The Alligator People
THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE
Famous Monsters of Filmland #5 (1959)
Lon Chaney Jr.’s back and THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE have got him! THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE also has one of the former Tarzans, Bruce Bennett. And, as heroine, the screaming beauty who’s previously been menaced by CURUCU, beast of the Amazon: Cucumbro, creature of IT CONQUERED THE WORLD; and a terror that was out of this world in NOT OF THIS EARTH; — brave, brunet Beverly Garland. Charles O’ Neal, author of THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE, reveals that “researchers have discovered repeated references to the existence of such half-human monsters as described — and seen — in the picture.’’
Producer Jack Leewood adds : “By piecing together all available information, we have recreated startlingly real monsters, monsters which, according to local Louisiana folklore, once roamed and preyed on the surrounding countryside in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.”
Jane Marvin (Bev Garland) is aboard a honeymoon train with her bridegroom, Lt. Paul Webster (Richard Crane), when he receives a mysterious telegram. He does not reveal its contents to her, but instead disappears.
Altering her plans, Jane makes frantic efforts to locate Paul, but a whole year passes by in the process and she is about to give up all hope of ever seeing him again. Was it all a dream? Did she marry a man or a ghost?
Then suddenly Jane discovers a university record that indicates there might be some knowledge of Paul’s whereabouts at a place called The Cypresses at Bayou Landing. Hurrying there, Jane receives a cold reception from a woman claiming to be a Mrs. Hawthorne and denying that she knows anything about Paul. Jane is put up for the night but cautioned to keep close to her room.
As she is about to retire, Jane observes Mrs. Hawthorne leave the house hurriedly. She decides to risk following her. Her adventure as a shadow leads her to a clinic on the grounds, where she hears Mrs. Hawthorne tell a Dr. Mark Wingate, “Paul’s wife has arrived! What shall we do?”
The clinic itself has an aura of strangeness about it. As a nurse, Jane senses that something weird, unusual, is going on there. The patients seem to be suffering from acute skin diseases that give them a scaly, somewhat deformed appearance. Shortly after she sneaks back undetected to her room, Jane hears a piano being played in a sad manner and goes downstairs to investigate. Startled, the dark figure darts from the room and flees into the swamp. It is Paul! He has recognized his wife. The next morning Jane faces “Mrs. Hawthorne” and accuses her of hiding Paul. She admits she is his Mother but will not reveal the motive for her mysterious behavior.
Perhaps as you’ve suspected, Paul is turning into an alligator! Nextime Jane sees him she attempts to follow him into the swamp, but he manages to lose her. Instead she is found by—Mannon (Lon Chaney Jr.). This great hulking brute menaces her more badly than an alligator till her alligator-man husband comes to her rescue. Dr. Wingate now reveals what is going on. “I have been experimenting,” he explains, “with the same glandular secretions that permit some reptiles to grow new limbs, attempting to return amputation cases (in human accidents) to normal. Unfortunately, I have not always been successful. In science there is much trial, much error.” Paul’s present condition is the result of such unfortunate experimentation.
In a last all-out effort to cure Paul, Dr. Wingate subjects him to rays from a cobalt bombardment machine, but the operation is interrupted by the interference of crazed Mannon, and Paul emerges more like an alligator than ever! In his horror he staggers into the swamp and drowns as the cobalt machine explodes and destroys the doctor and his work. Jane survives. Moral: Don’t dig alligators, or you may be left holding the bag.