Murder in Wackyland: "The Frozen Ghost"

 My friend Michael Mallory is the author of 30 books, fiction and nonfiction (including Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror), and 160 short stories, mostly mystery. His most recent mystery novel is Dig That Crazy Sphinx!, part of his Dave Beauchamp Hollywood mystery series. A former actor, he works as an L.A.-based entertainment journalist, and as such has written more than 650 magazine, newspaper, and online articles.  -Robert Lopresti

MURDER IN WACKYLAND: “THE FROZEN GHOST”

by Michael Mallory

With the possible exception of the Western, there was no more plentiful motion picture genre in the 1940s than the murder mystery. Literally countless mysteries, crime thrillers, and whodunits were churned out during the decade, ranging from the breezy, and pseudo-romcom puzzlers of the decade’s early years to the hard-hitting noir crime dramas that came to prominence after the war.

Of them all, none was as wild, wacky, and brazenly loony as 1945’s The Frozen Ghost…at least none that was not intended as a vehicle for a comedian. A delirious, almost surreal convolution of a B-movie,

Lon Chaney, Evelyn Ankers, Martin Kosleck, and Elena Verdugo.

The Frozen Ghost was released by Universal Pictures as part of its low-low budget “Inner Sanctum” series, which was inspired by both the eponymous Simon & Schuster book imprint and the then-popular radio show. Their primary purpose was to promote Lon Chaney, Jr., who was usually encrusted in monster make-up, as a romantic leading man.

While most of the Inner Sanctum films tend to be a bit dull, that criticism cannot be leveled at The Frozen Ghost, which speedily blasts through enough plot for three movies in as many genres. Fronting the picture is the series’ trademark opening, a shot of a creepy séance room containing a crystal ball, inside which a disembodied head (played by cadaverous David Hoffman) who lectures us about how anyone can commit murder. For the next hour, the filmmakers try to get away with it.

The story centers on Alex Gregor, a.k.a. “Gregor the Great” (Chaney), a wealthy radio hypnotist whose act consists of placing The Amazing Maura (scream queen Evelyn Ankers) in a state of “telepathic receptivity” from which she reads the minds of the studio audience members. Since neither Gregor nor Maura speak into a microphone, their every move is described by an announcer. Somehow, this less than riveting presentation is judged one of the hottest acts on radio. 

During one fateful broadcast a belligerent drunk from the audience disrupts the act, provoking Gregor to mutter (off mic): “I could kill him!” He then turns his hypnotic gaze on the heckler…and the man falls over dead! 

Gregor confess to murder, but Homicide Inspector Brant (Douglass Dumbrille) isn’t buying it since the coroner ruled the death a heart attack. But Gregor’s overwhelming guilt cannot be assuaged. Unable to face Maura, who is also his girlfriend, or anyone else, he goes into hiding. His business manager George Keane (Milburn Stone) recommends the perfect sanctuary for one with a troubled, guilty mind: a dark, cold, creepy old wax museum!

Gregor promptly seeks asylum (in all senses of the world) there and is accepted with open, hungry arms by the proprietress of the place, Madame Valerie Monet (Viennese actress Tala Birrell). Also living at the place are Valerie’s virginal, teenage niece Nina (Elena Verdugo) and a person no wax museum should ever be without, a wild-eyed, lunatic sculptor named Rudi (German actor Martin Kosleck). When he’s not slavering after Nina, Rudi talks to the figures as though they are alive and throws knives at everyone else.

While ostensibly good for business, having Gregor serve as the museum’s tour guide (so much for hiding) wreaks havoc on the personal lives of the museum staff. Both Valerie and Nina have fallen madly in love with him and when the jilted Maura suddenly shows up to reclaim him for herself, she and Valerie have it out. On top of that, Rudi maliciously lies to Valerie that Gregor has the hots for Nina, which causes her to angrily confront the oblivious mentalist, who in turn levels his “murder gaze” on her. She immediately falls down dead! At least she looks dead. Returning home, guiltier than ever, Gregor tells his manager Keane that he has killed yet another person with his eyes, but Keane scoffs at the idea, going so far as to tell Gregor that he never believed in his abilities (but thanks for the 10%). Returning to the wax museum, the two learn that Valerie Monet has vanished without a trace, and now Inspector Brant does suspect Gregor.

Evelyn Ankers, Milburn Stone, and Lon Chaney 

Things really start rolling at this point. 

Rudi, it turns out, is not just your average artistic, blade-lobbing whack job; he’s a former plastic surgeon who changed careers after making a society matron look like Quasimodo. But his talents don’t stop there: he is also an expert at putting people into a state of suspended animation, making them…frozen ghosts. What’s more, Valerie has not disappeared at all; she’s now a figure in the museum, plainly visible to the audience if not the police. 

There are plenty more plot machinations before The Frozen Ghost’s sixty-one minutes run out, and without spoiling the mystery, the upshot is that it’s all a plot to gaslight Gregor. However, by the time the culprit is finally revealed, any presumption of logic has gone through the shredder (particularly how one goes about staging death-by-staring murders on cue).  

Somehow the cast of The Frozen Ghost gets through it all with straight faces, even though most are playing the wrong roles. Urbane Douglass Dumbrille is better suited for the manager part, while Milburn Stone should have played the detective. A decade before Stone took on the role of crusty Doc Adams on TV’s Gunsmoke, he looked like a detective. Similarly, the roles played by Elena Verdugo and Evelyn Ankers would have made more sense if switched, with the teenager the lovesick assistant and Ankers a more mature niece to the matronly Birrell. As for Lon Chaney (who was stripped of the designation “Jr.” by the studio a couple years earlier), he achieved his goal of proving he could function without being covered in yak hair or mummy wrappings, or incessantly asking about rabbits. But the idea that all women from 15-to-50 take one glance at his craggy face and burly frame and start fighting over him like they might Errol Flynn is simply too much to swallow.   

None of the above should be construed to imply that The Frozen Ghost is unwatchable. On the contrary, it is a howling hoot of a whodunnit/horror film/wax museum thriller whose sheer nonsense makes for fine entertainment. Perhaps not in the way Universal intended, but fine nonetheless.