Lon Chaney, Jr. plays the title role in Man Made Monster, a man who through electricity is turned into a killer. The doer of this evil deed is Lionel Atwill playing the part of the mad scientist with the usual relish he brings to these kind of roles.It all starts out when Chaney is the sole survivor of a bus crash which hit a power line. All the other passengers are electrocuted when the downed power lines hit the bus. But Chaney emerges with a few cuts and bruises.Turns out he has a carnival act of sorts in which controlled amounts of electricity pass through his body and it's given him a certain tolerance level. Chaney agress to live with Dr. Samuel Hinds and his niece Anne Nagel to be a human guinea pig for some relatively benign experiments. But Hinds's associate Atwill has other ideas and his experiments turn Chaney into a walking dynamo who can electrocute at a touch and needs those jolts of electricity from Atwill to stay alive.As I said before Atwill is the real star of this film. He must have chewed two living room sets of furniture in Man Made Monster, but it all works beautifully for his performance. Frank Albertson is also around as a wisecracking reporter and love interest for Nagel.Chaney seems always cast as the good, but doomed soul, a part played well in Of Mice And Men and the original Wolfman movie. In Man Made Monster he's not simple minded like Lennie Small, but he's a happy go lucky sort when we first meet him. He does change and horribly.In the end its not humans who do him in, but rather the properties of electricity itself. Watch this good horror flick from Universal to see what I mean.

"Dynamo Dan, the Electric Man" (Lon Chaney, Jr.) survives being electrocuted and attracts the interest of two scientists. The first is genial Dr. John Lawrence (Samuel S. Hinds), who wants to study Dan to see if there's anything about his physiology that would allow him to survive what others couldn't. The second is nefarious Dr. Paul Rigas (Lionel Atwill), who wants to turn Dan into a sort of electro-zombie. Given this is a horror movie, guess which one wins out? Lon Chaney Jr.'s first horror film. He plays a sympathetic character, as he would so often. Samuel S. Hinds and Anne Nagel offer fine support. Jack Albertson is a little irritating but it's a poor part only included in the movie to fulfill the prerequisite for a romantic subplot most of these films had. The true star of the picture is the great Lionel Atwill as the mad scientist. Atwill is a horror legend and hams it up with glee, particularly in his confrontation with Nagel towards the end. This is a good little B sci-fi/horror movie from Universal. Fans of Chaney, Atwill, or Universal horror films in general will undoubtedly like it more than most.

That's what reporter Frank Albertson says to ingenue Anne Nagel when she makes suspicious comments about her scientist Uncle's partner Lionel Atwill. Taking over where the kindly Samuel S. Hinds started, Atwill is experimenting on electricity with car accident victim Lon Chaney Jr., who was the only one of five not to be killed when the car he was in came into contact with live wires. Atwill has issues with man's mediocrity, and believes his experiments are a way to improve mankind. In short, a mad scientist of the largest order, and danger to Chaney, the romantic leads, and Nagel's kindly uncle (Samuel S. Hinds), who happens to be his partner. Chaney soon has more electricity running through his body than Southern California Edison, and becomes a walking death ray.This is a strange little "B" science fiction film, from Universal's second string of horror movies, not nearly as good as the first string ("Dracula", "Frankenstein", "The Mummy", etc.). Atwill is a modern day Shakespearean villain, seemingly well intended, but filled with evil. There are many moments of melodramatic silliness, but it's basically very entertaining overall. Chaney is one of the most one dimensional of all horror actors. Every hint of vulnerability out of him (overdone in the screenplay) seems forced. He even lacks the camp quality in the serious portrayals by the masters of early talkie movie horror-Karloff, Lugosi, and England's Tod Slaughter.

Silly horror film with a mad scientist (played by Lionel Atwill) charging a nice guy (Lon Chaney Jr.) with volts of electricity over a long period of time. Eventually Chaney becomes addicted to it and begins to go mad.The characters are clichés, the plot is ridiculous but this moves quickly and (for a low budget picture) is pretty well made. The special effects that make Chaney glow at the end are obvious but kind of fun in a strange way. Atwill chews the scenery (and is clearly enjoying himself) and Chaney is very good in his role. In the last half he (for some reason) can't talk so he has to show all his emotions through body language and facial expressions and he pulls it off. This isn't really a good movie but I remember enjoying it on late night TV when I was kid and I have fond childhood memories of it. I give it a 6.