When you’re playing poker with an alligator, do you ever dare think it’s a bluff?
The Alligator People (1959) sounds like your typical B-list movie, doesn’t it? Some B&W weird horror movie, with people in rubber suits terrorizing the populace to the amusement of the mad doctor responsible for the infernal results, and alligators carrying off fainting maidens for some casual ravishing and refreshment.
Well, it is B&W. Actually, a well done B&W cinematography, even during the bayou rainstorm.
And one guy does have an alligator head on at the end.
But … I’d be really careful about turning my back on the two female leads in this story. One, Joyce, is looking for her husband, Paul, who disappeared during a very short stop of the train on their honeymoon night. She’s been left by her war-hero, freshly married husband before even sharing the marriage bed!
It’s jitters, and she’s frantic.
Six months later, Joyce is following her last clue, an address in the Louisiana bayou, left at her husband’s college frat. That’s right, nothing stops Joyce, a nurse, and she’s smart. There she finds a hostile older woman, Lavinia, ensconced in an old, Victorian home, complete with terrified servants – except the one who’s handless, drunk, and heavily armed, named Manon. He doesn’t like alligators, on account of one of them taking his hand.
Staying the night out of necessity, the charm of a piano tune lures Joyce out of her room, where she encounters the shy piano player, who dashes from the house into the swamp before she can get a look at his face. Probably just as well.
Soon enough, Joyce digs out the truth – Lavinia is Paul’s mother, although she doesn’t want to explore the topic. Refusing to leave, Joyce resolves to trap her husband, but it’s a downpour that night, so when he shows up and runs again, she not only can’t catch him, but gets lost and has to be found by Manon, who’d like a little bit of gratitude, if you get my drift. Paul shows up just in time to discourage Manon’s advances.
And the mandatory mad scientist component? Meet Mark Sinclair, M.D., a charming older gentleman who also tries to discourage Joyce, eventually lets on that, as a result of his experiments with alligator extract on horribly injured patients, he saved Paul from a lifetime of being crippled, or worse – but discovered later that there were certain unfortunate side effects to the treatment. Pressed by Lavinia, Paul, and Joyce, he’s consented to an experimental treatment for Paul.
And in the midst of this treatment comes a vengeful Manon, out for the return, if only metaphysically speaking, of his hand, not to mention his frustrated romantic notions. The treatment spoiled, Paul runs off into the swamp, Joyce in hot pursuit, in what might qualify as a metaphor for the desperate need of American women of the period to marry in order to advance in society. This doesn’t end well.
The two female leads are strong roles, as my Arts Editor commented, but not so much the servants’. The mad doctor’s motivations are completely believable, which is a relief; Manon was a quirkily repulsive example of primal male chaos. Paul demonstrates the male’s path from primal violence to civility, and how easily it can be foiled by a lack of path or guidance.
And all the alligators, who appeared to be actual live animals? They must have given the actors quite a thrill.
While I’m not recommending this one, it definitely performed far above expectations, even if its theme was a little hard to discern. Maybe it had none. And the alligator suit was a bit of a laugh. But I enjoyed this story far more than expected.
