The films made towards the end of the third cycle of Universal horrors (1939-46) are generally not highly regarded by aficionados, but this is the exception, mainly because of the presence of Rondo Hatton in the lead. Not only was it a rare Hatton starring vehicle, the plot has elements from Hatton’s real life. Hatton was a champion footballer and handsome college student who became disfigured; here it’s due to him getting angry and chucking a na-na during science detention at college. Ten years later he goes looking for revenge.
Hatton is a compelling performer, mostly because of his appearance Actually, entirely due to his appearance – he’s not that crash hot when given a lot of dialogue, so his speaking is sensibly kept to a minimum. Hatton’s Creeper is reasonably sympathetic here - but he's still a psycho killer. He is given a blind girl to have a romance with – the Creeper is so dim he doesn’t figure it out she's blind until their second meeting. The blind girl must be lonely for company – on their first meeting Creeper says there are some people after me, and the blind girl doesn’t turn him into the cops, without knowing anything about him. Then he goes and buys a watch for her, but he doesn’t have the money – so he kills the shop assistant. He also kills a snooping delivery boy.
With a little bit more care this could have been a lot better. For instance, they should have focused the script on the Creeper’s revenge – giving him a better motive than my-old-college-mate-gave-me-wrong-answers-and-got-me-on-detentino-causing-me-to-have-a-major-accident. They should have done something really nasty to him, so his revenge would have been more fun. And they don’t introduce the pay-for-blind-girl-operation motive until 40 minutes in – this should have been done earlier. Also they could have had more romance between the Creeper and the blind girl. (They sort of hint at a romance between the blind girl and the slightly creepy cop at the end).
But it’s definitely watchable, and even though the pathos isn’t as skilfully wrought as in the best Frankenstein and Wolfman movies, Hatton’s presence gives it a gravitas lacking in other Universal movies. Jean Yarborough was a decent enough director (he did a number of Abbott and Costellos) and ensures this has a professional sheen. I also enjoyed some of the squabbling amongst the police as they fail to solve the murder, and it's fun to see Tom Neal as Hatton's college friend.
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