Maniac (1934)

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In a somewhat nonsensical and cobbled together plot, Don Maxwell is a vaudevillian actor known for his impersonations, who is running from the police and has taken a job assisting a certain Dr. Meirschultz. Meirschultz believes he knows the way to resurrect the dead with a special formula he has created, and when he cannot find a corpse to experiment on, he orders Maxwell to kill himself so that he might test the serum on him instead. Rather than go through with it, Maxwell turns his gun on Meirschultz, killing him; and so that he won't arouse suspicion, Maxwell then disguises himself as the doctor and attempts to fill his role. He proceeds to meet a couple of murderously-minded women, drive one man to insanity, and eat a cat's eyeball as the plot grows increasingly more incoherent, finally resorting to blatant plagiarizing from Edgar Allen Poe's story "The Black Cat." Sporadically placed title cards relating the symptoms of various mental illnesses help give the movie its title.

In a somewhat nonsensical and cobbled together plot, Don Maxwell is a vaudevillian actor known for his impersonations, who is running from the police ... more »