Review #1,096: 'The Brute Man' (1946)

Jean Yarbrough's The Brute Man. remembered as the final film to star horror icon and all-round tragic figure Rondo Hatton, has a backstory infinitely more interesting than the movie itself. With Universal Pictures adopting a new policy against releasing any more B-movies, The Brute Man was shipped off to PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation), one of the smaller production companies known as 'Poverty Row', which would release the film without any mention of Universal's involvement. Some say that Universal distanced themselves out of sheer embarrassment of their exploitation of Hatton, an actor suffering from acromegaly who died before the film was even released.

Reprising his most famous role for the third and final time (after the Sherlock Holmes story The Pearl of Death and Yarbrough's House of Horrors), Hatton's The Creeper is back on the loose in an unnamed city (probably New York), and seeking revenge on those who wronged him. Without giving too much away, the Creeper was once a handsome football star, much like Hatton himself, before an accident disfigures him, and the police are on high alert when bodies start turning up with their backs broken. In the film's attempt to inspire some sympathy for the killer, the Creeper falls in love with beautiful blind pianist Helen Paige (Jane Adams), the only person not be instantly repulsed by his appearance.

As a slice of B-movie horror, The Brute Man is forgettable and formulaic, and with a run time of less than an hour, there's a remarkable lack of depth. The performances are blank and stagy, with the exception of the sweet Adams and 'King of the B-movies' Tom Neal, the latter of whom would go on to star in film noir classic Detour (1945) and get away with murdering his wife once his acting career stalled. However, the film's biggest crime is its treatment of Hatton. He is forced to act through incredibly uncomfortable scenes such as an entire restaurant full of patrons fleeing in horror from the sight of him through a window, and play a character who is as morally disfigured as he is physically, despite those half-arsed attempts to show a gentler side. Shame on you, Universal.


Directed by: Jean Yarbrough
Starring: Rondo Hatton, Tom Neal, Jan Wiley, Jane Adams
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie