Man Made Monster [Impossible Voyages #19] – Blue Towel Productions

As mentioned previously, in “Impossible Voyages” I’m watching and writing about a run of new (to me) science fiction films to be watched over last year, which has extended to this year (2026). You can read the rationale and ground rules here. In the meantime, we are advancing from 1940 to 1941 with this movie, #19 in this series.

Growing up, I used to watch some of the old Universal horror movies. You know the ones, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Invisible Man and so on. As such, I because familiar with a bevy of old movie stars who used to frequent such things–the likes of Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Claude Rains. Well, today’s outing brings us to one of those actors, a name that I became as familiar with as the others–Lon Chaney Jr.–even though I’ve never seen his most famous contribution to this genre (The Wolf Man).

Spoilers Ahead

Man Made Monster (1941)

Directed by George Waggner

The Story:  After miraculously surviving an accident where everyone but him is electrocuted on a bus, easy going Dan McCormick comes to the attention of leading scientist Dr. John Lawrence, who is keen to learn whether his seeming immunity to electricity can be replicated. Unfortunately for Dan, Lawrence’s colleague Dr. Paul Rigas takes the opportunity to use Dan to test his theory about whether a man could be made to depend on electricity instead of food and other basic necessities, which essentially turning him into a mindless but powerful slave. Under Rigas’s control, Dan murders Dr. Lawrence and is sentenced to death for the crime. However, the attempt to execute him the electric chair only super-charges him, and sends him on a deranged rampage.

Lawrence’s niece June, and her fiancé and journalist Mark Adams try protect him and to unravel the mystery of what has really happened, but are unable to do so before Dan has killed Rigas and himself died when all the electricity drains from his body. June and Mark opt to destroy Rigas’ notes to prevent anyone else from replicating his experiment.

Starring: Lionel Atwill as Dr. Rigas, Lon Chaney Jr. as Dan McCormick, Anne Nagel as June, Frank Albertson as Mark Adams, and Samuel S. Hinds as Dr. Lawrence. William B. Davidson features in the back half of the movie as Ralph Stanley, the district attorney prosecuting Dan for Lawrence’s murder.

Comments: When I wrote about Dr. Cyclops last time I mentioned that the movie started really strongly, with very tight pacing and storytelling, and then went a bit downhill as the story and action sequences tended to drag out in a way that was not idea. Well, I’m happy to say that with Man Made Monster (most of the time you see this movie identified as Man-Made Monster, but in the film itself there is no hyphen), the pace starts off strong and it stays strong for the entirety of the lean, just under sixty minutes runtime.

The movie starts with a bus crash that looks pretty spectacular considering how low a budget this film apparently had. This isn’t actually all that important to the story, as all it does is bring Dan McCormick to Dr. Lawrence’s attention, but it allows the movie to start with a bang. Then we get several scenes showing Lawrence meeting Dan and bringing him into his employment. These sequences serve several important purposes. Foremost, we get to know Dan and how decent a fellow his is.

This is Lon Chaney Jr.’s first major role and the guy really sells how all-around nice a guy Dan is–a real “everyman” aside from his quirky job as a sideshow showman dealing with electricity-themed gimmicks. These scenes are critical to see just how horrific the way the story unfolds actually is.

These early scenes also introduce the rest of the major players–Dr. Lawrence’s beautiful and perceptive niece June, and the fast-talking but good-hearted reporter Mark Adams, who will soon win her heart. And then most critically, the utterly deranged Dr. Rigas!

As I set out to watch this film I really didn’t know much about it, so I was wondering how the actions of the apparently reasonable and kindly Dr. Lawrence were going to turn Dan into a “man made monster”. He certainly didn’t seem like a mad scientist. But then Lionel Atwill’s Dr. Rigas took the screen, and it all made sense.

