MANIAC aka Sex Maniac (1934) Bill Woods, Thea Ramsey & Horace B. Carpenter | Horror, Sci-Fi | B&W

Maniac (also known as Sex Maniac) is a 1934 American black-and-white exploitation horror film directed by Dwain Esper and written by Hildagarde Stadie, Esper's wife, as a loose adaptation of the 1843 Edgar Allan Poe story "The Black Cat", with references to his "Murders in the Rue Morgue". Esper and Stadie also made the 1936 exploitation film Marihuana.

The film, which was advertised with the tagline "He menaced women with his weird desires!", is in the public domain.

A restored version was made available in 1999, as part of a double feature with another Esper film, Narcotic! (1933). John Wilson, the founder of the Golden Raspberry Award, named Maniac one of the "100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made" in his book The Official Razzie Movie Guide. Maniac has received negative reception since its release, being the first film considered the worst ever made and is an oft-cited example of pornographic films.

SYNOPSIS
A former vaudevillian gifted at impersonation assists a mad scientist in reanimating corpses and soon goes mad himself.

Don Maxwell is a former vaudeville impersonator who's working as the lab assistant to Dr. Meirschultz, a mad scientist attempting to bring the dead back to life. When Don kills Meirschultz, he attempts to hide his crime by "becoming" the doctor, taking over his work, and copying his appearance/mannerisms. In the process, he slowly goes insane.

The "doctor" treats a mental patient, Buckley, but accidentally injects him with adrenaline, which causes the man to go into violent fits. In one of these fits, Buckley kidnaps a woman, tears her clothes off, and rapes her. Buckley's wife discovers the body of the real doctor and blackmails Don for turning her husband into a zombie. The ersatz doctor turns the tables on her by manipulating the woman into fighting with his estranged wife, Alice Maxwell, a former showgirl. When the cat-breeding neighbor, Goof, sees what's going on, he calls the police, who stop the fight.

CAST & CREW
Bill Woods as Don Maxwell
Horace B. Carpenter as Dr. Meirschultz
Ted Edwards as Buckley
Phyllis Diller as Mrs. Buckley
Thea Ramsey as Alice Maxwell
Jenny Dark as Maizie
Marvel Andre as Marvel
Celia McCann as Jo
John P. Wade as Embalmer
Marian Blackton as neighbor

Directed by Dwain Esper
Written by Hildagarde Stadie
Based on "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe
Produced by Dwain Esper, Louis Sonney, Hildagarde Stadie
Cinematography William C. Thompson
Edited by William Austin
Distributed by Roadshow Attractions, Hollywood Producers and Distributors
Release date September 11, 1934
Running time 51 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $7,500 (est.)

NOTES
Several key cast members in the film are uncredited, most notably the cat-farming neighbor Goof, the detective, and Maria Altura, the woman whom Dr. Meirschultz brings back to life. The actress who doubled for Altura in the brief nude scene has also not been identified.

Horace B. Carpenter was a producer, director and actor from the silent era who generally portrayed whitehaired characters in Westerns once sound emerged.

This is the only film that Bill Woods performed in. He later became a makeup artist, working in film and television until 1968.

Marian Blackton is sometimes reported, incorrectly, as appearing in male drag as the neighbor who catches and breeds cats. She plays a female neighbor who is questioned by the detective. The male actor who plays Goof has not been identified. Blackton was the sister of Maniac's assistant director and daughter of J. Stuart Blackton, founder of Vitagraph Studios and the father of American animation.

The actress named Phyllis Diller in this film is of no relation to the comedian Phyllis Diller.

Celia Jiminez, billed under her married name of Celia McCann, was also a Spanish-language voice artist, having the Spanish-language voice for Minnie Mouse and other female cartoon characters. Her daughter, also named Celia McCann, is a movie extra, and her granddaughter is comedian Julie Brown.

The film was shot on a minuscule budget of $7,500, according to the film's financier's son, and like many of director Dwain Esper's films was self-distributed on the exploitation roadshow circuit. After initial disappointing returns (and no reviews in the media of the time), the film was retitled Sex Maniac with great success. It became notorious for a scene in which one character strangles a cat and then eats its eyeball.

The footage that is superimposed over the scenes where the actor (having shot the mad scientist) is descending into madness while bricking his victim inside a wall, originated from the 1922 Danish-Swedish film Häxan.

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