Ape Man, The |
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USA • 1943 • 64m •
   • Directed by: William Beaudine. • Starring: Bela Lugosi, Louise Currie, Wallace Ford, Henry Hall, Minerva Urecal, Emil Van Horn, J. Farrell MacDonald, Wheeler Oakman, Ralph Littlefield, Jack Mulhall, Charles Jordan, Charlie Hall, George Kirby..      Conducting weird scientific experiments, crazed Dr.James Brewster, aided by his colleague Dr.Randall, has managed to transform himself into a hairy, stooped-over ape-man. Desperately seeking a cure, Brewster believes only an injection of recently-drawn human spinal fluid will prove effective. With Randall refusing to help him, it falls to Brewster and his captive gorilla to find appropriate donors.
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Review:
"The Ape Man" is pretty standard stuff in the movies that studios like Monogram put out back in those days. A prominent scientist Dr.James Brewster, Bela Lugosi, makes a major discovery about the link between man and primate but not being able to test the serum that he discovered on human beings, for it's against the law, tests it on himself where he becomes a half man half ape "missing link". Brewster finds out together with his associate in the discovery Dr. George Randall, Henry Hall, that the only thing that can bring him back to normal is human spinal fluid that if extracted from a person will instantly kill him. Dr. Brewster with the help of an ape, that he has in his laboratory, goes out at night and kills a number of people in order to get the valuable spinal fluid. All goes well until Dr. Randall refuses to participate any more in Dr. Brewster's mad scheme where Dr. Brewster in an insane rage kills him.
Later in the movie Dr. Brewster with the help of his partner, the ape, kidnaps beautiful newspaper photographer Louise Currie, Billie Mason, but when Dr. Brewster is about to extract Billie's spinal fluid the love sick ape, who took a liking to Billie, attacks and kills Dr. Brewster during a long and bitter struggle. The ape chases Billie all around the laboratory until Billie finds the secret passage, with the help of her fellow reporter and boyfriend Jeff Carter (Wallace Ford), and escapes into his arms as the police, who Jeff called for help, who blasts the ape with a hail of bullets that kills him. As the movie is ending we see both Jeff and Billie go off into the sunset, it was really moon-light, and I guess lived happily ever after.
There's nothing really that great about the movie "The Ape Man" unless, like me, you're a Bela Lugosi fan and Bela does lift the movie up a couple of notches making it if it's not scary both cheesy and campy. Louise Currie is very nice to look at and the rest of the cast did a very good job with the material that they were handed. The guy who played the ape, Emil Van Horn, made a monkey out of himself wearing a gorilla suit with him flinging his arms and grunting during the entire movie. Van Horn's or the ape's fight in the end with Dr. Brewster, as Billie was trying to get away from the carnage that resulted from it, was both exacting and suspenseful.
What really annoyed me about the movie was that skinny and goofy looking reporter, Jack Mluhall, who popped up in almost every scene in the film as well as acting like a jerk and spoiling any tension and surprises that there were in the movie. Mluhall also got somewhat of an ego trip as the overbearing and annoying reporter in telling those of us watching, at the end of the film, that it was he who wrote the story that we just saw on the screen. At least someone like Alfred Hitchcock, a far better movie maker then Jack Mluhall, who was in almost all of the movies that he directed had nothing more then a cameo appearance in them. This guy wanted to be the star of the movie!
Review by sol1218 from the Internet Movie Database.
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Mar 4 2017, 17:03
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