Cast:
Peter Dyneley (Larry Stanford), Jane Hylton (Linda Stanford), Tetsu Nakamura (Dr. Robert Suzuki), Terri Zimmern (Tara), Jerry Ito (Police Supt. Aida), Norman Van Hawley (Ian Matthews), Toyoko Takechi (Emiko Suzuki), Kenzo Kuroki (Genji Suzuki), Alan Tarlton (Dr. H. B. Jennsen), Shinpei Takagi (Temple Priest), and George Wyman (the Monster) Directed by George Breakston and Kenneth G. Crane.
Review:
Sure, you might think the title is a bit of a tell that things are going to be a bit off for the movie. Appearances can be deceiving, but I imagine it probably won't seem true for this oddball movie. It seems oddly appropriate that a movie about two heads has two directors. George Breakston was originally an actor in his young days, having moved to Hollywood from his native France. He served in the US Army Signal Corps with the Officers Candidate School for photography. He became a director with Urubu (1948), which he happened to produce and co-star in. He was the producer and contributor to the story of Tokyo File 212 (1951), the first Hollywood feature to be made all in Japan. He directed a variety of movies overseas, whether that was Geisha Girl (1952) in Japan or Golden Ivory (1954) in Kenya. Breakston would produce and direct all the way until 1966, whether that involved African Patrol (1958-59) or The Boy Cried Murder (1966); he died in 1973 at the age of 53. The screenplay was written by Walter J. Sheldon as based on "an original story" by Breakston. The movie was co-directed by Kenneth G. Crane, who is also listed as "supervising editor" in the opening credits. He started out as an editor for such movies as The Iroquois Trail [1950] and added directing to his foray for a brief time with such works as Monster from Green Hell [1957] and When Hell Broke Loose [1958] (he also directed English-language scenes for the American edit of Ishiro Honda's Half Human in [1957]). The Manster was his last work as a director. Crane continued to be an editor in films all the way to Soul Hustler in 1973; he died in 1995 at the age of 87. The movie had a mix of American and Japanese people working on the film, which was done in Japan; Shinpei Takagi worked on the effects of the "manster" (get it, man, monster, man-monster?). For whatever reason, the movie opened first in Japan in 1959 before being released abroad starting in 1960. Apparently, in 1962, it was enough to justify being on a double feature with Eyes Without a Face (you might remember that it was called "The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus" in some places).
In a sea of head movies such as The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971), The Thing with Two Heads (1972) and How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), The Manster is probably not very high on the list. You might wonder what the significance of the movie being set in Japan with a handful of Japanese actors involved. Well, not much really, since the movie basically just cribs from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde while featuring the local scene for about two minutes before finding ways to cut around the terror and the fact that the monster isn't even seen that clearly (particularly in daylight). Sometimes it reminds one of a sack, but the effect beforehand where it is just an eye on the shoulder is at least interesting to look at. Dyneley was probably better known for his work on Thunderbirds (yes, really) than this film. But at least there is a semblance of an idea in basically doing a midlife crisis horror movie. But it doesn't feel tragic enough to be anything more than a goofy ham-handed performance that happens to share time with a guy playing the monster. This was the only movie for Zimmern, a Macau-born woman of varying Eurasian heritage that happened to marry Breakston in 1959. Interludes spent with her would be more interesting if you really felt a sense of doom or anything other than "oh, hey, a woman", and that goes doubly for the mostly forgettable Hylton (who actually was married to Dyneley at the time). You would think Nakamura would have something to do as the mad scientist. But no, he only mildly shows up from time to time, talking about evolution and things that one does when living around a volcano that at least has one interesting thing: he tries to knife himself off before getting disposed of. The climax, for a movie that runs at 72 minutes anyway, does have some silly execution (everybody's got to get to the volcano, ready to erupt) but at least you get to see a fight on a volcano between a man and his manster self that is as delusional as it sounds. As a whole, The Manster is pretty cheesy and pretty crappy but altogether there are a few chuckles and curious moments to be had in watching the two-headed spectacle play out. In the bottom of the barrel, being middle-of-the-road is not as bad as it could be.
Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.
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