Review of “The Gorgon” (1964)

This was a fun little Saturday pizza and bad movie flick, not to be taken seriously.

Plot:

In the German (?) village of Vandorf in the early 20^th century, Sascha Cass (Toni Gilpin), viewed from behind, is modeling for her artist boyfriend, Bruno Heitz (Jeremy Longhurst). She asks him when they’re going to get married.

Oh, you know. As soon as he can get some money together, pay off some debts, and so on.

Sascha says it better be a little sooner than that, or she won’t look very good in a wedding dress. Bruno says he’ll meet his obligations and leaves to talk to Sascha’s dad.

“No!” she cries. “He’ll kill you!”

He’s already gone. She gets her shirt on and follows him into the woods but quickly loses him. Someone—something?—is following them through the trees. It’s a full moon. Sascha passes a small shrine with a crucifix, then stops short. She screams and appears to drop to the ground. Presumably, that’s the end of her.

Later, Sascha’s body is brought into the office of Dr. Namaroff (Peter Cushing), who will examine the decedent. Police Inspector Kanof (Patrick Troughton)* asks Dr. Namaroff about the cause of death (like it’s a mystery?). Could it be different from the others? There have been seven deaths in five years.

Dr. Namaroff’s assistant, the lovely Carla Hoffman (Barbara Shelley), pushes the gurney with Sascha’s body into the lab. In doing so, a protruding hand brushes against a cabinet. A finger breaks off and falls to the floor. It looks like a piece of stone. Carla is startled but doesn’t go into hysterics. She’s a nurse, after all, not some silly, empty-headed woman.

The body of the unfortunate Bruno is soon found hanging from a tree, his face scratched and bloodied. At the inquest, the coroner (Joseph O’Conor) determines that this is a case of murder-suicide. The libertine artist Bruno killed his lady friend when he found out she was in the family way, then, overcome with remorse, hanged himself. (Killed her by turning her to stone?)

Present at the inquest is Bruno’s father, Professor Jules Heitz (Michael Goodliffe), who vows to clear his son’s name. He stays long enough to draw an angry mob (no German village is complete without one) to the hotel where he’s staying and to learn that there has been a spate of unsolved murders over the years in the area. They seem to center on the abandoned Castle Borski outside Vandorf. Hmm. A trip there seems like just the thing.

He returns from the castle with just enough time to write a letter to his son and the University of Leipzig before shuffling off this mortal coil.

Thoughts:

What this little flick lacks in substance, it makes up for in atmosphere. It is creepy from the get-go. The sets are nicely overdone in mid-century monster flick with candelabras and telephones. Dr. Namaroff gets a classic mad scientist spread, complete with small animal cages. I heard squeaks, but I didn’t see any critters. He had rows of test tubes filled with liquids of various hues. I imagined them serving as various mixers for after-hours cast parties.

However, there is a high body count. For a movie that borrows from Greek mythology, it seems to also borrow from Greek tragedy: nearly everyone dies at the end. And that’s another complaint: people knew they were up against a Gorgon. They even had a name for her—Megaera. Her two sisters had been killed. And now she lived around Vandorf, a fair way away from Hellas. Didn’t anyone think of Perseus’s trick?

Hmmm… wasn’t the only Gorgon to die Medusa? Perseus cut off her head by looking at her in his polished bronze shield. And Megaera… wasn’t she a Fury, one of the Erinyes, an avenger of family squabbles? Oh, never mind. All these thoughts are the result of a misspent youth reading too much mythology, and this was just a silly movie. Did I want it to make sense?

The great reveal was a saw-it-coming. Nevertheless, it was fun seeing Megaera-as-human sitting on her throne in the decaying Castle Borski. A couple of reviewers said the not-quite-credible snakes around the Gorgon’s head detracted from the movie, but cheesy special effects don’t bother me.

I had fun with this movie, warts and all. It might have been better had those putting it together spent more time ironing out plot holes and smoothing rough patches, but it had no aspirations of being more than it was.

There is a 2024 movie by the same name, but as far as I can tell, it had nothing to do with this movie.


* Patrick Troughton would later travel the known universe as the Second Doctor beginning in 1966.

This movie can be watched here:

Title: The Gorgon (1964)

Director
Terence Fisher

Writers
John Gilling
screenplay by
J. Llewellyn Devine
based on an original story by

Cast (in credits order) verified
Christopher Lee…Prof. Karl Meister
Peter Cushing…Dr. Namaroff
Richard Pasco…Paul Heitz
Barbara Shelley…Carla Hoffman
Michael Goodliffe…Professor Jules Heitz

Released: 1964
Length: 1 hour, 23 minutes