The Alligator People (1959)

Director:

Roy Del Ruth

Writers:

Orville H. Hampton (screenplay)
Orville H. Hampton (story) ...

Release Date:

July 1959 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Terror in the Bayou!

Plot:

A newlywed couple sit in a train. The husband receives a frantic telegram. He gets off at a station to make a phone call...

Plot Keywords:

Alligator | Mutant | Experiment | Nurse | Swamp

Cast

Beverly Garland	...	Joyce Webster, aka Jane Marvin
Bruce Bennett	...	Dr. Eric Lorimer
Lon Chaney Jr.	...	Manon (as Lon Chaney)
George Macready	...	Dr. Mark Sinclair
Frieda Inescort	...	Mrs. Lavinia Hawthorne, Henry's Wife
Richard Crane	...	Paul Webster
Douglas Kennedy	...	Dr. Wayne MacGregor

Runtime:

74 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved

Filming Locations:

Louisiana, USA

Company:

Associated Producers (API)

Trivia:

This film was made because Twentieth Century-Fox needed a low-budget "monster movie" in the CinemaScope format to play on the bottom of a double bill with Return of the Fly (1959), the sequel to its "sleeper" hit The Fly (1958). Fox did not produce this film, however. It was made by independent producer Jack Leewood and bought by Fox.

Quotes:

Joyce Webster, aka Jane Marvin: What secret was Mrs. Hawthorne hiding in this strange, unfriendly house?
Joyce Webster, aka Jane Marvin: Why had she told me not to leave my room?

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Fly Papers: The Buzz on Hollywood's Scariest Insect (2000) (TV)

It's just not easy bein' green.

You have to like a movie that offers the heroine (Beverly Garland in this case) running through a swamp during a rainstorm wearing high heels. Okay, to be fair watch this scene carefully and you will notice her heels change into sneakers in the long shots. Anyway, this very unusual plot offers a scientist (George Macready who was the villain in the 1945 Columbia serial THE MONSTER AND THE APE) who believes he can help crippled people to grow new limbs by injecting them with serum from alligator glands. Guess what happens. Richard Crane (from TV's "Rocky Jones, Space Ranger")is a war hero who was literally blown apart but who healed overnight thanks to the serum but something goes wrong and he start mutating into a . . .but then you saw the title of the movie didn't you? His new bride (Beverly) follows him to the forboding bayou mansion where his mother lives (Freida Inescourt from RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE, 1944) and soon uncovers the truth about the bizarre experiments. She tries to tell hubby that she will stand by him no matter what but that's kinda hard when every day he looks more and more like a 'gator. Also around to complicate things is Lon Chaney Jr as Mannon, a drunken Cajun (without a French accent) who hates alligators. Lon wears a hook on his left hand that he is constantly adjusting on camera. he also shoots at some (real) alligators from all of 10 feet away and misses! Sure the premise is silly, but if injecting a person with alligator glands can turn them into a gator remember that George Zucco created a werewolf by injecting a man with wolf blood in THE MAD MONSTER (1944). If THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE had been made 15 years earlier I'll bet it would have come out of Monogram or PRC. Give it a try, you just might find yourself having fun.