an audience like it". On February 10, Murders in the Rue Morgue opened at New York's RKO-Mayfair Theatre. A report in Variety noted the crowd "hooted the finale hokum". The film made $21,000 in its week at that theater but did poor business nationally in comparison to Dracula and Frankenstein. Murders in the Rue Morgue was released on February 21, and was distributed theatrically by Universal Pictures. Censor boards in the United States abbreviated scenes showing the death of the prostitute and removed shots of her being stabbed and of her tied up in a laboratory. Censors also removed scenes with dancing girls and elements of the plot that suggested man evolved from apes. According to the American Film Institute, despite some sources listing the film's running time as 75 minutes, the group could find no proof it ran at this length. According to the entry on the films database, nearly all sources give the film a running time of 62 minutes, except for Film Daily, which gave it a running time of 75 minutes. In March 1947, Universal announced it would re-release Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) on a double bill. After playing in Los Angeles, Murders in the Rue Morgue continued to be run in theaters, leading to more theatrical re-issues by Realart Pictures towards the end of the 1940s. Murders in the Rue Morgue was re-released theatrically in 1949. Home media In September 1992, MCA/Universal released Murders in the Rue Morgue on home video. In 2005, the film along with The Black Cat, The Raven, The Invisible Ray and Black Friday was released on DVD as part of the Bela Lugosi Collection. Shout! Factory released the film on Blu-ray with two audio commentaries included as bonus extras in 2019. Eureka Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray in July 2020, in a set called Three Edgar Allan Poe Adaptations Starring Bela Lugosi, which also includes The Black Cat and The Raven, as part of their Masters of Cinema collection. In 2004, film critic and historian Tim Lucas wrote an article titled Re-arranging the Rue Morgue in Video Watchdog, in which he suggested re-arranging some scenes to potentially follow Florey's original intentions. Lucas's article led Gary L. Prange to write a letter to the magazine suggesting edits that would eliminate continuity errors in Lucas's re-arrangement. A version of the film based on Lucas and Prange's proposed rearrangements is available