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Maniac (1934)

Name: Maniac
Genre: Horror
Released: 1934
Duration: 50 min
Cast: Horace B. Carpenter, Ted Edwards

193451 minHorrorStrong rights evidence

Maniac (1934) is a 51-minute horror film that airs free on Starlite TV's Graveyard Shift (CH 4) channel. Our rights research indicates it is in the U.S. public domain (evidence below). Directed by Dwain Esper.

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About Maniac (1934)

Maniac (also known as Sex Maniac) is a 1934 American independent 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.

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.

Summary adapted from the Wikipedia article Maniac (1934 film) (text available under CC BY-SA 4.0).

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Credits

Directed by: Dwain Esper
Cast includes: Horace B. Carpenter, Ted Edwards
Country: United States
Based on: The Black Cat

Credits from Wikidata · Wikipedia article

Airs on

Graveyard Shift - CH 4, Horror TV

Rights & source

Basis: Documented as U.S. public domain (e.g. copyright not renewed / no notice)
Evidence: Listed in Wikipedia 'List of films in the public domain in the United States' (cites Pierce 2007 / Fishman / trade sources). Exploitation film; graphic for era.
License on source: creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain
Music: Film soundtrack falls with the film; separately published songs (if any) not individually cleared.
Underlying rights: Exploitation film; graphic for era.
Source: Internet Archive

How we check every title: Content & Rights.