USA, NR, 64 m, 1943
Directed by William Beaudine. Stars Bela Lugosi, Louise Currie, Wallace Ford, et al. 

The Ape Man is yet another “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” retread whipped up by legendary director William “One-Shot” Beaudine and released by the penny-pinching studio Monogram. The great Bela Lugosi plays Dr. James Brewster, a mad scientist (is there any other kind?) whose obsession with isolating the missing link between humans and primates results in a serum that gives him a number of ape-like characteristics. If you’re ever in need of a last-minute Halloween costume, I suggest you consider, er, aping the look of this picture’s title character. All you’ll need is three things: 1) an Eddie Munster hairpiece; 2) Amish chin-whiskers; 3) bad posture. Hey, if a gentleman of Lugosi’s superior breeding isn’t above donning such a clownish get-up, surely you can withstand a little razzing from the insufferable sots in Tor Johnson masks at the company doings. Truth be told, the half-assed transformation of Lugosi into a semi-simian is less of a gyp than Jack Nicholson’s chintzy monster make-up in the overrated Wolf. We can surely exonerate a Z-grade quickie like The Ape Man for its inevitable shoddiness, but what excuse do the folks behind Wolf have? Those guys had bottomless coffers to draw from, whereas poor ol’ “One-Shot” probably didn’t even have the dough to shoot any second takes. (I find it curious that directors such as Clint Eastwood are now lauded for utilizing the same economical approach to moviemaking that Beaudine was once lambasted for.) I wouldn’t claim for one moment that The Ape Man is anything more than trash, but I’d be remiss in my duties as a critic if I didn’t mention that it’s kinda fun.   

The Ape Man is an occasion for Lugosi to flex his acting muscles, and he proves very adept at oscillating between heartrending vulnerability and nerve-racking wickedness. His Dr. Brewster wearies of hiding out in the laboratory that he’s set-up in the basement of an old mansion, so he hits the streets and starts offing folks for the precious spinal fluid that he needs to turn back into a complete human. This is all very suggestive of Monogram’s The Ape, which starred Boris Karloff, but The Ape Man is conversely good-humored about its inane premise. Most of the comic relief comes from a pair of mismatched journalists, Billie Mason (Louise Currie) and Jeff Carter (Wallace Ford, who reminded me an awful lot of Peter Gerety). Despite their constant squabbling, it’s apparent that Billie and Jeff have the hots for one another, and I must say that I found their sexually charged banter rather amusing. Other running gags simply don’t wash, most glaringly the lanky bystander who keeps popping up out of nowhere to offer confounding asides on this or that part of the story. In one scene, the seemingly ubiquitous character advises a young woman against walking down a dark street where Brewster and his gorilla sidekick (Emil Van Horn) are waiting to mug her for some spine juice. At the end of the pic, Jeff finally confronts the enigmatic fellow and asks him to identify himself. “Oh, I’m the author of this story,” he responds, turning to the camera. “Screwy idea, wasn’t it?” I couldn’t agree more, but that self-referential bit takes the cake. My god, just when you thought Monogram’s efforts couldn’t get any more brazenly off-the-wall, The Ape Man cometh.

April 6, 2005

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