USA, 62 m, NR, 1940
Directed by William Nigh. Stars Boris Karloff, Maris Wrixon, Gene O’Donnell, et al.

The Ape stars Boris Karloff as Dr. Bernard Adrian, a kindly, though somewhat round the bend scientist whose heretical experiments are whipping up a lot of hullabaloo in the once sleepy town of Red Creek. When he’s not busy chasing away the punks who routinely throw rocks at his house, the misunderstood medic is toiling obsessively to produce a cure for the crippling disease (most likely polio) that claimed the lives of his wife and daughter during an epidemic in the area some years earlier. Frances (Maris Wrixon), the comely paraplegic next door, reminds Adrian of his late daughter, and he’s somehow gained enough of her confidence that she’s agreed to be his case study. (Or, as the resident yokels may scoff,  “guinea pig.”) But the tests Adrian’s been running on the mutts he snatches from around town aren’t helping to produce the kind of serum he needs to liberate Frances from her wheelchair. Fate intervenes, though, at a nearby circus when a gorilla (Ray “Crash” Corrigan) inadvertently sparks a three-alarm fire while beating the crap out of an abusive animal handler. During the ensuing chaos, the ape escapes, but his victim is found and then rushed to Dr. Adrian’s house for treatment. “Don’t let me die, doc,” the fellow pleads, but something in the doctor’s eyes tells us that he’s not going to honor his Hippocratic Oath.  “Man: the highest kind of animal,” Adrian muses as he taps the handler’s spine, the fluid from which may hold the crucial element to finally produce a working vaccine. Adrian starts injecting Frances immediately with the refined serum, but just as she starts responding to it with some feeling in her legs, a mishap with what must be the only tube of the drug means the doctor must find another human to siphon. Meanwhile, our ill-tempered primate is still on the lam. He stops by the doctor’s abode, but is greeted with a stinging chemical in his eyes and a knife in his back. If all that doesn’t prod you into skipping a few winks when The Ape shows up on late night television, get this: Adrian disembowels the titular beast and takes to prowling the streets in his pelt. The plan, I guess, is to kill some townsfolk for their spinal fluid and then pin the murders on the gorilla. But surely a learned chap like Adrian could conceive of a less conspicuous way to collect the samples he needs. After all, a bloodthirsty mob is out there searching for the damned dirty ape! (Perhaps the denizens of Red Creek were right all along in assuming that Adrian was a complete and utter loon.) Even more baffling is how a bony geezer like Adrian is able to take on the gorilla’s colossal girth after he dons his hide. But now I’m quibbling. The Ape, I believe, has the makings of a fine romp, but the filmmakers approach the proceedings with such gravity that any lurking gag winds up getting mashed. And if a flicker of mirth remains, you can bet that Edward J. Kay’s musical score, which repeats the same three portentous notes over and over again, will snuff it out.    

Produced by the Poverty Row studio Monogram and directed by William Nigh, this ultimately run-of-the-mill “mad doctor” thriller was “suggested” by Adam Hull Shirk’s 1927 stage play of the same name. Nigh had a previous go at bringing it to the screen in 1934 as House of Mystery, an “old dark house” comedy starring Ed Lowry. It bears little resemblance (save the murderous ape) to this 1941 version, which was entirely reshaped to serve as a vehicle for Karloff the Uncanny. (He may be just going through the motions here, but bless his soul for bringing at least a hint of elegance to the rather asinine goings-on.) The Ape represents Nigh and Karloff’s final collaboration for Monogram; the two had previously churned out a string of mysteries for the studio based on James Wong, an Oriental detective popularized in the pages of Collier’s Magazine. Fans of that series may be interested in watching Nigh and Karloff monkey around in a different genre, but I can’t conceive of whom else The Ape might appeal to. I’m not even going to address the film’s technical shortcomings. After all, this is a B-picture, and compromises in the face of a piddling budget are to be expected. But surely Curt Siodmak could’ve pinched a moment to buff up his screenplay; it’s filled with the gaping plot holes we’ve come to expect from Monogram quickies. Like much of the studio’s output, The Ape is bananas. 

January 26, 2005 

© Copyright 2007 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.