The Ape (1940) or, The Costume-Crazed Doctor!

8/10/2013

The Ape (1940) or, The Costume-Crazed Doctor!

♥♥♥

Strongly, and not completely convincingly colored, sensationalistic poster for William Nigh's The Ape

Three ♥'s might seem a bit overly generous towards this pretty bad film, but I embrace The Ape because, in a way, it is the ultimate 'mad-doctor'-horror flick.

Boris Karloff (The Raven (1963)) plays the doctor, who wants to cure a paralyzed woman with the spinal fluid he obtains from his victims. And to obtain it, he wears an ape costume and strangles innocents.

- The plot of The Ape sure is corny. But it is also quite entertaining, and Karloff is very good. The ape costume is incredibly primitive, and the film kind of drags its way (to a length of only 62 minutes), but that is not unusual in a 1930s or 40s village community crime story as this also is. (Of course, that doesn't really make it better but its serves as context.)
The Ape is written by Curt Siodmak (Ski Fever (1966)) and Richard Carroll (Two Yanks in Trinidad (1942)), based on the same-titled 1924 play by Adam Hull Shirk. Its director, William Nigh (Divorce (1945)), made several b-films with Karloff and in total directed more than 120 films from 1914 to 1948!

Related posts:

William Nigh: Black Dragons (1942) or, The Sinister Foreigner Attacks!
Doomed to Die (1940) - Karloff's last Mr. Wong movie is a good one

In lieu of something The Ape-related, which is not currently on Youtube, here is a clip from Karloff's appearance on The Dinah Shore Show in 1957

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
[The Ape was released 30 September (USA) and runs 62 minutes. Siodmak have said that the only thing he kept from the play was a character disguised as an ape. Shooting took just a week in August in California. It concluded Karloff's six-picture contract with Monogram Pictures. Nigh returned with Secret Evidence (1941). Karloff returned in You'll Find Out (1940). 1,270 IMDb-users have given The Ape a 4.5/10 average rating.]

What do you think of The Ape?

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8/10/2013

The Ape (1940) or, The Costume-Crazed Doctor!

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