The Alligator People

Respectable low-budget sci-fi thriller shot by the capable Roy Del Ruth, “The Alligator People” deals with the classic theme of the misuse of science, but with the advantage of being set against the rather original backdrop of the inhospitable Louisiana bayou. The location itself – with its humid, rainy climate, infested with snakes and alligators, riddled with labyrinthine trails cleared with backbreaking labor through undergrowth teeming with ferns and other marshy flora – becomes the true linchpin of a film in which the actual plot ends up playing second fiddle.

The actors, however, acquit themselves well: Beverly Garland is perfect in the role of a resolute woman searching for the truth about her vanished husband, while a Captain Hook-style Lon Chaney, Jr. demonstrates his acting bravado effectively portraying an uncouth Cajun man. The character of “swamp doctor” Mark Sinclair, played by George Macready, doesn’t stray far from the long tradition of eccentric great men of science inspired by noble intentions (“I wanted to extract this wonderful reptilian substance and use it to cure human injuries“, but who, in the end, are forced to pay a heavy price for their sins of presumption (“I feel as if I’ve been playing at it [God]… and been punished“).

But the criticism of science goes further, as the director takes advantage of an unusual flashback structure (the extraordinary events that form the crux of the story emerge from the young woman’s drug-induced hypnosis) to arrive at a conclusion that seems to take aim at psychoanalytic therapy in general. That’s certainly one way to interpret Dr. Lorimer’s decision not to inform the patient about what emerged from her subconscious during her session. Rather than confront and work through the trauma she underwent, he decides it’s better to sweep it under the rug and avoid stirring up the neuroses that it would cause. After all, the patient “has made a satisfactory adjustment: she lives a normal, useful, happy life“.

That may well be, but Freud certainly wouldn’t be pleased…