This guy is not only insane, he’s downright evil, and has more than a few qualities which probably felt pertinent to the audiences of the day as they moved into World War II. Basically, Rigas believes that with the right processes, he can make it so a man is completely dependent on electricity to live (instead of, you know, food and so on) and that by doing this he can make that man into a super-powered slave. His idea is that if you could do this you could take all the ordinary and insignificant people and turn them into an army of workers and soldiers that will free up all the actually important people–all the big brains and special leaders and so on–and let them get on with their genuinely important business.

He’s obviously completed out of his mind but unfortunately Dr. Lawrence is too trusting to recognise it. And he’s too naive not to put himself out of danger before announcing he is calling the police, an action which just gets him killed by a now compliant Dan.

From here on in, Chaney’s character devolves mostly into a lumbering presence rather than a character. But he still manages to convey a sense of pity and hopelessness in his limited dialogue and expressions. He’s got one scene that particularly stands out, when he is being badgered by by a court psychologist, and struggles under Dr. Rigas’ mental control, but is still unable to speak out about what is really happening.

All this builds to what should have been the big scene of the movie, but which unfortunately turns out kind of underwhelming. This is when the state attempts to execute Dan via the electric chair, an act which fails spectacularly and only serves the unleash the monster within fully. This is a story beat which we definitely wanted to see in all its schlocky glory, but which is kept largely off-screen, I assume for budgetary reasons. So instead of seeing the electricity course through his body and turn him into a glowing monster, we stay with the engineers who run the system from another room being confused as to what is happening, and scenes in the outer office where police officers and reporters run around in a panic. It’s not bad, but it’s disappointing–what should have been the film’s biggest set piece isn’t a set piece at all.

Still, aside from this the movie holds up pretty well in terms of its production values. I already mentioned that the bus crash at the start looks good, and the movie has got a great looking mad-scientist laboratory to have fun with. And while the effect of Dan glowing when he’s charged up with electricity is kind of goofy looking, it’s quite well done in terms of effects. He moves behind things frequently and the glow behaves like it should–so it’s nicely convincing.

I like the cast as well. Chaney and Atwill are the standouts of course but I enjoyed the parts that the other principle actors bring, especially Anne Nagel as June. She’s a good character–typical of a female role from her time, she can be a bit helpless in the face of some of the men who threaten her, but even with that she remains thoughtful and brave; I liked her.

The other standout character that I haven’t mentioned is Corky the dog, who is played (according to IMDb) by a dog actually named Corky.

He’s there in the movie to show how much of a good guy Dan is at the start, and he has a great time bonding with the little guy, and then to show how Dan is changing when Corky begins to give him more of a wide berth. I’m not really a dog-guy but Corky is super-cute, and I spent a good chunk of the movie worrying that they would kill him off to heighten to tragedy of it all, especially when Corky was running around on the moors near the action during the climax.

Fortunately, Corky survived, and the movie uses him stead to heighten the tragedy by having him sadly lying on the body of his old friend, once the electricity has finally left his body and he has passed away for good.

Other Thoughs:

• Dr. Lawrence has a servant who shows up a few times in the movie named Wong, played by character actor Chester Gan. He’s listed in the credits as “Chinese Boy”, which both my daughter (who was watching this with me) and I thought was strange. He’s clearly not a boy but a full grown man. But maybe “boy” was just a way of describing a servant? Either way, it might have been nice if the movie had just credited him as “Wong” since he clearly has a name. Although having said that, other characters like the District Attorney and the Detective Sergeant are also credited as their job roles, even though they also are given names. Oh well, at least he was played by an actor of actual Chinese descent, and not just a white guy made up to look so. We’ll take our wins where we can get them.

• As I mentioned, I’ve never seen The Wolf Man, but I have seen Lon Chaney Jr play Lawrence Talbot in one or two of the cross-over sequels with Frankenstein, and it strikes me that his character is a bit similar to Dan McCormick: basically a decent guy who is saddled with a horrific curse than makes him a murderous monster.