BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA (1952) *1/2 Well, one of the great titles in the history of cinema, obviously, what more do you want? They weren't out to make Citizen Kane, but it has elements of a great, great film: a tropical island full of nutty natives (including one guy with a splendid beak), and Bela Lugosi in an incongruous castle being a mad scientist involved in evolutionary experiments on gorillas. That should more than do it. Bela isn't in his finest form, he looks kind of tired, but as lead-billed he's more than a little bit pissed off that a Dean Martin impersonator is moving in on Charlita, who, as the token hot babe of the cast, should be rightfully his. Well, he's right, of course, but so what? I read somewhere that Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo got sued for their Dean & Jerry Lewis schtick, but Sammy is pretty good, and his act doesn't get old much faster than Lewis, sometimes.
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