Bela Experiments with Evolution- and Death- It’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” Tonight!

Tonight on MeTV- we meet Bela Lugosi as the mysterious Dr. Mirakle- whose horrid experimentation in his quest to bridge evolution  causes terror in 1800s Paris- in the 1932 version of Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue"!

A medical student, Pierre, visits a carnival with his fiancee Camille, along with his roommate Paul and Paul's girlfriend- and they stumble upon a strange sideshow- featuring Dr. Mirakle, who lectures about evolution while showing off his intelligent ape, Erik- whom he seems to be able to converse with! Mirakle almost immediately sets his sights on Camille-as does Erik, who snatches her bonnet, and gets into a tussle with Pierre! The wily Mirakle tries to use the bonnet as a way to learn where Camille lives- but instead has an assistant shadow her home.

We learn what his true mission is-  as he experiments on  an abducted lady of the evening- injecting a mixture with the ape's blood into her system, in his quest to create  a suitable mate for his highly-evolved simian (eww!). Having met with failure, he dumps the woman's body into the river- where it is later found and brought to the morgue-where similar victims have been arriving lately. It would seem that Mirakle has been failing on a regular schedule. Our young med student Pierre, intrigued by the news of the numerous female fatalities , wants to check the cause for the latest victim's demise- and, by perhaps less than ethical means, gets a sample of her blood to examine.

Mirakle , meanwhile, tries to convince Camille to visit with his ape once again- but, when she refuses- utilizes Erik to kidnap her- leaving a mystery and murder- and it's up to Pierre to solve the mystery and find his beloved before she becomes another failed guinea pig for the deranged evolutionist!

This creepy chiller features Bela Lugosi (in his follow-up to "Dracula") as the well-mannered but sinister Mirakle, and, among others, Leon Ames (billed as "Leon Waycoff")- and an important figure in special effects- Charles Gemora- in an ape suit of his own design, as Erik. We'll talk about them, their fellow cast members, and more- and, of course, add in the weekly dosage  of Sven shtick.

"Murders in the Rue Morgue" will commence at 10 pm eastern/pacific , 9 central on MeTV- and,please check your local listings or www.metv.com to check time and channel in your area. In Chicago, viewers can see "This Island Earth" at 11 am on our sister station- WCIU- The U.

Meet me at the "Morgue" tonight- and, no monkeying around!