Horror Classic 21 of 50: THE APE

Here's a movie from 1940 called The Ape, starring Boris Karloff. Will Karloff be the title character? Is it about some kind of freaky half-ape, half-human hybrid? Will the titular ape speak? Will it grow to enormous size?

Enough with the questions already! Let's look at The Ape.

Synopsis
The circus is in town! All the local kids are excited, and even Dr. Bernard Adrien is pretty happy about it. He's the town's resident "crazy doctor," mistrusted by the sheriff and most of the other men, but beloved by his favorite patient, Francis Clifford. Francis's legs are paralyzed, and Dr. Adrien is obsessively determined to cure her. Francis's mom Mrs. Clifford likes Dr. Adrien, but Danny the boyfriend is not convinced.

That night at the circus, disaster strikes! After the show, the gorilla attacks his trainer! It's an APE ESCAPE! In the ensuing chaos, the trainer's cigar starts a fire that burns down the whole circus! The trainer almost dies!

The quickly fading trainer is brought to Dr. Adrien, who realizes it's a lost cause... but sees an opportunity. Once the trainer kicks the bucket, the doc extracts his spinal fluid, and later injects into Francis. After all, it's not like the guy's gong to miss it. Soon, Francis is in severe pain... which is great news! Because it means she can feel her legs. The doctor can't wait to give her more of the trainer's spine juice, but before he can do it he drops the vial of fluid, which goes SMASH. Dang. Now what?

Well, now the gorilla comes crashing into Dr. Adrien's lab. But the doctor saves himself by sort of jabbing at the ape a little with a scalpel, which apparently kills it. At this point I was hoping he would inject Francis with spinal fluid taken from the ape and she'd become some kind of freaky were-ape, but no such luck. Instead, we soon see the ape boppin' around town again, and then he kills some guy. Of course Adrien takes the secret ingredient from the fresh corpse and shoots it into Francis. Now she can move her feet, which is just as thrilling for Adrien as it is for her. He's sure he can make her walk if he can just get the fluid from one more person.

But the sheriff and his buddies are getting suspicious. How come every time the escaped ape is spotted, it's near Dr. Adrien's house? The sheriff stakes out the place, and when the hairy beast shows up, he shoots it. But guess what? There was a man in that ape! It was Dr. Adrien, who skinned the ape and wore it (ewwwww!) so he could create more dead bodies to use for curing Francis. But now he's eaten his last banana.

Oh, but the movie has a happy ending -- the final scene is of Francis walking. Yay!

Is It Scary?
No... There really wasn't much suspense to speak of. It was just an ape killin' folks.

Lessons I Learned

• According to the sheriff's men on the lookout, "Apes return to the scene of the crime."
• A man can convincingly wear a gorilla carcass like a costume.

My Favorite Lines

• When Dr. Adrien tells Danny he must experiment on Francis because the results will be good for the whole world, Danny says, "I'm not in love with the world, I'm in love with her!"
• When a boy goes to the sheriff and claims to have seen and wounded the ape, his mother says, "I'll ape you when we get home!"

Body Count
Four, including the ape.

Comments

• This wasn't a great movie by any means, but I have to give it credit for presenting an unusually compelling mad scientist character. Dr. Adrien's scheme to pretend to be a gorilla so he can harvest spinal fluid to inject in his paralysis patient is crazy, all right... but he genuinely believes he's doing the right thing. So a few people die. Isn't it worth it if his theories prove correct and he's able to cure paralysis forever? It's refreshing to see a mad scientist whose motives are so selfless.

• Boris Karloff was a good actor. Here, as in the other films in the box set, his performance rises about the material he's given. It's obvious to compare him to Bela Lugosi, an equally famous and prolific horror actor, but I think Karloff was the more talented thespian. In the films I've seen on these DVDs, Karloff has consistently shown more range than his fellow spooky screen star.

• There are no real gorillas in this, of course. It's all just a guy in an ape suit. I guess that's all it took in those days, which makes me think it would be interesting to trace the evolution of movie fake-gorilla technology, from something like this through the animatronic wizardry of the Jim Henson Pictures flop Buddy to the CGI of Peter Jackson's King Kong.

• Speaking of which, this would be a great movie to watch on National Gorilla Suit Day.

• This movie's running time was listed on the DVD sleeve as 61 minutes, but it was actually about 57 minutes. I'm really liking the brevity of these horror movies -- it makes the experience of watching them more bearable, and it's pretty satisfying to get a complete story (even if it's not a good one) in just over an hour.

• Dr. Adrien has a servant who never speaks. She communicates by nodding or shaking her head. How does she let him know dinner is ready? What would she do if a fire broke out in the kitchen and he was working down in his lab? And why is it that all the servants and assistants in these movies are either mute or have speaking problems? I suppose if they were articulate they'd have better jobs, like inspirational speakers or aerobics instructors.

Letter grade for The Ape: C+

Next film in the 50-movie set: The Monster Maker. See, I'm imagining a scientist who creates all kinds of fantastic creatures that fly and slither and have multiple heads and tentacles... but it'll probably just be some crazy guy turning his assistant into an uglier version of himself, so I'll try not to get my hopes up.