The Age of Commercialism

Admirable film.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Producer: Scott R. Dunlap. Copyright 24 September 1940 by Monogram. New York opening at the Rialto: 27 November 1940. U.S. release: 30 September 1940. U.K. release: 23 January 1941. Australian release through Associated-B.E.F.: 16 January 1941. 5,620 feet. 62 minutes. SYNOPSIS: A research doctor needs spinal fluid to affect a cure for paralysis. When an ape escapes from a circus, the doctor decides... NOTES: A re-make of Monogram's The House of Mystery (1934), starring Ed Lowry and Verna Hillie, and featuring Harry C. Bradley and George Cleveland in different roles than they were assigned in The Ape. Both versions were directed by William Nigh.COMMENT: The last of Karloff's six films for Monogram, this one is described, somewhat inaccurately, by the contemporary British trade paper Kinematograph Weekly as a "spectacular thriller." The Ape is neither. It's better described as a small-scale study of small town mores. True, some reasonably exciting stock footage of a circus fire has been incorporated into the Poverty Row action and one briefly exciting scene is presented in which Karloff is snarlingly confronted by a furniture-hurtling "Crash" Corrigan (who vigorously smashes his way into Boris' poorly equipped lab), but the creature is quickly disposed of, and the action resumes its predictably humdrum course.Karloff does what he can with his clichéd role, but the real acting honors must be shared among the lovely Maris Wrixon (quite convincing as the heroine), Henry Hall (a no-nonsense sheriff), and Philo McCullough (a wonderfully hard-nosed villain who has all the script's best lines). I. Stanford Jolley (whose long cinema career was spent almost exclusively along Poverty Row) also impresses in a brief part as the make-him-mad trainer. (Why the circus would employ such a person and why, having enraged the gorilla, he would then relax with a cigarette so temptingly close to the ape's cage, are just two of the script's numerous little inconsistencies). As in House of Mystery (whose plot bears little resemblance to this), Nigh mostly directs in a competent but thoroughly routine manner, only coming to life sporadically - especially in a bit of circus footage focusing on George Cleveland (of all people!) in an effective tracking shot as he walks through the grounds after the performance.

Boris Karloff once again plays a scientist. Whether this one is mad or not I'll leave for you to decide. A circus ape has recently escape and attacked a man. Karloff treats the man and uses his spinal fluid on a young crippled woman. When she reacts positively to the treatment, Karloff realizes he must have more spinal fluid. So he dresses as the killer ape and seeks victims for his experiments. Cheap Monogram effort with Karloff effortlessly playing the role of the kindly scientist doing the wrong things for the right reasons. What's there to say, really? It's a guy-in-an-ape-suit movie. There's a pretty low ceiling on how good it could be. Karloff fans will like it most.

With a title this blunt, one would expect that the actual narrative of The Ape follows suit. It actually does try to switch things up with some last second bet-you-didn't-see-that-comin' idiocy, but this is a movie about an escaped circus gorilla terrorizing a rural community. Oh, and then there's the outcast scientist who's illegally experimenting on a paralyzed young woman named Frances.Yeah—it's every bit as random as it sounds. How the escape of the ape in question correlates with this doctor's ethical quandary is hazy to say the least, and the behavior of the townspeople is just as weird. Apparently, they're all scared of this doctor because he practices medicine in an "unorthodox manner" (that's about as much details as we're given). In fact, even the kids around town hate him; so much so that he catches them pelting his house with rocks. In any case, the good doctor is forced to treat a circus trainer who was attacked by the beast in question. The doctor draws some spinal fluid from the dying man, injects it in his paralyzed patient, and marvels at her ability to begin twitching her hitherto unresponsive feet. Meanwhile, the escaped animal breaks into the doctor's house; during the chaos, the aging practitioner throws some sort of liquid in the ape's face and then stabs it with a knife (and, we assume, kills it). What's really weird is that he informs his mute assistant that no one in town should know the gorilla is dead. This seems to have a sinister motivation at first, but we later discover that the doctor begins dressing as the ape (I think? Or maybe he skinned it and then made a suit?) in an effort to motivate Frances to finally stand on her own two feet—*cough, cough*—and prove that his research had scientific credence all along.Uh-huh.In short, this is a movie that uses the presence of a lumbering ape to try and add an element of horror to an otherwise straightforward—and boring—story about a renegade scientist who's misunderstood. It's the classic "he's-got-good-intentions-and-we-should-all-feel-like-jackasses- for-doubting-him" tale.There are plenty of chances for the film to be inventive, but it suffers from a particularly bad case of "convenient circumstances"; you know, the sort of thing that happens at just the right time to allow the narrative to move forward in an absolutely unbelievable way.Case in point: an official from the institute that trained the doctor shows up to investigate strange occurrences in the town. The man accuses the doctor of breaking all sorts of ethical codes. How does the scientist respond? He suggests that the official see the result of his research, and takes the man to visit Frances. The official requests that Frances prove she's recovering from her Polio by wiggling a foot. She can't do it. Based on all of this you would assume the mad scientist is in deep doo doo, right?Wrong. Instead, right when it seems that our anti-hero is about to be taken into custody, the official says, "Well, she didn't move her foot. But I definitely noticed a muscular reflex. Congratulations, doctor!" Umm… what?These sorts of occurrences plague The Ape, making it one of the most eye-rolling attempts at scary film making to have ever come down the pike. But, like a lot of the "B" offerings from this era, it does have its moments of unintentional humor. Because of that, I'll award it half a star.

1st watched 5/1/2009 - 5 out of 10 (Dir- William Nigh): Interesting movie that just missed the mark for me due to a strange quick ending that I don't believe was prepped well, in my opinion. The movie is about a misunderstood doctor, played by horror great Boris Karloff, who is trying to cure the local town of a crippling disease but is using animals in his experiments and the townfolk don't like his methods. The Ape comes into the story after it escapes from a local circus, causes a fire and then is hiding somewhere in the town. While the authorities are hunting for him it is noticed that he spends a lot of time around the doctor's place but no-one knows why. When the doctor first encounters the creature he stabs it, but it's not apparent that he killed the beast. The ape still continues showing up killing others, but escaping from the authorities. A subplot revolves around a crippled woman that the doctor is slowly healing thru spinal fluid from victims of the ape and wherever else he gets it. It appears to be working but he needs more fluid. This is where the filmmakers lost me because they don't link these two pieces together very well. You can probably figure out what's going on, but I'll let you watch the movie and see if you felt the same way I did about the quick ending. The movie wasn't bad it just felt like the makers didn't have enough movie to really do what they wanted to do and tell the story better. So, this one just missed the mark for me despite the fact that I was glad that I saw it.