Professor Creeps
Cast & Crew
William Beaudine
F. E. Miller
Mantan Moreland
Arthur Ray
Florence O'brien
Maceo B. Sheffield
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Washington and Jefferson, a pair of bumbling private investigators who run a nearly bankrupt agency called "Bloodhound Ink," elude with clever disguises the various bill collectors and the landlord who come to demand their payments. Later that day, Washington dreams that the alluring Daffodil Dixon, or "Daffy," a Harlem debutante, visits the private investigators for help in locating her boyfriend, Alexander, who has mysteriously disappeared. The detectives soon discover that Alexander is not the first boyfriend to vanish and that every time a suitor is on the verge of proposing to Daffy, he vanishes without a trace. To solve the case, Washington and Jefferson go to the scene of the mysterious events, the house belonging to Daffy's uncle, Professor Whackingham Creeps, and when they decide to recreate the events of Alexander's disappearance, they fight over who gets to play the lucky suitor. Jefferson wins and then disappears like the others. The professor then arrives, and Jefferson reappears. The professor demonstrates how he can defy gravity and turn people into animals with a squirt from his special gun. From behind a door, the detectives suddenly hear Alexander's voice, telling them that he was squirted because if Daffy marries she will receive an inheritance that the professor covets. Alexander adds that the cellar is full of Daffy's former suitors, who now boast horns and other deformities, as well as a Japanese man who was squirted in retaliation for Pearl Harbor. When the boys try to get the professor's squirt gun, he turns Jefferson into a gorilla, and Jefferson retaliates by turning the professor into a duck. Meanwhile, a real gorilla, Lulu, has escaped from the local circus, and in the confusion to find the squirt gun and give Jefferson back his human form, Washington and Lulu's keepers confuse Jefferson with the gorilla. Finally, Washington wakes up, relieved that the events at the home of Professor Creeps were only a dream.
Director
William Beaudine
Cast
F. E. Miller
Mantan Moreland
Arthur Ray
Florence O'brien
Maceo B. Sheffield
Margaret Whitten
Shelton Brooks
Jessie Cryer
Billy Mitchell
Zack Williams
Charles Hawkins
Clarence Hargrave
John Lester Johnson
Nappie Whiting
Crew
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The film's original title was Goodbye Mr. Creeps. In the file on the film contained in the MPAA/PCA Collection at the AMPAS Library, a January 21, 1942 telegram sent to PCA official Geoffrey Shurlock, PCA official Carl E. Milliken expressed concern over the film's title, stating that travesties on "important titles" must be approved by the producer concerned, in this case M-G-M, which made the film Goodbye Mr. Chips. Shurlock responded that because the film was an "all-Negro" production destined only for Negro theaters, it seemed unlikely that it would conflict with the M-G-M film. No additional correspondence was found, and although the film was indeed released under another title, it is not clear whether the conflict with Goodbye Mr. Chips was responsible for the change. Despite Shurlock's prediction, Professor Creeps was previewed to a racially mixed audience at Los Angeles' Lincoln Theatre, located on Central Avenue, according to a New York Times item. The Hollywood Reporter reviewer commented that the Hollywood reviewers who attended the preview on Central Avenue "in the heart of the colored district were treated to a new experience when they sat in a yelling, screaming audience that unrestrainedly relished every moment of the film." The critic for the Pittsburgh Courier stated, "even the heretofore...'Anti' all-Negro picture critics, including your correspondent, who came to slash and lambast the 'Professor,' were lost in the...mirth of the youngsters." Contemporary reviews praised the film's "medicine show" and "minstrel show era" humor, a type of entertainment that, according to Film Daily, the film's producers were trying to introduce "to the screens of formerly restricted theaters." Reviewers almost unanimously proclaimed the film's marketability to white as well as African American audiences, and urged exhibitors to take a chance with the film at their white-patronage theaters. Contemporary reviewers also compared stars F. E. Miller and Mantan Moreland to Abbott and Costello, with Motion Picture Daily terming them the "sepia Abbott and Costello."
