Maniac (Also known as Sex Maniac) is a 1934 black and white exploitation/horror film, directed by Dwain Esper and written by Hildegarde Stadie, Esper’s wife.
The film, a loose adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story “The Black Cat”, tells the tale of a former vaudeville actor working with a mad scientist who attempts to bring life to the dead. The actor kills the doctor, and, in an effort to hide his crime, “becomes” the doctor, taking over his work, dressing like him, wearing his beard, and slowly going insane. The film features an actress named Phyllis Diller who is not the famous comedienne.
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This movie is okay, but its the type of movie u can just see once.
Poe’s recurring theme of burial alive is probably best executed in his The Cask of Amontillado. If this film equates to any of Poe’s work it would be The Cask of Amontillado and the scene where he bricks his victim behind the wall.
This movie is almost as funny as ‘The Wicker Man’ remake!
Wow, nudity in a picture from 1934! How’d they get away with that?
You’ll have to remember that while the movies in the 1930′s were pretty tame by todays standards, until about 1934 the Hays code was pretty much ignored. Society in the United States has undergone a cyclical change of social conservatism and liberalism. From Victorian attitudes in the late 1800′s to the “roaring” twenties and back again.
Maybe it’s just how much trouble we get in that determines what is socially acceptable. We party, then we pay and wise up.
Here’s the wiki article on the Hays code, which explains an effort to adopt a moral code for film which influenced movies until at least the late 1950′s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Code_Hollywood
Many of the films that are available from the pre-code era only exist with post code editing.
well they were’nt such prudes after all then in the 1930′s – Im surprised they even used the word sex back then. Seen the start of the film but not my cup of tea…