William Beaudine's Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla could have been a mediocre Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin comedy if it had actually starred Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Instead, it starred Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, two comedians who made a living impersonating them. Both actors are dead ringers for Martin and Lewis in both appearance and acting styles. And that's why I hate this movie so much. They were plagiarizing one of the greatest comedy teams in American history. Watching this film was almost physically painful. When you factor in the rampant misogyny and racism of its setting and characters (suspiciously white inhabitants of the jungles of deepest, darkest Africa) and you have a film that is downright offensive and annoying. And how bizarre is it that of all of the films that I've watched with Bela Lugosi recently, this is the one that treats him with the most respect? By this point in his career, Lugosi was battling a crippling morphine addiction. And yet, none of that manifests itself onscreen. He comes across as a dignified, elderly statesman of horror cinema. If you look close enough, you can almost see a glimpse of what Lugosi might have become if his career had more closely mimicked that of Boris Karloff.
2/10
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