutionary process in determining the link between man and primate.

The Doc. also has a crush on his assistant Nona, Charlita, who's the collage educated daughter of the island's Chief Rakos, Al Kikume, but isn't making any headway with her. In pops Duke Mitchell and Nona falls heads over heels in love with him leaving the Doctor holding the bag as well as a grudge against Duke. Dr. Zabor in an effort to split Duke's and Nona's relationship has his gorilla-like servant Cula, Mickey Simpson, knock out Duke and bring him to his lab where he injects him with a serum that turns the handsome and velvet voice Duke into a big and ferocious looking gorilla.

Telling the natives on the island that there's a killer gorilla on the loose Dr. Zabor hopes to kill two monkeys with one coconut by having Duke done in and then taking his girl Nona all for himself. Dr. Zabor also has his eye on Duke's friend Sammy for further studies in his experiments in evolution due to Sammy's unique cranium. Sammy's skull is very similar to the Doctors chimp Romona that's in his lab. Dr. Zabor thinks that there's a connection between Sammy and the chimp on the evolutionary ladder between man and ape.

Duke in his new body is later hounded by a girl gorilla on the island who took a strong liking or monkey shine to him, handsome devil, giving Duke's friend Sammy a pain in the neck with all the monkey business that Duke puts him through. Sammy also got his hands full with the very ample Soloma, Muriel Landers, who's got a crush on Sammy like a ton of pineapples mango's and bananas.

The whole movie comes to a head when Sammy in trying to save his friend Duke from Dr. Zabor's plan to do him in takes a hit but instead of checking out of the movie wakes up at the "Jungle Hut" nightclub in Passaic New Jersey with the same cast but playing different characters in the film; it was all a dream.

Not bad at all if you take it for the joke that it is; a Lewis/Martin Saturday Night Live shtick that's over an hour long and it's very good. Bela Lugosi is having the time of his life in the film playing himself, who else, as the mad scientist who's always getting distracted by not being able to take his eyes off the beautiful Nona.

Duke Mitchell is very good in his imitation of both Dean Martin and Maagilla Gorilla and also gets to belt out a few songs. Charlita is both smart and pretty as Nona the jungle Princess who fell for Duke and still loved him even after he became a big hairy ape.

But the biggest surprise in the movie is Sammy Petrillo who was so good in his imitation of Jerry Lewis that Lewis sued him for breach of copyright. Sammy was more funny acting like Jerry Lewis then Jerry Lewis ever was acting like himself.

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10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Jungle hi-jinx , a mad scientist, and a gorilla, 1 November 1998

Author: bux from Tecumseh ok

No doubt, this was an obvious attempt to rip-off Martin & Lewis at the height of their popularity. That said, this is a funny movie. Perhaps if M&L had stayed together, stuck to basic comedy, like this, their pictures wouldn't seem so dated today. Alright, so 'the Duke' is no 'Dino'...but Petrillo gives rise to the thought that perhaps we really didn't need Lewis. Ray 'Crash' Corrigan is in the gorilla suit.

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8 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Dated but not all that bad!, 25 January 2005

Author: (goodolmhs67@hotmail.com) from United States

If you have ever seen early M&L films like My Friend Irma, You can see that Sammy Pettrillo did a great impression of Jerry Lewis. In the early films Lewis was annoying with his high squeaky voice etc. This was captured perfectly by Sammy. OK so the production value was not great, but the movie was made on a shoe string budget in 9 days. The film is silly but enjoyable and if you watch it for what it is----silly 1950s entertainment you will have fun watching. The movie reminds me of the Abbott and Costello haunted house movies. I think that for a B movie it's silly enough to be funny.

Bela Lugosi puts in a fine performance. Duke Mitchell sings a few songs. The rest is just escapist entertainment.

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6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Dracula! Jerry Lewis! Monkeys! Who Can Resist?, 1 July 2005

Author: hokeybutt from Milwaukee, Wisconsin

BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA (3 outta 5 stars) Okay, this is a lousy movie... but it still entertained the heck out of me. It's so unbelievably bad that you cannot take your eyes away for a second lest you miss something. Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo star as... Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Well, it was probably meant more as a rip-off than an homage... but why quibble? Duke Mitchell is a dreadful singer and he hardly even looks like Dean Martin... they could have dragged anyone in off the street and given him that haircut and they'd have been just as good. Petrillo, on the other hand, is a dead-on ringer for a young, lean Jerry Lewis (whether this is good or bad news depends on your tolerance for Jerry Lewis). Bela Lugosi co-stars as a creepy mad doctor who turns people into gorillas.. or whatever. (Don't expect the story to make any sense.) Really, this movie isn't any worse than a lot of those classic buddy comedy movies of the era. The jokes are corny, the plot is silly and there are totally unnecessary musical and romantic subplots. But. come on, you know you are just DYING to see a movie that mixes together Dracula, Jerry Lewis and monkeys!

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9 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Totally Laughable!, 10 January 2001
Author: wishkah7 from Brooklyn, NY. (Where I'm from originally.)

A B-Movie that has a semi all-star cast. The main characters are played by Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo who bear striking resemblence to Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. But act very idiotic, that they make the real M&L look original! In this so-funny-it's-stupid type of B-Movie they play these entertainers who came across a tropical island called, get this, "Cola-Cola". It's residents are natives who do nothing but say, "mucky-mucky" or something very similar in their so-called 'native language". And Bela Lugosi playing his seemingly best B-Movie role, a mad scientist.

The funniest part was when Bela injects Duke with a serum that turns people into gorillas. It's so cheap-looking that you could tell it was a man in a gorilla costume! I cracked up at how ridiculous that looked. As having lived in Brooklyn for most of my life before moving to Atlanta, and I would like to say that I've heard way better Brooklyn accents than Duke Mitchell's in this movie! You might agree if you've watched this increasingly lame excuse for a comedy!

If you watch this movie, you might wonder what the directors and producers were smoking when they thought up of this stupid excuse for a comedy movie. I'll admit it's fun to watch for B-Movie fans like me. If you want to watch a comedy that involves mad scientists and gorillas, then watch The Three Stooges or Abbott and Costello which ever serves your interest.

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9 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Not nearly as bad as legend has it., 4 August 2000

Author: Steve Brown from Blacksburg, VA

Okay, once you get past the fact that Mitchell and Petrillo are Dean and Jerry knockoffs, you could do worse than this film. Charlita as Princess Nona is great eye candy, Lugosi does his best with the material he's given, and the production values, music especially (except for the vocals) are better than you'd think for the $50k cost of production. The final glimpses of the characters are a hoot. Written by Tim Ryan, a minor actor in late Charlie Chan films, and husband of Grannie on the Beverly Hillbillies. All in all, WAY better than many late Lugosi cheapies.

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